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categories of writers around a political issue, however blurred, and
in one convocation, however steamrollered. Even the Soviet writers'
congresses which provided the precedent tended to avoid basic polit–
ical discussion and to deal with the writer as the servant of the state.
In their own terms, the Soviet congresses were fairly successful.
Since it really had no terms, the Paris congress neither succeeded
nor failed. In a mammoth public ritual it consecrated the formation
of an intellectual popular front. But that apparent fusion of forces
and the euphoria it produced were based on a set of misunderstand–
ings and ambiguities. "Revolution" remained as fuzzy as the
"culture" they had met to defend. Since no question ever came to a
vote, no terms or issues had to be clarified. The Congress probably
tells us as much about the easily hoodwinked idealism, the oppor–
tunism, and the vanity of writers as about the political stresses of the
era. For those who wanted to know, it was possible to find out about
the terror that reigned in Soviet Russia as well as in Hitler's Ger–
many. But most people, including writers, turned their backs on at
least part of the truth and accepted the dwindling options. Do you
choose bourgeois-capitalist fascism? Or Soviet Communism?
Among the militant writers one rarely heard talk as fundamental
and as illuminating as Salvemini's remarks on two kinds of bour–
geoisie, or as Breton's refusal of any kind of political control of
literature, even in the name of the revolution.
The total event gives a better reading of the intellectual
temperature in 1935 than, say, the Manifesto of the Intellectuals in
1898 that helped reopen the Dreyfus case. Yet ultimately the Con–
gress makes one wonder if Valery, who shunned politics, wasn't
right after all. Gide reports something he said back in 1932: "Im–
possible to put together a united front to oppose the ruinous claims
of the nationalists. He convinces me." But Gide was not finally con–
vinced until five years later.
Right or wrong, many writers probably continue to believe that
if they only band together, their corporate voice will be heard.
Author's Note: I wish to acknowledge information provided by Pierre Abraham,
Louis Aragon, Jean Cassou, Louis Guilloux, and Andre Malraux in conversation
and by letter. Another valuable source of documents is an extensive file of
newspaper clippings and press releases concerning the Congress collected by Rose
Adler and preserved in the Fonds Doucet in Paris. Most unidentified quotations in
my text come from that file. I am grateful to Francois Chapon, the director of the
Fonds Doucet, for having brought the file to my attention at a moment when my in–
vestigations had reached an impasse.
