Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Lamar
WILLIAM R. Tu c KER
State College of Technology
*I am grateful to the Lamar Research Center for the grant which made the
research for this study possible.
1Brasillach's name is kept alive by a cult devoted to his memory, !'Associa
tion des Amis de Robert Brasillach, with headquarters in Lausanne.
An at
tempt was made in 1960 by claude Elsen, Dr. Jean-Paul Bonnafous, and
Jean Bernier to found a similar organization on behalf of Drieu, but the op
position of the family to such an enterprise could not be overcome (com
munication from Claude Elsen, January 10, 1962).
[ 153]
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[Vol. 27
1965]
155
the new golden age publicized by the political leaders during the
war.4 In his search for evidence of the new spirit in the civilian
world he was drawn successively to the Dadaists and the Surrealists.
Still dissatisfied, and increasingly disenchanted, Drieu attempted to
found a young conservative movement-and produced only a mani
festo.:; Collaborating with E mmanuel Berl on the newspaper Les
Derniers lours in 1927, he placed his hopes in a militant, reformist
capitalism; but then he turned to the "Young Turks" of Radicalism,
Gaston Bergery, Pierre Dominique, and Bertrand de Jouvenel, see
ing in these figures potential innovators in French politics. His dis
covery that action could not be expected from that quarter led him
to an interest in socialism which endured; still, he was unable to see
any hope in the parliamentary socialists. In 1934, when his pessi
mism had become oppressive, he declared himself a fascist and pub
lished a major political work, Socialisme Jasciste. As a Parisian col
laborator during the Occupation, Drieu accepted the responsibility
of serving as editor of the distinguished Nouvelle Revue Fra11faise
in December, 1940. Aware of the approaching defeat of the Axis, he
closed down the NRF in 1943, while continuing to publish in the
newspaper Revolution Nationale In a state of uncontrollable despair
and after two unsuccessful suicide attempts, Drieu succumbed to the
third on March 15, 1945.6
'See Maurice Martin du Gard, Les Memorables (1924-1930), II, (Paris:
Flammarion, 1 960) , p. 316.
The manifesto was also published in Roger Giron and Robert de Saint
Jean, La Jeunesse litteraire devant la politique (Paris: Editions des Cahiers
Libres, 1928), pp. 12-16. In it the "Young Rig'ht" was described as being
( 1 ) against dictatorship, (2) opposed to war, (3) anti-clerical, and (4) bour
geois.
"The major works on Drieu are: Pierre Andreu, Drieu: temoin et vision
naire (P
' aris: Bernard Grasset, 1 952) ; Pol Vandromme, Drieu la Rochelle
(Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1 958) ; Frederic J. Grover, Drieu la Rochelle
and the Fiction of Testimony (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali
fornia Press, 1958) , published in France as Drieu la Rochelle (Paris: Gal
limard, 1962) ; and Jean Mabire, Drieu parmi nous (Paris: Editions de la
Table Ronde, 1963) . Recent books relevant to the subject are: Michele Cotta,
La Collaboration 1940-1944 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1964); Jean Plumy/me
and Raymond Lasierra, Les Fascismes franais, 1923-1963 (Paris: Editions
du Seuil, 1963 ) ; and Maurice-Yvan Sicard (Saint-Paulien, pseud.) , Histoire
de c o llabo ration (Paris: L'Esprit Nouveau, 1964). Pierre-Henri Simon's Pr oc es
du heros: M ontherlant, Drieu la Rochelle, Jean Prevost (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1950) is valuable. Among the older studies mention should be made of
Beatrice Corrigan's "Drieu La Rochelle: Study of a Collaborator," University
of Toronto Quarterly, XIV (January, 1945), pp. 199-205, and two essays, one
156
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27
an
idealized Eu
Combining a passionate
7ln 1943 Drieu emphasized the continuity of his thought since 1917 in his
preface to Chronique politique 1934-1942 (Paris:
Gallimard, 1943), p. 9.
1965]
157
158
[Vol. 27
Indeed., Drieu's concern with his class led him to the conclusion
that the proletariat as such had no real existence and no possibility
whatever of independent action. Only insofar as the proletariat
accepted bourgeois leadership could it make its mark in history. If
will and energy could somehow be found, they would come from the
bourgeoisie alone; and Drieu's career suggests that his political
thought was one long effort to discover the means of energizing the
individual members of his own class.
It was this quest for a revival of moral energy that placed him
in the tradition of Sorel. As with the exponent of Syndicalism,
Drieu's goal was a renewal of individual creativity and virile inde
pendence. Nothing short of a "new man" was needed for the regen
eration of a decaying civilization. While Drieu's preference was for
the unlimited autonomous will rather than Sorel's general strike,
he was nevertheless placing his faith too in a myth. Sorel's myth
was essentially a means of lifting the proletariat above the morass
of politics and opening up new vistas of creativity; but Drieu's was
a rope offered to the bourgeoisie to help it climb out of the dark pit
of political strife and put the course of history once more on its
side. Since each vision was beyond precise definition and, more im
portant, beyond politics as it is normally practiced, both writers were
"outsiders," each in his own fashion.
Drieu's anti-democratic views bore a resemblance to those of
the reactionary, monarchist leader Maurras. In at least one other
respect Drieu shared a common concern with Maurras: an essentially
aesthetic orientation. While Drieu did not write lyrical tributes to
the statues of young men in museums, as Maurras did,IB he still
could indulge himself in a relentless pursuit of physical beauty in
his personal life and be driven to the brink of despair over the un
aesthetic appearance of his fellow countrymen. His pleasure in al
most anything could be ruined by the perception of the slightest
blemish.14 Nor was his vision of "young, conquering athletes buildployee nor the salaried worker, nor the factory worker when they have for
gotten their concrete origins. Nothing has ever been accomplished without us."
On Barres see Michael
1965]
PoLITICAL THOUGHT oF
LA
RocHELLE
159
pp. 90-163.
160
[Vol.
27
AND
As
1965]
161
had long since become the party of total futility.2a Indeed, Radical
spokesmen were too busy perorating on the gratuitous theme of
France's mission in the world to approach the problem of rejuvenat
ing France. As the traditional ballast in French governments, he
held Radicalism responsible for the country's depopulation and for
its being invaded by millions of foreigners, Jews, Arabs, negroes
and Annamites.24 As early as 1926 he predicted the decline and
eclipse of the Radical Party, comparable to that of the English Lib
erals and the German Centrists. Since self-styled center parties were
destined to disappear, the Radical Party should frankly admit its
secret affinity for the Moderates and openly join them in the defense
of privilege.25
Too bourgeois to join the revolutionary Left, not believing in the
reactionary Right's capacity for acting, and alienated from the
status quo defended by the bourgeois parties., Drieu could only place
his hope in a deliverer from within or without. It is true, of course,
that he could have become apolitical, but this way out of the dilem
ma was not yet the fashion. The apolitical intellectual, in France at
least, had to wait for the more complete and more pervasive disen
chantment with politics that appeared after World War II. Before
this solution was quite possible Drieu and other intellectuals were
to succumb to the fascist pretension of using violence to lift man
above politics. It is no wonder that a student of the French Right
has commented that "One has to be the victim of simplifications
suggested by a [too] systematic mind to be able to confuse fascism
and the Right."26 Drieu's intellectual battle was not, from his point
of view at least, of the Right against the Left or of the Left against
the Right, but one against senility, avarice, and hypocrisy wherever
he found it.27
""If Drieu saved his most violent language for the Radical Socialists it was
perhaps because of his thesis that the party no longer had the will to repre
sent the petit-bourgeois point of view. His vitriolic description of Herriot
(through the fictional character Chanteau in his novel Gilles [Paris: Gallimard,
complete version, 1942]), is suggestive of this .
.. Ibid., p. 394.
""Geneve ou Moscou, pp. 249, 252.
""Rene Remond, "Droites c!assiques et droite romantique," Terre Humaine,
162
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1965]
163
sideration that Maurras had more talent for editorializing than for
action.
Until Drieu's public articulation of these differences, he was
courted by the Action fran;aise. Formal adherence in such cases
was not necessarily required; a prominent young intellectual's
nominal acknowledgement of Maurras as the master political thinker
of the day, combined with not too independent a course, was often
considered sufficient. His refusal led, not unexpectedly, to the fami
liar hostility with which the movement's spokesmen viewed such
recalcitrance.a2
The fundamental differences centered, however, around foreign
policy, an area in which Maurras considered himself particularly
infallible. To him., the national interest and the balance of power
were the only conceivable cornerstones of French foreign policy.
But what Drieu proposed was nothing less than the bypassing of
nationalism and the creation of a European federation. On foreign
policy Drieu and Maurras differed on method as well as substance.
They were both critics of the Quai d'Orsay; but Maurras's "organi
zing empiricism," with its array of supporting evidence from the
history of France, was rejected by Drieu in favor of demographic
analysis and a belief in the need to overcome cultural decadence on
a European scale. In brief, whatever the degree of attraction Drieu
felt for integral nationalism during his youth, it was soon enough
overcome for him to remain unaffiliated with the movement, its lead
er, and the bulk of its doctrine.-sa
see, for example, Brasillach's "Drieu La Rochelle ou le feu de paille," in
(Paris: Pion, 1935), pp. 227-238.
But
the "loyalist" wing of the Action frant;aise never forgave Drieu for his inde
pendence.
. and I
found in it a taste for paradox more than talent." Maurras to Henri Massis,
June, 195 1, in Maurras, Lettres de prison (Paris: 1Flammarion, 1958), p. 370.
See also Massis's evaluation of Drieu in his Maurras, pp. 184-191.
""In Drieu's opinion, Maurras's movement had been well on the way before
1914 toward working out a new and significant synthesis of capitalism and
syndicalism.
But it had long since moved away from the spirit of the Cercle
Proudhon and had become, after the first World War, nothing more than a
refuge for all kinds of social debris in search of protection against the Red
peril. Geneve ou Moscou, pp. 25-26. On the Cercle Proudhon see Pierre
Andreu, "Fascisme 1913," Combat, February, 1936, n.p.; Tannenbaum, Action
Fraw;aise, pp. 191-193 ; Eugen Weber, Action Frant;aise: Royalism and Reac-
164
[Vol.
27
pp. 7 5-76. It has been observed in this connection that fascism dreams of
overthrow but that the Right in France wants only reassurance and stability.
Rene Remond, La Droite en France de 1815 a nos jours ( Paris: Aubier, 1954),
p. 209.
1965]
165
strength was not being utilized. In the long run she would be forced
to compensate for the loss of her colonies and the decline of her
overseas markets by the rational arrangement of her interior mar
ket. "The Zollverein accomplished . . . , the European world consti
tuting an economic unit, American products will be thrown into the
sea . . . , as a sign of rebellion against American economic imperi
alism."34 Furthermore, the threat of Russian imperialism would
disappear if the European ruling classes would abandon their alle
giance to the national state. He urged them to admit that the only
alternative to domination by America-or by Russia-was an eco
nomic union guaranteed by political union.
But he was eventually driven to the conclusion that the European
bourgeoisie could never bring themselves voluntarily to give up their
national loyalties. By November, 1939, he believed that union could
only be imposed "by others than those associated with Geneva, in
another spirit, and by other means,"-a thinly veiled allusion to
Nazi Germany.a:s Then, with the German occupation a reality, he
argued that in the light of so many missed opportunities between the
wars there could be no federation without the hegemony of one na
tion.36 The real meaning of the succession of German military vic
tories, he hoped, was the expansion of National Socialism to the
scope of a continental autarky.a7 Only Germany had been far-sight
ed enough actively to pursue the goal of European unification ; it
was evident that German domination of France and other coun
tries was the price which had to be paid for the organization of the
continent. In any event, there was no question now, nor had there
been since the Great War, of France's following Maurras, with his
hopes for a new age of French predominance in Europe.as She
could no longer freely choose her role, given the aspirations of the
Great Powers-Germany, the United States, and Russia-toward
domination on a continental scale. Thus, Drieu's assessment of
France's position in 1940 was not far different from his views in
1922. The only new factor was his attitude toward Germany's un
expected bid for domination.
Geneve ou Moscou, p. 120; Martin du Gard, Les Memorables, II, p. 374.
860riginally in the NouveUe Revue Franfaise, November, 1939; republished
in Ne plus attendre, p. 17.
""Ibid., p. 44.
chronique politique, p. 371.
"""Maurras ou Geneve," La NouveUe Revue Franfaise, LIV (February,
1940), pp. 243-246. See also his "Exorde," loc. cit., pp. 93-94.
166
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FASCIST SOCIALISM
1965]
167
168
[Vol. 27
1965)
169
170
THE
JOURNAL OF POLITICS
[ Vol.27
utopian traditions were still at hand for all those who were attempt
ing to escape from the fate that Marx had prescribed for them.:s2
The essence of this socialism lay not in the abstract rationalism of
thought that had produced both Marxism and economic liberalism,
but in the liberation of the creative will from all servitude. It was
at the same time bourgeois and anti-capitalist. Drieu argued that
" ...the bourgeois should not believe that capitalism provides them
with their raison d'etre. Lift capitalism from bourgeois shoulders
on which it weighs as heavily as on the shoulders of workers or
peasants-and there remains men ....
":sa
Through utopian so
as
196 5 ]
17 1
172
[Vol. 27
such diverse types as the crusader, the buccaneer, and the American
sportsman or gangster, gave some indication at least of what his
behavioral pattern would be. 63
The first requirement for passing into the new age, then, was
the restoration of the body. "There exists before and apart from
the economic problem a physical problem for man," he wrote. 64
There were signs of change in this direction, he believed, as with
those elements of French youth who were aware of the decadence of
their environment and were taking to fresh air and sports in order
to save themselves. The increasing popularity of athletics was, he
thought, one of the main currents of the twentieth century and the
fundamental fact separating the forces of rejuvenation from the
forces of decadence. 63 In short, Drieu had taken a tortuous intel
lectual journey only to reveal that athletics build character, lifting
the practitioner out of the morass of apathy and sterile intellec
tualism. For once the body is reconditioned the soul can live once
more. Thus, with body and soul reunited, action and thought are
restored to a proper relationship. Man revitalized could aspire to
be savior, artist, poet, musician, or hero and would reach the sum
mit of his possibilities.
CONCLUSION
1965 ]
173
174
[Vol. 27
1934 :
"I
1942
in a statement that
am not in power,
am never in
power, my origins are not among those who are ever in power. I
always arrange things so as to be on bad terms with those who are
in power, even if they are on my side.
"
71
Drieu's temperament was that of the individualist who would
have treasured his independence under any regime.
72
It
is doubt
1965]
175
18Gilles, p. 9 9.
"Vandromme, Drieu, p. 1 10.
'"Jean-Paul Sartre, "Drieu Ia Rochelle, ou Ia haine de soi," Les Lettres
Franfaises, No. 6, April, 1 943 , pp. 3 -4.
'"In Massis's opinion, Drieu all his life kept the countenance and the
demeanor of the adolescent ; he sugegsts that Drieu never left the stage of
adolescence. Mau"as, p. 187.
176
[Vol. 27
1965 ]
177
""On the "Young Right" see Raoul Girardet, "L'Heritage de !'Action Fran
aise," Revue Fraru;aise de Science Politique, VII (October-December, 195 7 ) , pp.
7 73 - 7 7 5 ; Giano Accame, "Contradictions d'un . romantisme de droite, Defense
de l'Occident, New Series, No. 23 (June, 1 962) , pp. 3 5-50 and No. 24 (July
August, 1 962) , pp. 27-40.