The Vichy Regime and I Ts National Revolution in the Pol I Tical Wri Tings of Robert Bras Illach, Marcel Déat, Jacques Doriot, and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
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The Vichy regime and i ts National Revolution in the pol i tical wri tings of Robert Bras illach, Marcel Déat, Jacques Doriot, and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. Sean Hickey Department of History McGill University, Montreal September, 1991 A thesis submi tted to the Facul ty of Graduate St.udies and f{esearch in partial fulfj lIment of the requirements of the degree ot Master of Arts (c) 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the campaign wagp~ against Vichy's National Revolution by Robert Brasillach, Marcel Déat, Jacques Doriot, and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. It explores the particular issues of contention separating Vichy and the Paris ultras as weIl as shedd':'ng light on the final evolutiou of a representative segment of the fascist phenomenon in France • . l 3 RESUME Cette thèse est une étude de la rédaction politique de Robert Brasillach, Marcel Déat, Jacques Doriot, et Pierre Drieu La Rochelle contre la ~9volution nationale de Vichy. Elle examine la critique des "collabos" envers la politique du gouvernement P~tainist et fait rapport, en passant, de l'ere finale d'un a3pect du phenomène fasciste en France. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 5 Chapt.er One: "Notre Avant-Guerre" 9 Chapt.er Two: At the Crossroads 3.1 Chapt.er Three: Vichy- Society Recast 38 Chapter Four: Vichy- Society purged 61 Chapt.er Five: Vichy- Legacy of Defeat 79 Conclusion 101 Bibliography 109 • 5 l NTRODUCT l ON To date, historians of the French Collaboration have focussed largely on three over lapPing relat ionshi ps: t.hat between the Vichy regime and Naz1 Germany, that beLween t.he latter and the Paris ultras, and the vanous struggles for power and influence within each camp.: As a resull ot tlllS triparti te fixation, the relatlonship between Vichy and the ultras has received short shift. The pre::5ent work seeks ta remedy this lapse so:newhat by exam1ning the war of \-JOrds waged by t.he ultras against the Vichy regl.me and its National Revolution. This thesl.s 15 predicated on the fact that t.he ul tra cri tique of Vichy extended weIl beyond the agenda of the Nazis. The latter saw in the arm.lstice a means of precludinq a continuation of the war from North AfrlCë:.' and a cos L- effective method of securing their flank in Western Europe in anticipation of an invasion of the Soviet Union; parùlleters which periodically expanded ta meet the growing needs ot the German war economy. Areas critical ta the Naz1s were subJect ta the full weight of the Occuplers scrutiny and control. Vichy' s National Revolution, on the other hand, to the pxtent it did not impinge on a vital interest, was of only secondary lSee, for example, Bertram Gordon, Collaborationlsm in France during the Second World War (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1980), Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs, 1940-194~ (Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1976), and Robert Aron, The Vichy Regime, translated by Humphrey Hare (London, Putnam and Co. Ltd., 1958). 6 i importance to the Germans. 2 Con ....·ersel y, such reform figured prominently among ultra prior~ties. In the absence of a coherent NaZl àes 1 gn to manlpulate French domestic poli tics, apart from the bJgey of an "ultra government" used ta extort Vichy's cooperatlOn in matters related to the war effort and the Final Solution, the ultrds enjoyed a wide discretion in expressinq their own particular vision of how French society should be restored to health. A dialogue of sorts, degeneratlng more ,)ften than not into diatriL~, was thus permi tted to develop between Vichy and the ul tras concerning the nature of domestic political reform. In order ta emphasise the lines of the ultra cri tique of Vichy' s National Revolution more clearly, this study will focus on members of t~e ultra camp who, in the inter bellum, str ident l y advocated =' distinct vis ion Qf French regeneration; men often labelled "f ascist" as a !:' ~sul t. Nor i5 this an exhaustl ve survey of those in inter bellum France tarred wi th the brush of fascism. It is limited to the political writings of fou~ ~ndividuals: Robert Brasillach, Marcel Diat, Jacques Doriot, and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. Such a selection i~ in many respects arbitrary. Limitations of time and space dictated the exclusion of such notorious figures as AltJhonse de Chauteaubriand and Marcel Bucard, to name but two, who might just as ea~ Iy have been iIlcluded in lieu of on~ of the ~Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 142-145. , 7 four named prlnclples. Those chosen are tairly representatlve Dt the scope and diversity of French fascism. 1 Prasillach dnd Orle..!, whosf' statures as li terary f iqures dre today as q:-ed t dS ever, enjoyed reputatl.ons as the preemInent Intellectuals ot the French fascist movement. D~at and Doriot exemplify the political dimension of French fascism. The former, dn introverted Ideologue, was the movement's premier pollLical theoristi the latter was probably the closest France came ta producing a leader wlth the charisma of d F~hrer or Duce. A diverse and heterogeneous group, they accurately retlecL the multi-faceted diversity which, while a princlplc source of French fascism' s historical interest, was one of the gredt source~ of its contemporary politlCdl weakness. As this study i5 restricted te Braslilach, Deat, DorIot, and Drieu La Rochelle, 50 aiso i t 15 restr 1. cted ta the ir political wrltings. Thus, for example, details ot DOrIot's soldi ering in Russia or Déat' s brief, unhappy 1 tenure as Vichy's Minister of Labour and Natlonal Solidarlty are introduced only insofar as they intrude upon thel! editorial output. The wartime literary output ot Brasillach and Drieu i5 not considered at aIL. 3S ome idea of the diversity and extent of the fascl.st phenomenon in France can ne gleaned from Robert Soucy, "The Nature of Fascism in France", Journal of Corttemporary History, 1 (1), 1966, Zeev Sternhell, "Strands of French Fasel.sm", ln Who Were t.he Fascists, ed. by S.U. Larsen, B. Hagtvet, J.P. Myklebust (Bergen, Universitetsforlaget, 1980), or G. Warner, "France", in European Fascism, ed. by S. J. Wool.f (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970). h 8 Finally, in response to those who might still insist that the ultra camp was devoid of indigenous political ideas, that lt was no more th~n a French mouthpiece for Nazi propaganda, it is weIL to remember that with military defeat in the summer of 1940, Déat, Doriot, and Drieu La Rochelle journeyed not to the German occupied north but to the domestic seat of French power at Vichy. Only with the~r exclusion from power and the rejec.:tion of their plans for French regeneration did they cross in~o the German camp. CHAPTER ONE The multifarious legacy of the Great War hovered 11ke d spectre over French social and political life in the 1920s dno 1930s. It should thus come as no surprIse that mdny 01 the most notoriou& figures of the Collaboratlon came of dge durlng the period 1914-1918. Marcel Déat ended the war il much decorated captain of infantry; Pierre Dneu La Hoche lle experienced not only the f1uid batt.les of August 19H but <1)50 the cl~ustrophabic terror of Gaillpoll <1nd Verdun. The young metallurgist Jacques Dorlot left the new Industr:lé.ll suburbs ut Paris ln 1917 to continue hi s pol i tlcal educa Ll on on the battlefields of E4rape. Even Robert BraSIllach, tao young lu experience combat at first hand, belonged to that generatlon which Robert Wahl describes as havlng grQwn up in Lhe shddow of the Great War.· His father died in French North At r .lCd 1 n the early days of the conflict and Braslliach was ralsed ln that atrnosp~ere of super-patriotism WhlCh only non combalants seemed able to sustaln. Despite the seeming normality of the twenties and the illusion of a return ta the golden age of la belle epoque,- rnany of the changes which would eventually lead to the crlses of the thirties were already taking shape. Among the most important was the break-up of the French soclalist party lRobert Wohl, The Gener~ ion of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 32-36. , 10 (SFIO) in 1920 over the lssue of Lenl.n's conditions for membership ln the new Third Internatiomtl. Though Lenin 's stress on a revi tal ized and central ized control of the proletariat's struggle WdS li direct result of the successful Bolshevik revolution ln Russia, the enthusiasm with which the new emphas i5 on Marxl.st radj ",:alism and party discl.pline was welcomed in France was indicative of a new extremism whose sources were native ta France. Thj s new radicalism was perhaps best personi f ied by the young Jacques Doriot. Dor .lot spent the early yea-s of the war working in one of the many factories '.-lhich sprang up around Paris to supply France' s armles Wl. th the materlel needed ta f ight a modern lnduslr ia l war. When he came of age in 1917 he was called ta the colors and served with distinction. The November armistice, however, did not see the end of Doriot's military careeri before hl.s demobilization in May i920 he would witness Bela Kun' s short-li ved communist regime in Hungary and Gabrlele ct' Annunzio' s seizure of Fiume. Doriot returned ta civilian life thoroughly radicalized by what he had seen and done.