Pierre Naville

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Pierre Naville (born February 1, 1904 in Geneva , Switzerland , † April 24, 1993 in Paris ) was a French surrealist , leader of the French Trotskyists , politician and sociologist .

biography

Naville came from a wealthy banking family in Paris. His father was friends with André Gide . He studied at the Sorbonne, where he made the acquaintance of Henri Lefebvre and Georges Politzer , wrote for literary magazines and joined the Paris group of surrealists.

In December 1924 he was (alongside Benjamin Péret ) editor of the magazine La Révolution surréaliste . In 1926 he joined the Communist Youth Association and a little later the French Communist Party (PCF). As secretary of the communist student union, editor of their newspaper L'Etudiant d'avant-garde and since June 1926 (alongside Marcel Fourrier ) editor of the magazine Clarté (closely related to the PCF) , author of La Révolution et les Intellectuels (Paris 1927), he moved numerous surrealists (including Louis Aragon , André Breton , Paul Éluard, Benjamin Péret) to join the KP.

In 1926, in contact with opposition communists such as Boris Souvarine , he traveled to Moscow with Gérard Rosenthal to take part in the celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution . Naville and Rosenthal met with Leon Trotsky and took part in the rally of the Left Opposition on the occasion of the funeral of Adolf Joffe , who had committed suicide on November 16, 1927. Upon their return, they published their report in magazines of the communist opposition.

After he was expelled from the party in May 1928, Naville participated in the unification of the French Left Opposition and the founding of La Vérité . After the formation of the Ligue communiste, of which he was a member, the magazine La Lutte des classes ( which emerged from Clarté in the spring of 1928 ) became its theoretical organ. At the conference of the International Left Opposition in April 1930, Naville, who in the 1930s was one of the most important leaders of the French Trotskyists like the ILO, was elected to the International Secretariat as Alfred Rosmer's deputy . Over the question of joining the SFIO , which he initially opposed, there was a temporary break between Naville and his organization in September 1934. A few weeks later he joined the SFIO himself with a small group of his followers, who were again publishing the magazine La Lutte des classes . After the French Trotskyists broke up again at the end of the year about the exit from the SFIO, in the course of which the supporters of Raymond Molinier and Pierre Frank split off, the party recognized by the ICL as a French section became part in June 1936 Ouvrier Internationaliste (POI) formed. Naville became one of their most important leaders.

In September 1938 he was instrumental in organizing the founding conference of the Fourth International , and in 1939 he refused to allow its French section to join the PSOP. This led to his final break with the Trotskyist movement. Mobilized at the outbreak of war and taken prisoner of war, he was released from captivity at the beginning of 1941 due to illness. Active in various left-wing socialist organizations from 1945 onwards , most recently - since its founding in 1960 - in the Parti socialiste unifié (PSU), of which he was a member until 1969, Naville wrote numerous scientific papers (including on the sociology of work and the social structure of the USSR and its satellite states ). In 1962 he published his memory volume Trotsky vivant.

Works (selection)

  • La Révolution et les Intellectuels. 1926
  • La Guerre du Viêt-Nam. 1949
  • Le Nouveau Leviathan. 1957-1975
  • Trotsky Vivant. 1962
  • Autogestion et planification. 1980
  • La psychologie, science du comportement. 1942
  • Psychology, marxisme, matérialisme. 1948
  • La Chine Future. 1952
  • La Vie de Travail et ses problems. 1954
  • Sociologie d'Aujourd'hui. 1981

In addition, together with his wife Denise Naville (née Kahn; 1896–1969) he translated Carl von Clausewitz's main work Vom Kriege into French.

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Babilas: Lettres à Denise . In: Louis Aragon Online. December 29, 1996
personal data
SURNAME Naville, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French surrealist, leader of the French Trotskyists, politician and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1993
Place of death Paris