Pierre Frank

Who was Pierre Frank?

Pierre Frank was a French Trotskyist leader. He served on the secretariat of the Fourth International from 1948 to 1979.

Educated as a chemical engineer, Frank was one of the first French Trotskyists, working with surrealist Pierre Naville and the syndicalist Alfred Rosmer. In 1930, he joined Trotsky on the island of Prinkipo to work as a member of the secretariat that prepared the first conference of the International Left Opposition. Returning to France, he was a leader of the Communist League, the French Trotskyist organisation, in the 1930s.

After the rise of the 1934 Popular Front government in France, Frank was a part of the faction within the movement led by his friend Raymond Molinier that remained inside the SFIO after the majority followed Trotsky's advice to leave. Frank and his co-thinkers were expelled from the Movement for the Fourth International as a result. Frank was a founder-member of the "La Commune" group formed by Molinier. Ernest Mandel comments that the group "was chiefly identified with a thorough-going preparation of anti-militarist and anti-imperialist work that earned them repression and persecution at the hands of the French imperialist government."