French Communists killed Nazis.
They did not collaborate at all.
That's what places them among the French heroes of World War II.
The French know this.
The French Right divided, and the larger part collaborated with the Nazis.
The French know this too.
That's why corporatism and the Right is more suspect in France than the Communists and the Left are.
You pointed out what you perceive to be a double standard in the French treatment of Communists and Fascists. But there is no double standard. Communists fought hard for France and did not mass murder French people. Fascists governed Vichy France and operated France as an enslaved economy in the service of the Third Reich.
The French don't compare the two, because there's nothing to compare. The French Communists were the good guys. The French Fascists were the bad guys. There isn't any equivalence or equivocating between the two positions.
Of course, therefore, Communists in France had a great deal more prestige coming out of World War II than the corporatist Right. The French Communists were national heroes, full stop. The corporatist Right were murderous traitors, full stop.
In France, in World War II, Communists = Good Guys fighting for France. Right Wing Fascists = Bad Guys fighting for Hitler.
The comparison could not be more stark.
Why do you suppose French Jews practically as a class were very pro-Communist in and following World War II? Is it because Jews are stupid idiots? Or is it because the Jews saw, correctly, that the French Communists were fighting the good fight against the French Fascists who were with the Germans?
There isn't anything to be sarcastic about.
Yeah, it sure would be bad if the French Communists had engaged in violent repression of French people. If they had, that would have sharply balanced the equation, and they wouldn't have been heroes of World War II.
But they DIDN'T, and that's the point.
The Communists fought AGAINST Hitler.
The Corportatists fought FOR Hitler.
It is as simple and as stark as that.
And that's why Communism enjoyed prestige in France, and even those people (like me) who realize that their economic ideas are hopeless recognize that they were brave and fierce defenders of France.
It's why Fascism and Corporatism are much more despised in France. It was a substantial portion of the Right who were the quislings. So the Right's legacy in France coming out of World War II was partly of resistance at the end (De Gaulle), but mostly of cooperating with Hitler and then pretending not to have done so after the war.
The Communists were patriots, full stop.
Today, everybody knows that capitalist economics are the way forward, and the Communist economic agenda cannot work.
But there remains, among the old, the residual loyalty to the Communists because they were the vast majority of organized loyalists to France fighting for France in France during the darkest years of the occupation.
Americans hate Communists full stop, for their ideology.
The French reject Communist economic ideology, but CAN'T hate the French Communists, because the French Communists were the heroes of World War II, the ones WITHIN France who fought for France. The Right sold the country out.
It is a pity they didn't listen to him in his time.
Communist or Fascist, mongrel dogs will fight among themselves. They are the same dogs so it doesn't impress me much that some French Communists killed some French Fascists.
good post