Georges Guingouin

Georges Guingouin (2 February 1913, Magnac-Laval in Haute-Vienne, France – 27 October 2005, Troyes, France) was a French Communist Party (PCF) militant who played a leading role in the French resistance as head of the Maquis du Limousin. He was controversial as a result of extortion committed under his authority during the épuration sauvage in Limousin during 1944.

Guingouin's father, a career non-commissioned officer, was killed at Bapaume in 1914. His mother was the daughter of a ceramics worker; she was the headmistress of a primary school. Guingouin was initially a pupil at the école primaire supérieure at Bellac, and was then admitted to the école normale d'instituteurs teacher training school at Limoges. After his military service, he was appointed as a teacher at Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts in 1935.

"Comme beaucoup d’autres, ce jeune instituteur est très préoccupé par l’engagement politique". Guingouin belonged to the communist party, becoming secretary of the Eymoutiers section which encompassed five rural cantons. He wrote articles about foreign politics in the party weekly, Le Travailleur du Centre. The historian Max Lagarrigue observed that rural communism was in a vigorous state at that time, thanks to the country leaders of the PCF, Renaud Jean and Marius Vazeilles, and that it made a good showing in the 1936 vote, with many rural candidates elected. Lagarrigue adds that Guingouin, as leader of the campaign in Haute-Vienne, earned himself the nomination to the federal committee, then to the regional office of the PCF.

Guingouin was mobilised in the rank of second class in 1939. He sustained an eyebrow injury on 18 June 1940, and was cared for in the Moulins military hospital in Allier, which he left voluntarily in order to avoid being taken prisoner. On returning to Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts, he secretly went back to his activities as a communist fighter, and wrote in 1940 a "call to the struggle". In September 1940, recalled from his teaching functions, he got back in contact with the underground communist party machinery and became federal secretary of Haute-Vienne. However, he decided not to circulate the 9th issue of the "Life of the party" communist party bulletin, which declared "We must be without hate towards the German soldiers. We are against de Gaulle and the capitalist clan whose interests are linked to Vichy

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