THE FRENCH COMMUNISTS
Sra,—In the Spectator of May 27th you publish a letter by Miss Frida Stewart which I cannot leave unanswered. Being French and having worked with the Free French movements, I really believe that your correspondent makes (to use her own words) misleading assertions. I think there was " disguise " when the Communist Party adopted nationalist vocabulary—Fronz Nationat, La Marseillaise, and so forth and so on— and pretended to be a French party.
It is true, however, that quite a lot of Communists joined in the Free French movements as soon as France was occupied by the German*, notwithstanding the Germano-Russian pact. of 1939. They had the nationalist reflex they would have again if the Russians were to occupy their motherland Later on in some underground movements like the
one I belonged to you could meet Communists and right-wing people of the Cagoulard type working together. Anyhow, some movements of purely Communist origin worked on the French land like Russian guerrillas. They were fighting against the Germans for the Red Army, and managed to get hold of the French administrative and politic system for a coming Red revolution in- France. Even in the rank and file of these movements there were non-Communist elements who did not mind who they were fighting with so far as they were waging war against the " Boche." It is untrue to say that left-wing resistants are persecuted because they are left-wing ; they were prosecuted only because their action went beyond what could be excused even in the special circum- stances of guerrilla war.
Finally I should like to know why Miss Frida Stewart thinks she is entitled to give suggestions to the French Government in the name and for the sake of the French People. I should not like, myself, to tell the English Government that I would rather see Mr. Churchill Prime Minister instead of Mr. Attlee, if that was how I felt. I do not belong to any political party and I am not likely to.—Yours faithfully, R.M.Z. Paris.
Previous page
