Communist Welcome to King and Queen

   King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who acceded to the Throne following an attempt to gain personal power by Edward VIII—an attempt thwarted by British democracy—will to-day be the guests of Paris.
We communists rejoice whole-heartedly at the manifestation of Franco-British understanding of which this visit is the occasion. Peace, we believe, can and must be preserved by the union of democratic nations. England has her place—an essential place—in this circle of peaceful peoples.
. . . We remember that it was England who, after 1871, generously welcomed Camélinat and the exiles of the Commune. And when we go to London our steps naturally turn to the cemetery which shelters the remains of Karl Marx, founder of Scientific Socialism.
But, above all, we keep in our memory the programme of “Mein Kampf“: that is to ”Isolate France,” that is to say to separate her from Great Britain, such is the dream of the leaders of the III Reich. The interests of Peace demand that this scheme must be prevented. We applaud the visit of these rulers in the measure in which it is devoted to this end.
But it is not to this reactionary England that our sympathy and good feeling is extended during these festival days;.  . . .
. . . Our good feeling is extended to that England which fights on the front of Collective Security; that England in the name of whom leading bourgeois such as Lord Cecil, Churchill, Lloyd George, and prelates like the Dean of Canterbury, pronounce regularly such grave warnings          Long live an Entente of the Democracies! Long live a circle of Peace.