'Who Is Marcel Peyrouton?'- The Career of a French 'Himmler'
RAYNAL, ANDRE
The Red and Black—France Moves Towards Tragedy 'Who Is Marcel Peyrouton?'— The Career of a French 'Himmler' By ANDRE RAYNAL •yHE Americans who planned to come to an * understanding with a French...
...And what about the period of the occupation...
...He insisted that in the post-war election the criterion "would be much less your political faith than what you had done in the fight against occupation...
...In March, 1941, the same Humanite affirmed: "The movement of de Gaulle and Lerminat, financially reactionary and anti-democratic, aim at nothing else than, in the case of British victory, to rob your country of all liberty...
...Why...
...And Mr...
...Peyrouton had tried desperately to make his peace with Laval...
...He took up this task with sadistic ardor...
...MARCEL PEYROUTON is a professional , functionary...
...The opportunity for vengeance soon presented itself: it was the situation resulting from the disaster of 1940...
...Exactly 24 hours befmk the seizure of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the members of the Provisional Government Stalin wrote: "The eremies are evidently preparing the definite elimination of the Constitutional Assembly...
...An essential part ef this propaganda was the showing, in closed meetings, of Soviet films which could not be exhibited publicly...
...Krasin wrote to his wife on the eve of the convention of the Constitutional Assembly: "There remains one hope for us—the Constitutional Assembly...
...He should have resigned when Laval returned to power, knowing as he did what the latter was about to do...
...Obviously a German victory was considered the necessary condition and guarantee of the freedom of France...
...In the summer of 1939 they obtained such a film, "If the War Breaks Out...
...By a striking coincidence, the reappearance of Peyrouton in Africa comes at the same time as the advent into England of Fernand Grenier, one of the worst agents of the Comintern...
...The illusion of the rank-and-file Bolsheviks that the majority of the people were following them did not last long...
...He owed it also, in part to Free Masonry, of which both he and Malvy were members...
...Teh more years passed and the Soviet government returned to the very democratic system of elections by which the Constitutional Assembly had been elected...
...It would be inconvenient to postpone now...
...FOLLOWING a succession of rearrangements to complicated to retell in the present context, the Vichy government had need of a new minister of the interior...
...His despotism in Tunisia and then, on top of that, his appointment to Morocco aroused tempests of protest and indignation...
...It must be feared that such mistakes reflect its actual political orientation...
...When, in 1936, Leon Blum came to power, he was the recipient of so many complaints, so many reports, so many delegations from Africa that he felt obliged to relieve Peyrouton of his position and to replace him with Genera] Nogues...
...He brings nothing but his disrepute...
...And America—will it allow him to satisfy his immeasurable ambition...
...At that time his power was already firmly established and H* we* beginning to rest on his laurels...
...On Gaulle and the Communists — The Record Stands By MARCEL PIERRE I AST Thursday in London the French National Com, mittee arranged a press conference of extraordinary importance...
...But whoever is guilty, the important thing is to reverse the decision and repair the wrong before it is too late...
...The first of these was his marriage to the daughter of a former cabinet minister...
...Peyrouton was busy harrying patriots, republicans, democrats, socialists and trade unionists, persecuting the Free Masons and the Jews and cramming to the bursting point the prisons and concentration camps...
...Had the theoreticians of Moscow communism then continued to urge 'the dictatorship of the proletariat by means of Soviet rule...
...N91) by Trotsky, who was then at the peak of his power and of first importance in the ranks of Lenin's would-be successors...
...The defense is that Peyrouton fought Pierre Laval...
...When, about a year ago, Mr...
...This has happened fhfleea,hrrd fttSmlu TfbVb* otherwise...
...But shall we forget their former record?* Mr...
...Profile of an Adventurer THREE weeks ago it seemed like s wild rumor—Marcel Peyrouton...
...In this same manifesto the Communists demanded the prosecution of those "responsible" for the war...
...Bst 1 Laval, disgusted, refused to see him...
...C. D...
...Leading German spokesmen — from Goebbels' school of propagandists to the gifted and learned scholars of the Carl Schmidt stamp—proclaim the totalitarian system as a pure German creation and their very original contribution to world Statecraft...
...Clemenceau was not always right and in the course of political conflict he was capable of committing injustice...
...We even preserve some clippings from Humanite as well as from other Communist writings...
...In addition there were 11 Social Democrats (Mensheviks), 12 Constitutional Democrats, 2 Pop ulist's and 56 deputies from national and professional groups (Cossacks etc...
...At the same time they proclaimed a new type of government—the Soviets as the incarnation of the one united party in monopolistic control of the country's whole life under the wise and irreplaceable leadership of one man—at first Lenin, arid later Stalin...
...In 1940 he attacked anti-Nazi registers in France as "cowards and traitors...
...As always he found a "Marxist" basis for his decision...
...But the story as retailed by Inter-Continent News is not the whole truth...
...However, it was^deemed necessary to couple thia democratic principle to that of dictatorship...
...Everyone took for granted that the Germans had no objections to this move and were, in fact, completely disinterested...
...Not in any way—politically, intellectually or morally—does Peyrouton measure up to the required standard...
...I believe the body to be dissolved would then have been the Soviets and the revolutionary slogan would have been 'the dictatorship of the proletariat through the' Constitutional Assembly.' And, to be sure, the Bolshevist government could and probably would continue to pursue the same policy it is pursuing now in the name of the All-Russian Soviet -also in the name of the Constitutional Assembly...
...No one can deny the right of Mr...
...In the very first days, if not hours, after the revolution, Lenin broached the subject of the Constitutional Assembly, as was recalled in 19B4 (Prarda...
...He met with opposition...
...Still less are we justified in forgetting that the French Communists were traitors to their oountry...
...They forced his installation at Paris, whence with their aid he demanded, and in the course of time obtained, the replacement of the ministers who had conspired against him...
...First of all Lenin ordered the "transfer of one of the Latvian regiments of preeminently proletarian stock to Petrograd...
...Grenier rejoins these "agents of British finance...
...But one thing is certain...
...Peyrouton was sacrificed, as was his colleague Alibert, Minister of Justice, and once more set out on the road to Buenos-Aires...
...The Constitutional Assembly represents 'the yesterday of the revolution' whereas the Soviets are its today and tomorrow...
...In public he made democratic addresses advocating the heeding of the exigencies of "life" and of "the masses' voice," even though it might not be in consonance with that of the Bolsheviks...
...As early as July, 1940, Humanite affirmed that "General de Gaulle and other agents of British finance want to persuade the French to fight for The City [the financial center of London similar to Wall Street] and exert themselves to drag our colonials into the war...
...Since the Dreyfus Affair, French Free Masonry has been transformed Onto a sort of closed corporation of practical politicians preoccupied with using it to further their careers...
...A U-S...
...They said in this manifesto: "Only the Communists struggled against this war...
...Its members were deprived of the protection of the lsw sad its property was confiscated...
...From this time on his whole purpose was to take vengeance on those who had cleared him out of a proconsulate in Africa in order to send him as ambassador to America...
...Grenier had a great disappointment...
...It preferred the role of victim to collaboration with the perpetrators of arbitrary rufe...
...Would they have dissolved their Constitutional Assembly...
...In judging the man this point is of primary importance: he owed his position, not to his worth or his work or his culture, but solely to his father-in-law...
...We will answer in the words of the Communists themselves...
...Such sabotage was not merely preached...
...Krasin imagined Lenin would manage to get the support of the majority in the Constitutional Assembly and by the same token turn the government which had seized power into a recognized and legalized one...
...But Russia was attacked one year after the defeat of France, and the French Communists had ample time to play their part as traitors during war against Germany and as collaborationists after the armistice...
...The rule of the state was monopolized and the Bolshevik party-alone was given the right to legal existence...
...A Lesson From the Past — Totalitarianism And the Defeat of the Russian Republic By Marc Vishniak ••TOTALITARIANISM" has become a syno, •J.nymof the Nazi system, of the Third Reich...
...By virtue of two personal advantages he has achieved a quickly successful career...
...They say that in Algiers we need a firm hand...
...That is true...
...As a result of the agreement, tens of thousands of lives were saved, the operations were successfully carried through, North Africa was brought over to our side and all of French Africa was induced without compulsion to jain the Allies...
...In 1941 he introduced the first antiSemitic laws and organized the French concentration camps, boasting of "a police force on Nazi lines...
...But it was impossible to put it on the screen...
...It became the first victim of this system of government...
...Bukharin, the official Bolshevik spokesman in the Constitutional Assembly, advanced the following reasoning in behalf of totalitarian rule as an antithesis to the democratic system: "When you (the S. R. and Menshevists) assert that parliament represents the will of all the people.you are making use of democratic generalities but not of Marxian terminology...
...Lenin was much more sober-minded and far-seeing...
...And it is important to remember that just now —¦on the anniversary of the forcible dissolution of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly...
...Grenier escaped from a concentration camp in unoccupied France, the Communist agency Inter-Continent News recalled a significant incident...
...In the following authoritative article even that last straw is swept away...
...On the day when the French Chamber of Deputies met to outlaw the Communist Party and make a statement against the Soviet Union, Mr...
...Russia was attacked before Pearl Harbor...
...Peyrouton cannot be held to answer for the sins of Malvy...
...Politically, however, "the urban population cannot be equal to the rural...
...The peasants will learn the truth themselves from their experience when realizing this decision in their own localities...
...In the first place, the general public remained ignorant of the realities of the situation...
...In addition they quite naturally enjoyed the ability to attract people that every victor gains...
...On the day [the Constitutional Assembly] convened nobody met the deputies with guns and machine-gun...
...He was removed from the chamber and arrested...
...Thtir record is one of treason...
...This sinister combination forecasts civil war which we shall be able to avoid only by opposing a steady calm and an indefatigable energy to the extremists of both the right and the left...
...In September, 1940, appeared the following passage in a Communist leaflet entitled "The Youth of France": "Just as we consider it unnecessary to accept Nazism in order to carry on a policy of political collaboration with Germany, we have never believed that the existence of a regime determined in Germany should constitute a barrier between France and Germany...
...TOTALITARIANISM gained strength in Rus* sia through the Soviet system and in Germany on the basis of the Weimar Constitution...
...There must be a possibility of renewing the registration of voters...
...sits Marcel B. Peyrouton...
...The majority of Russia's population proved to be anti— Bolshevik and the Bolsheviks themselves acknowledged this...
...Did such relationships inspire in this man any sort of restraint, any semblance of shame...
...He has won a place in history...
...In truth the political principles^ of modern dictatorship were takeiv-.over from the Russians with Fascist Italy as an intermediary...
...In the fall of 1940, a few months after the German armistice, Maurice Thorez (who had deserted the French army shortly after the beginning of the war) and Jacques Duelers published "in the name of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party" a manifesto addressed "to the people of France...
...H "To justify what may seem like an extreme judgment set down in these words all that is necessary is to answer in simple words, without exaggeration, hate or passion, the question: Who is this Peyrouton...
...The startingpoint of his argument was that from an aritkmetical viewpoint alone could it be admitted that one vote was equal to the other...
...m » THE Germans instituted in France a bloody * reign of terror...
...The Red and Black—France Moves Towards Tragedy 'Who Is Marcel Peyrouton?'— The Career of a French 'Himmler' By ANDRE RAYNAL •yHE Americans who planned to come to an * understanding with a French general in connection" with their North African operations, made the best possible choice in selecting General Giraud...
...There were no bayonets" etc ("Isvestya...
...This opportunistic politician brings nothing of worth to the Allied cause...
...A son-in-law is not to be held responsible for the deeds of his father-in-law...
...And ten years later those who strangled it started to picture the events in a way which was in full contradiction to historic truth and to their own former boasts...
...Stalin's constitution provides for the election of the Supreme Soviet "by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage...
...On December 13, 1940, Laval -was liquidated, but the Germans protected hrm...
...In these words Lenin—inebriated with his easy victory—was playing to the gallery...
...In that way democracy has become mere window-dressing, a means of deceiving gullible people and a tool in the hands of political speculators...
...Lenin made up his mind...
...In October 1920, Morris Hillquit published an article in the Parisian "Humanite", at that time still the mouthpiece of the French Socialist Party...
...They car.not be depended upon...
...And 24 hours after his seizure of power Lenin justified the revolution in these words: "As a democratic government we cannot ignore the decision of the lower strata of the people, though, we might disagree with it...
...Now, however, he proudly marched with his troop and stated with a wily smile: "I shall occupy an honorable place...
...The need of accepting the cooperation of Admiral Darlan when the fighting to capture French Africa was going full blast, has not been universally recognized...
...Of the sub total of 36.260.000 polled votes only 9,020.008, or one-fourth, were for the Bolshevists...
...And, he was right...
...They tell us that he knows North Africa...
...Simultaneously he made absolutely opposite statements to the inner circle of the Bolshevist Central Committee...
...Zhelezhriyakov and his troop solemnly marched out to take over the guard of the Tauric Palace—of the Constitutional Assembly itself...
...Among those especially mentioned as responsible were Leon Blum and Daladier [not Hitler...
...Therefore, the Constitutional Assembly is obliged to subuii: it elf io the Soviets and Bolshevists...
...All persons who are interested in political history, in the fate of Russia and Germany or in the origin of totalitarian theory and practice generally cannot ignore the event that occurred in Russia's capital on January 19, 1918...
...Should the peasants continue to follow the S. R. (Socialist Revolutionary Party) and should they even give to this party a majority in the Constitutional Assembly we shall also say: Be it so...
...The followers of Kornilov and the C. D. [General Kornilov headed a counter-revolutionary attempt at insurrection in August 1917...
...Grenier told us himself that we should not...
...Now they may be useful is adding their energy to the resistance against the Germans, but it would be dangerous to imagine that they have been metamorphosed into true and faithful allies...
...Nevertheless, for several weeks he tried to arrange an interview with Laval, asserting with con-' viction that a quarter-hour of conversation would dissipate all of Laval's animosity...
...Because there are enemies of the people in the government for whom the convocation of the Constitutional Assembly at the right time would be a disadvantage...
...First, that the political morals of the Bolsheviks amounts to: "Everything advantageous to me is moral, and the same thing is immoral if it does me harm," Second,, it was a mere accident that the Soviets had to provide the setting for the manifestation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the development of "socialism...
...The despicable son-in-law of the despicable Malvy, protected by the Free Masons, gave free rein to his despicable impulses...
...Among the most scandalous measures of the government was the merciless wsr upon Free Masonry...
...Judging by the numbers of votes the result was still mort unfavorable to the ruling party...
...Alone . . . our great Communist Party lined up against war...
...The actual realization of democratic principles in everyday life cannot be achieved by the mere proclamation of liberties and rights in the constitution...
...We need proletarian resoluteness...
...In his memoirs, dedicated to his wife—"the friend and fellow-fighter in the revolutionary struggle, Comrade A. M. Kollontay" (the present ambassador of the USSR to Sweden), Dybenko gave the following description of Zhelezhnyakov's feat: "In the early morning when the population Was still sleeping peacefully the faithful sentries of the Soviet regime—groups of soldiers—occupied the main streets of Petrograd...
...This man Malvy was a gambler, a debauche, a corrupt fellow unworthy of serving as minister either in war or in peace...
...This mistake may cost the revolution its life.'" «f> <w-- - * I ENTN had disagreements among his own Bolsheviks, of the right- as well as of the left-wing...
...Grenier to fight the Germans...
...This could be construed as an elimination of the Constitutional Assembly, the more so because we ourselves have blamed the Provisional Government for delaying^ the Constitutional Assembly...
...Columnist Walter Lippmann has blamed "naive and guillible" U. S. Minister Robert Murphy, and newspapers are already calling for his dismissal...
...Peyrouton had made a bad guess...
...Both s son and a daughter of Malvy were wedded to Jews...
...The rank-and-file Bolsheviks were inclined to regard the slightness of the resistance to their revolution as evidence of* their own strength and to believe that the majority of the people were on their side...
...Russia exactly twenty-five years ago...
...But that is no reason for glorifying the policy of Russia and of the Communists in other lands which had been disastrous both during peace and during war...
...Lenin found no support fee his proposal and remained isolated...
...But, despite this, he re-entered France after some years of exile in Spain, and resumed his place in Parliament where he exercised anew his influence among the commissions—and in the corridors where French political decisions are made...
...The Friends of Soviet Russia wanted a film, any film, to glorify the Red Army...
...Unfortunately the solemn presentation of Mr...
...But the point which must be kept clear is that Peyrouton owed his success not to his merits, but (next to his father-in-law) to Free Masonry...
...But North Africa knows him even better...
...This judgment and conviction of Malvy' were among the notable results of a campaign led by Georges Clemenceau, the man who led France to victory through his indomitable energy...
...A few months before outbreak of the war Mr...
...Of course all is well now that the Communists are fighting against the Germans and not against France—as they were until the Spring of 1941...
...of all sorts no other recourse thari the resort to political assassinat ion...
...His appointment as Governor General of Algeria is an unpardonable error...
...It was then that the Bolshevist faction—headed by Lenin—-which has later changed its name into the "Communist Party"—after some vacillation definitely rejected the principles of democracy: Oh January 19, 1918, the Bolshevists broke up the All-Russian Constitutional Assembly, which, as they themselves acknowledged, had been elected in the most democratic way...
...It is shared by General de Gaulle as well as by de . Saint-Exuptry and Andre Maurois...
...However, before the breaking-up of the Constitutional Assembly by force, an attempt was made to compromise and humiliate it by a proposal of self abnegation—namely of changing its status as a sovereign body representing the people into one of an auxiliary institution subordinated to the Council of the People's Commissars...
...But at the same time he became involved in a court intrigue Marshall Petain and Admiral Darlan wanted to rid themselves of Pierre Laval, the object of general disgust, and they had need of their Minister of the Interior...
...The second was his membership in the Free Masons...
...jENIN'S words were followed up by deeds-~ "argumentation" based on "Marxian" tstee was supplemented by the "technique" * the forcible breaking-up of the Constitutional Assembly...
...The American socialist wrote there: "Let us imagine that on the day the Russian Constitutional Assembly convened...
...Why is this "most hated man in North Africa" restored to power...
...Tirelessly he set to work to replace republican officials, arrest militant socialists and trade unionists, imprison the most honest and decent citizens, persons guilty solely of displeasing,^ regime installed under the protection of German bayonets...
...Special shock groups of sailors were brought from Kronstadt and Helsinki "under the command of the sailor Zheleshnyakov, an anarcho-communist who had loyally and irrevocably adopted the viewpoint of the government of proletarian dictatorship and had placed himself at its disposal...
...In 1934 in Tunisia he liquidated the trade-union movement and suppressed all liberal and socialist papers...
...He married the daughter of Jean-Louis Malvy, former minister of the Interior, condemned by the French Senate, acting in the capacity of High Court of Justice, for having, during the first World War, committed "treason to the duties of his office...
...of totalitarian statesmanship...
...and other "parties of the landholders and the bourgeoisie...
...Another of the most scandalous and abon nable measures of the Vichy government was the introduction into France of the racial laws based on those of Nuremburg...
...Then followed the essence of his argument to which the imitators have later given the nana...
...He has no party, no group, no prestige, no influence...
...Is it not obvious that the traitors who were collaborating with Germany during the war and for Several months after the armistice must and will be remembered...
...The results of the elections were unfavorable to the Bolsheviks, notwithstanding the fact that they were at the helm of the state and did not restrict themselves even in the use of physical pressure upon the electors...
...npHIS totalitarian principle has been incor¦ porated into the Soviet constitution—most conspicuously into the so-called Stalin constitution of December 5, 1936 (Article 126...
...Who was responsible, we do not yet know...
...correspondent asked British Minister Brendan Bracken about it—and the indignant reply came: Do yea think all the political scum of corrupt Vichy is to be imported into our North African operation...
...126 of the Stalin constitution...
...The American, Communists had good luck...
...This opinion is unanimously held among serious and responsible Frenchmen whether of the right or of the left...
...Why had the French Communists been removed from the chamber and arrested...
...Now in Algiers hi the Governor's seat being groomed for "higher authority...
...The army units were reinforced by troops of sailors...
...The Russian peasant"—Lenin held—"may become hesitant under certain circumstances...
...But this was far from being the attitude of Peyrouton who, from that time on, smoldered with a deadly hate toward Leon Blum, a feeling that included all of the Popular Front...
...Peyrouton took his place beside Pierre Laval...
...Life is the best teacher...
...The glorious part which it had played from the great revolution of 1789 down to the Commune of 1871 remains nothing more than a historic tradition...
...Now Peyroutc.n has been appointed Governor General of Algeria...
...Note.] The totalitarian form of government was born in...
...The speaker was Fernand Grenier, French Communist deputy and Secretary of the French Society 'jof the Friends of the Soviet Union...
...The elections, he proposed, must be postponed...
...the Constitutional Democratic Party headed by Milyukov] must be outlawed...
...SOCIALISM which WOULD try to function without political liberty, without equality of rights would very soon Degenerate into autocratic COMMUNISM...
...Grenier was introduced by Jacques Soustelle, commissioner of information of the French National Committee, who said that the arrival of Grenier was doubly significant It marked the "formal addition of the Communist Party to the movement for the liberation of the French people" and also represented the "grouping of all parties from the extreme left" under the de Gaulle banner...
...During the war Leon Blum stated that Communist propaganda and German propaganda were identical...
...It was practised—especially in the airplane industry...
...The All-Russian Constitutional Assembly did not succeed in preventing the triumph of totalitarianism in Russia...
...And this second point has an importance which will presently become manifest Appointed Resident General (a sort of governor) of Tunisia and then of Morocco, this Free Mason son-in-law Peyrouton carried on with such brutality, such arbitrariness, both toward the natives and toward any Frenchmen suspected of advanced opinions, that he • became the most unpopular man in all North Africa...
...For —alas!—the soldiers of the enemy force, fighting against the Red Army, wore French helmets...
...It disappeared...
...Nevertheless, all the developments in Russia's history that followed, once more affirmed the deepest conviction Of Russian democratic socialists which had already been voiced by Alexander Herzen: "Social development is possible only under full republican freedom, under full democratic equality...
...They say that the situation is troubled, that the extremists are stirring things up...
...But it is important that the firm hand should be a clean hand...
...the speech of MoJotov was distributed over France from the planes of the Luftwaffe...
...It is for doing this that these deputies have been condemned and imprisoned...
...It is necessary that the exercise of power and the control over it should not be monopolized neither by one individual—^be it a "leader," "Fuehrer" or "Father of the peoples" —nor by one collective—be it even "the most active and conscious citizens from the range of the working class and of other strata of the toilers who are united in the Ail-Union Conrmunist Party of the Bolshevists," as provided in Art...
...But the detailed information made available later has shown that the reasons for this collaboration were conclusive...
...It is true...
...Peyrouton set himself to enforce these anti-Semitic laws with special fervor...
...We welcomed Russia as our ally and we admire the Russians fighting for their cause and ours...
...In 1935, the guest of Marshal Balbo in Libya, he paid tribute to "the creative spirit of Fascism...
...As for Grenier, he has never been an important political leader...
...He was, so n were, summing up the developments of the past The same line of conduct that, according to this doctrine, the Russian proletariat had to part** "for its own sake" under Lenin's leadership **¦ adopted later, also "for their own sake," by «* middle classes in Germany under Hitler's leadership...
...That is true, and some of as read that paper during and after the war...
...Now Mr...
...This Peyrouton, moreover, is doubly brother-in-law to the Jews...
...Therefore, and only therefore, they did not become traitors to their country during the period of actual and official warfare...
...He was a sailor and an anarchist who had been indignant at the proposal to put his name on the list of candidates for election to the Constitutional Assembly...
...A proud rememberanee...
...The Vichy clique had no right to condemn it or, especially, to maltreat it And new we looked on at a strange spectacle: this former Free Mason, Peyrouton, hunting down and persecuting without pity his former "brothers" of the order...
...fascist anti-Semite, corrupt political opportunist was going to North Africa to take power...
...Up to the day when the Constitutional Assembly convened 601 deputies were elected.- The absolute majority of them—330—were members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party...
...This criterion must be applied to a party's or to an individual's whole record-*—not merely to the part which happens to fall after June, 1941...
...January 19...
...We can quote a passage from a Communist leaflet addressed to the working class: "By the use of all appropriate means, utilising at work all of your resources of intelligence and all your knowledge of techniques hinder, retard, render useless the products of the armament factories...
...Djjbenko wrote this in 1923...
...His particular job was to hunt down the patriots hostile to collaboration with Nazi Germany and to persecute those who had formerly been members of the Popular Front...
...Everyone was wrong...
...One of the most ringing slogans which facilitated the overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government by the Bolshevists on November 7, 1917, was: "To safeguard the immediate convocation of the Constitutional Assembly...
...Grenier has not been the only mistake of this important and meritorious organization...
...the Bolsheviks were in the majority there whereas the other socialist, non-Bolshevist, parties had the majority in the Soviets...
...Free Masonry had in France long since ceased to be the association it had been during preceding centuries...
...And the Fighting French, too, should understand the situation...
...On account of the intellectual mediocrity to which it has descended, it merits neither the evil which is ascribed to it by its enemies, nor the praise which is accorded by its partisans...
...Hence, polkicaS^ 9,020,000 votes for the "party of the proletarist" outweigh 22.620.000* votes for the party of th» peasantry, for the Russian, Ukrainian, Mcslest and other Socialist Revolutionaries, Menshen'k* and other representatives of the "petty bourgeoisie"—let alone the 4.600.000 votes for the CD...
...A republic which Would not lead to socialism seems to us an absurdity—a transitional status which would regard itself as an end...
...He appointed Peyrouton Ambassador to the Argentine, which could not be regarded as a misfortune, since it involved residence in one of the most beautiful cities of the world...
...And some years later Dybenko himself, the successor of General Yakir—who was executed by Stalin—in command of the Leningrad Military Region, was sacrificed on the altar of the Soviet regime...
...As a Free Mason, Peyrouton was not to be distinguished from other political functionaries and practical politicians...
...192S...
...With a sort of Himmler as Governor General of Algeria, there will remain for the extremist fanatic...
...Only a knowledge of the genesis of totalitarianism enables one to grasp its essence...
...But as a matter of historical fact totalitarianism was not "made in Germany...
...But it has happened...
...The 'right to vote must be extended and the voting age lowered to 18 years...
...The rro°P of dissenters—the so-called "Left S. R," eke participated in Lenin's government-rwon 40 seats and the Bolshevists themselves 130...
...But the presence of Peyrouton will mean double trouble and will heighten the confusion to the limit...
...Once more he is in a position to satisfy his thirst for power...
...We Communists, we defended the German-Soviet Pact . . . and from the first months of the war, while repression was trying* to keep us down, despite all the profiteers, careerists and politicians for whom the war was a profitable enterprise, we championed peace [with Hitler!—n.e.] by sending a letter from the Communist deputies to the President of the Chamber...
...On every count l'affaire Pevrouton is the sheerest political madness...
...In view of all the circumstances, however, it would be more appropriate for him to carry on his activities in silence...
...This is the end of 1919...
...It cannot be possible...
...On the contrary, apparently thinking to escape blame for such a mesalliance...
...T*IIE Constitutional Assembly did not yield to * thi* ultimatum and did not betray the principles of democracy...
...But it was through the influence of Malvy, through Malvy's relations with the various ministries, that Peyrouton was able to get on...
...He has never in his life . been elected to any office...
...For a Marxist there exists no people, the people do not act as a whole, the people as an entirety is a fictitous abstraction needed by the ruling classes...
...But all of this has nothing to do with the re-appearance in a position of power in Algiers of that miserable politician named Marcel Peyrouton, the man most detested in all North Africa...
...At the head of the units were comrades all of whom were seasoned fighters who had proved their mettle earlier, in July ahi" "October...
...For if Free Masonry had a part' in .the political decadence of France, it was only s pert...
...This marks a difference only in the origin of totalitarianism but not in its essence which is the same everywhere...
...Vishniak was Secretary-General of the Assembly up to its liquidation.—Ed...
...Grenier told his audience that Hu.max.ite continues to appear in France...
...Only a short time passed thereafter and the faithful guardian of the Soviet regime was shot by this very regime because of "banditry...
...It was Lenin who in July, 1917, when the Bolsheviks were a minority in the Soviets, stigmatized the Soviets as "sheepish bodies for compromizing with the bourgeoisie...
...It would, perhaps, be fitting for anti-fascists to concede at least that "achievement" to the Nazis...
...He shook his head angrily and stated repeatedly: This 4s a mistake, palpable mistake, for which we may have to pay dearly...
...Malvy was wedded at Monte-Carlo and lost enormous sums at roulette...
...The sailor Dybenko, at that time Commissary of the Navy, was entrusted with the general direction of the campaign...
...Grenier in army uniform appeared in the chamber to declare his rights as deputy and to make a statement...
...Hillquit is right in a double sense...
...In October, 1939...
...But as Secretary of the French Friends of the Soviet Union he played a not insignificant role in Comunist propaganda, especially among those who were to be won as fellow-travelers...
...The political trend and the train « thought were alike in both, cases...
Vol. 26 • January 1943 • No. 4
