92
PA]{TJSAN REVIEW
The Petnin regime has tried to win over the workers, but with no
success. The trade union leaders who "rallied" to Petain are even leas
popular with the workers than are the other Petainards. Recently, partly
because of their ineffectiveness, partly because of the ever more reaction·
ary trend of the Petain regime, these turncoats have been threatened with
elimination from the State payroll. "We have abandoned internationalism
and iiiocialism," they lament in their press, "and still you don't trust us."
Despite clever propaganda, the Nazis have been equally unsuccessful
with the workers. "A united states of Europe?" the workers say, "All very
nice-but meantime they take our food and keep our prisoners!"
The
English propaganda is much better received, simply because England
is
fighting the hated Nazis. But there is a widespread scepticism as to Eng·
land's war aims: "They're fighting Germany-O.K. But they're pretty
imperialist themselves, they too want to dominate the world"-this is
the
usual reaction.
Finally, there is the crucial matter of the attitude of the German
soldiers themselves. There is little hope for a successful revolutionary
movement against German occupation without at least the neutrality of
large sections of the German soldiery. In the first year of occupation, the
French workers felt and expressed simply a hatred of all German soldiers
alike, and the Germans in return felt utterly isolated. But a significant
change seems to be taking place. German soldiers have come into contact,
as foremen or as fellow workers, with French workers in certain war
plants. Technical knowledge is compared, the French begin to feel that
after all the German is a worker too, and that "it's not his fault." I recall
one instance, when a German noncommissioned officer, in charge of a
Paris garage for staff cars, became impatient with the efforts of the
French
me~~hanics
to fix a car and, peeling off his military jacket, climbed
under the car and soon found the trouble. Relations henceforth in that
shop were on a completely different basis. I know personally of several
instances when a German soldier who had been working in some Paris
plant, was ordered to the Eastern front-and was tearfully bid goodbye
by his French fellow workers. "He's a poor devil, a worker like us. It's
not
his
fault."
War weariness is by now general among the occupying troops.
"I'm
not a soldier, I'm a tailor," said one of them impatiently to a friend of
mine. But of course neither the British nor the DeGaulle propaganda can
take any advantage of this feeling, since
it
speaks entirely in terms of
inflicting an even more terrible fate on Germany this time than last. "We
don't want a new Versailles"-this sentiment is what keeps most of the
Nazi soldiery loyal to the Fuhrer, not any dreams of world empire.
In
short, the kind of propaganda which can reach both the French people
and the rank and file of their German military oppressors, must speak the
language of workingclass internationalism rather than of British imperial·
ism or DeGaullist nationalism.
LoUis
CLAIR
NEW yORK CITY
