– Comrade Enver Hoxha –
During the Second World War many positive factors which made the transformation of the anti-fascist war into a profound popular revolution both possible and necessary, had emerged in Europe. Fascism had eliminated not only the national independence of the occupied countries, but also all democratic freedoms, and had even buried bourgeois democracy itself. Therefore, the war against fascism had to be not only a war for national liberation but also a war for the defence and development of democracy. As regards the communist parties, the achievement of these two objectives had to be linked with the struggle for socialism.
In the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, the communist parties knew how to link the tasks of the war for independence and democracy with the struggle for socialism. They worked out and applied a policy which led to the establishment of the regimes of the new people’s democracy. Meanwhile, the communist parties of Western Europe did not prove capable of utilizing the favourable situation created by the Second World War and the victory over fascism. This showed that they had not properly understood and did not apply the directives of the 7th Congress of the Communist International.[1] This congress instructed that in the course of the opposition and fight against fascism, in certain conditions, the possibilities would be created for the formation of united front governments which would be entirely different from the social-democratic governments. They were to serve the transition from the stage of the fight against fascism to the stage of the fight for democracy and socialism. In France and Italy, however, the war against fascism did not lead to the formation of governments of the type which the Comintern wanted. After the war, governments of the bourgeois type came to power there. The participation of the communists in them did not alter their character. Even the French Communist Party, which up to the end of the Second World War had a correct line in general, was unable to overcome and correct its mistakes, weaknesses and deviations on certain problems, which stemmed among other things from lack of realistic analyses of the internal and external situations.
The French Communist Party played a primary role in the creation of the Popular Front in France. It launched the slogan of the Popular Front at its Congress of Nantes in 1935, a slogan which quickly found an echo among the broad masses of the French people. The Comintern made a high valuation of the efforts and work of the French Communist Party for the creation of the Popular Front. However, it must be said that the party did not know how or was unable to take advantage of the situation and utilize it in favour of the working class.
The Communist Party spoke openly about the danger threatening France from internal and external fascism, denounced this danger and came out in the streets in demonstrations, but it expected the measures against fascism and everything else from the “legal” governments, from the bourgeois governments, formed by combinations in the bourgeois parliament. This was apparent at the time of the creation of the Popular Front which was a success for the French Communist Party, because in the complicated situation of that time it blocked the way to the setting up of a fascist government in France. Although it took some measures in favour of the working class, the Blum government violated and betrayed the program of the Popular Front in its internal and foreign policy. The Communist Party, which did not take part in the Popular Front government, but supported it in Parliament, was unable to stop this process. The struggle of the masses, strikes, demonstrations and actions were replaced by the weekly meetings which Léon Blum held in his home with Thorez and Duclos.
The leader of the Popular Front government was a socialist, and the socialists made up a large part of the government, but the government apparatus at the centre and the base remained what it was. The army remained la grande muette.[2] It was commanded, just as under all former governments, by the reactionary caste of officers trained at the bourgeois military schools for the purpose of suppressing the French people and occupying colonies, but not fighting fascism and reaction.
The French Communist Party did not carry its actions through to the end, it was not organized for real struggle against fascism and reaction. The propaganda and agitation, the demonstrations and strikes it led, were not on the line of the seizure of power from the hands of the bourgeoisie. Irrespective of the fact that the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism were not denied, the activity and struggle of the party unwittingly and unconsciously assumed the nature of the struggle for reforms, for economic demands on the trade-union level. Of course, the trade-unions play a revolutionary role when they are under correct leadership and a revolutionary situation is created in them, otherwise the trade-union movement is turned into a routine concocted by the trade-union chiefs through stands which are sometimes correct, sometimes deviationist, sometimes liberal, sometimes opportunist, but which, in the final analysis, end up in fruitless talks and compromises with the employers.
When the war broke out in Spain, the French Communist Party actively assisted the Communist Party of Spain and the Spanish people in the war against Franco with agitation and propaganda and material aid. It called for volunteers to go to Spain, a call to which thousands of members of the party and other French anti-fascists responded, and three thousand of them fell martyrs on Spanish soil. The main leaders of the party took part directly in the war or else went to Spain on various occasions. Most of the volunteers, who set out from many countries to join the International Brigades in Spain, passed through France. It was the French Communist Party which organized their passage.
During the Spanish War the communists and the working class of France gained new experience in battle, and this was added to the old tradition of the revolutionary struggles of the French proletariat. This constituted a great capital, a revolutionary experience gained in organized frontal class battles against the savage Franco reaction, Italian fascists and German nazis, as well as against French and world reaction. This revolutionary capital should have served the party in the critical moments of the Second World War and the occupation of France, but in reality it was not utilized.
The French Communist Party exposed the policy of Munich with which the Daladiers and Bonnets made concessions to Hitler, selling out the interests of the Czechoslovak people with the aim of turning the Hitlerite war machine against the Soviet Union. It unwaveringly defended the Soviet-German non-aggression pact and withstood the slanders and persecutions of the bourgeoisie. It called for resistance and rose boldly in the fight against the German occupiers and their collaborators of Vichy. This struggle, which began with actions, strikes, demonstrations and sabotage, has steadily extended. The FTP[3] created by the Communist Party, were the only formations which fought the occupiers, while the Gaullist reseaux, as the name shows, were nothing but a network of the Secret Service to gather military information useful to the Allies. While the Gaullists advocated waiting for a landing before going into action, the Communist Party fought valiantly for the liberation of the country.
In the liberation war the French Communist Party organized and developed the resistance against the occupiers; and tried to and did achieve something in connection with the anti-fascist front. However, as the events showed, it had not considered and had not planned the seizure of power, or if it had planned this it abandoned the idea.
This is confirmed by the fact that during the war the party created many committees for national liberation, but it did not give any attention to them and did not take any measures to ensure that these committees affirmed themselves as the nuclei of the new state power. From beginning to end the partisan formations remained small and without organic links with one another. At no time did the party raise the question of the creation of big formations of a real national liberation army.
The French Communist Party carried on an anti-fascist liberation war, which it led itself, but did not turn this war into a revolutionary war of the whole people. Moreover, it considered it more appropriate and “revolutionary” to beg De Gaulle to be allowed to send one of its representatives to his “Free France Committee.” All this meant, “Please, Mr. De Gaulle, accept me into your Committee, too.” This meant, “Mr. De Gaulle, the French Communist Party and the partisan forces are going under your command and that of the ‘Free France Committee.’” This meant, “Mr. De Gaulle, we communists have no intention of carrying out any revolution or of seizing power, all we want is that the old game of parties, the ‘democratic’ game, will be played in the France of the future and that, on the basis of polling, we too will take part in the future government.”
While the French communists were acting in this way, the bourgeoisie was preparing and organizing its forces to seize power in France, which it would assume when the Anglo-American allies landed there. The National Committee, created and led by the De Gaulle group in London, and turned into a government in Algiers, would be the most suitable force to take over this power. Of course, it would do this together with the internal forces which the bourgeoisie had prepared and set in motion together with the old army commanded by generals who, after having served Petain, had placed themselves into the service of De Gaulle, when it became clear that the German ship was sinking.
This was a dangerous situation, which the French Communist Party did not appreciate and assess correctly, or did not analyse thoroughly. It was afraid of complications with the allied forces which were landing, it was afraid of De Gaulle and the forces gathered around him, hence it was afraid of civil war, and especially of war with the Anglo-Americans.
The Communist Party forgot the example of the heroic communards, who encircled by Bismarck’s German armies, rose in revolt against the Versaillese, “storming the heavens,” as Marx said, and created the Commune of Paris. Theoreticians may try to justify this fatal mistake of the French Communist Party during the Second World War by saying: “The strength of the forces had to be taken into account.” Of course, the strength of the forces had to be taken into account. But since the communards, without a party, without organization, without links with the peasantry and the rest of France, and encircled by foreign occupation troops, launched the attack and seized power, the French working class with its party at the head, tempered in battle, enlightened by Marxism-Leninism, and having such a great and powerful ally as the Soviet Union in its struggle, at the head of the working masses and the genuine patriots, could have carried out the immortal deed of the communards a hundred times more successfully.
When it should have acted boldly and wisely to fulfil the desires and aspirations of the French communist militants and proletariat, who fought with determination and heroism against the Hitlerite occupiers, the leadership of the Communist Party proved hesitant and weak. It did not proceed on the Marxist-Leninist road, on the road of revolutionary struggle. It did not follow in the footsteps of the communards.
The anti-fascist war in Italy had its own characteristics and features, but the objectives which the leadership of the Italian Communist Party had set itself, its vacillations and concessions are similar to those of the French Communist Party.
The start of the Second World War found most of the leading cadres of the Italian Communist Party in France.
Nearly all of them fell into the hands of the police. Amongst them was the general secretary of the party, Palmiro Togliatti, who as soon as he was released from jail, in March 1941, went to the Soviet Union.
Although the Italian Communist Party took a correct stand towards the aggressive war which the fascist powers launched, and condemned it as a predatory imperialist war, its activity remained restricted. All the efforts of this party were centred on the creation of a coalition of the anti-fascist parties in exile, on issuing a number of appeals, resolutions and propaganda publications.
In March 1943, the party, which had begun to develop its activity within the country from the middle of 1942, managed to organize a series of powerful strikes in various zones, which testified to the rise of the anti-fascist people’s movement. These strikes accelerated the developments which led to the overthrow of Mussolini.
Fear of the revolution had made the Italian bourgeoisie and the symbol of its rule, the king, summon Mussolini to power in 1922. This same fear made the bourgeoisie and the king remove Mussolini from power in July 1943.
The overthrow of Mussolini was carried out by means of a coup d’état of the ruling caste. The take-over was the work of the king of Badoglio, and other leading figures of fascism. Seeing the inevitability of Italy’s defeat, by so doing they wanted to forestall the danger that the working class and the people of Italy would rise in struggle and revolution, which would not only overthrow fascism and the monarchy, but would place the domination of the Italian bourgeoisie as a class in jeopardy.
The resistance movement of the Italian people against fascism assumed great development especially after the capitulation of Italy. In Northern Italy, which was still occupied by the Germans, on the initiative of the party, the liberation war, which included the broad masses of anti-fascist workers, peasants, intellectuals and others, was organized. Big regular partisan formations were created, the overwhelming majority of them under the leadership of the party.
Likewise on the initiative of the Communist Party, national liberation committees were formed in Northern Italy, along with the partisan units and detachments. The party struggled to make these committees new organs of the democratic power, but in fact they remained coalitions of different parties. This did not permit them to be transformed into genuine organs of the people’s power.
Whereas in Northern Italy the struggle of the party in general was developed on the right road, and could have led not only to the liberation of the country but also to the establishment of the people’s power, in the South and on a national scale the party did not raise the question of the seizure of power. It sought only the formation of a strong government with authority, and did not fight for the overthrow of the monarchy and Badoglio. At a time when favourable conditions existed in the country to carry forward the revolution, the program of the Communist Party was minimal. The party was for a parliamentary solution within the framework of the laws of the bourgeois order. Its maximum claim was for its participation in the government with two or three ministers.
In this way, the Italian Communist Party involved itself in bourgeois political combinations and made unprincipled concessions one after the other. On the eve of the liberation of the country it had great political and military strength which it did not know how to use or did not want to use, and it voluntarily surrendered its arms to the bourgeoisie. It abandoned the revolutionary road and set out on the parliamentary road, which gradually transformed this party from a party of the revolution into a bourgeois party of the working class for social reforms.
In regard to Spain, it must be said that the directives of the 7th Congress of the Communist International had greater results than in France or Italy. The effect of them was especially apparent during the Civil War. At first the communists did not take part in the Popular Front government, but gave it their support. Nevertheless, the Communist Party criticized the government for its irresolute stand and demanded that it take measures against the fascist danger, against the activity which the fascists carried out, especially the caste of officers, who constituted the immediate danger at that time.
On July 17, 1936 the fascist generals launched their “Pronunciamento.” The fascists’ plot was well co-ordinated. They had acted under the nose of the leftist government and the authorities established by a government which had emerged from the coalition of the Popular Front. All the anti-fascist forces lined up against this danger. In November the government headed by Largo Caballero was formed with two communist ministers included. Thus a common front was formed to defend the Republic even with arms. The government granted autonomy to the Basques, confiscated the lands of fascists in favour of poor peasants and nationalized all their property.
Right from the start, the Communist Party called on the working class and the people for resistance. The Communist Party did not content itself with appeals, however, but went into action. The members of the party went into the barracks to explain the situation to the soldiers, telling them what the fascists were and what a threat they presented to the workers, the peasants and the people. In Madrid, the capital of Spain, the fascist coup failed.
In other cities, the people, and first of all the working class, attacked the military units which had risen against the Republic and paralysed them. In Asturia the fight of the miners against the fascist troops raged for a month and this province remained in the hands of the people. The fascists could not pass there. The same thing occurred in the Basque region and many parts of Spain.
In the first days of August it seemed that the fascist generals were on the way out and their defeat would have been complete had the troops of fascist Italy and nazi Germany not gone to their assistance immediately, together with the troops recruited in Spanish Morocco and those sent by fascist Portugal.
In a country where the army was led by an old caste of reactionary royalist and fascist officers the fate of the country could not be left to the army, of which a part followed the fascist generals while the rest began to fall apart. Therefore, the Communist Party called for the creation of a new army, an army of the people. The communists set to work to create this army and within a short time managed to set up the Fifth Regiment. On the basis of this regiment, which achieved great fame during the Spanish War, the people’s army of the Spanish Republic was built up.
The resolute stand of the Communist Party against the fascist attack, the bold example it set by placing itself at the head of the masses to prevent the advance of fascism, the example set by its members, 60 per cent of whom went to the different fighting fronts of the war, greatly increased the authority and prestige of the party among the masses of the people.
A party grows, wins authority and becomes the leadership of the masses when it has a clear line and hurls itself boldly into struggle to implement it. During the Civil War the Communist Party of Spain became such a party. Between the beginning of the fascist insurrection in July 1936 and the end of that year, the Communist Party increased the number of its members threefold. And despite the fact that in those days people turned to the party, not to cast votes in elections but to give their lives, at no time has any other party, whether the so-called communist party of Carrillo or the other revisionist parties which have opened all their doors to anyone, with religious beliefs or otherwise, workers or bourgeois, who want to join them, been able to show such a growth of its authority and influence as that which the Communist Party of Spain achieved during the time of the Civil War.
The Spanish War came to an end at the beginning of 1939, with the extension of Franco’s rule over the whole country. In that war the Communist Party of Spain did not spare its efforts or forces to defeat fascism. If fascism triumphed, this is due, apart from various internal factors, first of all to the intervention of Italian and German fascism, as well as to the capitulationist policy of “non-intervention” followed by the Western powers towards the fascist aggressors.
Many members of the Communist Party of Spain gave their lives during the Civil War. Others fell victim to the Francoite terror. Thousands and thousands of others were thrown into prison where they languished for many years or died. The terror which prevailed in Spain after the victory of the fascists was extremely ferocious.
The Spanish democrats who managed to escape arrest and internment took part in the French resistance and fought valiantly, while the Spanish democrats who went to the Soviet Union entered the ranks of the Red Army and many of them gave their lives fighting against fascism.
Although in extremely difficult conditions, the communists continued the guerilla war and the organization of resistance within Spain. The majority of them fell into the hands of the Francoite police and were condemned to death.
Franco dealt a heavy blow to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class and the masses of the Spanish people and this had negative consequences for the Communist Party. Losing its soundest, most ideologically prepared, most resolute and courageous element in the armed struggle and during the fascist terror, the Communist Party of Spain came under the negative and destructive influence of the cowardly petty-bourgeois and intellectual elements, such as Carrillo and company, who became dominant. They gradually transformed the Communist Party of Spain into an opportunist and revisionist party.
To be continued…
Notes
[1] The congress was held from July 25 to August 21, 1935.
[2] French — the great mute; here the meaning is that the army was not supposed to get involved in politics.
[3] Francs Tireurs et Partisans — French partisan forces led by the FCP.
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