The Daily Worker

Doriot, Enemy of Working Class Unity.
Expelled by French Communist Party

Jacques Doriot, former member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of France, has been expelled from the Communist Party which condemned his disruptive tactics on the question of the united front. The text of a statement on his expulsion, printed in International Press Correspondence, follows.-Editor.

The National Conference of the C. P. of France emphatically declared:

'The Communist Party wishes to achieve unity of action in the fight of the masses against the bourgeoisie and fascism. The Communist Party is loyally and consistently carrying out the tactics of the united front."

The National Conference called to mind the judgment which was passed against Treint, who went over to counter-revolutionary Trotskyism and for whom the united front tactics consisted in "plucking the fowl."

The Conference condemned the disruptive behaviour of Doriot, which is directed against unity. Like Treint in his time, Doriot regards the united front as a subordinate maneuver and not as a real and sincere effort effectively to organize the anti-fascist fight of all toilers. He wants the proposals of our Party for common action to be rejected by the socialist party, whilst we, in the interest of the working class, want to achieve an agreement for the fight against fascism.
Doriot's hypocritical phrases about unity aim at masking the undermining work conducted by him against the Communist Party, the champion and organizer of the unity of the workers. Doriot is launching his attack against unity at a moment when the socialist workers are coming nearer to their Communist brothers, at the moment when the prestige of the Communist International and of the Soviet Union has increased enormously.
The National Conference demanded from the Central Committee the expulsion of Doriot, and thereby expressed the unanimous will of the Party.

The Central Committee declares:
Doriot has crowned a long period of more or less concealed hostility to the Party and its leading organs by his open fight against the Party and against the Communist International,

Doriot has no regard for his own responsibility. He refused to carry out numerous commissions with which the Central Committee wished to entrust him (Strasbourg strike, meeting in Issoudun against the renegade Chassaigne). He refused to make an interpellation in the Chamber regarding the Gorgulov and Stavisky affairs.

By creating the foundations of his group Doriot encouraged and supported Barbe, who refused to comply with a decision of the Central Committee.

Since his open attack on the Party Doriot has ceased to attend the meetings of the Political Bureau.
Doriot, in violation of the most elementary discipline, wrote and published numerous articles which are hostile to the Party and the Communist International. He converted the Communist journal "l'Emancipation" into a paper full of abuse of and calumnies against the Party and its cells. He made it difficult and even impossible for workers who remained true to the Communist International to be present at Party meetings and to proclaim their allegiance to Communism,

Doriot resigned from his position as mayor without the sanction of the Party in order to bring about an election campaign, which was directed exclusively against the Communist Party, and in order to attempt to incite the workers of St. Denis against Communism. At the meeting in St. Denis on April 26, he prevented by force the representative of the Central Committee, Comrade Marcel Cachin, from obtaining a hearing.

Doriot has joined the renegades of Communism, the declared enemies of the Soviet Union, in order to undertake a campaign to discredit the Party and the Communist International (meetings in Rouen and Troyes).

In spite of the repeated invitation of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and regardless of his own declarations, which were intended to deceive the workers of St. Denis regarding his real disruptive intentions, Doriot refused to go to Moscow. By his hostile reply to the decision of the Executive Committee, which included the illustrious name of Dimitrov among its signatories, Doriot has exposed himself as an enemy of the Communist International.

Finally, Doriot, a member of the National Conference, expressly informed the Conference in a letter that he "could have, and still could, state his point of view from the platform," but did not condescend to appear at the Conference, and thereby expressed his determination to break with the Party.

Doriot has demonstrated that he has become an element alien to the working class and the Communist Party. He has proved that he is not fighting for the unity of the working class. He has confirmed the judgment passed by the Communist Party on his activity. He joins the counter-revolutionary Trotsky. He is slipping down to the abyss.

Through his activity Doriot does not support the united front against fascism; he supports fascism.

The Central Committee of the Party, having exhausted all means of saving Doriot, and in accordance with the unanimous will of the Party, which is demanding that all obstacles to the unity of action shall be removed, has decided to expel Doriot from the ranks of the Communist Party.

An appeal against this decision can be made to the Party Congress and to the Congress of the Communist International.