Очерки истории Франции XX–XXI веков. Статьи Н. Н. Наумовой и ее учеников

Вот почему, выступая на пресс-конференции 21 апреля, де Голль предложил «группировку западноевропейских стран с основными артериями Ла-Маншем, Средиземным морем и Рейном» включить в некую «международную организацию»^[310]. Чтобы подготовить сближение с СССР и заключить с ним союзный договор, 7 мая 1944 г. в Тунисе де Голль недвусмысленно подчеркнул необходимость союза «с дорогой, могущественной Россией»^[311]. 24 мая в беседе с советским послом А.Е Богомоловым Массигли доверительно сообщил: «Не стоит вопроса о том, чтобы задумывать европейскую организацию без участия СССР»^[312].

Однако уже после открытия Второго фронта 6 июня 1944 г. Массигли по поручению де Голля в Алжире инициировал переговоры с британским министром-резидентом в Северной Африке Г.Макмилланом о необходимости создания западноевропейского блока^[313]. В конце июля, находясь в Лондоне, Массигли пытался начать широкое обсуждение европейских проблем с Э.Иденом, но британский министр иностранных дел отказался озвучить своё мнение^[314].

Осенью 1944 г., вскоре после освобождения Парижа и переезда туда образованного еще летом Временного правительства, в жизни Франции произошло несколько важных событий. 9 сентября было реформировано Временное правительство, пост министра иностранных дел в котором после отставки англофила Массигли занял Ж. Бидо. План де Голля-Бидо заключался в том, чтобы Франция активизировала свою внешнюю политику, играя роль арбитра и некоего связующего звена между западными и восточным союзниками, которые никогда не переставали быть соперниками. Германский вопрос оба политика стремились решить методом экономического и политического ослабления восточного соседа, которое рассматривалось как гарантия французской и общеевропейской безопасности. «Германская программа» де Голля содержала в себе положения «федерализации», т. е. расчленения Германии, эксплуатации ее экономического потенциала, присоединения Саарского угольного бассейна к Франции и интернационализации Рурского бассейна, «ставшего символом войны»^[315]. Голлисты подчеркивали нежелательность восстановления централизации управления в Германии и предлагали воссоздать ее государственность в виде исторических земель, чтобы навсегда устранить немецкую угрозу для Франции.

23 октября произошло долгожданное дипломатическое признание США, Великобританией и СССР Временного правительства во главе с де Голлем. А во время визита во Францию в ноябре 1944 г. Черчилля и Идена Французскую республику пригласили участвовать в качестве четвёртого постоянного члена в Европейской консультативной комиссии, занимавшейся в том числе судьбой побеждённой Германии, однако голлистский план решения германской проблемы союзники отвергли. Тогда же, во время визита английской делегации в Париж, де Голль предложил Черчиллю создать «франко – британское ядро в Европе». По свидетельству генерала, Лондон не проявил интереса к этой идее и не захотел «связывать свою игру с нашей, считая себя в силах играть собственную партию между Москвой и Вашингтоном»^[316].

21–22 ноября в Консультативной Ассамблее проходили очередные дебаты по французской внешней политике. Накануне визита де Голля в Москву, намеченного на первую декаду декабря, Бидо заявил, что Франция не собирается участвовать в «неизвестно каком западном кордоне, который отбросил бы вглубь континента всех, кому не досталось части побережья океана»^[317]. В разговоре со Спааком Бидо также поставил под сомнение целесообразность формирования замкнутой западноевропейской федерации. В свою очередь де Голль в речи 22 ноября призвал к установлению «общеевропейского единства», строительство которого «начнётся с конкретных действий, объединяющих три полюса: Москву, Лондон и Париж», и ни о каком западном блоке не упоминал^[318]. По утверждению Е.О.Обичкиной, голлисты стремились «заключить симметричные военные союзы с Великобританией и Россией… и оставить США вне европейской системы союзов»^[319]. Тогда же, осенью 1944 г., Временное правительство активно обсуждало создание «военной и политической системы вокруг Рейна». В речи 22 ноября де Голль прямо связал решение германской проблемы и обеспечение общеевропейской безопасности со строительством единой Европы.

* * *

Однако в 1945 г. европейские проекты стали отходить на второй план, уступив место попыткам де Голля вернуть Франции ранг великой державы в свете активизации деятельности Большой Тройки: в феврале в Ялте и в июле-августе 1945 г. в Потсдаме лидеры СССР, США и Великобритании решали судьбы Европы и мира, а Франция на этих конференциях не присутствовала. В своем дневнике генерал с горечью писал: «Еще раз все происходит таким образом, что сначала все решают без нас, а потом уже спрашивают нашего согласия, не сомневаясь, что оно поступит»^[320]. Крайне прохладно союзники отнеслись и к идее создания европейского объединения.

Черчилль в принципе благосклонно воспринимал планы европейского строительства, но участие в нем Великобритании ставило под сомнение преференциальные отношения с колониями и привилегированное партнерство с США. К тому же премьер-министр опасался появления «политического вакуума» в Европе после ухода американских войск и, наоборот, продвижения вглубь континента советских армий. Его идея учреждения политической межгосударственной организации Совета Европы или регионального объединения с тремя Советами (по Америке, Европе и Азии), подчинявшегося Высшему Совету трёх Великих держав, не нашла поддержки союзников^[321]. Советское руководство, осознавая в 1945 г. нараставшие противоречия в Большой Тройке и стремясь к установлению контроля СССР над Восточной Европой, всячески противодействовало появлению общеевропейского сообщества. Враждебность высказывали и американцы. П. Жербе приводит несколько объяснений подобной позиции американской администрации^[322]. По его мнению, Рузвельт опасался, что отсутствие США в европейской интеграционной группировке приведёт «к новому всплеску изоляционизма в стране, а в Европе – к господству Великобритании из-за слабости Франции, что обеспокоило бы СССР, последующие шаги которого, фактически уже поставившего под свой контроль всю Восточную Европу, было бы трудно просчитать». С другой стороны, в случае англо-советского сближения и их доминирования в Европе США «были бы отодвинуты на второй план».

В 1945 г., по мере нарастания противоречий в лагере главных держав-победительниц, риторика выступлений де Голля по вопросу европейского строительства меняется. Вновь появляется словосочетание «западный блок», а Западная Европа называется «единым географическим, экономическим, политическим и культурным образованием, ограниченным на севере, западе и юге морями, на востоке – бассейном Рейна»^[323]. В речи 3 октября 1945 г. в Трире де Голль особо выделяет «людей Запада», которые «особым образом понимают друг друга»^[324]. А в своем выступлении в Страсбурге 5 октября генерал уже говорит не об общеевропейском согласии, а о «западном единстве» и «западной цивилизации». Явно намекая на возражения советского руководства против учреждения «западного блока», он задается вопросом, кому могут угрожать «западные идеи, влияния разума и души»^[325].

Подобный поворот в рассуждениях генерала де Голля кажется вполне закономерным. Во второй половине 1940-х годов в политические дискуссии вокруг строительства послевоенной Европы вмешался новый фактор, резко изменивший расстановку сил в мире – «холодная война». В этих условиях идея «единой Европы» трансформировалась в проекты интеграции западноевропейских государств, приверженных ценностям западного общества, рыночной экономике и политической буржуазной демократии. На активные проевропейские позиции перешла значительная часть политиков Старого Света, готовых отказаться от национального и государственного эгоизма, добиться франко-германского примирения и инициировать процесс объединения Западной Европы. Де Голль, безусловно, осуждал как действия сталинского руководства внутри СССР, так и его вмешательство в судьбу народов Восточной Европы, полностью попавших в сферу советского влияния. Он пытался поставить заслон на пути распространения «коммунистической опасности» вглубь Европы и видел одной из таких преград западно-европейскую группировку. Однако, будучи правым политическим деятелем и националистом, де Голль в первую очередь стремился возвратить своей Родине утраченный в годы войны государственный суверенитет и ранг великой державы, поэтому отвергал наднациональную форму объединения Западной Европы. По его убеждению, только тесное межгосударственное сотрудничество западноевропейских стран поможет им укрепить свои национальные основы, сбросить американскую опеку, восстановить свободу маневра на европейской и мировой арене.

В целом, стоит признать, что четкого плана европейского строительства в годы войны у де Голля не было. Он принял на вооружение некоторые основополагающие принципы концепции европеизма: добровольность, межгосударственное взаимодействие, безусловное признание западных буржуазных ценностей, начало сближения государств региона первоначально в экономической, а потом и в политической областях. Но такие вопросы, как членство отдельных европейских государств, формирование интеграционных органов управления, их функции и взаимодополняемость, отношения западноевропейского сообщества со сверхдержавами, место и роль в нем Германии, были слабо разработаны и аргументированы в середине 40-х гг.

Уйдя в отставку с поста председателя Временного правительства 20 января 1946 г., де Голль на долгих двенадцать лет лишился возможности оказывать непосредственное влияние на принятие внешнеполитических решений, в том числе и в европейском вопросе. Процесс интеграционного строительства начался без него. В 1952 г., после тяжелейшего послевоенного экономического кризиса, в условиях политических пертурбаций, разрыва союзнических отношений Великих держав и начавшейся «холодной войны», в западной части разделённой надвое Европы возникла первая интеграционная группировка из шести государств: Франции, ФРГ, Италии, Бельгии, Голландии и Люксембурга. Ею стало «Европейское объединение угля и стали» – реальное воплощение европейской мысли.

Naoumova natalia
Moscow, the parti communiste Français, and france’s political recovery^[326]

Moscow’s view of France at the Liberation differed from those of Washington or London in four significant ways. First, France’s importance, though not negligible, was secondary. No Soviet leader or diplomat thought of France as a major power. Stalin opposed both French participation at the Yalta conference of February 1945 and a French zone of occupation in Germany. On 9 May 1945, only Eisenhower’s pressing request allowed the French to be included at the Soviet-organised surrender ceremony outside Berlin^[327]. Moreover, whatever Europe’s medium-term future, securing a defensive glacis through the installation of pro-Soviet regimes in the East took priority, for Soviet leaders, over designs for Communist revolution in the West. If good behaviour there – holding back any revolutionary aspirations – ensured Anglo-American acceptance of Soviet hegemony in the East, the price was well worth paying.

Secondly, however, the Soviet Union, unlike the other two major allies, possessed a powerful client party in France, in the Parti Communiste Français. On one level, the PCF pursued the conventional aims of a party in a democratic system – policy achievements, office, and votes. At the same time the Soviet archives of the period testify to Moscow’s enormous influence on the PCF’s strategy and tactics, even during the period between the dissolution of the first Communist international organisation, the Comintern, in May 1943, and the foundation of its successor, the Cominform, in September 1947. Inevitably this influence was used in accordance with Soviet foreign policy goals.

Thirdly, France’s post-war economic predicament, of increasing concern to the British and Americans, was of marginal importance to Franco-Soviet relations. True, shipments of Soviet wheat reached France, and were made much of by the PCF, in the approach to the elections of June 1946. But the French traded relatively little with the Soviet Union, and looked to Washington not Moscow for economic aid.

The fourth difference lies in the Soviet attitude to de Gaulle, which was almost a mirror image of the British and American views. In Anglo-American eyes, the General’s major quality was his ability to contain the Communists; for the Soviets, whatever the accommodations of the moment, he belonged to the ‘reactionary’ camp. On the other hand, his prickly independence from the western allies was a clear recommendation for Moscow. Stalin had been a better ‘Gaullist’, at least since 1943, than either Roosevelt or Churchill: readier to recognise the Comité Français de Libération Nationale, set up in Algiers in June 1943, as a governmentin-waiting, and willing to accommodate the CFLN in Moscow in case of further difficulties with the ‘Anglo-Saxons’.^[328]His signature of the Franco-Soviet pact in December 1944 should be viewed in this light.

The making of that alliance is the first focus of this chapter. Its significance, however, proved largely symbolic, especially after the end of hostilities in Europe. A more important aspect of Franco-Soviet relations, at least over the ‘long’ Liberation period, was the relationship between Moscow, the PCF, and the French political system. The vicissitudes of this relationship, from co-operation to Cold War, are covered in the remainder of this study, which approaches both questions from a Moscow perspective, using both official archives and the Soviet press.

The Franco-Soviet alliance

On 30 August 1944, Pravda published a message from Stalin to de Gaulle, president of the Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Française (GPRF): ‘On the occasion of the liberation of Paris, capital of France, we address to you… in the name of the peoples of the Soviet Union and of myself, friendly congratulations to the French people and our wishes for the most speedy liberation of France from the German yoke.’^[329]The warmth of Stalin’s greeting was returned on 2 December, as de Gaulle’s arrived in Moscow in the company of his Foreign Minister Georges Bidault: ‘I am happy and flattered’, said the General, ‘to be in the capital of the Soviet Union and to offer the homage of France, ally of the Soviet Union, with a view to victory and a beneficial peace for the whole of humanity.’^[330]De Gaulle’s stay, which lasted over a week, saw an impressive round of cultural events and diplomatic receptions, but above all substantive talks with Stalin, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and other Soviet leaders.

That de Gaulle wanted a treaty of alliance was clear from his first contacts with Stalin and Molotov. ‘France’, he told the Russians, ‘understands that for the problem of the German danger to be settled it is not enough to resolve frontier issues. To prevent a new attack from Hitler an alliance of anti-German powers will be needed.’ When the Soviet leaders observed that a Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact had been signed with the Laval government in 1935, de Gaulle remarked with some bitterness that he was not Laval, and expressed a strong wish to conclude an improved pact ‘which would include additional points’.^[331]At his first formal talks with Stalin, he added that ‘The French know what Soviet Russia has done for them, and that Soviet Russia played the chief role in their liberation… The origin of France’s recent misfortunes lay in the fact that France did not have Russia at her side and lacked an effective treaty.’^[332]

For de Gaulle, the attractions of a treaty with Moscow were both symbolic and practical. It would mark France’s return to great-power status, able to deal on equal terms with the Soviet Union, and thus by implication the British and Americans. It revived the Franco-Russian alliance of 1893, which had always been directed against Germany: the heart of the new treaty was a commitment to fight together to the final defeat of Germany and to prevent any resurgence of the German threat. Both de Gaulle and Bidault also hoped for Soviet help in pressing France’s aims for Germany, above all the detachment of the Rhineland from the rest of the country, the internationalisation of the Ruhr, and the economic linkage of the Saar to France. For the Soviets, an alliance offered three possible benefits. France’s commitment to fight on until final victory would hinder any realisation of Stalin’s nightmare – a separate Anglo-American peace with Germany. A treaty would reinforce the position, within France, of a leader who had shown both independence from Washington and London and a willingness, however circumstantial, to govern with Communists. And it would, Stalin hoped, further his Eastern European plans if de Gaulle could be persuaded to support the displacement of Germany’s Eastern border to the Oder-Neisse line, and the claims of the Soviet-backed National Liberation Committee (the ‘Lublin Committee’) to rule Poland rather than the Polish government in exile in London.

The Moscow talks of December 1944 form one of the great set-pieces of de Gaulle’s War Memoirs.^[333]The account centres on de Gaulle’s own refusal to bow to pressure from the Soviets, especially on the Polish issue. His willingness to break off negotiations won him Stalin’s respect, and an alliance that did not compromise France’s honour by selling out Poland – a country where, in 1920, he had acted as a military advisor to a government at war with the newborn Soviet Union. Other authors are more sceptical. Werth, for example, claims on his reading of Soviet archives that de Gaulle had asked for an invitation to Moscow – rather than, as de Gaulle argues, responding to pressing offers from the Soviet ambassador to the GPRF, Alexander Bogomolov – and has Stalin embarrassing the General with probing questions on France’s economic and military recovery, which had hardly begun.^[334]Even Lacouture, a more sympa thetic biographer, takes some of the gloss off de Gaulle’s account.^[335]

Compared with the protracted negotiations on an Anglo-French treaty, however, the drafting process in Moscow was speedy. Bidault had passed a draft to Bogomolov, who had accompanied the French party, on 3 December; Stalin gave de Gaulle a favourable response in principle on 6 December; and Molotov passed the Soviet draft ‘Treaty of alliance and mutual assistance between the USSR and the French Republic’ to Bidault on the same day.^[336]The core of both drafts was a common commitment to pursue the war to final victory, to refuse any separate peace, and to provide mutual assistance in any future conflict with Germany.

There remained, however, two potential stumbling-blocks. The first was the issue of Poland and the Lublin committee. The second concerned the extension of the alliance to the United Kingdom. Stalin had kept Churchill informed of de Gaulle’s visit since 20 November, and had asked for British views on a Franco-Soviet pact by telegram on 2 December, the day of de Gaulle’s arrival. The British Cabinet had discussed the issue two days later, and backed Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s preference for a tripartite Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance. Churchill’s telegram to Stalin of 5 December supported such a treaty, as well as the inclusion of de Gaulle in any Big Three talks affecting France. Stalin’s reply, dated 7 December, agreed to propose a tripartite pact to de Gaulle.^[337]

The two questions came together at the de Gaulle-Stalin meeting of 8 December. To de Gaulle’s direct question as to ‘whether Marshal Stalin considered closer relations between our two countries were necessary’, Stalin again agreed to the principle of a Franco-Soviet pact but added that ‘there are good pacts and there are better pacts. A tripartite pact onto which Britain was coupled would be better.’^[338]De Gaulle refused the proposal, with some irritation, for three reasons. It appeared as an unacceptable intervention by Churchill in the sovereign conduct of French foreign policy; France’s position in a triple pact would inevitably appear less important than in a bilateral treaty; and de Gaulle viewed France’s differences with the Soviet Union – despite the Polish question – as less fundamental than the unresolved issues with the United Kingdom, notably over the Levant and Germany. Those differences, for de Gaulle, could be settled only in the ‘second stage’ of France’s construction of alliances – the third being the future United Nations pact with the United States and other powers.^[339]

The Soviet records suggest that Stalin then used the tripartite idea as a bar-gaining counter to secure recognition of the Lublin Committee. ‘Now the British propose a tripartite pact’, he told de Gaulle. ‘Let the French do us a service and we will do the same for them. Poland is an element of our security. We have been talking with the French about this question for two days. Let the French receive the Paris representative of the Polish National Liberation Committee. We will sign a bilateral agreement. If Churchill doesn’t like it, too bad.’ When de Gaulle observed that ‘Stalin had won this game’, Stalin replied that ‘Winning is the purpose of playing – but France will win more.’^[340]This account is sharply at variance with that of de Gaulle, who describes Stalin as a ‘good loser’ over the Polish issue.^[341]

The pact signed on 10 December was a minimal text centred on Germany. Stalin secured no French support for the Oder-Neisse line within the treaty (though ultimately none of the western allies objected to it); de Gaulle won no Soviet backing for his German plans. Britain was left out, to no great regret on Churchill’s part.^[342]France limited relations with the Lublin committee to an exchange of unofficial representatives to deal with practical issues, notably prisoners of war; but the identity of de Gaulle’s representative – Christian Fouchet, a trusted young Gaullist of 1940 pedigree – and the fact that the French, along with the British and Americans, effectively recognised the Lublin Committee as the government of Poland in August 1945, somewhat limits the real importance of France’s refusal to concede on this issue.

Pravda reported the meetings on 11 December in largely conventional terms, referring to ‘the many manifestations of sympathy, reinforced by the shared hardships of war, between the peoples of France and the Soviet Union’, and the talks between the French delegation, Stalin, and Molotov, on ‘the full range of problems relating to the continuation of the war and the organisation of the world’.^[343]Of more interest are de Gaulle’s and Bidault’s official letters to Stalin, reproduced on 15 December. De Gaulle observed that the alliance would serve ‘to co-ordinate the military efforts of Russia and France with those of the United Nations with a view to safeguarding our two peoples from a similar catastrophe in the future’, while Bidault underlined the ‘close and permanent community of interests between our two countries’ which would ‘reinforce our will to win and guarantee peace in the future’.^[344]In general, however, Pravda’s reports were relatively lowkey: while the outward events of the French visit were covered, there was no analysis of the treaty’s content, and little interruption to the paper’s staple diet of (victorious) war news, considered more important. Privately, Stalin told Averell Harriman, the American ambassador to Moscow, that he had found de Gaulle ‘awkward and stubborn’, as well as unrealistic in his aims for Germany.^[345]French coverage, by contrast, was altogether more fulsome. The treaty dominated the first-ever issue of Le Monde, whose editorialist observed that ‘barely a few months after her liberation, France’s co-operation has been sought out by one of the clearest victors of the war’, that the alliance was ‘a further proof of the skill and far- sightedness of the head of the Provisional Government’, and that it would no doubt pave the way for a tripartite pact with Britain.^[346]What neither side mentioned, finally, was the stake of the alliance for French internal politics. For the Soviets, it would enhance the status of the PCF; for de Gaulle, it would help keep the same party in check.

The Stalin-Thorez conversations

De Gaulle’s BBC broadcast of 6 June 1944, inviting the French to ‘fight the enemy with all the means at their disposal’ in the wake of the D-day landings, was echoed by a call to ‘national insurrection’ from the PCF’s Central Committee. In a few days the overall number of partisan units, grouped under the umbrella of the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (FFI), multiplied several times over, reaching nearly half a million men, very many of them Communists. Militarily, the results of the insurrection varied from the tragic (premature risings, provoking ferocious reprisals, in Tulle and other provincial towns) to the dashing and successful (in Lille, Marseilles, Limoges, Thiers and above all Paris). It remained to be seen which authority the FFI would recognise. Officially, the answer was clear: since April 1944, two Communists had sat on the CFLN and then the GPRF, as part of a unified Resistance movement headed by de Gaulle (who gave a ministry to Charles Tillon, commander of the main Communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, on 9 September). Officially again, from 9 June the FFI were under the command of the French army, and de Gaulle ordered the dissolution of their senior command structure on 28 August. On the ground, things were less simple. The FFI sought to maintain their autonomy from the regular army, while the comités de libération, often drawn from their ranks, disputed control over localities with the prefects and special commissioners appointed by the GPRF: hence de Gaulle’s extensive provincial tours in autumn 1944, aimed at reinforcing the GPRF’s authority across France.^[347]

These two competing authorities could not coexist for long. On 28 October de Gaulle ordered, by a decree of the GPRF, the disarmament and dissolution of all armed groups other than the army and the police. The two Communist ministers accepted the decree; criticism of it within the PCF was initially muted; but the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), dominated by Communists, attacked it. So did many of the militias directly concerned, with growing support from the PCF press. The Communist leadership, indeed, talked as if it was preparing a revolution: on 15 November Jacques Duclos, the party’s acting leader in the absence of its secretary-general Maurice Thorez, called for the summoning of ‘estates general’ (a reference to 1789), locally and then nationally, for the exercise of local power by ‘elected and not appointed bodles’, and for a regime in which the people’s representatives could ‘be dis- missed at any moment’.^[348]De Gaulle’s decree remained ‘a dead letter’ a month after its promulgation.^[349]But the logical corollary of this – a full insurrection against the GPRF – never took place. De Gaulle, supported by the majority of the population, and on the Left by the Socialists of the SFIO (Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière), was obviously disinclined to play the role of Kerensky. Tens of thousands of Allied troops remained in France. And no instructions for a rising had come from Moscow, either from the Kremlin or from Thorez.

Thorez had deserted from the French army in 1939 and been exfiltrated to the Soviet Union, where he had resided since. His return, decided in Paris and Moscow, testifies both to the extremely close relations between the Kremlin and the PCF and to the exceptional sensitivity of the contemporary French political situation.

In the autumn of 1944, Thorez had twice requested de Gaulle’s authorisation to return to France, but the General had ignored his messages.^[350]

On 21 October Georgy Dimitrov, former Comintern secretary-general and future head of Bulgaria’s first post-war government, then also in exile in the USSR, wrote to Molotov about this one-sided correspondence. While a campaign for Thorez’s return had started in France, said Dimitrov, ‘hostile elements’ were spreading the ‘myth’ of his desertion in 1939 and claiming that he had had links with the Germans. Meanwhile, Dimitrov claimed, Thorez continued to enjoy Soviet hospitality, while the Soviet press remained ‘totally silent’ on the problem, creating ‘a very embarrassing situation not only for Thorez but also for ourselves’, which could best be remedied via an article on the subject (which Dimitrov submitted for Molotov’s approval) in Pravda. Molotov’s comments, handwritten on the draft, indicate a clear intention to apply gentle pressure on de Gaulle: ‘The article does not explain clearly where the problem lies. Why can Thorez not return? Who is refusing him entry?’^[351]

This form of indirect influence – and, no doubt, the situation in France produced results within a week. On 28 October – the same day as the decree dissolving the militias in France – de Gaulle wired Roger Garreau, France’s ambassador in Moscow, to say that ‘The government has decided to quash the verdicts of French courts-martial reached before 18 June 1940 and relating to persons who subsequently took part in the national Resistance movement. This decision gives M. Maurice Thorez the right of re-entry into France. You may inform him of it. However, before a visa can be delivered a few days’ wait will be necessary until the decree is published in the Journal Officiel.’^[352]

During this wait, on 19 November, Thorez had a long conversation with Stalin. The length of their meeting, the detail of Stalin’s instructions on how the Communists were to behave in liberated France, and the presence of both Molotov and Lavrenti Beria all indicate the extreme importance placed in Moscow on the PCF’s activities – as well as the strengths and limitations of Stalin’s view of French politics under the GPRF.^[353]For Stalin, ‘the most import ant question was how to get through the current difficult period when the Communists were not masters in France, and counted enemies as well as friends; and how to rally their own forces while preventing the forces of reaction from rallying theirs.’ Stalin punctuated the conversation with questions to Thorez, whose answers he used as the basis for his own orders. At first, he simply asked Thorez how he viewed the French situation, while expressing revealing perplexity that former prisoners of war (such as Bidault or Juin) had been given important posts in the GPRF. Thorez’s answer focused on the PCF’s relations with the French Socialists, and noted the SFIO leadership’s refusal to co-operate with the PCF despite the Communists’ success in winning working-class Socialists to their cause and despite Socialist commitments to ‘unity of action’. The Socialists, complained Thorez, were denigrating the PCF’s war record by suggesting that their heroic role in the struggle against the Germans dated only from 1941.