was compounded by some uncertainty on the part of the instrument that was supposed to realise those aims, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Traditionally, a centralised Marxist-Leninist party exercising a 'leading role' in the society had been taken as the single most important characteristic of a communist system. The role of a party of this kind, however, became more difficult to sustain in a society in which a wide range of political forces had taken advantage of the opportunities of 'socialist pluralism'.accompany him on a massed parade down the Champs-Élysées, "as much for prestige as for security". This was in spite of the fact that Leclerc's unit was fighting as part of the American 1st Army and were under strict orders to continue their next objective without obeying orders from anyone else. In the event, the American General Omar Bradley decided that Leclerc's division would be indispensable for the maintenance of order and the liquidation of the last pockets of resistance in the French capital. Earlier, on 21 August, de Gaulle had appointed his military advisor General Marie-Pierre Koenig as Governor of Paris.

As his procession came along the Place de la Concorde on Saturday 26 August, it came under machine gun fire by Vichy militia and fifth columnists who