Boris Souvarine

Boris Souvarine (of his true name Boris Lifschitz, Kiev 1895 - deceased with Paris on November 1st, 1984), of Ukrainian origin karaïte, naturalized French, was initially workman then journalist, historian and essay writer. Communist militant , he was a famous critic of the Stalinisme and the author into 1935 of a biography pionnière of Stalin.

Biography

Workman and wire of workman, Boris Souvarine is as from 1919 the principal organizer of the Committee of the Third International one, with Fernand Loriot and Charles Rappoport. It militates within SFIO on bases Marxist S revolutionists, so that the party leaves the Second International, which is made with the congress of Strasbourg of February 1920, then so that the SFIO adheres to the Third International, which vote majority with the congress of Turns in December 1920, on the basis of motion of which he is the principal writer.

It is then the foundation of the French Section of International Communist (SFIC - future French Communist party). Souvarine is elected at the first management committee of the SFIC, and is formed part, in 1921, of the French delegates to the 3rd congress of the Internationale Communist (IC) (where he is elected at the same time at the executive committee and Praesidium which counts 7 members then). July 17th, 1921, it enters to the secretariat of the IC. No other French will exert so high functions within the " Komintern". At that time, Souvarine lives mainly in Moscow, but it is also engaged in the life of the French party where it is opposed to the " center" (Frossard and Cachin). It thus loses its seat at the management committee with the congress of Marseilles in December 1921, but finds it in 1923, at the national council of Boulogne, which marks the victory of the left wing pro-Bolshevik. It enters then to the political office.

In 1923 between the leaders Bolsheviks the conflicts burst which brooded since the disease of Lénine. Souvarine, which takes the party of the critical spirit vis-a-vis the direction, and thus relays sometimes Trotski, is opposed in France to Albert Treint which has the favors of Zinoviev and of the direction of the International one. In January 1924, to the congress of Lyon, Souvarine leaves victorious confrontation, but Treint, with the support of Manouilski and of all the envoys of the IC, will make rock the management Committee in March. In a text of March 1924, Souvarine denounces the " centralism mechanical, bureaucratic, and irresponsable" within the SFIC. Publication by Souvarine of " Course nouveau" of Trotski, in the Communist Bulletin , will serve as a pretext for its ousting of the IC and thus of the SFIC, announced by Humanity on July 19th, 1924. Its exclusion actually makes following its opposition vis-a-vis the " bolchevisation" (makes " of it; stalinisation") SFIC.

It remakes to appear the Communist Bulletin as from 1925. He is founding member of the democratic communist Cercle in 1930, and of his review social Criticism .

Souvarine will remain all its life a keen adversary of Stalinism. In 1935 it makes appear its biography of Stalin entitled Stalin. Historic insight of the Bolchevism . The extraordinary clearness of this work, always usable, today is unanimously recognized. Souvarine dismounted there already the mechanisms of the lies developed around the reality of the Russian mode, mode which he regarded as being a “ negation of socialism and Communism ”. In March 1985, shortly after the death of Souvarine, the realizer Jean Aurel will adapt this biography of Stalin in the form of documentary for the cinema, simply entitled Stalin . In 1936, under the pseudonym of Motus, Souvarine publishes in the Editions of France a book, Through the Country of the Soviets.

In 1935, it founds the Institut of social history and gathers an important documentation on Communism, the Soviet Union, and the labor movement in general. It creates the Friends of the truth on the USSR , collective which publishes several booklets with the bookstore of work .

It was stopped in 1940 in Marseilles by the Vichy government. Released thanks to the intervention of an officer, he flees then in the USA. After the war he writes in the review East-West , re-examined information on the Eastern European countries which give a great place to the dissidents. He created in 1957 the review the social Contract , which appeared during 11 years.

Quotations

“I, since 1960, wanted to show that " for which proves to be capable of understanding, the Marxism is a thing, moreover complex and variable, Leninism is another, the simpler, and the Marxism-Leninism a third which contrasts with the preceding ones by major differences in spite of the similarities verbales". Nowadays, I would strongly accentuate all the adjectives because, since, an absolute incompatibility continued more, between these turbid and specious concepts. ” (1981)

Works

Stalin, historic insight of the Bolchevism , Plon, 1935 (republications Free field 1977 and 1985, then Ivrea 1992).
Nightmare in the USSR , Re-examined of Paris, 1937 (republication Agonic line 2001).
Working and peasants in the USSR , Bookstore of work, 1937 (republication Agonic line 2001).
One Pot-rotted of Khrouchtchev: in connection with its memories , Spartacus, 1971.
Stalinism , Spartacus, 1972.
Around the congress of Turns , Ivrea, 1981.
the observer of the two worlds and other texts , the Difference, 1982.
Memories on Isaac Babel, Panaït Istrati, Pierre Pascal - followed by a letter to Alexandre Soljenitsyne , Lebovici, 1985.
has counter-current (compilation of texts of 1925 to 1939), Denoël, 1985.

Boris Souvarine also wrote (anonymously) one of the three parts of Towards the other flame , published under the only name of Panaït Istrati in 1929.

Sources

Collective (under the direction of Anne Roche), Boris Souvarine and social criticism , the Discovery, 1990.
Hammered Jean-Louis, Boris Souvarine , Robert Laffont, 1993.
Philippe Robrieux, interior History of the Communist party, Volume I and IV , Beech, 1984.
Charles Jacquier, Boris Souvarine, an intellectual antistalinien of the inter-war period (1924-1940) , political thesis of sociology, University Paris 10,1994.

See too

democratic communist Circle
History of the French Communist party

External bonds

Nightmare in the USSR (1937)
Some texts of Summary Souvarine
of the numbers of '' Social Criticism ''

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