Sidney Hook
REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY
AGAINST DICTATORSHIP AND WAR
The idea of The International Day of Resistance to Dictator–
ship and War, held 'in Paris on April 30, 1949, was suggested to David
Rousset, its chief initiator, by the meeting conducted at Freedom House
in New York City on March 26, by Americans for Intellectual Freedom.
The project was supported by the Executive Committee of the
Rassemblement Democratique Revolutionnaire
and by the editorial staff
of the daily newspaper
Franc-Tireur
in whose joint name invitations
were issued.
The
R.D.R.
is a group of left-wing writers, critics, and artists–
the most notable of whom is Jean-Paul Sartre-whose political senti–
ments range from near-Communist to democratic socialist. It conceives
its mission as a regrouping and integration of "left" forces in French
life. For practical purposes, it defines the left as almost all elements who
regard De Gaulle rather than the Communist Party as the main cnemy
of freedom and socialism in Francc. The Communist Party of France
is regarded by the
R.D.R.
as a genuine working class party with bureau–
cratic deformations, too subservient to the Kremlin, but capable, to–
gether with the S.P., of being influenced by genuinely revolutionary
socialist ideas. The
R.D.R.
is devoid of any mass influence but has a
strong following among the footloose Paris intelligentsia who are excited
by ideological novelties but are politically very immature. Because of
the prestige of ideas and literary personalities in French culture, the
R.D.R.
has considerable snob appeal.
The
Franc-Tireur,
one of whose editors is Rousset, until recently
followed the Communist Party line rather faithfully but with greater
sensationalism and demagogy. As a result of a schism with the Party
stalwarts, and a visit by Rousset and Altman, its chief editor, to the
United States, where they discovered that the U.S. was neither decadent
nor neo-Fascist, that Negroes are not lynched on every street corner, and
that a strong trade-union movement was leading the struggle for pro–
gressive social legislation, the
Franc-Tireur
dropped its exclusively anti-
