This article considers Sartre's relations with the French Communist Party (PCF) in the years immediately following the Liberation when the PCF considered that, of all the prominent French intellectuals, it was Sartre who posed the greatest threat. This article opens by situating the PCF within the French political landscape immediately after the Liberation and addressing its attitudes towards intellectuals. It then examines the main themes of the attacks launched by the PCF, between 1944 and the staging of Les Mains sales (Dirty Hands) in 1948, on both Sartre and existentialism and the reasons for these attacks. It concludes by noting the differences between the PCF and Sartre on three specific political issues during this period.
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The 'Anti-Existentialist Offensive': The French Communist Party against Sartre (1944-1948)
David Drake
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jul 2010
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 69–94 (26 total)
Political and Narrative Ambiguities in La Bataille du Rail
Silvie Lindeperg
Unanimously celebrated as an authentic representation of French railroad workers' resistance against the Germans during the Occupation, René Clément's La Bataille du rail (The Battle of the Rails, 1945) was a valuable piece of ideological capital in the wake of France's liberation. Through a close reading of the film's production and reception, this article shows that the film's heroic blueprinting of the Resistance was the result of mediation between two opposing points of view: that of the Marxist Left, which sought to portray the Resistance as belonging to the working class, and that of the Gaullists, who were intent on promoting the myth of an idealized "True France" without class or ideological divisions and united in its opposition to the Germans.
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2009
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 142–162 (21 total)
Aimé Césaire's Break from the Parti communiste français
Nouveaux élans, nouveaux défis
Thomas A. Hale and Kora Véron
Aimé Césaire's dramatic break from the French Communist Party in 1956 raises questions not only about the reasons for his resignation, but more importantly, about how he overcame the negative consequences of the rupture to give a new impetus to his career as the principal political leader in Martinique. A close examination of his writings from 1945 to 1959, based especially on his lesser-known declarations, essays, interviews, and speeches, as well as on his more widely-disseminated poetry and history, reveals a more nuanced explanation for the rupture. Above all, these texts offer new insights into how he was able to recover his political momentum by building new alliances both at home and abroad.
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2009
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 47–62 (16 total)
Interview with Baru
Part 1
Mark McKinney and Hervé (Baru) Barulea
Hervé Barulea (b. 1947), known as Baru, is a French cartoonist of Italian and Breton heritage, who has spent much of his life in the metalworking region around Nancy, in northeastern France, his birthplace. He outlines his approach to comics, beginning with his vision of comics as essentially being images that speak to primal human urges. He finds this kind of imagery today mainly in American movies and novels, but not so much in American comics. He describes his tenure as president of the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée ['International Festival of Comics'] in Angoulême in January 2011, after having won the grand prize for his career's work in comics at the same festival in 2010. Baru then speaks of his approach to history and current events in his comics. He outlines how he has depicted immigrants of European and African heritage in his comics, and then explains why he has often returned to the Algerian War. Baru ends this first half of the interview by describing his views of the French Communist Party, and explaining his critical depiction of it in Les années Spoutnik ['The Spoutnik Years'].
Dressing the Modern Jewish Communist Girl in Interwar Paris
Nick Underwood
On 24 March 1935, Naye prese , the Yiddish-language daily newspaper of the Jewish section of the French Communist Party (PCF), ran a small ad for a women’s tailor on 10, rue des Filles du Calvaire in Paris’ tenth arrondissement that reads, “Working
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2016
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 86–103 (18 total)
Revisiting Existential Marxism
A Reply to Alfred Betschart
Ronald Aronson
Critique show that the sclerosis stemmed from the Bolshevik Revolution. Sartre's other studies of the time had also looked at other aspects of the sclerosis, including the bureaucratic French Communist party and its political timidity, and Soviet imperial
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Reply
- Pages:
- 92–98 (7 total)
Book Reviews
Julia Elsky, Charles Keith, John Shovlin, and Daniel Williford
performance, when seen alongside a 1936 issue of the French Communist Party's organ the Naye prese that featured the lyrics of the song, shows how the chorus “reinforced larger French, Jewish, and antifascist community building initiatives” (156). The
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2023
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 117–128 (12 total)
Gender, Empire, and the Politics of Regeneration
Christopher E. Forth
provided a kind of bridge between extremes. The fact that even the French Communist Party promoted a “radical masculinity with violent overtones” (70) leads Read to eschew explanations that focus solely on ideological grounds. Rather, as time went on disen
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2018
- Article Type:
- Review Article
- Pages:
- 149–156 (8 total)
L'écriture et le parti
Jorge Semprún's Lasting Experience of Communism
Donald Reid
Czech Communist leader in the camp, Josef Frank, to arrange the escape of a resister that the French Communist Party in the camp requested, without going through the German Communist camp hierarchy. 15 Semprún was quite aware that having an office job
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2022
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 51–72 (22 total)
Introduction
France’s Great War from the Edge
Susan B. Whitney
leaders, creating strategic opportunities for Lenin and the Soviet Communists. Ho Chi Minh never got his meeting with Wilson, but he was welcomed in the new French Communist Party. The transformative powers of World War I were global
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2020
- Article Type:
- Introduction
- Pages:
- 1–8 (8 total)