Fernand Loriot (10 October 1870 – 12 October 1932) was a French teacher who was active in forming the teachers' union. He took a pacifist stance during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He was one of the founders of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...

Early years

Loriot was born on 10 October 1870 in

Ceton Ceton () is a commune in the Orne department in north-western France. It is the southernmost municipality in Normandy. Heraldry See also *Communes of the Orne department * Perche Perche () (French: ''le Perche'') is a former province of Fran ...

Orne Orne (; nrf, Ôrne or ) is a département in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne. It had a population of 279,942 in 2019.Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

in 1901, and was an activist in the teachers' union. He defied the courts and refused to dissolve the union when the government took action after the Congress of Chambéry. As

Louis Bouët Louis Bouët (6 April 1880 - 9 July 1969) was a French teacher and anarcho-syndicalist. He played a leading role in the National Federation of Teachers' Unions and in the socialist party. He was briefly a member of the steering committee of the ...

recalled in ''L'école émancipée'', after the Congress of Chambéry in 1912, the teacher's union was in turmoil and was being repressed by the authorities. Loriot took the position of treasurer in the new federal board created by the Seine union. At the Congress of Bourges in 1913 Émile Glay, who had called on

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occu ...

for help as counsel for the Federation, said to André Léon Chalopin that nobody would be left in the Seine since their licence to teach would be revoked. From the back of the room came the voice of Loriot, who had been paying the delegates their railway allowance, saying, "You will not be alone, Chalopin: you can count on me."

World War I

During

(July 1914 – November 1918) Loriot was caught up in the wave of patriotic socialists who joined the ''

union sacrée The Sacred Union (french: Union Sacrée, ) was a political truce in France in which the left-wing agreed, during World War I, not to oppose the government or call any strikes. Made in the name of patriotism, it stood in opposition to the pledge made ...

'', pledging to co-operate with the government. However, according to Marie Guillot, by January 1915, he had rejected the ''union sacrée'' and taken a pacifist position. In 1915, he was appointed treasurer of the Federation of Teachers' Unions and was appointed by the secretary

Hélène Brion Hélène Brion (27 January 1882 – 31 August 1962) was a French teacher, feminist, socialist and communist. She was one of the leaders of the French teachers' union. During World War I (1914–18) she was arrested for distributing pacifist propag ...

to the central committee. He devoted much effort to fighting the nationalist unions that supported the war, along with

Alphonse Merrheim Alphonse Adolphe Merrheim (7 May 1871 – 23 October 1923) was a French copper smith and trade union leader. Early years Alphonse Adolphe Merrheim was born on 7 May 1871 in La Madeleine, Nord, a suburb of Lille. He became a coppersmith, and adopt ...

, Albert Bourderon and

Raymond Péricat Raymond Péricat (23 January 1873 – 13 July 1958) was a militant French trade unionist and communist. During World War I (1914–18) he took an internationalist and pacifist position. After the war he tried to establish a radical Communist party ...

. He was one of the founders of the pacifist Committee for the Resumption of international relations, and he and Bourderon were the spokesmen for the committee. In all trade union and socialist congresses, he supported the position of the

Zimmerwald Conference The Zimmerwald Conference was held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 to 8, 1915. It was the first of three international socialist conferences convened by anti-militarist socialist parties from countries that were originally neutral d ...

. Loriot leaned towards the socialist rather than the syndicalist, side in the committee, but towards the end of his life, he moved towards syndicalism. In February 1917, the Committee for the Resumption of International Relations split, with

Jean Raffin-Dugens Jean Pierre Raffin-Dugens (3 December 1861 – 26 March 1946) was a French politician. He was a socialist, internationalist and pacifist. During World War I (1914–1918) he was one of the few national deputies to remain true to the principle that ...

, Bourderon and Pierre Brizon joining the SFIO minority, led by

Jean Longuet Jean-Laurent-Frederick Longuet (5 October 1876 – 11 September 1938) was a French socialist politician and journalist. He was Karl Marx's grandson. Early years Jean, often called 'Johnny' as a boy by his family, was born in London on October 5 ...

, and Loriot and fellow socialists

Charles Rappoport Charles Rappoport (14 June 1865 – 17 November 1941) was a Russian and French militant communist politician, journalist and writer. A Jewish intellectual, and a multilingual scholar, he's been referred to as "a grand man of French radicalism". ...

Louise Saumoneau Louise Saumoneau (17 December 1875 – 23 February 1950) was a French feminist who later renounced feminism as being irrelevant to the class struggle. She became a union leader and a prominent socialist. During World War I she was active in the int ...

and

François Mayoux François Mayoux (24 June 1882 – 21 July 1967) was a French teacher who became in turn a socialist, communist and revolutionary syndicalist. He and his wife Marie Mayoux were imprisoned during World War I (1914–18) for publishing a pacifist pa ...

took control of the committee. Merrheim withdrew to concentrate on union work, and Loriot became secretary of the committee. During the war, he contributed to the ''L'école émancipée'', ''La Plèbe'' and the ''Journal du peuple''.

Later career

After the war, Loriot contributed to ''Vie ouvrière'', the ''Bulletin communiste'' and ''L'Humanité''. When the Committee for the Third International was established in 1919,.he was made secretary. His union activity caused him to be subject to "administrative measures" and dismissal from the teaching profession. He was imprisoned in May 1920 for plotting against the security of the state and was held in prison for ten months. At the

Tours Congress The Tours Congress was the 18th National Congress of the French Section of the Workers' International, or SFIO, which took place in Tours on 25–30 December 1920. During the Congress, the majority voted to join the Third International and create t ...

in December 1920 he was appointed a member of the Executive Committee of the newly-formed Communist Party and the international secretary. In 1921, Loriot participated in the Third Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. After returning to France, he left politics for a period for reasons of health. After the "Bolshevisation" of the party in 1924, he became active in opposition to it in 1925. He later left the party and in 1926, he joined the

revolutionary syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence i ...

cause. He died on 12 October 1932, at 62.

References

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Loriot, Fernand 1870 births 1932 deaths French Communist Party politicians French pacifists French schoolteachers French Section of the Workers' International politicians French socialists French Socialist Party (1902) politicians French syndicalists Members of the General Confederation of Labour (France) People from Orne Politicians from Normandy