Le Petit Matin
- The Situation of the Radical Party
- Our naval aviators left Berre yesterday on their 26,000 km long-distance flight
- The quarrel burns ever hotter in Moscow
This front page of Le Petit Matin carried three substantial items. Raymond Colrat's signed column surveyed the Radical Party on the eve of its Bordeaux congress, blaming the alliance with the Socialists and a run of unstable cabinets for splitting it into ministerial clienteles, and sizing up Herriot, Caillaux, Sarraut and Malvy as rivals for its direction. From Marseille came the departure of two Navy seaplanes under Lieutenant Guilbaud on a planned 26,000 km flight to Majunga in Madagascar along Africa's rivers and lakes. Dispatches via Reval and Berlin reported the Soviet leadership moving to discipline Trotsky, Zinoviev and Pyatakov, along with rumours of emergency powers against the opposition.
Translation
The Situation of the Radical Party
[?] [?] [?] The Situation of the Radical Party
PARIS, 13 October. – (From our parliamentary correspondent): Before the debates open at the Bordeaux Congress, it is perhaps not useless to remind our readers of the situation in which this party finds itself and of the difficulties it will have to overcome in order to achieve unity. I do say unity, for there can be no question of conciliation when the destiny of a powerful party is at stake. The conditions of the elections of 11 May, the concessions made to the Socialists and the demands of those allies had little by little divided a party that drew part of its success from the diversity of its means, but whose life was assured above all by a necessary intransigence in the face of the pretensions of the parties of the centre and the right. The unaccustomed succession of ministries without stability encouraged the growth of ministerial ambitions; the party split into coteries; each minister had his clientele among the deputies, and that clientele had only one aim left: to keep the "boss" in power for as long as possible, or to bring him back if misfortune would have it that he had fallen. The most extraordinary combinations saw the light of day thanks to this singular state of mind; the latest events brought about a veritable disaster that was bound to strike the troops of the Radical Party and its future in particular. M. Herriot, urged by a few friends to try the experiment of forming under [?] leadership a ministry of concentration, this one would be formed against them. Such, then, is the situation: on one side M. Herriot, who overthrew M. Caillaux and who agreed to collaborate with M. Poincaré, who has merely taken up again the methods and the plan of his predecessor. Facing M. Herriot, the man he overthrew, who will insist on explaining himself before the congress. Then the temporizer, M. Sarraut, the "consulting physician" of the Republic, who always advises, sometimes praises and never acts, and whom M. Poincaré is going to try to push forward so as to hold this leader of the Radical Party in his hands: Maurice Sarraut, candidate of the fearful and the timid, who would bring about union, but would bring it about around the ministry. And finally M. Malvy, who was always firm in his ideas, who never betrayed his party and who showed great political sense and skilful moderation as chairman of the Finance Commission. M. Malvy is the candidate of the militants; it is to him that the votes of those who want to free Radicalism from ministerial and parliamentary constraints will go.
None of this will happen without debate. M. Herriot will want to justify his attitude; M. Caillaux is eager to define it. From this encounter [?] [?]
Raymond COLRAT.
Our naval aviators left Berre yesterday on their 26,000 km long-distance flight
FRANCE–MAJUNGA BY AIR
Our naval aviators left Berre yesterday on their 26,000 km long-distance flight
MARSEILLE, 13 October. – Two Navy seaplanes, one piloted by Lieutenant Bernard, who took Petty Officer Gara with him, the other carrying aviator Lieutenant Guilbaud, head of the mission, and Chief Petty Officer Boucault, left the Berre station this morning at 5.10 to undertake the Marseille–Majunga (Madagascar) voyage. The route naturally follows the natural waterways: the great rivers and streams of West Africa and Central Africa. To reach Senegal they will pass by Tangier, Casablanca, Mogador, Rio de Oro, Port-Étienne and Mauritania. They will cross Africa following the courses of the Senegal, the Niger, the Benue, the Chari, the Upper Ubangi and the Congo, then pass over Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa. Having reached Mozambique, they will cross the arm of the Indian Ocean to alight at Majunga, the terminus of their journey. If the season is not too far advanced, the two crews will return to Saint-Raphaël using the string of African lakes, going down the Nile valley and skirting the Mediterranean by way of Egypt, Tripolitania and Tunisia. This 26,000-kilometre voyage will last about three months.
The quarrel burns ever hotter in Moscow
[?] [?] [?] more and more in Moscow
Measures "in extremis"
REVAL, 13 October. – It is reported from Moscow that the Political Bureau has decided to submit to the judgment of the next plenary assembly of the Central Committee and of the Congress of the Communist Party the application of sanctions for the serious breaches of Communist discipline committed by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Pyatakov, as well as for other acts and activities that provoke dissidence within the party and bring discredit on the U.S.S.R. abroad.
* *
BERLIN, 13 October. – According to a dispatch from Moscow that reached Berlin this evening, Trotsky has been chosen as leader of the united opposition. A new revolution is feared. Stalin, leader of the party in power, is said to have entrusted Yagoda, head of the Cheka, with dictatorial powers, with the mission of fighting the opposition. It is stated that Trotsky, Zinoviev and the other leaders of the opposition were summoned before the Disciplinary Council but refused to appear. The Soviet Revolutionary Military Council has forbidden army officers to take part in opposition meetings; it has appointed in each regiment an extraordinary political commissar to carry out the Government's orders. In addition, the Stalin party considers that the credits for propaganda abroad should be abolished.
Context
Why the Radicals came to Bordeaux divided
Raymond Colrat's column presents the Bordeaux congress as the moment when the Radical Party had to decide whether it could recover its unity. In his account, the conditions of the elections of 11 May, the concessions to the Socialists and a series of unstable cabinets had broken the party into clienteles grouped around individual ministers, and the latest turn was Herriot's decision to serve under Poincaré after having brought down Caillaux. Colrat sorts the contenders into Herriot, Caillaux, the cautious Maurice Sarraut, whom he expects Poincaré to push forward, and Malvy, whom he presents as the militants' candidate; these portraits are the columnist's own partisan judgments rather than neutral description. His complaint about coteries matches the way the party was built. The Radicals had been formed as a heterogeneous alliance of personal fiefdoms, informal electoral clubs and masonic lodges, and the party imposed strict discipline on its deputies only from 1914. The party did suffer a break in 1926, when its right wing split off to form the Unionist, or National, Radicals.
What became of the Berre–Majunga seaplane flight
The Navy flight announced from Marseille did reach Madagascar, though not in the way the paper laid out. The paper dates the departure to the morning of 13 October, whereas later accounts put the take-off from the Étang de Berre on 12 October 1926, with Guilbaud flying a long-range CAMS 37GR in company with a Lioré et Olivier LeO H-194. A 2018 retrospective in L'Express de Madagascar says the mission was undertaken at the request of the Navy minister Georges Leygues, and reports that one of the two aircraft broke down in British Nigeria on 1 November while Bernard continued alone, reaching Mozambique on 20 November and Majunga on the 21st. Bernard's seaplane later came home up the Nile by way of Cairo, Bizerte and Berre and reached Paris on 14 January 1927. Guilbaud's machine had a different fate: an engine failure on 3 January 1927 made him abandon the Madagascar flight, and he returned to Marseille on 9 March 1927. The two later accounts do not line up exactly on when Guilbaud dropped out, but both show that the paper's 26,000 km, three-month circuit by two crews was a plan rather than a result. Guilbaud himself disappeared in the Barents Sea in June 1928 while piloting the Latham 47 flying boat carrying Roald Amundsen toward Spitsbergen.
From the October 1926 sanctions to the expulsion of the opposition
The two dispatches catch an early stage of the struggle between Stalin's majority and the United Opposition, the bloc formed in 1926 when the Left Opposition led by Trotsky merged with the New Opposition led by Zinoviev. In May 1926 Trotsky, Zinoviev and 82 others had signed a declaration denouncing Stalin's leadership, and the sanctions announced from Reval were followed in October 1926 by a vote of Stalin's supporters removing Trotsky from the Politburo. The Berlin report's most dramatic items, a feared new revolution and dictatorial powers for Yagoda, reached Paris second-hand; the documented course was a step-by-step exclusion carried out through party bodies. That process ended at the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927, which expelled the opposition after declaring its views incompatible with membership of the Communist Party. Trotsky was exiled to Alma-Ata in 1928 and expelled from the USSR in 1929.
Original
La Situation du Parti Radical
[?] [?] [?] La Situation du Parti Radical PARIS, 13 octobre. - (De notre rédacteur parlementaire): Avant que ne commencent les débats au Congrès de Bordeaux peut-être n'estil pas inutile de rappeler à nos lecteurs dans quelle situation se trouve ce parti et les difficultés qu'il devra surmonter pour arriver à l'unité. Je dis bien à l'unité, car il ne peut être question de conciliation quand s'agite le destin d'un puissant parti. Les conditions des élections du 11 mai, les concessions faites aux socialistes, les exigences de ces alliés, avaient peu à peu divisé un parti qui puisait une partie de son succès dans la diversité de ses moyens, mais dont la vie était assurée surtout par une intransigeance nécessaire en face des prétentions des partis du centre et de droite. La succession inaccoutumée de ministères sans stabilité favorisa le développement des ambitions ministérielles; le parti divisa en coteries; chaque ministre eut, parmi les députés, sa clientèle, et cette clientèle n'avait plus qu'un but: maintenir le plus longtemps possible le «patron» au pouvoir ou l'y ramener si le malheur voulait qu'il en fut tombé. Les combinaisons les plus extraordinaires virent le jour, grâce à cet état d'esprit singulier, les derniers événements provoquèrent un véritable désastre qui devait particulièrement atteindre les troupes du parti radical et son avenir M. Herriot, sollicité par quelques amis pas l'expérience de constituer sous [?] direction un ministère de concentration celui-ci se ferait contre elles. Telle est donc la situation; d'un côté M. Herriot qui a renversé M. Caillaux et qui a accepté de collaborer avec M. Poincaré, lequel n'a fait que reprendre les moyens et le plan de son prédécesseur. Face à M. Herriot celui qu'il a renversé et qui tiendra à s'expliquer devant le congrès. Puis le temporisateur, M. Sarraut, le «médecin consultant» de la République, qui conseille toujours, qui loue quelquefois et qui n'agit jamais, et que M. Poincaré va essayer de mettre en avant afin de tenir dans ses mains ce chef du parti radical: Maurice Sarraut, candidat des craintifs et des timorés, qui ferait l'union mais qui la ferait autour du ministère. Et enfin M. Malvy, qui fut toujours ferme dans ses idées, qui ne trahit jamais son parti et qui a fait preuve d'un grand sens politique et d'une habile modération comme président de la Commission des Finances. M. Malvy est le candidat des militants; c'est sur lui que se porteront les voix de ceux qui veulent affranchir le radicalisme des contraintes ministérielles et parlementaires. Tout cela ne se passera pas sans débats. M. Herriot voudra justifier son attitude M. Caillaux est désireux de la définir. De cette rencontre [?] [?]
Nos aviateurs maritimes ont quitté hier Berre pour leur raid de 26.000 km.
FRANCE-MAJUNGA PAR LES AIRS Nos aviateurs maritimes ont quitté hier Berre pour leur raid de 26. 000 km. MARSEILLE, 13 octobre. - Deux hydravions de la marine, l'un piloté par le lieutenant de vaisseau Bernard, emmenant avec lui le second-maître Gara, l'autre ayant à bord le lieutenant de vaisseau aviateur Guilbaud, chef de mission, et le maître principal Boucault, ont quitté ce matin à 5 h. 10 la station de Berre pour entreprendre le voyage Marseille-Majunga (Madagascar). L'itinéraire emprunté naturellement les voies naturelles d'eau: grands fleuves et rivières, de l'Afrique Occidentale et de l'Afrique Centrale. Pour atteindre le Sénégal ils passeront par Tanger, Casablanca, Mogador, Rio de Oro, Pont-Etienne et la Mauritanie. Ils traverseront l'Afrique en suivant les cours du Sénégal, du Niger, du Bénoué Chari, du Haut-Oubangui et du Congo, puis ils passeront par les lacs Tanganyika et Nyassa. Arrivés au Mozambique ils franchiront le bras de l'Océan Indien pour amerrir à Majunga, point terminus de leur randonnée. Si la saison n'est pas trop avancée les deux équipages rallieront Saint-Raphaël en utilisant le chapelet des lacs Africains descendant la vallée du Nil et en contournant la Méditerranée par l'Egypte, la Tripolitaine et la Tunisie. Ce voyage de 26. 000 kilomètres, durera environ trois mois.
Le torchon brûle de plus en plus à Moscou
[?] [?] [?] de plus en plus à Moscou Mesures " in extremis " REVAL, 13 octobre. - On mande de Moscou que le bureau politique a décidé de soumettre au jugement de la prochaine assemblée plénière du comité central et du Congrès du parti communiste les fins d'application de sanctions aux infractions graves à la discipline communiste commises par Trotski, Zinovieff, Piatakoff, ainsi que d'autres faits et agissements, provoquant la dissidence au sein du parti, et causant le discrédit de l'U. R. S. S. à l'étranger. * * BERLIN, 13 octobre. - Selon une dépêche de Moscou parvenue ce soir à Berlin Trotski a été choisi comme chef de l'opposition unifiée. L'on craint une nouvelle révolution. Staline, chef du parti au pouvoir, aurait confié à Jagoda, chef de la Tchéka, des pouvoirs dictatoriaux avec mission de lutter contre l'opposition. On déclare que Trotski, Zinovieff et les autres chefs de l'opposition ont été convoqués devant le Conseil de discipline, mais ont refusé de s'y présenter. Le Conseil Soviétique révolutionnaire de guerre a interdit aux officiers de l'armée de prendre part aux réunions de l'opposition; il a désigné dans chaque régiment un commissaire politique extraordinaire pour faire exécuter les ordres du Gouvernement. D'autre part le parti Staline estime qu'il y a lieu de supprimer les crédits pour la propagande à l'étranger.