PIERRE DRIEU LA ROCHELLE: 1 THE DOCTRINE, �F, fascisme fran�ais I, A Thesis Submitted to' the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History by Patrick John Coggins Saskatoon, Saskatchewan � 1974. P. J. Coggins l wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Robert C. Grogin for his encouragement and criticism not only in the thesis but also in the History of Ideas. I wish to thank Dr. Ivo N. Lambi for his support, understanding, and discipline given in my historical studies .. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the support of my mother and father in a financial and spiritual sense to whom this work is dedicated. ii UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN PERMISSION TO USE POSTGRADUATE THESES Title of Thesis Pierre Drieu La Rochelle: The Doctrine of '[asaisme jraniais' Name of Author Patrick John Coggins Esq. Department or College History Degree Master of Arts In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the require­ ments for a postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I. agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying· of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professors or professor who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use : of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be al Iowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recogni­ tion shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Signature ..\ ().\m. �. e�a \"f.MN_$ , . -�� Address 4-867 University Drive --------------��-------- Saskatoon, Saskatchewan iii Page Chapter I: Fin de siecle and Fascism .....•..••.•................•. 1 Chapter II: The First World War and the 'Twenties 20 Chapter III: Philosophy of Action and History '47 Chapter IV: 1934: The Elite, the Party, and the National Revolution. 74 Chapter V: Engagement: The P.P.F. and National Fascism 101 Chapter VI: Engagement: Collaboration and European Fascism 131 Bibliography 151 iv ABSTRACT The French intellectual has always held a prominent position in determining France's future. He represents the experimental conscience embracing a moral ideal erected above a national, political and social framework. The intellectual equates the dilemma of man's present and future with that of his society. The role of the intellectual is to seek and assess the forces of change within his society, evaluating them on the basis of his' individual moral principles. Pierre Drieu La Rochelle was an intellectual who judged his society as morally, socially, and politically regressive, and advanced an alternative in a doctrine that envisioned, a new order--an age of renaissance--for himself, for France," and for Europe. 'Pierre Dri eu La Rochelle called this alternative, fascism. Drieu was one of the most original theoreticians of the doctrine, of French fascism. This study is devoted to the examinatiori of this intellectual and this doctrine. The examination will discuss the environment of post-war France, Drieu's development within it,'and his assessment of it. It will also deal with the problem of why a man of letters, superior in intelligence and foresight, advanced a doctrine that would resolve in fascism the dilemmas of the individual, the nation, and European 'civilization. Fascism was the great experiment of the inter-war generation, of which Pierre Drieu' La Rochelle was a spokesman. v Chapter I FIN DE SI�CLE AND FASCISM The most fundamental element of pess�m�sm is its method of conceiving the paths towards deliverance. A man would not go very far in the examination either of the laws of his own wretchedness or of fate, which so much shock the ingenuousness of our pride; if he were not borne up by the hope of putting an end to these tyrannies by an effort to be attempted with the help of a whole band of companions. -Georges Sorel, Ref'leobione on Yio lenoe - 1 - - 2 - Fascism in France was a phenomenon restricted to the post-war period. However its origins developed from the traditions of French counter-revolutionary thought, the crises of the Third Republic, and the intellectual deveiopments in fin de sieaZe. Fascism developed on the basis of a conservative system of values enhanced by a revolutionary method within and against the Third Republic. Traditional right-wing thought in France was represented by Joseph de Maistre and Hippolyte Taine in their attack on the principles of the French Revolut10n. Joseph de Maistre concentrated his fire on the revolution's deification of man as the foundation of civil society. He considered this principle as false and contrary to the traditional authority of Church and Monarch. Furthermore, he noted that human reason exalted by the revolutio� had destroyed order by destroying the' faith essential to human existence. The individual required more than rational processes to construct a cultural, social� and political order of unity and stability. Man.in civil society �equired authorities independent of his individual reason preserved by faith and religion in the Nation and the,Church. De Maistre conceived of a_theocracy synthe­ sizing both the faiths of France and Roman Catholicism to ensure an historical progress founded in national unity and religious authority. The major indictment of the revolution was its negation of authority and unity, the consequences of which were anarchy and dis-' unity. The unity and authority violated by the revolution resulted in its ultimate failure. A nation required both elements to establish a true general will countering the political heresy of individual reason. - 3 - Awareness of the conflict existing from the effects of France's revolution was expressed in two concepts: in the pays reel of a nation's historical tradition, and the pays legal of a stateis constitutional establishment. ' De Maistre regarded this distinction as fundamental, noting: "The natural constitution of a nation is always anteriol' to its written constitution and can dispense with it. Every constitution is properly speaking a creation in the full sense of the word, and all creation is beyond man's powers. A written law is'only the declaration of an anterior and unwritten law."l The constitution of the pays legal must therefore be in accordance with the dict�tes of historical tradition in the pays reel. Government must be the spokesman of the Nation as a community to which the individual must submit as a good higher,than himself. The individual must lose himself in the nationai communal existence devoting himself to the principles of histoi'ical'authority and religious faith.2 The destruction of the nation as a living organism was attacked by Hippolyte Taine., Whereas De Maistre mourned what, France had lost by the Revolution, Taine attacked what France had become in the Third Republic. De Maistre's distinction between the pays reel and the pays legal found further development in Taine's critique. He distinguished between two facets of reason--a raison raisonnante and a raison qui s'ignore--a conscious and unconscious reason. Raison raisonnante was lJ. s. McClelland, The French Right: ' From De Maistre to Naurvae (London: Jonathan Gape, 1970), p. 45. 2Ibid., p. 46. - 4 - individual reason attempting to comprehend the problems of civil society, ' , and by logically formulated principles, to resolve them objectively., Raison qui s'ignore referred to wisdom acquired through a history of nation and people as the subjective basis to equate contemporary civil society with its tradition. The objective and subjective Paison were two mutual foundations of national development.3 , Taine deduced three principles forming a nation's future: race, environment, and momentum--the internal spring, the external pressure, and the present initiative--which collectively must be considered in determining the future. The naive assumptions of Rousseau's Social Contract stating the feasibility of the creation of a national and political will were fallacious. The true contract was not the effort of a single will combining with other wills, nor the effort of one generation', but the product of the' will of a national race and its historical tradition. "The point is to discover it [the nation], if it' exists, and not to put it to the vote. The social and political, mould into which a nation may enter and remain is not subject to its will but determined by its character and its past. It is essential that even in its least traits, it should be shaped on the living traits to "" which it is applied; otherwise it will burst and fall to pieces. , The traditional doctrines of the Right formed a concept of the nation based on certain key principles. It stressed unity rather than 3Ibid., p. 23. 4Cited in Herbert Tint, The,Decline of French Patriotism, 1870-1940 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964), p. 73. - 5 - diversity, the national interest above individual interest, and the call for an elite to lead and act in conformity with this national interest. It emphasized conformity, urtity, and authority over the individual for a common national foundation.5 Implicit in the writings of Oe Maistre and Taine is the'concept of the nation as a living physical being, an organism developing from historical traditions that embodied a community and a nation. Both theoreticians also noted, the disease affecting the national organism draining the moral, cultural, and, political vigour of France. She was undermined with the predominance of the pays legal over the pays reel in a political sense, the predom- inance of egalite that destroyed fraternite in a social sense, and by an objective raison supreme over a subjective raison.' The figure of these ills was theThdrd Republic.