Maurice Thorez

A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.

Maurice Thorez (28 April 1900 – 11 July 1964) was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947.

Pre-War

Thorez, born in Noyelles-Godault, Pas-de-Calais, became a coal miner at the age of 12. He joined the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1919 and was imprisoned several times for his political activism. After a split in the SFIO led to the formation of the French Communist Party (PCF), Thorez became party secretary in 1923 and, in 1930, secretary general of the party, a position he held until his death. Thorez was supported by the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, for PCF leadership following splits in many non-Soviet Communist parties in wake of his struggle with Leon Trotsky. As the official leader, Thorez was secretly controlled by the Comintern and the secretive Eugene Fried.^[1]

In 1932, Thorez became the companion of Jeannette Vermeersch; they had three sons before marrying in 1947, and they remained married until his death.

Thorez was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1932 and was reelected in 1936. In 1934, following the Comintern directive, he helped form the Popular Front, an alliance between Communists, Socialists, and radical Socialists. The front, because of strong popular support as France was reeling from the impact of the Great Depression, won the elections of 1936. With the support of the Communists under Thorez, Léon Blum became prime minister of a Popular Front government and managed to enact their social legislation programme. Meanwhile, Thorez presided over the massive growth of the Communist Party beginning with the elections of 1936.

World War II

Following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 and the subsequent Soviet participation in the invasion of Poland, the Communist Party was against the French war effort and in tacit alliance with the Nazis, so was outlawed. Its publications were banned and many Party members were interned. Thorez himself had his nationality revoked. Shortly thereafter, Thorez was drafted, but rather than fight the Germans, he deserted from the army to flee to the Soviet Union. Thorez was tried in absentia for desertion and sentenced to death.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, The French Communist Party switched sides and joined the anti-German resistance. During this time, articles written by and ghostwritten for Thorez appeared frequently in the party's underground newspaper, Humanité Clandestine. Each of these letters was signed 'Maurice Thorez, Somewhere in France.' It was not until several years after the war that the party admitted that this was false, and that Thorez had been in Moscow for the entire war. In his absence, the affairs of the Party and of the Party resistance movement (FTP) in France were organised by his second in command, Jacques Duclos.

When General Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces liberated France in 1944, Thorez received a pardon. After the Liberation, Thorez was ordered by Stalin to lead the PCF immediately after the Second World War to a non-revolutionary road to power. The instructions were to have the reluctant wartime Communist partisans to surrender their weapons, while the party became a powerful force in the postwar governments since it was thought that they would soon win legally.

Post War

In November 1944, he returned to France from the Soviet Union, and in 1945 his citizenship was restored. The PCF emerged from the Second World War as the largest political party in France based on its role in the anti-Nazi resistance movement during the occupation of France, at least after 1941. He tried to make a revolution, after strikes that he organised, in 1948 that failed only because the post-war army was strong for the democratic Fourth Republic. Thorez was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies and reelected throughout the Fourth Republic (1946–1958).

In Power

Forming a popular front with the Socialist Party in the 1945 elections, he became vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947. During this time, the Communist members of the coalition government supported the French drive to renew colonial rule in Indochina. (See, George Moss, Vietnam: An American Ordeal, 3rd Edition 1998, Prentice-Hall; ISBN 0-13-897083-1.) They were supported in this regard by Joseph Stalin. (ibid.)

By 1947 a combination of the emerging Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and growing social conflicts in France, linked to the increasing gap between wages and prices, put the three party union (SFIO, PCF and MRP) under heavy pressure. But the crisis came with the beginnings of the colonial war in Vietnam, with the communist deputies in the Assemblée nationale voting against the communist-participating government. That incident led Premier Paul Ramadier to dismiss his Communist ministers from the government on 7 May 1947. Contrary to a very common legend, the firing of the communist ministers was not linked to U.S. pressure, as a condition for France to benefit from the coming Marshall Plan. But the parallel movements in Italy and Belgium show that Cold War resistance to Communism was rising all over Western Europe at that time. The Communists' refusal to continue support for the French colonial effort Vietnam on one hand and a wage-freeze during a period of hyperinflation on the other were the immediate triggers to the dismissal of Thorez and his colleagues from the ruling coalition in May 1947.

In opposition

Although the Communists under Thorez's leadership continued to enjoy a dedicated following among a minority of the electorate, the French democratic parties operated to isolate and marginalize them for the remainder of the regime. Following the Cominform meeting in September 1947, Thorez abandoned its cooperative attitude towards the other political forces, intending to follow the Zhdanov Doctrine. He then proved to be the most Stalinist of all communist leaders in Western Europe, blocking the change of his party. That, and the growing popular distaste for the Party, clearly appeared after de Gaulle came to power again in 1958 upon the founding of the French Fifth Republic: the Communist Party's strength in the Chamber shrank to 10 seats. However, Thorez retained his seat.

In 1950, at the height of his popularity among party members, Thorez suffered a stroke and remained in the Soviet Union for medical care until 1953. That March, Stalin died and Thorez was among the French delegation at Stalin's funeral. During his absence, the party was de facto controlled by his ally Jacques Duclos, who expelled Thorez's rival André Marty. Thorez resumed his duties upon returning to France. Although his health deteriorated, Thorez remained party leader, until shortly before his death in 1964 on a Black Sea cruise.

He published Fils du peuple (1937; Son of the People, 1938) and Une politique de grandeur française (1945; "Politics of French Greatness").

The city of Torez in Ukraine is named after him. The Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (Московский институт иностранных языков имени Мориса Тореза) was named in his honor in the Soviet Union.

References

1. (Annie Kriegel, Stéphane Courtois, Eugène Fried: Le grand secret du PCF, Seuil, 1997)

• Works of Thorez