France's Red-Rightist Axis

...From a purely logical standpoint, it would seem possible for the issue of domestic reform to be separated from that of foreign policy, and the issue of relations with Russia from that of the role of the French CP...

...In the same way, the Communists in France are ready to give any French "Mossadegh" a boost into the seats of power...

...Mossadegh was supported by the Communists even though he had no interest in social reforms...

...No one is as consistent in this fusing of domestic and foreign problems as the Communists...

...She was one of the thousands of "militants" whom the French Communist party is currently pressing into service, during the Berlin Conference, to express the "true voice" of the French people against Foreign Minister Bidault's "criminal" plans to create a "German" Europe and reduce France to the rank of an auxiliary in a new German war of aggression against the East...

...Indeed, prominent Gaullists speak at meetings of the Communist-led "Partisans of Peace," which only recently were denouncing the now-forgotten U.S...

...What the Communists, as agents of Soviet diplomacy, hope to achieve is obvious...

...If, in spite of this, the prospects for a new Popular Front are dim, it is the fault of the Communists...

...It is possible, of course, that the Communists will not have to sacrifice themselves completely, but will find their place in the "national revolution," in a new-style coalition of extreme nationalists and Communists, models for which already exist in the Arab world as well as in Latin America...

...For the time being, however, the situation is very different...

...Counterposed to the prospect of a Communist-backed national revolution is that of a European Community, which is by no means identical with the currently-debated plan for a European Army but which presupposes a spirit and a will of free European solidarity whose hour of trial has now struck...

...Is a new Popular Front at hand, a great coalition of the Left designed to carry out social reforms...

...This reversal has not been brought about by any event in France alone, but by an event far to the east: Stalin's death and the subsequent change in the "tone" of Russian foreign policy...

...How have the French Communists been able to smash the moral blockade which was formed against them in the years of sabotage, political strikes and bloody demonstrations against "Ridgway the Plague General," when, even though they had the support of a fourth of the French electorate, they were deprived of any direct political influence...

...A situation similar to that in Iran during Mossadegh's ascendancy might develop...

...Of course, the time is far from ripe for participation in the Government...

...The young militants now gathering signatures against German rearmament do not suspect that they are pawns in a diplomatic game conducted by distant powers and allies of an authoritarian nationalism which has nothing to do with their own social yearnings...

...It is, however, probable that such a movement would soon lend the French state authoritarian features...

...For the division between stagnation and progress in French society cuts across the division between the supporters and opponents of the European Community in a curious fashion...

...In reality, however, these issues merge in France, because the national crisis is so far advanced that questions of domestic and foreign policy can no longer be sharply separated...

...and any politician, whatever his social orientation, is worthy of praise and support so long as he is opposed to the European Community...

...The fate of the mighty German Communist party in 1933 and of the French Communist party after the Hitler-Stalin Pact shows that the temporary self-destruction of a powerful, legal mass party is by no means unheard-of within the framework of the world Communist movement...

...Germain des Pres entrance to the Metro, extending a sheet covered with signatures...

...The question remains, however, why their pseudo-nationalism is taken seriously by people who previously saw through them...

...I might also have asked her—though clever remarks like that always occur to one afterward—whether she was really a Gaullist or a Communist...

...In the long run, of course, there is the risk that the Communists will support French nationalism in the same way that the noose supports a hanged man...

...In the election of Le Troquer as Assembly President, however, their assistance was no longer harmful nor was it scorned, even though it has so far drawn no expressions of gratitude or attempts to return the favor...

...Francois Bondy, Swiss journalist, is editor of Preuves, French magazine of the Congress for Cultural Freedom...

...It was enough that he was the representative of a radical anti-Western nationalism...

...But the Communists' influence in Parliament, which has made itself felt in the election of a successor to Herriot as President of the National Assembly and in deciding the composition of the Parliamentary committees, signifies their re-entry into the game of party politics...

...2) the approach of major decisions on European unity, which appealed to everyone so long as it was merely a subject for inspirational speeches, but disturbs both the great traditions and the petty interests now that it is being tackled seriously...

...Thus, for example, a Communist poster attacking the Gaullists in connection with the Indo-Chinese "piastre scandal" was suppressed by the party before it appeared: One does not offend one's allies...

...3) the Communists' readiness to postpone their struggle for power and give up, for the foreseeable future, the conquest of the state machinery and even participation in the Government...

...It's an appeal against the rearmament of Germany...

...The great task, therefore, is not to create a Popular Front against the trusts, the alcohol interests and the reactionary bourgeoisie, but to forge a "national front" against the Schuman-Bidault policy, to jar France loose from the Atlantic Alliance and the European Community...

...But what an eternity two years can be in politics...

...Such supporters and opponents are to be found on the Left as well as on the Right, and the conflict between an Andre Philip and a Jules Moch within the Socialist party is as sharp on this issue as any of those which divide the various parties...

...For the stubbornness of those forces which are to blame for the stagnation of the French economy is so enormous that it seems impossible to shake them without the Communist battering ram...

...Russia is not interested in seeing the French Communists achieve power too openly, for that would automatically extend the Kremlin's foreign-policy commitments, which would be highly inconvenient at present...

...Of course, for the benefit of the party rank-and-file the social struggle goes on—but without the old fire...

...When one considers how many Frenchmen are committed either to the Moscow-determined policy of the CP or to the creation of a supranational European Community, it is clear that only a minority remains which still believes in purely national solutions to French problems...

...Of course, it was not so long ago that General de Gaulle was assailing the Communists as "separatists" who no longer belonged to the national community, and was reproaching the Center parties for showing insufficient firmness in resisting Communism...

...Whether the Gaullists or some other group would be the ones to carry out this "national revolution" cannot be said with certainty...

...In proportion as the Soviet Union once more seemed suitable as an ally, the French Communists became once more suitable as coalition partners...

...For, in their campaign against the European Community, the Gaullists not only take the same line as the Communists but have even adopted their style...

...Three factors are at work here: (1) the hope that, by establishing better relations with the Soviet Union and the entire East bloc (Poland is mentioned in particular), France can play a bigger role in world affairs and check the revival of Germany...

...This is not the first time, of course, that the French Communists have come forward as spokesmen for extreme nationalism...

...The third factor is the most potent: When a party which is, after all, the strongest single one in the country places itself at the disposal of other forces as an instrument and a subservient ally, it is creating a very great temptation...

...France's involvement in the work of European unity has already gone so far that a return to nationalism, which would destroy that undertaking, would necessarily be revolutionary rather than conservative in character...

...The votes which they cast for Naegelin, Socialist candidate for President of the Republic, were a virtual "kiss of death," and Naegelin himself accused them of deliberately sabotaging his candidacy through their support...

...In the last postal employes' strike at Christmas, the statesmanlike restraint of the Communist union leaders was the most striking factor...

...Just as the Left is sorely tempted to make use of the Communists' dynamism in the interests of a social revolution, a section of the Right is tempted to employ it in the interests of the national revolution...

...germ warfare...

...For them, the priority of foreign policy is absolute...

...What is new—and curious to see—is the alacrity with which the traditional nationalists are making use of this aid in a common struggle against what they regard as the greatest and most threatening danger: the European Community...

...Now, suddenly, they have succeeded in breaking out of these fortresses, which include chiefly the Communist unions...

...For more than six years, the French Communists have remained in a state of isolation which they themselves chose (or which Moscow chose for them...

...There would have been no point in irritating the zealous young girl, who had not yet filled her quota of signatures for the day, by asking why this "true voice" always coincided with Molotov's diplomatic aims and why it had been silent when Stalin, shortly before his death, called for a sovereign, armed Germany...

...A large segment of those Frenchmen who, while not Communists, are eager for reform would be friendly to the idea...

...Just as in 1939, the likeliest prospect is for the cold-blooded temporary sacrificing of the French CP in order to support a "national revolution" which would completely Balkanize all of Western Europe...

...From the peak of the Zhdanov lunacy to Stalin's death, they retired into political dissidence, like the Huguenots of old in their fortresses...