Memory and partisan identity: the case of the French Communist Party

Abstract. The French Communist Party pays particular attention to the writing and the recounting of its own history. Its militants consent often to an important training effort. The understanding of historical memory by the dimension which connects French Communism to 'true socialism', would prohibit reasoning which would have an objective of re-instating the memory of French Communists as an element of a partisan identity, rather than the falsification of which the nature of history might have been the object. Maurice Halbwach's notion of 'collective memory' fits this project. Consequently, some elements of the party's historical memory, especially autobiographies of communist party leaders, are compared to the opinions or life experiences collected from militants. In this comparison between published memories and oral life stories, models and constant themes appear. But one must also insist on the discrepancies between interviews, and on the differences between life stories and published autobiographies. If autobiographies provided life patterns founded on invariable elements and methods of historical interpretation, other factors were of influence, such as how long the subject has belonged to the party, the family continuity in the partisan group, school background.