From syndicalism through the Comintern to the Fourth International: a French internationalist across a century of revolution
Lenin described Rosmer as "a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut in five or six languages." — quoted in Philippe Robrieux's internal history of the French Communist Party
American-born French revolutionary syndicalist and a key figure in the Comintern leadership. With Pierre Monatte he published La Vie ouvrière and organised anti-war internationalism; he spent seventeen months in Moscow helping found the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern). A Political Bureau member of the French Communist Party, he was expelled in 1924 for defending Trotsky, thereafter committing to the Left Opposition and Trotskyism. In 1938 he hosted the founding conference of the Fourth International at his home in Périgny. In his later years he signed the Manifesto of 121 against the Algerian War and wrote the classic memoir Lenin's Moscow.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1909–1914Co-editor of the CGT journal *La Vie ouvrière* with Pierre Monatte; leading figure in revolutionary syndicalism
- 1915–1918Organised French participation in the Zimmerwald Conference; sustained anti-war activity throughout WWI as an internationalist
- 1919–1920Active in the Committee for Adhesion to the Third International; sent to Moscow, elected to the ECCI during a seventeen-month stay
- 1921Helped found the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern) at its inaugural congress; served on the provisional council with Lozovsky and Tom Mann
- 1922–1924Political Bureau member of the French Communist Party and general secretary of *L'Humanité*; core leader of the party's Left current
- 1924.10Expelled from the PCF alongside Boris Souvarine and Pierre Monatte for opposing the anti-Trotsky campaign
- 1929–1931Co-founded the Communist League, France's first Trotskyist organisation; resigned in 1931 over tactical differences
- 1938.9Hosted the founding conference of the Fourth International at his home in Périgny, held clandestinely under threat of GPU assassinations
- 1939Visited Trotsky in Mexico; served on the Dewey Commission and acted as guardian to Trotsky's grandson Sieva
- 1940–1947Stranded in the United States by WWII; returned to France in 1947
- 1953Published *Lenin's Moscow* (*Moscou sous Lénine*), with a preface by Albert Camus
- 1960Signed the Manifesto of 121, supporting those who refused to fight in the Algerian War
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarAnti-war internationalistHe organised French participation in Zimmerwald and sustained anti-war activity throughout the war.
- 1907–1919The collapse of the Second InternationalAnti-war internationalistHe was an anti-war internationalist from the first day of the war in August 1914.
- 1919–1921The founding of the CominternCommittee for Adhesion activistIn May 1919 he transformed the committee into the Committee for Adhesion to the Third International, laying the foundation for the French Communist Party.
- 1923–1927The Succession Struggle and the Left OppositionPCF leader expelled for defending TrotskyA Comintern leadership figure, expelled from the French Communist Party in autumn 1924, alongside Monatte and Souvarine, for defending Trotsky against the Zinovievite 'Bolshevization'.
Revolutionary Syndicalism and Anti-War Internationalism
Rosmer grew out of the finest tradition of French revolutionary syndicalism. As a journalist on La Vie ouvrière, the fortnightly launched by Pierre Monatte in 1909, he travelled to Britain to report on trade unions and the suffrage movement, and covered the international labour movement from South Africa to the Balkans. He held a deep loathing for nationalism and a commitment to working-class self-activity and self-emancipation.
When war broke out in August 1914 most of French socialism and labour collapsed into the 'sacred union', but Rosmer was an anti-war internationalist from the first day. In the spring of 1915 he helped prepare a special May Day issue of the metalworkers' paper that was critical of the war, circulating some 17,000 copies by stacking the censored proofs on top of the uncut ones and posting them. The same year he organised French participation in the Zimmerwald conference and then worked in the Committee for the Resumption of International Relations. He supported the Russian Revolution of 1917, relaunched La Vie ouvrière with Monatte in March 1919, and that May, with Fernand Loriot, transformed the committee into the Committee for Adhesion to the Third International, laying the foundation for the French Communist Party.
Rosmer himself wrote the record of this anti-war movement. His two-volume Le mouvement ouvrier pendant la guerre (1936) is a participant's history of the origins of the war and the growth of opposition up to Zimmerwald; Trotsky declared that 'every serious proletarian revolutionary ought to read, more exactly to study, Rosmer's book.' The second volume appeared in 1959, carrying the story to the end of 1916, and Rosmer was working on a third volume covering the 1917 mutinies and the Russian Revolution when he died.