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  • The French Communist Party during the Fifth Republic: A Crisis of Leadership and Ideology
  • D. S. Bell
The French Communist Party during the Fifth Republic: A Crisis of Leadership and Ideology. By Gino G. Raymond . Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2005. x + 233 pp. Hb £50.00.

This is a welcome addition to the material on the Parti communiste français, a party that is now, if the discontinuity in the Parti socialiste is acknowledged, the [End Page 127] oldest of the French political parties. As the book makes clear, it is still also the best organized of the French parties, with a local implantation that enables it to retain local government and regional positions (and some seats in the Assemblée) and which its rivals on the left cannot match. Although ageing, this elite will enable it to ride out the electoral storms for some time yet, even though the fronts, unions and businesses it once controlled have slipped out of the party's orbit or have failed. As the book pertinently notes, the death of the PCF has been confidently predicted, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union. However, of course, the party goes on and has a substantial implantation in French society, enabling it to survive even the disastrous electoral results of the last presidential and general elections. This book is historical in format and much of the ground that is covered is well known, although the early period still needs attention, because the circumstances and intentions of its founders and its 'bolshevization' are still relevant. Of course, the book concentrates on the Fifth Republic and within that period on the alliance of the left. However, the more recent material is the most interesting and the persistence of the PCF is discussed in some detail. One reservation about this book must be its account of the links with the Soviet Union and the place of the PCF in the world communist movement. Likewise, a number of events, like the quarrel between the PCF and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, remain to be explicated. It is not possible to treat the PCF as responding to the French political system; it was set up as a component of the world movement and was exemplary in its disciplined adherence to Moscow over many decades. This history awaits archival research before more can be said with much certainty, but it is not possible to ignore it. Communism was also a very big ideological machine (few parties could compete with it) and it is not surprising that it dominated the left of the left. It is tempting to see the current extreme left as occupying the 'communist' space, and many of the issues its adherents raise are recognizably 'communist' ones. What has happened to French Communism is that it has been deprived of the 'future that works', its social model and, for better or for worse, that gap has not been filled. This is a well-written and impressive work.

D. S. Bell
University of Leeds
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