The Evening Star (April 20, 1946)
USSR gold transfers to France doubted
Problem of converting to francs would result in detection
By Pertinax
PARIS (By wireless) – The report, recently published in the United States, that gold and foreign currencies were freely flown out of Russia to the French Communist Party has caused unusual interest here. In the past, the Communists have often come under the charge of being subsidized from Moscow but the accusations brought against them on that ground do not seem to have been substantiated.
An official closely acquainted with this country’s internal administration offered me the following enlightenment on this subject:
The report published in America came from American sources which the French authorities feel they have succeeded in ascertaining. But of the facts themselves, French authorities have no direct knowledge. They admit it would be possible for Russian planes to unload gold and foreign currencies on French territory unknown to any one here. Of two big airdromes in use today on the outskirts of Paris, one – at Orly – was rebuilt by the American Army and the French have little to do with it. As to the other, at Le Bourget, it is under French management but American, British and Soviet planes landing there are not held liable to be inspected by the customs and police officers.
Therefore, it cannot be rated a physical impossibility that Soviet gold and currency should be landed in France. However, had gold and foreign currencies in any great quantities been dumped here, the beneficiaries would not find it easy to have them exchanged into French currency. Indeed, no deal of any sort involving gold and foreign currencies with which the Communist Party could be linked has ever been disclosed to the police. And let it be well borne in mind that police spies, stool pigeons and what is more, political enemies of several varieties, keep close watch on the Communists.
Communists spend more
With all the above a certainty, it is not disputed that, from the day of liberation until now, the Communists have had more money at hand than other political parties or groups with which they compete. Last October, the Communists were believed to have spent during the election of the constitution making assembly now near the end of its labor no less than 4,000,000,000 francs, one-fourth of that, sum being sunk in an elaborate network of posters and other advertising devices. By the same token, the expenditure of the Socialists hardly reached one-tenth of the sum put out by the Communists, while the radical Socialists of Edouard Herriot did not have at their disposal for the electoral campaign more than 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 francs.
More than 60,000,000 francs, it is true, had been paid out by the benefactors of the radical Socialist Party but most of that money stuck in the pockets of intermediaries.
Where did the Communist funds come from? The common explanation is that, in resistance days, wagons of the Bank of France bringing bank notes to the bank’s branches in the provinces were held up and looted by Communist bands. Thus the party chest was filled for many months to come. Indeed, it is not denied that, in the raids on the Bank of France wagons, 2,500,000,000 francs were seized in the district of Perigueux and 1,500,000,000 near Clermont-Ferrand. But in the spring of 1945, when the bank notes then in circulation had to be replaced by bank notes of a new pattern, no Communist money – as such – was located or identified.
Party members pay up
Of course, it may be conjectured that private persons made it their business to help the Communists by bringing old bank notes, taken out of the party chest, and exchanging them as though they were their own. At any rate, while so doing, they never were found out. The sums captured from the Bank of France convoys had probably been spent before the change in notes.
Nowadays, the ample financial resources available to the Communists are probably accounted for by the fact that the Communist Party can muster 1,000,000 registered members as against 400,000 registered Socialists. On the average, each one of them is disciplined enough to part monthly with as much as 100 francs in order to benefit the party. This does not make as huge an amount as was in the possession of the Communist leaders last October, but it doubtless points to a readiness for sacrifice on the part of the Communists unequaled by other political factions. This readiness for sacrifice is to be regarded as the mainspring of the success achieved by the Communists last year.
Nevertheless, within seven weeks now of the June elections, the odds are that, while the Communists will increase the number of their deputies in the government from 151 to some 180, the Communist-Socialist coalition, taken as a whole, is more than likely to lose strength, rather than gain.