WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #340 - History, When the Cold War Determined (Almost) Everything (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

 In 1953, it had been five years since an iron curtain separated the

pro-Soviet CGT on the one hand and the so-called "free" unions (in fact
pro-American) on the other: CGT-FO, CFTC and the small FNSA. ---- The
CGT, controlled by the PCF, is ¬sometimes nicknamed "CGT-K" (for
Cominform [1]). After having been anti-strikes in 1945-1947, when the
PCF sat in government, the CGT moved on to systematic confrontation,
launching "Molotov strikes" sometimes hardliners, boycotts and violent
demonstrations against the wars of Indochina and Korea, suffering state
repression. Hegemonic with its 2.2 million members, it continues to call
for "unity of action" to orbit FO and the CFTC.
The CFTC, with 340,000 members, urges its unions to refuse any contact
with the CGT. Founded on the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, it
seeks conciliation with employers, and is linked to the Christian
Democrats of the MRP, which in 1953 sits in the government. However, the
CFTC had to deal with a secular minority tendency that advocated the
class struggle: it was the Reconstruction tendency, which would
eventually win in 1964, and transform the CFTC into the CFDT.

The CGT-FO, pro-American, is sometimes nicknamed "CGT-Wall Street".
Founded in 1948, it claims 270,000 members and has brought together
three poles cemented by their rejection of Stalinism: the reformist
unions grouped around the Force Ouvrière newspaper, which left the CGT
at the end of 1947; several autonomous unions (PTT, railway workers),
half-corporatist, half-combative, which had broken with the CGT, then
anti-strikes, in 1946; anarcho-syndicalists from the collapse of the CNT
in 1949-1950 [2].

The FNSA, National Federation of Autonomous Trade Unions, is a small
organization founded in 1949 by apolitical unions (especially PTT, SNCF
and metals), who did not want to choose between the CGT and the CGT-FO.

The FEN, National Education Federation, is also autonomous. Because of
the school holidays, she played no role in August 1953.

Revolutionary minorities:
Among them we can cite in particular the Anarchist Federation, with its
weekly Le Libertaire, which had just clarified its libertarian communist
orientation  [3] and renamed itself FCL in December 1953. According to
the professional sectors, its militants were acfive in the CGT, FO, the
FEN, sometimes the CNT. Not far away, there is the Socialisme ou
Barbarie group, publisher of the eponymous review, which is rather
councilist. The review La Révolution prolétarienne, depositary of the
revolutionary syndicalist tradition, is closely linked to the left of
the CGT-FO. The CNT was marginalized, and its monthly Le Combat
syndicaliste commented on the strikes of August 1953 from the outside.

The Trotskyist movement is divided into two: the PCI of Frank, which
publishes The Truth of the Workers, and the PCI of Lambert, which
publishes The Truth. Their objective is that the strikes lead to a
left-wing government: "PS-PCF" for the first, "PS-PCF-FO-CGT" for the
second...

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Quand-la-Guerre-froide-determinait-presque-tout
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