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The Role of the Soviet-Union as a Factor in the French Debates 71
The Role of the Soviet-Union as a Factor in the French Debates
on the European Defence Community
Pierre Guillen
Since Raymond Aron and Daniel Lerner published their classic work on that subject
immediately after the event 1 , much light has been shed on the great debate
stimulated by the European Defence Community (EDC) – a debate that encompassed
French political and governmental circles and the military leadership. 2 We
owe this wealth of information to numerous works that used parliamentary debates,
recollections by the main actors and witnesses, the archives of the Ministries of
Foreign Affairs and Defence.
It is the object of this article to throw into relief the “Soviet factor” in those
debates: to show how the perception of the Soviet danger developed, how possible
reactions on the part of the USSR were taken into consideration and how Soviet
diplomatic initiatives were viewed.
For public and political opinion in France, the German danger and the Soviet
danger formed a dialectical relationship: there was the belief that French security
was threatened both by a revival of the power of Germany and by the aggressiveness
of Soviet policy. Whenever the Soviet danger seemed to grow, fear of Germany
diminished; whenever, on the other hand, the Soviet danger seemed to
decrease, the fear of Germany again assumed the priority. A certain periodization
then seems to be called for: In 1950/51, under the impact of the Korean War and the
ensuing intensification of the Cold War, the danger the Soviet Union was blamed
for having created for Western Europe drove many Frenchmen to accept West Germany’s
rearmament. Since 1953, with Stalin’s death and the Korean armistice, the
relaxation of international tension left the impression that the German rearmament,
after all, was not opportune.
So the fear of the Soviet threat dominated the negotiations which, since the
autumn of 1950, were conducted between the Western powers with the purpose of
determining the conditions for German rearmament – negotiations which led to the
signing of the EDC treaty on the 27th of May 1952.
1. R. ARON, D. LERNER, La querelle de la CED, Paris 1956.
2. Above all, we should mention the articles by J. BARIETY, “La décision de réarmer l’Allemagne, l’échec
de la CED et les accords de Paris”, in Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 1993, p. 354-383;
P. GUILLEN, “Les chefs militaires français, le réarmement de l’Allemagne et la CED”, in Revue
d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale, 1983, p. 3-33; R. POIDEVIN, “La France devant le problème
de la CED”, ibidem, p. 35-57; G.-H. SOUTOU, “La France, Allemagne et les accords de Paris”,
in Relations internationales, 1987, p. 451-470; idem, “La France et les notes soviétiques de 1952 sur
l’Allemagne”, in Revue d’Allemagne, 1988, p. 261-273; idem, “France and the German Rearmament
Problem: 1945-1955”, in R. AHMANN, A.M. BIRKE, M. HOWARD (ed.), The Quest of Stability.
Problems of West European Security 1918-1957, Oxford 1993, p. 487-512; Ph. VIAL, Les militaires
français face aux constructions européennes de défense (été 1951-automme 1954), mémoire de maîtrise,
Université de Paris I, 1988.
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