Communist Shrinking Pains

By David Brand

Flight 007 is costing the rigidly orthodox party popular support

The weather was cold and wet, and the faithful struggled to keep their wares as unsullied as their ideology. Neither was easy for France's Communist Party (P.C.F.) last week as hundreds of thousands of members and sympathizers gathered for their annual fund-raising fair, the fete de l'humanite, in a 37-acre park in the working-class Paris suburb of La Courneuve. While construction workers, secretaries and concierges wrestled with their crepes, foie gras and muscadet in the pounding rain, party leaders were striving to maintain loyalty on the most emotional issue of the day: the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 by the Soviet Union.

The airliner tragedy is one of the thorniest problems yet faced by the pro-Moscow French Communists in their uneasy 28-month alliance with the Socialist-dominated government of President Franc,Mitterrand --and one that has again raised speculation that the Communists ultimately will leave or be invited out of the government. In past months the party has disagreed with its coalition partner on a variety of issues, from the government's strong support for NATO's plan to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe to French intervention in Chad. The attacks, however, tended to become muted under Mitterrand's stern rebukes.

The death of 269 passengers and crew on board the South Korean airliner was a different matter: the P.C.F.'s response placed the party not only at odds with the Mitterrand government, which voiced outrage over the incident, but also threatened to alienate many members, who in recent years have become increasingly disillusioned with the party's policies.

Central to those policies is unquestioning support of Moscow's actions, no matter how offensive. Those who thought that the French Communists might have had some weakening of resolve over the shooting down of a civilian airliner were sharply reminded of ultimate loyalties by Party Boss Georges Marchais. Opening a fete exhibit titled "The Fight for Human Rights," Marchais called the incident "more complex than the caricaturish version given by those who have decided once and for all that the Soviet Union is the kingdom of evil and its leaders bloodthirsty ogres." Keeping his orthodox shibboleths in order, he accused the U.S. of reacting with "cries of vengeance" and "terms of abuse and invective."

Marchais's words were an open indication of the increasing strain between the French Communists' allegiance to Moscow and their loyalty to the Mitterrand government. "Pro-Sovietism is like an old shell that won't break off," said a Parisian woman who is married to a Communist journalist. "Party leaders are incapable of telling the U.S.S.R. to go to hell when they [the Soviets] do outrageous things."

One incident that vividly illustrated the divisions within the party came as more than 100,000 people gathered around a rain-slicked outdoor stage to hear Singer Robert Charlebois. Halfway through a chorus of Je veux de l'amour (I want love), he suddenly stopped and told the crowd, "This song has one minute to go, but I won't sing it. I will dedicate it to those 269 souls who are absent today." His words drew loud cheers, along with a smattering of catcalls.

Such a spontaneous outburst must make party leaders shudder, for it is clear that whatever they have gained in approbation from Moscow for their orthodoxy they have lost in public support. Since 1978 the party's share of the popular vote has declined from 20% to less than 15%, and circulation of the party newspaper L'Humanite dropped by nearly 14%, to 130,000 in 1982. In municipal elections last March the Communists lost control of 15 large cities. Last week the elections of four Communist mayors were annulled by the Council of State because of voting fraud, and three other Communist mayors and a deputy mayor were indicted for corruption. Although the party puts its membership at 700,000, analysts estimate its core of activists at only 50,000 to 80,000.

Those outside the P.C.F. blame its dedication to Moscow for this malaise. A party interested in votes "would never have adopted their present line," says Historian and former Central Committee Member Philippe Robrieux. "But it's not a party like the others. It has only one basic policy: that represented by the world strategy of the Soviet Union."

It was not always so. In the mid-1970s the P.C.F. went through a Eurocommunist phase of relative independence from Moscow and established strong links with the Socialist Party. But in 1977 the hardline, pro-Soviet doctrines of the past reasserted themselves and the alliance with the Socialists was scuttled. The new coalition, forged in the 1981 elections, has sharpened party divisions between old-line Stalinists and moderates.

For the time being, the French Communist leaders have pragmatically chosen to use their limited power in the coalition to pull government policies further to the left. Thus, while Premier Pierre Mauroy last week presented the Cabinet with a tough 1984 budget calling for increased taxes on middle-and upper-income earners, the Communists have launched a more extreme, soak-the-rich campaign of their own.

Many visitors to the fete de l'humanite last week would agree with Chantal Courric, a state electric-company employee, when she said, "Whatever happens, we've got to play the game." But then, French Communists are adept at using bourgeois ways for their own ends. Commercialism at the fair gushed from 450 concession stands, hawking everything from television sets and encyclopedias to mussels and, of course, Russian vodka. Juxtaposed against such enterprising capitalism were signs and banners proclaiming WE ARE LEADING THE ANTIRACIST STRUGGLE and STOP YANKEE INTERVENTION IN CENTRAL AMERICA.

If compromise is the nature of things among France's Communists, so it is with the Socialists, who are in no hurry to end the marriage of convenience, not the least because they will need Communist support in the 1986 legislative elections. Despite Flight 007 and the other divisive issues, both partners seem to agree with Party Spokesman Pierre Juquin. "As far as we're concerned," said he, "the Communists are going to be in the government for a long time to come." --By David Brand. Reported by Thomas A. Sancton/Paris

With reporting by Thomas A. Sancton This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.