The French Resistance

[Red October]

I'm reading a book about the last days of World War 2, and it said something about the French Resistance being dominated by Communists. Is this true? Did the resistance movement have any specific leftist tendency?

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 16, 2007 09:23 pm
I'm reading a book about the last days of World War 2, and it said something about the French Resistance being dominated by Communists. Is this true? Did the resistance movement have any specific leftist tendency?
Well probably it could have had members from PCF which was a significant political force at that time.

But initially Communists didn't took part in resistance denouncing the war as an imperialist aggrression against Germany until Nazis violated the non aggression pact and Operation Barbarossa was commenced.

[Wanted Man]

There were lots of communists. But also lots of Gaullists. And British people who tried to speak French:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/images/400/alloallo_4.jpg

And zhe Germans:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/images/400/alloallo_3.jpg

And café owners who cheated on their wives with their serving girls.

It was a crazy time, those WWII years.

[Janus]

and it said something about the French Resistance being dominated by Communists.
I don't think it was dominated by communists but that communists,socialists, and syndicalists did form a percentage of the composition and were usually the more organized of the various resistance groups.


Did the resistance movement have any specific leftist tendency?
Ideologically, the movement wasn't unified: there were Gaullists, socialists, communists, anarchists, conservative nationalists,etc.

[chimx]

the communists had a reputation of being a primary strength of the resistance, but you can't deny the size of those following DeGaulle. It was this reputation that allowed for socialists and communists to become legitimized within the 4th republic after WWII.

[Labor Shall Rule]

The Italian Resistance was far more based on the communists; there was factory occupations, worker miltias wandering the streets, large guerilla bases across the countryside, and mass campaigns and rallies that they organized against the Germans throughout the later years of the Second World War. CLNAI, or the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy, which was composed of mostly communist and even anarchist forces, directed an uprising that pinned down two German divisions; culminating in the liberation of most of the major urban centers across the north.

[Red Rebel]

Most resistance movements were dominated by Communists, espeacially after the USSR joined the war. If you want to read a good book, I suggest Resistance, Occupoed Europe and it's defiance of Hitler, by D. A. Lande. Or you could just read the wiki article on the French Resistance.

[luxemburg89]

The Italian Resistance was far more based on the communists; there was factory occupations, worker miltias wandering the streets, large guerilla bases across the countryside, and mass campaigns and rallies that they organized against the Germans throughout the later years of the Second World War. CLNAI, or the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy, which was composed of mostly communist and even anarchist forces, directed an uprising that pinned down two German divisions; culminating in the liberation of most of the major urban centers across the north.


Exactly true. The Garibaldi Brigades, who were the driving force in the Italian resistance, were communist partisans. It was they, in fact, who caught and killed Mussolini.

[tarendol]

The french "communist" party (PCF) joined the Resistance only when Hitler broke his alliance with Stalin (1941).

Before that, the french Resistance, that was very few people... Mostly left-wing militants or sympathizers : socialists, communists (without the approval of the PCF's leaders), communists expelled from the PCF, anti-stalinist marxists - and many others people, including some new to politics.

[abbielives!]

my father is Danish and he say that the communists because very popular in Europe after the war because they were the ones who resisted.

[RedArmyFaction]

my history teacher once told my the resistance were communists. not sure though