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The French Revolution in the French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy and the Limits of French Historical Reason

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The French Revolution in the French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy and the Limits of French Historical Reason City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2016 The French Revolution in the French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy and the Limits of French Historical Reason Timothy Scott Johnson The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1424 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN THE FRENCH-ALGERIAN WAR (1954-1962): HISTORICAL ANALOGY AND THE LIMITS OF FRENCH HISTORICAL REASON By Timothy Scott Johnson A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 © 2016 TIMOTHY SCOTT JOHNSON All Rights Reserved ii The French Revolution in the French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy and the Limits of French Historical Reason by Timothy Scott Johnson This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Richard Wolin, Distinguished Professor of History, The Graduate Center, CUNY _______________________ _______________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee _______________________ _______________________________________________ Date Helena Rosenblatt, Executive Officer, Professor of History, The Graduate Center, CUNY Executive Officer David Troyansky, Professor of History, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY Gary Wilder, Professor of Anthropology and History, The Graduate Center, CUNY Camille Robcis, Associate Professor of History, Cornell University David Schalk, Professor Emeritus of History, Vassar College Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT The French Revolution in the French-Algerian War (1954-1962): Historical Analogy and the Limits of French Historical Reason by Timothy Scott Johnson Advisor: Richard Wolin This dissertation examines the use of the French Revolution as an explanatory device for discussing the French-Algerian War (1954-1962). Anticolonial intellectuals in France invoked the French Revolution to explain their reasons for supporting colonial reform as well as their solidarity with Algerian nationalist aims. Through an examination of intellectuals’ public interventions alongside French and Algerian historical narratives, I examine the ways in which historical alignment signaled political and cultural distance between France and Algeria. Making an independent Algeria analogous to eighteenth-century revolutionary France lent political and conceptual legitimacy to Algerian claims to an independent national identity while also reinforcing the basic tenets of France’s colonial claims to historical and cultural universalism. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Dissertation research can often be a solitary task, but there are larger academic and personal communities hidden behind this author’s name, all deserving acknowledgment. The History Program at the Graduate Center has provided a stimulating and fraternal environment over the course of my graduate training. I gleaned many ideas, large and small, from a countless number of talks and conferences organized by the program. Conversations relating to all facets of life have made for an enjoyable work environment. The broader New York City history, philosophy, and political theory tribes provided a great deal of encouragement and intellectual stimulation as well. I wish to especially thank Stefanos Geroulanos and Jerry Seigel for allowing me into their seminars and being willing to discuss a wide array of topics over coffee or chianti. The invitation to present at the New York Area Seminar for Intellectual and Cultural History felt like a fitting capstone to my intellectual training. Beyond New York City, the presentations and exchanges at the Society for French Historical Studies have informed nearly every page of every chapter. Archival environments, too, were extremely accommodating. My stay at IMEC, thanks to Catherine Josset and André Derval, was as productive and comfortable as anyone could hope. Similarly, I could not have asked for a better work environment than the Bibliothèque Albert Soboul at the Musée de la Révolution in Vizille, thanks to the efforts of Hélène Puig. My gratitude also goes out to Claude Mazauric, Julien Louvrier, and the members of H-France who put me in touch with the Museum in the first place. My committee members all deserve thanks for having the courage to muddle through my dense prose. David Troyansky’s eye for meticulous editing has made many of the ideas and v statements in following pages legible. Richard Wolin’s mentorship has been invaluable throughout the whole of graduate school. His insistence on asking political questions of even the most seemingly abstract intellectual positions kept me grounded when I would have rather basked in the ethereal. Conversations about my research with mentors in other areas and eras of expertise such as Dagmar Herzog, Helena Rosenblatt, Randolph Trumbach, and Martin Burke were also invaluable. I would also like to thank my brilliant peers for their frequent exchanges and good will: Paul Schweigert, James Robertson, Nathaniel Boling, Chelsea Shields, Jacob Krell, Megan Brown, Greg Zucker, Danilo Scholz, Luca Provenzano, David Sessions, Alexander Arnold, Chelsea Shields, Kyle Francis, Sarah Litvin, Erin Wuebker. I still remember the lunch in the spring of 2005 when Michael Behrent first explained to me what intellectual history was. It was then that I realized I could place the entirety of my academic interests under one umbrella and I have not looked back since. This project undoubtedly is the tree from the acorn he planted over a decade ago. Lastly and most importantly, I owe incalculable debts to my parents, Nathan Johnson, Cheryl Carano, and Mark Carano as well as my wider family, among whom Josh and Gretchen Kinlaw count as well. Their emotional and material support has made this possible. To my family I dedicate this dissertation. vi Contents Acknowledgments v. Introduction 1. Chapter 1. The French Revolution in the Metropole and Algeria 18. Chapter 2. Debating the Revolution’s Legacy 75. Chapter 3. Rewriting Algerian History 128. Chapter 4. The Dialectics of Historical Violence 203. Conclusion. The Limits of French Historical Reason 241. Bibliography 262. vii Images Cover. L’Express (19 May 1958) 41. viii Introduction Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self- selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time- honored disguise and borrowed language. Karl Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1852)1 Throughout the French-Algerian War (1954-1962), anticolonialist intellectuals invoked late eighteenth-century words, images, persons—namely, by speaking about the French Revolution of 1789-1799. In some instances this practice certainly was semantically strategic, aligning the foundation of the modern French Republic with anti-imperial goals to bolster the latter. However, this phenomenon also moved from simple simile to assimilation, even catachresis.2 This study examines the uses anticolonialist francophone intellectuals made of the French Revolution during the French Algerian War and the assumptions lurking behind this analogy. The French Algerian War has become established as a privileged topic of historical analysis, and for many good reasons. The war begun on All Saints Day, 1 November 1954, when members of a newly-formed National Liberation Front (FLN) attacked a series of targets 1 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Later Political Writings, edited by Terrell Carver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 31. 2 Catachresis is the misapplication or improper extension of one word or phrase to another context. It is, in other words, a bad metaphor. 1 throughout Algeria’s three departments, exacerbated metropolitan fears of global French decline and in three and a half years brought down the government of the Fourth Republic. When the Fifth Republic arose, it did so under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle, the Free French and World War II resistance hero. Yet while Algeria’s one million settlers of European descent thought de Gaulle would once again be their savior, metropolitan opinion increasingly favored peace in Algeria, even if that position also meant recognizing Algerian nationalists’ claims. Larger transformations in France’s place in the world served as the backdrop of the war. The war began scarcely a decade since the end of World War II, when both France and its North African territories suffered defeat and Nazi occupation. France aligned with the capitalist west in the postwar international order,
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