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Soviet delegation to the Congress, it did not deter him. Ehrenburg ·
retaliated in the organizing committee: the surrealists must be ex–
cluded. The behind-the-scene maneuvers were long and painful,
lasting until after the Congress had opened . Crevel was both ab–
solutely loyal to Breton and a dedicated party worker. Jean Cassou
told how Crevel persuaded him to go to the Closerie des Lilas one
night after the evening session in order to convince Ehrenburg that
Breton must be allowed to speak. Because the organizing committee
wanted to maintain unity at all costs, Ehrenburg had a simple and
totally effective answer.
If
Breton spoke, the Soviet Delegation
would walk out. Meanwhile a kind of compromise had been reached:
Eluard would read Breton's speech at the Monday evening session.
This kind of personal-ideological dilemma takes its toll, particularly
on the less thick-skinned . Crevel was beseiged by a number of per–
sonal problems, and he had just learned that he had only a short
time to live because of a pulmonary condition . Later during the
night of Cassou's useless appeal to Ehrenburg, Crevel committed
suicide. His medical papers were found in his pocket. He had a
speech all written out for delivery. There was a short tribute at the
next day's meeting.
Eluard was finally given the platform after midnight following
a long talk on dreams by Tzara that had sent most of the audience
home. Breton had written an effective and scandalous speech which
trampled resolutely across all the guidelines set up by the context
and the program of the Congress. He denounced the Franco-Soviet
pact and any cultural rapprochement, the new patriotic face of
L'Hu–
manitc,
the popular front ideology, and the growing tendency to con–
demn all German thought. Eluard apparently read the text well, but
another incident was already developing which contributed to the
neglect of the strong surrealist attack on the Congress as a sellout to
the existing order.
Starting earlier during Tzara's talk, voices had been raised in
the auditorium clamoring for a discussion of Victor Serge. For those
who knew the tale, this was a more explosive situation than the sur–
realist dispute . Journalists were watching alertly. The protests came
from a group of noncommunist Marxists and Trotskyites, two of
whom had been scheduled to speak only as the result of desperate
personal appeals to Malraux and Gide .
It
was very late . The burly
service d'ordre
of ushers provided by the communists left their positions
and converged on the troublemakers while Eluard was reading Bre–
ton's speech . The Serge advocates had no objection to that text , but
