The Tours Congress was the 18th National Congress of the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO, which took place in

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...

on 25–30 December 1920. During the Congress, the majority voted to join the

Third International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

and create the French Section of the Communist International, which became the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

in 1921. The SFIO divided itself in three factions during the Congress: * The larger one gathered those who had accepted the

's 21 Conditions behind

Fernand Loriot Fernand Loriot (10 October 1870 – 12 October 1932) was a French teacher who was active in forming the teachers' union. He took a pacifist stance during World War I. He was one of the founders of the French Communist Party. Early years Loriot was ...

Boris Souvarine Boris Souvarine (1 November 1895 – 1 November 1984), also known as Varine, was a French Marxist, communist activist, essayist and journalist. A founding member of the French Communist Party, Souvarine is noted for being the only non-Russian com ...

, Ludovic Frossard, and

Marcel Cachin Marcel Cachin (20 September 1869 – 12 February 1958) was a French Communist politician and editor of the daily newspaper ''L'Humanite''. In 1891, Cachin joined Jules Guesde's French Workers' Party (POF). In 1905, he joined the new French ...

. They did not, however, accept all of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

's conditions, and no vote on the matter took place. This left-wing faction, formed by the younger leaders of the party and most of the SFIO's members, obtained three-quarters of the votes and split away to form the French Section of the Communist International (''Section Française de l'Internationale Communiste'', or SFIC). They took with them the party paper ''

L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...

'', founded by

Jean Jaurès Auguste Marie Joseph Jean Léon Jaurès (3 September 185931 July 1914), commonly referred to as Jean Jaurès (; oc, Joan Jaurés ), was a French Socialist leader. Initially a Moderate Republican, he later became one of the first social dem ...

in 1904. ''

'' remained tied to the party until the 1990s. * The second faction was led by a minority who accepted the adhesion to the

, but only under specific conditions. They finally allied themselves to the third faction. * The third faction led by Léon Blum and most elected socialists (including Paul Faure and

Jean Longuet Jean-Laurent-Frederick Longuet (5 October 1876 – 11 September 1938) was a French socialist politician and journalist. He was Karl Marx's grandson. Early years Jean, often called 'Johnny' as a boy by his family, was born in London on October 5 ...

), who completely refused Lenin's conditions and preferred staying inside of the

Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...

. Blum, who would become

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

during the 1936–1938

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

, famously declared: "Someone has to stay and keep the old house." Hence the SFIO split in two: the SFIC (3,208 votes) and the SFIO (1,022 votes). The next year, the CGT trade-union also split, with the creation of the Communist ''

Confédération générale du travail unitaire The Confédération générale du travail unitaire, or CGTU ( en, United General Confederation of Labor), was a trade union confederation in France that at first included anarcho-syndicalists and soon became aligned with the French Communist Par ...

'' (CGTU), which itself merged again with the CGT at the 1936

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

Congress during the Popular Front. A young

Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...

, then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, was present at the congress and made a speech decrying the exploitation of the

French colonies From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...

, and supporting the proposal to join the Third International.

Duiker, William J. William J. Duiker is a former United States Foreign Service officer and is currently Liberal Arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Penn State University. His area of expertise is East Asia; while in the Foreign Service, he was stationed ...

, '' Ho Chi Minh: A Life.'' New York: Hyperion. 2001. . p72-73

References

External links

Leon Blum's speech at Tours Congress
* ttp://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/france/1920/psf-tours.htm Humanité: ''French Socialist Party to Join the III International'' {{French Communist Party Congresses of the Socialist Party (France) French Third Republic History of socialism 1920 in France French Section of the Workers' International 1920 conferences Tours, France