How would a Communist France deal with its colonies Post WWII

Say the Communists win the French elections after WWII, how would this democratically elected communist government friendly to the USSR deal with the vast French Empire?
 

yourworstnightmare

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They'd hand over some colonies to native communist movements (those they have no capacity to keep anyways), and turn the others into associated Socialist Republics (like the Soviet Union).
 
Well, I'd see more wars happening, only because the USA and her allies would probably try to stop the spread of communism. That is if the USA would even be able to do anything about it if France fell in the first place. If that is the case, the Vietnam war wouldn't have happened.
 
The French Empire would of course become an "unbreakable union of free republics" on the Soviet model.

They'd hand over some colonies to native communist movements (those they have no capacity to keep anyways), and turn the others into associated Socialist Republics (like the Soviet Union).

I'm going with this, with more being "free republics" than handed over because empires. How long this would last is the question since they won't all want to be communist, ones that did will change their mind now the French occupation is communist, the French colonists certainly won't want to be communist, and the US, Britain etc will be trying to back/start uprisings and wars there. How long could Paris hold on?

(Plus will the USSR want France to keep control of the "unbreakable union"? That'd make them a potential rival)
 
"In 1937, at the Aries Congress of the French Communist Party, Thorez summed up the colonial policy of the Party in the formula: ... The interests of the colonial people are in a union 'free, trusting and paternal' with democratic France. To forge this union, so it appeared in his eyes, was 'the mission of France all over the world." https://books.google.com/books?id=9DusAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA142 In 1945 the PCF would explain that while it favored the right of self-determination, nevertheless (quoting Lenin) to recognize a *right* to divorce did not imply an *obligation* to divorce... https://books.google.com/books?id=IOnmJcJk9JkC&pg=PA15

I have no doubt that in a French People's Republic, the colonial peoples would "freely choose" union with "democratic France."
 
"In 1937, at the Aries Congress of the French Communist Party, Thorez summed up the colonial policy of the Party in the formula: ... The interests of the colonial people are in a union 'free, trusting and paternal' with democratic France. To forge this union, so it appeared in his eyes, was 'the mission of France all over the world."

Am I reading this right that it's not just about making the colonies into "free partners", but that they'd like to spread that to other colonies? If so, that'd make communist France a bigger deal for the Western powers* than the USSR, wouldn't it? (And a big deal for the communists in China, who probably won't like the sound of that happening down in Asia)

* And we'd need a new name for that!
 
Am I reading this right that it's not just about making the colonies into "free partners", but that they'd like to spread that to other colonies? If so, that'd make communist France a bigger deal for the Western powers* than the USSR, wouldn't it? (And a big deal for the communists in China, who probably won't like the sound of that happening down in Asia)

* And we'd need a new name for that!

Well, you could read "all over the world" to mean in all the places that were under French control right now", since those did span the globe. Rather than "We will spread French control into more countries around the world".

What I find somewhat remarakable, even though I probably shouldn't, is that in the 1930s, Communists could openly talk about taking a "paternalistic" role in regards to colonized people. It does go to show just how much things have changed, since these days, even right-wing advocates of foreign interventions know enough not to use such condescending language, lest they get roasted alive in the media.
 
They could "release" the colonies and rely on the leftist ideology of 90% of the liberation movements.

Not exactly. The biggest drawcard of liberation movements was always the idea of national liberation. Political ideology took a back seat to that. Yes, communism provided a theoretical framework to justify violent insurrection, but on the other hand, with a communist France, you would likely see either traditionalist rebellions or a more Asian-style corporatist normative structure which would integrate itself with the Bretton Woods/Western international economic structure.

Long story short, most liberation movements were only communist because the colonial powers weren't. If the colonial powers were, they wouldn't be communist.
 
Ho Chi Minh and his comrades had aid from the OSS against Japan, and he had asked Truman to back Vietnamese independence. He'd try to seek aid from them again to get the French out. It'd be pretty difficult for him to drop colours in the late 40s but he'd at least be saying the French weren't "real Communists".

You could see that line a lot from leaders who are genuine communists/have gone too balls deep but still want independence from France, once they realise their Parisian comrades aren't changing anything. "Thorezites!"
 
They could "release" the colonies and rely on the leftist ideology of 90% of the liberation movements.

Except in Vietnam, nationalist movements in the colonies were *not* dominated by Communists. Why, for example, would Thorez yield Tunisia to Bourgiba and the Neo-Destour movement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_Destour And even when they were more left-wing than the Neo-Destour, why would "leftist" have been sufficient for Thorez? (Any more than Stalin would have been satisfied with independent "leftist" governments in the non-Russian soviet republics.)
 
Ho Chi Minh and his comrades had aid from the OSS against Japan, and he had asked Truman to back Vietnamese independence. He'd try to seek aid from them again to get the French out. It'd be pretty difficult for him to drop colours in the late 40s but he'd at least be saying the French weren't "real Communists".

You could see that line a lot from leaders who are genuine communists/have gone too balls deep but still want independence from France, once they realise their Parisian comrades aren't changing anything. "Thorezites!"
Would China and the USSR still provide military aid to the Vietnamese Communist if France is a committed communist country?
 
What kind of things might they get into conflict over?
What Communist states always get into conflicts over: power and ideological purity. A Communist France will be strong enough to be independent of the USSR, which Stalin will hate. And then there are the various ways that one state could ideologically piss off the other.
 
Also hit me: France decided to get nuclear weapons in 1954, after having to start research almost all over again after WW2, and in this timeline they won't have any friendly ties to non-Soviet nuclear science (and some of their guys will flee abroad). How much longer would it take them to develop a nuclear arsenal? If a long while, pissing off the USSR or PRC could result in an overseas war over some of the colonies.
 
Not much would change. Communist France would maintain colonial dictatorial rule justified with the old White Man's Burden rhetoric changed into the Socialist Man's Burden. "We'll hold on to these places until they have been sufficiently developed according to dialectical materialism to join us in true Socialism."
 
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