The fact is that, despite contemporary French claims to the contrary, Communism exerted but little influence on the F.L.N. war effort. As Abbas told a French Marxist towards the end of the war, "these Communists give people bread to eat, and that's good; but man does not live by bread alone. We're Muslims, you see, we believe in God, we want to elevate their minds; the mind must be nourished too." Marxist materialism was at least as alien to the F.L.N. ethos as were other external Arab ideologies such as Moroccan monarchism, Tunisian Bourguibism, or Egyptian Nasserism. The F.L.N. had always been quite unyielding in never accepting Communists into their ranks as a "block membership"; if they came, they came as individuals, forswearing all former allegiances. The Communist world was, if anything, more exploited than exploiting; as Edgar O'Ballance aptly remarks: "The F.L.N. outsmarted the Communists all along the line by taking all it could from them, and then playing them off at their own game."

XREF: Connects to broader Cold War historiography about Communist-aligned anti-colonial movements, where this complicates the simple story of Moscow backing Third World liberation.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1247