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Angela Kimyongür (University of Hull)

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Angela Kimyongür (University of Hull) Louis Aragon: (Re) writing the Nazi-Soviet Pact Angela Kimyongür (University of Hull) At the time of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939, Louis Aragon was a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), a well known novelist and poet and a journalist. Whilst his writing career had undergone several notable transformations, not least that from surrealist to socialist realist, his political commitment to the left and, from 1927 to the PCF, remained steadfast for much of his life. Indeed, unlike the PCF’s interpretation of the Second World War, which underwent a number of shifts, Aragon’s position remained anti-Nazi from the beginning to the end of the war. The announcement of the pact on 23 August 1939 caused shock waves within the PCF, and Aragon responded to the news both as a journalist and a novelist. His immediate responses were articulated in his editorials for Ce Soir, the paper of which he was editor at the time. He also included a fictionalised account of the events of August 1939 in his novel Les Communistes which was published between 1949 and 1951. The time lag is significant since it meant that this later account of the pact was as much influenced by the changed political climate of the Cold War as by Aragon’s own memories of 1939. A revised version of Les Communistes, published in 1967, gave Aragon the opportunity to modify further his account of the pact. There are, therefore, three versions of Aragon’s writing of the pact. An examination of these three evolving, though hardly revolving, accounts will be placed in the context of reactions to the pact by other communist intellectuals and writers of the time. The years preceding the outbreak of war were ones of intense activity for Aragon, who wrote numerous articles and essays, and delivered speeches on the international situation. Anti- fascism is a key characteristic of these interventions which focus on Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War and the annexation of Austria, together with a patriotism which had been markedly absent from his writing in earlier years. In October 1938, he denounced the Munich accords and the illusory peace which they brought, making a distinction between the “la paix compromise” (“La grande victoire de Munich,” Oeuvre poétique, vol. 3, 762)1 bought at a high price by the French and British governments, and “La paix veritable.” (OP3, 764) This echoes the PCF’s rejection of the accords on the grounds that, far from preventing war, they would make war more likely by freeing Hitler’s hands for an attack on the Soviet Union. (Adereth, 83) Despite continued opposition to Hitler’s expansionist policies, Aragon is careful to maintain a distinction between the Nazi régime, which he deplores, and the humanist culture of the true German nation, celebrated in a special number of Commune in February 1939 devoted to L’Humanisme allemand. (“Reconnaisance à l’Allemagne” OP3, 888) The pact: Aragon’s response as journalist The signing of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact in Moscow on 23 August 1939 came as a bolt out of the blue for the party. Criticism of Franco-British failure to pursue negotiations with the Soviet Union for collective security had been the cornerstone of articles in Ce Soir by Aragon and Paul Nizan throughout the preceding month. Indeed, as late as 22 August, in an article entitled “Gare aux capitulards!,” Aragon was warning of the dangers of delaying such an agreement. The timing of the pact was particularly awkward for the PCF since not only was the news unexpected, but the majority of the party hierarchy was on holiday when news of its imminent signature broke late on 21 August. Aragon, in consultation with Marcel Gitton, the only member of the Politburo in Paris, published an editorial entitled “Vive la paix!” on 23 1. Parenthetical references to the Oeuvre Poétique will henceforth take the form of the abbreviation OP, followed by the volume and page numbers. Kimyongür, Angela. “Louis Aragon: (Re) writing the Nazi-Soviet Pact.” EREA 4.2 (automne 2006): 73-80. 73 <www.e-rea.org> August in Ce Soir. (Courtois, 42) The pact was presented as a “un gain pour la paix,” a triumph for the Soviet Union which had brought Hitler to an agreement. The Soviet Union was seen as a guarantor of peace, unlike the allies, prevaricating over negotiations for collective security. Aragon called on the French and British governments to seize the opportunity to sign their own pact with the USSR in order to prevent war: “Le pacte tripartite (qui n’est pas un simple pacte de non-agression mais bel et bien une alliance, et demeure la pièce maîtresse du Front de la Paix) viendra compléter merveilleusement un pacte de non-agression germano-soviétique.” (“Vive la paix!” OP3, 1044) These same points were emphasised in L’Humanité which appeared that day with a photograph of Stalin accompanied by the text “Staline, champion de la paix et de l’indépendance des peoples.” The headline in Ce Soir of 24 August (“L’annonce du pacte de non-agression germano-soviétique a fait reculer la guerre”) affirmed the analysis of the pact as an anti-war strategy, while Aragon’s editorial “Cessez de faire le jeu de M. Hitler,” reaffirmed opposition to Hitler, and underlined the importance of the pact in preventing war and encouraging France and Britain to pursue negotiations with the USSR. It was only on the following day, 25 August, that the PCF published a communiqué in L’Humanité confirming Aragon’s editorials by presenting the USSR as a defender of the peace. It too stressed the party’s continued opposition to Hitler, and its readiness to defend France against future fascist aggression (reprinted in Courtois, 493-95). In his editorial of 25 August in Ce Soir, “Tous contre l’agresseur,” Aragon reaffirmed the point, supporting “la déclaration du Parti Communiste Français, qui montre que je ne me suis pas trop avancé hier, qu’en cas d’agression, tous les Français défendraient leur pays, et tiendraient, les armes à la main, les engagements de la France,” (reprinted in Virebeau, 6). This edition, however, was seized by the police before publication as a prelude to the complete banning of the newspaper, along with L’Humanité and all other Communist publications. It remains Aragon’s last word as a journalist on the controversy caused by the pact, for the legal outlets had disappeared. His words clearly demonstrate his readiness to defend his country against the Nazi aggressor, a position to which he was to remain faithful throughout the war, notwithstanding changes in the party line. The PCF was also, at this stage, firm in its resolve to oppose Hitler. On 23 August, the group of Communists in the Chambre des Députés voted a resolution affirming the party’s readiness to defend France. (Courtois, 43) On 2 September, the PCF voted for war credits in the Chambre des Députés. After the closure of L’Humanité, the weekly syndicalist newspaper Vie Ouvrière carried the essence of the party line between 27 August and 21 September. It was characterised by statements of support for a united France standing against the Hitlerite aggressor, under such unambiguous headlines as: “Le peuple de France unanime contre l’agression,” “Tout pour maintenir et renforcer l’Union” and “L’Europe, demain, ne sera pas hitlérienne.” This position, however, changed after 20 September, when instructions from the Comintern informed the PCF that the war was no longer to be considered anti-fascist, but a war between imperialist powers which the party should therefore oppose. Other reactions to the pact Reactions of shock to the news of the pact were widespread among left-wing intellectuals. Given the PCF’s history of anti-fascism throughout the 30s, both within France and particularly in relation to the Spanish Civil War, news of an alliance between Hitler and the leader of the socialist world was for many not easy to accept. The characterisation of the news as a “coup de tonnerre” is a frequent one. It is the phrase used in her memoirs by Lise London, a party militant since the early 1930s, to describe the feelings of many party members. (London, 27) Despite her description of fellow communists as being “sous le choc,” hers is a particularly positive analysis of the moment, describing how many of the party faithful swallowed their doubts and accepted the pact as a necessary means to ensure peace, and maintaining that “le comportement des communistes à cette époque, malgré leur trouble, leur isolement, témoigne de leur foi inconditionnelle en Staline, de l’idée mythique qu’ils avaient de la ‘Patrie du proletariat mondial.’” (27) Kimyongür, Angela. “Louis Aragon: (Re) writing the Nazi-Soviet Pact.” EREA 4.2 (automne 2006): 73-80. 74 <www.e-rea.org> Writer and historian Edith Thomas was another to describe the news as “un coup de tonnerre” in her memoirs. (Le Témoin compromis, Mémoires, 78) In 1939, Thomas was a sympathisante rather than a member, only joining the party in 1942, when she came to be an important figure in the intellectual Resistance. Unlike London, she could not, despite considerable heart searching, accept the justifications offered for the pact. Rejecting the argument that the pact represented a guarantee of peace, the best interpretation she could place on it was that the USSR saw it as an opportunity to spread revolution: “considérant que la guerre est la meilleure des situations révolutionnaires, l’URSS décide ouvertement de laisser les pays capitalistes (…) se jeter les uns sur les autres.” (Pages de journal 1939-1946, 37.) Unconvinced by her own hypothesis, she concludes that, far from guaranteeing peace, the pact has actually hastened the arrival of war.
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