The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 20, 1926, Page 10

ii! wnt Anatole France + - The newspapers brought the gad news of the death ef Anatole France, one of the most significant writers of our time, Anatole France is such*a unique figure in mod. ern European cylture that to judge and evaluate him is a very difficult thing agd one which can be @one from the most diverse points of view, I shall attempt to give a short sketch of his development and a few touches of his social-cultural growth. Anatole France was born In 1845; his life may be divided into three paris; From his frst work writ- ten in 1875—to tle Dreyfus Affair; from the latter to the World War; and the last period—from the war up to the present. Anatole France began as & Parnassien. The Parnasse was an extraordinary refined school of bourgeois culture. Up to the time of the Commune, the intellectuals of the bourgeoisie were permeated with a certain bitter pessimism. The rule of the regime of the big bourgeolsie called forth a certain nausea in the best part of the Rrench intelligentsia. . The intellectuals tried to separate themselves from the spirit of the merchants and the inhumanity which found an especially raw ex- pression under the regime of Napoleon III and of the bourse. At the same time, this imtelligentsia had not the slightest intention of organizing any kind of effective, political protest. Among the gifted poets and writers, there were only’very few , who had an inclination towards politics. The poll- fics of the government seemed impure, the revolu- tionary politics—fantastic; all. that lay between— petty and useless. Hence the striving of the artista efter formal content, heace their philosophic reflec- tions on the imperfections of life and their height- ened pessimism. These were the features with which the leaders of those days, the leaders of the Parnassus, were endowed: Lecomte de Isle, the yomanticist akin to him, Alfred de Vigny, such mas- ters as Heredia, Gautier and others. The same spirit alSo dominated the great romanticist Flaubert. The young Anatole France dict not exactly incline towards pessimism, but he likewise felt himself to be a pure esthete, far from the hideous chaos of life, filled with the plastic wisdom common to the chosen straia of the refined bourgeois intelligentsia. Skepticism predominated in Anatole France already then. In. his eyes, all truths were ‘uncertain and vacillating. Towards Christianity he maintained a mocking attitude; he liked to oppose to it epicurean, heathen moods. In the eyes of Anatole France, the world had nothing serious to exhibit, and even this world seemed to him the product of chance. If life were worth living, then solely forthe sake of the esthetic enjoyment, the esthetic working-up of ex- periences, and still more—its esthetic reproduction. Already then, Anatole France stood out as a prom- iment stylist. At the bottom, that which constituted Anatole France’s unique charm, was ‘the union of his eclectic style, of his immense knowledge of all epochs from which he chose his themes, with his fine skeptical smile, which shone forth from all of his pictures and characters (as if he were smiling @ little at his own marionettes, as if he wanted to gay that he no less than anything else belonged to this marionette world). With, his “Abbe Coignard’-—a wise toper and skep- fic whom: he had set in the milieu of the middle eges—Anatole France had brought. himself fame not only in France, but thruout the whole world. At the game time he also stepped to the foreground as ” eritic. It is very characteristic ‘that Anatole France, in this his last quality, adhered exclusively @t the time to the forma] artistic performance. Zola, who at that time began to draw the serious furrow of his deep-reaching naturalism, inspired him with horror, and France wrote an article on him at that time, which is more like an exasperated pamph- let than a critical essay. Kurdin, the not unknown Russiah publicist of social-revolutionary tendency, @edicated an article to Anatole France and Jules Lemaitre, a similar gourmet in the field of esthetic culture, in which he does not differentiate the one from the other at all. Anatole France, from all appearances a represen- tative of the skeptical literature of decadence: of the seventies and eighties, differed nevertheless yery essentially from Jules Lemaitre, which was suffict- ently demonstrated by the Dreyfus, affair. The skeptic, Jules Lemaitre, as a true bourgeois, was seized by the monarchic-catholic reaction, How was fhis possible? Why could Jules Lemaitre and other personalities akin to him, as for example Barres, believe the gross fraud of the general etaff and sink down to the most naive religiosity, to the most reac- @onary repudiation of all freedom? Could this all Really be due to the Jewish captain and his involved trial? : No, the matter is otherwise. wi To a certain extent, the French bourgeolsie drew {ts writers near to itself, those writers who up till | fen had occupied themselves with cultivating hot house flowers. The French bourgeoisie was prepar- ing itself for a new struggle. Socialism was matur- ing, a whole cloud of proletarian organizations,- ap- parently peaceful for the time being, collected over Paris. In the sky of international politics’ there gathered storm clouds too. The French bourgeoisie decided to create a military police state. The demo- cratic compromise of the radical republic seemed dangerous to it. This reactionary current flashing thru the entire body of capitalism, even caused the skeptics, shortly before so polished, to perform the most extraordinary antics, But Anatole France, just because of the fineness of his culture, proved himself proof against these aberrations. His trained healthy mind could not stand: that unbearable non- sense with its hypocritic savour gv hich sounded from the right. His skepticism turned against the black expanding reaction. Confused by its sudden’ onslaught, Anatole France searched after people who would be fit to defend that highest culture of freedom, of polished scien- tific analysis, of luminous humanity which he con- sidered as the sole possible atmosphere for the thriv- ing of a culture. And then it appeared that, the same uncouth writer wnom he considered a dung- bettle wallowing in the dirt—Emile Zola—suddenly became the heroic bearer of a protest of the best - part of the petty bourgeois intellectuals in the strug- gle- against the military-clerical ecoanter-revolution. Thus was consummated the drawing-nearer of all DrefuSites, of all those who struggled against Francd sinking into a churchly, barrack-like night. Zola, Anatole France and Jaures became friends. It is pleasant and touching when, after the abuse of the young Anatole France directed against Zola, one reads the enthusiastic essays which the older Ana- tole Frarice later dedicated to him, after he had un- derstood how much warm, upright, truthfulness, how much true love-of-man was hidden in this heavy genre-painter. Aratole France began to examine anew the latter’s artistic aspects too, and a whole series of beauties hitherto hidden to him, revealed themselves to his enthusiastic. esthete-eye. From that time on, he becomes the best friend and co: worker of Jaures. He participates most warmly in the Dreyfus Campaign, and remains even later a faitliful athpoor the isocialishr of the time; certainly: | a Quite feeblé and(compromising *seétalism! but stil far more noble than anything that the France of that time could present. His political labor, at times, gives one an odd, I should like to say, abso- lutely touching impression. I remember, for ex- ample, an enormous meeting at Trocadero, where from 4,000 to 5,000 citizens gathered in order to protest against the first assault upon China, against that notorious campaign of the European Robber- Knights which one ‘of its leaders, William IJ him- self, called a march of the Huns, Jaures spoke first; his voice rang out like a blare of trumpets; it rolled to the most distant corners of the immense hall. Following him, came the fine elegent old man, Ana- tole France, and, in a weak voice, read his venom- ous remarks directed against the imperialists. And the entire hall, packed full of: workers, seemed to die away: the buzzing of the flies was heard; all: leaned forward, almost all put their hands up -to their ears in order not to lose a single word of-what this noble ally, this unexpected guest from the far heights of the elegant Parnasse was saying, With a mocking smile, the speaker said: “As you know, the unexpressed international arrangement allows the Chinese to defend themselves against modern artillery, at any rate, with porcelain Cannons. And now these Chinese seriously begin to defend them- selves. Such an attack against civilization is simply unforgivable. The yellows manifest’ patriotism! They are inclined to defend their barbarous home- land from the claws of our dear fatherlanders who: manifest the natural lust for nourishing themselves with the flesh and blood of these low beings. This. haughty people must be .shown,-that . civilization deprives it of the right of resistance.” These words in essence Anatole France said with his soft voice, but which was loud. en to “be heard by the entire civilized world; it” wag then that he called out the words so real now: “Hands off China!” ‘ wee In this period of the Dreyfus affair up to the~ World War, the brilMant literary activity ef Anatole title of “La Comedie Humaine.” of novels, the extraordinarily interesting history of a society is portrayed in which capitalism and intrenched itself, Balzac wag the favorite thors of Marx, Something similar must havo’ in Anatole France's mind too, He too wanted portray his time in a series of novels, But how great fe the difference! His eolors are pale and polished, @fl events cross the brain of « élever - +. . ‘&@ new French Voltaire. 2 By A. V. Lunacharsky hermit, of a hesitating, passive, but infinitely good shepherd. In this favorite hero of the author, one recognizes anew.the striving of the. best part of the French intellectuals carefully raising aloft the fringe of their snow-white garments in order to step out of the dirty valley of life and alight on a lovely, dry elevation. But from this elevation the intel- lectual hermit glances sadly down upon life. His eyes are sharp; at times a kindly, but often a maliz- nant smile draws across the observer’s lips. It pains and amuses him at the same time when he lets this bourgeois carnival procession pass before him. Anatole. France has brilliantly carried out his task. His minror is of a kind different from the hyperbolic one of Balzac or the black one of Zola. But h€ too. contributes a unique and for him and for everyone who wants to know capitalistic France, an extraordinary reflected image, Anatole France began at this time to feel: himself In this ba®barous empire, which he felt the world surrounding him to be, he wanted to be a envoy of incorruptible thought and humane taste. Against the pathetic patriotism of the French, he opposed in voltairean manner his “Penguin Island"—a masterful, very comical and, at the very bottom, sad satire on: hig native coun- try. His book on Joan of Are is permeated with this same voltairean spirit, attempting to recon- struct the truth distorted by superstition, as is also his magnificent novel, “The Revolt of the Angels.” His interesting novel of the. first Revolution, “The Gods Athirst,” offers us a somewhat different cross- section. Here too Anatole France naturally places himself on the side of that hero whojacts wisely and indulgently. / With a certain horror, he perceives the features of fanaticism with which the activity of men is perme- ated. But we must not forget for a moment the as- tounding freshness in his portrayal of the Revolu- tion, and the great depth of his analysis. Then the war begins. In the first months, Anatole France is confused by the events. “He loves kia Paris, he loves his French confinement, he fears thar the heel of the Prussian officer might stamp out everything. does not last long, and the sober head of the old France emancipates “itself from this epidemic. ‘The war completely. Tevealed to him the true es: sénce of that brilliant formal culturé which was so. It showed him the brutal, threatening. dear to him. * character of capitalism. And in the fame of: this fine culture which decorated the portal-of the capi- talistic prison, Anatole France speaks out his curse against this prison. With a power a thousand times "stronger than that of the Dreyfus affair, the ‘war re- | For a time, the stream, of patriotic | » demonstrations carries him along with it, but it ~ pels from Capital this most brilliant representative be ot the art created by the capitalistic epoch. And, without hesitating a moment, Anatole France at-_ taches himself to the opposite pole. But now this pole is. no longer represented by the petty bourgeois