The Western Communists and the European military build-up, 1949–50: A preventive strategy

Matteo Lodevole is completing his PhD at Churchill College, Cambridge. In summer 2007 he was Jemolo Fellow in Nuffield College, Oxford. Matteo has been visiting scholar at the Humboldt Universität Berlin and at the George Washington University. He has been awarded fellowships from a number of institutions including Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the Royal Historical Society, the British Academy and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. His research interests are in the field of international Communism in the early Cold War, with particular stress on labour strategies.

Abstract

This article documents the reaction of the French and Italian Communists to the initial phase of the European military build-up. It shows how actions, which were aimed at hampering Western remilitarization, were more militant than has commonly been acknowledged. This argument is illustrated via an analysis of the plan of action implemented by the Western Communists against the link between European industrial power and its prospective military might in 1949–50. The Communists' ‘direct action’ aimed to sabotage arms production of French and Italian heavy industry and to block the delivery of war materials from the United States. Recently declassified non-diplomatic documents shed new light on the operational level and on the instruments used by both the PCF and the PCI. It is demonstrated that the Communist strategy was a preventive one. Although extremely provocative, it aimed to avoid war in Europe.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to my PhD supervisor, Professor Jonathan Haslam, for his invaluable assistance, advice and support during my studies. I am also extremely grateful to Andrew Hurrell, Piers Ludlow, Silvio Pons, Brendan Simms, and Natalia Yegorova, who commented on early drafts of this essay. This research would have been impossible without the consistent financial support received from a number of institutions, listed in my biography, to which I am deeply grateful.

Notes

Matteo Lodevole is completing his PhD at Churchill College, Cambridge. In summer 2007 he was Jemolo Fellow in Nuffield College, Oxford. Matteo has been visiting scholar at the Humboldt Universität Berlin and at the George Washington University. He has been awarded fellowships from a number of institutions including Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the Royal Historical Society, the British Academy and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. His research interests are in the field of international Communism in the early Cold War, with particular stress on labour strategies.

  [1] Haslam, ‘Soviet Policy towards Western Europe’, 470.

  [2] Pons, ‘A Challenge Let Drop’, 246–63.

  [3] Pons, L'impossibile egemonia; Buton, Les lendemains qui déchantent; Spriano, Stalin and the European Communists; Claudin, The Communist Movement.

  [4] Robrieux, Histoire intérieure du Parti comuniste; Wall, French Communism in the Era of Stalin; Marcou, Le Kominform; Sassoon, The Strategy of the Italian Communist Party.

  [5] Haslam, ‘Le valutazioni di Stalin sulla probabilità della guerra’; Mastny, ‘NATO in Beholder's Eye’; Yegorova, ‘The Evolution of Stalin's Postwar Perception of External Threat’, 73-85.

  [6] One work of military history partially considering the Communist response to NATO is: Pottier, Les bases américaines en France. See also: Nuti, L'esercito italiano nel secondo dopoguerra; Soutou, ‘La sécurité de la France dans l'après-guerre’; Bozo, La France et l'OTAN.

  [7] The Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact (PHP), sponsored by the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, is publishing a series of document collections on politico-military matters central to the conduct of the Cold War in Europe. Several of these documents are now available in facsimile on its website: www.isn.ethz.ch/php.

  [8] Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, 221–4.

  [9] On this point see: Varsori, Il Patto di Bruxelles, especially Chapter 8.

 [10] Schlaga, Die Kommunisten in der Friedensbewegung, 51–74; Le Cour Grandmaison, ‘Le Mouvement de la paix pendant la guerre froide’, 120–38; McNeill, The Kremlin and the Peace Offensive, 7.

 [11] Shulman, Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised.

 [12] Haslam, ‘Collecting and Assembling Pieces of the Jigsaw’, 140.

 [13] Ludlow, ‘No Longer a Closed Shop’, 158–63.

 [14] For an examination of the different agencies of which the French intelligence was composed, see: Porch, The French Secret Services.

 [15] Auriol, Journal du septennat.

 [16] This point has been several times repeated by the leading scholar in the study of intelligence history: Andrew, ‘Intelligence and International Relations in the Early Cold War’; Andrew, ‘Intelligence in the Cold War’, 1–2; Andrew, ‘Intelligence, International Relations and “Under-theorisation”’, 172.

 [17] Porch, ‘French Intelligence Culture’, 487.

 [18] Gori and Pons, Dagli Archivi di Mosca.

 [19] Procacci, The Cominform.

 [20] Westad, ‘The New International History of the Cold War’, 252.

 [21] Aga-Rossi and Zaslavsky, Togliatti e Stalin.

 [22] Pons, ‘Stalin, Togliatti, and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe’, 6.

 [23] Courtois and Lazar, Histoire du parti communiste française, 265.

 [24] Varsori, L'Italia nelle relazioni internazional, 66–9.

 [25] Frachon, ‘L'aggravation de la lutte de classe en France’, 3.

 [26] BStU, MfS, AS – 25/54, Bd. 2, 000011: Weltgewerkschaftsbund. Tagung des Generalrates vom 15 bis 21 November 1951 in Berlin. Allgemeiner Tätigkeitsbericht.

 [27] Kriegel, Le communistes français, 140–68.

 [28] National Archives & Records Administration (NARA), CIA Records Research Tool (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01065A000400070022-3, 1951.

 [29] See Raack, Stalin's Drive to the West. See also Macdonald, ‘Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War’, 152–88.

 [30] Pons, ‘Stalin, Togliatti, and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe’, 3–27.

 [31] Spriano, Stalin and the European Communists, 292.

 [32] Gibianskii, ‘The Last Conference of the Cominform’, 677.

 [33] Adibekov, Das Kominform und Stalins Neuordnung Europas, 199–200.

 [34] ‘Une puissante manifestation des forces de paix et démocratie’, Pour une paix durable, pour une démocratie populaire, 1.

 [35] Adibekov, Das Kominform und Stalins Neuordnung Europas, 201.

 [36] Procacci, The Cominform, 701–3.

 [37] Adibekov, Das Kominform und Stalins Neuordnung Europas, 149–55.

 [38] Pons, ‘Stalin, Togliatti, and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe’, 26.

 [39] Haslam, ‘Russian Archival Revelations’, 221.

 [40] Yegorova, ‘Stalin's Foreign Policy and the Cominform’, 197–207.

 [41] Auriol, Journal du septennat, tome III: 1949, 18–19.

 [42] Wall, French Communism in the Era of Stalin, 3.

 [43] Westad, ‘The New International History of the Cold War’, 557–8.

 [44] On the importance of both industrial and military research in national development, see: Bush, Science: The Endless Frontier, x–xii.

 [45] Mastny, ‘NATO from the Soviet and East European Perspective’, 56.

 [46] Procacci, The Cominform, 716.

 [47] Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics, 150–51.

 [48] Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, 474.

 [49] Auriol, Journal du septennat, tome III: 1949, 6–7.

 [50] ‘The Ambassador in France (Caffrey) to the Secretary of State, 23 March 1949’, FRUS , 1949, vol. IV, 637.

 [51] APCF, Comité Central, 9–10 décembre 1949, Saint-Denis; Duclos' speech was also reported in: L'Humanité , 10 decembre 1949, p. 4.

 [52] Tiersky, ‘Alliance Politics and Revolutionary Pretensions’, 435–6.

 [53] Ross, ‘Party and Mass Organisation’, 510.

 [54] APCF, Bureau Politique du 5 Août 1949.

 [55] CIA website, www.foia.cia.gov: ‘Opposition to the ECA in participating countries (ORE 68-48)’, p. 6. NARA # NN3-263-92-005; 24-AUG-92, pub. date: 2/10/49; release date: 9/22/1993.

 [56] Auriol, Journal du septennat, tome III: 1949, 12 January, 11; 22 April, 206–7; 22 June, 266–7.

 [57] CARAN, 4 AG 86, ‘Influence communiste dans les usines d'aviation nationalisées’, 10 Mars 1949. See also: L'Humanité, 20–21 juin 1948.

 [58] Auriol, Journal du septennat, tome III: 1949, 186.

 [59] Soutou, ‘France’, 106.

 [60] CARAN, 4 AG 85: ‘Léon Mauvais définit les consignes du parti devant des membres des cadres de la Seine-et-Oise’, 16 Mai 1949.

 [61] CARAN, 4 AG 86, ‘La propagande communiste dans les usines métallurgiques contre la fabrication de matériel de guerre’, 12 mars 1949.

 [62] Kaplan, ‘Western Union and European Military Integration’, 45–68, in particular, 58.

 [63] On this point Varsori refers to a number of documents examined at the National Archives in Kew Gardens: Varsori, Il Patto di Bruxelles, 150.

 [64] CARAN, 4 AG 86, ‘La propagande communiste dans les usines métallurgiques contre la fabrication de matériel de guerre’, 12 mars 1949.

 [65] APCF, Secrétariat, 7 juni 1949.

 [66] Procacci, The Cominform, 713.

 [67] APCF, Bureau Politique du 6 janvier 1950.

 [68] APCF, Bureau Politique du 13 janvier 1950; Bureau Politique du 10 février 1950.

 [69] CARAN, 4 AG 86, ‘Vers la reconstitution, par le PCF de groupes mobiles d'action directe’, 1er juin 1952.

 [70] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘Charles Tillon va s'occuper spécialement de la constitution des comites de défense contre la guerre dans les arsenaux’, 20 janvier 1950.

 [71] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘Au cours d'une réunion électorale à Sartrouville, Tillon député de la Seine, critique violemment Robert Schuman et Le Troquer’, 24 janvier 1950.

 [72] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘Ambroise Croizat expose aux dirigeants du PC son point de vue sur le développement de la propagande pour la défense de la paix dans la métallurgie’, 12 janvier 1950.

 [73] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘Au cours d'une tournée de contrôle et de propagande effectuée dans la région de St Etienne, M. Croizat communique ses directives aux dirigeants locaux du PC et de la CGT et participe à des réunions publiques au cours des quelles il se livre a des attaques très violentes contre les membres du gouvernement’, 25 janvier 1950.

 [74] FIG-APCI, Comitato Centrale, 11–13 novembre 1947, Busta 039, Fascicolo 537.

 [75] Pons, ‘Stalin, Togliatti, and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe’, 23.

 [76] Galante, L'autonomia possibile, 162.

 [77] FIG-APCI, Palmiro Togliatti, Carte della scrivania, 26 dicembre 1949.

 [78] Documento n. 30: ‘Nota informativa di Ševljagin sul PCI e la lotta per la pace, [1949]’, in Gori and Pons, Dagli Archivi di Mosca, 354–6.

 [79] FIG-APCI, Fondo Mosca, Direzione, Busta 199: ‘Verbale riunione direzione del Partito’, 24–25 Maggio 1948.

 [80] Aga-Rossi and Zaslavsky, Togliatti e Stalin, 230.

 [81] FIG-APCI, Comitato Centrale, 29–31 marzo 1949, Busta 039, Fascicoli 932–4.

 [82] FIG-APCI, Comitato Centrale, 29–31 marzo 1949, Busta 039, Fascicolo 944.

 [83] FIG-APCI, Comitato Centrale, 29–31 marzo 1949, Busta 039, Fascicoli 1005–6.

 [84] Procacci, The Cominform, 767.

 [85] FIG-APCI, Fonda Mosca, Busta 190, Direzione, 24–25 gennaio 1950.

 [86] Shulman, Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised, 61, 64.

 [87] Procacci, The Cominform, 679, 683.

 [88] Guillen, ‘France and the Defence of Western Europe’, 126–7, 135.

 [89] Frémeaux and Martel, ‘French Defence Policy, 1947–1949’, 99–100.

 [90] Facon, ‘US Forces in France 1945–1958’, 238.

 [91] Procacci, The Cominform, 715.

 [92] Procacci, The Cominform, 719.

 [93] APCF, Secrétariat du 14 décembre 1949.

 [94] IHS-CGT, Fond Benoît Frachon, Carton 10: 1948–1951, ‘Le non de la classe ouvrière à la guerre’, L'Humanité, 13 décembre 1949.

 [95] APCF, Comité Central, 9–10 décembre 1949, Saint-Denis.

 [96] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘M. Casanova, avec l'accord du bureau politique du PC, va demander aux partisans de la paix de soutenir l'action des dockers contre la guerre’, 24 décembre 1949.

 [97] APCF, Bureau Politique du 6 janvier 1950.

 [98] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘M. Casanova va recevoir, a Paris les secrétaires fédéraux du PC des départements maritimes’, 5 janvier 1950.

 [99] CARAN, 4 AG 85, ‘Instructions communistes d'ordre général’, 27 Mars 1950.

[100] APCF, Bureau Politique du 24 mars 1950.

[101] APCF, 261 J 2/22, Etienne Fajon: Rapport au Comité Central, réunion du 4 mai 1950 à Ivry-sur-Seine.

[102] FIG -APCI, Fondo Palmiro Togliatti; Serie 1: Carte Botteghe Oscure; Sottoserie 4: PCI; UA 12: ‘Appunti di colloquio con un dirigente Sovietico, 26 dicembre 1949’.

[103] P. Secchia, ‘La lutte des travailleurs italiens pour la liberté et l'indépendance du pays’, Pour une paix durable, pour une démocratie populaire! , 15 janvier 1949, 2.

[104] FIG-APCI, Fondo Mosca, Materiali Cominform, Busta 192, Fascicolo 320: ‘Intervento Secchia sul 1° ordine del giorno’. The document is also reported in: Documento n. 34: ‘Intervento di Secchia alla riunione della segreteria del Cominform, 21 aprile 1950’, in Gori and Pons, Dagli Archivi di Mosca, 380–83.

[105] The importance of the Party work within the unemployed masses was stressed by Stalin in the Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, 476.

[106] FIG-APCI, Fonda Mosca, Busta 190, Direzione, 22–23 febbraio 1950.

[107] FIG-APCI, Fonda Mosca, Busta 190, Direzione, 3 aprile 1950.

[108] Documento n. 34: ‘Intervento di Secchia alla riunione della segreteria del Cominform, 21 aprile 1950’, in Gori and Pons, Dagli Archivi di Mosca, 382.

[109] Archivio Pietro Secchia, 1945 –1973, 225–6.

[110] FIG-APCI, Fonda Mosca, Busta 190, Direzione, 4 maggio 1950.

[111] Yegorova, ‘Stalin's foreign policy and the Cominform’, 203.

[112] Taubman, Stalin's American Policy, 195.

[113] Filitov, ‘Soviet Security Concepts in Historical Retrospective,’ 151–2.

[114] Leffler, ‘Inside Enemy Archives’, 122.

[115] Westad, ‘Secrets of the Second World’, 259–71.

[116] Procacci, The Cominform, 701–3.

[117] Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, 472–3.

[118] Tucker, The Soviet Political Mind, 94, 98–9.

[119] Shulman, Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised, 8.

[120] Roberts, Stalin's Wars, 364.

[121] Nation, Red Earth, Red Star, 179, 173.

[122] Yegorova, ‘Stalin's Foreign Policy and the Cominform’, 202.

[123] Loth, Stalin's Unwanted Child, 87, 89, 93–4.

[124] CARAN, 4 AG 85, L'Ambassade de la rue de Grenelle devant les grèves en France, 8 Décembre 1947.

[125] Pipes, ‘Détente: Moscow's View’, 14.

[126] Haslam, ‘Soviet Policy towards Western Europe’, 470.

[127] Leffler, ‘Inside Enemy Archives’, 133.

[128] Haslam, ‘The Cold War as History’, 84.

[129] Lebow and Gross Stein, We All Lost the Cold War, 357.

[130] Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, 6.