France

By JOSEPH STAROBIN

6CX7OUR voice was missed in Paris. So lows as Paris did not hear it, Paris did not feel
3 itself completely freed’’—that’s how Rolland, the dean of French ietters in this
century hailed the return of Maurice Thorez, general secretary of the French Communist

| Party, last November.

Nobody can appreciate what is happening in France today without following care-

" fully what the Gommunists are
4 doing. And no one can under-
'stand the immense importance
of the Communists without

ipausing on these words of Ro-
}main Rolland.

For this was more than the
(greetings of one man to an-
other; Thorez, you will remem-
‘ber had been living in Moscow
fand there was a considerable
jrumpus before he was permit-
ted to return home last autumn.

© ‘he homage of Rolland, the
‘outstanding intellectual of his
time to Thorez, the coal miner
pof Lille who became the leader
(of a great party of all patriotic
Frenchmen, expresses the deep
“unity of the best in French cul-
)ture, with the working class of
> France.

Even more than that, it
shows the new position which
the French workers have
achieved in the course of
this war. They are recognized
as the very backbone of the
‘nation’s survival. Without
them, France could not have
lived. And they are now in
the forefront of the compli-
cated politival life of their
country, as it strugeles to
eradicate the remnants of
fascism, to-become a great
and prosperous power.

® i bring this up by way of
I ntroducing the speech which

@Thorez made on Jan. 20, 1945,
“0 a meeting of the Communist
entral committee in the su-
jurb-.0f ~ Paris—ivry., That
speech has+ been mentioned in
[che press, but only recently,
in Jan. 23 issue of I’Humanite
id we get a comprehensive
Fummary of what was actually
; aid.

It was at Ivry, in June, 1934,
hat the French Gommunists
Ssued their famous unity ap-
eal to the Socialists which
itimately brought about the
tont populaire of the middle
hirties. But 11 years ago, the
ssue was unity of the working
lass parties, together with the

Buiddle classes against the
| oureeoisie.

» TLoday, the issue of working
dass unity remains, but the
F-ommunists stand for much
“nore than that. They stand
oF a union of all patriotic

lrenchmen of all classes, of all
Saiths, in all walks of life. They
; ocean to have their own party
Seflect that unity, and they
swean to, preserve it: for tee en-
ne nation.

This is the nae idea which
/mpressed me in the ~ Thorez
speech. Hie envisages that the

resent “entente” between the
»ocialists and Communists
jught to move-~ “toward. the

foustitution of a great national
rorkine. class party and the
Tineiples, the methods, the
Porms of organization will nat-
rally be defined together, on
he basis of the teachings of
cientifie socialism.” He like-

vise favors the unification of
phe two Major resistance move-

ments, the MLN and the Front
National—and thus far, this has
been rejected by the MLN. But
he goes much further.

“As during the German oc-
cupation, we wish in order to
Win the war, to unite with all
goed Frenchmen — workers,
civil servants, employers, in-
tellectuals, peasants. Not all
of these are Socialists or
Communist. Why should we
impose upon them our pro-
gram of communism ... ?”

A third theme in this same
emphasis on unity is that the
Communists do not shrink from
governmental responsibility.

“We assume before our
people, before our nation, the
heaviest responsibilities. We
are a party of the govyern-
ment, a party which has dele-
gated two of its best mili-
tarists: Billoux and Tillon in
the sovernment of the Repub-
fic. Other Communists have
been called to high places in
the state administration.
in production. We have our
representatives in the Consult-
ative. Assembly, in the Council
of National Resistance, in the
departmental and local com-
mittees of Jiberation. Let all
of us know how to be equal to
the grandeur of our responsi-
bilities.”

All of this means that’ the
Communists are making every
effort to overcome the splint-
ering of parties and the divi
sions’ in the nation which have
manitested themselves in the
last eight months.

The. Brench bourgeoisie has
been discredited in this war: its
fascist wing is hated, although
by no means destroyed, as can
be seen by the attempt of Col.
de la Roque to revive his Ca-
goulards in the form of a “So-
cial Party’ only recently.

The middle class parties, like
the Union Republicans and the
right-wing Radical Socialists—
through whom the French capi-
talism was accustomed to rule
—have likewise been under-
mined by treachery, and cow-
ardice in amony many leaders.
The Radical Socialists were
compelled at their recent con-
emess in December to purge
many of their deputies to the

former French chamber because -

they voted for Marshal Petain
on July 10, 1940. Even the So-
cialists were forced to reor-

ganize drastically and expelled
some 40 per cent of their depu-
ties in the old parliament.

And it is characteristic of
French politics today that the
only new lgader to arise is De
Gaulle, a man with no party
affiliations and no real record
in civilian life. His government
is composed of functionaries
for the most part built around
his personal associates from
the London and Algiers days.

It is equally characteristic
that the largest newspapers in

_ has

Paris belong to the Commun-
ists and Socialists, together
With the Resistance groups.
The old press was smashed in
the first days of the liberation.
Only recently have the outright
conservatives attempted to re-
build a press of their own—like
le Monde and Paris-Presse,
while infiltrating into the Ra-
dical organ &’Aurore, the con-
servative, Le Figaro.

The emphasis on all-inclu-
Sive unity in the Thorez
speech, therefore, not only
reyeals the strength and per-
spective of the French Com-
munists, but also their desire
to prevent the reactionary
circles from raising their

MAURICH THOREZ

Commun-
of France.

General Secretary.
ist Party

heads again and from split-
ting up the resistance move-
ment and disunitinge: the peo-
ple by appeais te the mid-
dle classes or to the peasants
against the workers.

In. the last eight months,
there has been a certain trend
in this direction. The refusal
of the MLN to unite with the
Front National was one aspect
of it. The publication of new
papers, is another. So are the
maneuvers of the Information
Ministry to cut down on the
paper supply of the democratic
press, while the War Ministry
been stupidly censoring

~

them.

A SECOND major aspect of

Thorez’ speech is his em-
phasis on the rebuilding of
Freneh economy, the battle of
production. Were too, the Com-
munists have a positive atti-
tude. Even though the owner-
ship of.the banks and big in-
dustries remains in the hands
of the “trusts” who worked vol-
untarily for the Germans, he
nevertheless calls for maxi-
mum working-class participa-
tion in rebuilding the economy.

The first reason, of course, is
the necessity of making war on
the enemy. Throughout his

P. A. Features, March 31 — Page 11

whole speech runs the refrain
“faire Ja sguerre’—make war
—the old slogan of Clemenceau
in a different era.

He stresses the need of a
large French army—‘‘an army
of the masses and not a pro-
fessional army, not an army
of technicians”—and on this,
of course, the Communists
are in compiete agreement
with De Gaulle.

Thorez stresses that the cad-
res of such an army should come
from the officers of the FFI,
from those patriotic profession-
al army men whom Vichy: de-
mooted, from the youth of the
nation which wants to fight.

But on the question of arming
these forces—already more than
a million men have been called
up—Thorez has a somewhat dif-
ferent approach from De Gaulle.

“Our British and American
allies, have often proclaimed
their willingness to give us
the necessary arms,” says
Thorez. “We do not think of
doubting their word. But we
cannot rely solely on the ef-
forts of our allies. God helps
those who help themselves.”

From this theme of ‘“self-
help,” Thorez develops his major
approach toward the Hrench eco-
nomic problems. He eriticizes
governmental: BALADEINES for
their failure to give “proper

-praise to those who are accom-

plishing their production duties

with honor.” He cites many ex-

amples-from ali over France of
how workers, peasants, engin-
eers and-scientisis are working
te repair the deyastated fac-
tories, to rebuild bridges over
the rivers, te reviye production.

“In truth, however, most of
our difficulties are provoked or
ageravated by the same men
and the same groups who bear
the responsibility for our defeat
im 1940, and all our sufferings
and humiliations. -. «= the same
elements of yenoeon sand disor-
der, after having realized im-
mense profits tinder -Hitler and
wallowed in the blood of the
working people, ane attempting
toxserve Hitler’s designs to the
endis., 5 22

These “bad “employers,” as
he calls them, are~attempting
to “evade governmental con-
trol of their factories. They
maneuver so that the banks will
refuse credits to run their fac-
tories in cases where the goy-
ernment takes them, over. Often
the directors. and. the office help,
devoted to their former masters,
conceal] their stocks and sabotage
in a thousand ways the work
of the factories requisitioned or
controlled by the government.”

Thorez then recalls the Com-
miuttees of Public Safety” in 1792
and demands a “genuine purge
in all phases of the adminisira-
tion, to destroy entirely the
Vichy edifice and liquidate its
influence.”

In order to achieve this, he
endorses the demand of~the
Council of National Resistance,
that guiding centre of the re-
sistance to which De Gaulle
pledged allegiance many times:

@® The “confiscation of the
enterprises and properties of
those who voluntarily placed

is Seen By Thorez

them at the service of the en-
emy during the occupation.”

® The “requisition of those
enterprises which do not sub-
mit to the production effort
for national defense, and
which sabotage that defense.”

HAT is not socialism, Thorez

repeats again and again. That
is an. ‘elementary measure of
justice.” And to return to the
nation the means of production
Which have been monopolized by
the trusts, as the CNR has de
manded, would also not be a
measure of socialism.

“It would be a measure of
a democratic character, the
application of which would
permit the development of the
war effort and would protect
at the same time the small
businessmen, and the mass of
producers from the financial
oligarchy.”

Here, too, we have the chief
difference between the zovern-
ment and the Communists; it is
not a difference in words, for De
‘Gaulle has often pledged the
same thing. It is a difference

_ of direction, and means.

The government spokesmen
emphasize reliance upon the Al-
lies; Thorez says the French
must rely primarily on them-
selves.

The government has done rela-
tively little’ by way of taking
ever factories which are sabo-
taginge. production—except for
the coal fields, the Renault works
and the aireraft industry (where
the minister of aireraft is a
Communist, Charles Willon).

Finally, the eovernment,
judging from De Gaulle’s
speech of March 2, seems to
think that the “purge” is over,
whereas Thorez speaks as
though the purge has hardly
bezun to touch the “right
people.”

®

?,N the other hand, it was also

a feature of Thorez’ speech
that he eautioned against at-
tempting any kind of “dual pow-
er” in France. It will be remem-
bered that the De Gaulle gov-
ernment arrived from Algeria
with a fully-developed plan to
xun -the country, while inside
France committees of liberation
had sprung up in each village
and town. Paris was actually
liberated by its own committee
and its armed forees. The Coun-
cil of National Resistance which
united all these committees and
all democratic organizations ap-
peared for a time to present a
dual government to that of De
Gaulle.

The issue on which this con-
flict came to a head was over
the “‘patriotic’ militia,” estab-
lished by the CNR last Janu-
ary and which the govern-
ment attempted to disarm last
November. “A serious crisis
might have arisen between
these two authoritics—in the
midst of the climatic battles
of the war, with a few million
Allied soldiers on French
soil. It might have turned
France into another Greece.

—Continued on Page 14.