"Comme beaucoup d’autres, ce jeune instituteur est très préoccupé par l’engagement politique".

Lagarrigue adds that Guingouin, as leader of the campaign in Haute-Vienne, earned himself the nomination to the federal committee, then to the regional office of the PCF.

He sustained an eyebrow injury on 18 June 1940, and was cared for in the Moulins military hospital in Allier, which he left voluntarily in order to avoid being taken prisoner.

In September 1940, recalled from his teaching functions, he got back in contact with the underground communist party machinery and became federal secretary of Haute-Vienne.

During the night of 30 September to 1 October, Guingouin organised the first armed requisitioning of ration cards, which would earn him a forced labour sentence in absentia at the hands of a military court in January 1942.

Certain types of operations under his command led to him being titled "prefect" of the maquis: in December 1942, he attempted to put a stop to hay and wheat requisitioning by blowing up the baler at Eymoutiers.

In February 1943, he carried out a solo operation to break into a German ammunition warehouse disguised as a woman to hide his identity.

As "prefect of the maquis", he regulated agricultural sales as well as boltage rates for bread manufacturing in order to counter the black market and fraud.

At the beginning of June 1944, Guingouin was ordered to take Limoges by Léon Mauvais, an important communist party official and head of the FTP in the zone Sud.

In support of his decision he cited the tragic example of the premature liberation of Tulle, where, in reprisals, 99 men had been hanged from balconies on the main road of the city, and 101 others deported.

On 21 August, Guingouin encircled Limoges, and received from Jean d'Albis the surrender of General Gleiniger's men, with minimal bloodshed.

According to Henri Amouroux, Guingouin had "45 people tried and sentenced to death in a week, of whom only one escaped", and that the first to be accused did not have anyone represent them in defense,[4] and "worked from six to twelve hours per day, including Saturday and Sunday."

Guingouin was also accused of acquiring loot from a former youth work camp at Chamberet which would result in 6 executions, including three members of the Armée secrète.

On 19 May the same year, the appeals court of Grenoble gave a judgment condemning in particularly strong terms the paper L'Époque which 17 months previously had accused Guingouin of terrible crimes.

This was illusory, however, as he was still the subject of sly attacks; he was always being criticised for having disobeyed party orders in not taking Limoges by force in June 1944.

Guingouin himself was eventually affected; ordered to submit to party decisions, he gave up his "permanent" status and asked for reinstatement in education.

In a public meeting in September 1952 at Nantiat, Jaqcues Duclos personally associated himself with some of the charges previously reported in L'Époque relating to "war booty" which Guingouin had allegedly used to his advantage.

In their report, they testified to traces of the abuse which Guingouin had undergone, and wrote that Gungouin's state evoked real concern for his life.

Only then did the public prosecutor conclude that: "in all conscience, I cannot understand why proceedings were taken against Georges Guingouin".On 21 November 2001, at a conference before history professors of the Aube, Guingouin described the events: "arrested on Christmas eve 1953, held in Brive prison, I underwent such abuse that two times I ran the road of those sufferers who see their entire life before them in their last moments before the dazzling light."

In 1985, the extreme-right publication Le Crapouillot, published by Minute took up some of the accusations which had been previously leveled at Guingouin, alleging that he had been responsible for some of the summary executions which had taken place in the Limoges region.

(May the people of Limousin, the Occitans, refuse the distorted mirror that is on offer, and regain their historic heritage) - Discourse at Le Vigen on the 22 August 1982.