French Communist Party 1944
Source: L'Humanité, August 25, 1944;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2011.
Translator’s note: In the years following the Occupation one of the French Communist Party’s strongest selling points was that it was the “parti des fusillés,” the party of the executed, of the thousands of members who were executed by the Nazis for their and their party’s activities during the war. A membership coupon in L'Humanité’s fifth issue after its reappearance at the end of the Occupation is one of the earliest uses of this recruiting slogan.
Frenchmen and French women! If Paris is today reconquering its liberty in combat you know what part of this glorious epic is due to he clear-sighted and courageous attitude of the French Communist Party, to the party that foiled all the maneuvers and perfidious counsels of those who preached a wait and see attitude, that gave the fatherland men like Gabriel Péri, Pierre Semard, Timbault, Lucien Sampaix, Charles Michels, Gardette Frot, Le Gall, Cariou, Losserand, Grandel, Aufray, and the thousands of others who fell so that France might live.
In order to replace the thousands of members of the Communist Party who died for the liberation of the fatherland, men and women, young and old, join the French Communist Party!