GEN. CHARLES DE GAULLE
“Strong Man.”

Would-be

the smoke of battle.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE it

By DEREK KARTUN

two referendum votes.

—LONDON.

x \ ] S2LE I was in Paris I witnessed three elections and

I saw Gen. DeGaulle at the height of his extraordinary

prestige, and I saw him

political

retire
Scene when things were getting difficult in order

dramatically from the

to prepare for what he hopes will be an eventual return

to power,
That return is
topic of conversation

still a main
in Paris

today. =
When DeGaulle called his
“cabinet together one Saturday

morning last February and told
them that he had had enough
and was going, a number of his
ministers went with him.

They were men who had
climbed onto the DeGaullist
bandwagon back in the London
and Algiers days and who un-
derstand liberation and recon-
struction in terms of their per—
Sonal careers and influence.

After all the promises made in
Algiers, I saw the French press
emerge from the occupation cer-
tainly healthier than it had been
before the war, but nonetheless
a prey to men with the money
te buy opinions and a willing:
vehicle for anti-national propa-
ganda.

There were, and there still are,
the vicious campaigns of the
fascist newspaper P’Epogue
against the Communists, against
Russia and against the trade
unions_

The paper published the re-
markable article in which they
made an estimate of MBritish-
American chances in the forth-
coming war against the Red
Army—with technical ‘discussion
upon the number and quality of
the military divisions still in
Europe,

I saw notorious collaborators
being, released or let off with
ridiculous sentences bythe ju-
dicial machine under the direc-
tion of the Catholic Minister
Teitgen.

@.

And only a few weeks ago I
was present in the Chamber
when the Communists made
their lone and unsuccessful stand
against the presence in the Con-
stituent Assembly of Edouard
Daladier, the man of Munich.

Among the Socialists some very
strange and disturbing things
Have happened.

In the last elections there was
the curious speech of the So-
cialist Minister, Le Troquer, who
referred $0 his cabinet colleague
Maurice Thorez as a “deserter”
who had gone to Russia via™
Germany during the war.

The whole Socialist leadership

. = the fight

i 2 a ears ago, in August, 1944, inspires France in s : :

ae ee mee te iss delegation reaches the French lines on the Rue de L’OQpera which is shrouded in
teday. Above a

took their cue from that and
ran the election campaign as an
anti-Communist witch-hunt.

The inevitable happened | and
the Socialists came out of the
fight with a severe beating. Le
Troquer himself lost an impres-
Sive number of votes. The Gom-
munists gained ground, and the
MRP (Catholic party took a lot
of votes that the Socialists could
and should haye won_

The rank and file of the So-
Cialist Party appears to be get-
ing a little tired of the extend-
ed honeymoon with the MRP
and storms can be seen blowing
up in the party.

e@.
] HAVE also seen the “priests
go into politics.

TL heard political speeches
made from the pulpits to get
the constitution turned down.

The Pope addressed political
communiques to the French peo-
ple in which he inveighed against
nationalization and called for
the old form of corporation and
paternalism made infamous by.
Mussolini and Petain.

Then, in June, General De-
Gaulle began to stir. He sallied
forth from Marly and spoke at
Bayeux on the anniversary of
his famous speech delivered over
the BBC on June 19, 1940.

His earlier speech, ealling: on.
the people of France to resist
the enemy and win back their
liberty, was a more creditable
affair than his speech on June
18, 1946.

For at Bayeux he outlined his
idea of what the constitution
of the Fourth Republic should
be. And in the General’s view
it should be a dictatorial re-
gime with wide powers for the
head of state and every sort of
brake on the decisions of parlia-
ment.

DeGaulle’s speech gave heart
to all those who had been
dreaming of the good days of
Marshal Petain. And those who

had followed the Marshal in
1940 followed the General in
1946.

There was rowdyism in the
streets of Paris and a gang of
young fascists broke the ‘win-
dows of the Communist head-
quarters and made a bonfire of
books in the roadway. People

against fascism and WVichyism

The fascist peril in France

Maurice Thorez,
Party of France

which liberated France from the

fascists.

talked of the fascist rioting of
February, 1934.

Thirty-six hours later, at the
eall of the Paris Trades GCoun-
ceil, half a million men and wo-
men from the workshops ‘and
offices of Paris were out on
the streets in a gigantic march
past the damaged premises.

e@.

d eee impressive demonstration

of popular strength and poli-
tical vigilance was made for
the special edification of Gen-
eral DeGaulle or anyone else who
might entertain the illusion that
the French people, after one ex-
perience of dictatorship, would
be prepared to accept dictator-
ship again.

I also remember very vividly
what I saw of the efforts of
the F'rench workers to put their
Shattered and exhausted coun-
try back on its feet.

The grim and tired miners of
Douai up in the north; the rail-
way workers who repaired the
bridges with planks and any ma-
terial they could find; the work-
ers of the great chemical plant
at Lyons who started rebuilding
their factory themselves after
the whole management had been
arrested

Cy
LE the novel “Socialist”
theories of Leon Blum and
others are being peddled up and
down the country, thousands of

people continue to flock into
the Communist .Party every
month.

general secretary of the Communist
and Deputy in the Constituent As-
sembly, and Jacques Duclos, national leader of the C.P.
of France and vice-president of the French Constitu-
ent Assembly. Both men played a major leading role
in the organization of the French underground forces

Hitlerite and Vichy

The Communists now have
well over 1,000,000 members and
more than 9,000 000 voters.

Their influence among the
French peasants—once consider-
ed to be the exclusive preserve
of the Radical-Socialist party—
is considerable everywhere and
in some regions overwhelming.

And when their Minister Groi-
zat fought the MRP opposition
in the government to his Social
Security Bill, and Thores forced
a drastic and much needed re-
form of the Civil Service through
the cabinet, the Hrench people
reacted by increasing the Com-
munist vote in the last elections

by 140,000.

What, do these isolated im-
pressions add up to?

What Jacques Duclos called

the “period of consolidation of
democracy” is not yet complet-
ed. In fact the fight against the
fascists and the men of Munich
is so bitter because these latter

are still powerful and § deter-
mined.
But France is still inspired

with the spirit of 1789 and Aug-
ust, 1944, when the people of
Paris threw the Germans out of
their city, and I am confident
of what France will do in the
days to come,

Compromise in
place of unity

PARIS—The French Socialist
party congress—marked by sharp
disagreements between right
wingers who wanted to move
closer to the MRP (Popular Re-
publican Movement and  left-
wingers who sought a closer al-
liance with the Communists —
ended with the expected com-
Promise resolution traditional in
French Socialist assemblies.

The compromise left all con-
flicting tendencies theoretically
united but actually “unsatisfied,
confused and discouraged,” as
one leading Socialist trade union-
ist expressed it.

The final resolution attempted
to embody both views in care-
fully balanced wording It de-
nounced the MRP for its relig-
lecus bias and Vatican ties and
the Communist party for its “in-
tellectual and political subservi-
ence” to the Soviet Union. The
Socialist party, it Said, will ac-
eept no alliances.

Leon Blum, in a winding-up
address, stressed the “indestruct-
ible unity’ of the party. The
new executive ~ retains the
main leaders of the old school
with the addition- of some
younger blood.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1946