ANDRE GIDE AND COMMUNISM
Samuel Putnam
A NDRE GIDE IS ONE OF THE Two. OUTSTANDING
masters of the after–
War generation in France, the other being Proust; and the influence of
either has reached far beyond the national frontiers. vVhile other "pre–
cursors" might be found, such as Valery or Apollinaire, their impingement
has not had the range or depth of that effected by the author of
Les
N ourritures terrestres
and the creator of Swann. Whatever one may
think of their work, it is Gide and Proust who remain the fountain-heads
responsible for the two main streams. The Proustian influence may be
the more widely diffused abroad; but owing to a certain revolt agai.nst
psychologizing, a certain surge toward sensation, the Gidean has been,
probably, the dominant one at home-it is very, very French in essence.
!t
is, accordingly, hard to estimate just how great an effect Gide's "con–
version" to Communism, which has Olx:asioned so much wordy discussion,
may have upon those who have looked up to him as to a revered master.
If
we endeavor to find out what it was caused Gide to go Leftward, and
the relation of the evolution in his view of society to the influence he has
exerted as a literary leader, the effort may serve to shed a light upon the
possible effectiveness of his example.
It seems to me, it should not be difficult to trace the course of Gide's
evolution. It is all there for the one who will read him closely. It
seems to me, too, that the
cas Gide,
as the French would call it, is a pro–
phetically typical one, and that we are likely to see more and more of the
same general kind as the barricades draw nearer.
Upon reading either Gide or Proust, one is easily deceived, in an
inverse fashion, until he looks beneath the surface. U pan the surface, for
example, Proust appears to be all sensation, to be primarily concerned with
sensibilite,
sensitivity. We discover, however, that it is the Proustian
intelligence which remains the motivating force in the end; the author is
constantly seeking to understand that which he feels; one might say that
he feels in order that he may understand. "With Gide, on the con·
trary"-1 am quoting here from the Introduction which I wrote to
Tht
European Caravan,
in 1930-"it is the play of the intelligence over the
30
