French Marxism Between The Wars

After the First World War, stunned European intellectuals confronted a devastating cultural void as all their previous ideals and certainties had been demolished in the mechanised carnage of trench warfare.

One small group of Parisian intellectuals, the 'Philosophies', elegantly voiced their generation's anguish and for a while were expected to discover the philosophical solutions that had eluded all others.

The Philosophies - founded in 1924 and including Henri Lefebvre, Georges Friedmann, Paul Nizan, Georges Politzer, Pierre Morhange, and Norbert Guterman - are recognised today as the first group of innovative Marxist theorists in France.

Unlike their peers, the Philosophies rejected the established Cartesian thought of the French academic tradition and initially espoused religious mysticism as the key to all knowledge and action.

The group's desire for an all-inclusive method of knowing then led them to explore classical German idealism, especially the works of Schelling and Hegel.

Finally, they adopted a heretical brand of Marxism, which incorporated Pascal, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Although this unusual intellectual trajectory jeopardised their longevity and clouded their influence, the philosophies did participate in this century's major intellectual currents, including the Frankfurt School, the surrealists, and the Annales movement.

This book explores the responses to inquietude that the Philosophies pioneered and shared with other French intellectuals; the circle's dissemination of Hegelian, Nietzschean, and Marxist thought in France; and the resulting theoretical contributions to psychology, sociology, political economy, philosophy, and literature.