So, who were those who tried to reveal the truth and had paid so dearly for their curiosity? The first to have tried to unravel the case was Andre Marty, no doubt in the hope for his own personal gain in the struggle for power within the Communist Party. Marty immediately understood the secrets surrounding the Boulanger case and possibly tried to use this against the party leaders. Unfortunately, his popularity did not prevent him from being the subject of his own trial that took place in Prague in 1951, as part of the witch trials, of which Stalin was so fond. Marty, the ’hero’, was not only accused of being divisive, but was derided further and even accused of being a cop. There was nothing too bad they could not accuse him of, even if it was true that he was hardly a saint to begin with.Yet he was not the only one to be sacrificed.As he went down, another member of the legendry Black Sea Munity was brought down with him; Charles Tillon, the head of the FTP. Tillon was another of those who had not appreciated the passivity of the communist press when Boulanger was arrested. No doubt for good reason, as he probably knew the real truth behind what had happened.
This holding back of information was not just a coincidence. The PCF leaders certainly wanted to get rid of all those in the FTP who had fought heroically with the Maquis, while Thorez19 had spent the war in the USSR. These men were consequently pushed into the background, like the other leaders who had not already got their hands dirty.
The Marty-Tillon affair had its roots in the terrible secret of the double agent, Boulanger. Proof of this can be found in a number of troubling coincidences. Who was it, for example, who first accused Marty and Tillon? Georges Beyer, who was nevertheless, Tillon's brother-in-law. After having investigated Boulanger, Beyer agreed to play the role of accuser because his hands were tied. It was he who had allowed Boulanger to join the FTP staff, clearly on Moscow's orders. As head of ‘Service B', he had to obey orders, but that did not matter. As far as the party was concerned, Beyer was the one responsible and he was at risk of being accused at any time. The only course of action
to take in order to keep his place in the party was to do what they asked and act as a witness for the prosecution. However, the party leaders were hardly grateful to him for his efforts. Shortly after the Marty-Tillon case, Beyer was removed from the party's central committee and lost any authority he had previously owned. Once more, it was clear that knowing the truth about Boulanger was not a good thing.
But that is not all. Remember that when Marty had asked Beyer to investigate Boulanger, he had sent Teulery to Germany to find him. He also might have known the truth and so needed to be kept quiet. Curiously, this was first tentatively attempted by the DST. At the instigation of the Communist Party security service, a plot was devised against him. Like many other members of the FTP, Teulery had a great admiration for Tito's partisans. When Stalin condemned the Yugoslav leader, the French Communist Party naturally aligned itself totally with the Soviets. Teulery had trouble accepting this position and publically declared his sympathy for Tito. The party decided to take advantage of his confession and used it as an excuse to get rid of the man who also knew too much about the Boulanger case. Informed by the French Communist Party that he was maintaining discrete relationships with Yugoslav communists on French soil, Teulery was arrested. He was convicted of sharing intelligence with Yugoslav agents and sentenced to five years in prison. Yet again, a man who knew the truth behind the Boulanger case was taken down.
To understand why this was such a sour subject, the events must be understood in the context of 1944. When the Allies landed in June, the Resistance and the FTP were desperate to stir up a national uprising to expel the German occupiers as quickly as possible. Yet this is not what Stalin wanted. He knew that any future division of Europe would depend on the extent of the military advances of the various armies: the Red Army to the east and the Anglo-Saxons to the west. It was therefore essential that his troops advanced as far as possible in order to reap the most benefit. The main target was Berlin, as well as other eastern European capital cities.
From Stalin's point of view, any delay suffered by the Allies would be a welcome occurrence. Similarly, anything that could be done to promote the Soviet advance must be achieved. Stalin did not want the communist resistance fighters involved in the struggle against the Nazis to help trigger the uprising in France, as that might have helped the Allied armies advance quicker and further than they otherwise should. In fact, in certain areas the Resistance helped the Allies a great deal, in spite of official orders from the party, who were keen to obey Stalin. Men such as Tillon or Guingouin in the Limousin region, rebelled and joined in the fighting. However, in doing so they were acting against orders from Moscow, orders which were of course relayed by communist leaders. It was these same leaders who would later lead the prosecution
