Paul Vaillant-Couturier

He joined the French Section of the Workers' International in 1916, and was a member of the party's internationalist left wing.

He wrote of his experiences during the war in several of his works, such as La Guerre des soldats and Une permission de détente from 1919 and in the poetry collection Trains rouges from 1923.

Vaillant-Couturier was re-elected a deputy for Paris in 1924 and served as editor in chief of L'Humanité, the central organ of the PCF, between 1926 and 1929 and again from 1935 until his death in 1937.

In 1933 he visited the Far East and met with Ho Chi Minh and other members of the Comintern's Far Eastern apparatus in Shanghai.

As a journalist, Vaillant-Couturier made trips to China and Spain before his sudden death in 1937; his funeral was attended by thousands of people.

Paul Vaillant-Couturier in 1921
Vaillant-Couturier speaking during a demonstration, 1922
Postcard presenting Paul Vaillant-Couturier, published in 1937 by the newspaper l'Humanité.
Paul Vaillant-Couturier by the sculptor Victor Nicolas (plaster model, 1950).