ABSTRACT
The question of the involvement of the Parti Communiste Francais (PCF) in the resistance in France against the Nazi occupation still raises controversy. Of especial interest and debate is the PCF’s degree of involvement in the resistance during the first year of the occupation, from June 1940, when the German forces swept through France, until June 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet union and in so doing broke the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact. The tract offered a political programme as a solution. It proposed the formation of a people’s government led by the PCF. It called for a free and independent France linked by a pact of friendship with the USSR. The differences over the organizational form of the paramilitary forces merely reflected the difference of opinion between the Communists and the Gaullists over the ultimate objective of these units.
