Bluebeard & the Bourgeoisie

"Bourgeois of the world, unite!" This seemed destined to be the newest battle cry of the Communist Party, whose self-imposed historic mission is the destruction of the bourgeoisie. The "Peace Front" recently launched in Italy (see below) aims to entice not only the proletariat, but white-collar workers," small businessmen and anyone else gullible enough to fall for Communism's pseudo-democratic propaganda. In Paris, France's No. 2 Communist Jacques Duclos last week wooed the matronly middle class like a Red Bluebeard.

In the Salle Wagram, a marble and plush dance hall which also serves as a boxing arena, some 3,000 small shopkeepers, bakers, butchers and barbers, well-larded with party members, were assembled. Duclos, a plump parrot of a man, was on his best behavior, addressing them as "mesdames et messieurs," instead of "comrades." He shrewdly bracketed "Le Plan Marshall" with something his audience hated--"Le Plan Mayer," Finance Minister Rene Mayer's anti-inflation plan, which levies steep taxes on business and industry.

Cried Duclos: "By these two plans all of you--small businessmen, small industrialists and tradespeople--will be thrown into the jaws of international big business. It is you, the little people, who are going to be bled white with-new taxes. . . . The bigger you are the less you pay. . . . But we, the Communist Party, will defend you and stand by you.

"The United States Government is offering us a gift of 280 million dollars. Beware of this gift . . . 280 million dollars worth of merchandise will be dumped on France. Certain branches of our industry will have to die . . . America will start meddling in our business. . . . Hundreds of thousands of tradesmen and shopkeepers will end miserably in bankruptcy. . . . It is not the Communist Party that wants to expropriate you--it is the Rothschilds, the Morgans, the Du Fonts. We, the Communists, have always respected private property and savings. . . . The Communist Party stands by the people of France in their fight against the American millionaires!"

Duclos finished to thunderous applause. The audience sang the Marseillaise instead of the Internationale (which is de rigueur at more conventional Communist meetings). Then the petits bourgeois filed out in orderly fashion. At the door, they received leaflets urging them to join the Communist Party. The Reds tried to tell them that they had nothing to lose but their taxes; most French bourgeois knew that they had nothing to win but their chains.

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