| Summary: | <p>This thesis examines the role of anticommunism in French politics and society from the end of the Second World War to 1953. While previous historians have analysed anticommunism among politicians and intellectuals, few have addressed its wider social ramifications. I evaluate the prevalence of anticommunism among the French population, and examine its causes, character, and consequences through a series of case studies on different segments of French society. These include the French scouting movement; family organisations; agricultural associations; middle-class groups; and, trade unions and other working-class organisations.</p>
<p>I contend that anticommunism was more widespread and deeply rooted in French society than previously believed, and had a substantial impact both on national politics and on the social groups and organisations studied. Furthermore, by examining how French citizens responded to anticommunism, I argue we can gain a deeper understanding of the values that different individuals, groups, and organisations regarded as the most important to defend. Although anticommunism was a diverse phenomenon, I identify common discourses which connect to wider anxieties of the period. These include portrayals of communism as a threat to the nation; the colonial empire; the traditional family; private property; religion; the rural world; and, Western civilisation. I also highlight common aims (such as the rehabilitation of wartime collaborators) and tactics (such as the invocation of apoliticism). While acknowledging the importance of the Cold War, I reject the assumption that anticommunism was an American import or foreign to French society and demonstrate links between anticommunism and anti-Americanism.</p>
<p>I conclude that anticommunism drew its strength from the connection or even conflation of communism with perceived negative social changes and consequences of modernity that were seen to threaten traditional French civilisation, interacting with the postwar international and domestic environment and the personal experiences of individual anticommunists.</p>
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