The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

Moscow's line, with the national and some of the local leaders, while the other,
followed by some militants, took a distance with the USSR. It’s interesting to
note that grassroots militants were less criticized than their leaders. They were
deemed „naïve people who had followed Moscow” 36 . As G.Dupau, the former
secretary of JAF (Young French Farmers) testifies in the department, this event
was only debated in bodies close to the Party. (Organism who trusted on URSS
sudden change). And political leaders and rank and file militants were not
trated the same way; as Daladier said:”the government refuses to consider
France's workers and communist leaders as one and the same” 37 , accusing
those leaders of „trying to justify a peace by treason” 38 .
In the department, communists were discredited too. However we could find
examples of every tendency. Paul Desarps became in 1925 the first communist
mayor in the department, in the little town of Tihl. 39 He had been elected on a
list of workers and farmers. He led an antifascist committee, but in 1939 he
dissociated himself from the Communist Party when he learnt about the pact. 40
Somewhere else, Jean Paillé, the secretary of the CGT Trade Union in the
Department was asked to leave his post. 41 So there were different reactions in
the local PC, but it was essentially about its local leaders.
As a conclusion we can say that, like at the national level, this pact was seen
as a considerable event which revealed the USSR's duplicity and Germany’s
manipulation. The reactions we talked about left scars in the department, and
some political leaders like G. Dupau 42 were closely watched by the police
following the pact. The prefect’s desk was covered with reports concerning PC
leaders and militants. In most of cases the latter went on with their lives
without thinking about what would happen to them during the following month
of September, after the start of the Second World War, hesitating between
following their leaders and taking their distances. There was primarily a
merciless fight of political leaders through the press, even between socialists
and radicals, who only agreed on incriminating the communist party.
36 Le Démocrate, tribunes de L.Bardette des 5-7 septembre.
37 Le Républicain Landais, 2 septembre 1939.
38 Le Républicain Landais, 2 septembre 1939.
39 Institut d’Histoire sociale des Landes, la construction du Front Populaire, Les Communistes
40 AD, 1M172, Rapports du des renseignements généraux au préfet sur l’activité des partis de
gauhe, août 1939 ; +dissolution PCF dans les landes.
41 Institut d’Histoire sociale des Landes, les syndicats et partis politiques
42 Born in 1922, he was 17 years old when the pact was signed. He was near the PC because
he led the JAF a near organism of the PC. He was the secretary of the JAF in the department. He
led action against german during the occupation but denounced he was send to Sachenhausen
concentration camp. He came back in 1945 in his town of Carcen Ponson. He spend his life to
search and work about the Resistance in Landes department and had just published a book in
2008. La Resistance dans les Landes.
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