¹ See the studies by François Goguel: “Géographie des élections du 17 juin 1951,” Esprit, Vol. 19, pp. 343–364 (Sept., 1951)Google Scholar; “Géographie du Réferendum du 13 octobre et des élections du 10 novembre 1946,” ibid., Vol. 15, pp. 237–264 (Feb., 1947); and “Esquisse d'un Bilan de la Sociologie Electoral Française,” Revue Française de Science Polilique, Vol. 1, pp. 277–297 (July-Sept., 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Excellent, also, is Fauvet, Jacques, Les Partis Politiques dans la France Actuelle (Paris, 1947), pp. 71–92Google Scholar. For an interesting critical approach to presentations of “electoral geography,” see Dupeux, Georges, “Pour une Représentation Nouvelle des Résultats Electoraux,” Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 1, pp. 107–109 (Jan.-June, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² For the purposes of this study, those départements will be considered as predominantly agricultural in which the ratio between people living on farms and total population is substantially higher than the national average. In the eight départements referred to in the text, the proportion of rural to total population averages 46 per cent, while the national average is but 25 per cent. See Ministère des Finances et des Affaires Economiques, Direction de la Statistique Générale, Recensement Général de la Population Effectué le 10 Mars 1946. Etat Civil et Activité Professionnelle de la Population Présente (Paris, 1949)Google Scholar, cited hereafter as Census 1946, Vol. 1, pp. lviii–lilGoogle Scholar.

³ For details and a suggestive map, see Labrousse, Ernest, “Géographie du Socialisme,” La Revue Socialiste, Nlle. Série, No. 2, pp. 137–148 (June, 1946)Google Scholar, and Génique, G., L'Election de l'Assemblée législative en 1849. Essai d'une repartition géographique des partis politiquee en France (Paris, 1921)Google Scholar.

⁴ For an interesting politico-sociological study of the situation prevailing in the Côtes-du-Nord, see de Vulpian, Alain, “Physionomie Agraire et Orientation Politique dans le Département des Côtes-du-Nord 1928–1946,” Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 1, pp. 110–132 (Jan-June, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ The political outlook of the peasants in these regions had been the reason for Karl Marx's famous denunciation of the French peasants as the main supporters of Napoleon III. See his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York, n.d.), pp. 108–110Google Scholar. The classical and still largely valid description of the economic and political stratification of the rural West in the Third Republic remains Siegfried, Anderé, Tableau politique de la France de l'ouest sous la Troisième République (Paris, 1913)Google Scholar.

⁶ The author does not believe that the results of the run-off elections for cantonal councils, held in the fall of 1951, justify a revision of the analysis given in the text. For a variety of reasons, among them the desire to voter utile (cast a useful ballot), cantonal elections hardly ever give a correct picture of the country's political physiognomy.

⁷ Lefebvre, G., “La place de la Révolution dans l'histoire agraire de la France,” Annales d'Histoire Economique et Sociale, Vol. 1, pp. 506–523 (Oct. 15, 1929)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ For these and many of the following figures, consult Weill-Raynal, Etienne, “La Répartition des Terres en France; Légende et Réalité,” Études et Conjonctures, Union Française, Vol. 3, pp. 61–76 (Sept.-Dec., 1948)Google Scholar; also Granet, Marie, “La répartition des terres en France; Légende et Réalité,” Revue Socialiste, Nlle. Série No. 34, pp. 38–43 (Jan.-Feb., 1950)Google Scholar. All French agricultural statistics, even those concerning land distribution, not to mention farm production or prices, are highly controversial. See, e.g., the rather substantial difference between the data provided by Weill-Raynal, and those given by Demangeon, Albert, Géographie Economique et Humaine de la France, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1946), esp. pp. 142–65Google Scholar.

⁹ As an example, see Rochet, Waldeck in his preface to Le Parti Communiste et la Question Paysanne (Paris, n.d., 1949), pp. 6–9Google Scholar. Ironically enough, these data and their somewhat demagogic presentation were taken over by the communists in every detail from the writings of a violently anti-communist socialist, E. Weill-Raynal; see above, n.8.

¹⁰ See Census 1946, Vol. 1, pp. li–liv. Actually the census figures would indicate more than 3.3 million wage earners employed in French agriculture, and that at a time when, because of the month in which the census was taken, the number of seasonal workers was abnormally low. But the census distributes the number of working members of the family somewhat arbitrarily among the different categories of the active rural population. The number of agricultural workers given in the text is adapted from a conservative estimate in the interesting article by Chaballier, Claude, “La Société française est-elle menacée de sclérose?” La Revue Socialiste, Nlle. Serie, No. 48, pp. 93–103 (June, 1951)Google Scholar.

¹¹ See Wright, Gordon, “Communists and Peasantry in France,” in Earle, Edward M. (ed.), Modern France (Princeton, 1951), pp. 220–221Google Scholar. Throughout this paper the author has drawn heavily on the historical record of CP activities among the peasantry that is presented in Wright's remarkable study.

¹² Excellent on this point is Gordon Wright, “The French Peasantry, 1918–1939,” an unpublished paper prepared in connection with the Seminar on Modern France. Note also data along these lines in Weill-Raynal, Etienne, “Les classes sociales et les partis politiques en France,” La Revue Socialiste, Nlle. Serie, No. 42, pp. 545–546 (Dec., 1950)Google Scholar.

¹³ In Capital (trans. from 3rd German ed., London, 1906), Vol. 1, p. 513, and similarly in The Eighteenth Brumaire (cited above, n.5), pp. 112–113.

¹⁴ Consult, e.g., the series of maps presented in Demangeon, op. cit. (above, n.8), pp. 209–214. They show, among other facts, that the industrial regions of the North contribute far more to agricultural production than is commonly supposed. According to Clark, Colin, The Conditions of Economic Progress (London, 1951), p. 238Google Scholar, the most satisfactory single measure of efficiency in agriculture is the net income produced per man-year of labor. We do not know of any reliable French data giving such evaluation.

¹⁵ See Uri, Pierre, “Les Problèmes économiques et financiers,” in Encyclopédie Politique de la France et du monde, Vol. 2 (Paris, n.d., 1949), pp. 262–4Google Scholar, with interesting remarks concerning the consequences of this disparity for the rural economy as a whole. Careful, though somewhat inconclusive, studies about the productivity of French agriculture in comparison with that of other countries are contained in Cépède, Michel, “L'agriculture dans l'économie française et européenne,” Collection Droit Social, Vol. 37, pp. 1–4 (Nov., 1950)Google Scholar, and T. Ratineau, “Les Conditions techniques de la production agricole française,” ibid., pp. 4–10.

¹⁶ See Census 1946, Vol. 1, pp. lvi–lvii, 122–159Google Scholar.

¹⁷ A striking analogy to this economic and political stratification is provided by the description given in Heberle, Rudolf, From Democracy to Nazism: A Regional Case Study on Political Parties in Germany (Baton Rouge, 1945)Google Scholar, of the progress of nazism in Schleswig-Holstein; note esp. pp. 37–41, where the regions of strongest nazi influence are identified with those of the Geest farmer, “in mentality and in habits still more of a real peasant,” having “caught less of the spirit of capitalistic enterprise than the marsh farmer.”

¹⁸ See the maps in Demangeon, pp. 148–154.

¹⁹ The searching analysis by P. L., , “Der kleine Grundbesitz in Frankreich,” Neue Zeit, Vol. 1, pp. 345–360 (1883)Google Scholar has, except for minor details, still full validity today.

²⁰ For the use made by the communists of those figures, see Flavien, Jean, “La dégradation de l'agriculture française et l'action du Parti à la campagne,” Cahiers du Communisme, Vol. 28,, p. 647 (June, 1951)Google Scholar.

²¹ These questions are poignantly discussed in the writings of the French regional economists; note especially Gravier, Jean-François, Paris et le Désert Français (Paris, 1947)Google Scholar, and the same author's “La clé du problème agricole: enseignement et vulgarisation,” Collection Droit Social, Vol. 37, pp. 19–23 (Nov., 1950)Google Scholar.

²² This is described by Gordon Wright in “The French Peasantry, 1918–1939.”

²³ For a good description of the political and psychological impact, consult Foresta, Jean, “L'incivisme paysan et les parasites,” Esprit, Vol. 17, pp. 53–7 (Jan., 1949)Google Scholar.

²⁴ In 1947 the wholesale price index for farm products stood at 1159 (1938 = 100), while the general wholesale price index was 989 and that of raw materials only 836. See Statistical Office of the United Nations, Monthty Bulletin of Statistics, Vol. 5, pp. 174, 180 (Aug., 1951)Google Scholar.

²⁵ In May, 1951, the general price index had risen to 3859, but that of farm products lagged at 2063 (idem). These figures art, however, of dubious value, as explained below.

²⁶ “Avis et Rapports du Conseil Economique,” Journal Officiel, March 8, 1951, pp. 106–114Google Scholar. This entire report, however interesting, gives a weird picture of the utter confusion pertaining to French economic and social statistics.

²⁷ See, also for the following, Milhau, Jules, “L'évolution des charges et du revenu de l'agriculture française,” Droit Social, Vol. 14, pp. 437–445 (July-Aug., 1951)Google Scholar. Further light on the agricultural investment problem is shed in a report by the national employers organization, “Les investissements en 1951,” Bulletin du Conseil National du Patronat Français, Vol. 5, pp. 2–7 (Sept. 5, 1951)Google Scholar.

²⁸ See Dean, Vera M., “U. S. Policy in Europe,” Foreign Policy Reports, Vol. 21, pp. 284–285 (Jan. 15, 1946)Google Scholar; Thorez, Maurice, Une Politique Agricole Française (Paris, 1848), p. 4Google Scholar; Rochet, Waldeck, Pour la Restauration de l'Agriculture Française (Paris, n.d., [1945])Google Scholar and La Défense de l'Agriculture Française (Paris, n.d., [1946])Google Scholar; and, with interesting examples, Mitrany, David, Marx against the Peasants (Chapel Hill, 1952), p. 180Google Scholar.

²⁹ For details concerning the repercussions of the ideological offensive in the French CP, see Einaudi, Mario, “Western European Communism: A Profile,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 45, pp. 185–186 (March, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ See Le Parti Communiste (cited above, n.9.). For the significance of the Marseilles Congress of 1921 and of its agrarian program, see Walter, Gérard, Histoire du Parti Communiste François (Paris, 1948), pp. 65–75Google Scholar.

³¹ Significantly enough, there is one marxist text which has been entirely dropped, namely the passage from Marx's, The Eighteenth Brumaire, p. 109Google Scholar, which describes the small French peasantry as a “non-class.” In the thirties this text still appeared prominently in the writings of French communists; see, e.g., Thorez, Maurice, France Today and the People's Front (London, 1936), pp. 19–20Google Scholar.

³² For a detailed analysis of such increasing flexibility in communist propaganda, see Rossi, Angelo, A Communist Party in Action: An Account of the Organization and Operations in France (New Haven, 1949), esp. pp. 36–42Google Scholar. For a more recent, equally excellent evaluation, see Domenach, Jean-Marie, “The French Communist Party,” in Einaudi, Mario et al. , Communism in Western Europe (Ithaca, 1951), pp. 60–151Google Scholar.

³³ The importance and the success of such appeals to the working class is interestingly-commented upon in “Conscience Prolétarienne,” Esprit, Vol. 19, pp. 153–6 (July-Aug., 1951)Google Scholar. Especially of late the propaganda in the countryside contains similar arguments.

³⁴ See Rossi, p. 41.

³⁵ Consult, e.g., La Terre, March 8, 1951. More outspoken in his advocacy of the collectivization of all rural holdings is Rochet, Waldeck, “Le socialisme et les paysans,” L'Humanité, Dec. 24, 1949Google Scholar. As far as could be ascertained, communist publications addressing the farmers more specifically, such as La Terre, have never expressed themselves with similar frankness. It should also be mentioned that, when the article in L'Humanité was published, the “ideological offensive” was at its height, but that it has receded some-what since then.

³⁶ See P. L., op. cit. (above, n. 19), p. 354. The same article comments interestingly on the already existing coolness of the French peasants towards agricultural cooperatives, discussed below in the text. For a striking parallel between this attitude towards agricultural cooperatives and Lenin's writings on the same subject, see Mitrany, op. cit. (above, n. 28), p. 83.

³⁷ Heberle, op. cit. (above, n. 17), p. 120, reports a remarkable variety of such attitudes towards radical propaganda during the declining years of the Weimar republic. An interviewed German farmer admitted then that there were indeed unbridgeable discrepancies between his own ideas of agricultural organization and those of the nazis. Yet he was convinced that in the future “Third Reich” the farmers would be so strong a power that they would be able to shape their destiny according to their own desires.

³⁸ See, also for the following, the issues of La Terre during the months preceding the elections of 1951, especially those of March 29 and May 17, 1951.

³⁹ Here again communist activities in present-day France closely resemble the tactics of the nazi movement during the last years of the Weimar Republic (Heberle, p. 78).

⁴⁰ Compare the ordinance of October 17, 1945 (Journal Officiel, Oct. 18, 1945, pp. 6614–6618Google Scholar) and the law of April 13, 1946 (Journal Officiel, April 14, 1946, pp. 3131–3137Google Scholar) with the law of December 31, 1948 (Journal Officiel, Jan. 4, 1949, p. 182Google Scholar). For the part which the communists claim to have played in the earlier reform legislation, see Rochet, Waldeck, Garcia, Felix, et al. , Le Statut du fermage et du métayage (Paris, n.d., [1946])Google Scholar. A very complete and critical discussion of the intricate problems involved is contained in Savatier, Rene, “Fermages et métayages: Bilan économique et social; technique réformatrice,” Collection Droit Social, Vol. 37, pp. 26–37 (Nov., 1950)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ For a typical example of [CP] propaganda directed to a specific group such as the winegrowers, note the speech by Rochet, Waldeck reported in La Terre, May 3, 1951Google Scholar.

⁴² For more details on the question of extending the collective bargaining legislation to agricultural labor, see XXX, “Les conventions susceptibles d'extension intéressant les salaires des exploitations agricoles,” Droit Social, Vol. 14, pp. 463–465 (July-Aug., 1951)Google Scholar.

⁴³ See, for prewar propaganda of this kind, Thorez, op. cit. (above, n. 31), p. 26, and for a specimen of post-liberation “anti-capitalism,” Rochet, Waldeck, Pour la Restauration de l'Agriculture (cited above, n. 28), pp. 9–10Google Scholar and passim.

⁴⁴ For the prevalence of nationalistic feelings among peasant groups of various countries, see Friedrich, C. J., “The Agricultural Basis of Emotional Nationalism,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 1, pp. 50–61 (April, 1937)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This otherwise excellent and very helpful study indulges in the usual generalities about the French peasants' support of Napoleon III.

⁴⁵ For examples, see Flavien, op. cit. (above, n. 20), p. 653.

⁴⁶ Note, for instance, La Terre, April 19, 1951.

⁴⁷ For an almost classical formulation of this deficiency, consult Gide, André, Journal, 1889–1939 (Paris, 1939), p. 668Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ For a recent evaluation of such feelings, see Bernot, Lucien and Clément, Pierre, “Lutte Ouvrière,” Esprit, Vol. 19, p. 179 (July-Aug., 1951)Google Scholar. While that report discusses mainly the schism between urban and rural workers, it also sheds light, as the editors note correctly, on the problem of worker-peasant relationship.

⁴⁹ See Wright, , “Communists and Peasantry in France,” p. 221Google Scholar, and the interesting references given there.

⁵⁰ See Rochet, Waldeck, Pour la Restauration de l'Agriculture, pp. 31–32Google Scholar.

⁵¹ As an example of many similar appeals, note “Paysans et Ouvriers sont solidaires,” La Terre, March 29, 1951Google Scholar.

⁵² La Terre, March 8, 1951.

⁵³ Rochet, Waldeck, La Défense de l'Agriculture (cited above, n. 28), pp. 12–13Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Once more the communist propaganda is closely akin to the nazi propaganda among German farmers: during the Weimar republic the nazia spoke constantly about the “socalled German government,” and blamed commercial treaties for making the German people the “slaves” of the outside world. The “international Jewish finance capital” of the thirties has, of course, been replaced in the communist press by the shorter “Wall Street.”

⁵⁵ Already at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in 1935, Manuilski had hoped that by showing the way “to overcome the contradiction between low techniques in agriculture and high techniques in industry,” the example set by the Soviet Union would be able to win over the peasants in capitalistic countries to the communist cause. See VII Congress of the Communist International, Abridged Stenographic Report of Proceedings (Moscow, 1939), p. 527Google Scholar; see also Mitrany, p. 178. Some fifteen years earlier Lenin had, in his comment on the agrarian program of the French CP, written about the “magnificent possibilities of electrification” existing in France, possibilities which would greatly profit “the small peasantry.” See Kommunist, Russischer, “Zu den Thesen der Französischen Kommunistischen Partei über die Agrarfrage,” Generalregister der Kommunistischen Internationale, Vol. 3, pp. 71–5 (No. 20, 1922)Google Scholar. This passage is widely quoted in present-day French communist propaganda.

⁵⁶ See Flavien, Jean, “Le travail du parti a la campagne,” Cahiers du Communisme, Vol. 28, pp. 175–176 (Feb., 1951)Google Scholar, and Roger Garandy, “Les tâches et les méthodes de notre propagande,” ibid., pp. 523–524 (May, 1951). Subsequent to these articles, the all-too-noisy peace propaganda seems to have subsided somewhat. It seems possible that here a new “line” is in the making.

⁵⁷ For an interesting description of Renaud Jean's activities, see Walter, op. cit. (above, n. 30), pp. 115, 145–146, and Wright, , “Communists and the Peasantry in France,” pp. 221–224Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ To borrow an expression from Fischer, Ruth, Stalin and German Communism (Cambridge, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ See Flavien, , “Le travail du parti,” p. 182Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Consult, also for the following, “Les Elections et la Bataille pour une Politique Nationale de Paix,” Cahiers du Communisme, Vol. 28, pp. 508–509 (Feb., 1951)Google Scholar.

⁶¹ For a very revealing auto-critique of party activities, see Rochet, Waldeck, “Le résultat des élections et le travail du Parti à la campagne,” France Nouvelle, July 7, 1951Google Scholar. For an earlier criticism of the work among the peasantry, note Rochet, Waldeck, “Staline et la question paysanne,” Cahiers du Communisme, Vol. 26, pp. 1529–30 (Dec., 1949)Google Scholar.

⁶² For the general problem and a comparative survey of trade-union activities among agricultural labor in various countries, see Gasparini, Innocenzo, “Strategia agricola di una Confederazione sindacale di Lavoratori,” Sindicalismo, Vol. 1, pp. 27–50 (July, 1951)Google Scholar; also, for the situation in France, Claude Chaballier, op. cit. (above, n. 10), p. 101, and Bernot and Clément, op. cit. (above, n. 48), p. 153.

⁶³ See Rochet, Waldeck, Pour la Restauration de l'Agriculture, p. 30Google Scholar, and Wright, , “Communists and the Peasantry in France,” pp. 226–229Google Scholar, for developments of communist influence in the CGA between 1944 and 1949.

⁶⁴ Note La Terre, Feb. 22 and March 1 and 8, 1951.

⁶⁵ For some interesting examples of the line-up of votes in the Economic Council, see Avis et Rapports du Conseil Economique, Journal Officiel, Feb. 22, 1951, pp. 101–103Google Scholar, and March 8, 1951, pp. 135–136.

⁶⁶ Note La Terre, March 8 and May 10, 1951.

⁶⁷ See Val R. Lorwin, “The Struggle for Control of the French Trade-Union Movement 1945–1949,” and Ehrmann, Henry W., “The Decline of the Socialist Party,” in Earle, Edward M. (ed.), Modern France, pp. 181–218Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Taken from Lenin, V. I., “Left-wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (New York, n.d.)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ For more details on what might be called the “market theory of group conflict,” see Robbing, Lionel, “The Economic Basis of Class Conflict,” in Marshall, T. H. (ed.), Class Conflict and Social Stratification (London, 1938), pp. 112–133Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ In the passage chosen as the motto for this article.

⁷¹ See Lederer, Emil, State of the Masses; The Threat of the Classless Society (New York, 1940)Google Scholar, and, more recently, the remarkable work by Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1951)Google Scholar, esp. Chs. 10 and 11.

⁷² See Arendt, p. 306.

⁷³ Note Fauvet, op. cit. (above, n. 1), p. 77.

⁷⁴ The status of CP influence among young farmers needs further study, especially since the active support of the dissatisfied youth has always played an important role in the march to power of a totalitarian movement.

⁷⁵ For an excellent analysis of the organizational potentialities of the CP, see Duverger, Maurice, “Military and Political Rearmament,” Measure, Vol. 2, pp. 261–268 (Summer 1951)Google Scholar. For an overall discussion of the problem of Western European Communism and its possible solutions, see Einaudi, Mario, “Communism in Western Europe: Its Strength and Vulnerability,” Yale Review, Vol. 41, pp. 234–246 (Winter, 1952)Google Scholar.