A communist who carried working-class militancy into armed resistance
“They have numbers; united, they will have strength.”
A metalworker and trade-union organizer, Charles Tillon entered the French Communist Party after leading a 1919 naval mutiny and rose through the CGTU and party leadership. In 1940 he called for national liberation joined to working-class unity, then organized and led the communist armed resistance by consolidating the FTP from 1941. After Liberation he served as a minister and deputy in reconstruction, but conflicts with the party leadership removed him from power in 1952 and ended in his expulsion in 1970.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1916–1921French Navy mechanic; led the 1919 mutiny aboard Guichen and was imprisoned
- 1921–1931Joined the French Communist Party; led CGTU unions in Ille-et-Vilaine and Nantes
- 1931–1936CGTU national leadership; Communist Party Central Committee member and alternate Politburo member
- 1936–1940Deputy in the Chamber of Deputies; assisted Republican refugees in Spain
- 1940–1944Clandestine Communist leadership; founded and commanded the National Military Committee and FTP
- 1944–1947Minister of Air, Armaments, and Reconstruction; mayor of Aubervilliers and deputy
- 1952–1970Removed from the Communist leadership, rehabilitated in 1957, and expelled in 1970
Related historical events
Postwar reconstruction and three ministries (1944–1947)
Immediately after the Liberation, Tillon entered de Gaulle's government as the representative of the Communist Resistance. He took charge of the Aubervilliers municipality in 1944, became mayor after the municipal elections of April–May 1945 and was reelected in 1947, and sat in the Provisional Consultative Assembly, resuming the seat he had won in 1936. His ministries ran in sequence: Air from 10 September 1944 to 21 November 1945, Armaments from 21 November 1945 to 16 December 1946, and Reconstruction and Town Planning from 22 January to 4 May 1947. At the Air Ministry he created the first corps of female military pilots and sent his cabinet aide Marcel Valtat to Germany to try to bring Wernher von Braun to France. In May 1945 the nationalist demonstrations at Sétif in Algeria and the resulting deaths of Europeans were suppressed harshly, including by French air force bombing, while he was minister. Tillon later said he was never informed by his government colleagues or his own services, and that after learning the scale of the tragedy he wanted to resign from the government, which the party leadership refused. Through this period he remained a loyal member of the party's central committee, politburo and secretariat.