aq inay

sov t uses Big Lie technique

to justify arrests, get new U.S. loan

By JOSEPH STAROBIN

PARIS

The French government’s blow against the Communists, the
largest political party-in the country, with five mililon voters, has
_ been classic for its cynicism. The seizure of general secretary Jacques

Duclos was the main case in point.

Explanations? These come later

- 4nd are being contradicted every hour with a typical contempt for

Public intelligence. Localities?

‘The ground is shifted each day, and

the judges and lawyers will be left to argue the matter months from

Now. Meanwhile, Duclos is held.

The government’s aim is to demoralize and panic the peace move-

Ment and the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), while sending
the Communists into semi-legality, which can later justify further
Charges of “conspiracy” and ‘‘insurrection.”’

_ Without making sure of a “‘paci-
fied France,’ the contract to re-
arm west Germany is not worth
Much. Thus, ‘Operation Ridg-
Way” is a pre-war measure.

As such, it is intended also to
Prove to U.S. Secretary of State
Dean Acheson and to the U.S. Sen-
ate that more millions for France
Will be put to mse safely.

Was this an attempted ‘‘Com-
Munist uprising,’ The question is
Not only insulting to the French
People’s proven capacity for upris-
igs, but ridiculous. The people
of Paris have .shown in 1830,
1948, 1871 — and only eight sum-
Ng ago against the Nazis —
; at when they put their minds to

» they can “storm the heavens.”

ot it is just a minister of the
€rior’s fable for coupon-clip-
ees to say that only 5,000 people
sponded to the call of the Peace
Movement, the CGT and the Com-
pinalat Party, and then to claim
Re “uprismgs” were seriously
Nned with such numbers, <Ac-

ally 50,000 turned out, backed
Y a remarkable public soildarity.
be Do you take the French peo-
am for imbeciles,” the Commu-
ee eoman, Fernand Grenier,
Diy Out in the National Assem-

Then he asked the obvious
_ estion: would Jacqués Duclos
ave Visited IL’Humanite’s of-
a. in the company of his wife
ee proceeded by his hab-
eg homewards route to the
di urb of Montreuil if he were
ecting an “uprising” against
os “internal security of the
e? : This is the 1853 charge
which he has now been in-
sted, along with Andre Stil,
“ae mnanite editor and 160 of
“18 demonstrators.
‘span ty body knows that Duclos
facut years in the anti-Nazi
Bee nd It was he who in-
1944 and organized the August
: liberation of Paris, So he is
an amateur, this 56-year old
Peet of Verdun and 30 years
: : French labor movement.
re now being discovered that
cent] Tench Communists have re-
tics, y reviewed some of their tac-

lon ea article hy Francoic Bil-

Vete
of

the May issue of Cahiers
. spmunisme, written a month

a % S now being widely repro-
It urges the Communists
Action wacttake effective mass
brs against war and not mere-

tests and petitions.

has even been re-discovered
aurice Thorez is recuperat-

oe

Other Moscow, where Billoux and

Yeey} Communist leaders’ have
arly visited him.

t

Degg, “@tning that the fight for
usher 4s Setting rougher and
tions Sone thing; insurrec-
Pre ao: something else. The
revolt, don’t apologize for their
Qo the ZatY tradition. Neither
as Play ay revolution.

Deacg. fact is that the French
ligg _™Ovement has seen its ral-
Systematically banned for

over a year now; the origina]
meetings against General Ridg-
way’s arrival on Friday, May 23
were brutally assaulted by thous-
ands of heavily-armed, cops.
Hence, the second rallies, on May
25, inevitably took on the char-
acter of a defiance.

As for the story of Duclos’
movements and the way he has
been treated —- nothing more
plainly exposes the frame-up.

He was arrested in his Hotch-
kiss limousine at 10:05 p.m. on
May 30, at the corner of Rue Tur-
bigo and Rue du Temple, that is,
on his way homewards from L’-
Humanite and two hours after
most of the clashes were over,
He was many 0blocks’ from
the Place de-da Republique, where
the rally was scheduled but not
held, His auto had rested in
front of his own offices all day,
and had not toured the scenes of
the clashes at all.

Yet the first charge was
“flagrant delit’? — that is be-
ing caught with the goods on
the scene of a crime. Only by
this charge could his parlia-
mentary immunity be ignored,
and the arrest carried out.

The first reports from the min-
istry of interior at 12:40 a.m. that
night spoke of a blackjack and a
loaded revolver in Duclos’ posses-
sion; his auto was allegedly
equipped with a special short-wave
receiving set and broadcaster, and
two carrier-pigeons were said to
have been found in Duclos’ pos-
session, On the strength of this,
the Communist leader, his wife
Gilberte, their chauffeur, Alfred
and a bodyguard George Goosens
Wigeshoff (the owner of the car)
were held overnight, out of the
reach of lawyers.

But on the next afternoon,
after a cabinet meeting, the
“flagrant delit”’ merged
with the charge of conspiracy
against the internal security of

was

the state!
As for the original elements of
mystery — what had happened?

The revolver and stick belonged
to Goosens, who explained that
since last year’s attempt on the
life of Duclos and since violence
upon other European Communist
leaders, the bodyguard has been
prepared for anything. The radio,
of course, turned out to be a
Phillips machine — not an emit-
ter, but an ordinary receiving set.

As for the. pigeons, they have
caused the greatest hilarity. Min-
ister of Justice Martinaud-Deplat
still talks about “carrier-pigeons,”
whose ownership is punishable by
law. There was even a story of
how they had been smothered un-
der a blanket—to keep them from
talking, it was supposed!

But Mme, Duclos offered the
simpler explanation, having noth-
ing to do with the Cominform, She
was taking the pigeons home, to

JACQUES DUCLOS

The pigeons were plump but
the frameup was transparent.

be served with ‘“‘petits pois’’ that
evening.

In an interview with Ce Soir,
Mme, Gilberte Duclos used a
significant phrase: ‘“I] s’ agit
dune veritabel operation a I’
americaine,’’’ which might , be
freely translated: ‘This busi-
ness is a real frame-up, Ameri-
can-style.”

In fact, the ‘American theme,”
runs through the whole crisis
here, even if the chief responsibil-
ity, as the French Left insists, lies
on the French ruling class and its
government. The occasion of the
mass meetings in the first place
was the arrival of a U.S. general.
One of the government’s main pur-
poses is to qualify for more U.S.
cash. .

But it should be noted that the
technique follows the American
pattern in a deeper sense than
merely the details of the frame-
up.

It is the Smith Act pattern. It
reeks of the hypocrisy which be-
fouls the whole western world.
Ban the Communist party — oh,
no! No more than the U.S. Com-
munists are banned. Outlaw ideas
or ideologies—don’t try it, says
Jules Moch, French delegate to
the UN. But try to discover spe-
cific acts of ‘‘wrong-doing,” pun-
ishable by ‘“‘specific laws’? —- even
if you have to go back to 1848
and 1858 or pass new laws to do
so. And thus, while preserving
outward pretenses of liberties, the
actual practice is to stifle them —
to hold leaders in jail indefinitely,
to arrest hundreds and tomorrow
— thousands.

So this is not an item in “‘for-
eign affairs” for a day or a week.
France has entered the road to
Calvary: in the effort to make an-
other Korea of her some day, she
is now ‘being turned into another
Greece.

thousands

PARIS

Great protest strikes against

the arrest of Jacques Duclos start-

ed in the Paris region last week.

All the main factories of the city
were completely shut down.

The movement spread at once
to the provinces, and dockers in
Bordeaux, engineers and chemical
workers in Lyons, transport work-
ers in Marseilles and railwaymen
in most big centres downed tools.

They were answering a call of
the Genera] Confederation of La-
bor (CGT) and local unions for
stoppages to compel |
Jacques Duclos, acting leader of
the French Communist party, and
of other working-class leaders
held in jail. :

a) They coupled this with their
wage demands. :

During the early hours of the
morning the strike started police
tried to smash the movement in
advance by arresting 1,000-trade
union leaders. They only found
100 in their ‘homes.

There was an immense show of
armed force in Paris and through-
out the country. -Mobile guards
and troops were alerted, and steel-
helmeted police were stationed,
heavily armed, in the factory dis-
tricts.

Ten thousand soldiers—three
paratrooper battalions among
them—were brought to points
close to Paris, These were in
addition to the fully mobilised

capital police: force of 20,000

men and 10,000 mobile guards.

In Paris, the Renault factory
with 42,000 workers came to a
standstill. The plant was occu-
pied by the workers in face of
the management’s action in ecall-
ing in gangs of De Gaulle’s fas-
cist rally to smash the strike.

At midday, before most of the
stoppages were even planned to
take. place, the ministry of the

release of-

‘Free Duclos’ cry as

strike

throughout France

interior announced that the move-
ment was a “‘complete failure.”

The announcement was made in
an effort to discourage workers
from taking part.

But the strike movement in-
creased rapidly despite all gov-
ernment atempts to represent it
as a failure.

In Marseilles, Lyons, Rouen, Le
Havre, Sete, Montpelier, Montlu-
con, Beziers and other towns and
cities the workers downed tools in

response to the call issued by
their trade unions.
Figures available show how

completely false were the figures
used by the government to give
the impression that the strikes
had failed.

In Paris 163 factories, build-
ing jobs and other plants stopp-
ed work, and there were another
358 jobs on strike in the Paris
Suburbs, 138 in the Seine-et-
Oise region and 315 in the prov-
inces—a total of 974, with the
strike movement still spread-
ing.

In a statement the CGT execu-
tive denounced the lies of the
government and its controlled
press and radio ‘‘which has tried
to make people believe that the
CGT had issued a call for a gen-
eral strike on June 4.

“The government has thus
shown its fear that this action of
the working class is developing,

“The government is trying to
make people believe that this
action is only just starting and
that it will continue to grow. In-
formation received by the CGT
shows that the strike movement
has continued to grow.

“Industries and_ enterprises
which have so far not entered the
struggle are making all the neces-
Sary preparations to join in.’’

Of course, the magnificent.

working class of France still has
a word and more to say about

that.

Let ws face it clearly that all
this is not only being done under
the impact of the Washington gov-
ernment; it is possible because of
the lag between the consciousness
and activity of the people of the
United States and the urgency of
the hour for the rest of humanity.

A crucial battle, determining

war and peace has now been join- |.

ed in France. |

The bankruptcy of the French ruling class, which only a
decade ago feared the French people more than German militar-
ism and preferred the shame of Vichy to the struggle of the
Resistance, is again being demonstrated. To quell national
opposition to German rearmament, French police attacked
demonstrators protesting arrival of U.S, General Matthew Ridg-
way to replace General Eisenhower as NATO commander, And
politicians carrying the taint of Vichy ordered the arrest of
men like Jacques Duclos, who led the Resistance, to prove their
qualifications for a new U.S. loan.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 13, 1952 — PAGE 3

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