Dallidet went underground and played a leading role in organizing the clandestine structure of the party, which at this stage did not actively oppose the Germans in the "imperialist" war.

His headmaster found him a place as an apprentice designer with a company in Nantes, but he did not like office life and left in July 1921.

He moved to Paris in April 1928 and was hired by the Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt the next day, He was fired after less than two months after a fight.

He later married again in 1933, to Enta Klugaite a Lithuanian communist and shorthand typist, it appears to have been also a marriage of convenience but they live together some years.

He signed up as unemployed, ate at soup kitchens, and led the Communists in Renault from outside as a secretary of the local party section.

He was a member of the Communist party's Regional Office in Paris West and of the council of the Unitary Federation of metalworkers.

[1] The party leadership assigned Dallidet to take courses at the Leninist School in Moscow, leaving in September 1935.

[3] Dallidet returned to France in October 1936 and was given a permanent position in the PCF Cadre Commission as assistant to Maurice Tréand.

[4] The Cadre Commission was somewhat secretive, and worked directly with Maurice Thorez, Eugen Fried[b] and the Communist International's agencies.

Using the records he had preserved from before the war, he managed to reorganize the party despite arrests, mobilizations and the departure of militants who rejected the Soviet pact with the Nazis.

[11] After Germany invaded France and the defense collapsed, on 12 June 1940 Arthur Dallidet, Jeanjean, Georgette Cadras, Jeannette Tétard and Claudine Chomat left Paris for the south and met Benoit Frachon in Haute-Vienne.

[12] After the armistice of 22 June 1940 the PCF leaders denounced the imperialist war, called for peace and concentrated on opposition to the Vichy government.

[14][c] Negotiations with the Germans had stalled and a directive of the Communist International had told them to cease, signed by Maurice Thorez but agreed by the French delegation of André Marty, Raymond Guyot and Arthur Ramette.

[1] Tillon became the third member of the secretariat, with Jacques Duclos and Benoît Frachon, and was put in charge of military matters.

In a report to Duclos dated 26 February 1941 Dallidet attacked Tréand, accusing him of "travail de groupe", an extreme offense in a Stalin-dominated party.

[18] About the time of the Barbès shooting[d] in August 1941 the PCF Opérations Spéciales, the Batallions de le Jeunesse and the Main-d'œuvre immigrée merged to form the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) led by Pierre Villon.

[13] The FTP's mandate was to sabotage railways and factories, punish collaborators and assassinate German soldiers.

[22] Dallidet was executed by a German firing squad on 30 May 1942 at Fort Mont-Valérien, Paris, along with Félix Cadras, Louis Salomon and Jacques Decour.