CONGRESS OF TOURS, 1920 - THE BIRTH OF THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY

December 29^th 1920. The Tours Congress lead to the division of the French socialist party (SFIO) and gives birth to the French Communist Party.

The questions asked during this Congress have had a great place in the left-wing history throughout the 20^th century. In order to reform society and allow social progress, should we integrate the State system or fight it? Does progress better operate through reformist compromise or revolutionary violence? Is the national framework legitimate or should it be majored by internationalism?

Against the backdrop of WWI, then the Russian Revolution and the Spartacist uprising in Germany, the answers to such questions diverged, leading to the irremediable division of socialism - the word being claimed after Tours by currents that had virtually nothing in common. The irremediable split of socialism was acted and would never be resolved. And today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the consequences of the Tours Congress still present in the recomposition of the French left, at a time when the dream of an ecological revolution has replaced the dream of a proletarian revolution.