Contenu du sommaire : Les gauches et l'international au XXe siècle

In recent years, historians have moved away from the national frames which have long structured the study of the Left in South Asia, highlighting the importance of other scales and spatial dynamics. The relationship of left political movements vis-à-vis sub-national political projects, rooted in the promotion of cultural, ethnic and linguistic identities, has not received similar attention. The article contributes to address this gap by examining the treatment of the “nationalities” question by India's Communist Party from the 1920s to the 1950s. It shows the way the formulation of a “regional” political line by the CPI around the middle of the 20th century was the result of two parallel processes. First, it was the product of an ideological reflection regarding the political role of “nationalities”, conducted at the trans-national level, and dominated by the model of the Soviet Union. Second, it was shaped by the political, territorial and administrative transformations accompanying the postcolonial transition in South Asia. In this context, the adoption of the principle of “nationalities” as a central feature of the political repertoire of the CPI reflected a mutation in the physiognomy of the communist movement, which tended to become increasingly regionalized and territorialized, while maintaining forms of class-based political mobilisation.

In 1928, the Labour and Socialist International (LSI) Congress had its colonial policy on the agenda. I had not been so since 1907. From its inception to its outcome, the Congress attests to the place of colonial issues in the PS-SFIO (the French Socialist Party) and the British Labour Party, as well as to the European echoes of their national – and imperial – situations.

The Histadrut trade union center opened an institute in 1958 intended to train leaders from emerging countries in Africa and Asia in cooperative and union action. The exchanges established between the Israeli trainers and their interlocutors gave rise to a practice and a specific internationalist consciousness within the Histadrut complementary to the pursuit of the national interest sought at the same time by Israeli diplomacy.

Through the activist career of Robert Pontillon (1921-1992), socialist since the 1930s who was, among other things, mayor of Suresnes (1965-1983) and National Secretary for International Relations of the French Socialist Party (1971-1979), we study the articulation of the different scales of socialist activism during the Cold War, raising the question of the political weight of expertise and internationalist commitment both within French socialism (municipal, national) and international socialism (twinning, Socialist International). In particular, his career path shows how, from the SFIO to the PS, the SI loses its centrality: a major issue for Robert Pontillon, for François Mitterrand it is no more than a part of his presidential “reserved domain”.

Since 1959, the actions of the Cuban state beyond its borders – support for guerrillas, relations with the USSR and the United States, “third-worldism” – have consistently challenged the social sciences. Using the press, interviews, and archives of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, this article shows that Cuba's relations with the Afro-Asian world from 1959 to 1975 have contributed to shaping Cuban global action.

While the Socialist International had been critical of the Cuban revolution as early as 1960, its stand evolved over the following decade. This article shows that this evolution is partly the product of broader dynamics of leftist Third Worldization of the International, but above all the work of young internationalist political cadres. Members of various European social-democratic parties, they acted from within the Socialist International to re-legitimize the Cuban political process.

In 1977, the Socialist International discussed the energy question, which the 1973 Oil Shock made crucial for socialists. Swedish social democrats and the SPD supported nuclear power as a means to secure cheap energy, redistribution and growth. French and Italian socialists aligned with anti-nuclear New Social Movements, which supported decentralisation and environmentalism. They proposed a socialist transformation based on new modes of production and consumption and Third World development.

The modern politician is the very type of “new entrepreneur”; and soon tastes the flavours, but also the excesses, of an activity that is becoming increasingly professional; excesses that sometimes lead to a phase of rupture that political commentators like calling “crossing the desert”. Far from being reduced to a simple sequence of exclusion, the concept refers to the crystallisation of a multitude of representations reflecting the ideological conflicts that marked the period. So why not look at the case of Georges Laguerre, whose fiery and insolent rise, followed by his slow decline, sheds a new light on the survival logics encountered in politics.

Political decision-makers rely on their emotions to act. This article draws on the Boulangist episode (notably January-April 1889) to illustrate how fear – an emotion despised in politics – can prove useful. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we first show the importance of emotions in the Chambre des députés. We then highlight the contrast between the panicky fear which seizes and paralyzes the Boulangist camp with the moderate fear, useful for action, which shakes the Republican camp.