On February 21, 80 years to the day after his execution, Missak
Manouchian entered the Pantheon accompanied by his wife Mélinée. Fine
speeches were given to pay tribute and salute the Armenian resistance
fighter "who died for France"... and in particular by those who voted
for yet another immigration law that was welcomed by the political
descendants of the Manouchian assassins and his other comrades of the
Red Poster. A modest veil was however placed over the career of the
communist activist Manouchian and on the importance in the resistance of
these foreign-speaking communist activists organized before the war in
the Foreign Workforce, which later became MOI, the Immigrant Workforce
within the General Confederation of Unitary Labor (CGTU) and the
Communist Party. This oversight is what the dense and richly documented
work of Dimitri Manessis and Jean Vigneux, already co-authors at
Libertalia in 2022 of the excellent Rino Della Negra, footballer and
partisan, comes to repair.
From the creation of language groups within the CGTU to the armed
resistance that gave birth to the FTP-MOI, through the commitment to the
International Brigades and up to the end of the MOI in the years
1952-1953, the authors trace, in what they present as a first synthesis,
the winding history of these activists, even if the latter are victims
of a "(double) invisibility". If communist memory knew from the
beginning of the 1950s how to highlight these resistance activists of
the FTP-MOI, "brothers" and "sisters" in humanity as they were then said
in communist discourse, the history of the relations between these
groups organized according to language (rather than nationality):
Italians, Jews, Armenians, etc., was more complicated and sometimes
really conflictual.
The book, by giving substance to the struggles of the MOI beyond the
simple evocation of the Red Poster, places these activists in a history
of workers' struggles where social struggles, xenophobia,
internationalism and militant memories are mixed, paying them a tribute
much more sincere than the "honors of the Republic".
David (UCL Savoies)
Jean Vigreux, Dimitri Manessis, Avec tous tes frères étrangers. De la
MOE aux FTP-MOI, Libertalia, February 2024, 270 pages, 10 euros.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Jean-Vigreux-et-Dimitri-Manessis-Avec-tous-tes-freres-etrangers-De-la-MOE
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Manouchian entered the Pantheon accompanied by his wife Mélinée. Fine
speeches were given to pay tribute and salute the Armenian resistance
fighter "who died for France"... and in particular by those who voted
for yet another immigration law that was welcomed by the political
descendants of the Manouchian assassins and his other comrades of the
Red Poster. A modest veil was however placed over the career of the
communist activist Manouchian and on the importance in the resistance of
these foreign-speaking communist activists organized before the war in
the Foreign Workforce, which later became MOI, the Immigrant Workforce
within the General Confederation of Unitary Labor (CGTU) and the
Communist Party. This oversight is what the dense and richly documented
work of Dimitri Manessis and Jean Vigneux, already co-authors at
Libertalia in 2022 of the excellent Rino Della Negra, footballer and
partisan, comes to repair.
From the creation of language groups within the CGTU to the armed
resistance that gave birth to the FTP-MOI, through the commitment to the
International Brigades and up to the end of the MOI in the years
1952-1953, the authors trace, in what they present as a first synthesis,
the winding history of these activists, even if the latter are victims
of a "(double) invisibility". If communist memory knew from the
beginning of the 1950s how to highlight these resistance activists of
the FTP-MOI, "brothers" and "sisters" in humanity as they were then said
in communist discourse, the history of the relations between these
groups organized according to language (rather than nationality):
Italians, Jews, Armenians, etc., was more complicated and sometimes
really conflictual.
The book, by giving substance to the struggles of the MOI beyond the
simple evocation of the Red Poster, places these activists in a history
of workers' struggles where social struggles, xenophobia,
internationalism and militant memories are mixed, paying them a tribute
much more sincere than the "honors of the Republic".
David (UCL Savoies)
Jean Vigreux, Dimitri Manessis, Avec tous tes frères étrangers. De la
MOE aux FTP-MOI, Libertalia, February 2024, 270 pages, 10 euros.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Jean-Vigreux-et-Dimitri-Manessis-Avec-tous-tes-freres-etrangers-De-la-MOE
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten