‘Manifesto of the Communist International on the Liberation of Algiers and Tunis’ from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 2 No. 53. June 23, 1922.

French proletarians!

Proletarians of Algiers and Tunis!

Millerand, the President of the plutocratic French Republic, the man who can rightly lay claim to the title of one of the “first social traitors” of France, formerly elected representative of the Socialist workers, who has become the colleague of General Gallifet the chief slaughterer during the Paris Commune, the advocate of popular trials, who has been bought by the great financial corporations, the chief fellow culprit of Poincaré in causing the outbreak of the world war, has just visited the enormous territory of French Imperialism in North Africa.

Whilst he, accompanied by a strong guard, visited these subjected countries, whilst he stayed among these exploited and subjected peoples, his gendarmes arrested and illtreated the Communists of Tunis with redoubled eagerness. This social traitor who has succeeded to power, this Millerand–to see him now as the instigator of the suppression of the native emancipation movement and of the imprisonment of the Communists Louzon and El Kefi and many others, this delightful picture is now afforded us by present-day colonial France.

For the first time since the conquest of North Africa by French Capitalism, the natives, groaning under the heel of the great planters and slave owning officials, find among the countrymen of their exploiters a mighty and reliable ally who espouses their cause and will support them until victory is at last achieved: this ally is the party of the proletariat, the Communist Party of France, section of the Communist International. The first flush of the dawn of emancipation has appeared to the Arabian proletarians, subjected to shameful exploitation by native aristocrats and French conquerors. The imperialist war has inflamed the spirit of revolt in Tunis and Algiers, as in Egypt and India. And simultaneously with the nationalist demands, class demands are being put forward, more and more urgently.

The revolt of the Moslem masses, which could not be put down by the measures of English imperialism and which arose the mightier after each suppression, cannot halt at the frontiers of English occupied territories and already it threatens French Imperialism.

The French colonies paid a heavy tribute in blood during the great imperialist war. Taking advantage of the ignorance of the masses and forcing their will upon them by terror, the foreign rulers of the country succeeded in raising enormous native regiments, whose blood was shed on the fronts of western Europe and the Balkans in defense of the bourgeois cash boxes.

In Tunis resistance to recruiting began in 1914 but was bloodily suppressed. The bourgeois press, as if by agreement, was silent upon these tragic events and by this disclosed the true character of the war which ostensibly was conducted for “Democracy and Civilisation”.

French civilisation expresses itself in Africa in pitiless suppression, in the imposition of unbearable taxes, in the unheard of misery of the peasant and workers. Algiers was recently visited by a disastrous famine. Tunis has for forty years suffered under a Czarist-like regime which rules with the tri-colored banner under the cynical name of “Protectorate”.

In Tunis it is even impossible to publish a Communist paper in Arabic, and the French and Tunisian Communists, fraternally united in the struggle against bourgeois dictatorship, are subjected to the same persecution.

Not content with exploiting the Arabian, Jewish, French, Italian, and Spanish workers of North Africa to complete exhaustion, the French slave holders are attempting to recruit a great native army which they wish to use as the main instrument of suppression of the proletarian revolution in France. It is a question of raising black troops in order to convert them into White Guards. It is a question of employing the ignorant proletarians of Algiers and Tunis against the class conscious proletarians of France.

But the hour has gone by in which the French bourgeoisie could have realised this plan with impunity. As the rebels of Tunis find allies among the French workers, soldiers and sailors, so the revolutionaries of France will find their allies among the colonial regiments. The fraternisation of the exploited of all colours, all religions, all races, realizing more and more their class interests, has already begun. It cannot be stopped.

The repressive measures which are now redoubled in Tunis will not stem the tide of freedom. On the contrary they will but increase this movement still more, they will deepen it and make it irresistible. The blows aimed at the Communists will strengthen the prestige of Communism, redouble its influence and establish the Communist Party in full light before the eyes of the native, masses as the sole pioneer of their rights.

The French proletarian knows the cause of the African proletarian is his cause and defends it accordingly. He will assure the victory of revolution in the colonies and at the same time strike a blow at French Imperialism in its most vulnerable part, in its imperialist efforts at expansion.

The fight for the emancipation of Algiers and Tunis is in the beginning, it will only end with the triumph of the slaves.

The Communist International greets the French and native comrades persecuted and imprisoned by the ruling caste, it greets the comrades Louzon and El Kefi and all others. It greets the Communist organisation of Tunis and the Communist party of France which carries on the fight against suppression and assures it of the complete solidarity of the International Proletariat.

The Communist International calls to all the oppressed and exploited in Algiers and Tunis:

Moslem, Jewish and Christian Proletarians! Arabian, French, Italian and Spanish Proletarians!

Unite together against the exploiters beneath the flag of the Communist Party!

Soldiers and Sailors of France!

Do not shoot your Tunisian and Algerian brothers! Fraternise with the people in their struggle for freedom!

Proletarians of France!

To the help of the African proletariat!

Long live the Communist Party of France, long live the Communist organisations of Tunis and Algiers! Long live the revolution of the Colonial Proletariat!

Moscow, May 20th, 1922.

The Executive Committee of the Communist International.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1922/v02n053-jun-23-1922-Inprecor.pdf