PARIS LETTER
SARTRE VERSUS CAMUS: A POLITICAL QUARREL
The news in Paris is the public break between Albert Camus
and Jean-Paul Sartre on the issue of Communism. I hope PR readers
will not think the fact that these two famous Parisian intellectuals could
be aroused by such an issue to the point of ending a ten-year-old
friendship is another sign of European belatedness. This polemic and
this
break are in fact a sign that in France ideas still count, and, more
particularly, that French intellectuals cannot easily reconcile themselves
to the divorce between principles and political life which has been the
mark of the postwar years all over Europe. Moreover, the arguments
exchanged between Camus and Sartre touch upon questions of general
intellectual import. Finally, the Communist issue will be a live and
significant one in Europe as long as the Communist parties retain their
strength. The fact that they are still strong is not the fault of the in–
tellectuals. And while the Communist issue is alive, it is worth the
trouble to study its phenomenology.
At
the origin of the Sartre-Camus clash, which occupies a good
part of the August issue of
L es T emps Modernes,
there is
L'Homme
Revolte.
With this book, Albert Camus attempted to do something that
Jean-Paul Sartre has never found the time to do, namely to give an
account of the reasons which led him to take the position he has taken
with regard to the political ideologies of our time, and more particularly
Communism. Camus had taken part in the resistance as a writer and
a journalist, he had been the editor of a daily paper after the libera–
tion; during this period he played a public role, and took political
stands. Having withdrawn from public life in order to devote himself
to his writing, he felt that he was under the obligation of thinking
through the ideas that he had been expressing in articles and speeches.
In other words, he felt intellectually responsible for his political com–
mitments, and attempted to live up to this responsibility. For this, if
for nothing else, he deserves credit.
In the author's own words,
L'Homme Revolte
is intended to be
"a study of the
ideological
aspect of revolutions." This has to be stressed
because, as we shall see, the attack launched upon the book by
Les
