ROGER SHATIUCK
405
The political vagaries of surrealism constitute one of the most
fascinating case histories of intellectual gymnastics and conscience–
searching in the Thirties. The chronicle has now been filled out in
considerable detail, but usually in such a way as to detach the politi–
cal needle-threadings from literary activity, or to treat the politics as
an inopportune and marginal pastime that merely distracted from
the esthetic concerns of the movement. Many people are involved,
but only Breton remains squarely in the center of the picture. Rudely
telescoped, the story runs like this. Launched ambitiously in
1924-
1925
with a manifesto and a review called
La Revolution Surrealiste,
the surrealist movement began as an extraordinary amalgam of gen–
eralized poetics and semiscientific experiments in altered states of
consciousness. The surrealists were also among the first French in–
tellectuals to read Freud attentively. Almost immediately, however,
a series of personal and historic circumstances carried the surrealists
rapidly toward Marxism and the Communist Party. It mattered lit–
tle that the Party was in a very dry season, holding out few rewards
to artists and intellectuals. Early in
1927
the five principal surrealists
joined the Party and accepted assignment to local cells. After the ex–
pulsion of Trotsky and Zinoviev in November of the same year, they
had some second thoughts but did not go away. From
1927
to
1933
the surrealists carried on a steady guerilla war with the Party while
insisting on their right to participate in events and organizations
designed to give some shape and direction to artists on the left. Sup–
ported in varying ways by Peret, Eluard, and Crevel, Breton acted
in a headstrong fashion. He reaffirmed his faith in Freud. He re–
fused to give automatic obedience to directives from Moscow. He
defended Trotsky. He would not accept any policies that compro–
mised artistic freedom and the right to experiment in new forms of
expression. The surrealists and their numerous publications repre–
sented a challenge to the steady movement of intellectuals toward
the Party after
1932.
That year Aragon ended his long vacillation
and abandoned the surrealists completely for Communism. In
1933
the surrealists intrepidly attacked Barbusse and Romain Rolland for
organizing the Amsterdam-Pleyel movement against war, calling it
a betrayal of class warfare. They censured Ehrenburg and the ed–
itorial pages of
L'Humanite.
For these accumulated reasons and
others, Breton and Eluard were finally expelled from the communist
controlled Association of Revolutionary Artists and Writers.
February
1934
sparked them back to life along with everyone else.
Breton was one of the principa.l sponsors of the first major response
to the riots among intellectuals . Dated Feburary 10, "Appel
a
la
