Even among the exuberant political beards of France, the beard of Socialist René Marx Dormoy was something special. Its grizzled fullness was a godsend to cartoonists in the days of the Popular Front, when Dormoy as Minister of the Interior was making things hot for the Croix de Feu and the Cagoulards (Hooded Ones), a reactionary Gallic Ku Klux Klan.
Son of a Socialist father, Marx Dormoy remained as uncompromising as his namesake, made lasting enemies among Communists and pro-Nazis. He denounced Pétain in the Chamber of Deputies after the fall of France, agitated for a return of democracy. Interned last autumn,...
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