Thèse de doctorat de 3e cycle, Histoire, dir. Madeleine Rebérioux, Paris 8, 1987. [S.l.] : [s.n.] 3 vol. 1064 p. Index
ST DENIS-BU PARIS 8
LILLE 3: 3 microfiches
Summary:
The study of documents, newspapers and archives in the district and national archives, concerning both the Charente and Charente inférieure "départements", shows that the Charentais population, concerned with the "radical" movement, adhered massively to republicanism before 1914. This was the official ideology, turning France into a particular country: she could only be involved in a war of self-defense.
In spite of its important means, including state schools, the state could not prevent both the activists, inspired by revolutionary trade-unionism, and the organizations - especially trade-unions - from developing a different analysis: France was an imperialist state, similar to the others; consequently, proletarian solidary was a necessity. It was therefore the government’s tactics to track them down and particularly to force them to silence.
In August, 1914, the Charentais population, dumbfounded, answered loyally the national call to duty; but for one attemps, the antimilitarists kept silent.In spite of this approval, there is a complete breaking off between the popular feeling and the national hypnosis in 1916.
Yet the nationalist feelings remain, even in the departements’ arsenals, in which the conscripted trade-unionists are supporters of the Zimmerwald’s minority. After the war, the revolutionary wave hits the two départements with the railway strike.
Two trends coexist in relation with the war: the first, reformist, gathers the "radical" and "socialist tendencies, who believe in Wilsonism , the Society of Nations, the disarmament conference; the other, revolutionary,brings sometimes together the more often opposed anarchists and communists. The anarchists are simultaneously against dictatorships and the idea of national self-defense. The communists, after 1936, come back into the national fold and do their share in the popular front strategy to fight Nazism.
The reason of state has homogenized consciences; proletarian solidarity has been vanquished.