Maurice Thorez
Maurice Thorez | |
---|---|
Deputy Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of the French Republic | |
In office 22 January 1947 – 4 May 1947 | |
Prime Minister | Paul Ramadier |
Succeeded by | Pierre-Henri Teitgen |
In office 24 June 1946 – 28 November 1946 | |
Prime Minister | Georges Bidault |
In office 26 January 1946 – 12 June 1946 | |
Prime Minister | Félix Gouin |
Minister of State | |
In office 22 January 1947 – 4 May 1947 | |
Prime Minister | Paul Ramadier |
In office 21 November 1945 – 20 January 1946 | |
Prime Minister | Charles de Gaulle |
General Secretary of the French Communist Party | |
In office 1930–1964 | |
Preceded by | Pierre Semard |
Succeeded by | Jacques Duclos (Interim; 1950–1953) Waldeck Rochet |
Personal details | |
Born | Noyelles-Godault, Pas-de-Calais, France | 28 April 1900
Died | 11 July 1964 Black Sea, People's Republic of Bulgaria | (aged 64)
Political party | PCF |
Other political affiliations | SFIO (1919–1920) |
Spouse | |
Signature | |
Maurice Thorez (French: [mɔʁis tɔʁɛz, moʁ-]; 28 April 1900 – 11 July 1964) was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 1930 until his death. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister of France from 1946 to 1947.[1]
Pre-War
Thorez, born in Noyelles-Godault, Pas-de-Calais, became a coal miner at the age of 12. He joined the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1919 and was imprisoned several times for his political activism. After the 1920 split in the SFIO led to the formation of the French Communist Party (PCF) in December 1920, Thorez became party secretary in 1923 and, in 1930, general secretary of the party, a position he held until his death. After he took office as secretary general, he was supported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In 1932 Thorez became the companion of Jeannette Vermeersch; they had three sons before marrying in 1947, and remained married until his death.
Thorez was elected to the
World War II
Following the
Following the
When General
Post-war
In November 1944, Thorez returned to France from his exile in the Soviet Union, and in 1945 his citizenship was restored. The PCF emerged from the Second World War as the largest political party in France based on its role in the anti-Nazi resistance movement during the occupation of France, at least after 1941. Thorez was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies and reelected throughout the Fourth Republic (1946–1958).
In power
Forming a popular front with the Socialist Party in the 1945 elections, Thorez became vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947.
By 1947 a combination of the emerging Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and growing social conflicts in France, linked to the increasing gap between wages and prices, put the three party union (SFIO, PCF and MRP) under heavy pressure, culminating in the May 1947 crisis. Prime Minister Paul Ramadier received threats from the United States that the presence of Communist ministers in the government would have consequences, such as the blocking of U.S. aid from the coming Marshall Plan, or worse: "I told Ramadier," Jefferson Caffery, then U.S. ambassador to France, wrote in his diary, "no Communists in gov. or else."[3]
Simultaneously, the 1947 strikes in France caused rumours to spread among the non-Communist members of the government that the PCF would attempt a coup d'état on 1 May: Jules Moch, SFIO Public Works Minister, claimed to have "certain information" on preparations of a coup by the PCF. Ramadier is alleged to have worked secretly with Georges Revers, the Army Chief of Staff, to set up a secret transport and communications network within the military to safeguard against such a coup, all without the knowledge of François Billoux, the Communist Minister of Defence.[4] The crisis was also escalated by the beginnings of the colonial war in Vietnam, with the communist deputies in the National Assembly voting against the war.
Combined, that led Ramadier to look for a pretext to dismiss Thorez and his colleagues from the ruling coalition. On 4 May, the PCF ministers voted against the government over
All my colleagues were full of praises and kindnesses for us – they were prodigal with their declarations of appeasement. Ramadier told us: 'I have no reproaches to make of you. You have always been loyal.' And Teitgen came forward to say 'We shall miss you a lot!' They all threw flowers on us, the better to bury us. I knew that Ramadier was cooking up something bad, but never did I think he'd go this far…[4]
In opposition
In 1950, at the height of his popularity among party members, Thorez suffered a stroke and remained in the Soviet Union for medical care until 1953. That March, Stalin died and Thorez was a member of the French delegation to Stalin's funeral. During the absence of Thorez, the party was de facto controlled by Jacques Duclos. Thorez resumed his duties upon returning to France. Although his health had deteriorated, Thorez remained party leader until shortly before his death in 1964 on a Black Sea cruise.
He published in 1937 an autobiography, Fils du peuple (Son of the People, 1938). The book had been written with the help of fr:Jean Fréville, who had inserted in the story a passage where the initials of the words formed the phrase "Fréville a écrit ce livre" ("Fréville wrote this book"). The passage, present on pages 36-37 of the first edition, was deleted in the following editions.[5][6]
In 1945, he published Une politique de grandeur française (1945; "Politics of French Greatness").
The city of
References
- ^ Bulaitis, 2018.
- ^
One source suggests the following membership statistics:
- 1935: 86,902
- 1936 (December): 288,483
- 1937 (September): 328,547
- 1938 (September): 305,000
- 1939 (August): 270,000
Les effectifs de la SFIO et du PCF (1913-1939)
- ISBN 9780804722186. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-349-16491-2. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Claude Pennetier, notice THOREZ Maurice, May 29, 2017, online .
- ^ Philippe Robrieux, Maurice Thorez, secret life and public life, Fayard, 1975.
- ^ "Рада перейменувала населені пункти на окупованому Донбасі: Торез - на Чистякове, Краснодон - на Сорокине".
Further reading
- Adereth, Maxwell. The French Communist party a critical history (1920-1984), from Comintern to the colours of France (Manchester UP, 1984)
- Bulaitis, John, Maurice Thorez: A Biography, (IB Tauris, 2018). online
- Kemedjio, Cilas. "Aimé Césaire's Letter to Maurice Thorez: The Practice of Decolonization." Research in African Literatures 41.1 (2010): 87-108. online
- Maurice Thorez. Journal 1952-1964 (Paris: Fayard, 2020), in French
- Morgan, Kevin, Julie Gottlieb, and Richard Toye. "Harry Pollitt, Maurice Thorez and the writing of exemplary communist lives." in Making Reputations: power, persuasion and the individual in British politics (IB Tauris, 2005). online
- Robrieux, Philippe. Maurice Thorez. Vie secrète et vie publique (Paris, Éditions Fayard, 1975), 660 pp. in French.
- Rossi, A. A Communist Party in Action: An Account of the Organization and Operations in France (Yale UP, 1949)