Fellow Travellers Communist Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations on the French Railways, 1914–1939 STUDIES IN LABOUR HISTORY 13 Studies in Labour History ‘…a series which will undoubtedly become an important force in re-invigorating the study of Labour History.’ English Historical Review Studies in Labour History provides reassessments of broad themes along with more detailed studies arising from the latest research in the field of labour and working-class history, both in Britain and throughout the world. Most books are single-authored but there are also volumes of essays focussed on key themes and issues, usually emerging from major conferences organized by the British Society for the Study of Labour History. The series includes studies of labour organizations, including international ones, where there is a need for new research or modern reassessment. It is also its objective to extend the breadth of labour history’s gaze beyond conven- tionally organized workers, sometimes to workplace experiences in general, sometimes to industrial relations, but also to working-class lives beyond the immediate realm of work in households and communities. Fellow Travellers Communist Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations on the French Railways, 1914–1939 Thomas Beaumont Fellow Travellers LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2019 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2019 Thomas Beaumont The right of Thomas Beaumont to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-78962-080-1 epdf ISBN 978-1-78962-491-5 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Contents Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 The Professional World of the Railway Workers 3 Railway Workers and the Interwar Labour Movement 6 Structure of the Book 10 1 Railway Workers at War 15 Mobilisation 18 Class and Nation 26 L’Impôt du Sang 30 Working the Wartime Railways 34 Contre les Compagnies, Pour la Nation: War Weariness and the Remobilisation of Opinion 39 1917: Popular Attitudes to War 39 The Cost of Living Crisis 40 The National Union and its Programme 43 The ‘Minoritaires’: Against the Sacred Union 45 Conclusion: The Armistice 49 2 Railway Workers and the ‘Après Guerre’ 51 Railway Workers and the ‘Spirit of 1919’ 52 Demobilisation and the Transport Crisis 54 Bidegaray and the Majority Leadership 56 May Day 1919 62 Reform and Revolution After 1 May 64 Cheminots and the Metalworkers’ Strike, June 1919 67 1920 71 Precursors to May: The Strikes of January and February 1920 72 May 1920: The Great Strike 79 Conclusion 83 vi Fellow Travellers 3 Railway Workers and the Communist Choice 85 Railway Schism 86 Bolsheviks and Syndicalists: The RILU and Divisions within the CGTU 91 The Founding of the CGTU 91 The Syndicalists and Moscow 95 Party and Union 105 Conclusion 113 4 Stabilisation 115 Cheminot Unionism after 1921 116 Stabilising the Railway Industry 117 The Amnesty Campaign 121 Red for Danger: Surveillance on the Railways 124 The Railway Companies and the Professional World of the Cheminots 126 Contesting Managerial Authority: Cheminots Rabkory 129 Conclusion 134 5 International Connections 137 Cheminot Internationalism 137 Internationalism: The Soviet Union 145 The Ruhr 149 The Rif War 158 Conclusion 159 6 ‘Hostile Participants’: Communists and Railway Industrial Relations in the ‘Class-against-Class’ Era, 1928–1934 161 Workers and the Depression 162 Responding to the Crisis: The SFIO and the CGT 169 Responding to the Crisis: The Communists 171 ‘Class-against-Class’ 171 The Path to Participation 174 Beginning Participation 180 Rationalisation and the Railways 185 The Politics of Railway Safety 193 Conclusion 201 7 Railway Workers and the Popular Front: From Victory to Defeat, 1934–1939 203 Towards the Popular Front 207 1936 212 Spain 221 Contents vii The Popular Front and the Railway Industry 223 November 1938: Defeat of the Popular Front 228 The Nazi–Soviet Pact 233 Conclusion 236 Conclusion 239 Bibliography 247 Index 267 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements This book began life as a PhD thesis completed at the University of Exeter in 2011. Research for the project was facilitated by several funding sources. Financial support from the University of Exeter was provided first, in the form of a bursary from the History department, and then through a studentship from the College of Humanities. Additional research funding was provided by grants from the Society for the Study of French History and the Royal Historical Society. In the final stages of the book project I was greatly aided by the award of a British Academy Small Grant, as well as generous support from the Liverpool John Moores University QR funds. Some of the material contained in this book has previously been published elsewhere. I would like to thank Sage Publishing for permission to reproduce sections of my article, ‘Extending Democracy: Railway Workers and the Popular Front in France, 1936–38’, European History Quarterly, 44, 3 (2014), 458–479, https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691414532058. I am very grateful to Martin Thomas, who supervised the original thesis. Martin not only put me on the trail of the cheminots, but also provided encouragement and the benefit of his experience and attention to detail throughout the project. I could not have asked for a better supervisor. Andrew Thorpe and Stacey Hynd also played an important role in the supervisory team. Their suggestions and advice were invaluable throughout the PhD. Jackie Clarke examined the original thesis and has continued to take an interest in the work as it has developed into a book. Also at Exeter, I am grateful to Tim Rees for his ongoing interest in my work and his friendship over a number of years. Tim was good enough to read the manuscript in full prior to completion. The work is all the better for his advice. Since the completion of my PhD I have had the good fortune to work with fantastic colleagues at two institutions. First at the University of Bristol, and now at Liverpool John Moores University. At Bristol, Robert Bickers, Tim Cole, Josie McLellan, and Jonathan Saha were very encouraging and x Fellow Travellers always willing to discuss research. Roger Middleton gave valuable advice at a particularly tricky period and came up with the title Fellow Travellers. At LJMU I am grateful to the participants at the History Department lunchtime research seminar who read and offered valuable feedback on a chapter of the book manuscript. Beyond this, I would like in particular to thank Susan Grant, who read various sections of the manuscript in draft. In my first year at LJMU I was lucky enough to meet and make the acquaintance of Sam Davies, a suberb scholar and a generous colleague. Sam was enthusiastic about this project and was a great source of knowledge and encouragement before his untimely death. He is sadly missed. My thanks to Alison Welsby and the staff at LUP, and to the anonymous readers for their feedback. My thanks, too, to the Labour History series editor Neville Kirk. Friends both inside and outside of academia have been an amazing source of inspiration and support in the years it has taken to bring this project to a close. I have enjoyed discussing all things cheminot with Ludivine Broch over several years. Her insights and excellent work have done a great deal to help shape my own understanding of the railway workers and the professional world they inhabited. Alison Carrol and Laure Humbert have been longstanding friends, I am grateful to them for their advice and good company over a number of years. My thanks, too, to Jon and Rosie Edgar, James and Jo Hadley, Alex Howard, and Zena Wood. All have put up with my frequent discussions of railways, cheminots, and communists with patience and good humour. Michelle has been a huge source of support and has more than anyone motivated me to finally get this book finished. She read much of the work in manuscript with a sharp eye and the work is all the better for her input. I am deeply grateful to her for everything. Finally, and most importantly, huge thanks to my family, and in particular to my parents, for their support and encouragement over the years. This book is dedicated to them. Introduction Introduction Railway workers (in French ‘cheminots’) were the earliest, and among the most enduring, bastions of communist support in twentieth-century France. From the earliest days of its existence, railway workers provided the French Communist Party (PCF) with some of its most high-profile national leaders, together with a legion of highly active party militants spread widely through urban and rural France. Dispersed cheminot cells maintained a communist presence in some of the deepest regions of rural France, while massive concentrations of railwaymen and women in urban centres such as Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (Tours) nurtured a rich and powerful working-class communist culture. Most significantly, railway workers voted en masse for communist ‘shop stewards’ in the workplace and joined the communist-led trade union Federation in large numbers, consistently making it the largest of the trade union organisations on the railways between the two world wars. The relationship between railway workers and the Communist Party was at the heart of the growth of a distinctly ‘French’ communist political culture, yet it is a history which in large part has yet to be told.