Fr

Frankfurt Parliament

An all-German National Assembly established after the revolution of March 1848. It met in Frankfurt-am-Main on May 18, 1848. Its chief task was to do away with the fragmentation of Germany and to work out an imperial constitution. However, the Assembly was afraid to take supreme power into its hands and was unable to adopt a frim stand on the cardinal questions of the German revolution of 1848-49. In June 1849 it was dispersed by troops of the Württemberg government.

Fraternal Democrats

A meeting held in London on September 22. 1845 at which an international society of Fraternal Democrats was formed. The society embraced representatives of Left Chartists, German workers and craftsmen – members of the League of the Just – and revolutionary emigrants of other nationalities. During their stay in England in the summer of 1845, Marx and Engels helped in preparing for the meeting but did not attend it as they had by then left London. Later they kept in constant touch with the Fraternal Democrats trying to influence the proletarian core of the society, which joined the Communist League in 1847, and through it the Chartist movement. The society ceased its activities in 1853.

French Government of National Defense

After the crushing defeat of the Second French Empire at the battle of Sedan , a new government was formed on Sept. 4, 1870 to continue the war effort. The new government is led by:

President: General Louis Jules Trochu
Ministry of Interior: Leon Gambetta
Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Jules Favre

The new government proclaimed the establishment of the Third Republic, and continued to take a beating by the German armies. By September 19, Paris was under siege. Negotiations were attempted than by the French government, but learning the taxation is demands of Bismarck, they decided to continue the war. A month later, on Oct. 27, the 140,000 strong army led by Bazaine were defeated and surrendered at Metz.

On January 28, 1871, Paris surrendered. Favre, on behalf of the Government of National Defense, and Bismarck signed a Convention on the Armistice and the Capitulation of Paris. Under this Convention Favre agreed to humiliating terms demanded by the Prussians, among others to pay 200 million francs idemnity within a fortnight, over 5 billion francs in total war reparations, and to surrender the greater part of the Paris forts and to handover field artillery and munitions of the Paris Army to the Prussian army. Adolphe Thiers negotiated with the Prussian army that a provision of the armistice to be the election of a French National Assembly.

French Socialist Party

Founded in 1902. In 1905, the F.S.P. and the Socialist Party of France founded the United Socialist Party, which included all socialist parties and groups (Guesdists, Blanquists, Jauresists, etc.). The leadership of the F.S.P. passed into the hands of the socialist-reformists (led by Jaures), who constituted the majority. During the First World War, it took a social-chauvinist stand, its parliamentary group voted for war credits, and its members were in the bourgeois government. The F.S.P. split at its Tours Congress, December 25-30, 1920; the majority formed the Communist Party of France, while the Right-wing opportunist minority, led by Leon Blum, left the Congress and formed their own party, retaining the old name of the French Socialist Party.

The resolution moved by Bourderon at the F.S.P. Congress in December 1915 was rejected by a majority. At that time, Bourderon belonged to the Right-wing of the Zimmerwald Group.