Moscow Speaks

An abrupt, clanking noise was heard in Paris. It was the sound of the Communist line changing, and changing so rapidly that some of the Red-faced comrades got caught in the gears.

Two Faces. Since World War II, France's top-ranking Reds have alternated between Approach No. 1 (the hard face of a tightly knit corps of barricade-building professionals, adept at sabotage and martyrdom) and Approach No. 2 (the bland face of the Popular Front, designed to win the pennies, votes and tears of the masses). In 1947 French Communist Boss Maurice Thorez, who has been undergoing "medical treatment" in the Soviet Union for the past 17 months, plumped for Approach No. 2. His faithful followers exalted the dove, and sheltered behind such intellectual "fronts" as Physicist Joliot-Curie's "Partisans of Peace."

Last May Franc,ois Billoux, veteran Communist Deputy from Marseille, was called to the Kremlin. Alarmed by the prospect of German rearmament, he ran up the signal for Approach No. 1: hardcore violence to wreck NATO before it is too late (TIME, June 9). Billoux's instructions were published in the Reds' official monthly, Cahiers du Communisme: 1) no more popular-fronting with the bourgeoisie--they have become "chambermaids of American imperialism," and must therefore be destroyed; 2) less talk and more action.

The comrades obliged. They organized the Ridgway riots (TIME, June 9), called a general strike of 2,000,000 Red-led workers. Both were disastrous flops. National Assemblyman Jacques Duclos, France's No. 1 Communist, was tossed into jail by Prime Minister Pinay's cops, and stays there; this audacious move so startled his lieutenants that not one of them in the National Assembly has risen to invoke parliamentary immunity for Duclos. The comrades were confused: they hardly knew whether to proclaim Duclos' martyrdom or denounce him for stupidity.

Deviations. Last week Moscow spoke again, this time through Party Philosopher Etienne Fajon, certified guardian of the French C.P.'s "ideological purity." In a 15,000-word article plastered across two full pages of Paris' Communist L'Humanite, Fajon reprimanded his sinning brethren. French Communists, he scolded, had relied too much on "sectarianism," i.e., pure revolutionary violence, and not enough on the "revolutionary combativeness" of the popular masses. That Comrade Billoux only a few weeks before had ordered them to do what they did was no excuse: if the Politburo had seemed to err, that was because the "deviating" French had misunderstood. They had also confused the task of the moment--the fight for "peace against America"--with the task of the future, which is, of course, the Socialist revolution. At the moment, said Fajon, the "struggle against American Imperialism" (i.e., NATO, and the Schuman Plan) is more important.

Admonitions. It was a new signal from the Kremlin: double back to Approach No. 2. France's 70 Communist Party chieftains huddled last week in the Salle des Fetes, a grimy upstairs room lent by the Communist mayor of the Parisian suburb of Gennevilliers, to hear High Priest Fajon explain the latest party slogan: Vunion pour la paix (Unity for peace). The new Red line is to avoid violence, in which the Reds are likely to come off worst, and play up instead the "unity" of all Frenchmen who are willing to fight "American Imperialism," regardless of their opinions, religion or social class.

Mecr Culpas. Then Fajon scattered words of blame, which landed among his tense colleagues in the Salle des Fetes with the searing force of a Molotov cocktail. The general strike call did not correspond to the actual "state of forces"; planning for the uproar in May was slipshod, and the orders were vague. The party was falling off at elections, losing circulation in its newspapers and support in labor unions.

When Fajon had finished, 18 groveling Reds, including grim-faced Jeannette Ver-meersch, wife of Boss Thorez, jumped to their feet mouthing their mea culpas, which were published alongside Fajon's scoldings on L'Humanite's Page 4. For Jeannette Vermeersch it was easy: she hadn't been to Moscow for ages. She had been guilty, she said, of believing that collaboration with the bourgeoisie was impossible, but now, thanks to Comrade Fajon, she saw the error of her ways. For stubby little Francois Billoux, recantation came harder. He had just come back from Moscow and was supposed to have the Word. Humbly he confessed to "certain unsatisfactory formulations," then jammed on his hat and scurried off for home. He seemed to be looking over his shoulder to see if Big Brother was watching.

The French change of line, as well as the dispatching of the great stony face, Andrei Gromyko, to London as Ambassador to Great Britain (TIME, June 23), signified that the Kremlin intends to concentrate anew on splitting the Western allies. Something mysterious was also going on in the Italian Communist Party. There, L'Unita, the official party organ, began playing up the name and face of burly Pietro Secchia, the No. 2 Communist, and playing down the No. 1, Palmiro Togliatti. Perhaps Togliatti, too, had geed when he should have hawed.

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