Word: thorez
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Switch. That night, Communist Boss Maurice Thorez called a meeting of the political bureau. The question: should the party side with the Government of which it was a part, or with the workers of its own rank & file? Andre Marty, French Communism's third in command (a longtime opponent of Thorez' "respectable" policy of collaborating with bourgeois politics), pounded the table. Cried he: "If we allow this situation to develop, we will have broken our most important tactical rule, which is never to permit our left flank to be turned...
...others, including Thorez, agreed. It was time for a switch. A communique announced: "The political bureau has decided to support without reserve the legitimate demands [of the strikers]." The Communist paper Humanite, which had at first denounced the wildcat strike as a "provocation" by "troublemaking elements," now referred to it as "a disciplined, justified protest of the exploited workers...
...Socialist Premier Paul Ramadier called his precarious coalition Cabinet into an emergency session in the ornate Hotel Matignon. The five Communist ministers sat grim and silent. Thorez intently studied the gilt cherubs on the ceiling. Said Ramadier: "I ask you not to reverse a policy which is the right one for the nation...
Togliatti is no sawdust Caesar. His manner is easy. His face has a studious look behind horn-rimmed glasses, with only a faint ironic hint of the trouble he has seen or is causing. Like France's Maurice Thorez, he is one of the few Communists with a smile-a smile that is somewhat sarcastic around the edges...
...initiative in Greece is to be the forerunner of other equally vigorous moves, if some kind of a showdown is really coming, then the cleavage in the Communist Party will be total and avowed. The largest party in France will say goodbye to its 'respectability' and Maurice Thorez will be politically executed without mercy by his own party...