French Marxist, communist activist, essayist and journalist
Boris Souvarine
(1 November 1895 ? 1 November 1984), also known as
Varine
, was a French
Marxist
,
communist
activist, essayist and journalist.
A founding member of the
French Communist Party
, Souvarine is noted for being the only non-Bolshevik communist to have been a member of all three leading bodies of the
Comintern
for three years in succession.
[1]
He famously authored the first biography of
Joseph Stalin
, published in 1935 as
Staline, Apercu Historique du Bolchevisme
(
Stalin, Historic Overview of Bolshevism
) and kept close correspondence with
Vladimir Lenin
and
Leon Trotsky
until their deaths.
[2]
His anticonformism and early criticism of Stalin made him break away from the party in 1924. In the decades that followed, Souvarine continued publishing as a leading
Sovietologist
and
anti-Stalinist
. He was also the founder of the Institute of Social History and an author, historian, publisher and journalist.
[1]
Early life
[
edit
]
Souvarine was strongly affected by World War I.
Souvarine was born Boris Konstantinovich Lifschits in
Kyiv
to a
Jewish
family. Souvarine's family moved to
Paris
in 1897, where he became a socialist activist from a young age. He trained as a jewelry designer.
At the age of 14, he came into contact with the French socialist movement while he was working as an apprentice in an aviation factory. He began to attend meetings held by
Jean Jaures
.
Souvarine experienced his first trauma with the outbreak of
World War I
. Mobilised as part of the French army in 1914, he quickly discovered the horrors of trench warfare and in March 1915, he lost his older brother who died fighting on the front-line.
War pushed Souvarine into politics and the
antimilitarist
movement. He joined the
French Section of the Workers' International
(SFIO). in 1916 and began contributing to publications of the antiwar socialist minority like
Le Populaire
, signing articles with the pseudonym he held onto for the rest of his life. He borrowed the name Souvarine from a character in
Emile Zola
's
Germinal
.
[3]
October Revolution
[
edit
]
Following the October Revolution, Gorki employed Souvarine as a correspondent for
Novaya Zhizn
.
Souvarine's journalistic reputation grew rapidly during the war years as a talented, subtle writer and a skillful polemicist. He welcomed with fervour the
Russian Revolution
in 1917 and his Russian skills helped him relay the events closely to left-wing circles in France. In the same year, Souvarine was hired to
Maxim Gorky
's
Novaya Zhizn
as a correspondent in France.
Following the Bolshevik-led revolution in November 1917, Souvarine wrote:
It is to be feared that, for Lenin and his friends, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', must be a dictatorship of Bolsheviks and their leader. This could become a terror for the Russian working class, and eventually, the global proletariat. [...] What we wish we could see was agreement between socialists to organise a stable power, that truly becomes the power of the people and not the power of a man.
[4]
Creation of Communist Party
[
edit
]
In 1919, Souvarine joined the committee of the
Communist International
and became one of its most active members, helping to diffuse large numbers of political and propagandist literature across Europe.
In one of these leaflets, Souvarine wrote:
The Socialist-Communist parties must attempt to create a proletarian democracy that will eliminate class by abolishing economic privilege, and of which the organs are soviets, i.e. peasant and worker councils?a new type of organisation governing itself.
[5]
In 1920, he is elected delegate to the
SFIO
's Congress where he advocates for cross-party membership to the Communist International. In March 1920, he created the widely read and influential
Bulletin Communiste
as twice monthly mouth-piece of the Third International.
Tours Congress
[
edit
]
Souvarine's motion at the SFIO's Tours Congress founded what is today the French Communist Party.
Souvarine was arrested on 17 May 1920 in a government crackdown that accused a number of communist leaders and revolutionary activists of anarchist plots and conspiracy. Because of a lack of substantive evidence, he was released shortly after with Fernand Loriot and Pierre Monatte, who are all acquitted in March 1921.
In prison, Souvarine buried himself in his journalistic, political and essay writing, writing almost non-stop for
Bulletin communiste
,
l'Humanite
,
La Vague
and
La Vie Ouvriere
. It was then that he composed the famous motion for the Tours Congress that would eventually split the SFIO and form the
French Communist Party
.
In December 1920, Loriot and Souvarine are named honorary presidents of the Tours Congress. Over 75% of congress delegates adopt the Souvarine motion that created the French Section of the Communist International. Much later, once the party became fully Stalinised, it became known as the French Communist Party.
Break with Communist Party
[
edit
]
Having defended Trotsky against Stalin in the
Comintern
during the 1920s, Souvarine kept up close correspondence with him until his death.
As an executive member of the Comintern, Souvarine kept in regular contact with
Leon Trotsky
. When Trotsky became the target of vilification in the
All-Union Communist Party
, Souvarine conveyed the French Communist Party's support for Trotsky to the
Bolsheviks
' 13th Congress in 1924. He became associated with the communist opposition against
Joseph Stalin
. Souvarine was removed from his official roles in the French Communist Party in early 1924 and was expelled by the Comintern in July.
[6]
He became close to anti-Stalinist communist figures in Paris (including Marcel Body,
Christian Rakovsky
and the writer
Panait Istrati
).
[7]
In October 1925, Souvarine relaunched the
Bulletin communiste
and in February 1926, he organised its supporters in the Marx?Lenin Communist Circle. In the late 1920s, he remained active in the communist opposition, was close to
Pierre Monatte
and
Alfred Rosmer
and wrote in
La Revolution Proletarienne
. He shared some positions with the
Left Opposition
as well with the so-called
Right Opposition
, but he refused to take part in its international conference called by
Heinrich Brandler
and
August Thalheimer
in Berlin in 1930.
[8]
The Marx?Lenin Communist Circle was renamed the
Democratic Communist Circle
(
Cercle Communise Democratique
)
.
The
Bulletin communiste
was continued, and Souvarine also launched
La critique sociale
. His growing break with Trotsky was indicated by his analysis of the
Soviet Union
as
state capitalist
, in contrast to Trotsky's designation of it as a
degenerated workers' state
.
[8]
In 1936, Souvarine encouraged the newly exiled writer
Victor Serge
to continue his political activity. By now, Trotsky harshly criticised Souvarine's personal characteristics and stated that Souvarine was a journalist, rather than a revolutionary. Serge's defense of Souvarine and other anti-Stalinists who deviated from Trotsky's positions was among the factors that led to distrust between Serge and Trotsky.
Souvarine worked closely with
Pierre Kaan
, a prominent member of the
French Resistance
with whom he edited
l'Humanite
and
La Critique Sociale
in the 1920s and the 1930s.
In 1935, Souvarine created the Institute for Social History,
[9]
a French branch of the
International Institute of Social History
of
Amsterdam
, which was originally created to preserve the archives of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany
. He was the secretary general while Alexandre-Marie Desrousseaux was the president and
Boris Nicolaevsky
was the director.
In November 1936, burglars stole the archives of Trotsky that were deposited at the institute. In 1940, the institute was looted by the Nazis, who brought some of its collections to Germany. After
World War II
and during the
Cold War
, Souvarine moved towards a
reformist
politics and increasingly adopted
anti-Soviet
positions. After the
German occupation of France
, he took refuge in
Marseille
, but was arrested in 1940. He was freed with the help of his friend
Henri Rollin
and emigrated to the
USA
. After his return to France (in 1947), and with the help of
Jacques Chevallier
, he recreated the Institute of Social History. The institute published the magazine
Le Contrat Social
.
Later life
[
edit
]
Souvarine was involved in a variety of organizations and journals (f.e. ≪
Est-Ouest
≫ and ≪
Le Contrat social
≫) of the
anti-Stalinist left
in France, publishing frequently on the Soviet Union, Stalin and
Stalinism
. Souvarine also criticised Lenin. His criticisms of Stalinism were important sources for some less orthodox Trotskyists, such as
C. L. R. James
, who translated his Stalin biography into English.
Portrait of Souvarine and Anatoli Lunatscharsky
In 1976, declining health forced him to abandon his position at the Institute of Social History. He died in Paris on 1 November 1984.
Works
[
edit
]
Original French publications
[
edit
]
- Souvarine, B., 1935.
Staline, apercu historique du bolchevisme
, Paris,
Plon
(re-edited
Champ libre
1978 and 1985, then
editions Ivrea
1992).
- Souvarine, B., 1936.
A travers le pays des Soviets
, under the pseudonyme of Motus, Paris, Editions de France.
- Souvarine, B., 1937.
Cauchemar en URSS
Archived
2012-01-12 at the
Wayback Machine
, Paris, Revue de Paris, (re-edited
Agone
, 2001).
- Souvarine, B., 1937.
Ouvriers et paysans en URSS
, Paris, Librairie du travail, (re-edited Agone, 2001).
- Souvarine, B., 1971.
Un Pot-pourri de Khrouchtchev : a propos de ses souvenirs
, Paris, editions Spartacus.
- Souvarine, B., 1972.
Le Stalinisme
, Paris, Spartacus.
- Souvarine, B., 1981.
Autour du congres de Tours
, Paris,
Champ Libre
.
- Souvarine, B., 1982.
L'observateur des deux mondes et autres textes
, Paris, La Difference.
- Souvarine, B., 1983.
La Critique Sociale ? 1931-1934
, Paris, La Difference.
- Souvarine, B., 1985.
Souvenirs
sur Isaac Babel, Panait Istrati, Pierre Pascal - followed by
Lettre a
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
, Paris, editions Gerard Lebovici.
- Souvarine, B., 1985.
A contre-courant
(collection of texts from 1925 to 1939), Paris, Denoel.
- Souvarine, B., 1990.
Controverse avec Soljenitsyne
, Paris, Allia Editions.
- Souvarine, B., 1998.
Chroniques du mensonge communiste
, texts chosen by Branko Lazitch and
Pierre Rigoulot
,
Plon
.
- Souvarine, B., 2007.
Sur Lenine, Trotsky et Staline
(1978?79), interviews with Branko Lazitch and
Michel Heller
;
Boris
by Michel Heller.
- Boris Souvarine additionally wrote anonymously one of the three parts of
Vers l'autre flamme
, published under
Panait Istrati
's name in 1929. Re-edition, 1997.
L'URSS en 1930
, introduced by Charles Jacquier, Paris, editions Ivrea.
Translated into English
[
edit
]
- Souvarine, B., 2005.
Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism
, Kessinger Publishing Legacy Reprint Series.*
- Souvarine, B., 1964.
Stalin
, Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace, University of Stanford.*
- Souvarine, B., 2010.
The Third International
, Bibliobazaar Reprints.
- Souvarine, B., 1939,
Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism
, Longmans, Green & Co. New York
- Rosmer, A
; Souvarine, B; Fabrol, E; Clavez, A (2001).
Richardson, Al
(ed.).
Trotsky and the Origins of Trotskyism
. Francis Boutle Publishers.
ISBN
190342707X
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
[1]
Archived
2018-07-03 at the
Wayback Machine
'Historical Note', Preface to Boris Souvarine Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
- ^
Boris Souvarine, Prologue to
La Critique Sociale
, Reprinted 1984, March 1984, p. 15
- ^
[2]
Les vies de Boris Souvarine, critique-sociale.info, 14 October 2008.
- ^
Boris Souvarine, 'La Commune Maximaliste',
Ce Qu'il Faut Dire
, No. 78, 17 November 1917
- ^
Boris Souvarine,
La Troisieme Internationale, Editions Clarte, 1919, pp. 29-30
- ^
Richardson, p.iii
- ^
T?nase; Richardson p.iii
- ^
a
b
Richardson, p.iv
- ^
La Souvarine - Institut d'Histoire sociale
Archived
2008-03-09 at the
Wayback Machine
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Brown, C. J., 1966.
Boris Souvarine and the French Communist Movement
, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
- Ilford House., 1978.
Homage to Boris Souvarine
.
- Richardson, Al., 2001.
What Became of the Revolution: Selected Writings of Boris Souvarine
, Socialist Platform, foreword by
Al Richardson
.
External links
[
edit
]
- [3]
Boris Souvarine Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University.
- Boris Souvarine Papers
at the
International Institute of Social History
- Boris Souvarine Archive
at
Marxist Internet Archive
- Vladimir Lenin
,
An Open Letter to Boris Souvarine
, Marxist Internet Archive.
- Thomas Molnar
,
"The Man Who Knew Lenin - Boris Souvarine"
, in
National Review
, April 19, 1985
- Stelian T?nase
,
"The Renegade Istrati", excerpt from
Auntie Varvara's Clients
, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth
- (in French)
Les Vies de Boris Souvarine
,
Critique Sociale
, 2008
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