FRENCH EXPECTATIONS
233
flated paper-money and with an expression of treason on their faces.
The extreme rightist organizations have disappeared, from the Royal–
ist
Action
Fran~aise,
whose leader Charles Maurras has been condemned
to life imprisonment, to the group of adventurers from the industrial
suburbs which include Jacques Doriot and Paul Marion, both of whom
are former members of the Communist Party. Some "Cagoulards," who
formerly were planning a conspiracy similar to Franco's coup in Spain,
indeed fought well in the De Gaulle forces and in the resistance move–
ment, and one section of the capitalist class of France staked its wealth
on de Gaulle in the early stages of the game and still has reasonable
hopes for the future. But on the whole, France continues to veer towards
the left.
The middle class has been ruined and has drawn closer to the
working class which has regained unity through privation. In the early
days of defeat, all sorts of refugees could be heard on the roads ex–
pressing sensible opinions concerning those who were to be held respon–
sible, or on structural reforms or the imminence of revolution; a sort of
socialistic consciousness wider in scope than that of the militant Social–
ists, was thus born within a few days. Now Jacques Maritain readily uses
the world "revolution" and the economic program of the Popular Re–
publican movement, a Catholic organization, does not perceptibly differ
from that of the Socialist Party! Everyone realizes that France's recon–
struction cannot be accomplished by a return to the past, that .the sick
capitalism of the end of the Third Republic is now dead, that large–
scale nationalization and social security measures are the necessary basis
for the planning and direction of economy. Would it be possible to
permit the accomplices of Nazism to retain their capital, to rebuild the
devastated regions to the profit of private enterprises which are bankrupt
and cannot do without the aid of the state, to give the press back to the
corrupt trusts, not to control exports and imports? Necessity alone puts
France on the threshold of a deeply revolutionary economic transform–
ation. When the prisoners of war and workers now interned in Ger–
many return home, they will have no fear of being outspoken after
having seen from near the results of planned economy. Hence it will
probably be difficult to defend the old economic order with much vigor,
and it will seem obvious that, to achieve its reestablishment, a reaction–
ary
neo-fascist dictatorship would have to be established. In General de
Gaulle's circle itself, there are many who favor planned economy. Big
capital will thus concentrate on preserving managerial positions in this
new economy, and on maintaining the medium and small private owner–
ship of production facilities.
The resistance was far from being a revolutionary movement in the
Socialistic sense of the word.
It
was a
national
movement, gathering to–
gether men of all political backgrounds on a platform of immediate salva-
