Although De Gaulle was seriously distrustful of French Communists and saw them as a threat to his vision for France, he was uncharacteristically diplomatic in his dealings with them. It is widely agreed that once they joined the Resistance in earnest, they proved to be some of the most formidable foes to Fascism and the Third Reich. The role of French Communists in the Resistance is one of the most difficult to research because there is a lack of primary source material. Many studies exist that analyze the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Parti Communiste Français (PCF). For example, Alfred Rieber's work Stalin and the French Communist Party External extrapolates on causes for the failure of the PCF to capitalize on the powerful position they held during the War years due to their remarkably effective work in the Resistance. And there are a number of general histories about Communism in Europe, but very few studies that focus solely on French Communists in the Resistance during WWII.

At the start of WWII, most Communists felt ambivalent because the two forces involved were viewed as imperial and capitalistic powers. For as long as the Soviet Union and Germany had a non-aggression pact, French Communists were half-hearted in their efforts at resistance. They may have blocked roads or worked to thwart or harass the Germans, but they avoided the bloodshed that they would engage in as the War went on. They were also aloof with respect to the leadership of General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of Free France (from London). One reason that communists had such a high level of clandestine organization is because the Communist Party had been banned in 1939 and had more experience with working underground. Some leaders had been avoiding the French authorities for more than a decade before the War began and thus had established a known network of safehouses. They also had experience using encryption techniques in telegraphing messages and creating false passports.

The PCF maintained a large clandestine press that chronicled their successes and proved a valuable and influential force in the Resistance. L' Humanité is the most well-known and prolific Communist underground publication (numbering 317 issues during the Occupation), but regional papers such as La Marseillaise (in Marseilles) and La Patriote (in Lyon) were also in operation. According to Jean Mottin in Histoire Politique de la Presse, 1944-49, even with the difficulties of publishing, by 1944 the Communists controlled over 30 daily papers, publishing over 20,000 copies each and accounting for 25 percent of the French press. (Histoire Politique de la Presse, p.31) Much of their expertise was due to lessons learned by those liaising with the Comintern and Moscow. The Comintern also dictated early policy, and many have pointed to a certain subservience of the PCF to Moscow. Notably, the French Communist Party was also the only resistance organization in France that gave a special role to women and women's issues. And while the PCF managed to retain their independence through careful jockeying with de Gaulle, they did join the armed force of the French Resistance, the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (French Forces of the Interior) toward the end of the War — though they retained de-facto autonomy in many areas.

Starting with the French Revolution of 1789, subsequent Revolutions in the 19th century, and of course, the Paris Commune of 1871, France has had a strong current of socialism, communism and even the beginnings of feminism agitating under the surface of its power structures. François-Noël Babeuf, best known as, Gracchus Babeuf, one of the most well-known political agitators of the Post-Revolutionary years starting in 1794, began a journal (Le tribun du peuple External) which many scholars have identified as having proto-communist ideas. Laura Mason's book, The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals, states that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called him the "first modern communist". According to some scholars, communism and socialism in France, and particularly its popularity among the French Left has been somewhat glorified in historical narratives. In R.W. Johnson's The Long March of the French Left, he discusses the "lost revolution" of 1944, and the fate of Communists in the post-war years. In the years immediately following the War, power dynamics were complicated as individuals with diverse political goals and opinions were begrudgingly required to work together. The additional ordeal of trying to parse out collaborators and punish them, as well as recognize those who had been so grievously wronged created yet more tension, and among some there was legitimate concern about the possibility of a civil war in France. Even though that never came close to happening, it was a specter that haunted de Gaulle and other leaders, causing them to gravitate to more unifying policies and generally take a measured response in doling out ramifications. Some critics say this caused them to downplay not only the number of French collaborationists, but also the role of Communists in the Resistance.

When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the Communist Party in France was at liberty to engage fully in Resistance activity — and they proved to be some of the most aggressive and lethal adversaries to the Nazi occupiers. Having superior access to arms, strong organizational skills and networks, and a ruthless pragmatism, the Communists were skilled at assassinations, ambushes, sabotage, spying and even terrorism. They were effective because even when the German reprisals were brutal they rationalized that they gained new recruits, or at the very least, gained more sympathy for the cause. Pierre Georges External, nom de guerre "Colonel Fabien," along with several other Resistance members shot the German naval officer Alfons Moser on August 21st, 1941 at the Barbès-Rochechouart metro station in Paris. This was the first assassination during the Occupation and would bring harsh reprisals from the Germans. A "Code of Hostages" was introduced as a reaction, stating that any Frenchmen who were in German custody could be considered hostages. As other assassinations followed, Germans announced that for every German killed, 50 Frenchmen would be executed. Some Communists expressed conflicting feelings about killing other comrades and members of the working class, but anti-Fascism won out. As for the reaction of other Resistants, they were often critical of the bold methods the Communists used, precisely because the German reprisals often involved the execution of innocent French citizens from the general population. Indeed, by the time of the Liberation, Germans killed an estimated 30,000 innocent French men and women under this pretext.

In the spring of 1942 the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans External formed as a new paramilitary branch (Francs-Tireurs means "free shooters" or snipers). Commonly known as the FTP they were a merger of three communist militant groups: Organisation Spéciale, formed in 1940 to protect communist leaders; the group of young Communists, the first to attack German soldiers; and the fighters of the Main-d’Oeuvre Immigrée. The FTP was effective and energetic and they gained a huge wave of new recruits after the unpopular Service du Travail Obligatoire was instituted by the Germans, which required Frenchmen to go to Germany and serve forced labor in factories. Many non-Communists decided to join at this point as a way to avoid labor in Germany as well as to fight their Nazi occupiers. The FTP was instrumental in assisting with both the Normandy Invasion and the Liberation of Paris. In the case of the former, they were able to delay German troops from the south of France from reaching the Normandy coast where they had been called in as reinforcements. Before the Liberation of Paris they orchestrated a major uprising that was instrumental in securing Allied victory. Henri Rol-Tanguy, one of the most revered French Resistance fighters, was head of the FFI in Île de France during the Liberation of Paris. After five days of fighting he was contacted by German General Dietrich von Choltitz, and on August 25th 1944 he and Free French general Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque accepted the surrender of the German forces.

A curated list of publications about Communism and Communists in France available at the Library of Congress is further down the page. Available online via Gallica: L'Humanité External. Available online via Gallica: Les Cahiers du Communisme External. Available online via Gallica: France nouvelle External. To search for more titles, use the Library's online catalog for books on this topic using the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSHs) below.

Communism--France
Parti communiste français
Communism--France--Periodicals