Vassar Quarterly, Volume XLIX, Number 2, 1 December 1963
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The Long Courtship: Marxism and French Literature
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The Long Courtship: Marxism and French Literature
by Pierre A. G. Astier
The first time Marxism was alluded to in French literature was in Emile Zola’s novel, Germinal, published in 1885; that is, two years after Karl Marx’s death and almost forty years after the publication of The Communist Manifesto. In Germinal, the “social question” so dear to Zola was centered on a coal miners’ strike and struggle, and the book triggered a whole series of novels—by Zola himself and by others—in which similar social and political issues were raised, along with the implicit or explicit queston of to be or not to be a Marxist. Although Marxism, as a literary theme, was thus introduced by Zola and was to play an important part on the French literary scene ever since, the frictions and misunderstandings that characterized its first contact with French literature have continued until the present time. Actually, in spite of its strong impact, Marxism was never able to capture and control the major literary currents in France because, as we shall see, socialist thinking among the most talented French writers has always led them into a deadlock: on the one hand, the willingness to accept the materialistic principles of Marxism, but on the other hand, the incapacity to abandon some of the humanistic values inherited from an idealistic tradition. Considering such a basic incompatibility, it should not seem too surprising that when French writers have tried to mix Marxism with literature, one of two things was bound to happen: either their work was literary to the extent that it was not Marxist, or it was indeed Marxist but was no longer literary. One might ask of course: why should French writers have taken so much interest in Marxism? The answer could very well be this one: the chief attraction of Marxism for many French writers lay not so much in its philosophical, economical or even social implications, but in the very idea of Revolution which it evoked for them, an idea which they linked to their ever-cherished desire to change the world through a literary revolution of their own. In this brief survey of the relationship between Marxism and French literature, we shall consider three major periods in the history of French letters; that of Naturalism, dominated by Emile Zola in the late 19th century; that of Surrealism, between 1920 and 1940; that of Existentialism, during and after the Second World War.
When Zola timidly opened the door to Marxism in Germinal, French literature had already been quite hospitable to many socialistic ideas, but not to the kind of “modern Socialism” advocated by Marx and Engels. Without going as far back as Rousseau’s idyllic Socialism, let us mention in the 19th century only George Sand’s novels between 1840 and 1848, and of course Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables in 1862. Hugo had been one of the leading spokesmen on the literary level for a humanitarian Socialism which such French socialistic thinkers as Saint-Simon, Fourier or Proudhon had expressed more elaborately (and with slight differences between them) in their theoretical works. It should be noted at this point that Marx and Engels did pay tribute to these early forms of what they called the “French Utopian Socialism,” but the latter was for them only a stepping stone toward their own “Scientific Socialism.” Consequently, they rather despised such a writer as Eugene Sue whose famous novel, The Mysteries of Paris, did not even try to go beyond a sort of sentimental interest in the poor people’s miseries, and which, under cover of the most sympathetic descriptions, was actually preaching a virtuous resignation to the “exploited” classes. t the time when Marx was trying to formulate to ■*“ himself his own theories, and later when Marxism slowly began to spread in France, one of the most popular forms of Socialism was that of Proudhon. In 1844, Marx had met Proudhon into whom he had attempted, in vain, to inject some of his Hegelian philosophy. When Proudhon, in 1846, sent to Marx a copy of his work, The Philosophy of Misery, asking for Marx’s critical comments, he got them the following year in the form of a book entitled The Misery of Philosophy! That was, of course, the end of the personal relationship between Marx and Proudhon, and an aggravation, on the political stage, of the misunderstanding between Marxists and French Socialist Utopians. Besides the French Socialists like Proudhon, Marx had to fight off also the followers of Bakunin, an
anarchist whom Marx had met and with whom he quickly discovered he had very little in common. The Bakuninists were expelled from the International in 1872, but they kept on competing with the Marxists to win over the French workers, and to influence the French writers’ ideas about social revolutions. It was, then, against this already old background of conflicting ideologies that Zola wrote Germinal. This novel not only described the daily miseries and the terrible working conditions of coal miners in Northern France, but it went into great detail about the organization of their strike, from the first outburst of their rebellion to their subsequent defeat. Furthermore, it ended on a note of pity for all those who had died, and on a note of hope that their deaths might not have been in vain, but rather the first seeds of a future better society. Thus, at first glance, Germinal could appear as the work of some Marxist agitator preaching revolt to the proletarians. It might even be said that Zola expressed the fight between workers and owners in truly Marxist terms, since the characters ir the novel are but the representatives of the two main conflicting forces: Capital and Labor. However, this is also where the resemblance between Marxism and Germinal stops, for this novel—in Zola’s own words—was not a work aimed at arousing revolutionary instincts but “une oeuvre de pitie”: it was not an appeal to the workers to wage a class struggle, but a plea to workers and employers alike not to fight each other, but to try instead, patiently and intelligently, to understand each other’s problems and reach a peaceful agreement. Zola’s approach to the solution of social problems was obviously im-Marxist, but it was not really antiMarxist. Indeed, considering the three major strike leaders in the story, it seems evident that, although our full sympathy, as readers, should go to Rasseneur, the advocate of peaceful, progressive and mutual agreement, we are led by the author to the conclusion that, if worst came to worst, we would he better off with pro-Marxist Etienne Lantier than with antiMarxist Souvarinne, a partisan of Bakunin. In order to understand Zola’s uncertain but relatively favorable position regarding Marxism, one has to take into account two important factors. First, the fact that Naturalism, as conceived by Zola, was a literary movement based on the idea that literature should be both social and scientific. That is to say, plots in plays and in novels should develop according to proven or provable physiological laws, as far as characters were concerned, and, on the social level, they should lead the reader to the conclusion that the existing form of society was a disaster, and therefore should and could be changed into a better one through a scientific method. Secondly, a close look should be taken at the very sources from which Zola drew his documentation on Marxism. It is true that lie had read (at least rapidly) some of Marx’s works, but his main informant was Jules Guesde, a politician who as a faithful Proudhonian, had fought the rise of Marxism, but became a convinced Marxist around 1883, two years before Germinal’s publication. When Zola met him, Guesde was a Marxist neophyte and, as
such, had a tendency to jump to hasty conclusions. He must have tried to convert Zola to Marxism by stressing to him Marx’s ultimate ideal of a peaceful socialistic paradise, rather than Marx’s bellicose practical means to achieve it. Both factors must have played equally upon Zola’s over-imaginative mind, for he came out of his interview with Guesde filled with the most confused notions about Marxism. What impressed him above all was: first, the Marxists’ conviction that the evolution of society was inevitable because it was controlled by historical laws, scientifically elaborated and consequently always verifiable. Secondly, he was really carried away by Guesde’s entranced description of a new mechanized era, a “Golden Age” where everyone would be “working less and enjoying themselves more, cultivating the arts, idling, feasting, and making lov while the machines do the work.” This simplified version of Marxism was actually close enough to French traditional Socialism so that Zola must have had the impression that if the Marxists were just a bit less intent on violent means and a bit more, concerned with their Grand Finale, they would discover that a good old French Socialist like Fourier, for example, had already thought out a similar system at the beginning of the 19th century. As a matter of fact, to Zola, such a system as Fourier’s should even be better than theirs, because it was designed to achieve, in all peacefulness, more feasible purposes. Consequently, Zola endeavored in his later novels to offer—as answers to the social problems—solutions which he thought were highly practical, but which, in fact, were getting more and more utopian as they got farther and farther away from basic Marxism. Tn L’Argent (1891), Marxism as seen and judged by A Zola (too brutal as a revolutionary movement and too idealistic as a system) was presented in such away that the whole novel was dismissed by the critic Paul Lefargue as a ridiculous piece of argumentation againt Marxism. Now, Lafargue had certainly good reason to condemn Zola, since he was doubly a Marxist himself, first by espousing Marx’s doctrine, and secondly by marrying one of Marx’s daughters. Zola’s next “socialistic” novel was Paris (1898) . It formed part of a trilogy entitled Three Cities, the other two volumes being Lourdes and Rome. In these three novels, Zola tells the story of a priest, Father Pierre Froment, whose ideology is a mixture of scientific Socialism (vaguely inspired by Marx), and of a humanitarian Socialism mostly inspired by Lemennais, a 19th century evangelist whose motto was “God and Liberty.” Father Froment is thus caught between social and religious problems. Unable to solve them by himself, he first goes to Lourdes, the city of miracles, where he finds no answer. He then proceeds to Rome, where he not only finds nothing but even loses faith. Finally, he comes to Paris where he does find a possible solution: a form of Socialism considered as a new form of religion, Paris was thus Zola’s way of showing that, as he put it: “The social movement is bound to
absorb the religious movement; religion will have to be social religion.” Zola’s last socialistic novel was Travail published in 1901, one year before his death, and fifteen years after his first encounter with Marxist Jules Guesde. Zola’s ideas of Socialism had now reached their full maturity, and having had the opportunity (while exiled in London because of his activity in the Dreyfus case) to re-read the works of Fourier, he became entirely convinced that Fourierism was the socialistic answer to all problems. This is exactly what he undertook to prove once and for all in Travail. In this novel, Zola was not content (as in Paris) to denounce the present state of society and to suggest a possible solution. Flaving now found the solution, he described step by step the formation and the structure of the ideal society of the future . . . that is, a society such as Fourier had dreamed of some too years before. This new social organization was based on what Fourier had called “phalansteres,” or cooperative communities where the workers, being their own employers, enjoyed their work to the utmost, lived nicely with each other without ever thinking of taking advantage of their fellowmen, and without even trying to compete with each other, so as not to endanger their ultimate goal—a true general harmony and a genuine individual happiness that would surely communicate to outsiders a desire to create similar new “phalansteres” everywhere, in France, in all of Europe, and then in the rest of the world. Fourier had died before seeing his socialistic dream come true, and actually, by the time Zola published Travail , Fourierism itself was practically dead. There were still a few Fourierists around, though, and we certainly can sympathize with their enthusiasm on reading Zola’s book. They thought that thanks to
Zola’s influence and popularity, Fourierism was about to start a brand new life. So, without any further delay, they took the first (and the last) step which such a great occasion required from any good Frenchman: they set up a big banquet to celebrate. Zola did not go, but he sent his wife. As for the Marxists, of course they rejected Travail as a piece of utopian literature completely irrelevant to the true problems of society. They stressed in particular the fact that Zola’s Socialism was aimed not at a social revolution through a necessary class struggle, but at a social order through cooperation and the brotherhood of all men. What might have also disturbed the Marxists was that Zola, as a faithful Fourierist, recognized man’s emotional life, a human fact which Jacques Barzun has pointed out “had no place in scientific Socialism.” And Zola, in Travail, did indeed illustrate his belief that the individual’s passions should not be denied but used for the general good of all. One of the characters in his story is a former anarchist whose hobby was the manufacture of homemade bombs, but who, after joining the “phalanstere” (and after careful guidance), is oriented toward a more peaceful occupation: the manufacture of fragile pottery. The least that can be said is that, from the Marxists’ point of view, Zola’s socialistic evolution from Germinal in 1885 to Travail in 1901 had been going the wrong way. It is no wonder that Engels professed for the “socialist” Zola as much contempt as he and Marx had admiration for the bourgeois, catholic and monarchist Balzac. In 1888, Engels proclaimed: “Balzac is infinitely greater than all the Zolas past, preseyit and future!” Considering, then that Zola’s works have been the main source of inspiration for such later literary schools as “Populisme” and “proletarian literature,” we must conclude that, at all times, the relationship between Marxism and Naturalism has proved to be a disastrous failure: the Marxists love Balzac who described and explained so well the decadence of the bourgeois society, but they cannot have much sympathy for those authors who, like Zola, going one step further, try to push or at least to suggest some socialistic reforms of their own. 'TpHE second important phase in this relationship between Marxism and French literature coincides with the twenty-year period from 1920 to 1940, during which Surrealism, the most significant literary movement between the two World Wars, began and developed—and during which also, Surrealists and Marxists alternately fought or joined each other until both camps decided that, all in all, it was better for them to part. This final outcome might have been predicted from the very start if one considers that Surrealism developed out of Dadaism founded in 1916 by Tristan Tzara. This noisy group of anarchistic poets and artists first gathered in Zurich, right across the street from where Lenin lived when he was putting the final touch to his revolutionary plans for the following year. We may assume that Lenin did not care much, as
a neighbor at least, for the clamorous Dadaists. They, in turn, paid very little respect to Lenin’s revolutionary achievements, as can be judged from this 1920 announcement of the Dadaist political program: “No more republicans, no more democrats, no more imperialists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more bolshevists, no more proletarians, no more royalists, no more bourgeois, no more aristocrats, nothing more, nothing! nothing! nothing!” After having thus expounded their—to say the least —unconstructive opinion, some of these angry young men decided that Dadaism was leading them nowhere, politically or literarily. It was then that Surrealism, as an autonomous movement, was founded in 1922 by such Dadaists as Andre Breton, Paul Eluard and Aragon, The Surrealists had a constructive program, a literary one at least. They intended to express “either verbally, or in writing, or in any other way—and outside of any aesthetic, moral or rational considerations —the automatic activities of the psyche, so as to understand the true functioning of the thought process.” This literary program, in itself, did of course sound as though the Surrealists were more closely concerned with Freud than with Marx. Such a program constituted indeed a major obstacle to the further relationship between Surrealists and Marxists, at a time when the affinities between Marx and Freud had not yet been explored. Although the Surrealists intended to be more serious than the Dadaists regarding social and political problems, they were still a long way, in practice, from deciding which way they should turn, so that for a long time they managed to make a nuisance of themselves to both the Right and the Left. They were naturally inclined to side with the Revolutionaries against the Conservatives, but they were not quite sure whether Marxism was the answer. This hesitation was the source of the Surrealists’ first encounter and first serious squabble with the French Communists. In 1924, Aragon published a most sarcastic pamphlet on the occasion of Anatole France’s death. This did not please the Left in general because, although Anatole France was a bourgeois, he still had strongly favored Socialism at one point. But the Marxists were the most outraged because Aragon had dared to write: “It gives me great pleasure to see that Anatole France is receiving the joint praises of the conservative skunks on the Right and of the old Moscovit dotards on the Left.” Violently attacked, Aragon poured more Surrealistic oil on the Marxist fire when he exclaimed: “You put me to blame for expressing my dislike of the Bolshevist government and, along with it, of Communism as a whole . . . Well, I want you to know that, as far as I am concerned, the true spirit of rebellion sets its target much higher than any political gain. . . . The Russian revolution? Let me laugh! From an ideological point of view, it is hardly more than a common cabinet crisis!” After that, the Surrealists did reconsider their opinion of the Russian revolution and they even came to praise it, but only inasmuch as they saw in it a fascinating manifestation of a mysterious Oriental Spirit as opposed to the fossilization of the Western World.
They thought then that the Russian revolution could be, after all, the first sign of The Revolution which they themselves were fighting for, the one and only Surrealistic Revolution that would put an end not only to the present social order but to the present human condition. Aragon exclaimed: “May the Ori ent at last respond to our call, and help us to germinate everywhere the seeds of disorder and anxiety. For we are the trouble-makers of the Spirit . . . Rise, World! Look how this earth is good and dry to be set ablaze!” The chief result of such revolutionary extravagances was that nobody took the Surrealists seriously. The bourgeois laughed at them because they felt that the Surrealists were not really dangerous, and the Marxists ignored them as an insane group of blatant phrase mongers. However, the bourgeois laughter turned into real anger when, shortly after, the Surrealists went a little less far. France, as usual, was going through a whole gamut of crises; financial crises at home, colonial crises in Morocco (where Abd-el-Krim was waging a sacred war against the French) and in Asia (where the Cantonese government was spreading a revolution that threatened French possessions) . It was in the midst of all these national misfortunes that the Surrealists chose fo provoke a big scandal. During a banquet (an essential component of French literary life), they threw open the windows and shouted to the passing crowd below: “Long live Germany! Long live China! Long live the Moroccan Rebels! Down with France!” This scandal was a crucial point in the political career of the Surrealists because, in order to protect themselves from the violent attacks that were now coming mostly from the Right, they definitely turned to the Left for support, and more precisely to the Communists who were, of course, the most ardent champions of the Chinese revolution and of the Moroccan rebellion. This did not mean, however, that the Surrealists deliberately united with the Marxists, for they still believed in the validity of their own ideas and were not considering merging Surrealism with a doctrine based mostly on economics and on the historical development of social relations. They were only ready to determine what their position should be regarding the International and the French Communist Party. T) y the end of 1925, the Surrealists had come to a decision. Not only would they support the social revolution, but they admitted its priority over the Surrealistic one. They also recognized the importance of such extra-literary problems as the question of workers’ wages. The year 1925 was, then, a most critical one for them, because they suddenly felt the need to fill the gap between their absolute idealism and the dialectical materialism of Marxism. They soon found out, though, that it was easier to think about such a harmonious fusion than to carry it into effect. As early as March 1926, Andre Breton, realizing its impossibility, stressed the fact that many of Surrealism’s aims and interests could not find their place in a system mostly concerned with social and economical
problems. Consequently, the autonomy of Surrealism should be maintained at all costs against the pressures exerted by the Marxists upon the Surrealists to renounce Surrealism. That was the first blow to the “Entente Cordiale” with the Marxists, and it became clearer and clearer to both sides that the only solution left was that either the Marxists should forget all about Marxism and join the Surrealists, or the Surrealists should give up Surrealism and become unconditionally Marxists. No Marxist turned Surrealist, but unfortunately many Surrealists decided to become Marxists. One of them, Pierre Naville, even managed later to enlist the three founders of Surrealism, Breton, Eluard and Aragon, into the Communist Party, by proving to them that if they wanted their own Surrealist revolution for the liberation of the mind to succeed, they had to accept, truly and sincerely this time, the Marxist necessity of first abolishing capitalistic society. However, many of the Surrealists who had thus become members of the Communist Party were still not confirmed Marxists, and were especially reluctant to recognize the existence of a materialistic “social reality” before and above the spiritual and individual one. Moreover, Andre Breton, as leader of the Surrealist group, refused to turn Surrealism into a literature of Communist propaganda. Therefore, in spite of their apparent political union, the basic misunderstanding went on. It increased, indeed, when the Surrealists, in 1928, began to show more interest in Freud than in Marx, proclaiming that the greatest discovery in the 19th century had been that of Hysteria. The Marxists did not care very much for the preference given to Hysteria over the discovery of Marx’s economical and historical laws! Their attitude towards the Surrealists became cooler than ever and reached a subzero temperature when they heard Andre Breton, supposedly a Communist, declare; “Surrealism does recognize and proclaim the existence of social and economical problems . . . But, I do not see why—whatever some narrowminded revolutionaries might think —we should not also raise such questions as Sex, Dreams, Insanity, Art and Religion . . .” This was the signal of a second major crisis for the Surrealists. Andre Breton and his followers were declared outcasts by the Marxists. And, when Breton published a. Manifesto in 1930 in which he openly took up the defense of Man against the Marxist tendency to consider only Society, the Surrealist group lost the little unity it had. Two factions opposed each other; one led by Aragon that tended to sacrifice Surrealism to Marxism, another led by Salvador Dali (a newcomer) that had little or no interest in Marxism but was busy injecting new life into Surrealism with its “method of paranoic-critical analysis, based on the critical and systematic objectivation of delirious associations and interpretations.” In between these two factions, Andre Breton and Eluard tried to play a conciliatory role in order to keep Surrealism from falling apart. But, that same year (1930) Aragon went to an International Congress of revolutionary writers in Russia, and came back absolutely converted to Marxism. He quit the Surrealist group for good and
is now the director of a Communist daily and of a Communist literary newspaper. Eluard, although he left the Communist Party in 1933, stood by the Surrealists until World War 11, then went back to the Communists during the Resistance and gradually abandoned Surrealism tor a “litterature de circonstances” until his death in 1952. Andre Breton was thus the only one of the three principal founders of Surrealism who did not give up. Expelled from the Communist Party, he kept Surrealism going in France until the war. Then he went to Mexico to visit Trotsky, stayed over here throughout the war defending and spreading the cause of Surrealism on the American continent. While in America, he also broke relations with Salvador Dali (whom he accused of using Surrealism mostly for making money), and when he returned to France he was the only defender left of an integral Surrealism. Of the relationship between Marxism and Surrealism one concludes that Surrealism, unlike Marxism, was not based on a definite doctrine but on the fluctuating presence of certain intellectual and artistic affinities between highly individualistic personalities: such individualists could never, of course, agree to share a One-Party line. When some of them did submit to the Marxists, they automatically voted themselves out of the Surrealist movement. fipHE third important encounter between Marxism and French literature occurred in the last literary generation. The major literary event of this period from 1940 to around i 960 was the emergence of the Existentialist School, or rather the Existentialist movement (since the term “Existentialism” can be used in reference to such different authors as an independent moralist like Albert Camus, a Christian thinker like Gabriel Marcel, and an atheist like Jean-Paul Sartre) . Another important event took place also during that same period: the formation of a truly Marxist School of philosophers and writers such as Cornu, Politzer, Lefebvre, etc. These two groups were naturally bound to meet. As far as independent and Christian Existentialists were concerned, there was little hope for a mutual understanding, but there might have been a chance of agreement between the Marxists and JeanPaul Sartre. As it turned out, that agreement never came jibout, no matter how hard Sartre tried (and is still trying) on all levels—political, ideological and literary—to conciliate both systems. One ironic aspect of the relationship between Marxism and Existentialism is that Sartre had carefully explained why the Marxists and the Surrealists coidd never succeed in coming to terms with each other: Surrealism, he said, was an expression of bourgeois idealism in which the Marxists saw a temporary ally whom they expelled, of course, once they no longer needed it, once it had done its part in undermining the forces of the bourgeoisie. Actually, such a lucid explanation did not prevent Existentialism, in its turn, from being considered by the Marxists as just another form of bourgeois idealism. And the only reason why Sartre was not expelled from the French
Communist Party is that, knowing that he was not really wanted, he never joined it in the first place! On the political level, every time Sartre tried to convince himself and the Communists that Marxism and Existentialism could and should join forces in the fight for the social revolution, he was turned down and away; a first time, at the beginning of the war in 1941, under the alleged pretext that he was a spy sent by the Germans to betray the Communist Underground; a second time, at the end of the war in 1945, because he had said that, although he was not an anti-Marxist, he could not be completely a Marxist either; the third time, in 1947, because, after de nouncing the Gaullists, he had also dared to criticize the Communists. Faced with such rebuffs, there was only one thing for Sartre to do: to found his own political party, a party that would take to its bosom all Leftist intellectuals, Marxists or non-Marxists, members of the middle class as well as of the proletariat. This party, known as the R.D.R. (Rassemblement Democratique Revolutionnaire) was born at the end of 1947 . . . and was dead at the end of 1948. Its aim was to “integrate each free individual into a society conceived of as a unity of all individuals’ freedom of action.” In foreign affairs, the R.D.R. was to be a third force, directed neither against the U.S.A. nor against the U.S.S.R., but primarily toward the making of a Socialist a?id Pacifist Europe. On the home front, the R.D.R. was to be neither against the Communists nor against the Gaullists: consequently it was violently attacked by the Gaullists, who claimed it was paid by the Communists, and by the Communists, who claimed it was paid by the Gaullists. From this Existentialist venture into the political battlefield, one major conclusion should be drawn. Considering that two essential characteristics of Existentialism are its notions of metaphysical alienation and of moral ambiguity, it was Sartre’s error to believe in the possibility of building a unified and solid political platform on the ambiguous and lonesome grounds of his philosophy. So Sartre’s political attempt to join the Marxists or to compete with them was a failure because Sartre was more a high-strung ideologist than a down-to-earth politician. This does not mean, however, that on the ideological level, Existentialism succeeded in winning the Marxists’ favor. Far from it. As early as 1943, in his huge philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, Sartre wrote: “The materialistic revolutionaries are serious-minded people, because they define themselves from the standpoint of a world that is crushing them, and consequently they wish to change that world. It goes without saying that, by assuming this attitude, those serious-minded people are shutting off in themselves the awareness of their own freedom. Therefore, they are ‘de mauvaise foi’—dishonest or insincere.” Sartre continued: “Karl Marx has turned serious mindedness into a dogma by giving the object priority over the subject, because Man is serious-minded as soon as he considers himself to be an object.” In short, from the very start, Sartre suggested that, being a materalistic system (and all materialistic systems being founded on “mauvaise foi” because they reject the
metaphysical freedom of Man) Marxism was therefore based on insincerity and dishonesty. This was indeed a poor way for Sartre to begin an ideological relationship with the Marxists! The only way Sartre could attempt to conciliate materialistic Marxism with his own humanistic Existentialism, was by re-interpreting Marxism in his own terms. He tried to do so in a series of books and articles, but as Merleau-Ponty said (an Existentialist who tried to do the same thing until he gave up shortly before his death) ; “by attempting to interpret Marxism in Existentialist terms, Sartre only succeeded in proving the failure of dialectics.” Merleau-Ponty pointed out that, for Sartre, the dialectics of history is indeed an illusion, because history to him is mostly the product of Man’s free will, of “Man’s virtuous or criminal intentions.” For example, as far as Communism is concerned, Sartre does not see in it a historical, dialectical necessity, but a choice made by individuals. As for the “social reality” which, for a true Marxist, constitutes a sort of “second nature,” Sartre considers it to be strictly a relation of consciousness between two individuals “qui se regardent,” who confront each other. In 1961, Sartre engaged in a debate with a group of Marxists and tried to prove that their belief in dialectics as a natural law was directly leading them to a belief in God—in order words, that Marxism was a kind of theology. This was the end of any possible understanding between Existentialism and Marxism. Besides, a Marxist theoretician, Georg Lukacs, had long before that, in 1948, discarded Existentialism as another product of bourgeois idealistic. thinking. In short, Existentialism and Marxism are incompatible on the ideological level, because they advance in opposite directions: the former, as a humanistic system, proceeds from the individual to the social, from man to history; the latter, as a materialistic system, proceeds from the social to the individual, from history to man. 'T'he third aspect of the relationship between Marxism and Existentialism is the literary one. There again, it is not a happy one. Right after the Second World War, Sartre founded a review, Les Temps Modernes, in the first issue of which he proclaimed the necessity for literature to commit itself to the political, social and economic problems of its time. That is to say, all writers should “abandon the idea of describing society and the human condition from a detached, indifferent or impartial point of view.” A writer is a man, and as such is “embarked” in a world which he, out of his own free will, helps to fashion. Therefore he is responsible not only to himself but to all men for anything he writes. Moreover, S.artre, dissatisfied of course with the present state of society and with the present human condition, specified that all responsible writers should work toward changing such a state and such a fate. This literary program became known as “Litterature engagee,” a literature of commitment.
After Sartre had thus announced his literary program, he was soon put under pressure by some Marxists who told him in effect; “If you believe in a social revolution, if you agree that such a revolution can only succeed with the proletariat’s participation, and if you admit that the proletariat, as a reading public, can only be reached through the French Communist Party, there is but one way for you to carry your program into effect; let the Communist Party help you to take care of it . . .in exchange for a few concessions and more cooperation on your part.” Sartre’s reply was categorical; “I say ‘No’ to those who suggest that a writer should offer his services to the Communist Party in order to reach the masses. The policies of Communism are incompatible in France with the honest practice of the literary profession.” So, at the very moment when Sartre seemed to be willing to adopt the Marxist idea of a social criterion for literature, he turned down the Marxists’ proposal and was left wondering how to carry out his program without the interested help of the Communists. But another thing also bothered Sartre. To him, the concept of literature’s commitment meant not only that literature should commit itself to political and social problems, but that it should do so successfully not just on paper but in reality. For Sartre, the written word is an act, and literature is action. Now, considered at its worst, the Marxists’ attitude toward literature could easily be summed up, according to Merleau-Ponty, as follows: a writer’s ideas do not really matter, because as Marx and Engels have pointed out, Balzac’s conservative ideas, for example, can be more useful for the revolution than Zola’s socialistic ones. The true center of history is political action; culture lies only at its periphery. A writer achieves his purpose when he describes typical situations and behaviors; he does not have to include a political commentary in his works. In other words, the so-called ideological mystifications are acceptable in literature, because either they prove the stupidity of their authors, or they can be used as a ground for counteracting propaganda. But to Sartre, such “mystifications” are not a matter of stupidity or utility: they are expressions of “mauvaise foi,” of dishonesty. For Sartre, there are no stupid people, there are only “Salauds.” Considered now at its best (shall we say), Marxism seems to favor one particular form of literature, the so-called “socialist realism” defined and developed in Soviet Russia. As Merleau-Ponty has ironically pointed out; “There are a number of Marxists at present who think that since there has been a social revolution in Russia, it is in Russia that the literature of tomorrow is taking shape.” Sartre, of course, violently rejected (as did Andre Breton) the very idea of “social realism.” He defined it as a literature based on a new kind of Manicheism: all is good which is in line with the Party orders; all is bad that isn’t. Noting also that “social realism” tends to present the Communists as the only permanent heroes of our time, Sartre commented: “I am the first one to recognize that there are heroes among the Communists, but ... is it sufficient to become a Communist in order to be a hero?” Finally, Sartre said, “social realism” is subjected not only
to the Party orders but it has to cope also with the Party change of orders. Nowadays, for example, the social realists are strongly advised not to put too many Communists in their novels or plays, because either these Communist characters have to be perfect in every respect (and as such they might bore the public) , or they have a few defects here and there (and that might displease a number of Marxist purists) . In brief, whatever “social realism” might be, it is above all a literature of propaganda: that is, a literary form in which propaganda is alive and literature is dead. This was the end of any hope of conciliating Marxism and Existentialism on the literary level because, to Jean-Paul Sartre, literature is, after all, more important than anything. In his appeal to writers for a literature of commitment, he had clearly specified: “I want to remind you that in a literature of commitment, the commitment should in no case make you forget the literature.” The triple failure of the relationship between Marxism and Existentialism is certainly due mostly to a basic difference of approach to the concept of man. As Merleau-Ponty has noted; the Existentialist man, to a Marxist, is an abstract conception, a metaphysician’s invention, inasmuch as he is a man who is still anxiously questioning and wondering about such things as “man,” “society,” the “world,” whereas the Marxist man is a reality, the only real man who can be securely apprehended through history and defined in his relation to the economical structure of society. The Existentialists reverse, of course, the whole Marxist argument by saying that it is the Marxist man who is an abstract conception, a political economist’s invention, whereas the Existentialist man is the concrete man, the “total man,” defined as a psychological, social and metaphysical being, not only the oppressed victim of an unjust society, but the depressed victim of an absurd universe. To sum up the relationship between Marxism and Existentialism we may quote these lines from Sartre himself: “Marxism has appealed to us, has transformed our thoughts, has driven out of our minds various categories of bourgeois reasoning, but it has not been able to quench our thirst for knowledge, because in the specific field of our concern, Marxism had nothing to say and nothing to teach us. . . .” Coming to the end of this survey, we will make one last observation. The relationship between Marxism and French literature looks very much like a love affair, with its disputes, its misunderstandings, its flirting, its mutual fears and its renewed hopes. But if this affair always breaks apart at the end, isn’t it because on the one hand there are the Marxists who Avant the world to be Marxist, while on the other there are first Zola who wanted that same world to be Naturalist, then Andre Breton who wanted it to be Surrealist, and finally Jean-Paul Sartre who is still hoping, perhaps, to make it Existentialist? With such divergence of opinions and purposes—plus the fact that freedom has always been a much dearer value to the French writer’s heart than equality—we should not be too surprised if this ever-recurring love affair never turns into a lasting marriage.
This article is an adaptation of the brilliant lecture given by Mr. Astier, then Ass’t. Prof, of French, at Classroom ’63.
Pierre A. G. Astier
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