Socialists, Workers, and Elections in the Wake of the Winegrowers' Revolt

After 1906, the political map of the Aude changed slightly. Socialist unification, together with Socialist hostility to the Radi-

cal government's use of force against demonstrators in 1907 and against strikers in 1908 and 1910 (especially Briand's brutal repression of the 1910 railway strike), combined to end these two parties' electoral alliances.^[65] Simultaneously, the wretched economic situation of workers in these years caused alienation from the "pie in the sky" promises of politicians, who either minimized workers' efforts as useless or failed to address their concerns directly.

Syndicalists had certainly done their best to encourage workers to maintain a certain distance from political parties. Moreover, their anti-electoral campaign after 1907 not only criticized the uselessness of political action (their primary argument before 1907) but now also attacked politicians' intentions given the imprisonment of labor leaders and the government's use of military force to repress strikes. In villages where important syndicalist leaders resided (such as François Cheytion's Coursan and Paul Ader's Cuxac d'Aude), abstentionism—which was especially high in Third Republic elections—was also an expression of loyalty to labor leaders, as we have already suggested.

Even though the Aude had one of the highest levels of abstention of any department in France under the Third Republic, and even if some rank-and-file syndicalists did respond to the call to boycott the ballot box, no evidence suggests that vineyard workers alone were responsible for these high levels. Workers remained divided over the wisdom of relinquishing the rights and duties of the ballot. Nor did high abstentions prevent Socialists from winning legislative elections in the Narbonnais. They may, however, indicate that if socialism was a logical choice for small winegrowers and artisans, it was not necessarily the obvious route for all unionized agricultural workers.

While die-hard syndicalists struggled to sustain both their membership and their ability to wrest concessions from employers, the moderate, pragmatic socialism of urban workers and small vineyard owners expanded. Ferroul's leadership in the 1907 movement played a crucial role in helping Audois socialists gain municipalities and extend their popular base in the west and south of the department. The Socialist Federation of the Aude now organized sections in Carcassonne, La Nouvelle, Gruissan, Fabrezan, Thezan, and Quillan.^[66]

Although the 1907 revolt did not cause a major shift from radicalism to socialism in the Aude (Audois Radicals defended the interests of small winegrowers too well for that to happen), in the legislative elections of 1910 and 1914 Socialists advanced considerably (as in most areas of France where they presented candidates), more than doubling their share of votes since 1906 (Table 25).^[67]

In contrast to the Var, where Tony Judt has shown that radicalism gave way to socialism during the depression at the end of the nineteenth century, radicalism in the Aude retained the support of small winegrowers up to World War I. While Radicals benefited from a powerful regional press and a popular base in local clubs and societies, their defense of distressed small vignerons was every bit as important in gaining them political support in the Aude.^[68] Socialists, of course, benefited from these things too, but here local traditions and loyalties to local men influenced the vote significantly. Peasants and workers may have identified with national political parties and issues; yet allegiance to "favorite sons" such as Sarraut, Aldy, and Ferroul still carried weight in the political life of rural France. This even syndicalists, with their disdain for the electoral process, had a hard time fighting.

The day after the 1914 legislative elections, for the last time in

his life, François Cheytion led the May Day parade around Coursan, bearing the red flag and followed by a village band playing the "Internationale." Winding through the streets, the parade picked up followers. After the customary speeches, all made their way to the village square for a bal populaire . In retrospect it was a poignant scene, for within two months this ardent antimilitarist had joined the union sacrée , along with most of the French labor movement. Just over a year later, Cheytion lay dead on a battlefield in the Somme, "a martyr to that odious war."^[69] The state's readiness to use violence against workers, together with the defeats the labor movement sustained before the war, sapped the morale of even the most radical activists. But the union sacrée itself was ephemeral. Well before the end of the war, old divisions among Socialists, syndicalists, and the state reappeared, to reemerge after 1917 in new forms that were deeper than ever.

Ultimately, the great winegrowers' revolt of 1907 had profound repercussions for both the agricultural labor movement and the evolution of Socialist politics in the Aude after 1907. It confirmed syndicalist leaders in their more radical vision of the class relations of rural society, even if it did not significantly change patterns of strike activity. The formation of the Confédération générale des vignerons du Midi divided both Socialists and syndicalists on the wisdom of collaborating with men whom both groups had previously considered the class enemy. In the Aude, Socialists' support of the viticultural defense movement and the CGV not only enabled them to win followers in the department; it also established a historical foundation on which Narbonnais Socialists could later build.

In contrast to what Harvey Smith has argued, the 1907 revolt did not mark the end of class conflict in the Aude, any more than it represented the end of syndicalism.^[70] Smith contends that unions in lower Languedoc became more moderate and more willing to bargain with employers after 1907. While he is right that workers learned that massive protests could lead to concessions from the state, they also learned that the state was prepared to shoot workers and break up strikes with military force. Unlike syndicalists elsewhere who acquiesced after 1907, activ-

ists in the Aude rejected the movement's appeal to join the "fraternal alliance of capital and labor" and refused to abandon their revolutionary rhetoric even after the CGT's rectification de tir . This position, as we have seen, cost them members and, indeed, left them in the role of a minorité agissante .

The 1907 revolt not only raised the issue of class collaboration (which syndicalist leaders fixed on at the time), it also vividly illustrated the fundamental complexities of rural society and class identity in the Aude. These complexities came to the foreground immediately after the revolt, especially when it came to organizing individuals for whom the distinctions of "peasant" and "worker" were often blurred. The aftershocks of 1907 also showed how divided the class loyalties of small vineyard owners really were. Ultimately, this very complexity sapped the strength of the labor movement as much as did the persistent economic depression that finally eroded workers' ability to risk costly strikes. The withdrawal of small vineyard owners weakened the unions numerically and psychologically, and at the same time diminished their capacity to resist further proletarianization.