851.00/12–347: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
us urgent
5186. A high official of the Interior Ministry in strictest confidence expressed last evening very grave concern over Moscow’s purpose in inciting the French Communist Party to its present line of action. He said that the Communist generalized strike “ordered by Moscow’s Cominform” is not only a failure in that the majority of the French working class is now opposed to it, but that as a result thereof French public opinion is daily crystallizing against the French Communist Party. This, insofar as the French internal picture is concerned, is all to the good and a most desirable and satisfactory development.
“On the other hand,” he said, “what deeply worries the French Government is the fact that although the French Communists now know they have lost the strike battle in France, not only are they not modifying their tactics but are in fact hourly taking a more intransigent and uncompromising stand.” Reports from the Prefectures throughout France indicate that flying squads of hardened Communist shock troops (my 5132, November 301) are being shuttled about to combat the police. In the last 24 hours Interior Ministry reports indicate they have not just tried to prevent the authorities from taking over strikebound factories and services but are deliberately “provoking” the police to fire on them and the crowds they encourage to demonstrate.
(In this connection our source stated that Interior Ministry has information it believes is entirely accurate that when on Sunday certain Communist labor union leaders reported that “the strike battle is lost and a policy should be followed to make a tactical withdrawal which would avoid loss of face”, Thorez himself told them that they must not retreat but should step up the tempo of their action.)
A further disquieting sign to the Interior Ministry is not only the action of the Communist group in the Assembly but the fact that in the past three days in many regions of France where previously only Communist labor leaders have been inciting strikers, political leaders including deputies have suddenly injected themselves and have replaced trade unionists as mob inciters.
Our sources said that foregoing developments tend to point to the conclusion that “cost what it may” the French Communist Party has orders to follow a line of action which if carried much further will inevitably call for governmental action against the party not excluding [Page 811] “in extremis” the possibility that the party will be declared “illegal”, which would inevitably drive it completely “underground” as in 1939. (In this connection Interior states that in Marseille and at least two other cities, Communist headquarters have received instructions to liquidate their files so that there will be no evidence or lists if the police should seize the headquarters.)
As a result of the foregoing the Interior Ministry, which heretofore has not believed that war between Soviet Russia and the western democracies would occur in the next few years “because Moscow needs at least five to ten years to prepare and the United States would not launch a preventive war”, has a very severe case of jitters. Our source said that it is inconceivable to French Government officials who are following closely these developments that Moscow would at this point force the French Communist Party into illegality with all the attendant disadvantages unless it intended to make use of it in the comparatively near future, “say within the next year or two, as an instrument to aid the Soviet Army in an international conflict”. He said that the French are baffled as to Moscow’s real motives and while they are not entirely certain that “Moscow intends to launch a war in the immediate future, they fear that the tactics pursued by the French Communists may mean that Moscow now intends to adopt a policy, perhaps in Italy and Germany, which involves certain ‘risks’—risks which could easily result in war if there is a positive reaction against such a policy by the US and UK.”
I report the foregoing at some length not only because of the position the source occupies and his proven sincerity but also as an indication of the line of thinking in the important Interior Ministry.
Sent Department, repeated London for Secdel 909, Moscow 546, Rome 291.
- Not printed.↩