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).
"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!
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?
They could "release" the colonies and rely on the leftist ideology of 90% of the liberation movements.
They could "release" the colonies and rely on the leftist ideology of 90% of the liberation movements.
Would China and the USSR still provide military aid to the Vietnamese Communist if France is a committed communist country?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?
It depends on how well the USSR and China are getting on with France. They could end up in conflict.
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.What kind of things might they get into conflict over?