Коллектив авторов – Очерки истории Франции XX–XXI веков. Статьи Н. Н. Наумовой и ее учеников (страница 20)

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.

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]