Henri Barbusse,official biographer of Joseph Stalin

Henri Barbusse and Communism

In an August 1914 letter to the editor of L’Humanité, Barbusse described his decision to enlist in the army as based in socialist ideals ‘contre nos vieux ennemis infâmes de toujours: le militarisme et l’impérialisme, le Sabre, la Botte, et j’ajouterai: la Couronne’ (1920b: 7–8). As little as two years later, as Le Feu and subsequent non-fiction writing indicate, although Barbusse’s anti-militarist and anti-imperialist discourses survived his tour of duty, he no longer held the view that war itself could purge humanity of oligarchy. Indeed, in Le Feu, the Great War is depicted as a criminal and futile endeavour: ‘Deux armées qui se battent, c’est une grande armée qui se suicide’ (2006a: 240). Infantrymen fight to survive horrific conditions at the front, and the reader is never given a clear sense of why the brutal battles are fought. War, moreover, is not a heroic enterprise: one soldier declares that he and his comrades-in-arms are nothing but ‘bourreaux’ (2006a: 249). To make matters worse, non-combatants are depicted as ignorant of the soldiers’ sacrifices and eager to exploit economic opportunities created by the war. Wartime society, says the first-person narrator, is sharply divided into ‘ceux qui profitent et ceux qui peinent’ (2006a: 218).

There is a glimmer of hope, however, that emerges in the novel’s final chapter. Entitled ‘L’Aube’, the chapter introduces many of the concepts and themes that dominate Barbusse’s writing for the remainder of his life and that, moreover, clearly presage his turn to Communism. Through the narrator’s commentary and political discussions among the main characters, Barbusse underscores the notion that militarism – ‘l’esprit de la guerre’ (2006a: 241) in the language of the soldiers – must be vanquished. To that end, the reader is told, peoples of all nations should abandon the nationalism promoted by their governments and religious figures (‘avec la morphine de leur paradis’ (2006a: 247)) and unite in a quest for total equality. The narrator sees the desire to quash militarism and pursue equality as the potential source of a future, yet unspecified, ‘Révolution’ (2006a: 245). The writer’s duty in that universe, declared earlier in the novel, is to document and remain loyal to the truth (2006a: 126).

Those convictions hardened over the course of the next two decades, as did Barbusse’s tendency to view the world divided into inherently hostile binaries: exploiters versus exploited; reactionaries versus revolutionaries; warmongers versus proponents of peace; capitalism versus Communism. Still, as late as July 1917, Barbusse remained devoted to ‘la Grande France de 1789’ (1920b: 27), and in June 1918, he continued to express his admiration for and solidarity with Woodrow Wilson and his Fourteen Points (1920b: 70; Baudorre, 1996: 166). Just a year later, however, Barbusse makes one of his first post-war intimations that radical societal transformation may involve, and indeed justify, the use of violence. He writes, ‘La mensongère moralité des nationalistes et des réactionnaires doit être détruite … ce qui est en haut doit être abaissé, ce qui est en bas doit être élevé. La société humaine doit se retourner totalement, et ce sera enfin le monde à l’endroit’ (1920b: 139). The notion that the world must change ‘d’une façon ou d’une autre’ (1920b: 139) was indicative of Barbusse’s permanent shift away from Republican values and belief in Western democracy. In a revelatory October 1919 article in L’Humanité bearing the Zola-inspired title ‘Nous accusons’, Barbusse makes clear that he is not simply against the West, but that he is for the defence of the ‘loi organique de la République des Soviets en Russie’, which he viewed as intimately linked with human liberty and truth. For Barbusse, the Russian Revolution comes to represent the only solution to rid the world of ‘l’exploitation des multitudes et de la guerre’ (1920b: 147–52).

Over the next few years, while still basking in the success of Le Feu, Barbusse wrote two manifestos – Lueur dans l’abîme (1920a) and Le Couteau entre les dents (1921) – both of which are essential to grasping the political position that informs his subsequent writing. ⁴ Both texts reveal a passionate commitment to supporting the Russian Revolution, couched in an increasingly uncompromising and extremist political discourse. Lueur is the first book in which Barbusse strongly defends Lenin and the Soviet enterprise, depicting Lenin as ‘une espèce de Messie’ and promoting the notion of Soviet exceptionalism (1920a: 43). To the end of his life, Barbusse would maintain that the Russian Revolution represented a major and indelible step forward in the history of the liberation of humanity. Moreover, Barbusse’s treatment of Lenin in Lueur is tempered compared to the praise he showers upon him in subsequent publications (Barbusse, 2006b, 1936). The notion of Lenin as a Messiah, a superhuman guide for the masses, would become central to Barbusse’s portrait of Stalin as his worthy successor. As we will see, establishing the cult of Lenin is a necessary step in creating a lasting cult of personality around Stalin, a process in which Barbusse was granted a special role.

Like Lueur, Le Couteau entre les dents is a touchstone in Barbusse’s oeuvre, as it contains important elaborations on the author’s previously oblique remarks. The title, an ironic appropriation of a famous slogan critical of the Bolsheviks, signals Barbusse’s adoption of a more militant stance. Indeed, he expands on his remarks around violence, which is described not as a weapon, but rather as a useful tool for profound social transformation (1921: 46). Consistent with his previously expressed views on the importance of promoting Communism, Barbusse writes that intellectuals should be on the side of what he perceives as a persecuted Communist minority (1921: 58). The views expressed in Couteau continued to harden, as did Barbusse’s embrace of absolutes, as the 1920s progressed. In point of fact, a few years later, in his Manifeste aux intellectuels (1927) he writes, ‘les révolutionnaires doivent dire “Celui qui n’est pas avec moi est contre moi”’ (1927: 27). As will become clear in the analysis of Staline, that same tendency towards categorical and polarised thinking led Barbusse in dangerous directions at the end of his career.

The official biography

In an indication of a close relationship that was to grow only cosier, Henri Barbusse first travelled to the Soviet Union in 1927 as an invited guest for the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution (Relinger, 1994: 207). ⁵ The carefully crafted hero’s welcome Barbusse received was a sign of what was to come during his two-month visit, which as Pierre Pascal noted was largely a ‘Potemkin’ visit: that is, one in which Barbusse’s perspective on Soviet life was limited to what officials wanted him to see (Baudorre, 1996: 276). ⁶ We should note that it was not just for the anniversary celebration that Barbusse had travelled east: he arrived with a number of goals for research, publication, and the prospective sales of translations of his books in the USSR. ⁷

It was also during that particular visit to the Soviet Union that Barbusse first met Joseph Stalin (Vidal, 1953: 324). Barbusse was even granted an interview with the General Secretary, a privilege shared by a few other Western writers during the interwar period (including H. G. Wells, Emil Ludwig, Romain Rolland and Lion Feuchtwanger). According to his long-time secretary and frequent travelling companion Annette Vidal, Barbusse was completely taken with Stalin after their initial meeting, which lasted two and a half hours (1953: 324). That first meeting with Stalin in 1927 was followed by others, as well as regular and frequent correspondence in the early 1930s (Baudorre, 1996: 353; David-Fox, 2012: 229). The two did appear to have a special relationship: according to Vidal, they met each time Barbusse travelled to the USSR (1953: 327). Stalin provided Barbusse with documentation for his first book on nationalities in the USSR (Voici ce qu’on a fait de la Géorgie, 1929), and he used his substantial power to side with Barbusse during at least two literary–political scuffles. ⁸ One anecdote even has Stalin giving Barbusse his seat at the Bolshoi theatre during the fortieth anniversary celebration of Maxim Gorky’s career as a writer (Baudorre, 1996: 357). Apocryphal or not, the story is indicative of the perception and the reality of a very close relationship between the writer and the Soviet head of state.

The ultimate fruit of this close relationship was the first full biography ever written on Stalin (Brandenberger, 2005: 259; Courtois, 1997: 26). According to Vidal, it was Barbusse who proposed such a biography to Stalin in 1933. She writes that upon hearing the idea, Stalin laughed, pointed to one of his loyalists (Lazar Kaganovitch) and said ‘Voilà l’homme qui pourra vous procurer tout ce que vous lui demanderez’ (1953: 328). Russian historians tell the story otherwise, and describe the process of constructing Stalin’s official biography as being fraught with difficulties and false starts for many years. ⁹ The delay was attributable in part to Stalin’s search for a ‘reputable’ writer for the purpose (Medvedev, 1989: 817). As Medvedev writes:

In the early 1930s, Stalin began by roundabout methods to seek some prominent writer of the day to do a biography of him. Discussions with Gorky, Lion Feuchtwanger, and André Gide were held … In the end, the well-known French Communist writer Henri Barbusse agreed. (1999: 207) ¹⁰

Kemp-Welch furnishes a similar account, but he writes that Gorky was approached only after Gide and Feuchtwanger declined (1991: 228). Information for the biography was provided by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Stalin’s secretariat and experts at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism; Willi Münzenberg served as an intermediary (Medvedev, 1989: 818; Plamper, 2012: 133; David-Fox, 2012: 231–2). Barbusse’s book (published by Flammarion) finally appeared in March 1935, just five months before his death. ¹¹

The full title of the biography, Staline: Un monde nouveau vu à travers un homme, gives a clear sense of Barbusse’s goal: to tell the story of a new world order, with Stalin at its centre. The title is also fitting in an ironic sense: Barbusse depicts an ‘official’ version of the world as seen through Stalin’s eyes. The text is replete with facts – and fiction under the guise of fact – about Stalin’s personal life as well as his accomplishments both before and after the revolution. Much of the text focuses on four decades of Russian history, with particular emphasis on the birth of the Revolution, the Bolsheviks’ struggle to consolidate power in the immediate post-Revolutionary years, and the radical socio-political and cultural changes wrought by both Lenin and Stalin in the 1920s and 1930s. Barbusse uses myriad narrative and discursive techniques to depict Stalin as a new Messiah for the proletarians of the world. Many of those techniques can be found in any narrative purporting to be a work of non-fiction that takes on a particular advocacy position: a contract between text and reader that emphasises the narrative’s veracity; an ordering of events calculated to emphasise the subject’s importance (Plantinga, 1997: 133); and omissions of factual information unfavourable to the subject (White, 1987: 10). Other techniques are shared by works of propaganda, Stalinist and otherwise: the inclusion of false and highly questionable information that is favourable to the subject; ¹² the careful balance of truth and fiction, such that there is often some element of credibility to what is recounted (Clews, 1964: 8; Margulies, 1968: 16); the use of polarised language (hyperbole, superlatives, absolutes) (Clews, 1964: 25–6); a reliance on slogans (Labin, 1949: 62); an abundance of repetition (Clews, 1964: 8); and the inclusion of details that appeal to readers’ emotions (Clews, 1964: 8). Throughout the biography, it is clear that Barbusse must perform a careful balancing act between, on the one hand, depicting Stalin as an ordinary Soviet citizen among many and, on the other, as an exceptional superhuman capable of leading a worldwide Revolution. ¹³ As I will show, an analysis of the tension between the human and the superhuman in Barbusse’s portrayal of Stalin will permit a showcasing of narrative techniques at play in the text. At some points in this analysis, it will be necessary to compare Barbusse’s telling to accounts written by historians of Stalinism and other biographers of Stalin, in order to highlight Barbusse’s status as a propagandist. ¹⁴ The question of the human and the superhuman is a central one in the case of Stalin, as it was fundamental to his cult of personality. In his famous 1956 ‘secret speech’, Khrushchev marked the beginning of the end of that personality cult in part by highlighting that particular issue. He stated:

After Stalin’s death, the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behaviour. (quoted in Wolfe, 1957: 88)

By the end of this analysis, it will be clear that Barbusse used his literary talent to craft what was an early text for Stalin’s personality cult. ¹⁵ Ultimately, Barbusse represents an extreme case of a Western intellectual’s association with the USSR. Staline serves as an example of the form a Soviet travelogue can take when pushed to its limit in promoting the Soviet Union as a utopia and worldwide advocate for peace and human liberty. ¹⁶

Staline opens with a depiction of a massive parade circling around the very epicentre of the Communist universe, Lenin’s Mausoleum in Red Square:

Tout autour, diverge et converge un fourmillement symétrique de multitude, qui semble sortir de terre et y rentrer … un défilé interminable, frémissant de toile rouge et de soie rouge chargées de lettres et de phrases … c’est le pullulement de la plus énorme armée du monde, le peuple de l’Armée Rouge. (Barbusse, 2006b: 5)

The lengthy and ornate spectacle – which seems to resuscitate the mummified Lenin (2006b: 5) – is centred not just around that revolutionary giant, but also around Stalin, whose name is chanted repeatedly by legions of loyal citizens. After getting a clear sense of Stalin’s prominence, readers then learn that his formal portrait is omnipresent on the ‘continent soviétique’, a geographical expanse that stretches over one-sixth of the globe (2006b: 6–7). But lest this power give ammunition to critics of the regime or alienate Barbusse’s loyal Communist – and therefore, in principle at least, egalitarian – readership, the author is quick to highlight Stalin’s humility, his humanity and his rejection of the luxuries and the spoils that an ordinary Westerner might assume are afforded to someone in his position. Indeed, it is meant to be encouraging that despite the magnificent splendour on display in Red Square, Stalin chooses to occupy a tiny three-storey house in the Kremlin: ‘Une menue bâtisse que vous ne remarqueriez pas si on ne vous l’indiquait pas … et là habitait jadis quelque domestique du tsar’ (2006b: 7). The space and food provided for the Secretary General are so basic that the average capitalist worker would not be satisfied with Stalin’s living conditions. And this family man – readers learn he is surrounded by his children – receives the same salary as his colleagues: ‘le mince salaire maximum des fonctionnaires du Parti Communiste’ (2006b: 8).

Just after this description of Stalin as an ordinary man, the tension between the human and superhuman resurfaces, in case readers find Stalin so ordinary that he does not merit attention. Barbusse thus quickly highlights not just Stalin’s importance, but by extension the importance of his own work: ‘La biographie de Staline … apparaît comme une partie très importante du mouvement ouvrier révolutionnaire russe’ (2006b: 9). It is ‘une affaire assez solennelle’ to document the work of this man who is involved in a ‘besogne continentale’ (2006b: 9). For the story of Stalin leads readers to situations that are ‘inédites de la bible de l’humanité’ (2006b: 10). It is a story that deals with ‘la plus grande question de tous les temps: Quel est l’avenir de l’espèce humaine, tellement martyrisée jusqu’ici par l’histoire, quelle est la dose de justice terrestre à laquelle elle peut aspirer?’ (2006b: 10). It is also clear that Barbusse is aware that part of his job as biographer is to introduce Stalin to a potentially sceptical public. He writes, ‘Ce peuple de la sixième partie du monde, ce peuple neuf, que vous aimez ou que vous haïssez, voilà la tête qu’il a’ (2006b: 7).

In that grandiose overture, readers of Barbusse have already been exposed to three myths about Stalin: first, that he was universally loved by loyal fellow citizens; second, that his family life was blissful; and, third, that Stalin lived a materially modest life as leader of the Soviet Union. The history of the collectivisation of agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s (with millions exiled, several million dead from forced famine, and massive property expropriations) shows that affection for Stalin was hardly as universal or spontaneous as Barbusse would have us believe (see Tucker, 1990: 80–145; Medvedev, 1989: 211–54). Further, while Barbusse paints a picture of natural domesticity chez Stalin, he makes no mention of his wife, a fact not incidental, as she had committed suicide in 1932, an act interpreted by some as a loyal Communist’s protest against Stalin’s policies ⁽Tucker, 1990: 217; Medvedev,1989: 299; Kuromiya, 2005: 108). Finally, the notion that Stalin lived a meagre life as leader of the USSR is a fallacy: for instance, although he lived in a ‘gloomy’ apartment in the Poteshny Palace in the early 1930s (Montefiore, 2004: 3), he also had a country home outside Moscow (Tucker, 1990: 215–16). Such claims are common among his admirers, who see assertions about Stalin’s enjoyment of the material privileges of power as ‘vulgar calumnies, intolerable blots on their cherished picture of a simple and modest leader’ (Labin, 1949: 83). Indeed, Stalin’s modesty was a theme of his personality cult from its beginning, pointing to the oxymoronic status of a Marxist (i.e. collectivist) personality cult (Plamper, 2012: 19, 123).

The myth-making continues in Barbusse’s telling of Stalin’s childhood, which follows the book’s opening sequence. As is the case with the depiction of the massive rally in Red Square and Stalin’s daily life, the account of Stalin’s origins highlights, paradoxically, both the exceptional nature of his talents and his fundamental ordinariness. The young Joseph is depicted as a perfectly normal young boy, although endowed with the bearing of a refined intellectual. ¹⁷ Despite their poverty, his parents were deeply dedicated to him and sent him to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, from which he was expelled because of his illicit readings of forbidden subjects like natural science and sociology (Barbusse, 2006b: 19). Those rebellions foreshadowed an adolescence and young adulthood filled with early revolutionary activities and astounding intellectual growth. The story Barbusse tells is an entirely plausible and pleasant tale of the evolution of a seminal revolutionary figure from his humble origins. It is also a tale that, in spite of a few strategically placed facts, contains a number of inaccuracies and falsehoods. Other historical and biographical accounts of Stalin’s early life differ markedly from Barbusse’s telling, including details on Stalin’s abusive father, his poor performance in school, his debilitating physical injuries, and his various deformities and ailments. ¹⁸ Tucker sums up his childhood in one word: ‘wretched’ (1990: 4). If limited to such minor personal details, Barbusse’s airbrushing of Stalin’s life story could be understandable for an account that is meant to be favourable to its subject. However, this myth-making about Stalin’s origins is far from innocent, as it presages misconceptions and falsehoods about matters of great political import later in the biography.

Barbusse adeptly moves from those opening pages to an overview of four decades of Russian history, with Stalin’s personal history intertwined. As the latter part of the story moves on, uncritical devotion for and adulation of Stalin overwhelm Barbusse’s early efforts to tie his subject’s experience to that of the ordinary Soviet citizen and functionary. As readers learn about the Bolshevik revolution and its origins, World War I, the Civil War, the New Economic Policy, the ‘parasitic war’ with the Trotskyist Left Opposition, and two Five-Year Plans, Barbusse not only accentuates Soviet exceptionalism, but also the extraordinary qualities of Stalin. As a young man and underground revolutionary leader, Stalin is described as being born of ‘tonnerre et éclair’ (2006b: 31). He is depicted as someone who was, in a sense, born a revolutionary, finding his calling to work with and for the masses as a very young man. Readers of Barbusse are told that Stalin was a sort of monk for the Marxist cause: ‘ni famille, ni foyer, il vivait et pensait exclusivement pour la Révolution’ (2006b: 39). Later, Barbusse writes that during his Siberian exile of 1913–17, Stalin’s resourcefulness was remarkable and exemplary:

Il dut s’installer comme un Robinson…dans la toundra glacée … Toute la journée il pêchait et chassait, coupait du bois pour se chauffer, faisait sa cuisine … et pourtant … sous l’œil inquisiteur et stupide du garde spécial chargé de veiller sur la fixité du proscrit, s’entassaient des pages et des pages écrites traitant de tous les grands problèmes. (2006b: 61)

During the Civil War, his exploits were equally legendary: ‘Les réussites de Staline semblent, par leur rapidité et leur plénitude, le fait de coups de baguette magique’ (2006b: 94). In each of these cases, however, the reality is more complicated and more sobering. For example, in 1907, this monk of the Revolution was expelled from the Bolshevik Party for conducting an ‘expropriation’ (i.e. armed and lethal robbery at Erevan Square) against explicit party policy (Kuromiya, 2005: 16). Barbusse’s depiction of Stalin as a skilled outdoorsman is not incidental, as it is in harmony with images found elsewhere in the personality cult at that time. Plamper writes that in 1934 Stalin began to appear in photos ‘in connection with expeditions and flights of Arctic explorers and aviators … presented as heroes and embodiments of the Soviet new man’ (2012: 40). Further, Kuromiya notes that during that same period, Stalin was a self-centred and difficult presence for fellow exiles (2005: 21). Indeed, Barbusse’s ‘Robinson of the frozen tundra’ failed to do his share of cooking, cleaning and other necessary duties. Medvedev remarks that Stalin was a hoarder of books that were regarded by other exiles as collective property (1989: 35).

Barbusse’s treatment of Stalin’s performance during the Civil War is similarly problematic. He touts Stalin’s ‘main de fer’: ‘Avec les ennemis, nous nous conduirons en ennemis’ (2006b: 83). He would have readers believe that Stalin’s role was singularly heroic: ‘Partout où sur le front de la guerre civile, le danger était grand, on envoya Staline’ (2006b: 77). Medvedev refutes this notion, stating that the myth of Stalin as the genius organiser of Civil War victories was destroyed by Soviet historians in the early 1960s (1989: 55–6). In one particularly glaring instance of a misrepresentation of facts, Barbusse describes Stalin’s alleged heroics and success in the city of Tsaritsyn (later known as Stalingrad), where he was sent to resolve a food crisis. He writes that in Tsaritsyn, ‘Cet homme qui n’avait jamais servi dans l’armée possédait un tel sens généralisé de l’organisation, qu’il savait comprendre et résoudre toutes les questions techniques les plus complexes et les plus ardues’ (2006b: 84). In reality, Stalin failed to resolve the crisis and his iron-fisted tactics rendered Tsaritsyn’s military situation chaotic, creating what Kuromiya refers to as a ‘black hole’ and a ‘murderous bedlam’: ‘Everything disappeared there: money, people, and equipment designated for other purposes were expropriated by Stalin’s orders’ (2005: 40). So bad was the situation that, at Trotsky’s insistence, Stalin was recalled to Moscow by Lenin (despite Barbusse’s ‘coups de baguette magique’). ¹⁹

‘Je n’obéis pas à Dieu, je pense la même chose que lui’

Barbusse’s glowing treatment of Stalin as a young man, a Revolutionary-era Bolshevik, and Civil War veteran pales in comparison to his depiction of Stalin as a head of state. As the above quote from Seneca suggests (2006b: 317), the whitewashing of Stalin’s record and the glorification of his persona reach new levels in the latter portions of the biography. The ‘Dieu’ referred to in that quote would represent Lenin, of whom Stalin is depicted as a loyal disciple, a notion Barbusse emphasises repeatedly and emphatically. This is neither by chance, nor is it unique to Barbusse’s iteration of Stalin’s life story and his version of Russian history. There is debate among Russian historians on whether Stalin masterminded the cult of Lenin. Tucker writes that it was Stalin himself who manoeuvred to promote a cult of personality around Lenin in order to create fertile ground for the idea that Lenin’s successor would, logically, deserve similar veneration. Stalin, in this view, promoted Lenin’s primacy and infallibility (as the representative of true Bolshevik revolutionism) in order to claim similar primacy for himself (Tucker, 1979: 352, 358). Once Lenin’s supremacy was established, Tucker writes, Stalin’s ‘glorifiers set about rewriting history in accordance with Stalin’s canons and in a manner calculated to accentuate his role and merits in the party’s revolutionary past, while discrediting those of his enemies’ (1979: 364). ²⁰ Plamper questions this notion, stating that Stalin only played a peripheral role in the creation of the Lenin cult (2012: 24). The debate around the origin of the Lenin cult aside, the results are not in dispute. Lenin’s cult served as a model for Stalin’s cult (Plamper, 2012: 24). And Tucker writes that the ultimate outcome was a ‘hyphenate cult of an infallible Lenin–Stalin’ (1979: 364).

Given this ‘hyphenate cult’ phenomenon, it is therefore not by chance that Lenin is introduced in the very first paragraph of Staline, as he is crucial to the depiction of his successor as a legitimate ruler of the worldwide proletarian movement. To be sure, Stalin as the living incarnation and earthly representative of all things Leninist is a primary motif of this text. ²¹ Barbusse finds a number of ways to convey to his readership, repeatedly and emphatically, that throughout the turbulent revolutionary and Civil War periods, Stalin and Lenin ‘n’ont jamais différé d’avis, ni sur la doctrine, ni sur la tactique’ (2006b: 188). And yet, despite Barbusse’s persistent hammering away at that theme, even a cursory look at revolutionary history reveals as a fallacy the notion of a completely harmonious relationship between the two leaders. Indeed, to take one prominent example, in the texts written shortly before his death that became known as his ‘Testament’, Lenin expressed doubts about Stalin’s capacity to use ‘the unlimited authority concentrated in his hands’ as General Secretary with ‘sufficient caution’ (quoted in Medvedev, 1989: 80). However, Barbusse makes no mention of this ‘Testament’, which figures prominently in other more reliable tellings of the power shift from Lenin to Stalin (Tucker, 1973: 270–6; Medvedev, 1989: 79–87; Kuromiya, 2005: 59–60; Souvarine, 1935: 279–93; Montefiore, 2004: 35–6).

Barbusse saves his most soaring rhetoric around the Lenin–Stalin cult for the final passage of Staline, which is worth quoting here at length. Barbusse strategically begins and ends his narrative by putting the first two Soviet heads of state in close juxtaposition, thereby reinforcing their supposed ideological and temperamental proximity in the reader’s mind. After painting a picture of a politically menacing world in which the only hope for the future of humanity lies in the USSR and Stalin, Barbusse ends his narrative with words that are meant to comfort readers:

Quand on passe, pendant la nuit, sur la Place Rouge, dans ce vaste décor qui semble se dédoubler: ce qui est de maintenant, c’est-à-dire, de la nation de bien des gens du globe, et ce qui est d’avant 1917 (ce qui est antédiluvien) – il vous semble que celui qui est allongé dans le tombeau central de la place nocturne et déserte, soit le seul qui ne dorme pas au monde, et qu’il veille sur ce qui rayonne tout autour de lui, de villes et de campagnes. C’est le vrai guide – celui dont les ouvriers riaient de constater qu’il était tellement à la fois le maître et le camarade, c’est le frère paternel qui s’est réellement penché sur tous. Vous qui ne le connaissiez pas, il vous connaissait d’avance, et s’occupait de vous. Qui que vous soyez, vous avez besoin de ce bienfaiteur. Qui que vous soyez, la meilleure partie de votre destinée, elle est dans les mains de cet autre homme, qui veille aussi sur tous, et qui travaille – l’homme à la tête de savant, à la figure d’ouvrier, et à l’habit de simple soldat. (2006b: 320)

That final passage of Staline grants both Lenin and Stalin omniscience and omnipotence, while at the same time attempting, albeit feebly, to create room for them to be considered the comrades of ordinary Soviet citizens. That tension is captured in the reference to Lenin as the ‘paternal brother’, and in Stalin’s ordinary face and clothing (which belie the mind of a scholar).

Despite such cosmetic efforts to retain a semblance of balance, by the final pages of the narrative, the extraordinary overwhelms the ordinary, and Barbusse’s approach to Stalin’s body of work becomes so laudatory and uncritical that it is difficult to refer to it as anything other than propaganda. Barbusse writes that the masses literally have ‘faith’ in him: ‘La foi monte de la terre elle-même’ (2006b: 317). And without irony, Barbusse tells his readers ‘Si Staline a foi dans la masse, la réciproque est vraie. C’est un véritable culte que la Russie Nouvelle a pour Staline … Il a sauvé. Il sauvera’ (2006b: 318). The uneasy balance between splendour and humility found at the beginning of the narrative is gone, and the promotion of the revolutionary project (under the guidance of a leader-hero) takes precedence.

By any means necessary

A common thread in Barbusse’s post-war writing is his critique of World War I as an event that underscores the failure of social-democratic nationalism to find a path to peace. That line of thinking endured to the end of his life. In Staline, Barbusse asserts that the world outside the Soviet Union remains marked by perfidy, violence and weakness. He writes, ‘Nous sommes en plein dans un régime de sang, nous autres, les non-soviétiques’ (2006b: 101). Russia alone stands out as a beacon of hope and freedom: ‘Lorsque, plus tard, l’humanité libérée célébrera les étapes de sa libération, ce sera cet instant de ses annales qu’elle commémorera avec le plus de recueillement et d’enthousiasme: 25 Octobre 1917’ (2006b: 70). Given the hostile geopolitical context, the author’s view that violence is justifiable, and that the Soviet Union represents humanity’s future, it should come as no surprise that Barbusse promotes – by any means necessary – the success of the Soviet enterprise. He writes: ‘on frappe une créature pour en sauver mille, pour en sauver cent mille, pour sauver l’avenir, et bâtir un monde meilleur où l’homme ne sera plus victime de l’homme’ (2006b: 101). Violence enabled the Russian Revolution to survive (2006b: 103), and therefore it remains a legitimate and justifiable means to an end to see the project to its next phase. Barbusse writes, ‘Alors, malgré tout, pousser cette révolution, enfin, jusqu’au bout. Abattre complètement la bourgeoisie, couper les ponts (défaire, c’est faire dans un autre sens); confisquer, exproprier intégralement: se saisir du commerce, de l’industrie, de tout’ (2006b: 140).

In spite of that espousal of violence, it is clear from certain caveats and strategies that Barbusse is aware of how such brutal methods and blunt language might appear to his readers. For in case anyone should think verbs like ‘abattre’, ‘confisquer’, ‘couper’ and ‘se saisir’ could lead to dictatorship, Barbusse overtly rejects the notion that such an outcome can even be possible in the utopian USSR because of the structure of the regime and the Comintern (2006b: 171). Indeed, those who would interpret the internal governance of the USSR as a Mussolini-style dictatorship would be victims of ‘une illusion grossière’ (2006b: 172). Barbusse anticipates a possible negative reaction from critics, writing in Staline that he knows he will be accused of crafting a ‘panégyrique’ (2006b: 244). His response: ‘C’est la seule réalité qui fait le panégyrique. Nous n’inventons aucun argument’ (2006b: 244).

Given his extensive political activity, his status as a war veteran, and his record as an anti-war writer, it is tempting to take Barbusse at his word: it is because he is so committed to peace that he has espoused the Soviet Union and its leader with such fervour. To be sure, both contemporaries of Barbusse and recent critics have given Barbusse the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, the notion that Barbusse was a steadfast warrior against fascism and for peace is a constant in the reportage on his death in the Communist daily L’Humanité. ²² In exhorting Parisians to turn out for his funeral, the main front-page headline on 7 September 1935 blared, ‘Peuple de Paris, tu seras derrière Barbusse, soldat de la paix!’ (see Figure 1). That moniker was apparently borrowed by Vidal for her laudatory book on Barbusse’s life as a writer and intellectual, Henri Barbusse, soldat de la paix. Critic and historian Frank Field very much went in this direction in his friendly interpretation of Barbusse’s political engagement at the end of his life. He writes: ‘it would be churlish to criticize Barbusse too harshly for his efforts to spare mankind another holocaust like the one that had taken place between 1914 and 1918’ (1975: 78). Baudorre adopted a similar approach in his biography of Barbusse, minimising the Stalinist side of his subject at the end of his life. He devotes just one page of his 400-page biography to Staline, referring to it as Barbusse’s most mediocre and conventional book. Baudorre is quick to whitewash the stain left by Barbusse’s praise of Stalin by highlighting the fact that his contemporaries Louis Aragon and Paul Nizan lauded the book upon its publication (1996: 384). ²³ Jean Relinger’s treatment of Barbusse in his intellectual biography is equally forgiving. He is willing to pardon the bewitched writer because he fell for the ruses of his Potemkin visits to the USSR: ‘Comment Barbusse n’aurait-il pas été séduit par ce pays fascinant?’ (1994: 209). He cautions us that when we are analysing Barbusse’s record, we should neither justify nor excuse – ‘on doit seulement essayer de comprendre’ (1994: 214).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Homages to Barbusse appeared regularly on the front page of L’Humanité in the days following his death. Image courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

The simple existence of cases like André Gide’s challenges the basic premises of those who defend, excuse or try to ‘understand’ Barbusse’s espousal of Stalin’s rule. ²⁴ Those who were welcomed in similar Potemkin fashion to the USSR and still retained their artistic and intellectual integrity serve as a powerful counter-argument to the notion that Barbusse could not help but be seduced. Furthermore, the ‘seduction’ that took place in the USSR had a material component that was far from negligible. ²⁵ Gide notes that there were huge financial advantages for those, like Barbusse, who wrote ‘dans le bon sens’ (Gide, 2001b: 831–2). In addition to material considerations, there is evidence in Staline, and in his career as a public intellectual, that Barbusse was complicit in, rather than just helplessly seduced by, efforts to craft a positive public image of the Soviet Union at the expense of the truth. Barbusse used an untold number of sources to craft his biography of Stalin. The number remains untold because he provides no bibliography, very few footnotes, and often quotes his sources without specific attribution. In one particular instance, he cites at length (and without attribution) an interview with Stalin. My research reveals it was conducted in 1931 by the German writer Emil Ludwig. Ludwig asked a number of tough and direct questions, including about whether Stalin saw himself as another Peter the Great, and about Stalin’s shortcomings relative to Lenin (little time spent abroad, for instance (Stalin, 1932: 3, 18)). The exchange that is of particular interest here deals with Stalin’s past and how it influences his current practices:

Barbusse cites Stalin’s answer to that question at length (the answer takes up more than one full page). Stalin’s position on the matter is that the Bolsheviks’ initial position vis-à-vis their enemies (like the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries) was one of ‘mildness’ (Stalin, 1932: 7–8; translated as ‘douceur’ in Barbusse’s text (2006b: 104)). But when faced with the treachery of their enemies, they were forced to abandon that ‘mildness’ for fear of betraying working-class interests and emboldening rivals. The long quote ends with the following sentence: ‘Il était facile de comprendre que nous nous trompions en nous montrant trop doux’ (2006b: 104; [‘And so we became convinced that mildness was a mistake’ Stalin, 1932: 7]). That sentence is actually Stalin’s penultimate remark. His final remark, censored by Barbusse for obvious reasons, is ‘Experience taught us that the only way to cope with such enemies is to adopt a ruthless policy of suppression’ (Stalin, 1932: 7). The interview continues thus, with Ludwig pursuing a vigorous and courageous line of questioning:

The full text of Ludwig’s interview with Stalin is thus doubly revelatory: first, it clearly shows that Barbusse deliberately crafted a sunnier, less brutal version of Stalin and his policies for his readers; and, second, it is further proof that there were indeed Western writers courageous enough to question the regime’s official line. Barbusse was, in fact, not simply seduced: he was complicit in the construction of the cult of personality around Stalin and in its dissemination in France. Further, he aided in the suppression of information that was demonstrably unfavourable to the USSR. For instance, instead of questioning Stalin about widespread fear in the Soviet Union as Ludwig did, Barbusse is eager to point out that it is the most civilised society of all (2006b: 244) where ‘tous veillent sur chacun’ (2006b: 306). ²⁶

‘Ce serait de la magie si ce n’était pas du socialisme’

Such ‘magical’ statements in Staline (2006b: 166) made one contemporary critic, an erstwhile fan of Barbusse, note in disbelief that ‘Barbusse the materialist, the iconoclast, has turned hero worshiper in Stalin’ (Scheler, 1936: 246). That remark, which is typical of the book’s reception in the United States in the mid 1930s (Dean, 1936; AK, 1936), stands in contrast to the reaction of French Communists, who offered praise in Monde and L’Humanité. On 3 March 1935, shortly before the book’s release, L’Humanité printed excerpts from Staline, which was described as ‘un livre remarquable de notre camarade et ami’. In ensuing weeks, the book received additional accolades from the editors of L’Humanité. ²⁷ One review uncritically repeats many of the same ideas and concepts promoted in Staline, illustrating how the French Communist press aided in the dissemination of the official Soviet line (Fréville, 1935). Furthermore, we must note that well after Barbusse’s death, leading French Communists continued to heap praise upon Barbusse and Staline. In 1945, for example, Jacques Duclos (a major figure in the PCF, second only to Secretary General Maurice Thorez) credited Barbusse with being a part of his own turn to Communism, referring to Staline as Barbusse’s ‘testament’ (Duclos and Fréville, 1946: 62).

That tendency to shine a positive light on Barbusse still exists among critics who have studied Barbusse’s life and work in recent years. Baudorre describes him as one of the indisputable glories of the early twentieth century and as ‘une figure historique du combat pacifiste puis antifasciste’ both in France and abroad (1996: 7). Nowhere in that description is the turn to Stalinism mentioned explicitly (it is obfuscated under ‘antifascism’). Henri Lemaître describes Barbusse’s affiliation with the USSR as follows: ‘Il mourut à Moscou, où la fascination exercée sur lui par le personnage, puis le mythe, de Lénine l’avait poussé à faire de fréquents séjours’ (1994: 69). No mention is made of Stalin and the importance of his ‘myth’ in Barbusse’s life. Finally, J. E. Flower (1983) fails to make any mention of Barbusse’s Stalinist phase, ending his analysis with a treatment of the 1927 Manifeste aux intellectuels (1983: 48).

Those publications notwithstanding, it is interesting and necessary to note that, given Barbusse’s importance as a figure in the interwar period, much of his work and influence is largely ignored or overlooked by scholars and critics today (with the lone exception of Le Feu, which remains widely studied by World War I scholars). That is a surprising development for a writer who, in Larousse’s Dictionnaire des écrivains de langue française, is dubbed ‘le père spirituel de la gauche dans la génération d’après 1914’ (Greenspan, 2001: 126). There are a few potential reasons that can be attributed to Barbusse’s move from the centre of French intellectual life to its margins. First, generally speaking, scholarly literature on Barbusse tends to view his writing in relation to shifts in his personal and intellectual biography. The few books devoted to Barbusse’s life and work (Vidal, Relinger and Baudorre are the major publications) follow similar trajectories, devoting specific chapters or sections to Barbusse’s significant works while concentrating mainly on his path as a public intellectual. Second, apart from Le Feu, Barbusse’s works of fiction failed to gain significant levels of notoriety upon their publication (or, in the long term, sustain substantial scholarly interest). Third, the vast majority of Barbusse’s output appeared after World War I, and much of that work is tied to Communism, its internecine battles, and in the last few years of his life, Stalin’s Soviet Union. I would argue that it is above all Staline – the work hailed by his Communist contemporaries as his testament – that permanently diminished Barbusse’s credibility as an intellectual. Indeed, some of the uncritical praise of Stalin found in the text would be difficult to accept even if one were predisposed to a sympathetic reading. For instance, Barbusse tells his readers, ‘[Staline] est le chef pour la même raison qui fait qu’il réussit: c’est parce qu’il a raison … en juger différemment, c’est ne rien comprendre au régime soviétique’ (2006b: 173). The idea that some in the West see Stalin as a ‘tyran sanguinaire’ is dismissed by Barbusse and makes Stalin lurch back in his chair, ‘en proie à son gros et bon rire d’ouvrier travailleur’ (2006b: 173). It is difficult to overlook such complicity or, if taken purely at face value, such credulity and gullibility.

Barbusse was critical of contemporary Western intellectuals who did not follow his path, deeming them complicit in the build-up toward war. He writes, ‘Les écrivains, les artistes, les savants, tous les intellectuels sont appauvris par le Pouvoir soucieux de déverser tous les deniers publics dans le gouffre des armements’ (2006a: 237). Given the violence that Stalin himself ultimately inflicted, Barbusse’s remark serves as an ironic commentary on his own role as the first official biographer of the General Secretary. Many of Barbusse’s principled statements made earlier in his career can be easily turned on him due to his complicity with Stalin’s propaganda efforts and his espousal of a new Soviet nationalism. As the narrator of Le Feu states, ‘Et même lorsqu’ils disent qu’ils ne veulent pas la guerre, ces gens-là font tout pour la perpétuer. Ils alimentent la vanité nationale et l’amour de la suprématie par la force’ (2006a: 248). That remark could be read as criticism of Barbusse’s infatuation with Stalin’s power. The same can be said of comments he made during the 1919 ceremony at Médan marking the anniversary of Zola’s death. On that occasion, Barbusse elaborated on the social role of the artist, arguing against the production of non-political work. He notes, ‘Beaucoup d’écrivains ne font pas leur devoir d’hommes. Ils croient demeurer purement artistes en se détournant des mouvements sociaux, c’est-à-dire l’ordre de faits qui broie ou qui sauve le genre humain’ (1920b: 193). Barbusse is careful to provide a note of caution, however, stating that artists need not lose their independence even if they do choose to be politically committed. ‘Il ne s’agit pas’, Barbusse states, ‘de s’asservir sa plume à de la politique’ (1920b: 193–4). The fact that those words – written in admiration of the most famous Dreyfusard – could be turned on the author of Staline is perhaps the most damning criticism of all.