Maurice Thorez (1900-1964) was a major figure in the history of twentieth-century France and European Communism for over three decades. Under his leadership, the French Communist Party (PCF) became France's largest political party and one of the most important communist parties in the Western world. Born in a mining village and leaving school at the age of 12, Thorez's rapid rise in the PCF paralleled Stalin's consolidation of power in the Soviet Union. After the Second World War, he became a minister and, briefly, deputy prime minister, before the Cold War excluded communists from political power. The PCF became known as 'the party of Maurice Thorez', an expression of the leader cult around Thorez that mirrored the 'cult of personality' around Stalin. This book, based on a wealth of original source material including Thorez's diaries and notebooks, is the only biography of Thorez available in English. John Bulaitis outlines how Thorez's political life intersected with, and was shaped by, key historical events. Chapters are devoted to the Popular Front, the World War II years (spent in the Soviet Union), the trauma of the 1956 Hungarian Revolt and the crisis prompted by the Algerian War. The book also examines Thorez's role as a leading player within the world communist movement. At its heart, the book explores the paradox of the mass communist movement in France: its ability to fuse attachment to the French nation with fervent loyalty to the Soviet Union and Stalinist practices.

Maurice Thorez (1900-1964) was a major figure in the history of twentieth-century France and European Communism for over three decades. Under his leadership, the French Communist Party (PCF) became France's largest political party and one of the most important communist parties in the West. Born in a mining village, Thorez left school at the age of 12 and would go on to helm the PCF in a rapid rise that paralleled Stalin's consolidation of power in the Soviet Union. After World War II, he became a minister, and briefly deputy prime minister, before the Cold War excluded communists from political power. The PCF became known as 'the party of Maurice Thorez', as a leader cult around Thorez was created that mirrored the cult of personality' around Stalin. This book is based on a wealth of original source material, including Thorez's diaries and notebooks. John Bulaitis outlines how Thorez's political life intersected with and was shaped by key historical events. At its heart, the book explores the paradox of the mass communist movement in France: its ability to fuse attachment to the French nation with fervent loyalty to the Soviet Union and Stalinist practices.

The second volume of The Cambridge History of Communism explores the rise of Communist states and movements after World War II. Leading experts analyze archival sources from formerly Communist states to re-examine the limits to Moscow's control of its satellites; the de-Stalinization of 1956; Communist reform movements; the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance; the growth of Communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America; and the effects of the Sino-Soviet split on world Communism. Chapters explore the cultures of Communism in the United States, Western Europe and China, and the conflicts engendered by nationalism and the continued need for support from Moscow. With the danger of a new Cold War developing between former and current Communist states and the West, this account of the roots, development and dissolution of the socialist bloc is essential reading.

Looks at the years from 1941-1947 when the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain became allies in order to defeat Hitler and reconstruct war torn Europe. The study focuses on the French Communist Party as one of the largest groups supporting Soviet aims in Western Europe.

The French Communist Party (PCF) was one of the strongest in the world communist movement after the Second World War. Politically powerful in France, it also had a voice in East-West politics internationally. Its positions on political and social developments in Eastern Europe were influential, but have been little studied. This book remedies the lack by tracing PCF reactions to the Popular Democracies from their birth in 1944-45, through social and political crises, to the dramatic events of 1956 in Moscow, Poznan and Budapest. Drawing on original sources and archive material, Richard Sacker shows how the PCF's approach was shaped not only by Cold War antagonisms and a slavish adherence to the Moscow line, but also by the domestic context of the French labour movement and political conflicts in France. This is a study which opens up new perspectives on a period which is beginning to emerge from memory, into history.