A history of the French political record of the 1930s

Beginning in the late 1900s, political organizations used discs to modernize or consolidate their propaganda by adding the recorded sound of speeches and partisan chants. This new form of propaganda, “recorded sound propaganda”, became massive in France during the 1930s. Record companies, run by activists but outside of political organizations, put together socialist, communist, royalist, or trade unionist catalogs. Several hundred discs of speeches, songs or diction are published to bring the sound of politics into homes, to change the sound dimension of partisan meetings, or to carry out agitation operations. Offering the possibility of hearing a speaker everywhere and all the time, the disc modifies the relation of the political organizations to the space, but also and especially to the time: time of the time, time of the democratic life, time of the partisan practices. By doing so, the disc participates to change the practices of communication of these organizations. This article looks back at this little-known episode in French political life, presents the actors, examines the practices of the disc in politics and their consequences, and sets the tone for the recorded sound propaganda of the post-war decades.