WI: The French communist resistance launched a revolution in 1944

In OTL the communists were generally seen as the strongest and best organised of the French resistance groups. At the height of their power in 1944 they controlled 100,000 partisans and had defacto control over parts of France during the German withdrawal.

As the Germans were pushed out of France many French communists within the resistance advocated a revolution. In OTL Stalin ordered the Communist resistance leaders to abandon such plans and instead work within the ideals of the popular front.

What if Stalin ordered the revolution to go ahead? What would the allies do? Would it cause a civil war in France? Would the communists even have any hope of winning?
 
Resistance was useful only in cooperation with Allied armed forces. On their own, they were mere nuisance.

If they rise up against Germans in semi-open warfare, they'll get slaughtered.
If they attack advancing Americans, they'll get slaughtered too. Americans aren't gonna be amused by some upstarts wrecking havoc with their logistics.
 
DeGaulles government was prepared for this as well. His army and security organization were aggressive in ensuring the Resistance lost the ability to conduct any ops on its own.
 

orwelans II

Banned
Resistance was useful only in cooperation with Allied armed forces. On their own, they were mere nuisance.

If they rise up against Germans in semi-open warfare, they'll get slaughtered.
If they attack advancing Americans, they'll get slaughtered too. Americans aren't gonna be amused by some upstarts wrecking havoc with their logistics.
What if they strike against the other French factions in late September to make themselves the only administration in liberated France?
 
What if they strike against the other French factions in late September to make themselves the only administration in liberated France?
France would be crawling with American soldiers.
To take out French administration, commies also need to take out American army that props it up.
Americans aren't gonna let them get away with murdering their allies and soldiers.
 
What if they strike against the other French factions in late September to make themselves the only administration in liberated France?
They still get slaughtered once the Allies notice and intervene (see, by way of comparison, the ELAS uprising in Greece in late '44). Since the PCF is Stalin's tool, this causes a massive crisis between the Western Allies and Moscow. (Trying to pull this c**p in Athens was one thing; trying to do it in France is much more serious.) The Teheran/ Yalta agreements become dead letters. There is no pull-back on the demand for Unconditional Surrender, but it may alter the political calculations that impelled the Germans to try the Ardennes Offensive - maybe they go east instead in a doomed attempt to signal that Germany is a potential ally against Moscow. Germany still goes down hard. The Allies occupy as much of Germany as they can, the Soviets take all of Berlin. In the Far East, Soviet intervention against Japan becomes highly undesirable to the Allies, who probably occupy the whole of Korea when Japan falls. In Italy, the PCI probably splits, with the pro-Stalin section being crushed. The Cold War starts with the hostility and paranoia up to eleven. West Germany is allowed to re-arm somewhat sooner than 1955. The US pursues a significantly different policy towards China, and maybe even intervenes directly in the civil war. That's as far as I can take it, but it probably explains why Stalin would never have done any such thing.
 
The obvious obstacle to a successful Communist revolution in France or Italy: BRITISH AND AMERICAN TROOPS WERE THERE, THE RED ARMY WAS NOT. Sorry for the shouting, but somehow this obvious and extremely important point gets ignored at times. But one person who never ignored it was Stalin--and even without his "guidance" I doubt that Thorez or Togliatti would have attempted something so foolhardy. Not that some rank-and-file Communists wouldn't have liked the idea, but they had no chance of prevailing. Togliatti later remarked sarcastically, "Certainly, an insurrectionary outbreak--and its defeat--either in 1946 or 1948--would have suited some comrades very well. No danger of the bureaucratization of the party in that case! And the so-called 'revolutionary cadres' could have gone off happily to schools of tactics and strategy in prison or in exile!" https://books.google.com/books?id=cnGQBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA120
 
I'd also imagine that the French communists deciding to continue the resistance against the Americans would cause their party to also lose credibility throughout France. Indirectly, they would be seen as helping the Germans and plus the USA would be seen as the liberators by most of the French public. They'd be seen as traitors, and they might as well destroy whatever credibility they might have left.
 
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