Duclos, Jacques (1896–1975)

JACQUES DUCLOS, the leader of the French Communist Party (PCF) during much of the 20th century, symbolized the struggles of the French people. Born in 1896, Duclos joined the Marxist French Communist Party in the 1920s. He favored an anarcho-syndicalist worldview of the role of social revolution. Duclos believed that the PCF symbolized an expression of working-class grievances and frustrations. From 1926 to 1932, Duclos served as a member of the Chamber of Duties as well as on the Party's Central Committee.

During the 1920s, the French government curtailed many civil liberties. There were frequent arrests, fines, and the seizure of the party's daily newspaper. Duclos recounted how he played a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to evade arrest. In 1927, the government arrested Duclos as a congressional member of the seditious Communist Party. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Fortunately, the Chamber of Duties passed a bill releasing all imprisoned deputies. This law only applied to when the chamber was in session so that when the session expired, Duclos had to flee Paris in the middle of the night.

In early 1931, during the height of the Great Depression, Duclos was once again arrested. While serving his jail time, he achieved the prestigious position of party secretary and member of the political bureau. Duclos spearheaded a drive to recruit additional members to the party. At the Seventh Party Congress, Duclos could boast of an increase in membership, though not to the extent that he wished. He believed that the unemployment and social dislocation caused by the Depression would bolster membership, however, this never came to fruition. Duclos also came to the realization that in order for the PCF to succeed politically, it needed to reach across political lines, dispense with the ideology of revolution, and create a broad-based coalition—an idea that would be fulfilled as Duclos led the communists to join the Popular Front government of the late 1930s. The time of peace, however, was about to end.

In 1941, Adolf Hitler brutally invaded France and established a “puppet” government. Duclos spear-headed the French resistance to the foreign aggressors. During the German occupation, the PCF was deemed an illegal party. Duclos not only led the party from France but he also edited the underground resistance newspaper, L'Humanité, that was the sole source of information during the occupation. Duclos edited 46 issues during the war, advocating “action” against the ruling classes as well as against the fascists. Duclos and the Communist Party underground were persecuted and jailed by the Naziallied Pétain/Laval government. Duclos escaped arrest on numerous occasions. In 1942, Duclos helped to establish the communist-based resistance groups, Front National and Frances-Tireurs, which formed the militant wing of the Communist Party. It was becoming evident that Duclos and the party would act as the internal resistance to the Nazi occupation while the more liberal forces would provide the external resistance. As the war concluded, Duclos and the communists assumed a leadership role in the transition governments.

When the Soviet Communist Party decided to get rid of Earl Browder, the head of the Communist Political Association (the form that the American party took during and immediately after World War II), the policy [Page 140]was announced by way of an article written by Duclos and published in the journal Cahiers de Communism. Known as the Duclos Letter in the United States, the article condemned “Browderism” and the American communists' continuation of popular front tactics as “right wing deviationism.” Obediently, the Communist Political Association in the United States called a leadership meeting, and with only Browder dissenting, the group reorganized as the Communist Party and suspended Browder from office. William Z. Foster took charge. In this way, the Duclos Letter became the means by which official Stalinist policy was communicated to the American party.

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