INTERVIEW GRANTED TO A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
OF L'HUMANITÉ [58] ON FEBRUARY 17 (MARCH 2), 1907

page 537




NOTES



  ^[58] The daily newspaper L'Humanité was founded by Jean Jaurès in 1904 as the organ of the French Socialist Party. In 1905 the newspaper welcomed the beginning of the revolution in Russia and expressed the solidarity of the French people with the "Russian nation" that was creating its own 1789". The editors of the newspaper organised collections for the benefit of the Russian revolution. During the First World War (1914-18) the newspaper fell into the hands the extreme Right wing of the French Socialist Party, and adopted a chauvinist position.
    In 1918 the newspaper was taken over by Marcel Cachin, prominent leader of the French and international working-class movement, who became its political director. In the period 1918-20 L'Humantié opposed the imperialist policy of the French Government which sent its armed forces against the Soviet Republic. From December 1920, after the split in the French Socialist Party and the formation of the French Communist Party, the newspaper became the Central Organ of the Communists. At the beginning of the Second World War, in August 1939, the newspaper was banned by the French Government and went underground. During the Nazi occupation of France (1940-44) the newspaper was published illegally and played a tremendous role in the struggle for the liberation of France from the fascist invaders.
    In the post-war period the newspaper has conducted a constant struggle to strengthen the national independence of the country, for the unity of working-class action, for the strengthening of peace and friendship between peoples, for democracy and social progress.    [p. 145]

  ^[59] The Party of Democratic Reform -- a liberal-monarchist bourgeois party founded at the beginning of 1906 during the elections to the First Duma, from elements who found the Cadet programme too Left. The party had ceased to exist by the end of 1907.    [p. 147]