Farewell to Arms

General Charles de Gaulle's cordial mission to Moscow (TIME, Dec. 18) has been paying off ever since, especially in the powerful French Communist Party's solid support of the Government. Last week it paid off again.

To Paris from the provinces marched more than 1,800 delegates of the Communist-dominated Front National. A conclave of cardinals would scarcely have been more law-abiding or (for the moment) more conservative. The first annual congress of France's most important Resistance group smoothly lock-stepped down the Communist Party's proGovernment, law-&-order line. Cried Communist Pierre Villon, F.N. secretary general: "The Tommy-gun era is now at an end!"

Then the Congress voted for: 1) a big French army; 2) confiscation of traitors' property; 3) "implacable justice" to traitors; 4) "Republican order"; 5) a policy of international security founded on friendship with all democratic countries, as exemplified by the Franco-Russian pact.

The new Union sacree of France's Government and her Communists was symbolized by an anonymous Catholic priest, who closed the four-day session by playing his new composition: a melodic blend of the Marseillaise and the Internationale.

A week before, the strongly socialistic Mouvement de Liberation National, France's No. 2 Resistance group, had also met in Paris, roundly rejected a fusion with F.N. Basic reason: distrust of the F.N.'s Communist complexion. M.L.N. delegates assailed the new Party line laid down by Maurice Thorez, France's No. 1 Communist, who recently returned from wartime exile in Moscow (TIME, Dec. 11). Thorez had called for the disbanding of all Resistance militia, even Communist armed bands who had seized authority in some localities. "Public security," he said, "should be assured by the regular police."

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