Abstract

The French Communist Party (PCF)'s colonial policy has been the subject of detailed studies and debates between those who hold the view that the PCF expressed a strong solidarity with African liberation movements in the '50 and the '60s, and those who argued that communist support for these movements from France was too weak. A number of historians have accused the PCF of "Gallo-centrism" during the Algerian war, and have portrayed the party as being more interested in first solving the question of class conflict in France in the conviction that this would later lead to a resolution of conflict in the colonies. In fact, this political attitude may be identified in the relationship between the French Communist Party and the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), a revolutionary and nationalist party of Cameroon, inspired by Marxism. Although the PCF was responsible for the creation of the 856 and other filo-Marxist parties in French Africa, its initially close relationship with the Cameroonian organization grew weaker after the mid-'50s, when the UPC was outlawed. This essay aims to delve deeper into the topic by examining the PCF archives while attempting to explain the reasons for the misunderstanding that arose between the two parties (PCF and UPC).