Albert Treint

Albert Treint (born on February 13rd 1889 with Paris, deceased on October 25th 1971 in Paris also) was the principal leader of the young person French Communist party, with Suzanne Girault between 1923 and 1925.

Biography

Resulting from a modest family of social condition, her father being controller in the Parisian bus and his domestic mother, Albert Edmond Treint is born in Paris on February 13rd, 1889. At seventeen years, it is registered with the entrance examination at the Teacher training school of Instituteur which it makes a success of brilliantly. It enters to the Teacher training school of Auteuil on October 1st 1905 for three years of training. It engages then in the army by preceding of call. It finishes its military service with the rank of second lieutenant, then joined its first post of teacher with Asnières where it exerts of 1910 to 1913. It Marie with Marie-Louise Colinest, of which he has a child, Fernand, born on February 24th 1914. To the same time, it adheres to the 19th section of the Seine of the Socialist party SFIO.

Mobilized on August 2nd 1914 for the First World War, Treint joined the 21e regiment of infantry and takes share with the combat in Lorraine (1914), then in the Somme on the plate of Our-lady of Lorette, where it is seriously wounded, on May 12th 1915. In September 1916, it takes part in the Franco-English offensive in the Sum. In 1917, it is promoted Capitaine but because of a conflict with its hierarchy, it is moved with the 41e regiment of infantry. Its second wound, at the time of an offensive with Hangard in the Sum marks for him the end of the conflict. After having hesitated to continue a military career, it finds its use of teacher as of the month of April 1919.

Always Militant with SFIO, Treint engages in the rows of the Committee for the Third international, organization which gathers Socialists in favor of the revolution Bolchevique, trade unionists revolutionary and anarchistic trade unionists. It also adheres to the ARAC (republican Association of the war veterans, created in particular by Henri Barbusse, Raymond Levebvre and Paul Valiant-Dressmaker). It contributes actively, at the sides many other socialist militants “born of the war” to make rock the socialist majority in favor of adhesion to the Third international one. At the time of the Congress of Turns, he is delegated federation of the Seine and intervenes at the time of the first meeting so that the question of adhesion is discussed firstly. Rewarded for its activism, it enters to the first management Committee of the socialist party SFIC, elected on December 30th 1920.

After a few months of relative stability, the direction of SFIC divides between three tendencies, the “line” which militates for the return to the unit of the socialist movement, the “center” to which belongs the general secretary Frossard and the “left”, whose Treint becomes one of the principal organizers. Its intransigence, its burning militancy in favor of the theses of the direction of the Internationale Communist do of it one of the protagonists impossible to circumvent of the crisis which shakes PCF until the end of the year 1922. The conflict between tendencies crystallizes around two points: the discipline in the Party and the application of the tactic of the single face, wanted by the direction of the IC. Eliminated from the direction of the Communist party SFIC at the end of the second national congress held in Paris in October 1922, Treint becomes however general Co-secretary of the Communist party a few weeks afterwards. In spite of the pressures of the IC center and the left were unable to collaborate, at the point to bring the Communist party at the edge of the scission. One needs all the weight of the leaders of the IC to impose, at the time of the fourth world congress of the IC (November 5th/December 5th, 1922), a solution of conciliation between the two tendencies which offers in the facts the control of the Communist party to its left wing around Loriot, Rosmer, Souvarine and Treint.

Become general secretary and member of the Political office, Treint cannot occupy its station because of its imprisonment. To have taken share with the International Conference of the Communist parties against the occupation of the the Ruhr (Essen, January 1923), Treint is stopped and accused of “plot against safety interior and external of the State”. Released on May 7th 1923, it enters quickly in conflict with its old allies, which reproach him its authoritative methods and its outrageous declarations. Since its intervention at the time of the 1st widened executive of the IC (February 12th - March 4th 1922), inviting the Communists “to pluck the socialist poultry”, Treint cultivates an image of agitator in particular by defending a “red imperialism”. Several leaders around Rosmer and of Souvarine worry about the conflicts which undermine the cohesion of the leader bodies and the sectarian methods of direction practiced in the federation of the Seine by Suzanne Girault with the indéfectible support of Treint. Put in minority and repudiated at the time of the 3 {{E}} national congress (Lyon, 20 January 23rd, 1924), Treint loses its position of secretary general and its place in BP and becomes representing Communist party with Moscow. This setting with the variation proceeds in a tended context, afterwards of the bloody clashes with the Barn-with-Beautiful anarchists at the time of a meeting held with the , on January 11th 1924. The responsibility for Treint in the death of three working militants contributes to weaken his position within the party. The intervention of representatives of the IC in Paris enables him nevertheless to find its place of leader quickly.

Contrary to Souvarine, which refuses to give an opinion in the consecutive conflict with the disease and with died of Lénine, which opposes the leaders of the Russian Communist party, Treint asserts high and strong its support for the troika (Zinoviev/Kamenev/Stalin). The IC operation then to impose the return of Treint on BP and to draw aside Souvarine. Consequently, and during the two following years, Treint becomes the untiring propagandist of the bolchevisation of the party, which passes by a complete reorganization of the organisational structure and hunting to the opponents (Souvarine, Monatte, Rosmer), excluded in the name of the fight against the trotskysme. It remains in Moscow between May and November 1924, leaving Suzanne Girault and its partisans to carry out the reorganization on the basis of cell of company. On its return in France, he impels a political line which interferes watchwords action revolutionary (against the imperialism, militarism, capitalism…), diatribes against the marked Socialists to support Fascism, drives out with the opponents, who leads to a series of political disasters and an interior serious attack. Becoming aware of the difficulties and dissatisfaction in the French party and in Moscow, Treint is combined in BP with Doriot and preaches a change of line, with the hope to undervalue its responsibility in the failure for the bolchevisation. Confronted with criticisms of its old allies (Suzanne Girault, Pierre Semard) and of the opposition, Treint loses the support of the Russian leaders. At the end of the widened executive, it is isolated direction and maintained against its liking at the station of representative of the French party in Moscow.

Between February 1926 and Treint June 1927, which remains member of the EC and the presidium of the IC, made little speak about him and supports the policy followed by the French direction made up around Semard, Doriot, Thorez, Monmousseau and Cremet. However on its return in France, it takes makes and causes for the Russian opposition, carried out by Trotsky and Zinoviev and becomes the leader, at the side of Suzanne Girault of “the left opposition”. Following several declarations showing Stalin and the direction of the IC to follow a policy counter-revolutionary, it is excluded from the DC then of PCF, at the time of a national conference, on February 1st, 1928. It then takes part with Suzanne Girault in the publication of a review entitled the Leninist Unit which claims to gather the “left Bolshevik-Leninist”. But one month only after its exclusion, Treint breaks with the Leninist Unit and founds with some partisans the “Committee for the rectification of the French party and International”. The creation of this new group is only one of the manifestations of division within the communist movement, after the defeat of the Russian opposition and the deportation of Trotsky. In France, several groups claim left opposition and each one seeks to constitute a pole of gathering while being based on the name of Trotsky. Treint maintains a correspondence with this last and tries to make prevail the legitimacy of its group as a pole of gathering. However, the other leaders of the opposition (Paz, Rosmer, Souvarine) challenge any alliance with that which one describes as “zinovievist” and which one regards as person in charge of the bolchevisation of the Communist party.

In 1931, Treint ties contacts with the young leaders (in particular Raymond Molinier) of the Communist League and between with the Executive commission at the time of the national conference of the 2 October 4th, 1931, and that after being returned in Prinkipo to discuss with Trotsky the conditions its rallying. The Communist League then has large problems to stabilize its organization and the skilful attitude of Treint contributes to envenimer the situation. After having tried to constitute a tendency to the side of Molinier, it is scrambled with this last before being isolated as of the month of April 1932. With others excluded (in particular Marc Chirik), it founds the “Fraction of left (opposition)”, but in parallel starts a reflection which leads it to gradually call into question the bases of the doctrines Bolshevik, to partly reject the historical experiment of the revolution of 1917 and to preach a new revolutionary way. After having militated for the rectification of the IC, he claims the creation of a new revolutionary organization and approaches the theses of a minority of the communist left which sees in the USSR a form of capitalism of state. He intervenes in this direction at the time of the conference of April 1933, convened with the objective to unify the political clouts claiming left opposition. Put in minority, Treint moves away from the left opposition and takes part in several initiatives of a minority fringe of militants who denounce at the same time capitalism and Stalinism.

After the wave of political violences of the month of February 1934, Treint decides to adhere to the socialist party SFIO, convinced that the safety of the revolutionary movement passes by the rectification of this organization. It founds an small group which publishes the review the Final Fight. Its writings, marked by a virulent antistalinism, lead it to push back any form of alliance between Socialists and Communists and to denounce the experiment of the popular front. It is also interested in the threats of war which weigh on Europe with the rise of the Nazism and the diplomatic bringing together between France and the USSR (pact Laval/Stalin). He takes part on the initiative coordinate of pacifist militants and revolutionists which leads to the conference for peace, behavior in Saint-Denis in August 1935. Treint approaches to Georges Valois and the collaborators of the newspaper Old Nouvel . Between 1935 and 1939, it publishes many booklets in which it establishes a parallel between Stalinism, Fascism and Nazism with like axiom the existence of a general tendency to the capitalism of state. It also devotes a booklet to denounce the principle of the sole party, in which it sees an instrument of the totalitarian step of Stalin and Hitler. In same time, Treint adapts the theses of a group of intellectuals and economists on the development of a distributive economy and a democracy of the consumers leading to the “company of abundance”. Without being really original the thought of Treint, which combines antistalinism and utopian socialism moves away at the same time from the trotskystes and the anticommunism asserted of some excluded from PCF. Its reflection on the opposition between libertarian socialism and capitalism of state places it among the rare militants of the Marxist left who assert the need for fighting at the same time against Fascism and Stalinism.

Revoked its post of teacher for the second time (it was revoked between 1921 and 1936 because of its political commitment) during the release of the Second world war, Treint leaves to take refuge in Nievre then joined the army of French release. As from this date, it seems to be withdrawn from any militant activity until its death in Paris in 1972.

Sources

Aurélien Durr, Albert Treint: Political route (1914-1939) , Thesis of doctorate of modern history, under the direction of Mr. Jacques Girault, Paris 13,2006,804 p.

See too

Internal bonds

History of the French Communist party

External bonds

Michel Olivier, the Communist League and Fraction of Left (Treint-Marc) 1930-1932 on the site of the Collective Smolny

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