The Flame Glows

"Thorez to power!" yelled the Communists a month ago. But by 3 a.m. election night, Red Leader Jacques Duclos, clearly on the defensive, said: "The results show that, on the whole, we are holding our own."

They were not--quite. The Communists were no longer the first party of France. Checked in the May constitutional referendum, the Soviet offensive in the West had been decisively halted, though by no means broken, in last Sunday's election of a new Constituent Assembly to draft a Constitution for the Fourth Republic. It was, perhaps, the Second Battle of the Marne repeated.

All parties claimed victory, but the moderate, Catholic M.R.P., which stood for a socialistic economic program with full personal and political liberty, was in front. It gained 10% in the popular vote; the Communists lost 5%; the Socialists lost n%; the Radical Union gained 15% and the Rightists gained 6%. France was still Left, but the Center had held its own against the reviving Right, and had gained at the expense of the two Marxist parties. As a reward for their efforts to please everybody, the Socialists took the brunt of the beating.

The new lineup in the Assembly seemed to be:

Party Seats in New Assembly Gain or Loss since October

M.R.P. (Bidault) 160 + 16

Communists (Thorez) 146 -- 3

Socialists (Blum) 115 -- 15

P.R.L. (Rightists) 58 + 2

Radical Union (Herriot) 38 .+. 3

517

(Misc.) 5

(France Overseas: to come*) 64

586

To the Rescue. The Socialists' setback would undoubtedly have been worse if their Elder Statesman Leon Blum had not dashed in, like the Texas Rangers, three days before election with a $1,400,000 U.S. loan. In bistro and Metro French men, wooed by fair words and wheat from the U.S.S.R., felt that the West was at last concerned for the future of France.

The Socialists, because they are in the middle of the three big parties, may be able to keep Felix Gouin as head of the Government. Certainly the Communists would prefer him to M.R.P. Leader Georges Bidault -- skillful, violin-voiced Foreign Minister whose policy has remained steadfastly firm against pressure from Moscow.

Even before the election, the Communists were prepared to pursue their struggle by other means if their appeal to the electorate failed. Communist-dominated Confederation Generate du Travail (5,000,000 members) launched a vigorous drive for pay raises. The threat of a general strike insured that the Reds would be invited into any new government.

The Ultimate Argument. In the closing days of the campaign, a story of Communist methods came from far-off Reunion Island, a French colony near Madagascar.

Alexis de Villeneuve, M.R.P. candidate, was speaking at a rally in the Place de la Cathedrale, main square of the island's capital, Saint-Denis. He was interrupted by a group which included Paul Verges, son of Reunion's Communist Deputy. According to the M.R.P. paper L'Aube, the hecklers rattled nails in empty kettles and banged iron spoons against pots & pans. Whereupon De Villeneuve turned on his tormentors and cried: "If you have any questions to ask, ask them in a proper way." Verges yelled back "Yes. How does the candidate like this?" Whipping out a revolver, he shot De Villeneuve through the heart.

In France, M.R.P. plastered the walls of cities and villages with 100,000 posters (printed in red) and entitled Murder of an M.R.P. Candidate. The poster asks "Where is this [Communist] freedom we have been hearing so much about?"

Before they voted, enough Frenchmen to keep freedom alight had asked themselves the same question.

* Not expected to change overall picture.

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