Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956The uniquely prominent role of French intellectuals in European cultural and political life following World War II is the focus of Tony Judt's newest book. He analyzes this intellectual community's most divisive conflicts: how to respond to the promise and the betrayal of Communism and how to sustain a commitment to radical ideals when confronting the hypocrisy in Stalin's Soviet Union, in the new Eastern European Communist states, and in France itself. Judt shows why this was an all-consuming moral dilemma to a generation of French men and women, how their responses were conditioned by war and occupation, and how post-war political choices have come to sit uneasily on the conscience of later generations of French intellectuals. Judt's analysis extends beyond the writings of fashionable "Existentialist" personalities such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir to include a wide intellectual community of Catholic philosophers, non-aligned journalists, literary critics and poets, Communist and non-Communist alike. Judt treats the intellectual dilemmas of the postwar years as an unfinished history. French intellectuals have not fully come to terms with the gnawing sense of what Judt calls the "moral irresponsibility" of those years. The result, he suggests, is a legacy of bad faith and confusion that has damaged France's cultural standing, notably in newly liberated Eastern Europe, and which reflects the nation's larger difficulty in confronting its own ambivalent past. |
Contents
The Blind Force of History | 6 |
Decline and Fall | 15 |
Resistance and Revenge | 45 |
What Is Political Justice? | 75 |
Show Trials | 101 |
The Philosophical Case for Terror | 117 |
Today Things Are Clear | 139 |
The Sacrifices of the Russian People | 153 |
America Has Gone | 187 |
We Must Not Disillusion the Workers | 205 |
Liberalism There Is the Enemy | 229 |
Gesta Dei per Francos | 246 |
Europe and the French Intellectuals | 275 |
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT? | 293 |
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING | 321 |
335 | |
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actions Albert Camus American André anti-Semitism appeal Benda Brasillach camps Catholic claim Claude Bourdet Claude Roy collaboration commitment Communist Communist party contemporary crimes critical cultural Czech decade December defense earlier Emmanuel Mounier engagement Esprit ethical Europe European experience faith fascism France France's François Mauriac French intellectuals French political German human idea intellec intellectual community intelligentsia Jacques January Jean Jean-François Sirinelli Jean-Marie Domenach Journal Julien Benda justice language later Left Les Temps modernes Lettres françaises liberal Marxism memoirs ment Merleau-Ponty moral Moscow munist Paris Paulhan Pétain Petkov philosophical Pierre politique position postwar France Prague purge quoted radical Rajk Raymond Aron reason regime republican response revolution revolutionary Sartre Sartre's sense show trials Simone de Beauvoir Sirinelli Slánsky trial social socialist society sort Soviet Union Stalinism struggle Temps modernes thinkers Third Republic thirties thought tion tual Uriage Vichy violence Western writings wrote