Pierre Semard (15 February 1887 – 7 March 1942) was a trade unionist, secretary general of the federation of railway-workers and leader of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

(acting as its secretary general from 1924 to 1928). He was shot in prison by the Nazi occupiers in 1942, and is buried at the

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He was key figure in the

French Section of the Workers' International The French Section of the Workers' International (, SFIO) was a major socialist political party in France which was founded in 1905 and succeeded in 1969 by the present Socialist Party. The SFIO was founded in 1905 as the French representativ ...

(SFIO) and a trade unionist in the

Confédération générale du travail unitaire The Confédération générale du travail unitaire, or CGTU (), was a trade union confederation in France that at first included anarcho-syndicalists and soon became aligned with the French Communist Party. It was founded in 1922 as a confederat ...

(CGTU) and

Confédération générale du travail The General Confederation of Labour (, , CGT) is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions. It is the largest in terms of votes in the Labour C ...

(CGT).

Life

Childhood and youth

Born on February 15, 1887 the year in

Bragny-sur-Saône Bragny-sur-Saône (, literally ''Bragny on Saône'') is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. History BC From 530 to 450 or 440 BC there was considerable trade conducted in ...

, department of Saône-et-Loire in the family of railway workers. He spent his childhood in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, department of Yonne. He followed in the footsteps of his parents, from the age of 13 he also started working on the railway.

Unionist militant

From 1906 he took an active part in the trade union movement alongside

Pierre Monatte Pierre Monatte (15 January 188127 June 1960) was a French trade unionist, a founder of the '' Confédération générale du travail'' (CGT, General Confederation of Labour) at the beginning of the 20th century, and founder of its journal '' La V ...

and In 1916 he joined the

(SFIO) In 1921-1922 he was General Secretary of the Railway Workers' Trade Union, from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1933 to 1936 - General Secretary of the United Trade Union of Railway Workers.

Communist leader

In November 1922, Semard met

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

in Moscow with the company of

Gaston Monmousseau Gaston René Léon Monmousseau (17 January 1883 – 11 July 1960) was a French railway worker, trade union leader, politician and author, from a rural working-class background. He became an anarcho-syndicalist, then a communist, and played a leadi ...

. Lenin made concessions to his interlocutors, so that back in France, Semard justified the CGTU's membership in the SRI. He then joined the Communist Party in joint action against the occupation of the Ruhr. For this he was arrested and imprisoned in 1923 for a few months in the Prison of Health. During his imprisonment, he wrote numerous articles in ''

La Vie Ouvrière LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smi ...

'' where he pleaded in particular for open mass unionism that did not assert any doctrine. Despite these positions and his sympathy for

anarcho syndicalism Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both ...

, which were far removed from those of the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

he became general secretary of the Communist Party in 1924. He was relieved of his position as general secretary in 1929 and became head of the Paris section of the PCF. In 1935 he was elected to the General Council of the

Seine Department Seine is a former department of France, which encompassed Paris and its immediate suburbs. It was the only enclaved department of France, being surrounded entirely by the former Seine-et-Oise department. Its prefecture was Paris and its INSEE n ...

Return to unionism

After being pushed away from the PCF's leadership he continued his unionist activities. From 1936 Secretary General of the United Federation of Railway Workers of France and Algeria, member of the Executive Committee of the General Confederation of Labor. He Supported the policy of nationalization of the railways by the government of

Léon Blum André Léon Blum (; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister of France. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of socialist l ...

. He Provided assistance to the

Republicans Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

Second World War

After the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

he was dismissed from his role as the Councillor of the Seine Department and returned to work as a railway worker and was later imprisoned on accounts of embezzlement. During the German invasion of France he was evacuated to another prison. In the beginning of 1942, Pierre Semard was transferred from Bourges to the Gaillon internment camp where he found himself with common law prisoners. In March 6, he was sent to Évreux prison, delivered at their request as a hostage to the German authorities, he was shot on March 7, 1942 alongside other political prisoners.

Works

* ''Pour le Front unique des transports'', 1923 * ''La Guerre du Rif'', 1925. * ''Histoire de la Fédération des cheminots'', 1934. * ''Transports en commun bon marché'', 1936. * « Entretien avec Lénine à l'occasion du IIe congrès du profintern », (retranslated from the Russian), Lénine tel qu'il fut, souvenirs de contemporains, vol. 2, Moscou, 1959.

References

Sources

* Article by Serge Wokilow in ''Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier, Éditions ouvrières. * Philippe Robrieux, ''Histoire intérieure du parti communiste'', Volume IV, Fayard, 1984.

External links

André Marty : à la mémoire de Pierre Semard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Semard, Pierre 1887 births 1942 deaths French trade union leaders People from Saône-et-Loire French Section of the Workers' International politicians French Communist Party politicians Members of the General Confederation of Labour (France) Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French Marxists French socialists French communists French anti-capitalists French anti-fascists