In principle many of the constitutions of communist countries afford(ed) citizens more freedoms to the people than say the US constitution, but in practice that was blatantly not the case with a bit of happy time in some parts of eastern Europe for a few years before the Soviets went in to quash the threat and establish harder regimes.
Of course, in places like Cambodia, atrocities did take place that were really inspired by some demented but sincere interpretations of communism.
I would say, 20th century communism’s great failure is that it attempts to abolish politics itself by trying to create a utopia where nobody ever disagrees with one another. This is impossible, and totalitarian by definition.
To whit, Mussolini, who incidentally was a socialist before he became a fascist, rose to power in a time when Italy was in a state of crisis and discontent. This was a decade full of national revanchist ressentiment compounded by the economic devastation of the Great Depression. In that era, strongmen of not only far left or far right, but liberal center- consider FDR being the only American president to break the two-term precedence and be reelected to four terms- rose to power. Surely that should tell you people in the era had very different worldviews, concerns, and knowledge from yourself?
"At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. ... The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. ... In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so.
Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyone who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest. ... Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine."
I am an old French (65yo) but what I understand is that statement is only propaganda if only because De Gaule's army was much larger.
Anyway "resistance" was not a well structured organisation even De Gaulle's organisation, it was sparse at the beginning (1941) and a lot of people declared themselve as "résistant" after the D day. Many people who actually did resistance acts did not claim themselve to be "résistants".
See [0] "Before the Liberation day, we were 2,500 in the maquis. Five or six days later, we were around 10,000"
At "liberation", people lived in a state of terror, armed young men roamed the cities. Properties were stolen. Many women were shamed, shaved and raped by those pseudo resistants [2]. Neighbors denounced neighbors for profit.
Again see [0] "“There were people killed, one wonders why. Sometimes out of jealousy or revenge. To take their wives... It's easy when you have a gun in your hand, if you're mentally imbalanced. »"
US forces put the number of "summary executions" following liberation at 80,000. The French Minister of the Interior in March 1945 claimed that the number executed was 105,000 [1].
[0] https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2001/08/26/215395-la-terrib...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89puration_l%C3%A9gale
[2] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/french-female-collaborator-...
On my father side, in Brittany, even the wermacht garrison in St clette (totalling 5 men on 2 villages, and no road large enough to let any truck send reinforcements, which were hours, even days away if the road was blocked, which happened often), knew who was making the signal and distributing weapons to surrounding group, but couldn't really do anything about it. My grandma had good stories about how poor the area was, as their lack of electricity made them lit bonfire to signal allied planes, bonfire which were very visible for anyone who would look. While they weren't really communists, the ones in Brest sending plans, radio frequencies and taking weapons were.
Not what I was told (I am born just after the WWII) and not what history seems to tell:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9sistance_en_Bretagne
> "St clette"
You probably mean "Saint Clet"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Clet,_Brittany
Yes lighted road were rare on countryside, it only arrived in 1956 in the street were my parents built their home.
I've researched, and you're right about Brittany, it was MI9 led.
But according to this: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_r%C3%A9seaux_et_mouv...
Most movements were on the left, and it seems that the saboteurs and maquisards were communists led. I'm pretty sure my grandmother told me about the Brest communists though, maybe it was just her impression.
This isn't the refutation you think it is. Communists and fellow travelers were much more prevalent in the resistance earlier on (but after Operation Barbarossa!). There are a considerable number of French communist martyrs commemorated in French towns and public places. Most of these died during 1942 and 1943, when resistance was against overwhelming odds. Towards the end of the war, there were fewer actions against the Nazi occupation and more towards collaborators. This is however because in many parts of France, the occupation simply was unable to exercise more than a show of control, because of the success of the resistance.
I am very surprised that as an old French person you aren't aware of the significant role played by French communists in the resistance. Have you heard of Vercors? Colonel Fabien? France d'abord?
Whatever you may think of communism in general these are established historical facts. The mainstreaming of the PCF after the war, in contrast to other places in Europe, is specifically related to recognition of their heroism against the occupation. (The same could be said about the mainstream position of freemasonry in French society.) In fact, the strength and popularity of the communist controlled organizations and the risk of a Tito-style regime was a main reason that the UK and US (reluctantly) gave their full backing to de Gaulle towards the end of the war.
Though many of the communists followed Moscow's order and only started resisting after 1941 and Germany's attack on the URSS; before that Moscow's message to French communists was more of collaboration with its nazi ally.