National Bloc Programme for the 1919 Elections: Fear of Communism and Civil War

Extract

[...] Thus, the SFIO and the National Bloc face each other at the 1919 legislative elections, representing the two major groups." At the end of these elections, it is the National Bloc that emerges victorious, accumulating a total of 433 seats distributed between the center-right, which collects 200 seats, the right and its 212 seats, as well as the deputies without label who accumulate 21 seats. The National Bloc was elected with 1 million 700,000 votes during these elections. The coalition is therefore an electoral success, favored by a campaign targeting a frightened public by this communism coming from abroad, diminished by the war and concerned about finding the Belle Époque of pre-war times. [...]

[...] The document studied here, 'Programme of the National Bloc for the elections of 1919 'is originally a leaflet intended for voters in the departments of northern France. It is published and distributed by the National and Republican Union of the Nord department in the middle of 1919. This political group positions itself to the right and to the extreme right and calls, through this leaflet, to vote for the national bloc in the legislative elections. The departments of northern France have been deeply affected by the First World War, both humanly and materially. [...]

[...] France even entrusted a little less than a hundred soldiers with the task of informing themselves as precisely as possible on the spot about the Russian situation as early as March 1917. This mission leads to thinking about the highest peaks of the state that the Bolsheviks are actually sent by the German government to sow trouble such that Russia would no longer be able to carry out this war and, by extension, to destabilize France. Since 1917, France has been wary of Bolshevism, "German accomplice". [...]

[...] Tsar Nicholas II is forced to abdicate on March and a provisional government is then formed, supposedly to keep the country afloat until the end of the war. Lenin, who had been in exile until then, returns to Russia at the end of October to impose a government that wants to give 'all power to the soviets, immediate peace and land to the peasants'. He thus provides for a total nationalization and the redistribution of the land of the rich owners to the peasants through a 'land decree'. [...]

[...] This National Bloc, strengthened by its alliance, must be able to face the socialists of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and the radicals. The tract states that the mere mention of the names of the parties gathered in a coalition speaks for itself, meaning that there is no need to detail the program further, as it brings together all the values of these different parties. These values therefore include the defense of the Republic, the strict application of the Treaty of Versailles including the payment of the German debt to allow for the repair of France, the defense of Catholic and traditional values, union against the enemy, prevention of revolutions and the restoration of France's past glory. [...]