1907 in the Aude

The regionwide wine market depression that led to the formation of viticultural defense committees in the Narbonnais in the spring and summer of 1905, causing municipal resignations and tax protests as well, persisted into 1906 and 1907. Despite a small harvest in 1906 and slightly higher prices, sales lagged, and some small vineyard owners, fearful of being able to make any sales at all, sold their grapes directly from the vine. In the fall of 1906, angry crowds attacked tax collectors in Narbonne arrondissement and disrupted attempts to auction off villagers' furniture, seized for nonpayment of taxes.^[4] Local union officials renewed strikes: seven were called in 1905 and three in 1906, to protest wage reductions and layoffs. In some villages unemployed workers appealed to mayors or to the prefect for jobs on public works projects. The subprefect called attention to the

activities of "revolutionary and anarchist elements."^[5] Yet it was from neither revolutionaries nor anarchists that the most violent reaction came, but from communities of small vineyard owners.

Between March and June 1907, a series of mammoth meetings and demonstrations shook the entire wine-producing south. Mostly peaceful, these demonstrations snowballed under the leadership of Marcellin Albert and the Argelliers committee and of Narbonne's Socialist mayor, Ernest Ferroul. On March 31, 600 marched in Bize; 1,000 took to the streets of Ouveillan on April 7; and 5,000 gathered in Coursan on April 14. In the next weeks the numbers mounted: 80,000 protesters gathered in Narbonne on May 5; 120,000 in Béziers on May 12; 170,000 in Perpignan on May 19; 220,000 in Carcassonne on May 26; close to 300,000 in Nîmes on June 2; and over 500,000 in Montpellier on June 9. In demonstration after demonstration, the imagery of hunger and misery recurred on the banners and symbols that demonstrators displayed. Villagers from Bize carried empty purses on pikes; those from Ginestas carried an end of bread with a sign reading, "The last crust." A banner from La Redorte read, "Children of misery, freedom is coming, we are armed. Victory or death!" and marchers from Fitou carried placards reading, "Die standing up, yes. Die of hunger, no!" One from Bages punned, "La faim justifie les moyens." These symbols provided a dramatic reminder of the grinding poverty that winegrowers and workers faced.^[6] Meeting in Nîmes, Narbonne, Montpellier, and Carcassonne under brilliant Mediterranean skies, Marcellin Albert and Ernest Ferroul urged all "sons and daughters of the Midi," regardless of political beliefs, to join the movement, and appealed to the government to take action against producers of "fraudulent" wines.^[7]

The drama and excitement of the meetings electrified local populations. Entire villages mobilized to travel to distant towns by whatever means possible: some came on foot, others on bicycle, and still others by train.^[8] Nor were the meetings exclusively men's affairs. Women marched in the forefront of long corteges that thronged the streets, bearing banners, flags, and placards; speakers recognized and addressed them in the mass meetings. Women engaged in the movement not only on the basis of their interests as producers and consumers; as the bearers and nur-

turers of life, too, they were concerned with the health issue of the harmful additives that were used to manufacture wines.^[9]

Indeed, the 1907 revolt galvanized the entire Midi. Despite the class warfare that had so recently shaken the peaceful vineyards, despite the FTAM's declarations of war against employers, workers marched alongside small vignerons and large estate owners who joined the movement once they realized they were incapable of resolving the wine market depression. (Although, as Harvey Smith has shown, large proprietors probably did not assume control of the movement, they were definitely present in viticultural defense committees in the Aude; indeed, some politically conservative estate owners did attempt to use the 1907 movement to discredit the Radical government by blaming the Bloc des gauches for the wine depression.)^[10]

Much to the dismay of revolutionary syndicalists, the viticultural defense movement made an energetic and largely successful attempt to enlist workers' support. Proprietors lent workers wagons and horses to enable them to travel to the meetings; the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi accorded a 50 percent fare reduction and provided a special car for workers who could not afford even a half-price ticket.^[11] Throughout lower Languedoc, isolated groups of workers—such as the union in Cuxac d'Aude—followed syndicalist discipline and refused to participate in the 1907 movement. In the inaugural issue of Le Travailleur de la terre (which replaced Le Paysan in June 1907), Ader supported workers who did not "officially march in the demonstrations; . . . syndicalism requires a different strategy." Following the syndicalist model, Ader argued that the fight against fraud demanded not class collaboration but class struggle. Although he acknowledged the "educative value" of the coordinated movement, he warned workers not to expect concessions from employers just because they had marched side by side.^[12] The Bourse du travail in Montpellier characterized the meetings as "bourgeois demonstrations"; one union activist went still further: "All our activities are directed against the capitalist class . . . whose disappearance must be the basis of . . . the transformation of society. We do not really understand how, in this social crisis, the working class can abdicate its ideals and get into bed with its worst enemies."^[13]

Despite FTAM leaders' appeals, however, most rank-and-file workers took part in the meetings and demonstrations of 1907. Their participation was scarcely surprising given the large proportion of small proprietor—workers in the unions. Moreover, concerns about basic material issues, including the effects of the crisis on wages, mingled with antigovernmental feeling (fueled by confrontations with troops and police in the recent strikes) to draw workers in. In the words of one worker who attended the mass meetings, "We went to the demonstrations because . . . they were a sort of Fronde against the government." In some villages employers even promised to hire the unemployed in return for workers' support in the mass demonstrations.^[14] The manifesto of the impoverished, Qui Nous Sommes (Who we are), brilliantly illustrates the interclass character of the 1907 movement as well as its self-consciously apolitical thrust.

Who We Are

We are those who work and don't have a cent;
We are landowners who are broke or ruined, workers without work or almost none;
We are merchants who are hard up or who are up against the wall;
We are the ones who are dying of hunger.

We are the ones who have wine to sell and can't find a buyer;
We are those who have our labor to sell and can scarcely find a job;
We are those who have goods that no one can afford to buy;
We are the ones who are dying of hunger.

We the wretched, and what's in the air won't fill the stomachs of our women and children;
We are those who have vines in the sun and tools in our hands;
We are those who want to work in order to eat and who have the right to live;
We are the ones who are dying of hunger.

We are those who love the Republic, those who detest it, and those who could care less;
We are its ardent defenders and its open adversaries;
Radicals or conservatives, moderates or syndicalists, socialists or reactionaries,

We are those who have intelligence and also our opinions;
But we also need to eat, and
We are the ones who are dying of hunger.^[15]

In addition to the widespread economic depression, Ferroul's and Albert's regionalism and attacks on the government also facilitated a temporary cross-class alliance. The image of southern vineyards colonized by northern sugar interests; the rhetoric of south against north; the implicit protest against a government that supported the interests of certain economic and social groups against others'—all appeared prominently in speeches and the press.^[16] The regional and antigovernmental aspects of the movement also surfaced in a series of dramatic actions that galvanized local populations: a massive tax strike, the resignation of village municipalities on June 10, and the rebellion of military troops following the military occupation of lower Languedoc.

Just a year earlier, in a few scattered areas, villagers had refused to pay taxes and attacked tax collectors who attempted to seize property in the Aude. Now, however, municipalities in all four Mediterranean departments agreed to suspend not only collection and payment of taxes but all municipal operations as well. Fifty-six percent of all municipalities in the Aude resigned, including many towns and villages not in wine-producing areas.^[17] When Clemenceau responded by arresting Albert and several other members of the Argelliers committee and sending troops to occupy the south, tensions escalated. Villagers in Coursan, outraged at the government's failure to pass a sugar tax, tore down telegraph poles in anger.^[18] On June 10 and 16 two minor military rebellions erupted as troops in Narbonne and Perpignan refused to obey orders and marched off singing the "Internationale." A few days later, on June 19, demonstrators in Narbonne responded to the arrest of Ferroul by battling police; troops charged, killing one person. Later, when an angry crowd stormed the town hall, the 139th Infantry opened fire, wounding ten and killing five, including a young woman from Coursan.^[19]

These tragic events provoked a storm of reaction. In the subprefecture shocked and angry Narbonnais turned their hos-

tility on the police, stoning and very nearly drowning a Parisian officer. In Paris, Albert Sarraut, Radical deputy and undersecretary in the Ministry of the Interior, resigned his ministerial post in protest against the shooting. A palpable tension reigned in surrounding villages as well. In one incident, a crowd attacked a beggar whom they suspected of being a police informer. Placards reading, "Clemenceau assassin" and "Gouvernement d'assassins," printed by the CGT, appeared overnight and served as a potent reminder that until Clemenceau's military occupation of southern towns the demonstrations had been peaceful. But the rebellion of the 17th Infantry received even greater public attention. These men—the vast majority local recruits—were outraged that the military had fired on, killed, and maimed their own countrymen. During the night of June 20–21 they mutinied and marched from their temporary garrison in Agde to Béziers, where they were normally stationed.^[20]

The Narbonne shootings and subsequent riots in Montpellier marked a sober turning point in the 1907 revolt. Demonstrations died down and the government finally took action, passing legislation requiring that all winegrowers declare the size of their vineyards and harvests each year. From July on a series of legislative initiatives outlawed the addition of water to wine, raised the surtax on sugar, required a special permit for sales and shipments of sugar weighing over twenty-five kilograms, and gave local vintners' organizations the right to bring legal action against individuals who failed to comply with these laws. At the end of August the government voted to exonerate small winegrowers from taxes owed between 1904 and 1906.^[21] In the meantime, a second Argelliers committee (designed to replace leaders who had been arrested) laid the foundations of an organization that would protect the position of southern wine in the domestic market, combat fraud, regulate wine prices, and encourage the expansion of agricultural credit: the Confédération générale des vignerons du Midi (CGV).

The CGV, formed in September 1907, brought together local viticultural defense committees under the leadership of Ernest Ferroul and included landowners of all kinds, including large proprietors. As Harvey Smith has suggested, large estate owners, initially resistant to government controls that would restrict

their use of sugar and other profitable practices, were eventually forced to accept regulation.^[22] Eager to continue the interclass front for the defense of the vine, Ferroul appealed to workers and small vineyard owners to join the organization and called on "all children of the Midi" to come together to save the vineyards. Minimizing the importance of class differences, Ferroul insisted that "before we are proprietors or proletarians, we are men who need to live." The CGV would thus represent the "fraternal alliance of capital and labor."^[23]

Such a position could hardly have differed more from the earlier views of this former member of the National Council of the POF. Needless to say, Ferroul's appeal fell like a bombshell on the ears of syndicalist leaders. Moreover, while small proprietors stood to benefit enormously from an organization that promised to regulate wine production and end market instability, nothing in the organization addressed the special needs of landless workers.^[24] This was precisely the breach into which the unions stepped. Although the 1907 movement succeeded in momentarily bringing together small growers and large, workers, syndicalists, and artisans, the formation of the CGV called that alliance into question. Socialists now divided over the inter-class partnership of labor and capital, and the labor movement attempted to steer landless workers toward affirming their own class interests.