Is France Our Ally?
SHUB, DAVID J. DALLIN, ANATOLE
IS FRANCE OUR ALLY? Two Views NO SAYS DAVID J. DALLIN The developing crisis in Franco-American relations' has brought sharp disagreement in the U.S. about future courses of action. That...
...YES SAYS ANATOLE SHUB If the two World Wars have any meaning, it is that the United States has assumed a solemn obligation to defend the people of Western Europe—defend them not only from conquest by armored tanks but from succumbing to the poisons of totalitarianism...
...We shall also deserve the scorn of millions of men of many continents who, inspired by the ideals of the American and French Revolutions, will never lift a finger to save those who betray that heritage...
...If there was ever any doubt that the number of real Bolsheviks in France was small, the Ridgway episode in the summer of 1952 should have dispelled it...
...If we are willing to fight against Soviet troops for France's body, then we should be willing to fight for her soul against both the totalitarian and the reactionary corruptions which now afflict it...
...France will never be our satellite, but the centuries have made her our indispensable ally...
...A powerful movement (one out of four Frenchmen votes Communist), it is accepted and tolerated by its opponents...
...Despite the menacing words of Dnclos, the overwhelming majority of the "five million French Communists" were just not interested...
...In April 1952, Francois Billoux, one of the top leaders of French Communism, returned from Moscow with a new political formula: "to work for the defeat of the French Army wherever it fights...
...After a year, the majority of the Assembly turned down the request...
...The "agonizing reappraisal" of American policy toward France promised by John Foster Dulles has, thus far, been more agony than reappraisal...
...We have ignored their prescriptions too long, preferring to listen to voodoo chants about French "decadence...
...If information on the prisoners was "unfavorable," i.e., if they were "noted" as anti-Stalinists, they were shot as "war criminals...
...bulwarks of rearmed Germany and Franco Spain, then we will deserve the Paris-Moscow Pact which is the only possible result of such a course...
...Britain is still in Malaya...
...the Communist ring-leaders worked overtime in efforts to get every possible pro-Communist out in the streets...
...Small wonder that France decided to do at Geneva what we had done at Panmunjom...
...So that the reader may best judge for himself, The New Leader presents this week two views on France, diametrically opposed...
...Russia is far away, separated from France by the American and British forces in Germany...
...Only by devoting ourselves wholeheartedly to the revitali-zation of democracy in France's homes and factories can we make sure that the moral—and military-defense of Europe is led by men singing the Marseillaise, and not Deutschland Ueber Allcs...
...Yet, we tell the French: "Do as we say, not as we do...
...Shortly thereafter, the expulsion of the activists Marty and Tillon heralded a "united-frontish" turn in the CP's policy—now, as always, a confession of basic weakness...
...The truce in Korea was the decisive turning-point in the Indo-China war...
...But nothing essential changed...
...Furthermore, former French prisoners of the Vietminh reported that on their arrival in Communist POW camps they had to fill out detailed questionnaires, and a month later were closely examined by interrogating commissions...
...What they went through in 1915 and 1940, they went through for us...
...The war in Indo-China is symptomatic of the entire French situation...
...France suffered most of all...
...For four years, we have been importuning France to keep fighting-at the price of needed domestic reforms...
...According to this source...
...Such mixed feelings produce a paralysis of the will, which is precisely the reason France has been unable to ratify the European Defense Treaty...
...The authors of the BEIPI supplement conclude: "For a long time, the Communist treachery has been unmasked and defined...
...No French conscripts have taken part in the war...
...A gulf has come between Washington and Paris, and it has deepened year by year...
...We have asked France to do things, we have begged, we have threatened—all to no avail...
...But Germany is always right at France's elbow...
...Should EDC materialize by some miracle, how will the European Army withstand the disintegrating efforts of the French CP...
...How can we expect a worker who has seen no large-scale decent housing since 1914 to cheer for the old parties and the old politicians whose policies have put him in a dinky flat—and to do so, moreover, under the slogans of reviving the Wehrmacht and continuing the war in Indo-China...
...Even if she does ratify as a result of the pressure put on her, the situation will not improve...
...For this reason, 90 per cent of France's foreign policy is directed to the German problem...
...How would France behave as the leader of the European Defense Community...
...and 33.000 are missing...
...we must heal its chancres, not abandon the patient...
...This directive was discussed by the highest party leaders, who decided it would be passed on to "responsible militants," while its frank, cynical tone would be modified into "concrete" proposals for the rank-and-file...
...In the event of war with Russia, France would probably be as preoccupied with Germany as with Russia...
...Dienbienphu should sound as a clarion call to put an end to the sacrificing of nameless young German mercenaries for the doomed world of colonialism...
...But the mounting irritation of many Americans with French policies is futile so long as so many continue to hope that basic changes are possible in Paris in the foreseeable future...
...Governments fell and new governments emerged, always "friendly," always emphasizing the "great alliance" and "historic traditions...
...The Indo-China experience would be repeated on a large scale...
...Of all the countries to which America owes much, she owes most to the three which twice bore the brunt of German militarism and held the line, at fearsome cost, until America was compelled to fight for freedom...
...Communist organizations not only organized youth meetings, press campaigns and Assembly demonstrations aimed at the "disintegration of the Army," but even conducted a drive against the donation of blood for the wounded in Indo-China...
...Informed diagnosticians have shown us the symptoms and how they can be alleviated...
...As the French Empire shrinks, France's political horizons are narrowed to Europe, and in Europe Problem Number 1 to most Frenchmen is Germany...
...If her sacrifice has in some way or to some degree enfeebled her, it is our duty to work patiently and hard to restore that strength, no matter what the tribulations of the moment...
...That disagreement extends to the editors and contributors of The New Leader, among whom many approaches to the French problem are current...
...Had we used as our touchstone for French politicians the question...
...The French CP, it will be recalled, decided to greet the arrival of General Ridgway as NATO chief with massive and violent demonstrations...
...Three-fourths of the French force is the Foreign Legion, of which perhaps half the soldiers are German...
...It is the height of arrogance for the most material-minded nation on earth to condemn workers who choose to fight, in what they know is the most damaging fashion, for the decencies of life they have been so long denied in successive prewar, war and postwar periods...
...The alleviation of the Soviet danger would be balanced against the emergence of a united Germany with a population of 70 million (as against France's 42 million...
...For the first time since Clemenceau, there is a French Premier with a sense of urgency, with the rugged honesty to demand a cutting of the Gordian knot...
...Half the Dienbienphu garrison consisted of Legionnaires...
...The military force battling Communism in Southeast Asia has been French only to a small degree: American guns, Moroccan and German soldiers, French officers...
...Party leader Jacques Duclos declared: "We must insure the defeat, of the Army in Vietnam, Korea and Tunisia...
...France, however, would react with mixed feelings...
...If we can seriously consider leaving an embittered France to fend for herself between the new U.S...
...She received beautiful phrases, fine sets of conditions, pompous moralizing...
...He established, clearly enough for all who wanted to listen, the profound difference between the die-hard core of conscious Kremlin agents and the millions of dissatisfied workers registering their protest against the French powers-that-be who have given them so little...
...Or is it more sensible to recognize French realities, end our present futile efforts, and seek an alternative to this illusory alliance...
...Even the threat of Soviet expansionism is considered secondary...
...we might have helped France develop the kind of democratic Left which has immunized Britain, America and Scandinavia against Communism...
...It made available to Ho Chi Minh the undivided resources of Soviet war industry, and removed from Chinese Communism the threat of a war-to-the-finish with the United States...
...Another leader, Guyot, said that "the party must work for the disintegration of the expeditionary force...
...but not a single American soldier...
...46.000 Germans have died in Indo-China...
...French Communism must now be accounted an important factor in international relations...
...Will he revive mass faith in democracy...
...Yet, Washington greeted the ascension of Mendes-France not with dramatic proposals for cooperation in large-scale reforms, but with ultimatums about withdrawing aid and unilaterally rearming Germany...
...It seems to me that we must realize that France, our ally in two great wars against German militarism, is no real ally in the global struggle against Communism...
...How can even the most pro-American Frenchman with the slightest social conscience regard this with equanimity...
...To write off France for the sake of hurried German rearmament would be to betray not only the ideals of two World Wars but almost two centuries of revolutionary democracy...
...Has either of our parties had the gumption to propose the slightest deprivation to their constituents on behalf of Korea, Indo-China or any other part of the defenses of the free world...
...In August 1952, Rene Pleven, then Minister of Defense, ordered an investigation of Communist sabotage...
...As long ago as September 1951, the distinguished European analyst Herbert Luethy told us (in an article in Commentary) "Why Five Million Frenchmen Vote Communist...
...Is this the sort of military organization to which we can safely entrust our defense...
...The totalitarianism which now threatens France from within is a social disease...
...and Pierre Mendes-France has been the first Premier to openly propose their use (in the event no truce is signed at Geneva...
...In a recent booklet entitled The Foreign Legion Calls You, the German Social Democratic youth organization protested the use of the Legion in the service of French colonialism: "The Germans in Indo-China's jungles are being sacrificed for the cause of an economic class which refuses to realize that the era of colonial domination is over and that the suppressed peoples are fighting for their liberty and independence...
...We would hail such a Soviet move as the dawn of a new era, as the first real step toward peace...
...For a long time, insulted and betrayed France, the threatened Republic and our dead without graves in the Indo-China jungles have been crying out for justice...
...He ordered the initiation of "mass action against the manufacture of arms and munitions...
...Americans and Britons, by and large, would sigh with relief if the Soviet Occupation forces withdrew from East Germany and permitted a united democratic Germany...
...These three are Britain, Belgium and France...
...It was all part of the single all-Asian war against Communism: Britain was in Malaya, France in Indo-China, America in Korea...
...Nothing has been done to the Communist leaders who openly and systematically worked for the defeat of the French Army wherever it might fight...
...In sharp contrast with Communist actions to promote labor demands, this pro-Stalin demonstration flopped on its face...
...Meanwhile, their questionnaires had been verified in France, probably with the help of French pro-Vietminh organizations...
...With them the French generals would bring open and concealed Communist agents, determined to "insure the defeat of the Army...
...Had we devoted the same official and semi-official energy to promoting decent housing in France as we have to the European Army Treaty, we would have made serious inroads on French Communism—and might have gotten EDC in the bargain...
...instead of "Will he vote for guns so that we can cut our budget...
...But the administration which came to Washington pledged to "liberation" and a "hard" policy toward Communism did not hesitate to liquidate the Korean War on terms which not only Syngman Rhee but Dean Acheson had previously found unacceptable...
...So much for the "French" war "in defense of civilization...
...Once these emerged, France would try to curtail their armaments...
...Billoux said the party would "support all those who act effectively against the shipment and manufacture of war materials...
...A recent supplement to the Paris publication BEIPI (Bulletin d'Etudes et Informations Politiques Internationales), from which most of the above information is taken, gives other examples of Communist sabotage of French military plans...
...There certainly must be an "agonizing reappraisal" of our policy toward France, but it must be directed to giving the French people the New Deal their generations of sacrifice have earned...
...Yet, this has been our expectation for at least four years...
...After two months, the authorities came before the Assembly and asked that the Parliamentary immunity of the five Communist leaders be waived so that legal proceedings could be instituted against them...
...losses in Korea were 24,400 dead and 11,400 missing...
...She would continue to impede and delay the creation of German units...
...We gave France surplus American commodities—guns and greenbacks—and asked her to sacrifice her best young officers and any present chance of national renewal...
...Nowhere has this arrogant double-standard been better illustrated than in the crisis over Indo-China...
...More than 200,000 Germans have joined the Legion since V-E Day, among them former SS men, war criminals and German prisoners of war...
...What is most distressing about current anti-French agitation is that it comes at the moment when there is most hope for France's future...
...When, as a result, it became apparent that France could no longer win the Indo-China war alone, she applied to Washington for help...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 30
