Jacques Duclos

{{Infobox AM

| name = Jacques Duclos

| image = Jacques Duclos en 1959.JPG

| alt =

| caption = Portrait of Duclos, 1959. From the Senate archives

| constituency_AM = 20th arrondissement of Paris

| assembly =

| majority =

| term_start = 1 June 1928

| term_end = 31 May 1932

| predecessor = Léon Blum

| successor =

| prior_term =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1896|10|02}}

| birth_place = Louey, Hautes-Pyrénées, French Third Republic

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1975|04|25|1896|10|02}}

| death_place = Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, French Fifth Republic

| resting_place = Père Lachaise Cemetery

| party = PCF

| otherparty = National Front

| height = 1.56m

| spouse = Gilberte Louise Roux

| relations = Jean Duclos

| children =

| mother = Anne Louise Cazanave

| father = Antoine Duclos

| education =

| occupation = Pastry chef

| profession =

| known_for =

| salary =

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| committees =

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| awards =

| allegiance = French Third Republic

| branch =

| serviceyears = 1915–1919

| rank =

| unit =

| battles = Battle of Verdun

| mawards =

}}

Image:Secretariat clandestin PCF 1943.jpg

Jacques Duclos ({{IPA|fr|dyklo|lang}}; 2 October 1896{{spaced ndash}}25 April 1975) was a French Communist politician and member of Communist International (Comintern){{cite book |last1=Drachkovitch |first1=Milorad M. |title=Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern |date=1973 |publisher=Hoover Press |location=Stanford University |isbn=978-0-8179-8403-8 |page=103 |language=en}} who played a key role in French politics from 1926, when he entered the French National Assembly after defeating Paul Reynaud, until 1969, when he won a substantial portion of the vote in the presidential elections.

Biography

Duclos was born in Louey, Hautes-Pyrénées in to a strictly religious single parent family.{{cite book |title=A Dictionary of Political Biography |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780199569137 |edition=1st |language=en |chapter=Duclos, Jacques}} Duclos fought in the Battle of Verdun, where he was wounded. He was captured at Chemin des Dames, and remained a prisoner of war for the remainder of the war. In 1920, he joined the newly formed French Communist Party (PCF). He rose to the Central Committee in 1926, and defeated Léon Blum in the elections for deputy in the 20th arrondissement. He was named head of the propaganda section of the Party in 1936, and was elected to Vice-President of the French National Assembly.

A Stalinist, Duclos was for more than 35 years the brain behind political choices made by Maurice Thorez and Benoît Frachon. He was involved in the International Communist Movement, in the Comintern, and in the Cominform. In the 1930s, he was assigned the task of exerting "discipline" on Communist Movements in Spain (1930, 1935) and Belgium (1934–1935). On Joseph Stalin's orders, he advised the Communist Party of Spain to participate in the Popular Front at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

In September 1939 the PCF was banned following the signature of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the declaration of war due to the party holding the Stalinist line that the Allies were responsible for the war and that Germany was seeking peace. In October 1939, Duclos called for negotiations with Hitler, which led to increased repression from the state.{{Cite journal |last=Bowd |first=Gavin |date=2014-12-01 |title=The French Communist Party and Britain in the Second World War |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7173/164913314814213784 |journal=Irish Journal of French Studies |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=95–117 |doi=10.7173/164913314814213784 |issn=1649-1335|hdl=10023/10025 |hdl-access=free }} Upon France's defeat in 1940, Duclos, the most senior PCF official in France, engaged in negotiations with the Nazi authorities with a view to legalising the Communist Party as well as requesting permission to restart publication of the PCF daily (L'Humanité) (banned by the French government for the same reasons). The negotiations did not succeed but hurt the PCF's post-war credibility among part of the populace.{{Cite journal |last=Goodfellow |first=Samuel |date=1992 |title=From Communism to Nazism: The Transformation of Alsatian Communists |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/260909 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=231–258 |doi=10.1177/002200949202700202 |jstor=260909 |issn=0022-0094|url-access=subscription }}

Duclos was the supervisor of the clandestine party throughout the Nazi German Occupation (1940–44), and, with Pierre Villon, took the initiative in creating the Front National resistance movement, which was the political front for the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) guerrillas.{{cite news |last1=Freeman |first1=William M |title=Jacques Duclos of France Dies; Communist Ran for Presidency |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/26/archives/jacques-duclos-of-france-dies-communist-ran-for-presidency.html |access-date=30 October 2023 |agency=New York Times |publisher=The New York Times Company |date=26 April 1975 |location=New York |language=en}}

After 1950, Thorez's health faltered, but Duclos remained one of the most influential members of the Party. He was acting Secretary General from 1950 to 1953 in Thorez's absence and was instrumental in eliminating his rival André Marty from the Party's leadership. Waldeck Rochet's own failing health prompted Duclos to run as the Party's presidential candidate in the 1969 election, scoring 21.27% of the vote, the highest ever for a communist presidential candidate in France.{{Citation |last=Pierce |first=Roy |title=Candidate Evaluations and Presidential Electoral Choices in France |date=2002-03-21 |work=Leaders' Personalities and the Outcomes of Democratic Elections |pages=96–126 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/12516/chapter-abstract/162253578?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=2024-09-30 |publisher=Oxford University PressOxford |doi=10.1093/0199253137.003.0004 |isbn=0-19-925313-7|url-access=subscription }} He died in Montreuil on 25 April 1975 at age 78.{{Cite book |last1=Riches |first1=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QlExDwAAQBAJ&dq=jacques+duclos,+death,+montreuil+1975&pg=PT274 |title=A Dictionary of Political Biography |last2=Kavanagh |first2=Dennis |date=2013-09-19 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-251843-9 |language=en}}

References

External links

{{cite web

| last = Duclos

| first = Jacques

| title = On the Dissolution of the Communist Party of the United States

| work = Cahiers du Communisme

|date= April 1945

| url =http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1945/04/0400-duclos-ondissolution.pdf

| access-date = 2006-12-23 }} Reprinted in William Z. Foster et al. Marxism-Leninism vs. Revisionism. New York: New Century Publishers, February 1946, pp. 21–35.

{{succession box|

title=Acting Secretary General of the French Communist Party|

before=Maurice Thorez|

after=Maurice Thorez|

years=1950–53

}}

Category:1896 births

Category:1975 deaths

Category:People from Hautes-Pyrénées

Category:French Communist Party politicians

Category:Members of the 13th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic

Category:Members of the 14th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic