Come into My Parlor

For anyone acquainted with the history of the French Communist Party, there is something irresistibly ludicrous in Georges Marchais’ new act as France’s parfit, gentil democratic knight, sans peur et sans reproche. The French, of all Communist parties! From its founding in 1918, the French Party has been a pillar of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and fidelity to the Kremlin. From the French Party there was no quiver of doubt or protest at the Trials and Purges. It swallowed the Hitler-Stalin Pact like mother’s milk, and sabotaged the French war effort until the morning of June 22, 1941, when every French Communist was instantly transformed into a French patriot and warrior. It condemned the infamous Marshall Plan designed by North American imperialism to force Europe under the Wall Street yoke, and rejoiced as peace and democracy spread through Eastern Europe in the postwar years. It applauded Moscow’s stalwart defense of socialism against the imperialist conspirators in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. None of its spokesmen ever hinted at criticism of Gulag.

Then, late last autumn, Party Secretary Marchais took one of his periodic trips to Moscow—where was present also his colleague, Jean Kanapa, chief liaison officer of the French Party, who usually journeys via Brussels soastobe less remarked by Paris journalists and busybodies. Marchais returned, and before you could say Dialectical Materialism he and Italian Communist boss Enrico Berlinguer joined in signing the most democratic constitu … that is, the most democratic manifesto since Tom Paine, and he allowed as how his Party had to drop the old “dictatorship of the proletariat” talk—which, he somewhat cryptically explained, has become “unacceptable to 1976 sensibilities.” He even mentioned that Leonid Plyushch—whose incarceration in a KGB insane asylum had been the subject of an active campaign by French non-Communists for the past three years without, apparently, having come to Marchais’ attention (“I have tried for a very long time to get some information about this matter”)—may have been roughly dealt with (“if,” that is,“it develops that in this case there has been an abuse of power”).

JB

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James Burnham

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For anyone acquainted with the history of the French Communist Party, there is something irresistibly ludicrous in Georges Marchais’ new act as France’s parfit, gentil democratic knight, sans peur et sans reproche. The French, of all Communist parties! From its founding in 1918, the French Party has been a pillar of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and fidelity to the Kremlin. From the French Party there was no quiver of doubt or protest at the Trials and Purges. It swallowed the Hitler-Stalin Pact like mother’s milk, and sabotaged the French war effort until the morning of June 22, 1941, when every French Communist was instantly transformed into a French patriot and warrior. It condemned the infamous Marshall Plan designed by North American imperialism to force Europe under the Wall Street yoke, and rejoiced as peace and democracy spread through Eastern Europe in the postwar years. It applauded Moscow’s stalwart defense of socialism against the imperialist conspirators in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. None of its spokesmen ever hinted at criticism of Gulag.

Then, late last autumn, Party Secretary Marchais took one of his periodic trips to Moscow—where was present also his colleague, Jean Kanapa, chief liaison officer of the French Party, who usually journeys via Brussels soastobe less remarked by Paris journalists and busybodies. Marchais returned, and before you could say Dialectical Materialism he and Italian Communist boss Enrico Berlinguer joined in signing the most democratic constitu … that is, the most democratic manifesto since Tom Paine, and he allowed as how his Party had to drop the old “dictatorship of the proletariat” talk—which, he somewhat cryptically explained, has become “unacceptable to 1976 sensibilities.” He even mentioned that Leonid Plyushch—whose incarceration in a KGB insane asylum had been the subject of an active campaign by French non-Communists for the past three years without, apparently, having come to Marchais’ attention (“I have tried for a very long time to get some information about this matter”)—may have been roughly dealt with (“if,” that is,“it develops that in this case there has been an abuse of power”).