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Title: Camus, Albert and the Anarchists Author: Nick Heath Date: Spring 2007 Language: en Topics: Albert Camus, history, Paris, absurdism, Organise! Source: Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from http://libcom.org/library/albert-camus-anarchists Notes: Organise! magazine looks at the life and work of the great existentialist writer Albert Camus.
Born in French Algeria into a poor family in 1913, Camus lost his father
in the Battle of the Marne in 1916. He was raised by his mother, who
worked as a charlady and was illiterate. Winning a scholarship, Camus
eventually began a career as a journalist. As a youth, he was a keen
footballer as well as being a member of a theatrical troupe.
From his time as a goalkeeper, Albert Camus always had a team spirit. He
had a generous, if sensitive nature, and always sought the maximum
unity, seeking to avoid or bypass rancour. Many intellectuals writing
about Camus have obscured his support of anarchism. He was always there
to support at the most difficult moments of the anarchist movement, even
if he felt he could not totally commit himself to that movement.
Camus himself never made a secret of his attraction towards anarchism.
Anarchist ideas occur in his plays and novels, as for example, La Peste,
L’Etat de siège or Les Justes. He had known the anarchist Gaston Leval,
who had written about the Spanish revolution, since 1945. Camus had
first expressed admiration for revolutionary syndicalists and
anarchists, conscientious objectors and all manner of rebels as early as
1938 whilst working as a journalist on the paper L’Alger Republicaine,
according to his friend Pascal Pia.
The anarchist Andre Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in
1948 of the Cercle des Etudiants Anarchistes (Anarchist Student Circle)
as a sympathiser who was familiar with anarchist thought.
Camus also supported the Groupes de Liaison Internationale which sought
to give aid to opponents of fascism and Stalinism, and which refused to
take the side of American capitalism. These groups had been set up in
1947–48, and intended to give material support to victims of
authoritarian regimes as well as exchanging information. Supporters
included the Russian anarchist Nicolas Lazarevitch, exiled in France, as
well as many supporters of the revolutionary syndicalist paper La
RĂ©volution Proletarienne. Camus remained a friend and financial
supporter of RP until his death.
Albert Camus’s book L’Homme Révolte (translated into English as The
Rebel), published in 1951, marked a clear break between him and the
Communist Party left. It was met with hostility by those who were
members of The Communist Party or were fellow travelers. Its message was
understood by anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists in France and
Spain, however, for it openly mentions revolutionary syndicalism and
anarchism and makes a clear distinction between authoritarian and
libertarian socialism. The main theme is how to have a revolution
without the use of terror and the employment of “Caesarist” methods. So
Camus deals with Bakunin and Nechaev among others. “The Commune against
the State, concrete society against absolutist society, liberty against
rational tyranny, altruistic individualism finally against the
colonisation of the masses...”
He ends with a call for the resurrection of anarchism. Authoritarian
thought, thanks to three wars and the physical destruction of an elite
of rebels, had submerged this libertarian tradition. But it was a poor
victory, and a provisional one, and the struggle still continues.
Gaston Leval responded in a series of articles to the book. His tone was
friendly, and he avoided harsh polemic, but he brought Camus to book on
what he regarded as a caricature of Bakunin. Camus replied in the pages
of Le Libertaire, the paper of the Fédération Anarchiste (circulation of
this paper was running at 100,000 a week in this period). He protested
that he had acted in good faith, and would make a correction in one of
the passages criticised by Leval in future editions.
The general secretary of the Fédération Anarchiste, Georges Fontenis,
also reviewed Camus’s book in Le Libertaire. To the title question “Is
the revolt of Camus the same as ours?”, Fontenis replied that it was.
However he faulted him for not giving due space to the revolutions in
the Ukraine and Spain, and for portraying Bakunin as a hardened Nihilist
and not giving credit to his specific anarchist positions. He ended by
admitting that the book contained some admirable pages. A review by Jean
Vita the following week in Le Libertaire was warmer and more positive.
These measured criticisms from the anarchists were in contrast to those
from the fellow travellers of the Communist Party, like Sartre and the
group around the magazine Les Temps Moderne. This marked the beginning
of Camus’s break with that other great exponent of existentialism. The
criticisms of this group were savage, in particular that of Francis
Jeanson. Camus replied that Jeanson’s review was orthodox Marxist, and
that he had passed over all references to anarchism and syndicalism.
“The First International, the Bakuninist movement, still living among
the masses of the Spanish and French CNT, are ignored”, wrote Camus. For
his pains, Camus was “excommunicated” by Jeanson from the ranks of the
existentialists. These methods disheartened Camus. He also received
stern criticism from the Surrealists for the artistic conceptions within
the book. It looked like the anarchist movement were Camus’s best
supporters.
Camus marked this break in other ways too. He had made a pledge to
himself to keep away from intellectuals who were ready to back
Stalinism. This did not stop him from wholeheartedly committing himself
to causes he thought just and worthwhile. In Spain a group of anarchist
workers had been sentenced to death by Franco. In Paris a meeting was
called by the League for the Rights of Man on February 22^(nd) 1952.
Camus agreed to speak at this. He thought it would be useful if the
leader of the Surrealists, André Breton, should appear on the podium.
This was in spite of the attack that Breton had written in the magazine
Arts, over Camus’s criticisms of the poet Lautreamont, admired by the
Surrealists as one of their precursors.
Camus met with the organisers of the event, Fernando Gómez Peláez of the
paper Solidaridad Obrera, organ of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union
the CNT, and José Ester Borrás, secretary of the Spanish political
prisoners’ federation FEDIP, asking them to approach Breton without
telling him that Camus had suggested it. Breton agreed to speak at the
meeting even though Camus would be present. GĂłmez then told Breton that
Camus had suggested he speak in the first place, which moved Breton to
tears. Later Camus told the Spanish anarchists that because he had not
replied to Breton’s anger in kind that a near-reconciliation was
possible. Camus and Breton shared the podium and were even seen chatting
(for Breton and the Surrealists links to the anarchist movement see
).
Camus took a position of the committed intellectual, signing petitions
and writing for Le Libertaire, La révolution Proletarienne and
Solidaridad Obrera. He also became part of the editorial board of a
little libertarian review, TĂ©moins 1956, getting to know its editor,
Robert Proix, a proofreader by trade. Camus, via Proix, met up with
Giovanna Berneri (Caleffi) the companion of the gifted Italian anarchist
Camillo Berneri, who had been murdered by the Stalinists in Spain in
1937. Camus also met Rirette Maitrejean, who had been the erstwhile
companion of Victor Serge, and had been involved in the Bonnot Gang
affair and trial. Rirette had been working as a proofreader for the
paper Paris-Soir for a long time. Camus also became a friend of the
anarchist veteran Maurice Joyeux, who was later to remark that of all
contemporary literary works The Rebel was the book that most closely
defined the aspirations of the students and workers in May 1968.
Again in 1954 Camus came to the aid of the anarchists. Maurice Laisant,
propaganda secretary of the Forces Libres de la Paix (Free Forces of
Peace) as well as an editor of Le Monde Libertaire, paper of the
Fédération Anarchiste, had produced an antimilitarist poster using the
format of official army propaganda. As a result he was indicted for
subversion. Camus was a character witness at his trial, recalling how he
had first met him at the Spanish public meeting.
Camus told the court, “Since then I have seen him often and have been in
a position to admire his will to fight against the disaster which
threatens the human race. It seems impossible to me that one can condemn
a man whose action identifies so thoroughly with the interests of all
men. Too few men are fighting against a danger which each day grows more
ominous for humanity”. It was reported that after his statement, Camus
took his seat in a courtroom composed mainly of militant workers, who
surrounded him with affection. Unfortunately Laisant received a heavy
fine.
Camus also stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the
workers’ revolt against the Soviets in East Germany in 1953. He again
stood with the anarchists in 1956, first with the workers’ uprising in
Poznan, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian
Revolution. Later in 1955 Camus gave his support to Pierre Morain, a
member of the Fédération Communiste Libertaire (the Fédération
Anarchiste had changed its name in 1954 following rancourous struggles
within the organisation). Morain was the very first Frenchman to be
imprisoned for an anti-colonialist stand on Algeria. Camus expressed his
support in the pages of the national daily L’Express of 8^(th) November
1955.
Camus often used his fame or notoriety to intervene in the press to stop
the persecution of anarchist militants or to alert public opinion. In
the final year of his life Camus settled in the Provence village of
Lourmarin. Here he made the acquaintance of Franck Creac’h. A Breton,
born in Paris, self-taught, and a convinced anarchist, he had come to
the village during the war to “demobilise” himself. Camus employed him
as his gardener and had the benefit of being able to have conversations
with someone on the same wavelength. One of the last campaigns Camus was
involved in was that of the anarchist Louis Lecoin who fought for the
status of conscientious objectors in 1958. Camus was never to see the
outcome to this campaign, as he died in a car crash on 1960, at the age
of forty-six.