Ernest Evans

TL;DR: In the early 1980s, the Reagan Administration as mentioned in this paper was determined to pursue a coherent and comprehensive policy toward such revolutionary movements, which consisted of four steps: first, the issue of human rights was to be deemphasized, and, instead, emphasis was placed on the need to help U.S. allies who were engaged in struggles with Soviet-supported terrorist movements.

Abstract: This book is a highly detailed and often fascinating history of the Left in France since the Liberation. It is an ambitious undertaking that attempts to describe the evolution of the two principal parties of the Left, the Communists (PC) and the Socialists (PS), both separately and in union. Through electoral analyses and anecdotal description of the personalities and major issues involved, it largely succeeds. The primary focus is on the Left's "critical decade" bracketed by the May Events of 1968 and the disastrous 1978 legislative elections intended to be the culmination of ten years' worth of uninterrupted growth of the Left's electoral strength, but which instead called into question the feasibility of the Left coalition itself. Johnson attributes the Left's resurgence more to the decline of the Right than to actions of its own. External factors (de Gaulle's departure, decline in religion, economic development and its social consequences) presented the Left with the first real opportunity since 1947 to become a respectable and viable alternative. To varying degrees the PS and PC simply tried to take advantage of the situation. Their relative ability to do that, however, was limited according to Johnson by the norms established by the Fifth Republic. Purely "representational" activity by parties was severely penalized, disadvantaging the PC with its traditional "tribunitial" style. In addition, opposition parties were required "to become an Opposition in the British sense . . . an alternative government-in-waiting with reasonably clear plans . . . and with sufficient internal cohesion. . ." (p. 151). Thus, the stage was set for the rapid increase in the attractiveness and union of the Left in the 1970s, and within that union the growing preponderance of the newly reconstituted PS under Mitterrand. The unevenness of the relationship that developed forced the PC to scuttle the alliance on the eve of the 1978 elections within sight of a landmark victory rather than accept the dominance of the Socialists. The logic of that decision and its impact on the parties of the Left provide the second focus of the book. There are no surprises in Johnson's analysis of these events, but he provides a considerable amount of factual information and color to buttress it. It is unfortunate that this book, written in 1979 and published in early 1981, cannot take account of the 1981 elections. Stopping when it does, however, with the future of the Left apparently at its most bleak gives one added respect for the remarkable success of the Socialists. With the benefit of hindsight, however, one could say that Johnson has missed some of the probable clues to account for the Socialist success. Most fundamentally, by emphasizing the "polarization . . . of political life" (p. 279), Johnson has misinterpreted the trend of electoral politics since 1967 if by polarization he means a centrifugal movement. I would agree that the Left-Right division has become more explicit, but I would argue that the very definition of the alternatives has been transformed by a distinct centripedal movement of the electorate from the extremes toward the more moderate and openly electoralist parties, for example, the PS. The division between the "families" remains, but the center of gravity within them has moved closer toward the center.