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L’antiréformisme de la minorité de guerre et la naissance du Parti communiste en France, 1914-1925

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This article deals with the impact of anti-reformism in the birth of the French Communist Party in France at the beginning of the 1920s. It describes the various processes of reappraisal and redeployement of a wide range of anti-reformist ideas by a new generation of young revolutionary militants, eager to overthrow their former socialist leaders. This paper therefore examines the formation of anti-reformist discourse in the late 19th-century around key issues of nascent socialist organizations and trade unions, such as political representation. It then describes the reinstatement of this heritage during the First World War by a generation of militants known as the “minorité de guerre” and striken by a deep crisis of their “socialist conscience” after the collective collapse of 1914. Anti-reformism is thus a key issue in the massive transfer of Bolshevik ideas in France. After 1920, anti-reformism inspires the nascent French Communist Party in some of its most innovative measures, such as the strict control of the communist parliamentary group. Anti-reformism hence had a true effectiveness, and a great influence over the first communist generation.