Коллектив авторов – Очерки истории Франции XX–XXI веков. Статьи Н. Н. Наумовой и ее учеников (страница 24)

In principle, Socialist – Communist unity fared better when it came to drafting the new constitution. Their agreed project proposed a parliamentary system with wide-ranging powers for a unicameral National Assembly, largely formal functions for the president, and guarantees of political and social rights as well as a secular state. Approved by the Socialist-Communist majority over the MRP’s opposition, the draft was put to referendum on 5 May 1946. Opposed in the country by the MRP as well as the Radicals and conservative groupings, it went down to defeat by 53 per cent of the voters to 47. This was a set-back for the PCF, which had also still failed to create the united left-wing bloc Stalin desired. For the Communist press in Moscow and Paris, the blame, again, lay with the Socialists. Pravda reported that the PCF had ‘carried practically the whole burden of the campaign’, with Socialist support for the new constitution remaining ‘soft’; it noted that the PCF daily L’Humanité had attributed the result to ‘the Socialists’ refusal to accept Communist proposals for union and unity of action between the two parties.’[373]

Similar complaints marked the campaign for elections to the second Constituent Assembly, held on 2 June 1946. The PCF’s political isolation was now noted openly by Pravda and illustrated with a claim that when the Interior Minister had ordered the removal of election posters from unauthorised sites, only the PCF’s posters had been taken down, leaving those of other parties, including the fiercely anti-communist Parti Républicain de la Liberté (PRL), intact.[374]Such practices were cited to explain the PCF’s descent into second place at the elections, with 25.9 per cent of the vote to the MRP’s 28.2. But Pravda also dwelt on losses by the Socialists (who fell back to 21.1 per cent), seen as resulting from ‘the anti-communism of the Socialist leadership’, which had ‘sown confusion among the party’s leaders and local organisations’. L’Humanité, it added, had underlined the ‘need for the union of workers and democratic forces in France against the reactionaries, who have not disarmed’.[375]

That summer’s events in France worried the Soviet press. The MRP used its electoral success to propose its leader Georges Bidault for the premiership. Izvestia saw the hand of Blum in the post-election manoeuvring, oddly claiming that he sought a single-party MRP government, able to ‘back the anti-communist campaign that certain political parties are currently leading’.[376]Commenting on the signs of anti-communism appearing within French society against the background of the developing Cold War, Pravda observed that on the day before the vote on the premiership, ‘a group of young Fascist sympathisers attacked the offices of the PCF Central Committee in Paris, looting the bookshop in the same building and burning its stock’, and added that ‘the police showed complete negligence’ in the matter.[377]

The Constituent Assembly voted Bidault into the premiership on 19 June 1946 by 384 votes. The 161 Communist Deputies abstained, neither welcoming Bidault as premier nor wishing to move into opposition. It was ‘a pity’, Duclos observed (and Pravda agreed), that France had foresworn the opportunity of ending the provisional regime by rejecting the first draft constitution, but the Communists, as good republicans, respected the people’s will. The new government could only be provisional. On the constitution, the PCF was open to concessions, except on two issues: the secular character of the state (a reference to the MRP’s Catholic loyalties) and the powers of the second chamber (a reference to the MRP’s intention to revive the Senate in some form).[378]

This relative self-restraint allowed the PCF to join the Bidault government, which was approved by an overwhelming majority in the Constituent Assembly on 26 June: Thorez and Gouin both became vice-premiers. But the government’s composition, with nine MRP ministers, seven Communists, six Socialists, one member of the UDSR and one with no party allegiance, reflected a weakening in the positions of the PCF and the SFIO, which now controlled only slightly over half the portfolios between them. Meanwhile de Gaulle had joined in the constitutional debate: his Bayeux speech of 16 June called for strong leadership at the top in what resembled a presidentialised republic. France’s anti-communist forces were now divided between Gaullists, main– stream conservatives, and the right wing of the MRP. Yet de Gaulle was always the PCF’s most formidable opponent; his return to the political scene inevitably gave the leadership pause for thought.

For the PCF, the two years since the liberation of Paris presented a mixed picture. Its membership and electorate had grown to levels unimaginable before 1939; ministerial office had won it respectability, plus the chance to place Communists in key administrative posts. But its wooing of the Socialists had been rebuffed; its claims to lead the government, however democratically legitimate, had been vetoed by the Socialists and the MRP; its preferred constitutional project – whose lack of checks and balances offered the best opportunity for any party that dominated the National Assembly to install itself durably in power – had been rejected by the voters; and the MRP had overtaken it (briefly, as it would turn out) at the ballot-box. Above all, perhaps, the ‘left-wing bloc’ was no nearer being achieved than in 1944. It was against this background of setbacks that the PCF received further advice from Moscow.

Within the ongoing contacts between the PCF and Moscow, the meeting of 19 June 1946 between Mikhail Suslov, a member of the CPSU’s Central Committee, and Benoît Frachon, joint secretary of the CGT and an unofficial member of the PCF’s Bureau politique, is especially important. Suslov sent a record of the conversation, marked ‘Top Secret’, to Molotov, stressing that Frachon had asked, in the name of the PCF leadership, for advice from the CPSU, though without raising any specific questions.[379]

Suslov’s record is chiefly remarkable for Frachon’s self-criticism over the PCF’s implementation of Stalin’s directives. The referendum campaign, he said, had seen a bitter struggle between the forces of ‘democracy’ and those of ‘reaction’, which had gone onto the offensive. But the PCF had run ahead of events, notably by demanding the premiership for Thorez. Intended to rally the largest possible number of Communist sympathisers, and ultimately to give ‘the masses’ a practical demonstration of Communist-led government, the slogan ‘Thorez au pouvoir’ ‘failed to take account of the fact that there are millions of Frenchmen who vote for the Communists but who don’t yet want them leading the government’. The PCF had also underestimated the forces of reaction, who, with the ‘profascist’ PRL at their head, had used ‘Thorez au pouvoir’ to play on hesitant voters’ fears. Although the Party had ‘taken a step back’ after the referendum, it had still faced an unprecedented anti-communist campaign at the June elections, led not only by the Right but by the Socialists, MRP and Radicals as well, which had left the PCF isolated. Even though Frachon talked of the PCF’s ‘victorious’ electoral campaign, his closing statement still leaves the impression that the Party was seeking to recognise its errors and its failure to heed Stalin’s warnings of November 1944. ‘Avoiding the isolation of the Party, holding on to positions gained, and surviving the difficulties of the current period’ were the bases of the PCF’s line. ‘Avoiding isolation’ meant seeking to extend the Party’s influence with the peasants, working with the petty bourgeoisie, continuing to work for the ‘unity of the working class’ (presumably a reference to competitive co-operation with the Socialists) and establishing relations with ‘democratic elements’ in the Radical Party and the MRP.

The PCF’s behaviour at the referendum of 12 October 1946 on the second (and definitive) draft Constitution corresponded to the strategy outlined by Frachon. The MRP, despite its former self-definition as the party of ‘fidelity’ to de Gaulle, sealed a lasting split with the General by refusing to back the strong presidential regime he had advocated at Bayeux. It was then obliged to reach an agreement with the Communists and Socialists. The second draft included the upper chamber the MRP had always wanted. But its powers (and the president’s) would be limited, and the state’s secular character would be guaranteed.[380]This compromise was backed by all three of the tripartite parties, and the PCF threw itself into the Yes campaign. On 7 October the Central Committee issued a text, reproduced in Pravda, calling on ‘all French patriots’ to ensure ‘the triumph of the Constitution of the French Republic’, against the ‘murky forces of reaction’ backed by ‘the trusts’ who opposed the restoration of republican principles in the Constitution now, as they had betrayed French democracy in the past. Pravda also, significantly, underlined the common ground between the PCF and the SFIO, reporting a speech by Vincent Auriol, the Socialist president of the Assembly, underlining the need to end the pro– visional regime and the dangers of a No vote.[381]