Gabriel Peri

Péri, Gabriel 

Born Feb. 9, 1902, in Toulon; died Dec. 15, 1941, in Paris. Leader of the French labor movement; hero of the French Resistance.

Péri joined the Socialist Party in 1919 and fought for the party’s entry into the Comintern. He was a member of the French Communist Party (FCP) from its founding in 1920 and an organizer of the communist youth movement in France. Chief of the foreign desk of the newspaper L’Humanité from 1924, Péri was elected to the Central Committee of the FCP in 1929. He was a deputy to parliament from 1932 to 1939. In brilliant speeches and articles, he consistently decried reaction and fascism and supported cooperation with the Soviet Union and the strengthening of international security. After the invasion of France by fascist German troops (June 1940), Péri helped organize the Resistance. On May 18, 1941, he was arrested by the police of the Vichy government, turned over to the Gestapo, and tortured and shot by the Nazis.

REFERENCES

Korolev, L. Odin iz “partii rasstreliannykh.” Moscow, 1965.
Un Grand Français Gabriel Péri. Paris [1947].