The group of French Communists easscciated sith the opposition paper, ie Debat Commmiste are steppint their pear-old fight for the rehabilitation of indre Marty and the other “victims of French Stalinisn,."” In a recont issue of the paper there were published the names cf the 100 menbers of a “Comite d'Homneur National” which is to lead the campaign. Included on the Committee are many veterens of the resistance (including several who wore deported to Buchenwald or to other Nazi concentration camps), former C.P. parliamentary deputics and a former Comrmmist Senntar, ex-members. of the Central Committee and other long-serving members of the party. For some, nenbership of the Committee has led to their expulsion from the PCF.
Marty, near-lesendary figure in the French working class movement, was in 1952, during the pericd of the onslaught against the "Titoists™ in astern Europe, secused of opposing Farty policy in a "Leftist" and "sectarian" spirit and of belittling the role of Maurice Thorez. Reviled and persecuted, it was alleged that since 1919 he hed been = police spy, his wife was forced to break with him and Marty himself retired tea small village in the Pyrenees where four years later he died,
4 leader of the famous mutiny of the French Navy in the Black Sea in igi9”, for his part in which he spent several years in gaol, chief political commissar of the International Brigades durinz the Spanish Civil War, (he appears in Neningwey's For Whom the Hell Tolls), Marty sorved at various times as a Farlianentary deputy and as a member both of the Central Committee of the PCF and of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. Le Debat Communiste rerarks that "Marty..like all those who ccecupied responsible posts under Stalin, participated in measures of coercion and in the repression of ideas.." and compares his case with that of Rajk, Slansky and Kostov whoa were executed "not for their Stalinism..but for imaginary orimes. §o they have been rehabilitated end that ie justice. History will judge tho rest." Marty, says the paper,"was expelled..for crimes that he had not committed, on the basis of fabricited charees and sf foreed evidence” but the leadership of the PCF, unlike those of the majority of Commmist Farties, “refuses to admit its participation in Stalinist practices" and Marty remains diszraced.
le Debat Communiste is pressing the Marty case as part of a wi ter strugzle which - together with Unir (circulated only to Party members) and Le Voie Communiste - the paper is wasine for greater democracy within the PCF and for & strengthening and regrouping.of the French left. La Voie Commniste calls for a democratisation of the Party and a more militant approach. A statesent af the views of the Italian CP on the question of imner-—party democracy has been published in be Debat Comauniste as a retort to the leadership of the PCF which earlier this year refused to print an edition of Clarte, the journal sf the Union of Commmist Students, which carried an article Gn the subject by Togliattia, Over one issue of significance the two pabersa disagree, Le Debat Communiste is sympethetic to the present Algerian Government whereas La Yoie Commuiniste generally supports Boudiaf, a fierce critic of Ben Bella, ie Dehat has been very active in sccking contacts with groups of the non-Cormmist left and has published several exchances of views between different tendencies, jn interesting example of its wide outicck is given by a recent review of Traite d'eonomio Harxiste, by Erncst Mandel, editor of Ia Gauche, which sets the work "snongst the best and most serious...0n Sconomic sroblems that have been published for several decades" and calis it "the first ...that answers the need fer a new Marxist analysis of the economy."