Maurice Thorez

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 author succeeds in subtly conveying, in an admirably readable fashion, the tortuous twists and turns of Comintern policy and their execution by its French section, from ‘Class Against Class’ to the Popular Front to the trauma of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the apogee of the Liberation, the last days of Stalinism and beyond., In a classical and limpid form, John Bulaitis’ biography perfectly renders Thorez’s role and importance., John Bulaitis has written what will almost certainly be the definitive biography of Maurice Thorez in English ... His use of published sources and archive material is impeccable and well referenced., Overall, Bulaitis has done a fine job of unpicking the threads of Thorez’s life ... [a] fascinating study.

John Bulaitis is Senior Lecturer in History at the Canterbury Christ Church University. He specialises in the history of twentieth-century France and is the author of Communism in Rural France (I.B.Tauris).