Controversies and Viewpoints

by Alain de Benoist

  The hero of The City, Ive, takes part in Klaus Heim’s movement. He then travels to Berlin in the hope of ‘toppling the world of pavements’. His quest, however, remains fruitless. He ends up being killed by a policeman during a workers’ demonstration.

  Another character in the book, Hinnerk, is simultaneously a national socialist and a communist. He says: ‘We must establish comradery, the sole decent Law, as our land’s supreme Law’. To which he then adds: ‘You can call it socialism or nationalism, I couldn’t care less!’

  In 1960, Das Schicksal des A.D.794 is published; it is a true story, according to von Salomon. A.D. was born in 1901. A Reichswehr officer, he is wrongly accused of having communist sympathies. Arrested and imprisoned, he ends up actually joining the Communist Party — which he had not done so far. He is then transferred by the Nazis to a concentration camp. In 1945, however, it is the Americans’ turn to target him with suspicion. Once again, he finds himself condemned and incarcerated, and is subsequently released. Throughout his entire life, therefore, A.D. never ceases to be judged for acts that he has not actually committed, living ‘in the shadow of history’ and never resisting it.

  Von Salomon recounts A.D.’s story in a most impassive and cold manner, one that is in no way reminiscent of the style used in The Outlaws. This is because it took some time for him to acquire the skill of self-observation.

  ‘We believe in those moments when an entire life finds itself upraised; we believe in the happiness that stems from a prompt decision’, he wrote in his Outlaws. Considered a man of action at times, von Salomon was, in actual fact, no more than a ‘passionately committed observer’. This is why A.D., who never experienced any of the adventures he participated in, ultimately resembles him just as much as Garine, the protagonist of The Conquerors,795 resembles Malraux.

  Overcoming the Past

  Ceaselessly accused and always at the most inopportune moments, von Salomon himself seems to have only led an exceptional life because the latter merged with events that were indeed so. Having been born too late, or too early perhaps, he was the perfect embodiment of all the contradictions and plights that tore the old, imperial Germany apart. His own existence was nothing more than the reflection of an era, and if he has indeed been the focus of so much controversy, it is only because one strived to judge an entire era through him.

  In Portrait d’un aventurier796 (Grasset, 1965), Mr Roger Stéphane797 associates Ernst von Salomon with T. E. Lawrence798 and André Malraux, considering him the period’s foremost German writer alongside Ernst Jünger. One reads the following at the end of A.D.’s Destiny:

  Whosoever meets A.D. these days will certainly not suspect that the man standing before him was, for as long as twenty-seven years, the expiatory victim of our time’s sins; a man who, in the midst of our “unovercome past”, has perfectly managed to overcome his own; an ageing man discreetly dressed in grey, with a plastic hearing aid in his right ear, fastened to his horn-rimmed glasses. He walks his average-sized dog of undefinable breed, patiently stopping at each street corner.

  In 1972, Ernst von Salomon had, likewise, ‘overcome his past’. He was a small and slightly corpulent man with a pair of keen eyes and a scarf tucked into his shirt. Raising his index finger, he burst into laughter and said:

  I am a German without his Germany, a Prussian without his Prussia, a monarchist without a king, a socialist without socialism, and would also be a democrat if any sort of democracy actually existed. War, revolution, and the struggle of ideas — that is what my century has been filled with, and I have drunk it all up as if it were alcohol.

  Ernst von Salomon passes away in a house in Elbdeich, amidst a thunderstorm that has yet to end.

  *

  Baltikum. Dans le Reich de la défaite, le combat des corps-francs, 1918–1923,799 an essay by Dominique Venner. Laffont, 366 pages.

  La pensée politique d’Ernst von Salomon,800 an essay by D. Apostopoulos. Didier, 72 pages.

  Die Geächteten, a narrative by Ernst von Salomon. Plon, 378 pages (first edition, 1931).

  Der Fragebogen,801 a narrative by Ernst von Salomon. Gallimard, 650 pages.

  Das Schicksal des A.D., Ein Mann im Schatten der Geschichte,802 a narrative by Ernst von Salomon. Gallimard, 263 pages.

  *

  Intellectuals in the Face of Fascism

  The year is 1930. Having already published Candide,803 Fayard decides to launch a major weekly publication with a general focus. Soon, the title is specified: Je suis partout.804 The first issue comes out on the 29th of November. Mr Pierre Gaxotte is its editor-in-chief and Mr Georges Blond its editorial secretary. It is an overnight success.

  Five years later, Je suis partout had already turned into one of the principle organs of the nationalistic Right.

  A decade later, under the Occupation, it acted as the mouthpiece of the partisans of the collaboration policy.

  It is to the history of this journal that thirty-one-year-old Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat has dedicated one of the most interesting theses of the past few years.

  A young historian educated at the School of Political Sciences and a former member of team behind Contrepoint magazine, Mr Dioudonnat was first drawn to the topic more than ten years ago. His thesis, which he defended in June 1972, was a long-term undertaking. Upon reading it, what one notices immediately is the large number of documents that he consulted, and he summarises them all with both precision and objectivity.

  Mr Dioudonnat ties Je suis partout to a ‘second’ fascism, the first having been that of Georges Valois’ ‘Faisceau’.805 In connection to this second fascism, he writes the following words:

  Its essence is due to its origin. Indeed, it was a response to the economic crisis of 1929, which spread without allowing borders to impede its progress. This permeability of national boundaries had a profound impact upon people’s minds: being a universal phenomenon, the crisis seemed to call for an equally universal solution.

  It is only gradually that Je suis partout turns into a journal geared towards struggle.

  On 21st June, 1937, Robert Brasillach is appointed as its editor-in-chief. An entire crowd of authors and brilliant journalists gravitates towards it: Lucien Rebatet, Pierre-Antoine Cousteau, Alain Lambreaux, Charles Lesca, Claude Jeantet, Claude Roy, etc., not to mention the less-committed intellectuals who were led by the event to the very edges of fascism.

  It was then that, upon returning from Mussolini’s Rome in 1934, Sacha Guitry806 exclaimed, ‘I had seen a village, but discovered a city!’. On his part, Jean Giraudoux807 writes in Pleins Pouvoirs:808 ‘We are in full agreement with Hitler when it comes to proclaiming that no policy can attain its superior form unless it is of a racial essence’.

  In yet another work of more unequal value, Mr Alastair Hamilton809 insists on the appeal exerted by fascism on authors that had not previously seemed particularly ‘predisposed’ to espouse it — Pirandello, Bronnen, Heidegger, T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, Hilaire Belloc, Roy Campbell, Ezra Pound, and others.

  ‘A Justice that Reigns Through Force’

  Analysing ‘fascism’ is, indeed, rendered all the more difficult by the very fact that the term itself covers, from one country to another (and even within a single one), entirely diverging worldviews. In France, fascism has, in a number of respects, never been more than a negative epidermal reaction. ‘A sort of anti-antifascism’, Brasillach used to say.

  What actually defines the ‘fascism’ of the 1930s most accurately is a state of mind, a sensibility that feeds upon formulae: power in the hands of the youth, the end of the ‘old world’, the dawning of a ‘new age’, and the rejection of the omnipotence of money (these topics would later resurface among certain Leftists).

  In Histoire égoïste810 (Table ronde, 1976), Jacques Laurent811 remarks:

  Many writers were seduced by fascism as a lyrical movement in which song and will mingled. For Drieu la Rochelle, who, just like any other Barresian, was obsessed with the empire of decad
ence, fascism represented the spirit that he initially expected to come out of Moscow; the mysterious drive that would suddenly suspend the very course of decline. In Brasillach’s eyes, fascism was not a political operation but a vast current of symbols stemming from a secret culture that was truer than that of books. What he did was transform fascism into national poetry and Mussolini into a cantor who, having awakened the immortal Rome, sent new galleys across the Mare Nostrum. There are also other poets-magicians: Hitler, who, accompanied by an escort of young, braided women picking bilberries and engaged to S.S. members who all came from Venusberg, celebrated the nights of Walpurgis, the May holidays, and seemed to Brasillach like a garland of marching songs and forget-me-nots, one that also comprised the tough branches of firs. Even Codreanu is a poet thanks to the Legion of Archangel Michael. The Rose and the Sword embrace each other around the warriors of Primo de Rivera, and even Belgium acquires a poetic aspect thanks to Degrelle, through whom the fresh Ardennes breeze of inspiration blows. Battered by the winds of history, the dark foliage of both Venusberg and the Ardennes and the swell of Spanish olive trees now ripe to become laurels all shiver and heave, just as the oak of Saint-Louis, the cedars of the crusades and the Atlantic waves swallowing Mermoz812 once did.

  The fascists long to transform man and live without any dead time, Brasillach writes in Les sept couleurs:813

  They call for a justice that reigns through force, knowing that it is of this very force that joy can be born. Behold the young fascist that leans against his own race and nation, proud of his vigorous body and lucid mind, pouring scorn upon the coarse goods of this world; the young fascist that remains in his own camp, amongst his comrades-in-peace who may yet become his comrades-in-war; the young fascist who sings, marches, works and dreams! What he is, above all, is a joyous being.

  French fascism, however, does not preach one’s complete surrender to vital forces. Instead, it remains ‘civilised’, Mr Dioudonnat specifies.

  No matter what they say about it, fascists remain both individualistic and rationalistic.

  Having attended the Nuremberg congress, Robert Brasillach is initially enthusiastic. Soon, however, he realises that he has not understood much:

  Yes, indeed, when one attempts to remember those very busy days, the nocturnal ceremonies transversally lit by the light of torches and spotlights, the German children playing like wolves around their memories of civil war and sacrifice, and the leader using his plaintive cries to incite the subjugated crowd to rise up in massive swells, the only conclusion is that this country is, profoundly and eternally, foreign to us. (Les sept couleurs)

  All of this is marked by a complete, or virtually complete, absence of ideology; for Je suis partout is not a school. In it, one identifies, in a most disorganised fashion, with Péguy, Georges Sorel, Barrès, and Drument. As for Nietzsche, Drieu is the only one to quote him.

  Maurras’ influence is still the strongest, which accounts for the subheading used by Mr Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat in his book: ‘The Maurrassians in the Face of Fascist Temptation’.

  Many of Je suis partout’s readers first went through the Action française, which Emmanuel Berl814 described in 1932 as the ‘grumbling party’. Ever since 6th February, 1934, these readers have held the view that, ‘far from being a threat to the Republic, the “A.F.” acts as the latter’s safety valve’. They have, however, retained certain memories and ideas. Shaped by Maurras, they share both his sympathy for Mussolini and his distrust of the ‘Eternal Germany’. Mr Hamilton reminds us that Maurras’ antisemitism originally served as ‘evidence of Germanophobic patriotism’, since ‘a major part of the Jewish immigrants that came to France after 1870 had German names’.

  On 14th July, 1906, at the height of the Dreyfus affair,815 the Action française used the following headline: ‘Death to the Jews — by any means necessary!’

  ‘Everyone Is Under Threat’

  Some of Je suis partout’s editors would remain ‘anti-German at heart’, while simultaneously becoming ‘national socialists through reason’.

  Brasillach continues to publish articles in the Action française’s literary section until almost the start of the war. As for the cinema column, it is in the hands of Rebatet: on 16th April, 1938, the royalist daily praises him for the special issues of Je suis partout dedicated to The Jews and The Jews of France; Maurras would also speak out in his defence (in L’Action française, 12th January, 1940) when Henri de Kérillis816 accused him of being a ‘German agent’. Mr Dioudonnat highlights:

  Even if Maurassism does not necessarily lead to fascism, there is no doubt whatsoever that a fascicising interpretation of Maurras’ thoughts does indeed exist.

  Hence the following formula:

  The history of Je suis partout is that of a possible Maurassism.

  From 1938–39 onwards, Je suis partout becomes simultaneously pacifistic and revolutionary, as Brasillach proclaims: ‘We are not the S.A. of conservatism’. He suggests celebrating a national Labour Day on the 1st of May; this Labour Day would then be instituted by the Vichy government and maintained by the regimes that would succeed the French state.

  At the same time, the ‘fascists’ return to the camp of traditional patriotism. On 24th March, 1939, Pierre-Antoine Cousteau817 declares:

  Germany has become an all-too-powerful beast, too fearsome not to elicit the necessity of our rendering it powerless. Germany must be stopped, for everyone is under threat.

  On 18th May, 1940, Paul Reynaud818 appoints Georges Mandel819 to the Interior Ministry. On the 24th of May, Je suis partout expresses its approval:

  There are none who could deny his working qualities, his sense of authority. Mr Mandel is not a man to evade his own responsibilities. The forces of disorder and treason will now face a real opponent.

  However, the week had not yet passed when Mandel had a series of raids organised against the journal’s main editors. Searches and detentions ensue, as Alain Lambreaux and Charles Lesca are incarcerated.

  In L’Action française, on the 7th of June, Maurras is the only one to protest. He writes:

  When it comes to Lesca, never have I spied as little as a hint of divergence in our notions of national policy.

  Je suis partout resurfaces in occupied Paris. This time around, the editing team no longer hesitates and endorses Collaborationism. It thus finds itself at the very centre of intellectual life in the northern zone (with newspapers Candide and Gringoire no longer being published). Towards the end of 1944, its print run reaches an approximate number of 300,000 copies per week.

  The daily publishes the writings of Marcel Aymé, La Varende, Jean de Baroncelli, Morvan Lebesque, Serge Jeanneret, Maurice Bardèche, Max Favalelli, Pierre Daye, Claude Roy, François-Charles Bauer (the future François Chalais), Michel Mohrt, René Barjavel, Jean Anouilh, Drieu la Rochelle, Abel Bonnard, and others.

  Having been appointed as the head of the Jewish Affairs Commission, Maurassian Xavier Vallat implements the antisemitic laws promulgated in Vichy in October 1940.

  Maurras himself demands that hostages be taken from the families of Resistance members and subsequently executed. This does not prevent him, however, from separating himself, with equal sincerity, from those collaborators who write in the ‘German press’. In February 1942, he declares that he no longer has anything in common with Brasillach.

  In July–August 1943, the latter resigns from his editor-in-chief position at Je suis partout due to personal differences with Lesca. Furthermore, on the ideological level, he distances himself more and more violently from both Rebatet and Cousteau. He is replaced by a ‘soviet’ of journalists.

  The French Liberation takes place at a time when Je suis partout is attempting to reconcile Jacques Doriot and Marcel Déat. On 16th August, 1944, the newspaper is still published, with the Allies already in Chartres. On the 25th, Resistance members make the following mocking comment:

  It is no longer Je suis partout, but Je suis parti.820

  The ‘JS
P’ trial takes place in November 1946. Brasillach had already been executed by firing squad, on 6th February, 1945. Cousteau and Rebatet are sentenced to death (but later pardoned). Claude Jeantet is sentenced to life imprisonment. As for the others, they must make a choice between being banned from writing (i.e. sentenced to a ‘dry death’) and being exiled.

  Looking back thirty years, the writings of the ‘fascists of the 1930s’ often come across as old-fashioned and outdated. What one perceives in them is more a matter of talent than rigour, more courage than discernment. Within this mixture of literary impatience and naïve enthusiasm, one does find some admirable pages, pages which have, however, lost all power and especially significance.

  Mr Hamilton says that ‘the disunion of French fascists was the main cause of their failure’; the truth is that there was nothing, neither man nor doctrine, to compensate for their mental divides.

  In the end, all that one can say is that there never was such a thing as French fascism, only a few men who believed themselves to be fascists and paid a dire price for their own delusion.

  *

  Je suis partout, 1930–1944. Les maurassiens devant la tentation fasciste,821 an essay by Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat. Table ronde, 471 pages.

  The Appeal of Fascism: A Study of Intellectuals and Fascism 1919–1944, an essay by Alastair Hamilton. Gallimard, 334 pages.

  ***

  In his Sociology of Revolution (Fayard, 1969), Mr Jules Monnerot822 rightfully remarks that the word ‘fascism’ is nowadays used in a number of very different meanings. Indeed, depending on the discourse, what it reveals is ‘the imprecatory designation of a terrifying myth, an ideological entity fabricated by Marxists using their own fact-filtering dogmas, or a sociological fact of the twentieth century’; in short, ‘a reflex, a dogma or a kind of fact’.

  As far as the sociological reality is concerned, one must still distinguish those who restrict the term ‘fascism’ to its sole description of the Italian phenomenon from those who use the word to designate the ‘model’ to which the various common traits of certain parties and nationalist-authoritarian regimes of the 1930s belong.