The French Communist Party (French: Parti communiste français, PCF) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.^[1]

Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), and considerable influence in French politics: two presidencies of the conseil général, 186 seats in regional parliament, and about 800 mayors. It is one of the most influential parties in France, behind the Socialist Party and the UMP. The PCF remains the largest party in France advocating communist views.

Founded in 1920, it participated in three governments: in the provisional government of the Liberation (1944–1947), at the beginning of François Mitterrand's presidency (1981–1984) and in Plural Left's cabinet led by Lionel Jospin (1997–2002). It was also the largest French left-wing party in a number of national elections, from 1945 to the 1970s, before falling behind the Socialist Party (PS) in the 1980s. The PCF has lost further ground to the Socialists since that time.

During the course of the Twentieth Century, the French Communists were pioneers in local government, providing not only efficient street lighting and clean streets, but also public entertainment, public housing, municipal swimming pools, day nurseries, children’s playgrounds, and public lavatories.^[2]

Since its participation in François Mitterrand's government, the PCF has sometimes been considered by the far-left to be a social-democratic party.^{[citation needed]} It supports alter-globalization movements although it may sometimes also criticise them, in particular their lack of organisation.

After a poor performance in the 2007 French legislative election, the party did not have, for the first time since 1962, the minimum level of 20 deputies needed to form a parliamentary group by itself. The PCF then allied itself with The Greens and other left-wing MPs to form a parliamentary group to the left of the Socialist Party, called Democratic and Republican Left.

The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group.

History[link]

Foundation[link]

The PCF was founded in 1920 by those in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) who supported the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and who opposed the First World War. Ho Chi Minh, who would create the Viet Minh in 1941 and then declare the independence of Vietnam, was one of its founding members.^[3]

Tensions within the SFIO Socialist Party had emerged in 1914 with the start of the First World War, which saw the majority of the SFIO take what left-wing socialists called a "social-chauvinist" line in support of the French war effort. Gradually, the protester factions won in influence in the party and Ludovic-Oscar Frossard was elected secretary general in October 1918. Besides, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia aroused some hope among SFIO members.

After the war, the question of the reconstruction of a Workers' International was put. In spring 1920, Frossard and Marcel Cachin, director of the party paper L'Humanité, were commissioned to met the Bolshevik leaders in Russia. They oberved the secound congress of the Communist International in the course of which Vladimir Lenin's 21 conditions of membership were exposed. When they came back in France, Frossard and Cachin pleaded to join the Communist International. In the SFIO Tours Congress of December 1920, this opinion was supported by the left-wing faction (Boris Souvarine, Fernand Loriot) and the center faction (Ludovic-Oscar Frossard, Marcel Cachin), against the right-wing faction (Léon Blum). The alliance of the left-wing and center factions obtained 3/4 of the votes of the representatives and split away to form the French Section of the Communist International (SFIC) later renamed French Communist Party (PCF). However, the majority of the party's elected officials were reluctant to adopt the principle of the "democratic centralism", one of Lenin's conditions, and remained in the SFIO.

The founders of the SFIC took with them the party paper L'Humanité, founded by Jean Jaurès in 1904, which remained tied to the party until the 1990s. In the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade unions, the Communist minority split away to form the United General Confederation of Labour (CGTU). At the time of its foudation, the newly created party was three times larger than the SFIO (135,000 members).

Isolation and revival (1920s and early 1930s)[link]

At first the PCF rivalled the SFIO for leadership of the French socialist movement, but many members were expelled from the party and within a few years, its support declined; for most of the 1920s it was a small and isolated party. On of the causes of this evolution was the "bolshevization" impulsed by the Communist International and the resistances with which it collided. The "bolshevization" implied not only to adopt the political strategy of the Communist International but a reorganization of party's strucuture on the model of the Bolshevik Party (discipline, local organization under the shape of "cells", ascent of a young political staff which came from the working class).

First secretary general of the PCF, Ludovic-Oscar Frossard was frequently reluctant to obey in the directives of the Communist International. Indeed, the party lead was opposed to the strategy of the "proletarian unique front". Furthemore, one of the internal opponents, Boris Souvarine, was member of the secretariat of the Communist International. Frossard resigned and left the PCF in 1923 to found its dissent United Communist Party which became later the Communist Socialist Party (but Frossard rejoined the SFIO). The secretariat general was shared by Louis Sellier (center faction) and Albert Treint (left-wing faction). In the same time, Boris Souvarine was expelled from the Communist International and the PCF in due to his sympathy for Léon Trotsky. In the 1924 legislative election, the PCF obtained 26 deputies and much fewer votes than the SFIO. But according to the left-wing faction, the priority was the general strike and revolutionnay actions ant not the election. In French Parliament, the PCF first elected deputies were opposed to the Cartel des Gauches coalition formed by the SFIO and the Radical Party. The first Cartel governed from 1924 to 1926.

Quickly, in order to reconcile the various factions of the party, Pierre Sémard, railroad worker and union activist, was chosen as secretary general. He wanted to put an end to the "secterain drifts", which were criticized by some elects and union leaders of the CGTU. In this, he proposed alliances with other left-wing parties (including the SFIO) in order to struggle fascism. This strategy was criticized by the board of the Communist International as "parliamentarist". In the same time, the party committed actions against the French colonialism in Marocco (Rif War), what caused the detention of some PCF members, including Sémard. At his release of prison, he was more and more controversial. Futhemore, only 11 PCF candidates was elected in the Chamber of Deputies in the 1928 election. At the end of 1928, a collegial board took the lead of the party. Its most influential figures came from the Communist Youth, notably Henri Barbé and Pierre Célor. They applied the political line of the Communist International named "class against class", denouncing social-democracy. Also, they undertook a purge. Some elects were expelled from the party, as Louis Sellier, former secretary general, who created the Worker and Peasent Party, which merged with the Communist Socialist Party in the Party of Proletarian Unity (PUP). At the end of the 1920s, the party contained less than 30 000 members.

The collegial board of the party was divided between young leaders and more experimented politicians. Secretary for organization, Maurice Thorez was chosen as new secreteray general in 1930. Since 1931, Barbé and Celor were accused to be responsible for the excesses of the strategy "class against class". Nevertheless, if personnalities were sanctioned, in a first time, the strategy was confirmed. At the beginning of the 1930s, the PCF lead was faced with the internal opposition of Jacques Doriot, who pleaded for the alliance with ths SFIO against the fascist threat, before to be expelled.

Indeed, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the following Great Depression, which affected France in 1931, caused much anxiety and disturbance, as in other countries. As economic liberalism failed, new solutions were being looked for. The technocracy ideas were born during this time (Groupe X-Crise), as well as autarky and corporativism in the fascism movement, which advocated union of workers' and employers. Some socialist members became attracted to these new ideas, among whom Jacques Doriot. A member of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern from 1922 on, and from 1923 on Secretary of the French Federation of Young Communists, later elected to the French Chamber of Deputies, he came to advocate an alliance between the Communists and Social Democrats. Doriot was then expelled in 1934, and with his followers. Afterwards he moved sharply to the right and formed the French Popular Party, which would be one of the most collaborationist parties during Vichy France.

The second Cartel des gauches was elected in 1932. This time, although the PCF did not take part in the coalition, it did support the government without participating in it (soutien sans participation), in the same way that before World War I (1914–18) the Socialists had supported the Republicans and the Radicals' governments without participating. This second Cartel fell following the far-right 6 February 1934 riots, which forced president of the Council Édouard Daladier to pass on the power to conservative Gaston Doumergue. Following this crisis, the PCF, as the whole of the socialist movement, feared that a fascist conspiracy had almost succeeded. Furthermore, Adolf Hitler's access to power in 1933 and the destruction of the Communist Party of Germany following the 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire and Stalin's new "popular front" policy led the PCF to get closer to the SFIO. Thus, the Popular Front was prepared, and got elected in 1936.

The Communist Party attracted various intellectuals and artists in the 1920s, including André Breton, the leader of the Surrealist movement, Henri Lefebvre (who would be expelled in 1958), Paul Éluard, Louis Aragon, etc.

The PCF was the main organizer of a counter-exhibition to the 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris, called "The Truth about the Colonies". In the first section, it recalled Albert Londres and André Gide's critics of forced labour in the colonies and others crimes of the New Imperialism period; in the second section, it opposed "imperialist colonialism" to "the Soviets' policy on nationalities".

In 1934 the Tunisian Federation of PCF became the Tunisian Communist Party.^[4]

The Popular Front[link]

During the 1930s the PCF grew rapidly in size and influence, its growth fuelled by the popularity of the Comintern's Popular Front strategy, which allowed an alliance with the SFIO and the Radical Party to fight against fascism. The Popular Front won the 1936 elections, and Léon Blum formed a Socialist-Radical government. The PCF supported this government but did not join it. The Popular Front government soon collapsed under the strain of domestic (financial problems, including inflation) and foreign policy issues (the radicals were against an intervention in the Spanish Civil War while the socialists and communists were in favour), and was replaced by Édouard Daladier's government.

On 12 August 1936, a party organization was formed in Madagascar, the Communist Party (French Section of the Communist International) of the Region of Madagascar.^[5]

World War II[link]

After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of conflict in the European Theatre of World War II in 1939, the PCF was declared a proscribed organisation by Édouard Daladier's government. At first the PCF reaffirmed its commitment to national defense, but after Comintern addressed French Communists by declaring the war to be 'imperialist', the party changed its stance. PCF members of Parliament signed a letter calling for peace and a favorable view of Hitler's forthcoming peace proposals. Party leader Maurice Thorez deserted the army and fled to Moscow in order to escape prosecution.^[6]

During the occupation the relationship between the Communists and the occupation was strained. One of the major actions organized by the Communists against the occupation forces was a demonstration of thousands of students and workers, which was staged in Paris on 11 November 1940. In May 1941, the PCF helped to organize more than 100,000 miners in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments in a strike. On 26 April 1941, the PCF called for a National Front for the independence of France with the Gaullists.^[7]

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the PCF expanded Resistance efforts within France notably advocating the use of direct action and political assassinations which had not been systematically organized up until this point. By 1944 the PCF had reached the height of its influence, controlling large areas of the country through the Resistance units under its command. Some in the PCF wanted to launch a revolution as the Germans withdrew from the country, but the leadership, acting on Stalin's instructions, opposed this and adopted a policy of co-operating with the Allied powers and advocating a new Popular Front government. Many well-known figures joined the party during the war, including Pablo Picasso, who joined the PCF in 1944.

Fourth Republic (1947–58)[link]

The Communists had done particularly well from their war-time efforts in the Resistance, in terms of both organisation and prestige. With the liberation of France in 1944, the PCF, along with other resistance groups, entered the government of Charles de Gaulle. As in post-war Italy, the communists were at that time very popular and a strong political force. The PCF was nicknamed the "party of the 75,000 executed people" (le parti des 75 000 fusillés) because of its important role during the Resistance,

By the close of 1945 party membership stood at half a million, an enormous increase from its pre-Popular Front figure of less than thirty thousand. In the elections of 21 October 1945 for the then-unicameral interim Constitutional National Assembly, the PCF had 159 deputies elected out of 586 seats. Two subsequent elections in 1946, first still for the Constitutional National Assembly, then for the National Assembly of the new Fourth Republic – now the lower house of a bicameral system – gave very similar results. In the election of November 1946, the PCF received the most votes of any party, finishing narrowly ahead of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP). The party's strong electoral showing and surge in membership led some observers, including American under-secretary of state Dean Acheson, to believe that a Communist takeover of France was imminent. However, as in Italy, the PCF was forced to quit Paul Ramadier's government in May 1947 in order to secure Marshall Plan aid from the United States.

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) was never to return to power, despite a historic compromise attempt in the 1970s, and the PCF was also isolated until François Mitterrand's electoral victory in 1981. A strong political force, the PCF nevertheless remained isolated due to persistent anti-communism. It thus began to pursue a more militant policy, alienating it from the SFIO and allowing the right-wing parties to stay in power.

The PCF, no longer restrained by the responsibilities of office, was free after 1947 to channel the widespread discontent among the working class with the poor economic performance of the new Fourth Republic. Furthermore, the Party was under orders from Moscow to take a more radical course, reminiscent of the Third Period policy once pursued by the Comintern. In September 1947 several European Communist parties came to a meeting at Szklarska Poręba in Poland, where a new international agency, the Cominform, was set up. During this meeting Andrei Zhdanov, standing in for Joseph Stalin, denounced the 'moderation' of the French Communists, even though this policy had been previously approved by Moscow.

Out of government, and newly instructed, the PCF denounced the administration as the tool of American capitalism. Following the arrest of some steel workers in Marseille in November, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), the Communist dominated Trade Union confederation, called a strike, as PCF activists attacked the town hall and other 'bourgeoise' targets in the city. When the protests spread to Paris, and as many as 3 million workers came out on strike, Ramadier resigned, fearing that he faced a general insurrection. This is probably the closest France came to a Communist take-over.

This development was prevented by the determination of Robert Schuman, the new Prime Minister, and Jules Moch, his Minister of the Interior. It was also prevented by a growing sense of disquiet among sections of the labour movement with Communist tactics, which included the derailment in early December of the Paris-Tourcoing Express, which left twenty-one people dead. Sensing a change of mood, the CGT leadership backed down and called off the strikes. From this point forward the PCF moved into permanent opposition and political isolation, a large but impotent presence on the political map of France.

During the 1950s, the PCF critically supported French imperialism during the Indochina War (1947–54) and the Algerian War (1954–62), although many French communists also worked against colonialism. Thus Jean-Paul Sartre, a "comrade" of the Communist party, actively supported the National Liberation Front (FLN) (the porteurs de valises networks, in which Henri Curiel took part). Long debates took place on the role of conscription. While this stance by the PCF may have helped it retain widespread popularity in metropolitan France, it lost it credibility on the radical left. During his scholarship to study radio engineering in Paris (from 1949 to 1953), Pol Pot, like many other colonial elites educated in France (Ho Chi Minh in 1920), joined the French Communist Party.

The second half of the 1950s was also marked by some dissatisfaction with the pro-Moscow line continuously pursued by party leaders. However, no definitive eurocommunist aspirations developed at the time. A major split occurred as Maoists left during the late 1950s. Some moderate communist intellectuals, such as historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, disillusioned with the policies of the Soviet Union, left the party after the violent suppression of Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

In 1959 the PCF federation in Réunion was separated from the party, and became the Reunionese Communist Party.^[8]

1960s and 1970s[link]

In 1958, the PCF was the only big party which opposed Charles de Gaulle's return to power and the French Fifth Republic. Little by little, it was joined in opposition by the center and center-left parties. It advocated left-wing union against De Gaulle. Waldeck Rochet became PCF leader after Thorez's death in 1964.

In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 260 000 (0.9% of the working age population of France).^[9]

For the 1965 presidential election, thinking a Communist candidate could not obtain a good result, it supported the candidacy of François Mitterrand. Then, it made an electoral agreement with the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left coming up to 1967 legislative election.

In May 1968 widespread student riots and strikes broke out in France. The PCF initially supported the general strike but opposed the revolutionary student movement, which was dominated by Trotskyists, Maoists and anarchists, and the so-called "new social movements" (including environmentalists, gay movements, prisoners' movement – see Michel Foucault, etc.) At the end of May 1968, the PCF sided with de Gaulle, who was threatening the use of the army, and called for the end of the strike. The PCF also alienated many on the left by failing to condemn clearly the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, even though it expressed its surprise and disapproval.

Nevertheless, the PCF benefited from the left-wing mood of the period, and from the collapse of the socialists. Because of Waldeck Rochet's ill health, Jacques Duclos was the candidate at the 1969 presidential election. Duclos polled 21% of the vote, completely eclipsing the SFIO whom, represented by Gaston Defferre, came in third in the first round. For the second round, the PCF refused to distinguish between Gaullist Georges Pompidou and Centrist Alain Poher, considering that was "six of one and half a dozen of the other" (in French: blanc bonnet ou bonnet blanc).

In 1970, Roger Garaudy, a member of the Central Committee of the PCF from 1945 on, was expelled from the party for his revisionist tendencies, being criticised for his attempt to reconcile Marxism with Roman Catholicism. Starting in 1982, Garaudy emerged as a major Holocaust denier and was effectively condemned in 1998.

In 1972 Waldeck Rochet was succeeded by Georges Marchais, who had effectively controlled the party since 1970. Marchais began a moderate liberalisation of the party's policies and internal life, although dissident members, particularly intellectuals, continued to be expelled. The PCF entered an alliance with Mitterrand's new Socialist Party (PS). They signed a Common Programme in view to the 1973 legislative election. The difference between the two parties decreased: the PCF had taken 21.5% of the vote as against 19% for the PS.^[10]

Nominally the French communists supported Mitterrand's candidacy in 1974 presidential election, but the Soviet ambassador to Paris and the director of L'Humanité did not hide their satisfaction with Mitterrand's defeat. According to Jean Lacouture, Raymond Aron and François Mitterrand himself, the Soviet government and the French communist leaders had done everything in order to prevent Mitterrand from being elected: they regarded him as too anti-communist and too skillful in his strategy of rebalancing the Left on account of PCF.

During Mitterrand's term as PS first secretary, the socialists re-emerged as the principal party of the left. Indeed, Marchais asked to update the Common Programme, but the negotiations failed. The PS accused Marchais of being responsible for the division of the left and of its defeat at the 1978 legislative election. For the first time since 1936, the PCF lost its place as "first left-wing party", which the Socialists assumed.

At the 22nd party congress in February 1976, reeling from fallout caused by the publication of The Gulag Archipelago, the PCF abandoned the dictatorship of the proletariat and references to it;^[11] it began to follow a line closer to that of the Italian Communist Party's eurocommunism. However, this was only a relative change of direction, as the PCF globally remained loyal to Moscow, and in 1979, Georges Marchais supported the intervention in Afghanistan. Its assessment of the Soviet and East-European Communist governments was "positive overall".

Marchais was a candidate in the 1981 presidential election. During the campaign, he criticized the "turn to the right" of the PS. But some Communist voters, wanting the left-wing union in order to win after 23 years in opposition, chose Mitterrand. The PS leader obtained 25% against 15% for Marchais. For the second round, the PCF called on its supporters to vote for Mitterrand, who was elected President of France.

Late 20th century decline[link]

Under Mitterrand the PCF held ministerial office for the first time since 1947, but this had the effect of locking the PCF into Mitterrand's reformist agenda, and the PCF's more moderate supporters drained away to the PS.

When PCF ministers resigned in 1984 to protest Mitterrand's change of economic policies, the party's electoral decline accelerated. André Lajoinie obtained only 6.7% in the 1988 presidential election. From 1988 to 1993, the PCF supported the Socialist governments at various times, depending on the issues.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a crisis in the PCF, but it did not follow the example of some other European communist parties by dissolving itself or changing its name. In 1994 Marchais retired and was succeeded by Robert Hue. Under Hue the party embarked on a process called la mutation. La mutation, which included the thorough reorganization of party structure and move away from Leninist dogmas, was intended to revitalize the stagnant left and attract non-affiliated leftists to join the party. However, it failed to stop the decline of the party. Under Lionel Jospin (the socialist who was prime minister under president Jacques Chirac from 1997 to 2002), the PCF again held ministerial offices from 1997 to 2002 (Jean-Claude Gayssot as Minister of Transportation, etc.). The party became riddled with internal conflict, as many sectors opposed la mutation and the policy of co-governing with the Socialists.

During a street protest in 2005 in Paris

In the first round of the 2002 presidential elections, Hue received just 3.4% of the vote. For the first time, the PCF candidate obtained fewer votes than the Trotskyist candidates (Arlette Laguiller and Olivier Besancenot). In the 2002 legislative elections, the PCF came in fourth, polling 4.8% of the vote (the same as the center-right Union for French Democracy, UDF) and won 21 seats. Chirac's UMP came in first, followed by the Socialist Party, the National Front, UDF, PCF, the Greens, and then the Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) and Lutte Ouvrière. Eventually Robert Hue had to resign, and in 2002 Marie-George Buffet took over the leadership of the party. Under Buffet the party embarked on a process of reconstruction, reversing some of the moves made during la mutation.

21st century[link]

In 2005, during the referendum campaign on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE), the PCF supported the 'No' side alongside other left-wing groups, much of the Socialist Party, the Greens, and right wing eurosceptics. The victory of the 'No' vote, along with a campaign against the Bolkestein directive, earned the party some positive publicity.

In 2005, a labour conflict at the SNCM in Marseille, followed by a 4 October 2005 demonstration against the New Employment Contract (CNE) marked the opposition to Dominique de Villepin's right-wing government; Villepin shared his authority with Nicolas Sarkozy, who, as Minister of the Interior and leader of the right-wing UMP, was already a probable 2007 presidential candidate. Marie-George Buffet also heavily criticized the government's response to the riots in autumn, speaking of a deliberate "strategy of tension" employed by Sarkozy, who had called youth from the housing projects "scum" (racaille) which needed to be cleaned up with a Kärcher high pressure hose. While most of the Socialist deputies voted for the declaration of a state of emergency during the riots, which lasted until January 2006, the PCF, along with the Greens, opposed it.

In 2006, the PCF and other left-wing groups supported protests against the First Employment Contract, which finally forced president Chirac to scrap plans for the bill, aimed at creating a more flexible labour law.

During the run-up to the first round of the 2007 presidential election, Buffet hoped that her candidacy would be supported by the left-wing groups who had participated in the "No" campaign in the referendum on the EU constitution. This support was not forthcoming and she scored only 1.94%, even less than Robert Hue's 3.4% in the previous presidential election. The PCF's score was low even in its traditional strongholds such as the "red belt" around Paris. The disastrously low vote means that the PCF has not met the 5% threshold for reimbursement of its campaign expenses, and could portend a similarly low vote in the next general election. However, the party had prepared for this eventuality, and thus kept its expenses low for the presidential campaign. However, its very low score at the subsequent legislative elections did weigh a lot on its budget.^[12] One possible reason for this particularly low vote is that some PCF supporters may have voted tactically for Ségolène Royal so as to be sure that a candidate from the left would be present in the second round runoff^{[citation needed]}. Another factor seems to have been competition from the young and charismatic candidate, Olivier Besancenot, of the LCR (Revolutionary Communist League)^{[citation needed]}.

In the legislative election of 2007, the PCF gained 15 seats, five below the minimum required to form a parliamentary group by itself. This was the first time the PCF had ever fallen below that threshold in the history of the Fifth Republic. The PCF subsequently allied itself with The Greens and other left-wing MP's to be able to form a parliamentary group to the left of the Socialist Party, called Democratic and Republican Left. Although the PCF and the Greens agree on a number of issues, especially on economic and social policies (consensus on the necessity to support lower classes, right of foreigners to vote at municipal elections, regularisation of aliens, etc.), but also on others themes (by contrast with the Socialist Party, both refused to vote for the state of emergency during the 2005 civil unrest, they also distinguished themselves on a number of other issues, including the use of nuclear energy.

French Communist Party in Paris 2012

In the municipal elections of 2008, the PCF fared better than expected.^[13] It won Dieppe, Saint Claude, Firminy and Vierzon as well as other smaller towns and kept most of its large towns, such as Arles, Bagneux, Bobigny, Champigny-sur-Marne, Echirolles, Fontenay-sous-Bois, Gardanne, Gennevilliers, Givors, Malakoff, Martigues, Nanterre, Stains, Venissieux. However, the PCF lost some key communes on the second round, such as Montreuil, Aubervilliers and particularly Calais, where an UMP candidate ousted the PCF after 37 years.

In the 2009 European Parliament election, the party ran as part of the Left Front with the Convention for a Progressive Alternative and the Left Party. The Left Front won five seats, an increase of two.

French Communist Party meeting for French presidential election 2012 in Paris

The PCF has chosen Jean-Luc Mélenchon as its candidate in the 2012 presidential election.

Elected officials[link]

• Deputies: Marie-Hélène Amiable, François Asensi, Alain Bocquet, Patrick Braouezec, Marie-George Buffet, Jean-Jacques Candelier, André Chassaigne, Jacqueline Fraysse, André Gerin, Pierre Gosnat, Maxime Gremetz, Jean-Paul Lecoq, Roland Muzeau, Daniel Paul, Jean-Claude Sandrier, Michel Vaxès (GDR Group). In addition, Jean-Pierre Brard is a member of the Convention for a Progressive Alternative but is considered to be close to the PCF and Huguette Bello is a member of the independent unaffiliated Communist Party of Réunion.
• Senators: Éliane Assassi, Marie-France Beaufils, Michel Billout, Nicole Borvo Cohen-Seat, Jean-Claude Danglot, Annie David, Michelle Demessine, Évelyne Didier, Guy Fischer, Thierry Foucaud, Brigitte Gonthier-Maurin, Robert Hue, Gérard Le Cam, Josiane Mathon, Isabelle Pasquet, Jack Ralite, Ivan Renar, Mireille Schurch, Odette Terrade, Bernard Vera, Jean-François Voguet (CRC-SPG Group)
• MEPs: Patrick Le Hyaric, Jacky Hénin, Élie Hoarau (PCR), Marie-Christine Vergiat (DVG) (EUL-NGL Group)

The PCF has two Presidents of the General Council – the Val-de-Marne and Allier. It lost Seine-Saint-Denis in 2008 to the PS. In addition, it has numerous general councillors in most French departments and it is a member of the ruling departmental majority in a number of them. In addition, it has numerous regional councillors in most French regions.

Popular support and electoral record[link]

Currently, the PCF retains some strength in suburban Paris, in the Nord section of the old coal mining area in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the industrial harbours of Le Havre and Dieppe, in some departments of central France, such as Allier and Cher (where a form of sharecropping existed, in addition to mining and small industrial-mining centres such as Commentry and Montceau-les-Mines), the industrial mining region of northern Meurthe-et-Moselle (Longwy) and in some cities of the south, such as the industrial areas of Marseille and nearby towns, as well as the working-class suburbs surrounding Paris (the ceinture rouge), Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Alès and Grenoble.^[14] The PCF is also strong in the Cévennes mountains, a left-wing rural anti-clerical stronghold with a strong Protestant minority.

Communist traditions in the "Red Limousin", the Pas-de-Calais, Paris proper, Nièvre, Finistère, Alpes-Maritimes and Var have been hurt significantly by demographic changes (Var, Alpes-Maritimes, Finistère), a loss of voters to the Socialist Party due to good local Socialist infrastructure or strongmen (Nièvre, Pas-de-Calais, Paris) or due to the emergence of rival parties on the radical left (the Convention for a Progressive Alternative, a party of reformist communists, in the Limousin and Val-de-Marne).

There exists isolated Communist bases in the rural anti-clerical areas of southwestern Côtes-d'Armor and northwestern Morbihan; in the industrial areas of Le Mans; in the shipbuilding cities of Saint-Nazaire, La Seyne-sur-Mer (there are no more ships built in La Seyne); and in isolated industrial centres built along the old Paris-Lyon railway (The urban core of Romilly-sur-Seine, Aube has elected a Communist general councillor since 1958).

Presidential[link]

Legislative[link]

European Parliament[link]

Publications[link]

The PCF publishes the following:

• Communistes (Communists)
• Info Hebdo (Weekly News)
• Economie et Politique (Economics and Politics)

Traditionally, it was also the owner of the French daily L'Humanité (Humanity), founded by Jean Jaurès. Although the newspaper is now independent, it remains close to the PCF. The paper is sustained by the annual Fête de L'Humanité festival, held in La Courneuve, a working class suburb of Paris. This event remains the biggest festival in France with 600,000 people during a three days festival.

During the 1970s, the PCF registered success with the children's magazine it founded, Pif gadget.

See also[link]

• List of foreign delegations at 24th PCF Congress (1982)
• Place du Colonel Fabien
• Louis Althusser's Reading Capital (1965)
• MRAP anti-racist NGO, created in 1941

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)

External links[link]

• PCF homepage
• Communistes homepage
• Info Hebdo homepage
• Economie et Politique homepage
• L'Humanité homepage
• Communist Party of France at Marxists Internet Archive

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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Communist front. (Discuss) Proposed since August 2011.

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A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government. The name originates from the 1848 tract Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.^[1]

A Communist party is, at least according to Leninist theory, the vanguard party of the working class, whether ruling or non-ruling, but when such a party is in power in a specific country, the party is said to be the highest authority of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin's theories on the role of a communist party were developed as the early 20th-century Russian social democracy divided into Bolshevik (meaning "majority") and Menshevik (meaning "minority") factions.

Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, argued that a revolutionary party should be a small vanguard party with a centralized political command and a strict cadre policy; the Menshevik faction, however, argued that the party should be a broad-based mass movement. The Bolshevik party, which eventually became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, took power in Russia after the October Revolution in 1917. With the creation of the Communist International, the Leninist concept of party building was copied by emerging communist parties worldwide.

There currently exist hundreds of communist parties throughout the world. Their success rates vary widely: some are growing; others are in decline. In four countries, Republic of Cuba; People's Republic of China; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; and Socialist Republic of Vietnam, communist parties retain dominance over the state.

The Chinese Communist Party is the world's largest political party,^[2] claiming nearly 78 million members^[3] at the end of 2009 which constitutes about 5.6% of the total population of mainland China.

Mass organizations[link]

As the membership of a communist party was to be limited to active cadres, there was a need for networks of separate organizations to mobilize mass support for the party. Typically communist parties have built up various front organizations, whose membership is often open to non-communists. In many countries the single most important front organization of the communist parties has been its youth wing. During the time of the Communist International the youth leagues were explicit communist organizations, using the name 'Young Communist League'. Later the youth league concept was broadened in many countries, and names like 'Democratic Youth League' were adopted.

Other organizations often connected to communist parties includes trade unions, student, women's, peasant's and cultural organizations. Traditionally these mass organizations were politically subordinated to the political leadership of the party. However, in many contemporary cases mass organizations founded by communists have acquired a certain degree of independence. In some cases mass organizations have outlived the communist parties in question.

At the international level, the Communist International organized various international front organizations (linking national mass organizations with each other), such as the Young Communist International, Profintern, Krestintern, International Red Aid, Sportintern, etc.. These organizations were dissolved in the process of deconstruction of the Communist International. After the Second World War new international coordination bodies were created, such as the World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation and the World Peace Council.

Historically, in countries where Communist Parties were struggling to attain state power, the formation of wartime alliances with non-communist parties and wartime groups was enacted (such as the National Liberation Front of Albania). Upon attaining state power these Fronts were often transformed into nominal (and usually electoral) "National" or "Fatherland" Fronts in which non-communist parties and organizations were given token representation (a practice known as Blockpartei), the most popular examples of these being the National Front of East Germany (as a historical example) and the United Front of the People's Republic of China (as a modern-day example). Other times the formation of such Fronts were undertaken without the participation of other parties, such as the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia and the National Front of Afghanistan, though the purpose was the same: to promote the Communist Party line to generally non-communist audiences and to mobilize them to carry out tasks within the country under the aegis of the Front.

Naming[link]

A uniform naming scheme for communist parties was adopted by the Communist International. All parties were required to use the name 'Communist Party of (name of country)'. Today, there are plenty of cases where the old sections of the Communist International have retained those names. In other cases names have been changed. Common causes for the shift in naming were either moves to avoid state repression^[4] or as measures to indicate a broader political acceptance.

A typical example of the latter was the renamings of various East European communist parties after the Second World War, as staged 'mergers' of the local Social Democratic parties occurred.^[5] New names in the post-war era included 'Socialist Party', 'Socialist Unity Party', 'Popular Party', 'Workers' Party' and 'Party of Labour'.

The naming conventions of communist parties became more diverse as the international communist movement was fragmented due to the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. Those who sided with China and/or Albania in their criticism of the Soviet leadership, often added words like 'Revolutionary' or 'Marxist-Leninist' to distinguish themselves from the pro-Soviet parties.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Communist Parties

Notes[link]

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Oscar Niemeyer
Niemeyer in the 1950s
Born	(1907-12-15) December 15, 1907 (age 104) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Nationality	Brazilian
Awards	1988 Pritzker Prize
Work
Buildings	Edifício Copan National Congress of Brazil
Projects	United Nations headquarters City of Brasília
Design	Cathedral of Brasília

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (born December 15, 1907) is a Brazilian architect specializing in international modern architecture. In the 1940s, '50s and '60s "he established himself as one of Modernism's greatest luminaries," while he “reshaped Brazil’s identity in the popular imagination and mesmerized architects around the globe." ^[1] During the 1950s while Brasilia was starting to develop, Oscar Niemeyer made incredible amounts of contributions to the country by designing many important buildings in Brasilia. He is a pioneer in exploring the formal possibilities of reinforced concrete solely for their aesthetic impact. He is currently 104 years old and still working.

Niemeyer is most famous for his use of abstract forms and curves that specifically characterize every one of his works; he didn’t stick to traditional straight lines, for he is not attracted to straight angles or lines but rather he is captured by ”free-flowing, sensual curves… [like that] on the body of the beloved woman.”^[2] He was able to design and build curved architecture through his revolutionary useage of concrete. His designs are daring: mixing innovation and courage, plastic freedom and invention. His buildings are often characterized by being spacious and exposed, mixing volumes and empty space to create unconventional patterns and often propped up by piloti. His work with concrete is described as elegant and harmonious. Oscar Niemeyer was able to connect the baroque style with modern architecture leading to a new form of architecture, which had never been built in Brazil before.

Both lauded and criticized for being a "sculptor of monuments",^[3] he has been praised for being a great artist and one of the greatest architects of his generation by his supporters.^[4] He claims his architecture was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier, but in an interview conducted by Fritz Uteri, he assures that, “didn’t prevent [his] architecture from going in a different direction”.^[5] He is unique; he creates all of his designs in his mind and claims not to need to put his ideas on paper to imagine what he wants to achieve.

Some of his most famous works include the Cathedral in Brasilia, the National Congress of Brazil and the Modern Art Museum in Niteroi. His works include public buildings designed for the city of Brasília, and the United Nations Headquarters in New York City (with others). He has also designed private houses, private buildings, churches and buildings for education. Though Niemeyer hasn’t stopped there, he has also built monuments and designed furniture.

Early life[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2011)

Oscar Niemeyer was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro on December 15, 1907.^[5] He took his German surname from a German Brazilian grandmother with roots in Hanover, Germany. Niemeyer explained, “my name ought to have been Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares, or simply Oscar de Almeida Soares, but the foreign surname prevailed and I am known simply as Oscar Niemeyer”.^[6] He spent his youth as a typical young Carioca of the time: bohemian and relatively unconcerned with his future. In 1928, at age 21, Niemeyer left school (Santa Antonio Maria Zaccaria Priory school) and married Annita Baldo,^[5] daughter of Italian immigrants from Padua. They have one daughter, Ana Maria, five grandchildren who are the photographer Carlos Eduardo "Kadu" Niemeyer, Ana Lúcia and Ana Elisa (from Anna Maria's marriage to Walter da Silva Attademo), Carlos Oscar Niemeyer and Ana Cláudia (from Anna Maria's relationship with Carlos Magalhães Silveira., thirteen great-grandchildren and seven great-great grandchildren.

He pursued his passion at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro (Escola Nacional de Belas Artes) and graduated with a BA in architecture in 1934.^[5] After graduating, he started to work in his father's typography house. At the time he had financial difficulties but decided to work without payment in the architecture studio of Lúcio Costa, Gregori Warchavchik and Carlos Leão. Niemeyer was inspired by his dissatisfaction with the architecture he saw in the streets, and believed he could find a career there. In 1937, Niemeyer, “built a military clinic for the “Obra do Berco”, Rio de Janeiro, his first executed work”.^[7] However, Niemeyer has claimed that his architecture really began in Pampulha, Minas Gerais, and as he explained in an interview, “Pampulha was the starting point of this freer architecture full of curves which I still love even today. It was in fact, the beginning of Brasilia…”.^[5] Pampulha was a revolutionary church for Brazil; it holds true to the usage of curves and free space, which Oscar Niemeyer has become so famous for. In 1936, he met Le Corbusier, who became a strong influence and teacher for Niemeyer, “His work was like a catechism for us. But what a difference to see him work and hear him talk about architecture”.^[6] Eventually, Niemeyer “traveled with Lucio Costa to New York in 1939 to work on the Brazilian Pavilion at the World’s Fair”.^[5] Then during the 40’s he continued traveling and designed buildings in Rio, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte.

In 1945, he joined the Brazilian Communist Party, and in 1992 he would become president of that party. Niemeyer was a boy at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and by the Second World War he became a young idealist. During the military dictatorship of Brazil his office was raided and he was forced into exile in Europe. The Minister of Aeronautics of the time reportedly said that "the place for a communist architect is Moscow." He visited the USSR, met with diverse socialist leaders and became a personal friend of some of them. Fidel Castro once said: "Niemeyer and I are the last Communists of this planet."^{[cite this quote]}

First works[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2011)

In 1936, at 29, Lúcio Costa was appointed by Education Minister Gustavo Capanema as the architect of the new headquarters for the Ministry of Education and Public Health in Rio de Janeiro. In 1939, Niemeyer assumed the leadership of the team of architects (Lúcio Costa, Carlos Leão, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Jorge Moreira, Ernani Vasconcellos and Niemeyer, with Le Corbusier acting as a consultant) responsible for the Ministry that had assumed the task of shaping the ‘novo homem, Brasileiro e moderno’ (new man, Brazilian and modern).

Following Niemeyer's request, the headquarters were renamed Palácio Gustavo Capanema in 1985. It was the first state-sponsored modernist skyscraper in the world, and of a much larger scale than anything Le Corbusier had built until then. Completed in 1943, when he was 36, the building which housed the regulator and manager of Brazilian culture and cultural heritage developed the elements of what was to become recognized as Brazilian modernism. It employed local materials and techniques, like the azulejos linked to the Portuguese tradition; the revolutionized Corbusian brises-soleil, made adjustable and related to the Moorish shading devices of colonial architecture; bold colors; the tropical gardens of Roberto Burle Marx; the Imperial Palm (Roystonea oleracea), known as the Brazilian order; further allusions to the icons of the Brazilian landscape; and specially commissioned works by Brazilian artists.

In 1939, at 32, Niemeyer with Lúcio Costa designed the Brazilian pavilion at the New York World's Fair (executed in collaboration with Paul Lester Wiener). Impressed by the executed Pavilion, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia awarded Niemeyer the keys to the city of New York. Costa explained that the Brazilian Pavilion adopted a language of ‘grace and elegance’, lightness and spatial fluidity, open plan, curves and free walls, which he termed ‘Ionic’, contrasting it to the contemporaneous stern Modernist architecture, which he termed ‘Doric’. By mid-twentieth century, Brazilian architectural Modernism had been recognized as the first national style in modern architecture by Reyner Banham. The international architectural periodicals of the 1940s and 1950s dedicated hundreds of dithyrambic pages to the ‘chosen land of the most original and most audacious contemporary architecture’, followed by monographs on individual architects like Niemeyer and Affonso Eduardo Reidy.

The Pampulha project[link]

São Francisco de Assis Church, Belo Horizonte City, Minas Gerais, Brazil

In 1940, at 33, Niemeyer met Juscelino Kubitschek, who was at the time the mayor of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. He and Minas Gerais Governor Benedito Valadares wanted to develop a new suburb to the north of the city called Pampulha, and commissioned Niemeyer to design a series of buildings to be known as the "Pampulha complex". Brazil’s first listed modern monument was Niemeyer’s Pampulha Church of São Francisco de Assis (English:  Church of Saint Francis of Assisi). The Pampulha complex included a casino, a dance hall and restaurant, a yacht club, and a golf club distributed around the artificial lake. A weekend retreat for the mayor was also constructed near the lake.

The buildings were completed in 1943, and provoked some controversy. They received international acclaim following the 1943 ‘Brazil Builds’ exhibition, at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The conservative Church authorities of Minas Gerais refused to consecrate the church until 1959, in part because of its unorthodox form, in part because of the altar mural painted by Candido Portinari. The mural depicts Saint Francis of Assisi as the savior of the ill, the poor and, most importantly, the sinner.

Pampulha, says Niemeyer, offered him the opportunity to 'challenge the monotony of contemporary architecture, the wave of misinterpreted functionalism that hindered it, and the dogmas of form and function that had emerged, counteracting the plastic freedom that reinforced concrete introduced. I was attracted by the curve – the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches. […] I deliberately disregarded the right angle and rationalist architecture designed with ruler and square to boldly enter the world of curves and straight lines offered by reinforced concrete. […] This deliberate protest arose from the environment in which I lived, with its white beaches, its huge mountains, its old baroque churches, and the beautiful suntanned women.'^[2]

The 1940s and 1950s[link]

Ministries Esplanade with several of Niemeyer's buildings: the National Congress, the Cathedral, the National Museum and the National Library, Brasilia, D.F., 2006

National Congress of Brazil, Brasília

Cathedral of Brasília, hyperboloid structure

In 1947, at 40, his worldwide recognition was confirmed when Niemeyer traveled to the United States to be part of the international team working on the design for the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. Niemeyer's 'scheme 32' was approved by the Board of Design, but he eventually gave in to pressure by Le Corbusier, and together they submitted project 23/32 (developed with Bodiansky and Weissmann), which combined elements from Niemeyer's and Le Corbusier's schemes, but was primarily based on Niemeyer's scheme. Despite Le Corbusier’s insistence to remain involved, the conceptual design for the United Nations Headquarters (scheme 23/32), approved by the Board, was carried forward by the Director of Planning, Wallace Harrison, and Max Abramovitz, then a partnership. In the previous year Niemeyer had received an invitation to teach at Yale University; however, his visa was denied. In 1950 the first book about his work was published in the USA by Stamo Papadaki. In 1953, at 46, Niemeyer was selected for the position of dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His Communist Party membership meant that, for the second time, he was refused a visa to enter the United States.

In Brazil, he designed São Paulo's Ibirapuera Park (for the celebrations of the city's 400th anniversary) 1951, the Copan apartment building (1953–66), and the JK Building in Belo Horizonte (1951). In 1952–53, he built his own house in Rio de Janeiro, the House at Canoas (Casa das Canoas), and, in 1954–60, the Niemeyer luxury apartment building in Belo Horizonte. In 1955, at 48, Niemeyer designed the Museum of Modern Art of Caracas (MAM Caracas). According to him, this project marked a new direction his work was beginning to take, exemplified by his government buildings for Brasilia.

It was at the Canoas House that Juscelino Kubitschek visited Niemeyer one September morning of 1956, soon after he assumed the Brazilian presidency. While driving back to the city, the politician ‘eagerly’ spoke to the architect about his most audacious scheme: ‘I am going to build a new capital for this country and I want you to help me […] Oscar, this time we are going to build the capital of Brazil.’^[8]

Niemeyer organized a competition for the lay-out of Brasília, the new capital, and the winner was the project of his old master and great friend, Lúcio Costa. Niemeyer would design the buildings, Lucio the plan of the city.

In the space of a few months, Niemeyer designed a large number of residential, commercial and government buildings. Among them were the residence of the President (Palácio da Alvorada), the House of the deputy, the National Congress of Brazil, the Cathedral of Brasília (a hyperboloid structure), diverse ministries, and residential buildings. Viewed from above, the city can be seen to have elements that repeat themselves in every building, giving it a formal unity.

Behind the construction of Brasília lay a monumental campaign to construct an entire city in the barren center of the country, hundreds of kilometers from any major city. The brainchild of Kubitschek, Niemeyer had as aims included stimulating the national industry, integrating the country's distant areas, populating inhospitable regions, and bringing progress to a region where only cattle ranching had a foothold. Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa used it to test new concepts of city planning: streets without transit, buildings floating off the ground supported by columns and allowing the space underneath to be free and integrated with nature.

The project also had a socialist ideology: in Brasília all the apartments would be owned by the government and rented to its employees. Brasília did not have "nobler" regions, meaning that top ministers and common laborers would share the same building. Of course, many of these concepts were ignored or changed by other presidents with different visions in later years. Brasília was designed, constructed, and inaugurated within four years. After its completion, Niemeyer was nominated head chief of the college of architecture of the University of Brasília. In 1963, he became an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects in the United States; the same year, he received the Lenin Peace Prize from the USSR.

Niemeyer and his contribution to the construction of Brasília are portrayed in the 1964 French movie L'homme de Rio (The Man From Rio), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

In 1964, at 57, after being invited by Abba Hushi, the mayor of Haifa, Israel, to plan the campus of the University of Haifa, he came back to a completely different Brazil. In March President João Goulart, who succeeded President Jânio Quadros in 1961, was deposed in a military coup. General Castello Branco assumed command of the country, which would remain a dictatorship until 1985.

Exile and projects overseas[link]

Mondadori headquarters near Milan, Italy

The leftist position of Niemeyer (he was a staunch stalinist^[9]) cost him much during the military dictatorship. His office was pillaged, the headquarters of the magazine he coordinated was destroyed, his projects mysteriously began to be refused and clients disappeared. In 1965, two hundred professors, Niemeyer among them, asked for their resignation from the University of Brasília, in protest against the government treatment of universities. In the same year he traveled to France for an exhibition in the Louvre museum.

The following year, Niemeyer moved to Paris. Also in 1966, at 59, he travelled to the city of Tripoli, Lebanon to design the International Permanent Exhibition Centre.^[10] Despite completing construction, the start of the civil war in Lebanon prevented it from achieving its full utility.

He opened an office on the Champs-Élysées, and had customers in diverse countries, especially in Algeria where he designed the University of Science and Technology-Houari Boumediene. In Paris he created the headquarters of the French Communist Party, Place du Colonel Fabien, and in Italy that of the Mondadori publishing company. In Funchal on Madeira, a 19th-century hotel was removed to build a casino by Niemeyer. Another prominent design of his was the Penang State Mosque in George Town the state capital of Penang, Malaysia in the 1970s.

While in Paris, Niemeyer began designing furniture which was produced by Mobilier International. He created an easy chair and ottoman composed of bent steel and leather in limited numbers for private clients. Later, in 1978, this chair and other designs including the "Rio" chaise-longue were produced in Brazil by the Japanese company Tendo, then Tendo Brasileira. The easy chairs and ottomans were made of bent wood and were placed in different Communist party headquarters around the world. Much like his architecture, Niemeyer's furniture designs were meant to evoke the beauty of Brazil, with curves mimicking the female form and the hills of Rio de Janeiro.

1980s to 2000[link]

Casino in Funchal, Madeira

In 1988, at 81, Niemeyer was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture, for the Cathedral of Brasília (1958).

From 1992 to 1996, Niemeyer was the president of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). As a lifelong activist, Niemeyer was chosen as a powerful public figure that could be linked to the party at a time when it appeared to be in its death throes after the demise of the USSR. Although not active as a political leader, his image helped the party to survive through its crisis, after the 1992 split and to remain as a political force in the national scene, which eventually led to its reconstruction. He was replaced by Zuleide Faria de Mello in 1996.

He designed at least two more buildings in Brasilia, small ones, the Memorial dos Povos Indigenas^[11] ("Memorial for the Indigenous People") and the Catedral Militar, Igreja de N.S. da Paz.^[12]

In 1996, at the age of 89, he created the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Niterói, a city next to Rio de Janeiro. The building is cantilevered out from sheer rock face, giving a view of the Guanabara Bay and the city of Rio de Janeiro.

2002 to present[link]

Oscar Niemeyer, December 2010

The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum

Oscar Niemeyer Museum (NovoMuseu), Curitiba, Brazil

Brazilian National Museum, Brasilia, D.F.

Municipal Library in city center, Duque de Caxias, RJ, Brasil

Óscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre Asturias, Spain

The Brazilian dictatorship lasted until 1985. Under João Figueiredo's rule it softened and gradually turned into a democracy. At this time Niemeyer decided to return to his country. During that decade he made the Memorial Juscelino Kubitschek (1980), the Pantheon (Panteão da Pátria e da Liberdade Tancredo Neves Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom, 1985) and the Latin America Memorial (1987) (dubbed by The Independent of London to be "...an incoherent and vulgar construction"^[13]). The memorial sculpture represents the wounded hand of Jesus, whose wound bleeds in the shape of Central and South America.

In 2002, at 95 the Oscar Niemeyer Museum complex was inaugurated in the city of Curitiba, Paraná. The building is locally known as "Niemeyer's Eye".

In 2003, at 96, Niemeyer was called to design the Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion in Hyde Park London, a gallery that each year invites a famous architect who has never previously built in the UK, to design this temporary structure. A publication of Niemeyer's structure called Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 was published by Trolley Books later that year, ISBN 978-1-904563-13-6.

In 2004, Niemeyer, at 97 designed the tombstone for Communist Carlos Marighella in Salvador da Bahia, to commemorate the 35th anniversary of his death. He was widowed after 76 years of marriage to Annita, Annita died at 93 years old. Also his brother Paulo Niemeyer died.

In 2005, at 98, a building entitled "Estação, Ciência, Cultura e Artes" (Science, Culture and Arts Station) was approved for construction at João Pessoa, the easternmost point of the Americas.^[14]

In 2006, Niemeyer at the age of 99 wed longtime aide Vera Lucia Cabreira. They married at his apartment in Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema district a month after fracturing his hip in a fall.

2007 saw Niemeyer turn 100 and still involved in diverse projects, mainly sculptures and readjustments of old works of his that, protected by national (and some cases international) historic heritage regulations, can only be modified by him. He is currently designing a statue showing a tiger with its mouth open and a man fighting it raising the Cuban flag against the US blockade of Cuba.On Niemeyer's 100th birthday, Russia's president Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship.^[15] Grateful for the Prince of Asturias Award of Arts received in 1989, he collaborated on the 25th anniversary of these awards with the donation to Asturias of the design of a cultural centre. The actual Óscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre (also known in Spain as Centro Niemeyer), is located in Avilés (Asturias) in Northern Spain. These modern buildings were described by himself as “a big square open to all men and women of the world, a big loge between the river and the ancient town". The Niemeyer Center was inaugurated during the spring of 2011.

In December 2008 when he turned 101, Niemeyer was recovering in hospital from December 16 to December 27. While in hospital he was as quoted saying that being hospitalized is 'a very lonely thing; I needed to keep busy, keep in touch with friends, maintain my rhythm of life.'

In December 2009, after he turned 102, Niemeyer was again hospitalized, this time for 4 days, in the same hospital with an intestinal tumor, which was surgically removed. In December 2010 he turned 103 and opened a museum of his work. The Oscar Niemeyer Foundation outside Rio de Janeiro houses drawings and models from the modernist architect's 70-year career. "My friends have come to see me, how nice," Mr Niemeyer told reporters at the inauguration of his foundation in the city of Niteroi, outside Rio de Janeiro.

The Holoteca, a library specialized on consciousness and the paranormal, in the Cognopolis neighborhood of Iguassu Falls is one of his latest projects.

Criticism[link]

Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of the New York Times published an article questioning if his recent work is being affected by old age. He considers the "Niterói Contemporary Art Museum" to be of significantly lower quality than his previous works. Most notably, he argues that "the greatest threat to Mr. Niemeyer’s remarkable legacy may not be the developer’s bulldozer or insensitive city planners, but Mr. Niemeyer himself." He considers iconic works at "Esplanada dos Ministérios" to "have been marred by the architect’s own hand".^[16]

See also[link]

• List of Oscar Niemeyer works

References[link]

• Emery, Marc (1983). Furniture by Architects. New York: Harry N. Abrams. 
• Niemeyer, Oscar (1983). The Curves of Time: The Memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer. London: Phaidon. 
• A Vida É Um Sopro "Life Is A Breath Of Air" (2007). Documentary directed by Fabiano Maciel

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oscar Niemeyer

• Official website
• List and Locations of Oscar Niemeyer buildings around the world
• May 2006 Interview with Niemeyer, age 98, in Metropolis Magazine
• Paul Andreas, Ingeborg Flagge, ed. Oscar Niemeyer: A Legend of Modernism. Birkhäuser. http://www.arcspace.com/architects/Niemeyer/legend_modernism/. 
• Niemeyer in Brasília history
• Tripoli International Fair by Oscar Niemeyer, 360 Panorama by Melkan Bassil
• Oscar Niemeyer's Strick House in Santa Monica
• Pritzker Prize 1988
• Oscar Niemeyer group on Flickr
• Mondadori Headquarters
• Niemeyer's Brasilia: A Photographic Tribute (2009)
• Swerve with verve: Oscar Niemeyer, the architect who eradicated the straight line by Peter Godfrey in The Independent April 18, 2010

Ho Chi Minh
Portrait c. 1946
Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
In office 19 February 1951 – 2 September 1969
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Post abolished
First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
In office 1 November 1956 – 10 September 1960
Preceded by	Trường Chinh
Succeeded by	Lê Duẩn
President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
In office 2 September 1945 – 2 September 1969
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Tôn Đức Thắng
Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
In office 2 September 1945 – 20 September 1955
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Phạm Văn Đồng
Personal details
Born	Nguyễn Sinh Cung (1890-05-19)19 May 1890 Nghệ An Province, French Indochina
Died	2 September 1969(1969-09-02) (aged 79) Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Nationality	Vietnamese
Political party	Workers’ Party of Vietnam
Signature

This article contains Vietnamese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of chữ Nôm, chữ Hán and chữ Quốc Ngữ.

Hồ Chí Minh (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô cǐ miɲ] (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô̤ tɕǐmɪŋ] ( listen)); 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Stalinist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.

He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause – a united, independent Vietnam – until his death. After the war, Saigon, the capital of Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor.