A leading member of the French Communist Party, Benoît Frachon was born into a working class family in Le Chambon-Feugerolles, an industrialized commune in central France. Frachon began to labor as a metalworker at the age of 13, and by 16 was an active member of the union, participating in strikes and radical organizing. Frachon was opposed to the unions’ and conservative socialists’ position of support for the French government during World War I, and was an early supporter of the Communist movement in France, helping to forge links between the Communists and organized labor. He quickly became a leader in the Communist Party and in the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), one of the major trade union centers in France. After France fell in World War II, Frachon, along with other Communists, became active in the French Resistance, striking against the Germans and the collaborationist Vichy government. Frachon focused on organizing labor against the fascists. Frachon became Secretary-General of the CGT, and would continue to serve in this role until 1967. He died in 1975.
US Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981, Mike Gravel occupied an odd position in mainstream American politics. Raised in Massachusetts, he moved to Alaska in 1956 and became politically active starting in the 1960s, eventually becoming Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives before arriving in the Senate. There, he emerged as a forceful left-wing voice opposed to American militarism and the War in Vietnam. In 1971, he read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. Gravel lost his Senate seat in the 1980 primary, but remained politically active as a campaigner for direct democracy. Gravel ran for President in 2008 on an anti-war and pro-direct democracy platform as part of the Democratic Primary, gaining attention for his denunciation of his opponents on the debate stage. In the 2020 election Gravel ran again, his campaign run by young people seeking to promote left-wing positions in the Democratic primary race. Gravel died in 2021, but his campaign transformed into the Gravel Institute, a think tank and advocacy group which works to promote left-wing causes through online content.
“The military-industrial complex not only controls our government lock, stock and barrel, but they control our culture.”
