Algeria Plagues French Communism:

...For five-and-a-half years, Moscow gave little support of any kind to the rebels, and until late 1959 the French Communist party was reluctant to recognize the FLNbacked Provisional Government of Ferhat Abbas (GPRA) as the legitimate spokesman for Algerian nationalism...

...in fact, until recently, it used its political strength to try to end the conflict within the framework of the French Union...

...But by the end of that year the party was supporting Algeria's claim to independence...

...Servin and Casanova's real crime, however, was their failure to perform an ideological somersault quickly enough...

...The French Communists were therefore able to reconcile Russian policy with national sentiment by denouncing America's "imperialistic designs" upon Algeria and calling for the maintenance of close constitutional ties between the North African territory and France as the only deterrent to U.S...

...During that period, although the party remained critical of the Government's social and economic policies, there was a noticeable lack of aggressiveness...

...To cover its own weaknesses and to reimpose party discipline, a purge was obviously in order and Servin and Casanova were chosen to take the blame...

...it deliberately avoided any subversive extremism that might endanger its legal existence or its press...

...Yet, until the end of 1960, it continued to withhold active support of the FLN and refrained from taking any position that might be subversive...

...Indeed, the French Communist party's influence in Algerian nationalist circles would seem to be very slight at the present time...

...With the possibility of peace and some kind of Algerian self-government strengthened by recent talks between de Gaulle and Tunisian President Habib Rourguiba and reports of renewed contact between the French and the FLN, the party's latest shift to all-out support of the rebels may not do much good...

...But the Russian attitude changed rapidly as de Gaulle took a position against the unification of Europe and insisted on independent leadership in Europe in opposition to Anglo-American policy...

...colonialism...

...Such a hard anti-Gaullist line was difficult for the party to maintain in the face of the General's popularity (it lost over a million voters who failed to follow the party's instructions to vote "no" in the referendum of September 1958) and can hardly be explained on the basis of French considerations alone...

...Neither Benoit Frachon of the CGT nor Laurent Casanova of the Peace Movement was able to persuade his group to endorse a "no" vote on the referendum, and the party itself failed to regain any of the million Communist voters who had ignored instructions at the previous referendum...

...Clearly, the local Communist position was largely shaped by Khrushchev's initially hostile reaction to de Gaulle...

...It might be a matter of too little and too late...

...Servin and Casanova were made the scapegoats for the Communist setback in the January referendum on Algerian self-determination...

...At the next party congress, scheduled for May, they will probably be dropped from the Central Committee...

...Algeria also helped to foster the Communist's popular front efforts...

...As a result, the party has cut itself off entirely from any influential contact with the FLN, and the lack of support from either Russia or France has caused the complete destruction of the Algerian Communist party...

...No organization of this kind could have survived for decades without a fanatically devoted membership...

...Thus the Communists faithfully supported the Socialist Government of Guy Mollet through most of 1956...

...For example, they have been credited with the assassinations in March 1960 of an Algerian medical student in Belgium, who was probably an FLN agent, and a professor of history at the University of Liège, who was probably a victim of mistaken identity...

...Some of its top leaders were committed to a "Gaullist" line, arid the party was hard-pressed, in the few short weeks that remained before the January referendum, to impose its will on the front organizations...

...Rut there is little doubt that they have helped to train an extensive network of Algerian agents...

...Soviet propaganda on Algeria at the time was directed not against France, but against the United States...

...Such an eruption was the apprehension of Michel Raptis, known as "Pablo," and Solomon Santen, which recently made front-page news in West European newspapers...

...But disciplinary action alone will not end the party's difficulties...

...German and Dutch authorities closed in on the press, which was located just inside the German border, soon after the first bills had been run off...

...The full extent of the Fourth International's underground work on behalf of the FLN will probably never be known: In addition to working through their own groups, their agents have infiltrated other organizations (including the French Communist party and the "Jeanson network," a group of some 25 intellectuals, led by Sorbonne professor Francis Jeanson, who were tried last fall for encouraging desertion and aiding the Algerian rebels...

...In the early summer of 1960 the Dutch and German police smashed a network of counterfeiters headed by Raptis and Santen...

...The outbreak of the Algerian revolt in November 1954 took the Communist party—and most other French political groups—completely by surprise...

...Roth the international organization and the French section have given unqualified support to the FLN-led rebellion since 1955...

...At the very start of the revolt the party called upon the Government to stamp out the uprising and punish its leaders...

...Although as late as September 28 Thorez had rejected de Gaulle's qualified offer of Algerian self-determination, within a month the party completely reversed its stand...

...In June 1960 they began printing French 100 new franc ($20) notes for the FLN...

...Its followers combine a mystic faith in Marxist revolutionary doctrine with great skill in clandestine activities...

...Internally, the Algerian issue served to create popular unrest and Government instability, although the party refrained from any extensive agitation...

...But by the late fall of 1960 the honeymoon was over...

...During October Thorez was in East Germany, and on the 23rd of that month it was announced that Khrushchev would pay a state visit to France and plans were being made for a summit meeting...

...Although, compared to the Communist party, the Fourth International is a tiny group, its influence should not be underestimated...

...he and his wife successfully printed two clandestine newspapers and counterfeited numerous identity cards during the Occupation, valuable experience for their later activities...

...With the collapse of the Paris summit meeting and hardening of the Moscow line, the party gradually broke contact with the non-Communist Left and renewed its absolute opposition to de Gaulle...

...Both Marcel Servin, Secretary of the party's Central Committee, and Laurent Casanova, head of the fellow-traveling Peace Movement, had refused to go along with the new policies of absolute opposition to the President and wholehearted unilateral support of the Algerian rebels...

...Their story tells a good deal about the Fourth International's work...

...Similarly, although it is difficult to determine how much success the Fourth International has had in gaining a position of real influence among FLN leaders, it is clear that its position is more secure than other Left-wing groups, including the Communists...

...The collapse of the Fourth Republic and the advent of de Gaulle forced the party to recognize Algeria as a major issue—and to change its stand once more...

...They were obviously no ordinary criimnals since "Pablo" was known to be the head of the international organization and Santen, a Dutch Marxist, was probably the leader of the Dutch section...

...For their disobedience, they were publicly censured and removed from the 13-man Politburo...

...The party's Central Committee quickly covered up for Thorez by putting the blame for the "blunder" on Jacques Duclos, Leon Feix and other top leaders...

...The normal risks involved in this illegal work, pursued purely for ideological aims, were compounded by the activties of French undercover agents who are employed to break up clandestine groups working for the FLN...

...The French party thus has much lost ground to regain—-no easy task, particularly since other Left-wing groups have actively courted the FLN in recent years...

...Despite vigorous party opposition, 75 per cent of the electorate voted "yes" to de Gaulle's proposals...

...The party leadership attempted to conciliate itself with the regime: Thorez appeared at official functions, the word was passed to Communist municipalities to give de Gaulle civic receptions when he passed through on his periodic trips, and, by resuming ties with other Left-wing movements and mass organizations, an attempt was made to become part of the "loyal opposition...

...Six years of following the twists and turns of Soviet policy have left the party without a foothold in the FLN and without any strong Communist group in the territory...

...Moreover, there still appears to be a good deal of sentiment against the new line within the party, in the front organizations, in the Communist-controlled Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and among fellow-traveling intellectuals...

...The threat of an Army-led coup from Algeria in May briefly put 'the party in the position of defending constitutional government, but with de Gaulle's rise to power it declared its complete opposition to all aspects of his regime...

...They not only failed to back the party's stand on the referendum, he charged, but they favored cooperating with other Leftist groups in aiding the Algerian nationalist movement...

...Nevertheless, the party's public statements on Algeria throughout 1957 and early 1958 continued to be cautious...

...Fully aware that Moscow's position and internal considerations have limited the ability of the French Communists to penetrate Algerian rebel circles, the Trotskyites have taken full advantage of the ideological vacuum...

...The party condemned conscientious objectors who refused, on moral grounds, to perform their military service in Algeria, and rejected the declaration of the 121 intellectuals who, at the risk of prosecution, supported the right of these men to follow their own consciences...

...The party gave no help, either legal or clandestine, to the FLN...

...Until the events of May 1958, Algeria was not really considered a major issue by the French Communist party...

...THE PRESENT Communist line of complete opposition to de Gaulle and all-out support of the Algerian nationalists has perhaps been imposed too late to help establish party influence in the FLN...

...In the spring of that year, Mollet made a state visit to Moscow and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev publicly expressed his confidence in France's ability to find an equitable solution to the Algerian problem...

...Further sanctions may well be taken against other party leaders, and the front groups will undoubtedly be forced to toe the line...

...Sometime in 1958 Raptis and his wife moved to Amsterdam, probably because their underground support of the FLN had forced them to leave France...

...The important December meetings in Moscow of 81 Communist parties forced the party to accelerate its reorientation...

...Thorez was given just a few days to acknowledge that de Gaulle's offer had some merit, thus preparing the way for Khrushchev's statement on October 31 expressing his confidence in France's ability to solve the Algerian problem within the existing framework...

...As the Algerian conflict spread, the Communists proposed economic and social reforms within the framework of a French Union, rejecting both the National Liberation Front (FLN) and its goal of Algerian independence...

...These agents, commonly known as La Main Rouge, have allegedly resorted to murder in a number of instances...

...Indeed, until very recently much of their alleged heresy was open party doctrine...

...It was a difficult shift for the party to make in such short order...

...A short while later its policies began to reflect a more cautious and uncertain stand...

...The Kremlin recognized that de Gaulle could be exploited as a "third force" neutralist element in order to weaken the Western alliance, and by the middle of 1958 the French leader appeared as a convenient intermediary to promote Khrushchev's campaign for a summit meeting...

...They have not confined their activities to propaganda and moral support: There is good reason to believe they have sought to place advisors close to the FLN leaders, and an occasional eruption from underground indicates they are extending clandestine help to the FLN in France and elsewhere in Europe...

...The world-wide Communist movement expressed its support of all peoples "seeking liberation from imperialist colonialism," and Khrushchev, for the first time, clearly attacked the French Government by singling out the Algerian conflict as an example of "just and sacred" wars that are "inevitable" and must be backed by Communism...

...Gradually, as the other Left-wing and Center parties modified their positions, the Communists changed their stand...

...Probably the Communists' major rival in this respect is the Trotskyist Fourth International, one of the party's traditional enemies...

...The present crisis reflects a dilemma which has plagued the French Communists for six years: how to reconcile the requirements of being part of a worldwide militant movement with the intricacies of France's attitude toward Algeria...

...They also served the Algerian rebels as purchasing agents for arms and ammunition...

...Raptis and Santen were probably betrayed by a double agent who tipped off the French...

...Surrounded by enemies, their very survival depends upon a sure knowledge of their craft as underground agents...

...The impact of the Hungarian Revolution in France made a "correct" Algerian line almost a necessity: Seriously isolated from the rest of the nation by its support of Soviet intervention in Hungary, and faced with the loss of thousands of members, the party was anxious to regain its influence both within its own ranks and in the country at large...

...The new "Gaullist" phase lasted just one year...

...In March 1957, Laurent Casanova told the National Assembly that Algeria had to be kept within the French Union for the sake of its own development as well as to protect the European population...

...They acknowledged the existence of an Algerian national personality and began advocating a negotiated settlement with the rebel leaders...

...Party chief Maurice Thorez then accused his two former assistants of having followed a "Gaullist" line since 1958...

...These policies resulted from an attempt to harmonize national considerations with Soviet international objectives at the time...

...Raptis was born in Greece but settled in France as a student before the war...

...It stuck closely to a "national" line, denouncing the FLN for its terrorism and calling for an end to the war...

...With the help of a local printer, they turned out false identity papers for FLN agents, which the police later admitted were of a very high quality...

...When the Soviets launched their "friendship" offensive, aimed primarily at France, in the fall of 1959, the French Communist party was completely unprepared for the switch...

...Following the line set by Moscow, the party took relatively little interest in the Algerian conflict—a serious misjudgment in the light of what was to come—and directed most of its efforts against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, German rearmament, missilelaunching sites, etc...

...By George B. Boswell ALGERIA PLAGUES FRENCH COMMUNISM Abrupt shifts in Soviet policy have caused major party split and purge of top leaders Paris The most recent twist in the French Communist party's longwavering line on General de Gaulle and Algeria made headlines here recently when two of the party's top leaders were purged for alleged "Right-wing deviationism...

...Rut the Raptis-Santen group was not deterred by the threat of La Main Rouge...