French politician Leon Blum was distinguished by a combination of French patriotism with sympathy for the theory of Zionism. Anti-Semitic sentiments that sometimes appear in modern society make us recall this former French prime minister.
André Leon Blum, short biography
The birthplace of this future major leader of the labor movement is Paris. Date of birth - 1872-09-04 Date of death - 1950-30-03
His father was a we althy Alsatian merchant, silk ribbon manufacturer.
Blum Leon studied first at the lyceums of Henry the Fourth and Charlemagne, then graduated from the Higher Normal School and the University of Paris, where he studied law. He studied well.
The Dreyfus affair prompted him to become political.
From 1902 he became a member of the Socialist Party.
In 1919, the Parisians elected him to the National Assembly.
During the same period, he tried to exert some influence on French diplomacy in order to organize a Jewish national structure in Palestine.
Political stance
In the early 1920s, Blum Leon spoke condemningly of the October Revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Soon, the French Communist Party was formed from the supporters of the revolution in Russia, to which "Humanite" joined.
Blum's minority supporters organized into the modern French Socialist Party.
Being a Marxist, Blum Leon did not want to be part of "bourgeois" governments.
He sympathized with Zionism, and when Chaim Weizmann invited him to the Jewish Agency, he became a member from 1929.
Since 1936, Blum Leon joined the left-wing coalition, from which a little later the anti-fascist Popular Front arose, which received most of the votes in the next elections.
As Prime Minister
1936-04-06 Leon Blum, whose biography developed quite successfully by this period, took over as Prime Minister of France.
The government cabinet headed by him adopted several laws of a social nature. A 40-hour working week was finally approved, and a mechanism for paid leave for a worker was introduced. The Arabs in Algeria received equal rights with the French. The Bank of France and the military industry were nationalized.
The Bloom government's ambitious social reform agenda has provoked protests from industrial circles that have refused to cooperate with the cabinet.
Along with this, intra-coalition contradictions intensified over the assistance to the Spanish Republicans in their opposition to the fascistregime. The non-interference policy was proposed by the Prime Minister, which was seen by critics as a concession to fascism.
21.06.1937 the Prime Minister submitted his resignation. This happened after parliamentarians rejected a proposal to introduce a law that would give the Cabinet of Ministers emergency powers to carry out tough financial measures.
Pre-war period and occupation of France
After the transformation of the Government of the Popular Front, Leon Blum, a politician with extensive practical experience, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and held it from 1937-29-06 to 1938-18-01
From 13.03. until 1938-10-04 he was Minister of Finance.
After the occupation of France in 1940, Blum did not leave the country. During the convening of the National Assembly in Vichy, he was one of 80 voters who opposed granting Pétain the powers of a dictator.
Blum was found guilty by the Vichy government at the start of the war and put on trial.
In September 1940, he was arrested, and in 1942 he, along with other politicians from the Third Republic, was put on trial. This show trial, called "Riomsky", was aimed at "identifying and condemning those responsible for the defeat of France."
In 1943, Pierre Laval gave the order to deport Blum to Germany, where he was placed in the Buchenwald concentration camp. It was only by chance that he survived there.
His brother Rene Blum was much less fortunate, he got intoAuschwitz and died there.
In the spring of 1945, Leon Blum was liberated from the concentration camp by the Americans.
Post-war
After returning to France, Blum became a member of de Gaulle's provisional government. He participated in negotiations with the Americans regarding the issuance of large loans to France.
From 1946-16-12 to 1947-22-01, Blum served as chairman of the Provisional Government.
In 1947, the UN General Assembly considered the future of Eretz Israel. Bloom spent a lot of effort to make the French government decide to vote for a resolution that provided for the division of Palestine in order to create a Jewish state entity on its territory.
In 1948, Leon Blum, whose photo could be found in many newspapers, led the French delegation to the UN. From July 28 to September 5, 1948, he was Deputy Prime Minister.
30.03.1950 Blum died in the town of Jouy-en-Josas (Yvelines department).
Blum Biography Study
Blum's biography has been studied in detail by Pierre Birnbaum, a Sorbonne professor who is a specialist in the history of Jews in France.
Two goals were pursued. The author tried to find out what is the significance of the personality of Leon Blum for the history of France. Along with this, Birnbaum showed that the most important factor in shaping Blume's political outlook was Jewishness.
The Dreyfus Affair had a huge impact on Blum's views. He got itlifelong conviction that a politician should eliminate injustice against a particular individual, and only then think about how to eliminate social injustice in general.
According to Birnbaum, Blume's rapid political career was the result of his outstanding intellectual abilities, which were successfully combined with the left-wing views gaining strength in society.
Blum made a name for himself by speaking out in support of Dreyfus in the press. After that, he joined the socialist movement, standing next to the leader of the socialists, Jean Jaurès. He managed to become a leading theorist of Marxist ideology.
Blum and Zhores believed that the individual right of an individual can be maximally protected only under socialism. In their opinion, the poorest strata of the population, who got out of the most difficult need in the conditions of the socialist system, will be able to actively participate in the processes of government.
Realpolitik
Once in the ranks of parliamentarians, Blum managed to prove himself not at all as an orthodox Marxist. He did not welcome the emerging Soviet regime. In early 1920, in his articles, he noted the catastrophic consequences of the Bolsheviks gaining power.
He sharply criticized the use of mass terror not as a measure to protect public safety, but as the main instrument of government.
By the thirties, the French Social Democrats had lost their popularity, and the Communist Party, on the contrary, had significantly strengthened its positions. Whereinthere was a significant increase in far-right sentiment.
To avoid the threat from the right, Blume had to overcome his existing antipathy towards the communists.
He managed to take the prime minister's chair only after the socialists and communists were united in a structure called the "People's Front".
