The Popular Front in France: Prelude or Interlude?

1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 857-883
Author(s):  
Walter R. Sharp

“Frenchman, too conservative to go communist, too anarchistic to like fascism, what are you going to do with yourself?” Thus was concluded a penetrating diagnosis of contemporary social trends in France published about a year ago. It is significant that such a survey should have come from the pen of a brilliant young journalist belonging to what may be called the post-war generation. For, whatever else recent dramatic developments in French public affairs may portend, there is no doubt that political control is passing to a new set of leaders, as well as, perhaps, to new ideologies.France is now twenty-two years removed from the outbreak of the World War. Men born as late as 1900 are approaching middle age. Among the eighth of the population now over sixty years of age, only a handful of persons remain who can remember the Franco-Prussian War. Most of the men who were directing national policy through the World War and the peace settlement have died—Clemenceau, Poincaré, Briand, Painlevé, Barthou, Viviani, and Ribot.

1922 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralston Hayden

In this period during which all political institutions are being tested as never before by the searching criticism of an awakened world and by application to the well-nigh insoluble problems left by the World War, the constitutions which have been developed by the post-war states of Europe possess a peculiar interest to the student of public affairs. They are the results of the conscious effort of the statesmen of these new commonwealths to combine with the historic institutions of their own lands those features of the public law and the political practises of the older democracies which experience has proven to be workable, to be conducive of good government, and to make possible a more or less popular control over affairs of state. The product of a season when democracy is the fashion, all of these instruments are filled with rules and phrases which have a familiar ring in American ears, despite a more than occasional Gallic or native accent.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
John Marsland

During the twenty years after the Second World War, housing began to be seen as a basic right among many in the west, and the British welfare state included many policies and provisions to provide decent shelter for its citizens. This article focuses on the period circa 1968–85, because this was a time in England when the lack of affordable, secure-tenured housing reached a crisis level at the same time that central and local governmental housing policies received wider scrutiny for their ineffectiveness. My argument is that despite post-war laws and rhetoric, many Britons lived through a housing disaster and for many the most rational way they could solve their housing needs was to exploit loopholes in the law (as well as to break them out right). While the main focus of the article is on young British squatters, there is scope for transnational comparison. Squatters in other parts of the world looked to their example to address the housing needs in their own countries, especially as privatization of public services spread globally in the 1980s and 1990s. Dutch, Spanish, German and American squatters were involved in a symbiotic exchange of ideas and sometimes people with the British squatters and each other, and practices and rhetoric from one place were quickly adopted or rejected based on the success or failure in each place.


1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-736
Author(s):  
James Brown Scott

The scientific organizations which flourished before the World War have had great difficulty in continuing their labors after its termination. The Institute of International Law has been no exception. It was to have met in Munich in September, 1914, and its program had been completely arranged; but the war which started in August, 1914, necessarily put an end to all arrangements for the session. A resort to arms inevitably brings with it a desire for its avoidance; and the greater the war, the greater the desire. A decade, a generation struggles in the mists and shadows, seeking to extricate itself from the post-war spirit, condemning the past somewhat indiscriminately and advocating innovations which, new in expression, are nevertheless the aspirations of those who, in all time, crushed and bruised by force, seek to replace it by justice.


Author(s):  
Tetiana Yelova

The new geopolitical realities after the World War II saw the revival of the Polish state in a new form. The Republic of Poland appeared on the map of Central Europe, with about half of its territory being the so-called Recovered Territories, while the state borders moved west. The new eastern border of the post-war Poland ran along the Curzon line. The new post-war eastern border of Poland was being negotiated and agreed upon by the Soviet and the Polish authorities starting from 1944 on an annual basis, up to 1948. The last exchange of territories took place in 1951. The debates about the political map of Europe and the new eastern border of Poland, which became a new reality after the World War II, were held both at politicians’ offices and in various media outlets. The most prominent debate about the new Polish eastern border could be found on the pages of the Kultura immigrant periodical. The Polish immigrant public intellectuals Jerzy Giedroyc, Juliusz Mieroszewski, Josef Czapski and other members of the Kultura periodical editorial board were adamant about the need to recognize the Polish borders drawn after the World War II. Such a stance was unacceptable for the Polish Governmentin-Exile based in London and some immigrant circles in the USA. Starting from 1952, the Kultura editorial staff is consistent in its efforts to defend the principle of inviolability of borders drawn after the World War II, urging the Poles to give up on the so-called Polish Kresy (Kresy Wschodnie) and to reconcile with the neighbours on the other side of the new eastern border.


1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Ellner

The Comintern's adoption of the popular front strategy in August 1935 marked a new stage in the history of world Communism which lasted until the end of World War II. Communist leaders embarked on this course in the hope of isolating the fascist movement which was then in the ascendant throughout the world. Their strategy was to create coalitions (‘popular fronts’) of progressive groupings on the basis of a reformist program and anti-fascist rhetoric. This conciliatory position towards the rest of the left represented a sharp departure from the policy of previous years when Communists frequently denounced their leftist rivals as ‘ social fascists’.


Author(s):  
George Gotsiridze

The work discusses the legacy of the First World War - its positive and negative sides - which played an important role in the formation of the world processes in the post-war period and still preserves its viability.The actuality of the problem is backed by the fact that the relationship of the Trans-caucasian countries with the outer world is still problematic nowadays. We witness how the world’s political and economic map is changing and technical-scientific progress is tangible. In the conditions of the accelerated global processes, a general political, economic and cultural area is being formed, and a new world order is being formed with its difficulties, social catastrophes or cataclysms, conflicts, divergence and integration. At this time, it is of utmost importance to analyze historical problems from the past and seek ways to resolve them in the political relations of the South Caucasus, as in their attitude towards the outside world, understanding that unity is a necessary guarantee of strengthening the statehood of each country and that the perception of the Transcaucasia by the rest of the world as a unified political and economic sphere will simplify the Euro - Atlantic integration. The issue is discussed from the new humanitarian perspectives, which gives us the opportunity to determine the national verticals from experience received centuries ago, around which local or regional political consciousness should be unified in order to satisfy the national interests of each country in the Transcaucasia through closer cooperation.


1923 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Carter Mills

During the progress of the world war there came to thoughtful men everywhere the deepening conviction that fundamental among the causes of modern warfare are the policies that lead to colonial rivalry and the imperialistic exploitation of undeveloped regions and backward peoples.All belligerent parties looked forward to the peace settlement as an occasion for the satisfaction of territorial ambitions and the settlement of war damage claims in terms of colonial acquisitions. To humanitarians in all nations the peace settlement seemed to offer a precarious but possible occasion for the settlement of colonial claims upon terms of justice and in the interest of the hitherto little regarded native peoples.


1935 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 586-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell B. Carroll

The exchange of ratifications on April 9, 1935, of the Franco-American Convention on Double Taxation by Ambassador Straus and Foreign Minister Laval calls attention to the development of a new field of law in which the United States has been participating since the post-war depression. International double taxation had existed for some time before the World War as the result of countries taxing income whether derived by non-residents from local sources or by residents from foreign sources, but it did not become a serious problem until the budgetary exigencies of the World War had caused such an increase in rates that the payment of taxes to the foreign country, as well as to the home country, resulted in taking practically all of the income from carrying on business in the two. Likewise, serious double taxation existed in the field of property and estate or inheritance taxes as the result of countries taxing property having a local situs as well as property having a foreign situs but belonging to persons domiciled within their territory.


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