Henri Ursin Clément Martin (; 23 January 1927 – 17 February 2015) was a political activist of the French Communist Party and former sailor famous for the political-military scandal called the Henri Martin affair, in which the government of the French Fourth Republic meted out a five-year prison sentence to him for distributing pamphlets in opposition to the First Indochina War.Free Henri Martin by historian Alain Ruscio in French communist newspaper L'Humanité, August 2nd 2003 He was born in Lunery, Cher and died in Pantin.

Early life

Family Henri Martin was born Henri Ursin Clement Martin on January 23, 1927, in Rosieres, an industrial part of Lunery a commune in the Loire region in central France. His father worked as a balance-adjuster but later in life became municipal council and deputy mayor of his region. Martin's mother was a pious woman who made sure her children had a religious education from which Martin became an altar boy within the Catholic Church at the age of five. Martin was recorded as being a studious, straight-arrow, shy child who suffered from asthma. His asthma was severe enough that he had a delicate childhood where he was surrounded by constant care as his family was in fear of the results of his violent asthma attacks. Martin said of his padded childhood, “Je n’avais rien d’un dur” which translates to “I had nothing hard”.

Origins in radical politics With such a sheltered childhood, Martin spent most of his hours at the house of his elderly neighbor who had served in the ranks of the Communist Party during the Congress of Tours. The old woman recounted her life to Martin including her political battles and the steps taken by the labor movement. It's recorded that Martin enjoyed her company and absorbed everything that she told him about the world. She taught him what she referred to as “sa propre histoire” which really meant the history of his class. Martin learned quickly that he was the son of a laborer and was himself a future laborer. From his early years, Martin was familiar with the language and dialectics of the Communist Party. To Martin, Communism wasn't a new political movement but an ancient one as he had learned of it from someone he viewed as ancient herself. In that perspective, Martin didn't see the politics as truly radical but as time-tested and true. From that old woman's mouth, Martin learned the mythic, holy, and true history of the proletariat. It was at this point that his upbringing in the Church overlapped with that of his informal Communist education. The language of the church assured Martin that he was a child of God but the language of Communism gave him an equally impressive lineage as a royal child of the Third Republic, a citizen, who was at birth destined to serve a cause.

Military As a natural progression from his informal education in radical politics, Martin joined the French Communist Party early on and prioritized the cause. During World War II, Martin entered the French Resistance to liberate France from the Nazis within the ranks of Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) who were generally oriented around communism. In the realm of left-wing, communist movements, there sometimes rises up a cause that is evil enough to assuage and bridge the bourgeoisie-proletariat relationship. For France, this evil cause that initiated momentary reconciliation was the Nazis.Hampton, Joseph B. The Political Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick, 1959. The French were victims of foreign occupation by the Germans leading to the natural rise in anticolonial sentiments. This feeling of momentary pause to the bourgeoisie-proletariat struggle along with convictions against authoritarian foreign powers persuaded young Martin to sign up with the French Navy in 1945 on a five-year contract to fight against the imperial Japanese in the Pacific Theatre during WWII.

And yet, 1945 was a seminal year for Japan as 2 September 1945 witnessed the formal surrender of Imperial Japan. And so, this young soldier had signed away five years of his life to a cause that ended shortly after signing. Instead of Imperial Japan, young Martin was sent to Indochina to participate in military operations and battles against native uprisings and more specifically the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the newly inaugurated communist-led party in North Vietnam. It was during Martin's deployment in November 1946 that he witnessed the violent Haiphong Incident colloquially dubbed the “Haiphong massacres”.Olson, Charles W. Decolonization in French Politics (1950-1956): Indochina, Tunisia, Morocco, Northern Illinois University, 1966. This was the last straw for young Martin and many other soldiers. Martin was not alone in his distaste for the war in Indochina. The French had experienced personally the effects of colonial conflict and so many soldiers saw their actions in the French military in Indochina as either active or passive involvement in the colonization of a foreign peoples.Edwards, Maura K. Le Mal Jaune: The Memory of the Indochina War in France, 1954-2006, University of Toronto (Canada), 2010. French statesman Maurice Viollette summarizes the appeal for the war in Indochina by comparing it to that of "Dying for Danzig" during WWII that is to say, it was not highly popular.

Thoroughly appalled by what he deemed a war of oppression, Martin requested repatriation and was denied multiple times until 1947 after which he quickly returned to France, still a member of the French military.Arthur, Susan P. Unfinished Projects: Decolonization and the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, 1945-1980, University of California, Berkeley, 2004. Soon after, in May 1949, when the PCF had been kicked out of the French government in an official capacity, they began their boisterous campaign slogan, “Not one more man not one more penny for the war in Indochina.” Attracted to their strong anticolonial stance, Martin took up stronger support to the PCF and began secretly campaigning himself among his military peers against the colonial presence in Indochina.

The Henri Martin affair

Contemporary context Henri Martin was born a citizen of the Third Republic but by the time of the Indochina War and his celebrity-making incident, Martin was a military member and citizen of the Fourth Republic. The republic was struggling ideologically under leadership that were, by precedent, either pro-Germany or followed Petain in nationalism and conservatism. De Gaulle had departed, there was serious public fear of Soviet invasion, unrest in the colonies and tedious international diplomacy. The period of 1945-1954 was a period particularly unstable and divisive in French history. The political divide in France, at this time, was largely due to the Indochina War, the topic which was the cause for the ousting of the French Communist Party (PCF; Parti communiste français) out of any official capacity of governance. The PCF was not a fringe party but highly supported especially during the postwar period. Without an official seat in government, the PCF increased their protest launching their banner in May 1949, “Not one more man, not one more penny for the war in Indochina”. Even with a fairly disengaged public there was a significant population willing to commit seriously to protesting the Indochina War. All of the “sale guerre” or “dirty war” talk instigated plenty of citizenry action from handing out tracts and antiwar articles to even dock workers who refused to load military equipment headed for the war effort. These dock worker strikes started in late 1949 and continued into 1950 with a high concentration among the dockers of the port of Marseilles. It was the strikes that made the government nervous in recognizing the possible military and national security threat of the refusal. In March 1950 the government passed a law against “acts of sabotage against army equipment, those who obstruct free movement of military equipment, and those who undertake the demoralization of the army.” With this law enacted, the government had outlined authority to target and arrest an increasing number of protestors.

The incident

Martin returned stateside, as requested, in July 1949 to be stationed at the naval dockyard in Toulon. He continued his efforts against what he called the imperial venture in the Indochina war in inciting his fellow soldiers on base, handing out pamphlets, and even targeted new recruits to turn their opinion against the military's efforts in the Indochina War. With the new law in effect in 1950, Martin was among some of the firsts arrests in March 1950, including the equally notorious Raymonde Dien; all were taken in for demoralizing efforts against the military and the government of France. As it follows, Martin was arrested by the military authorities and held until his hearing by a military tribunal in Toulon in October 1950 under the charges of distribution of anti war pamphlets and the attempted sabotage of the Dixmude aircraft carrier. His charge for the sabotage of the Dixmude was shared with 20-year-old Charles Heimburger as they were second master mechanics that could have had access to the ship to throw a handful of emery stone in the oil bath of the propeller shaft of Dixmude. The morning of his trial, there were people everywhere around the courthouse. People were coming in on buses, people were standing on chairs giving impromptu speeches, the city was covered in graffiti and posters, even an effigy of Martin himself. Walkouts were happening at workshops all over the city, car parades, rallies and open air meetings, all for the purpose of political awareness and freeing Henri Martin. At 9 am that morning, a 24-year-old Martin arrived, surrounded by gendarmes, dressed in his dark sailor's uniform, and was described as wearing a young and moreover friendly face. When he entered the courtroom, though it was packed with lawyers, journalists, and witnesses, there was an immediate and impressive silence. Martin's father, who had come in from Cher, sat on the front row bench with Martin's sister and fiancé (there was also the noticeable presence of Communist activists.) Even with the clear lack of evidence and Martin vehemently denying the latter accusation of the Dixmude, though admitting to the former, Martin was sentenced to five years in prison and dishonorably discharged from the French Navy. The judgement was ultimately quashed but Martin appeared again in July 1951 before the Brest maritime tribunal, which pronounced the same sentence against him.

Public reaction The French public had not been readily interested in discussions surrounding anti-imperialism and the war in Indochina until they had Henri Martin as a national symbol of the struggle against imperialism. Martin quickly became a celebrity and a popular cause for antiwar protesters and left leaning intellectuals. The trial and the support of cultural icons, intellectual forerunners, and the PCF together publicized the "mains sales" or the dirty hands narrative of the Indochina War which indicted France as oppressor and colonizer. The public rallied behind Martin in reaction and in parallel to the public contributions of artists, intellectuals, and communist party spokesmen. There were street parades, graffiti, signage, petitions, balloons plastered with Martin's name, streets renamed, and leaflets handed out for months after Martin's arrest all with the same messages: "Liberez Henri Martin" and "Paix au Vietnam". The French public which had previously been so disinterested was now fully mobilized for the cause of Henri Martin and against France's imperialistic efforts in Vietnam.

The Communist Party