Glad confident mourning?

Frank Johnson

This is the capital for which the death of the world's most important Communist traditionally poses problems of tone, eti- quette, and nuance unknown to Washing- ton, London or Bonn. The problems are Washing- ton, here by Communists, non- Communists, anti-Communists and anti- anti-Communists alike. After all, Paris, unlike others, rules a Country in which Communists command votes: not little piles of them that do not so Much as add up to a deposit saved, but intilions of the priceless things. True, there are fewer of them than in the golden age of the French Communist Party's electoral history in the decade after the war. Then, for a while, a Communist was Minister of befence. But they have enough votes to en - sure i that passing around pieces of paper in he tranquil, limestone ministerial buildings of the seventh arrondissement are again Communists holding real, if less amusing, Portfolios such as Transport. Indeed, there sometimes seems to be only one political news item sent from France to the outside be when will the Communists resign or be ejected from the government, with what results for strikes and general chaos? Fur- thermore, the French party is not led by the sanitised 'Eurocommunists' of the Mediter- ranean basin, with good suits, darting white cuffs and Cinzano-advertisement names such as Enrico. France's Communists no longer have much time for 'Eurocom- munism' and probably do not believe it ever d w. on them a single vote. In fact, their vote eclined during its heyday. And they are stilt led by the pug-faced, definitely pro- etarian M. Georges Marchais. M. President Mitterrand, his Prime Minister ManroY, and the other bourgeois Socialists of the coalition play an elaborate game with these people, distancing themselves in order to be moderate, but do- ing nothing that would send the Com- munists out of the government at a time other than Mitterandiste choosing. The Communists play too. Their electoral sup- port is, by historical standards, low — 15 per cent or so in the opinion polls. They will make it lower with a mistimed resignation and strike calls that go unheeded by the workers. So a big Soviet death is a matter of French internal politics. Wording is all. M. Mitterrand thus had to show a de- cent respect to satisfy the large body of workers in the factories who could strike his government into oblivion, but not so much respect as to offend the still larger body who vote Socialist, not Communist. So, on

hearing the news, he reflected that 'beyond the political debate, often severe, always serious, he never forgot that there existed, and continued to exist, between the Russian and French peoples a rich and strong history of common struggles' — Russian people, not Soviet Communist Party. As for the deceased, M. Mitterrand, after noting that he did not know him personally, said he was 'a personality who always seem- ed to me very strong, who could constitute a stable factor in the conduct of public af- fairs, of personal authority, of knowledge of dossiers...' The latter was either an un- characteristically ill-chosen word from this master of language, or a subtle reference, for moderate consumption, to Mr And- ropov's employment in intelligence work.

M. Claude Cheysson, the Foreign Minister, broke the news of the death to a meeting of Third World trade negotiators in Brussels and organised a minute's silence 'in memory of the leader of one of the greatest countries of the world'. Carefully chosen words, especially as they could refer to mere geographical or military, rather than moral, size. But a minute's silence? M.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the right- wing National Front, seized on that. In a studio surrounded by riot police and left- wing demonstrators he appeared on Mon- day on the sort of big television interview show from which he is normally excluded — deftly fielding questions about racism and anti-semitism put by those respectable journalists in good suits who do such work on television the world over. He was a comfortable-looking, mischievous man. A minute's silence for Andropov, he pro- tested. Why not stand in silence for the millions murdered by Communism? Where- upon he rose and did so. A bore in one of the suits said he would like to carry on with his question about National Front economic policy and did so while M. Le Pen

stared out in silence at a doubtless riveted nation while the bore babbled, resuming his seat to deal with economics. M. Cheysson will have regretted being the instrument of this coup de theatre widely spoken of in cafe and metro the following day.

But it is to France's Communists them- selves that words are most important on these occasions. When a Soviet leader dies they ensure him a proper send-off. The standard by which all others must be judged was occasioned by a bereavement towards the end of that golden electoral age of French Communism. 'Dreadful news,' warned the headline of the black-bordered

front page of L'Humanite. 'Stalin is dead.' A yellow cellophane-wrapped original,

from 1953, can be had for £10 along the

Seine, selling alongside war-time Figaros leading on Marshal Petain's New Year

message. 'The workers of the whole world, the people all over the earth, are in mourn- ing.' The words of the final communique, which alas have to be credited to a capitalist American news agency, tread sombrely

across the page, ending with some comfort for the future: Vive notre puissante patrie socialiste', and so on. A special ten-page

edition includes an album of photographs and detailed medical text on the state of the organs and the attempts to treat them by Soviet medicine.

L'Humanites morticians deployed fewer of their skills on Andropov. But it was a tasteful job nonetheless. No black border but the decencies were observed. 'Death of Andropov', the headline began, the paper breaking the news more stoically than in 1953. 'With the direction of the Soviet Communist Party, he undertook important reforms,' the headline continued. 'His name will remain attached to numerous propositions for peace and disarmament formulated by the Soviet Government.' Whatever its truth, this made him out to be rather a bore. Moreover, L 'Human/MI was perhaps unsure how the workers of the whole world were this time bearing up under their loss because it did not mention them. Instead, its Moscow correspondent described the reaction in the Soviet capital, where we had to take his word for it. `Grief,' he began his dispatch. 'This is the sole mot juste to describe the atmosphere today in Moscow. The news of the demise of Yuri Andropov spread very quickly this afternoon among Muscovites. One passed in the streets, where the snow had again started to fall, or on the Metro, people literally prostrate.' Presumably he meant from grief rather than from the more usual rot-gut vodka.

The special pages included as well as an account of Andropov's alleged rise from factory to leadership of his country a pic- ture of Samantha: that bothersome little girl from Maine who wrote to the deceased complaining about his missiles and was in- vited to meet him in person. All that the White House had to say about the delightful creature, lamented L 'Humanife, was `No comment'.

M. Marchais issued a statement begin- ning: 'I learn with great emotion of the passing of Yuri Andropov. I met him twice.' The first time, in November 1982, Georges was struck by 'his openness of spirit, his energy and his sense of dialogue'. The second meeting only strengthened this impression that he was a decent type, one gathered.

The Party knows it is mocked for all this, but does not care. And they have long given up on the Parisian intelligentsia whose papers greeted Andropov's death, and Chernenko's accession, with a commen- dably judged mixture of despair and levity. The Party was founded by intellectuals but by the opening of the 1950s we find the old leader Thorez warning that intellectuals concerned for niceties, and anxious to pre- vent themselves from being attacked by other intellectuals, only confused the minds of faithful Communists in the factories.

The Party's kingdom is not of this world, then. It must do nothing to weaken faith in the world to come. In a way, it is a tribute to its respect for the power of words. Perhaps it is not much different from the attitude of the old Right such as Charles Maurras who soon realised that Dreyfus

was innocent but believed that the news would threaten community and unity in dangerous times. Chance took this reporter, on the day after Andropov's death, to the city's old Red quarter. Not a copy of L'Humanite to be seen in the two bars nearest the inspirationally named Metro Stalingrad. The workers sipped kir and pastis over the racing pages of the sports daily L 'Equipe. Perhaps it was no different on that day in 1953 when Stalin, as the Party would have it, was taken from them. Perhaps there was never an age of faith.