The Decline of Maurice

France's Communist Party used to be the biggest, proudest bearer of the Red banner in Western Europe. Today party membership is 240,000, down from nearly 1,000,000 after World War II. Only 41 Communists sit in the National Assembly where 150 Red deputies raised their voices in 1956.

More or less oblivious to these figures, 776 chanting, clapping delegates to the 17th Party Congress in Paris' Latin Quarter heard Party Boss Maurice Thorez describe changes in the party advertised as "revolutionary." They turned out to be hardly that. To pro vide a little more "democracy" in convention proceedings, secret balloting was introduced, and 30 new Central Committee members were elected to replace oldtimers. Potentially the most important change: Thorez himself resigned after 34 years as secretary-general.

Down in Front. But at 64, "cher Maurice" was not really retiring; in good corporate style, he simply moved upstairs. Assuming the newly created post of president, he made room for a man only five years his junior, Assistant Secretary-General Waldeck Rochet, a onetime shepherd boy who became the party's expert on agricultural affairs and has always been a loyal party wheelhorse. Plainly, Thorez will continue to make party policy. It was quite a demonstration of the power to hang on, considering that he still shows the effects of the paralytic stroke he suffered 14 years ago -- he remained seated as he delivered his closing speech in Paris last week. In almost any other line of business, given the state of his health and the relative failure of his enterprise, he would have been out of a job.

Of course, it is tough to be a successful Communist under Charles De Gaulle, who has a way of stealing the Reds' issues: he is suitably anti-American, in his own way pushes the cause of the underdeveloped and unaligned nations, and above all rules a country that is bursting with prosperity. Besides, Thorez is having his ideological troubles. Once intensely loyal to Stalin, Thorez long resented Khrushchev's attacks on his old mentor, then finally made his peace with Nikita, and today is among his strongest supporters in the split with Red China. But he runs his party in the unbending Stalinist spirit, disillusioning many intellectuals and particularly the young.

Thorez is haunted by the example of the Italian party, which has actually grown under the leadership of Palmiro Togliatti (present membership: 1,700,000). Togliatti has been far more flexible than the hidebound Thorez, has encouraged more freedom of expression and more young blood in his party. While not pro-Peking, Togliatti has not rushed to line up with Khrushchev in his fight against the Chinese--simply to show his independence from Moscow.

Search for Support. This has drawn many French and other Western European comrades toward Togliatti's way of doing things, has precipitated a significant split between the French and Italian parties. Always sensitive to Maurice's concerns, his formidable wife Jeannette Vermeersch, a party veteran of 35 years, rose at last week's Paris Congress to denounce the pro-Italian faction.

But Thorez has not lost all his leverage. After all, his party still commanded 3,800,000 French votes in the last election. The French Socialists, abjuring the support of France's middle and right wings, may have to combine with the Communists if they are to have any chance of seizing power from De Gaulle in the 1965 election. The Socialists' presidential candidate, Gaston Defferre, is not making any compromises to win Communist support, but Thorez invited all Socialists to join cher Maurice v. le grand Charles.

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