Obituary
Maurice's Militant Journey
(Born: 1942 – Died February 5th
2022)
Maurice, who left us
on February 5, had joined our ranks in the 1970s, years of
intense ideological struggle that opposed the Maoist current
that would overwhelm the PCMLF, a supporter of the theory of
the three worlds, to the Marxist-Leninists who opposed this
betrayal.
A history teacher at
the high school of Abidjan in Ivory Coast for 7 years (from
1965 to 1973) as part of the cooperation, he moved to
Strasbourg after being "thanked" by the regime of Houphouet-Boigny. The
Ivorian minister of education at the time did not appreciate
his links with Ivorian activists opposed to his regime.
It was in Ivory Coast
that Maurice met Bernadette1, and it
was Bernadette who encouraged him to come and settle in
Strasbourg to work with the Marxist-Leninists she had known and joined as early as 1973. Maurice joined the Strasbourg organisation of
the PCMLF in 1974. He was therefore part of the core of
Marxist-Leninist communists who led the struggle against the
degeneration of the PCMLF and participated, after the break
with the latter, in the Organization for the Reconstruction
of the Communist Party of France (ORPCF), then in the
creation of the Communist Party of the Workers of France. He
was a member from its creation on March 18, 1979, and
co-opted to its Central Committee in July 1980.
Finding a teaching
position in the Bas-Rhin, it is in this context that he
brought into the party a young high school student who would form the first circle of young communists. In 1980, the party
entrusted him with the task of creating and developing the
Union of Popular Resistance against fascism, reaction and
war. Under his leadership, she led several important political campaigns, including the
one against the rehabilitation of OAS generals decreed by
Mitterrand in 1982.
After Bernadette's
death, he moved to the Paris region where, while pursuing
his teaching profession, he became head of the editorial
board of our central body, La Forge. He represented us at
several meetings of Marxist-Leninist parties at the
international level. He headed the first cell that organized
maintenance workers at RATP [public transport in Paris].
From 1993, various
events distanced him for a time from being a militant
commitment. The comrade then returned to his region of
origin and settled there permanently. He kept a link with
the party through his newspaper La Forge.
He regained his full
place in the party on the occasion of its 30th birthday in
March 2009. Elected again to the CC at the 7th Congress in
January 2011, he became a regular contributor to the
editorial board of La Forge, in particular on all questions
concerning the actions of French imperialism in Africa. From
then on, he never ceased to make the party, its newspaper,
its line and its proposals known. He was fully engaged in the workers' and popular
struggles in Avignon, in the department and even beyond,
with the aim of building a party organization there.
La Forge, March 2022
Endnote:
1. Bernadette,
founding member of the party, died in November 1983.
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