We are no longer in France: Communists in colonial Algeria

328 Pages·2014·3.18 MB·English

by  Allison Drew

SELECTED TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES
ThE FrEnCh EMpIrE AT WAr, 1940–1945
Martin Thomas
ThE FrEnCh EMpIrE bETWEEn ThE WArS:
Imperialism, politics and society
Martin Thomas
EuropEAn EMpIrES And ThE pEoplE:
Popular responses to imperialism in France, Britain,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy
Ed. John M. MacKenzie
hEroIC IMpErIAlISTS In AFrICA:
The promotion of British and French colonial
heroes, 1870–1939
berny Sèbe
lAbour And polITICS oF EMpIrE:
Britain and Australia 1900 to the present
neville Kirk
We are no longer in France
CommuNISTS IN CoLoNIAL ALgERIA
Allison drew
MAnChESTEr unIvErSITy prESS
Manchester and new york
distributed in the united States exclusively by
palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © Allison drew 2014
The right of Allison drew to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by
her in accordance with the Copyright, designs and patents Act 1988.
published by MAnChESTEr unIvErSITy prESS
oXFord roAd, MAnChESTEr M13 9nr, uK
and rooM 400, 175 FIFTh AvEnuE, nEW yorK, ny 10010, uSA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
distributed in the united States exclusively by
pAlGrAvE MACMIllAn, 175 FIFTh AvEnuE, nEW yorK, ny 10010, uSA
distributed in Canada exclusively by
ubC prESS, unIvErSITy oF brITISh ColuMbIA,
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british library Cataloguing-in-publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the british library
library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication data applied for
ISbn 978 0 7190 9024 0 hardback
First published 2014
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for any exter-
nal or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that
any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset in Trump Medieval by
Special Edition pre-press Services
In memory of two remarkable men—
My beloved neville Alexander
who learned about the Algerian struggle
as a student at the university of Tübingen
&
henri Alleg
for his encouragement of this project

CoNTENTS
List of tables—viii
General editor’s introduction—ix
Acknowledgements—xi
List of abbreviations—xiii
Map—xv
Introduction—Imagining socialism and communism
in Algeria 1
1 The land and its conquest 11
2 Grappling for a communist foothold 26
3 ‘The mountain “was going communist”’: peasant
struggles on the Mitidja 56
4 ‘This land is not for sale’: communists, nationalists
and the popular front 81
5 The nation in formation: communists and
nationalists during the Second World War 110
6 For an Algerian national front: unity and
division in the liberation struggle 145
7 Sparking an insurrection: pressure from
the countryside 180
8 ‘our people will overcome’: to the cities and the prisons 217
9 ‘We need a country that talks’: imagining the
future Algeria 252
Conclusion—Algerian communists and the new Algeria 267
Bibliography—281
Index—298
LIST of TABLES
1 Algerian landholdings in hectares, 1930 page 19
2 European landholdings in hectares, 1930 20
3 departmental elections, third district (blida):
Algerian voters, 1st round, 13 August 1933 74
4 departmental elections, third district (blida):
Algerian voters, 2nd round, 20 August 1933 74
5 European landholdings in hectares, 1950 154
6 Algerian landholdings in hectares, 1950 154
7 Ethnic profile of pCA leadership: Algerians
and Europeans 158
8 Generational profile of pCA leadership:
old (pre-1942) and new (post-1942) members 158
9 Comparative industrialisation, India and China 261
10 Comparative electrification, north and South vietnam 261
[ viii ]
gENERAL EDIToR’S INTRoDuCTIoN
Allison drew has produced a fine study of the communist party in
Algeria that is important not only for the historiography of French
decolonisation but more broadly for its contribution to our understand-
ing of the global dynamics of decolonisation. Socialism, like humani-
tarianism, wrestled with the ‘national’ and the ‘international’. Its
aspiration may have been to forge a cosmopolitan community that rose
above national politics and state interest. but to build a viable politi-
cal organisation socialists could ill afford to ignore the local specifici-
ties and particular exigencies of the society to which they appealed.
Socialism in Algeria thus developed at the intersection of three shift-
ing forces: social class, religion and geopolitics. The predominance
of the rural in Algeria operated as a major constraint on the develop-
ment of communism. religious cleavages served to reinforce divisions
between settler and indigenous society. And geopolitics produced a
fundamental inborn tension between those who placed greater empha-
sis on anti-colonialism (and communist parties championing the cause
of the nationally oppressed) and those who were more concerned about
the advent and spread of European fascism (and willing to moderate
their anti-colonialism as a result).
drew skilfully draws out the alternative political conceptions of
Algerian communists through her analysis of the interaction between
the parti communiste français (pCF) and the parti communiste algérien
(pCA). If the pCF was predominantly European, the pCA, which pri-
oritised the struggle against French imperialism, increasingly attracted
young radicalised Algerians by its opposition to ruthless repression
from the French state and by addressing the problems of poverty and
social injustice. The pCA’s relationship with the Front de libération
nationale (Fln) is also instructive. While the former exercised some
influence over the latter, the antipathy of many of the Fln’s leaders
towards communism, and the Fln’s equation of national unity with a
one-party state, drove the pCA underground in post-colonial Algeria.
Its legacy, however, was to fix in the political imagination of the left
the possibility of a plurality, democratic and socialist Algeria, in which
civic society, as much or more than state bureaucracy, would repair the
damage inflicted by years of colonial rule.
Although drew says that she wished to write a comparative study
of Algerian and South African communism, only to realise that there
was a prior need for a book on Algerian communism itself, this manu-
script is constantly enriched by comparisons with one of the African
[[ iixx ]]