Chapter 47: Necessity Drives the Comecon

Among the grand nobility of Turin, there was also a family that had risen in modern times—an industrial capitalist family in American terms, or an industrial noble family in the parlance of European monarchies.

That was the Agnelli family, which controlled Fiat. The stamping presses dismantled from the Fiat factory were likely already close to France.

When this current head of the Agnelli family appeared, Koman looked at him with unhurried ease and went straight to the point. "I am sure Mr. Agnelli is aware of the current momentum of the Italian Communist Party. French forces currently control several northwestern regions, and I believe Mr. Agnelli has a basis for cooperation with France."

Koman's strategy depended entirely on who he happened to see last. He could be a modernist devotee, an internationalist comrade to the Italian Communists, or play the role of a capitalist's friend—what was so strange about that?

Agnelli gave the young French officer in front of him a long, deep look, showing not a trace of panic as he said, "Can a junior officer discuss matters of this magnitude?"

"Whether an officer is junior depends on the scale of benefits they can deliver, not on empty talk," Koman replied lightly. "When the Agnelli family rose to prominence after securing its foothold in the automotive industry, I trust you were not given too much trouble by those old nobility at the time?"

Although the fall of the French mainland had not yet fully played out, this crisis was an opportunity for a reshuffling of the deck. As long as Koman avoided committing treasonous mistakes that could never be washed clean, there would be a place for him regardless of whether the regime became the Fourth Republic or the Third Reich.

He had already seized the opportunity to jump from major to general; could anyone possibly send him back from general to major?

Different industries required different approaches. After his deep conversation with Agnelli, meetings with the Furnetti family representing the financial sector, the Alfieri family from the diplomatic sphere, and the Valentino family of major landowners consumed an entire day.

By evening, Koman appeared at the command post to send his routine safety report via telegraph. In times like these, when power was up for grabs, it would be foolish not to leverage such connections.

The tracks of the tanks plunging down from the Ardennes mountains had not yet ceased their roar, yet the French sector remained tranquil as planners drafted the offensive against the Saar region.

Preventing interference from other nations' armies was easy enough for veteran generals: one simply had to occupy all the designated assembly areas for the offensive into the Saar with French troops, leaving neither the British nor the American forces any room to intervene.

Koman's approach to religious figures and aristocrats was a form of fishing, aimed at a particular political party in the contemporary Kingdom of Italy: the Christian Democracy.

At present, the Christian Democracy was merely a political party that had been reorganized just a year prior. In Italian politics, it was still thoroughly unremarkable, lacking the overwhelming dominance where the party overshadowed the state.

According to future developments, the Christian Democracy would struggle for another two years, unable to gain an advantage over the left-wing forces including the Italian Communist Party and the Socialist Party, until the United States passed the Marshall Plan in 1947, establishing the strategy of supporting Western European nations to resist the Soviet Union. Only then would it receive the aid needed to merge other political factions and suppress the Italian Communists.

In terms of strength, the Christian Democracy of this period was far from a match for the Italian Communists. America's status as a global hegemon had arrived somewhat serendipitously; as a newly minted global power, its reservoir of experienced talent was incapable of making accurate judgments regarding Europe's traditional imperialist powers.

Therefore, when the war ended in 1945, the consensus within the United States was that Western European traditional imperialist powers did not need support; their own inherent strength would be sufficient to resist the Soviet Union.

The United States only needed to maintain free trade, allowing it to reap the rewards without incurring additional expenditures.

Yet it was evident that the imperialist powers, battered by two world wars, were truly forces of a bygone era, lagging hardly at all behind the unremarkable nations of Eastern Europe in postwar reconstruction. Only then did the United States begin injecting capital through the Marshall Plan; otherwise, failing even to outpace the economic levels of the East, Europe might genuinely have turned completely red.

Since the Christian Democracy occupied the ecological niche of religion, big capitalists, and grand nobility, and currently possessed only ordinary strength, Koman had no need to actively seek out the party. By seizing control of its electoral base, the Christian Democracy would naturally come knocking on his door of its own accord.

In the French capital of Paris, despite the enthusiastic reporting on the Ardennes, the internal political and military atmosphere remained business as usual. This sentiment was most clearly embodied by General Delargon, commander of the First Army.

General Delargon was widely regarded as a conservative officer, rarely voicing his opinions before others had spoken. Yet this time, he proactively sought out De Gaulle. "As a soldier, I ought not to express views on foreign affairs, but whether in the Mediterranean or within the sphere of Latin nations, France should take the initiative regarding Italy."

"Is your super-genius not currently in Turin?" De Gaulle smiled and replied, "It seems he has reported on the latest developments in Italy in meticulous detail. Perhaps we should indeed dispatch a senior civil servant to inspect the occupied zone; we cannot expect the military to resolve every single problem."

"That would be for the best," General Delargon said with a sigh of relief. "We find ourselves at a most critical juncture. The Anglo-American and Soviet spheres of influence are becoming unstoppable, and France must find its own place in the world."

De Gaulle nodded gravely. By this point, many in the French high command were well aware of the situation. While they could huddle together with the British for warmth, who could say whether the British were reliable? Based on his own experience of exile in London, reliability was the least of the British problems—maintaining their own independence was a struggle in itself.

At the Italian Communist Party congress, Koman listened as General Secretary Togliatti praised the Soviet model. Much like the French Communist Party's supreme leader Maurice Thorez, Togliatti had also returned from exile in Moscow and gone back to Sicily to organize an armed uprising.

The primary base of support for the Italian Communists lay in southern Italy. However, the differences between northern and southern Italy remained quite profound, and the Communists could hardly turn a blind eye to the core industrial regions of northern Italy.

Thus, as soon as Turin and Genoa were liberated through coordinated internal and external actions with the French forces, Togliatti had arrived immediately.

"Sir, is this an Italian meeting or a Soviet meeting?" Lefebvre could not help asking. Watching Togliatti extol the virtues of the Soviet model, he found it incomprehensible.

"That hardly matters; Paris discusses five-year plans as well," Koman replied in a low voice. "The methods are universal. There is no reason the Soviets can use them that we cannot."

In truth, Koman was already mentally preparing to implement operations akin to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. As the saying went: when impoverished, establish COMECON; when prosperous, administer the Marshall Plan.

Was he supposed to idle away two years doing nothing, just waiting for the Americans to figure things out and descend in the posture of saviors?

"Long live!" While the two men were conversing, Togliatti must have said something else, as an explosion of cheers erupted throughout the hall. Many delegates attending the conference applauded loudly, and Koman found his mind blank as he clapped along. Fortunately, the hall was crowded, and no one paid attention to a few French soldiers in the corner masquerading as proletarians.