The Algerian Communist Party (; ) was a Marxist-Leninist party in Algeria. The PCA emerged in 1920 as an extension of the French Communist Party (PCF) and eventually became a separate entity in 1936. Despite this, it was recognized by the Comintern in 1935. Its first congress was in Algiers in July 1936, also the site of the PCA's headquarters.
In the post-war period, it gained substantially in influence, increasing from around 3000 members in 1939 to between 12,000 and 15,000 members in 1948.
In September 1955 the PCA was banned by the French administration due to the ongoing violence of the Algerian War, but remained an active part within the independence movement and many of its members participated as part of the National Liberation Army (ALN).
By the end of the Algerian War, the PCA had been severely organizationally damaged; many of its leadership had been killed or arrested and its decision to subsume large parts of its membership within the ALN reduced its influence significantly. The PCA re-obtained legal status following independence in 1962, but was banned and dissolved later that year by the National Liberation Front. The Algerian communists later regrouped in groups such as the Socialist Vanguard Party (PAGS).
The general secretaries of PCA were Ben Ali Boukort from 1936 to 1939, Amar Ouzegane during the period of the underground central committee, Larbi Bouhali from 1947 to 1949, and from 1949.
History
The PCA's early days (1920-1936) The PCA, from the beginning, lacked a coherent approach to the Algerian situation and its relationship with both France and its main body in the PCF. Part of this was due to the disproportionate concentration of Pieds-Noirs in the urban centers of Algeria, and thus the numbers of Pieds-Noirs in the party, given its focus on urban organisation. The linguistic composition of Algeria also played into the difficulties of the PCA's organisational capacities as communist ideas, proliferated widely in French, had difficulty crossing the language barrier to the predominantly Arabic speaking, Islamic Algerian population. During the First World War male Pieds-Noirs had emigrated to France to assist in the fight on the Western front, leaving a bulk of Algeria's proletariat outside of the country and creating difficult for communist in Algeria given the traditional focus within Marxism on the urban proletariat.
The party was, throughout its existence, more popular with Europeans living in Algeria than Algerians themselves. This ethnic divide was worsened by the Code de l'indigenat which excluded non-French citizens in Algeria from joining the PCA. Despite this, some Muslims were attracted to the PCA, for example: Ben Ali Boukort, Ahmed Akkache and the general secretary Bachir Hadj Ali. During this period, the party did emphasize a demand for Algerian independence, though this invariably resulted in harsh repression and, consequently, a diminished size and reduced organisational capacity.
However, throughout the 1920s the PCA struggled to maintain an organisational foothold in Algeria, and by the late 1920s the Algerian arm of the PCF was seemingly moribund.
The PCA before and during the Second World War (1936-1945) In the 1930s the PCA began to gain influence again after the failure in proliferating its message in the 1920s. Recognizing the weakness in attempting to administer the Algerian section of the PCF from France, the PCA was officially launched as a distinct organisation on 17–18 October 1936. The 1930s saw both a growth in the PCA's importance and marked the advent of some of its tactical mistakes in gaining public support. Particularly important to this period was the developing international events and the communist movement's wider position on it (in particular, the attitude of the Comintern and the guidance it was giving to communist parties on priorities).
During the 1930s, the party was left in disarray due to continued French repression in Algeria, as many of its leading figures were subject to arrest and police surveillance. The spread of fascism in 1930s Europe led to the Comintern switching emphasis away from supporting anti-colonial struggles to advocating for "popular front" strategies with all liberal parties to resist fascism. The Spanish Civil War, beginning in 1936, was particularly important for this switch in the PCA's position, and the increasing propagation of Spanish fascist propaganda to Northern Africa prompted the PCA to de-emphasize its anti-colonialist position so as not to weaken the efforts of the PCF in France in constructing a popular front against domestic fascism.
During this time, the PCA also faced increasing competition from Messali Hadj's Algerian People's Party (PPA), which it saw as competing for a similar base of political support in the radicalised Algerian masses. Though the PCA performed well in Algiers' local elections of 1937, thereafter its voter base steadily began to switch to supporting the PPA, who began to capitalise on the PCF's equivocation over the issue of independence. The PCF exerted pressure upon the PCA during this time to support PCF General Secretary Maurice Thorez's 'nation in formation' thesis which argued that Algeria was a 'nation in formation', at the early stages of its development, and thus unsuited to separation from the French nation it naturally belonged to. Whilst many members of the PCA, particularly Islamic members, rejected this thesis, it influenced PCA organizational slogans and theory, and contributed to the notion that France's communist revolution would have to occur before Algeria's. This continued boosting the PPA's popularity with an Arabic population in Algeria, who felt the PCA was increasingly subordinated to the concerns of Pieds-Noirs in the industrial centers and their preoccupation with European affairs.
Following the Nazi invasion of Poland beginning 1 September 1939, and France's declaration of war on Nazi Germany, the PCA, along with numerous other Algerian political parties and organisations, faced severe repression by the French authorities. On 26 September 1939 the French government banned both the domestic PCF, the PCA and Messali Hadj's PPA on the ground of national security, and by November it had granted itself powers to arrest any individual seen to threaten national security, severely hindering the actions of the PCA. On top of this, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact threw the entire international communist movement into confusion, given the sudden switch from the previous emphasis on anti-fascism forced upon it by the Soviet Union through the Comintern.
As the war progressed the influence of the PCF intensified and the PCA became increasingly preoccupied with the events in Europe, continuing to alienate the Algerian population and precluding stronger alliances with Algerian nationalist movements such as the PPA and Friends of the Manifesto and Liberty (AML). Though the PCA continued to grow in popularity - doubling in membership between 1939 and 1944 - the growth in membership and popularity continued to be concentrated among European populations. Towards the end of the war, the PCA's hostility towards the US contrasted with the warmth many Algerians felt towards America in light of the Atlantic Charter of 1941, which lent legitimacy to the nationalist aim of independence. The PCA continued to lend its support to Charles de Gaulle and participate in his alternative government headquartered in Algiers. Following violence against Algerian nationalists during what came to be known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre in May and June 1945, the PCA condemned the nationalist side as "hiterlite" provocateurs. All this continued to alienate the Algerian masses who saw the PCA as supporting the French colonial administration in Algeria, and solidified the national/ethnic division between the European minority and the Algerian majority.
The PCA between World War 2 and the Algerian War (1945-1954) Following the end of the Second World War and the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943 the PCA was given more autonomy on its approach to Algerian politics, allowing it to re-focus on the Algerian nationalist struggle without fear of weakening the PCF's struggle against fascism in France. Despite this, the party initially remained committed to campaigning for democratic liberties within a French framework, rather than for Algerian independence.
Towards the end of the 1940s, and due to its failure in the June elections of the National Assembly elections of 1946, the PCA began recognising the need to widen its appeal to a non-European base through advocating for Algerian nationalism. The party began releasing publications and conducting meetings in Arabic to widen its appeal, and attempted to forge closer links with nationalist movements such as the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA). The party's appeal increased substantially with Algerians, particularly young intellectuals in the urban centers who favored the more class-based analysis of the PCA, and by 1948 it had between 12,000 and 15,000 members. Despite this, efforts at unity with nationalist parties often stalled due to nationalist distrust of the PCA in light of its condemnation of Algerian nationalists in the wake of the Sétif and Guelma massacres in 1945.
By 1949, the PCA had significantly increased its base among the Algerian population, leading it to firmly announce its support for an Algerian Republic at its fifth congress in May 1949. Support for Algerian nationalist movements such as the Special Organisation (SO) finally began to be reciprocated, and in July 1951 the PCA, UDMA, Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD) and the 'ulama united in the form of the Algerian Front. This unity, however, proved short-lived, as disagreements over strategies frustrated cooperation between the nationalist movements and the PCA. During 1952 and 1953 efforts to cultivate a united front continued, and in late 1953 the MTLD and PCA announced an intention to form a new united front, though this endeavour was hindered by increasing factionalism within the MTLD between supports and opponents of Messali Hadj. By the advent of the Algerian War, the PCA had grown substantially in support, though increasingly found itself torn between its commitment to non-violence on the one hand, and its extensive coverage, through its publication Liberté, on the success of Vietnamese anti-colonial guerillas against France during the First Indochina War on the other.
The PCA during the Algerian War (1954–1962)