Overview

This book recovers the lost history of colonial Algeria's communist movement. Meticulously researched - and the only English-language book on the Parti Communiste Algerien - it explores communism's complex relationship with Algerian nationalism. During international crises, such as the Popular Front and Second World War years, the PCA remained close to its French counterpart, but as the national liberation struggle intensified, the PCA's concern with political and social justice attracted growing numbers of Muslims. When the Front de Liberation Nationale launched armed struggle in November 1954, the PCA maintained its organisational autonomy - despite FLN pressure. They participated fully in the national liberation war, facing the French state's wrath. Independence saw two conflicting socialist visions, with the PCA's incorporated political pluralism and class struggle on the one hand, and the FLN demand for a one-party socialist state on the other. The PCA's pluralist vision was shattered when it was banned by the one-party state in November 1962. This book is of particular interest to students and scholars of Algerian history, French colonial history and communist history. -- .

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9781526106759

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Reviews

'Neville Alexander and Henri Alleg would be pleased and proud to read this superbly researched, carefully documented, absolutely fair-minded and accurate account. It is well structured, with a useful list of abbreviations, tables and maps. If there is an archive Professor Drew has not consulted, a surviving participant whom she did not interview, a relevant book or article and memoir she did not consult, I am unaware of it.' David L. Schalk, Science and society Vol. 80, No. 3, July 2016 'Drew has told the story of communist political action in Algeria in great detail, with attention to numerous individuals. At times, the number of names in play becomes overwhelming and the description of congress after congress seems excessive. But the tale is worth telling, and this kind of careful narrative is an essential building block for any analysis of the range of possibilities that opened and shut during the years of struggle over what kind of polity in what kind of wider political configuration ? whether communist or imperial, national or federal - Algeria could be. In the end, Drew doesn't explicitly answer the question of what the relationship of communism and nationalism actually was. But that question has no single answer, and she has given us a rich narrative of a struggle whose complexity is well worth pondering.' Frederick Cooper, Department of History, New York University, Canadian Journal Of African Studies/La Revue Canadienne Des Etudes Africaines, July 2016 -- .

Author Information

Allison Drew is an Honorary Professor at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town and Professor Emerita at the University of York

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