The real origin of Browderism

The Cuban and the Venezuelan were, together with the Colombian, the Communist Parties which most openly accepted the ideas of Earl Browder, quoted him by name and, after his political liquidation by means of a famous article by the French leader Jacques Duclos, were those which made their self-criticism by explaining their ‘deviations’ as a consequence of Browder's influence over them. The class-collaboration policies of these parties preceded, as has been seen, the theoretical developments of the American leader. But theirs were not isolated cases in the International. In 1937, before an assembly of the Parisian Communists, Maurice Thorez, speaking on behalf of the Central Committee of the French Section of the Comintern, proposed the ‘enlargement’ of the Popular Front to form a Front Français, which would include liberals and moderates, as well as officers and civil servants who had not supported the Popular Front. He even suggested that his comrades avoid the clenched fist salute, which had become everywhere the symbol of the Popular Front. In other words, as Thorez said, to throw out everything which could be an obstacle to the reconciliation of the French nation.

Thorez was not only a major leader of the Comintern, a member of the ECCI, but he was also considered the ‘inventor’ of the Popular Front. His position could not easily be taken as a ‘deviation’.