Surrealist Intellectual

"Surrealist intellectual": the juxtaposition of these terms appears incongruous, if not outright antinomic, given the extent to which surrealism sought to position itself beyond the intellectual sphere. One is, one becomes a surrealist—period. To consider the surrealist as an intellectual, is this not to reduce them to a cerebral function, or to place them in a category of individuals typical of bourgeois France?

Moreover, such a distinction does not seem operative in the eyes of institutional literary sociologists, who confine themselves to traditional socio-professional categories to analyze either the family origins or the personal situation of members of the Surrealist Movement (1). Broadly speaking, their family backgrounds are described as "petite bourgeoisie," if not outright "bourgeois." As for their own classification, it is usually according to their dominant activities—artists, painters, writers, poets—failing to specify whatever profession may have otherwise provided them with more or less regular income. There are, of course, a few nuances. In his dissertation, analyzing the impact of the 1924 pamphlet Un cadavre (directed against Anatole France), Norbert Bandier highlights the divide created between "men of letters" and "revolutionary intellectuals" (p. 173). On the occasion of this first public controversy—essentially the formative moment of the Movement—a strategy coalesced, one of conquering symbolic power: eliminating old models and rivals in order to impose a new program, aimed at a different public. Logically, this public was "composed of 'revolutionary intellectuals'," and, Bandier concludes at the end of a study that tracks the group up to the publication of the Second Manifesto of Surrealism: "the model of the 'man of letters' tends to fade before the model of the 'intellectual'" (p. 553). For my part, I doubt that the readership—much less the public—of the surrealists was as committed to regime change as our young researcher claims. I cannot in this article discuss every point of an argument that is both rich and nuanced, and often based on primary sources. What matters is to keep in mind the trajectory which, from 1924 to 1929, reveals the emergence of the concept of the "intellectual" within the surrealist group.

Now, we have irrefutable means to trace this concept: by locating the word itself, with the help of a computer, provided the relevant texts have been "captured," in other words, digitized. In a strikingly concise article, Jean-Luc Rispail, working from the computer outputs for Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution produced by the “Lexicology and Contemporary Literary Terminology Unit” (I.Na.L.F-C.N.R.S.), carefully characterizes the use of the term in all its forms by the contributors to this journal, torn between their desire to serve the working class and their wish to maintain

"within the Marxist movement that experimental role which is the very hallmark of surrealist activity, by questioning the very frameworks within which the movement seeks to confine them (writers, artists, poets, etc.)" (2).

But Rispail goes further: he provides us, along with methodological instructions, the "contexts," that is, each sentence in which the term "intellectual(s)" occurs, inviting the reader to pursue their own analysis and interpretation.

In fact, André Breton rarely uses the noun "intellectual" in his own writings (no occurrence in the Manifesto of Surrealism), and even when he does, it is not without reservations, always seeking to invest it with a specific meaning, as he does for his vocabulary in general. When he reiterates, using quotation marks, the traditional distinction between "manual workers" and "intellectuals" in the article "La dernière grève" (La Révolution Surréaliste, no. 2, January 15, 1925), it is truly against his will, simply for the sake of being better understood by his readers and to describe a situation he is determined to overturn in the name of his "absolute commitment to the principle of human freedom" (3). His temporary rapprochement with the Communist Party, in my view, leads him to adopt a clearly marked vocabulary, not without reservations:

"I accept, however, that through a misunderstanding and nothing more, I may have been regarded by the Communist Party as one of the most undesirable intellectuals"

he concedes in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism. Yet this is to denounce his former companions, those "whose moral determinations are more than questionable," who, for lack of anything better, turn to revolutionary agitation after failing elsewhere. Insofar as the surrealists consider themselves true revolutionaries—traitors to their class origins, to use the period's jargon—it is only logical that they might be regarded as intellectuals. Indeed, they even claim this label in their famous telegram to the Bureau International de Littérature révolutionnaire, introducing the first issue of S.A.S.D.L.R., in which they declare themselves ready to follow the attitude of the French Communist Party should imperialism go to war against the Soviet regime, adding: "should you consider, in such a case, a better possible use of our abilities, we place ourselves at your disposal for any specific assignment requiring a different use of us as intellectuals."

Under these conditions, it is not surprising that the two surrealists present at the Kharkov Congress, Aragon and Sadoul, are those who use the noun "intellectuals" most frequently, and positively, in texts where they sought to defend their movement against the sweeping judgments of proletarian writers. Similarly, Pierre Unik, Benjamin Péret, Paul Eluard, and René Crevel defend imprisoned "intellectuals" in Indochina and Yugoslavia.

Nevertheless, statistically, the term—whether singular or plural—is used with decidedly pejorative connotations by contributors to this journal when referring to their opponents: bourgeois French intellectuals, of the left, sometimes even communist or "with revolutionary leanings", not to mention Castilian and Catalan intellectuals, against whom Salvador Dalí launches his paroxysmal invectives.

In summary, even when they accept being regarded as intellectuals—when debating revolutionary futures—surrealists seldom like this word for themselves, preferring others more suited to their daily practice, as shown by Thierry Aubert’s brief 1988 study. Aubert extends his analysis of the same term, within the same corpus, to synonyms (or near synonyms):

"The poet is to the intellectuals what the communist militant is to the proletariat. Ultimately, the specificity of the surrealist intellectual, the peculiarity which Breton claimed, is their poetic position." (4)

Does this mean that—practically refusing to self-identify as intellectuals except during their period of affiliation with the Communist Party—surrealists should be excluded from this category, one whose existence everyone acknowledges since the Dreyfus Affair, even if no one ventures to define it? Here, the historian of French passions, not to mention of political opinion movements, is of great help, insofar as he has not tried to distinguish a priori the role of each group. In studying a vast corpus of manifestos and petitions—the preferred means of expression for French intellectuals in the twentieth century—Jean-François Sirinelli has demonstrated the distinctive place held by the surrealists among them (5).

This began with the petition in favor of André Malraux, imprisoned in Indochina, signed jointly by the group from the Nouvelle Revue Française and the surrealists on September 6, 1924—a gesture preceded three weeks earlier by a poignant plea from André Breton published in the same Nouvelles littéraires[1][2][7][8]. It continued with the appeal “Intellectual workers at the side of the proletariat against the war in Morocco,” a text by Henri Barbusse published in L’Humanité on July 2, 1925, countersigned by the editorial team of Clarté, the entire surrealist group, and the Philosophies group—thus sealing the union of these three movements and, so to speak, marking the surrealists’ entry into politics as they took a stand against the Rif War[1][5]. Then came the “Call to Struggle” issued by André Breton immediately after February 6, 1934, advocating “united action by the working class,” which gathered nearly 90 signatures upon publication in Le Populaire, anticipating the antifascist alliance and upstaging the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires on their own ground[1][2]. Even if, as Sirinelli observes, the significance of this appeal should be put in perspective—especially by relating it to other texts, such as the manifesto “To the Workers” launched by the Comité de Vigilance des Intellectuels Antifascistes, also signed by Breton and Crevel—this does not diminish its illustration of surrealism’s resolve in the fight against “the vile beast” (fascism)[1]. Similarly, in solidarity with pacifists, they would proclaim their “refusal to think in unison” after the Anschluss, thus opposing the Communist Party’s ecumenical initiative.

At the Liberation, as one would expect, the surrealists were not among the members of the Comité National des Écrivains. They took no part in the controversies that animated the group regarding writers compromised by collaboration. However, on March 29, 1947, Breton did agree to sign a petition initiated by Sartre in defense of Paul Nizan, who had been slandered by Aragon and Henri Lefebvre. During what Sirinelli calls “the golden age of communist intellectuals,” it was evident that surrealism could scarcely make the front page. Nevertheless, its presence in intellectual initiatives would be felt, more or less discreetly, as during the founding of the Action Committee Against the Continuation of the War in North Africa in November 1955. It became unmistakable (if not wholly public, at least sufficiently clear to be recognized today) a few years later, in September-October 1960, with the “Declaration on the Right to Civil Disobedience in the Algerian War”—that is, the Manifesto of the 121—of which the surrealists, through Dionys Mascolo and Jean Schuster, were known to have been original drafters. In order to broaden the audience for this declaration and for tactical reasons, the surrealists deliberately stepped back. Paradoxically, just as the Communist Party—their long-standing adversary—began, for the first time, to lose its influence in this context, the surrealists virtually stopped adding their names to collective petitions with other intellectuals.

Was this a wariness toward those they had previously critiqued harshly, or a retreat into themselves? What matters most is to observe that, though they initiated action at several key moments in history—rallying their peers for far-reaching campaigns—the surrealists placed their signatures sparingly, refusing, nearly since 1935, to place their names alongside communists, even over the question of Spain. Likewise, if they did not echo the left’s positions during the Munich crisis, it was because they did not endorse the militant pacifism espoused by Alain, Félicien Challaye, or Jean Giono.

Jean-François Sirinelli’s historical overview demonstrates, if proof were needed, that the surrealists indeed conducted themselves as intellectuals throughout the period in question, employing petitions and manifestos relayed by the press when necessary, and not hesitating to promote broad alliances at crucial moments[1]. But we can go further and say that the surrealist group, in its fluid reality, posited itself overall as an autonomous intellectual formation of the left, distinct from politically organized groups, expressing itself through tracts and collective declarations, as previously compiled and annotated by José Pierre[1][6]. In effect, these means ensured its homogeneity and specific character, regardless of how and to whom these messages were disseminated. As intellectuals, surrealists intervened simultaneously in the political arena, as just shown, but also in the socio-cultural sphere and, especially, in internal debate—helping to define and develop their own movement.

From the beginning, asserting themselves as revolutionary-minded intellectuals, they affirmed their internationalism by issuing manifestos on behalf of their Polish (August 8, 1925), Romanian (August 28, 1925), Hungarian (October 17, 1925), and Chinese (November 23, 1931) counterparts. Later, Republican Spain would draw their focus—in 1931 and July 1936—as would Catalonia under Franco. Then again Hungary, now overrun by Soviet tanks (“Hungary Rising Sun,” November 1956), and Poland (June 4, 1959), whose resistance to Stalinism they saluted, demonstrating an unbroken line from their defense of Trotsky (“La Planète sans visa,” April 24, 1935) and distrust of Stalin at the August 1935 Writers’ Congress, through to their repeated warnings during the Moscow Trials. This position was vigorously reaffirmed in the tract “Autour des livrées sanglantes” (April 12, 1956), at the time of Khrushchev’s report unveiling Stalin's crimes.

Their anti-colonialist struggle, starting with the Rif War, made them vigilant over Indochina from as early as April 1947 (“Liberty is a Vietnamese word”), and, as already mentioned, over Algeria from 1955 through to the Evian Accords.

In terms of French domestic politics, they seemed less talkative, unconcerned with parliamentary games once they had declared “Revolution First, Always” (September 21, 1925). Yet this did not prevent them from intervening among peers during major crises, even serving the rebellious youth of May 1968 (“No Shepherds for This Rage”).

In the socio-cultural field, the surrealists defended those they considered their precursors: Lautréamont (March 1, 1922; April 1927; December 15, 1967), Jarry (1922, 1937), Rimbaud (August 22, 1924; October 23, 1927). They also stood by companions in the quest for artistic freedom: Reverdy (May 26, 1924), Picasso (June 18, 1924), Saint-Pol-Roux (May 9, 1925), as well as their own, such as the creators of L’Age d’or, attacked by right-minded leagues (November 1930). They did not hesitate to assail false idols like Anatole France (Un cadavre, October 1924), or detractors such as Paul Claudel (July 1, 1925), while defending figures like Charlie Chaplin (“Hands off love,” October 1927), Freud (March 1938), the killer of a Camelot du Roy, or young women unjustly condemned by society (Violette Nozières, Pauline Dubuisson)—not to mention issues of La Révolution surréaliste aimed at all social constraints. Artistically, they opposed nationalism in art (1939) and “misérabilisme” in the 1950s.

Always vigilant, they felt compelled to clarify their own stance (Declaration of January 27, 1925) and to those who might see them as merely an artistic school (“Intellectuals and Revolution,” November 8, 1925), refusing outright assimilation to the Communist Party (“Out in the Open,” May 1927), and artistic atomization (“To Be Continued…,” June 1929). Listing all press releases and declarations regarding expulsions, warnings, or readmissions of surrealist group members would be tedious. Superficial critics have made much of this, without understanding that such proclamations are consubstantial to this intellectual formation, always needing to defend itself from allies eager to assimilate them or opponents all too ready to neutralize them. The new phenomenon, in this respect, is the keen attention certain audiences—fond of settling scores—pay to what, in political parties, pertains to their disciplinary committees. Yet it is precisely because surrealism is not organized as a partisan entity that it acts openly, constantly reminding the public of principles not codified in any foundational charter. Besides Breton's Manifestoes, texts like "Rupture inaugurale" (June 21, 1947), "A la niche les glapisseurs de Dieu" (June 14, 1948), "Haute fréquence" (May 24, 1951), and "Pour un demain joueur" (1967) can fulfill a similar function.

Placed in context, what has often been thought of as a peculiarity of the surrealist temperament actually appears as the heightened attitude of intellectuals intent on turning words into action, and rallying as many people as possible to their cause. That they succeeded only partially and episodically is another matter. The social legitimacy of surrealism is rooted in highly particular processes, still little studied, and unconnected to the common mechanisms of the market, state institutions, or recognition by peers. What is certain is that the surrealists are among those intellectuals who shaped the spiritual landscape of France for half a century—even if they took pride in what one might call the betrayal of the clerks[1].

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For Reference

2004-2005 Seminar Programme
Figures of the Surrealist as Intellectual after 1945
GDR 2223 CNRS. Director: Henri BEHAR
November 12, 2004 5–7 p.m., Room 410
Nathalie LIMAT-LETELLIER – Maryse VASSEVIÈRE: Seminar introduction: issues and context
December 10, 2004 5–7 p.m., Room 410
Henri BÉHAR: The Right to Disobedience: Surrealists and the Algerian War
January 14, 2005 5–7 p.m., Room 410
Marie-Christine LALA: The Intellectual Dimension of Georges Bataille after 1945
February 11, 2005 4–6 p.m., Room 410
Sophie LECLERCQ: Discourse on the Other and the New Legitimacy of the Surrealist Intellectual after 1945
March 11, 2005 4–6 p.m., Room 410
Carole REYNAUD-PALIGOT: The Surrealists and the Libertarian Movement after 1945
April 8, 2005 4–6 p.m., Room 410
Pierre VILAR: Leiris, Intellectual at the Bull’s Horn
Sessions take place at Université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle, Centre Censier, 13 rue de Santeuil, 75005 Paris (Censier-Daubenton Metro), Room 410 (4th floor) on Fridays, 5–7 p.m. in the first semester and 4–6 p.m. in the second semester.

Further Reading: See also, more recently: Histoire du surréalisme ignoré (1945–1969). Du Déshonneur des poètes au « surréalisme éternel » by Anne Foucault

Introduction

Parisian surrealist activity between 1946 and 1969 remains little known and is often undervalued compared to the interwar period. Adopting a firmly collective approach, this volume sets out to understand and critique this devaluation. As it confronts the first historiographical efforts that have contributed to institutionalizing its past and legacy, surrealism succeeds in inventing new artistic directions—especially around automatism (Simon Hantaï, Adrien Dax), the object (Hervé Télémaque, Konrad Klapheck), and the theorization and practice of a magical art (Jean Benoît, Jorge Camacho). At the political level, this same collective approach reveals that, following a period of isolation extending to the mid-1950s, values defended by the surrealists gain new recognition in intellectual circles with the advent of destalinization and decolonization struggles. This initiated for the group a series of collaborations, the stakes and difficulties of which help explain why the group ultimately decided to dissolve itself soon after May 1968[1][2][3][5][6][7][8].

1 See: Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Jacques Dubois, Pascal Durand, “Institutional Approach to Early Surrealism (1919–1924),” Pratiques, no. 38, June 1983, pp. 27–53; and Norbert Bandier’s dissertation: Analyse sociologique du groupe surréaliste français et de sa production de 1924 à 1929, Université Lyon II, 1988, 591 pp. typescript plus appendices.

2 Jean-Luc Rispail: “Surrealist Contexts of Intellectual(s) 1924–1933,” p. 62, in the collective volume edited by D. Bonnaud-Lamotte and himself: Intellectuel(s) des années trente entre le rêve et l’action, CNRS Editions, 1989, 280 pp., illustrated.

3 Reference noted, with pagination error and misquotation, by Edouard Béguin in the article “Intellectual(s) in Aragon,” ibid, p. 106.

4 Thierry Aubert: “The Surrealist Intellectual in SASDLR,” D.E.A. dissertation published in our course booklet L’Ordinateur au service de la littérature, Université Paris III, 1988, p. 95.

5 Jean-François Sirinelli: Intellectuels et passions françaises – Manifestes et pétitions au XXe siècle, Fayard, 1990, 365 pp.

6 José Pierre: Tracts surréalistes et déclarations collectives 1922-1969, Le Terrain vague, 2 vols. 1980–1982.