Two Voices

Strasbourg was liberated (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS). But the eyes of the French nation were looking beyond the Rhineland toward Moscow, where General de Gaulle had a rendezvous with Marshal Stalin. For in this most peculiar of wars, the unfinished Battle of Germany was little more than a terrible anticlimax. The social and political future of Europe was being foreshadowed, less on the bloody battlefields or by Europe's restive people than in Moscow's Kremlin.

France to Russia. What General de Gaulle would say there to Marshal Stalin and what Stalin would say to him was foreshadowed on the eve of De Gaulle's departure in the Consultative Assembly's first full-dress debate on foreign policy.

To the rostrum stumbled Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, the Catholic professor of history who had led the Resistance movement. Like France, he was sick--with grippe or from an overdose of medicine. He was speaking to Moscow, but his voice was scarcely audible. Back benchers cried: "Louder! Louder!" Bidault mumbled: France has no intention of taking part in any anti-Russian "western cordon.. . . We certainly want an alliance in the west but we also want an alliance in the east of Europe." Then he cut his remarks short, slumped down like an old man. On the Government bench, General Charles de Gaulle glowered.

He tried to fill out his Foreign Minister's unfinished address: "Our country faces one of those exceptional historical occasions when . . . destiny . . . opens up before it. . . ." France's destiny rested on three great issues: 1) settlement of the German problem with French participation (this would permit "the unity of Europe," in which Moscow, London and Paris would be "the three poles"); 2) promotion of French interests in Africa and the Mediterranean, through which will pass "our exchanges with great Russia"; 3) recognition of France's stake in the Pacific, i.e., her rich colony, Indo-China.

Russia to France. The Assembly cheered the General. But it reserved its most thunderous ovation for the voice of Moscow--an hour-long address by one of its own members: veteran Communist Florimond Bonte, his party's expert, on foreign affairs. Salient points:

P: For the period between the two World Wars, French foreign policy had made two vital mistakes. It had failed to destroy German imperialism. It had failed to recognize the importance of Russia.

P: "A Franco-Soviet alliance is one of the necessary conditions of French security. . . . No western bloc ... no purely Atlantic solution would be sufficient." (Long cheers from the house.) Also necessary: an alliance between "Great Britain, Russia and the United States. . . . Anything else leads to war."

P: "France is the warden of the great interests of civilization. . . . France is and must remain a great African power... . We have no reason to feel crushed by an inferiority complex which might lead us to consider our country an appendix to other states."

P: France wants a pact with Spain, but not with "gangster Franco ... the ally of Hitler and the enemy of France." (In the diplomatic gallery Spanish Envoy Jose de Sangroniz listened stonily. From the Assembly came the day's noisiest cheers, shouts: "Tres bien! Tres bien!")

P: France must recognize the Moscow-sponsored Polish Lublin Government.

Above the shouts of applause and through the weaving mazes of power politics, Frenchmen discerned one fact clearly: so long as the Gaullist Government pursued a policy of friendship to Russia, it could count on Communist support at home, Soviet support for its empire.

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