Men of the 'Left
The strange history of Pierre Mendes-France and the great conflict over French North Africa. By Alexander Werth. (Barrie, 30s.)
IN this book Alexander Werth gives us another slice of his history of contemporary France based around the enigma of the rise and fall of M. Mendes-France. Before discussing its substance, let me say that I find Mr. Werth's manner of writing profoundly irritating. To begin with, he lacks method. In spite of the endless reiteration with which his sentences are stuffed, important facts are left out. For instance, l'allaire des fuites is often mentioned, but never actually narrated, and, while I agree with Mr. Werth that the thing was principally an attack on the Mendes-France government, this is a point which requires explanation for any reader who is not a close student of French politics. Mr. Werth's style is sloppy—why must he write sentences like : 'It was then that a lot of hanky-panky started'?—and his continual references to 'the He-men of Morocco,' the 'old gang' of French politicians, the 'colonialists' weaken.the effect of his writing. No more than a novelist should a historian keep telling us what to.think of his characters.
However, this once said, this is a far better book than France 1940-55. Mr. Werth is a man of the left—of the continentalleft—and recent events in France have hit him hard. Over Algeria the aver- age Frenchman appears to have temporarily ranged himself against progress and even com- mon sense, and this is hard for a Left-wing Intel- lectual to understand or even admit. How can the French people *support such obviously disastrr us policies? How can they follow Guy Mollet rather than Mendes-France? How is it that ex-Cor munist voters go over to Poujade? All this, I an1glad to to say, leaves Mr. Werth a good deal less sure of himself, and in his uncertainty QV Cr Algeria he gives way to nostalgia : 'I recalled mY own experience in Spain in 1937. How strong 1Y one felt about things-in those days! How beat ti- fully clear-cut the issues were! We had to Wit Fascism—and that's all there was to it!' It may be unkind to remark that, for Orwell, there was 3 great deal more, but it is just as well that Mr' Werth should realise that political and moral issues can be complex. This internal conflict gi1 his book tension and significance which it might otherwise have lacked.
This book follows the fortunes of a mad', Pierre Mendes-France, and of the movement for a French New Deal which formed up behind him. We are told about the Mendes-France govern- ment with its success at Geneva. its attack on alcohol, its manceuvres over EDC and its final fall over North Africa. From then the story is one of frustration : the personal frustration of M. Mendes-France's efforts to create a political party; the frustration of the Republican Front by M. Edgar Faure's snap election in 1955; above aIls the frustration of liberals over Algeria, their failure even to secure the ending of the use of torture by the police and military. For anyone who loves France and values the French contrit u- tion to European civilisation these last years have been tragedy hardly relieved by the courage of a few men, a Mauriac or an Aron, who felt they could not keep silent. • The disappointment of the hopes aroused bY , the short-lived Mendes-France government was a turning-point in recent French history, but it is too early yet to discern the deeper causes of its defeat. No doubt M. Mendes-France had made powerful enemies—the bouilleurs de cru and the, North African lobby—but no plot laid by politi- cians could create the atavism and racial hatred unleashed by Algeria even in circles normally free from excessive nationalism. One of the most sinister features of this has been the way in which a Socialist like Robert Lacoste or an ex-Marxist intellectual like Jacques Soustelle has become converted to the views of the colons on taking up his appointment as Resident Minister or Governor-General of the territory. The result has been a war of unspeakable atrocity, an end to ailY prospect of the maintenance of French influence in the Maghreb, bankruptcy and inflation at home. The decline of Pierre Mendes-France has accompanied that of his country.
Mr. Werth gives some reasons for this descent into the abyss, but neither he nor anyone else can explain it completely. One factor, which he fails to mention, is the decline in influence of the intellectuals—largely due to their over-preoccupa- tion with politics. Who can now take a Sartre seriously with his tortuous dialectic and I is sentimental love for an abstraction called 'the proletariat'? Intellectuals in any country have a limited stock of credit which they should only draw on in an emergency. Algeria is such an eme r- gency, but many of those who protest have cried 'wolf' so often that they are no longer heard, while the suspicion of schadenfreude which was sometimes present in their past denunciations can be turned against them by unscrupulous adver- saries. The tragedy of an exaggerated engagement is that it devalues the political opinions of the intellectual as well as diverting him from his proper sphere of action.
ANTHONY HARTLI
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