Paris

ON THE WORLD TODAY

COMMUNISM has lost its immediate chance in France. A post-war series of referenda and elections has failed so far to produce a Fourth Republic or even to show what the French want as the permanent form of their future government. But it has shown what they do not want — totalitarian government of the left.

The majority of the French seem very proud of this feat. By rejecting a system which they did not like and which really did not suit them — despite pressure from the two largest political parties, the Communist and the Socialist — they feel they demonstrated to a sometimes doubting world that they still possess those qualities of independence, logic, and political awareness for which they have always been famous.

The referendum whereby a Socialist-Communist constitution was turned down May 5 emerges as a miracle of modern politics. All calculable evidence favored adoption of the constitution. Last October, an apathetic electorate had authorized the Constituent Assembly to draft a new law of the land and had sent a Socialist-Communist majority to the Assembly.

The document that resulted from six months of deliberation, although supported only by Communists and Socialists, was adopted April 19 by the Assembly. The Popular Republican Movement, the third party in the Cabinet, disavowed it but did not have the courage to quit the government. The document was submitted to the people with a strong campaign for approval based on the slogan “We must get over being provisional.”

Every public poll and prophecy indicated that the constitution would be accepted by 54 to 56 per cent of the electorate. The result — a majority of more than a million, or 53 per cent, opposed — was one of the most startling upsets in the political history of France where trends can usually be foreseen quite accurately.

But even the worst enemies of the constitution generally acknowledged that the time and effort spent on the document were not in vain. It contained many fine provisions, some nobly expressed ideals, and a well-organized outline for the institution of a Fourth Republic.

The outstanding feature of the post-referendum election campaign was an outburst of Red-baiting antiCommunist propaganda, indulged in even by Socialists, such as has not been seen in France since the Communist Party became respectable in the wartime resistance movement. The Socialists, who had refused to conduct a joint campaign with the Communists but made parallel efforts, plaintively accused the Communists of having converted the referendum into an attempt to take power, thereby leading them to joint defeat. The more conservative parties brought up all the old anti-Comintern charges of pre-war and early war days.

Old quarrels fester

The nastiest of all the arguments concentrated on Maurice Thorez. The rightist press revived the allegation that the secretary general of the Communist Party was a deserter, having quit his Army unit and taken refuge in the safety of the Soviet Union in 1939 when France was at war and Russia was still a friend of Germany. Among those who leveled this charge was Andre le Trocquer, Socialist Minister of the Interior, and co-member of the Cabinet with Thorez, who was Vice Premier.

The campaign assumed such proportions that the Communist Party was forced to take formal cognizance of it. The party issued for the first time an official account—signed by Jacques Duclos and Benoit Frachon, secretaries of the party — of what it called “the national activity of Maurice Thorez in 1939.”

They said that after the Communist Party was outlawed in 1939 and a number of Communists were arrested, they became convinced that the Daladier government was attempting to deliver France to fascism. “ We took the responsibility,” they asserted, “both in the name of the central committee and with the approval of all militants who could be consulted, of ordering Maurice Thorez to leave the unit in which he had been mobilized in order to come and take his place at our head in the combat that we had waged against fascists abroad and at home. ... It was because we acted thus that Maurice Thorez was able to work at our head in clandestine leadership of our party.”

The apology was ineffective. Everyone knew that Thorez spent the war years not in the underground but in Russia; and it was obvious what the Communist Party would have done if it had been in power in time of war and the leader of the opposition group had left his post because he disagreed with its policy. The only apology in such a case would have been a post-mortem.

There were serious rumors that Thorez had become a heavy liability to his party in its losing struggle and that he would have to resign as secretary general. Jacques Duclos, author of the letter which altered the line of the Communist Party in the United States from support of the government to old-fashioned dissidence, and the man who tried to assume responsibility for the weak wartime record of Thorez, is now the outstanding figure of the party.

Why de Gaulle quit

One man who was not surprised by the development of the provisional regime was Charles de Gaulle. Having resigned as president in January without any adequate explanation, he remained in retirement at the presidential hunting lodge in Marly-le-Roi outside Paris. But he predicted accurately the result of the referendum. De Gaulle, who has an unusual faculty for judging events of the day with perspective, confided to friends his belief that the Communists now could never come to power in France.

De Gaulle reasoned along these lines: the Communists had two opportunities to take over power. The first was the illegal opportunity of August, 1944, at the moment of the liberation of Paris, when the Communists were the only armed party and might have seized control by force. They were forestalled by the early arrival of General Leclerc’s Division and by the appearance of de Gaulle with a ready-made government.

Their other opportunity was the legal one of May 5, 1946, when approval of their constitution, which provided an all-powerful Assembly, would have given them, as the largest political party, the right to lead the government.

The rejection of the constitution, de Gaulle felt, justified his departure from the presidency in January. When he arranged for the referendum of October 21, 1945, to revise the Constitution of 1875, it was with a provision for a second referendum to pass on whatever the Assembly should do. This, as he put it, was a tin can he tied to the tail of the Communists. In January he realized that the constitution then being drafted would bring the Communists to power. If he remained as chief of the government, he felt that the people would approve the document. By resigning he had defeated the constitution.

With an electoral system of national proportional representation, little decisive change was then to be foreseen in comparative strength of the parties, no one of them having sufficient following to obtain a majority. For an indefinite period France would have a government composed of three or four parties, including the Communists, but without a Communist premier.

Such a government, however, could not make fundamental decisions; it could only reach compromises acceptable to each of its component parts. General de Gaulle foresaw the time — perhaps in six months, perhaps in two years — when decisions avoided by multiparty cabinets would have to be made. At that time he expected to be called back as president to make those decisions.

De Gaulle was willing to concede that he failed twice in his life — in 1934, when he could not convince the French High Command that the next war would be mechanized; and in 1940, when he could not persuade Paul Reynaud to go to Africa as premier to keep France in the war. He resigned as president in 1946 realizing that he could not direct the destiny of France and refusing to accept another failure. But he remained confident of success if he should be given another chance. This, of course, was prejudiced prophecy, for de Gaulle wanted to come back to power. But it is worth remembering in view of his astonishing record as a prophet.

L’affaire Passy

Until the results of the referendum were known, a conviction that their hero was being persecuted prevailed among de Gaulle’s followers. They complained that he was being kept out in the cold, virtually isolated and under a guard that amounted to police surveillance. Several of them reported minor indignities — such as the interruption of his telephone service and discourtesies on the part of servants — which added up to major proportions. This feeling reached its height on the day of the referendum, with the report that Colonel Passy, former chief of the Gaullist secret service in London, had been arrested.

The Passy affair combined several fascinating elements: espionage, millions of francs, and dark hints of higher-ups being involved. On the day of the referendum, de Gaulle’s followers feared he too would be arrested. The government quickly denied that the affair had any political implications. Gradually charges emerged that Passy and his associates, in handling secret funds of espionage and counterespionage, had stowed away some ten million francs for themselves. The story degenerated into one of a weak young man, tempted beyond his powers of resistance, succumbing to the selfish use of powers entrusted to him by an unsuspecting chief.

De Gaulle towered above any suspicion of implication in the affair, beyond the natural one of not having exercised sufficient supervision over his associates. He was invited to join the representatives of the government on May 12 at the Arc de Triomphe in reviewing of the parade commemorating Joan of Arc Day and the first anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe.

The parade, despite drizzling rain, was a brilliant performance. President Felix Gouin was accompanied by a dazzling array of dignitaries. At his left was the King of Cambodia, a small province of IndoChina; at his right, the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, who took the day off from their discussions of peace treaties for Europe. The Army produced all the prewar units — spahis, Chasseurs Alpins, tanks, trucks, and artillery — with something new added in battalions of American and British MP’s, which incidentally drew the loudest applause.

Many Frenchmen lined the Champs Elysees for the show. The skeptical realized that it could not be considered a demonstration of force, for this force had failed France in 1940. And it could not be enjoyed as a thing of beauty, for traces of ugliness of war were not far distant. But as a circus it was splendid. When President Gouin drove away afterward, there were shouts of “Vive de Gaulle!”

De Gaulle’s private journey

But de Gaulle was not there. He had chosen that day instead to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Clemenceau, World War I premier, near Mouchamps in La Vendee. The visit was purely symbolic. De Gaulle had given a propaganda promise on November 11, 1941, to go to the tomb some day to tell Clemenceau he could sleep in peace, that France was again saved. He went without political entanglements.

The pilgrimage had its farcical side. Leading correspondents in Paris, both French and foreign, deserted the capital and drove the 300 miles to La Vendee on a hot tip that de Gaulle was going to make an important pronouncement — perhaps proclaiming his start toward a comeback to power. They listened impatiently to his non-political speech at the tomb, played hide-and-seek with him across the countryside, and finally caught up with him at the chateau of Michel Clemenceau, son of the late premier, only to hear in complete disappointment that de Gaulle had nothing to say.

France rebuilds

Much as any Frenchman would hesitate to admit it, things were really going better. No over-all economic indices or statistics could be found to support the contention, but it was an apparent fact. It could be seen in numerous small improvements electricity and gas were functioning normally; prewar bus lines were being resumed; taxis were again circulating; hotel rooms once more were available. Twenty-nine days passed in Paris without the report of a single major crime to the police. Rain drenched the fields which last year were blighted by drought. Factories were turning out products for a population still famished for consumers’ goods.

Reconstruction progressed steadily. Of 1,424,000 war-damaged buildings, 400,000 had been restored and 750,000 partly repaired. Work on 25,000 new dwellings was under way. Of 1,000,000 acres of mine fields, 800,000 had been neutralized by removal of 12,000,000 mines. Time and work were having their healing effect, little as day-to-day progress was apparent.

The principal complaint was about food — not so much about the supply as about the way it was being distributed. About 85 per cent of the national food production was estimated to be escaping government controls and passing through the black market. Those who depended on ration tickets were not receiving even the minute quantities of fats, meat, and bread to which they were entitled. But for those who could pay there was plenty. Generous Uncle Sam, with his new interests and commitments in Europe, figured largely in both the economic and the political situations. The Soviet Union had sent some wheat and Poland some coal to France, but the United States offered ships and, above all, dollars.

The Socialist former premier, Leon Blum, who went to Washington as special ambassador to arrange the loan, came back the most popular man in France. And the United States was without doubt the most popular of all countries.