Endorsements

This book recovers the lost history of colonial Algeria's communist movement. Meticulously researched - and the only English-language book on the Parti Communiste Algérien - it explores the Party's complex relationship with Algerian nationalism. Algeria's de facto colonial relationship with France was critical. During international crises, such as the Popular Front and Second World War years, the PCA remained close to its French counterpart, but from the late 1940s, as the national liberation struggle intensified, the PCA's concern with political and social justice attracted growing numbers of Muslims alienated by the nationalist movement's factionalism. When the Front de Libération Nationale launched armed struggle in November 1954, the PCA faced a classic socialist dilemma - organisational independence or dissolution and merger into the FLN. Despite FLN pressure, the PCA maintained its organisational autonomy, while participating fully in the war of independence. Imbued with a Cold War ideology, the French state cracked down on Algeria's Communists. Facing the state's wrath, they refused to disband. Algerian independence saw two socialist visions: the PCA's incorporated political pluralism and class struggle, and the FLN's one-party socialist state. The PCA's hopes for political pluralism were shattered when it was banned by the one-party state in November 1962. This book is of particular interest to students and scholars of Algerian history, French colonial history and communist history.