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

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]