Existentialism and Communism

[Thunder]

Hello! I know that Sartre was a communist. I've been attracted to existentialism and communism, and I was wondering if anyone knew about any works Sartre (or any other existentialist) did that talks about communism and existentialism. How they relate and all that.
Thanks.


P.S. Could anyone also recommend an easy-to-read book that briefly defines and sets forth communism? Thanks.

[Apeiron]

Sartre wrote a book called The Critique of Dialectical Reason which I haven't read, but from what I understand sought to synthesize his existentialism with historical materialism.

[Decolonize The Left]

Hello! I know that Sartre was a communist. I've been attracted to existentialism and communism, and I was wondering if anyone knew about any works Sartre (or any other existentialist) did that talks about communism and existentialism. How they relate and all that.
Thanks.

Your best bet to understand Sartre in relationship to communism, or his interpretation of existentialism, is to read: Existentialism is a Humanism. It is very short, quite easy to read (as it was a lecture), and covers this topic.

It is also very easy to see Sartre's existentialist perspective on communism in his plays (No Exit, The Flies, Dirty Hands, to name a few).


P.S. Could anyone also recommend an easy-to-read book that briefly defines and sets forth communism? Thanks.

That would be The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.

- August

[Trystan]

"The Rebel" by Albert Camus.

[Sprinkles]

Hello! I know that Sartre was a communist.

It's important to note that Sartre was only a "fellow traveler" and never an official member of the French CP.


"The Rebel" by Albert Camus.

Really? Might I ask why exactly? The book is fairly interesting but not very useful in it's criticism of communism. Because although the book touches extensively on the subject in the chapters "State Terror and Irrational Terror" and "State Terror and Rational Terror." It only does so by equating communism with Stalinism and Camus only views Marxism through the lense of the Stalinist experience.

[Sprinkles]

This thread had me look through my copy of "The Rebel" again and like I remembered it's filled with mischaracterizations in order to substantiate Camus his main assertion; that Marxism can be compared and equated with Christian Messianism. With an idealist approach Camus continually compares them to each other looking for similarities:



In contrast to the ancient world, the unity of the Christian and Marxist world is astonishing... Jaspers defines this very well: 'it is a Christian way of thinking to consider that the history of man is strictly unique.' The Christians were the first to consider human life and the course of events as a history which is unfolding from a fixed beginning towards a definite end, in the course of which man gains his salvation or earns his punishment.




With Maistre, as with Marx, the end of time realizes Vigny's ambitious dream, the reconcilitation of the wolf and the lamb, the procession of criminal and victim to the same altar, the reopening or opening of a terrestial paradise. For Marx, the laws of history reflect material reality; for Maistre they reflect divine reality. But for the former, matter is substance; for the latter, the substance of his god is incarnate here below. Eternity separates them at the beginning, but the doctrines of history end by reuniting them in a realistic conclusion.


Camus even stoops as low as using figurative speech to underline this comparison:



'We are fighting for the gates of Heaven,' cried Liebkecht.


Camus doesn't look at the material conditions as to what caused the failure of the international revolution and the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. Instead as an idealist he blames Stalinist repression as the result of an idea, namely his assertion that Marxism is Messianic:



Messianism, in order to exist, must construct a defense against the victims. It is possible that Marx did not want this, but in this lies the responsibility which must be examined, that he incurred by justifying, in the name of revolution, the henceforth bloody struggle against all forms of rebellion.


His use of strawmen and attempts at character assassination are annoying as well.
And this is only what I turned up by briefly skimming through the book:



Marx is simultaneously a bourgeois and a revolutionary prophet.




Marx's scientific materialism is itself of bourgeois origin. Progress, the future of science, the cult of technology and of production are bourgeois myths which in the 19th century became dogma.




Maistre hated Greece (it also irked Marx, who found any form of beauty under the sun completely alien) of which he said that it had corrupted Europe by bequeathing it its spirit of division.




He (Lenin) wanted to abolish the morality of revolutionary action, because he believed, correctly, that revolutionary power could not be established while still respecting the ten commandments.


So, although interesting I'd doubt Camus is all that helpful in understanding Marxism.
Personally I'd go with AugustWest his recommendations about Sartre instead.



Your best bet to understand Sartre in relationship to communism, or his interpretation of existentialism, is to read: Existentialism is a Humanism. It is very short, quite easy to read (as it was a lecture), and covers this topic.

It is also very easy to see Sartre's existentialist perspective on communism in his plays (No Exit, The Flies, Dirty Hands, to name a few).