Word: thorez
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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World Communism, which seemed to be encroaching almost everywhere last week, suffered a minor setback in Paris. The dour plotters in the Kremlin lost no sleep over it, but Maurice Thorez, French Communist leader, undeniably lost face. For a few days, in fact, his pudgy face was literally disfigured...
...weeks ago Soviet Ambassador Alexander Bogomolov gave a party to celebrate the Red Army's 30th birthday. Present: French Comrades Thorez, Jacques Duclos and lesser stooges, eccentric Raymond Marquie, a repatriation official who was recalled from Russia last December after he had denounced his own government; several flyers from the Normandie-Niemen Escadrille, which fought on the Russian front during...
...light from the blazing chandeliers gleamed on serried ranks of vodka bottles. There were endless toasts -for the glorious Red Army and its beloved leader, Comrade Stalin; for generals, colonels, majors, captains and so on. One guest reported later: "After the toast for the captains the party lost dignity." Thorez chummily first-named the ambassador: "We are all friends, aren't we, Alex, and brothers...
Colonel Marquie had one vodka too many. Chatting with Thorez and Duclos, he said: "Really, the achievements of the French flyers on the Russian front were not exactly terrific." Thorez, who had sat out the war in Russia, agreed. So did Duclos. Despite the noise, the conversation was overheard by several escadrille members. One of them, Lieut. Alex Laurent, who had been wounded and decorated in Russia, came bounding up to the group, and shoved Duclos aside, saying, "You're too little, I won't bother with you." Then Laurent measured burly Maurice Thorez. "Your patriotism," he said...
Novelist André Malraux, De Gaulle's highbrow pressagent, rang a tocsin of his own: he predicted that Maurice Thorez' Communist legions would soon launch a major offensive which might lead to civil war by April 15. Other alarms came from a less intellectual but intensely French quarter. In Paris, 5,000 midinettes, shivering in thin coats, protested against their dismissals by Paris dress houses (which were suffering a slump despite the New Look). Cried clothing union leader Alice Brisset: "Hardy measures are needed...