FRENCH COMMUNISTS

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2146, 19 April 1928, Page 7

FRENCH COMMUNISTS

SIGNIFICANT DISCLOSURES.

The Serviette de M. Marrane is agitating political circles in Paris. This Communist agitator, Councillor-Gene-ral of the Seine, Mayor of Ivry, and Administrative Delegate of the Workmen's and Peasants' Bank, was negligent enough to forget his brief-case in a taxicab. The chauffeur seeking the identity of the owner, looked through the contents and found—things worth talking about. They were not only talked about, but photographed. Comrade Marrane received his brief case several days later, but the nature of the contents was no longer a secret, and to-day, the scandal breaks. The brief-case contained records of payments to various Communist groups and agitators, to people in the army and the provinces, to persons designated only by a first name or an initial. Perhaps the most interesting of all is the record of a payment of 54,000 francs to the 5.F.1.0. (Section Francaise de I'lnternationale Ouvriere), the French branch of the Amsterdam International, presumably the opponent of the Third International of Moscow.

The'sums listed are so large that it is evident that they were never raised by the Communist Party of France but must have come from Moscow. Comrade Marrane and the Communist organ in Paris try to deny authentcity of the documents, and the newspaper speaks of "a new police trick." In the first instalment of the documents to be published several interesting payments are listed: 369,892.20 francs to political personnel, 113,000 francs for work in the army, 449,318 francs for work in the "regions," presumably Morocco; 54,000 francs to the 5.F.1.0., 25,000 franc's to fishermen; 91,591.80 francs for expenses of sections, 116,453.60 francs for travelling expenses, 60,000 francs to "Albert," 35,000 francs to the Cercle des Cooperateurs, payments of 4200 francs, 5400 francs, and 4500 francs to "R," "C," and "D." More revelations are to come.