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Histoire du Parti communiste français
Stephane Courtois and Marc Lazar, Histoire du Parti communiste français, 439pp, Presses Universitaires de France, 1995, 149FF (pb); ISBN 2 13 047048 3
The authors approach their subject in a broadly chronological manner, setting themselves the difficult task of synthesising often controversial aspects of the PCF's complex history in a matter of a few pages. In eschewing a more thematic or comparative methodology, there are several dangers, not the least of which is that broader themes, running through the various events that have formed the party's history, may not be brought sufficiently into the foreground. In other words, the scope for analytical or interpretative understanding of the context within which events, strategies and tactics are located, may be reduced.
This is a problem for any single-volume synthesis, and it is one that the authors recognise, and (partially) attempt to address in their introduction, although the perfunctory conclusion certainly requires a fuller treatment, in order to provide an interpretative overview. That said, the book provides a great deal of thought-provoking material, and Courtois and Lazar have performed a valuable service in rendering a nuanced account, taking into consideration the evolution of historical scholarship. Drawing upon the secondary literature extensively, they provide indicative bibliographies at the foot of each chapter (sub-divided into 'Archives, documents and periodicals', 'Communist publications and testimonies', and academic 'Studies').
These are certainly useful, although of course they cannot be comprehensive, but the absence of footnotes referring to points made in the body of the text is likely to irritate some readers (just as an unnecessary proliferation of footnotes can interrupt the flow of the argument). In this case, with the authors' stated intention to update the historical narrative through use of the newly-opened archives (both in Moscow and in Paris), it would have been helpful to know precisely the source for those arguments that challenge aspects of the 'orthodoxy'. In particular, this is the case for the authors' treatment of the Comintern period, and especially controversial issues such as the role played by the PCF between June 1940 and June 1941 (the attempt to legalise the production of L'Humanité, the question of 'passive' resistance to the German occupying forces, and the 'Appeal of the 10 July', used subsequently by the PCF to claim justification for its post-war assertion that resistance had been fomented well before the Nazi invasion of the USSR).
Courtois and Lazar are surely right to point out the passionate engagement of researchers with the PCF's history (as well as with its contemporary political strategy), particularly during the explosion of interest in the 1960s and 1970s. They even label this enthusiasm as 'excessive', but they also note that 'since the start of the 1980s, the generalised decline of the PCF has occurred in an environment of stupefying indifference.' (p.11). This attitude has recently been questioned in at least two ways: the unexpected return of the PCF to government in May 1997, as a junior partner in the Jospin coalition, has had the effect of reigniting respectable intellectual interest in the French communist movement; and, the continuing soul-searching with regard to the French wartime experience, communist and non-communist, that has accompanied events like the current Papon trial, has also contributed to renewed scrutiny of the PCF's role in events that, for a lengthy period, were either considered too sensitive to expose to the light of day, or were buried in closed archives.
The authors convincingly explain the willingness, until the recent resurgence, of French intellectuals to 'drop' the PCF as a significant object of study, as stemming from a desire to escape an 'ideological strait-jacket', wherein research into PCF history was necessarily interpreted as either objectively pro- or anti-communist, whatever the intention of the researcher. This politicisation may well have been unavoidable, for the PCF set out to control the projection of its own history, and 'sees in any critical evaluation of its past or present activity, the mark of an anti-communism which it obstinately denounces.' (p.13). Readers may well sympathise with the difficulties facing researchers, confronted with this partisan history of half-truth, omission and falsification. Yet, Courtois and Lazar do not acknowledge that this must surely slice both ways; anti-PCF propaganda and falsification were also a reality, and it is bound to distort the task facing historians now, if responsibility for partisanship is placed only at the communist door.
From its foundations in the 1960s, the historiography of French communism constituted itself around 3 poles, according to Courtois and Lazar. First, Annie Kriegel's work attempted to demonstrate that communism in France was characterised by an 'irreducible exteriority' flowing from its appartenance as part of a worldwide communist system. In this vision, the PCF represented a break with the tradition of the French workers' movement. Second, communist historians such as Roger Martelli, Serge Wolikow and Jacques Girault, grouped around the Maurice Thorez Institute (renamed the Institut de recherches marxistes) managed to find a working accommodation with the PCF leadership, permitting them a certain degree of autonomy, but Courtois and Lazar are quick to point out the strict parameters that attached to this independence, whether imposed by the leadership's conditions, or due to self-discipline in the face of political calculation. Contra Kriegel, these authors argued that the PCF should be properly studied in the context of its 'implantation' at the heart of French social, economic and political realities, and that its strategic direction was 'an essentially French product.' (p.15). Third, political scientists and sociologists, the most significant being Georges Lavau, applied methods, techniques and interpretative models to study the PCF that had been designed and applied elsewhere in the social sciences. Lavau, for instance, used functionalism to argue that the PCF fulfilled a 'tribune' role within the national polity, and that eventually it would be integrated into mainstream French society.
During the 1980s, in the shape of a new journal largely devoted to the study of the French party, Communisme, (Courtois and Lazar are members of the Comité de redaction) a new generation of researchers studied various aspects of PCF history, united only by the desire to understand it in terms that avoided partisan polemicising, and to stress the benefits of an inter-disciplinary approach. Despite the initial scepticism or even hostility of the 'communist historians' to this project, Courtois and Lazar argue that the value of this approach was recognised by all 3 poles, and that this was helped by the rapid marginalisation of the party, which lessened partisanship, and the fact that several PCF historians were supportive of dissident waves of opposition to the Marchais leadership.
That there were disagreements and limits to the extent of this rassemblement is unsurprising, and a significant example of the type of dispute that can arise is currently unfolding. Courtois, along with a number of collaborators has just published a book, to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, claiming to shed light on the crimes committed by communist regimes (Le livre noir du communisme: Crimes, terreurs et répression, Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin; published by Robert Laffont; 830pp., 189FF). A certain scepticism has been advanced with regard to the figure of 100 million deaths attributable to communist regimes that the book puts forward, and a fierce polemic has ensued. Courtois' introduction, in which he makes an 'assimilation' between 'class genocide' and 'race genocide', and calls for a Nuremburg process to be instigated targetting ex-communist officials, was disowned by two of the book's authors (Werth, Margolin), and those close to the PCF have reacted with anger. Martelli welcomed the serious and critical studies contained in the body of the text, but accused Courtois of 'abandoning historical interpretation in favour of political engagement' (Le Monde, 10 November 1997). Martelli went on to underline a crucial distinction; 'For Courtois, stalinism is the truth of communism. I do not go along with that. Stalinism was a part of communism, but was not its truth.' Official comment from the PCF has been more acerbic still; Claude Cabanes, editor in chief of L'Humanité, argued that the comparison with Nazism was 'insupportable', and cited Primo Levi's phrase, that one cannot think of Nazism without the gas chambers, but one can think of communism without the camps.
Undoubtedly, this controversy will continue to excite strong emotions, and its likely effects upon the historiography of French communism can only be surmised. However, it is clearly the case that Courtois' professed aim, to reduce the partisanship associated with the study of the PCF's history, has been ill-served by this polemic par excellence. Nevertheless, Courtois and Lazar have produced a highly useful, and provocative book, that should help to galvanise a new generation of researchers into French communism, that most stubborn of western parties.
