Y20 ANDRE MALRAUX: THE ANTICOLONIAL AND ANTIFASCIST YEARS DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Richard A. Cruz, B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1996 Y20 ANDRE MALRAUX: THE ANTICOLONIAL AND ANTIFASCIST YEARS DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Richard A. Cruz, B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1996 Cruz, Richard A., Andre Malraux: The Anticolonial and Antifascist Years. Doctor of Philosophy (History), May, 1996, 281 pp., 175 titles. This dissertation provides an explanation of how Andr6 Malraux, a man of great influence on twentieth century European culture, developed his political ideology, first as an anticolonial social reformer in the 1920s, then as an antifascist militant in the 1930s. Almost all of the previous studies of Malraux have focused on his literary life, and most of them are rife with errors. This dissertation focuses on the facts of his life, rather than on a fanciful recreation from his fiction. The major sources consulted are government documents, such as police reports and dispatches, the newspapers that Malraux founded with Paul Monin, other Indochinese and Parisian newspapers, and Malraux's speeches and interviews. Other sources include the memoirs of Clara Malraux, as well as other memoirs and reminiscences from people who knew Andre Malraux during the 1920s and the 1930s. The dissertation begins with a survey of Malraux's early years, followed by a detailed account of his experiences in Indochina. Then there is a survey of the period from 1926 to 1933, when Malraux won renown as a novelist and as a man with special insight into Asian affairs. The dissertation then focuses on Malraux's career as a militant antifascist during the 1930s, including an analysis of Malraux's organization of an air squadron for the Spanish Republic, and his trip to North America to raise funds. The dissertation concludes with an analysis of Malraux's evolution from an apolitical, virtually unknown writer into a committed anticolonial social reformer and an antifascist militant. The man and his political ideology were intricately interwoven. His brief career as a political journalist in Saigon was crucial in his transformation from an apolitical Parisian dandy into a political activist. Because he regarded fascism as a dire threat to European civilization, Malraux gave his full support to the Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic during the 1930s. Copyright by Richard A. Cruz 1996 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page COPYRIGHT NOTICE iii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. THE YOUTH OF ANDRE MALRAUX 11 3. FIRST STAY IN INDOCHINA 38 4. RETURN TO INDOCHINA 82 5. THE END OF A NEWSPAPER 118 6. A MAN OF LETTERS AND AN ASIAN EXPERT 151 7. AN ANTIFASCIST ACTIVIST 177 8. FROM ACTIVISM TO MILITANCE 208 9. THE DESPERATE YEARS 231 10. CONCLUSIONS 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY 266 IV CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION As an artist and a man of action, Andre Malraux pursued a multi-faceted career of enormous range and complexity. Over the course of his life, he was a novelist, amateur archaeologist, adventurer, soldier, art critic, and a minister of culture. In 1925, when he was in Vietnam, he became involved in anticolonial politics, and he helped to start a newspaper called L'lndochine in Saigon. By 1926 the newspaper was forced out of business because the strident, anticolonial editorial policy of its staff angered the colonial establishment. During the late 1920s and the 1930s Malraux won renown as a novelist, while serving as artistic director for the Gallimard publishing house. He travelled widely during the 1930s, and in 1934, he even participated in an archaeological survey flight over Yemen in search of the lost city of the Queen of Sheba. Aroused by the rise of Nazism and fascism in Europe, Malraux became a leading antifascist figure during the 1930s, making several trips to Moscow to strengthen the ties between French leftist intellectuals and their Soviet counterparts. In 1936 he organized and commanded an international air squadron for the Spanish Republic. The following year, he toured North America to raise funds for the Spanish Republic, published a novel, L'Espoir. on 1 the Spanish civil war, and then returned to Spain to shoot a motion picture entitled Sierra de Teruel. After the outbreak of World War Two, he enlisted in a French tank regiment, was captured by the Germans in 1940, and escaped to the Free Zone where he joined the French resistance. He was a colonel in the Maquis in the Dordogne region, but he was captured again by the Germans in 1944. Fortunately, he was liberated before the end of his interrogation, and he then joined with the Free French forces in the final Allied advance into Germany. Malraux met Charles de Gaulle in 1945 and became Minister of Information for the first de Gaulle government. He stopped writing novels, but he published books on numerous other subjects during the postwar period, including several important studies in art history. In 1958 he was appointed Minister of Information in the second de Gaulle government, and he moved to the post of Minister for Cultural Affairs in 1959. He made numerous trips abroad as a cultural ambassador for France, including visits to meet the leaders of India and China in 1965. Malraux retired from public life in 1969 and devoted the remainder of his life to writing. He died in 1976. In this dissertation, I will focus on the career of Malraux in the 1920s and the1930s and examine in detail his transformation from a stylish Parisian dandy into a committed anticolonial social reformer and an antifascist fighter. I will investigate each phase of his life and thought during this period in order to find an explanation of how the young, apolitical Malraux evolved into a courageous militant who was prepared to risk everything in the antifascist struggle. His political views and activities are my primary concern. Most previous studies of Malraux have dealt with his novels or with the philosophical views expressed in his literature and his critical works. Although scholars have subjected his literature to exhaustive analyses in numerous books and articles, little has been written on his political activities. This dissertation will focus on Malraux's political evolution during the two decades between the world wars. My approach will entail a detailed analysis of his anticolonial activities in Indochina 1923-1925, as well as his antifascist commitments during the period 1933-1939. His career in the French resistance and his subsequent association with Charles de Gaulle are beyond the scope of this study. On occasion I will discuss the gradual formation of the Malraux myth, a romantic aura that began forming around him during his youth in Indochina. Because Malraux said little about his career in Asia during the 1920s, this period of his life gave rise to extravagant speculation on his role in the nationalist movements of Indochina and China. On occasion, the young Malraux deceived journalists and critics who were curious about particular episodes, for instance, his alleged exploits in revolutionary China. In this dissertation I will discuss how these myths originated. To present a balanced account of Malraux, I have consulted a wide variety of sources. Government documents, such as police reports and dispatches, shed light on Malraux's activities in Indochina during the period 1925-1926. Unfortunately, these are few in number because most of the documents dealing with Cochinchina were left in Saigon when the French withdrew from Indochina.1 The most significant sources of information on Malraux's anticolonial views are the newspapers that he published with Paul Monin in Saigon, L'lndochine and L'lndochine enchatn£e. Fortunately for research, the French Bibliotheque nationale preserved these newspapers on microfilm before they disintegrated. Though Malraux wrote very little about himself, other people who knew him have written memoirs and reminiscences which contain valuable information on his life. The memoirs of his ex- wife, Clara, are the most complete source of biographical information on his activities in the 1920s and the 1930s. Because she was fully involved in most of his exploits for almost two decades, her insights furnish a useful counterpoint to the Malraux legend. Under the collective title Le Bruit de nos pas, five of the six volumes of her memoirs deal with their life together.2 As is often the case with memoirs, Clara Malraux's reflections on their travels and adventures are sometimes biased and self-serving, yet she provides facts that would otherwise be unavailable. Several of Andre Malraux's earliest literary acquaintances -- editor Rene-Louis 11n the general inventory catalogues at the Archives Nationales, there was a note which said that the archives of the government of Cochinchina remained in Saigon. I confirmed this fact in a conversation with Lucette Vachier, chief archivist at the Archives d'Outre-Mer. 2Clara Malraux, Le Bruit de nos pas. 6 vols. (Paris: Grasset, 1964-1979). Doyon, Andre Salmon, and poet George Gabory -- recorded their impressions of Malraux in the 1920s. Some of the men who knew him during the Spanish Civil War have written about Malraux during the time in which he commanded an international air squadron for the Spanish Republic. These include Julien Segnaire, Malraux's lieutenant; Michael Koltsov, who wrote for Pravda: Pietro Nenni, who served with the International Brigades and later became head of the Italian Socialist Party; Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros, who was the communist chief of aviation for the Spanish Republic; and llya Ehrenburg, who was a well-known Soviet writer and journalist.