Georges Politzer
Encyclopedia
Georges Politzer was a French philosopher and Marxist
theoretician of Hungarian
origin, affectionately referred to by some as the "red-headed philosopher" (philosophe roux). He was a native of Oradea
, a city in present-day Romania
.
led by Béla Kun
when the country fell under the rule of the repressive government of Austro-Hungarian Admiral Miklós Horthy
.
He settled in Paris in 1921 after meeting Freud
and Sándor Ferenczi
in Vienna
. Five years later, he had read through all the major academic works, up to the philosophy
collection. He joined the French Communist Party
sometime between 1929 and 1931.
At the beginning of the 1930s, the Communist Party
founded the Workers University of Paris (l'Université Ouvrière de Paris) which lasted until dissolution by German occupation in 1939. During his tenure at the university, Politzer was entrusted with and given charge of a course on dialectical materialism
.
A disciple of Marx
and Lenin
, Politzer was very interested in psychology
, preaching the concrete aspects of this field, in relation to which he qualified traditional psychology as abstract. He also took a lively interest in nascent Freudian theory
and its uses before eventually distancing himself from it. In this same period, he occupied the post of professor of philosophy at Lycée
Marcelin Berthelot in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés
.
Mobilized to Paris in 1940, he remained on the side of the French Communist Party
secret command. Demobilized in July 1940, he oversaw the edition of a clandestine bulletin.
After his comrade and friend Paul Langevin
, a physicist of world renown, was arrested in October 1940, Politzer published the first edition of The Free University (L'Université Libre), which told of the imprisonment of scholars and denounced the extortions committed by invading fascists
during World War II
. L'Université Libre would reappear in 1940 and 1941.
In February 1942, Politzer's operations were stopped; he was arrested along with his wife Mai (also a Communist and a Resister) for violating the law banning the Communist Party. He underwent torture, being turned over to the Nazis on 20 March 1942 and undergoing execution by firing squad
at their hands on 23 May of that year, just after having secretly published a French academic journal. His wife was transported to Auschwitz, where she died in March 1943.
L'Université Libre would reappear after the French Liberation under the name New University (Université Nouvelle).
A long legal battle ensued that ended in 1956.
n, Antonio Gramsci
, of generations of intellectuals, in France and abroad. Nevertheless, official and academic philosophers and historians did not tolerate his openly militant engagement, to the point, finally, of treating his work with a certain disdain. To supporters, his philosophical work, written in a clear and didactic manner, merits study and granting of the higher recognition it deserves. His posthumous work, Elementary Principles of Philosophy (Principes Élémentaires de Philosophie) based on notes taken by his followers, was the first work banished by the fascist military regime established in Turkey
in 1980.
Supporters posit that all that was new, upsetting the house of Politzer, has been repudiated, riduculed; and all of that was not upsetting to the official dominant philosophy has been favored.
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
theoretician of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
origin, affectionately referred to by some as the "red-headed philosopher" (philosophe roux). He was a native of Oradea
Oradea
Oradea is the capital city of Bihor County, in the Crișana region of north-western Romania. The city has a population of 204,477, according to the 2009 estimates. The wider Oradea metropolitan area has a total population of 245,832.-Geography:...
, a city in present-day Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
.
Biography
Politzer was already a militant by the time of his involvement in the Hungarian insurrection of 1919. He went into exile at age seventeen following the failure of the Hungarian Soviet RepublicHungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
led by Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
when the country fell under the rule of the repressive government of Austro-Hungarian Admiral Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
.
He settled in Paris in 1921 after meeting Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
and Sándor Ferenczi
Sándor Ferenczi
Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud.-Biography:...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Five years later, he had read through all the major academic works, up to the philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
collection. He joined the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
sometime between 1929 and 1931.
At the beginning of the 1930s, the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
founded the Workers University of Paris (l'Université Ouvrière de Paris) which lasted until dissolution by German occupation in 1939. During his tenure at the university, Politzer was entrusted with and given charge of a course on dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics. The idea was originally invented by Moses Hess and it was later developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
.
A disciple of Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, Politzer was very interested in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, preaching the concrete aspects of this field, in relation to which he qualified traditional psychology as abstract. He also took a lively interest in nascent Freudian theory
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and its uses before eventually distancing himself from it. In this same period, he occupied the post of professor of philosophy at Lycée
Secondary education in France
In France, secondary education is in two stages:* collèges cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 14...
Marcelin Berthelot in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés
Saint-Maur-des-Fossés
Saint-Maur-des-Fossés is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 11.7 km. from the center of Paris.-The abbey:...
.
Mobilized to Paris in 1940, he remained on the side of the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
secret command. Demobilized in July 1940, he oversaw the edition of a clandestine bulletin.
After his comrade and friend Paul Langevin
Paul Langevin
Paul Langevin was a prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the 6 February 1934 far right riots...
, a physicist of world renown, was arrested in October 1940, Politzer published the first edition of The Free University (L'Université Libre), which told of the imprisonment of scholars and denounced the extortions committed by invading fascists
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. L'Université Libre would reappear in 1940 and 1941.
In February 1942, Politzer's operations were stopped; he was arrested along with his wife Mai (also a Communist and a Resister) for violating the law banning the Communist Party. He underwent torture, being turned over to the Nazis on 20 March 1942 and undergoing execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad, sometimes called fusillading , is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war.Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice...
at their hands on 23 May of that year, just after having secretly published a French academic journal. His wife was transported to Auschwitz, where she died in March 1943.
Post-war controversy
Despite his martyrdom and open anti-fascist and anti-Nazi positions, Politzer was not formally recognized posthumously as an internal wartime resister. By contrast, in an irony of history, a plethora of 11th-hour resisters were recognized soon after the French Liberation.L'Université Libre would reappear after the French Liberation under the name New University (Université Nouvelle).
A long legal battle ensued that ended in 1956.
Contribution to philosophy
By his example of flawless and opinionated constancy, despite his militance, Georges Politzer inspired and contributed to the formation, in the manner of such leading communists as the SardiniaSardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
n, Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
, of generations of intellectuals, in France and abroad. Nevertheless, official and academic philosophers and historians did not tolerate his openly militant engagement, to the point, finally, of treating his work with a certain disdain. To supporters, his philosophical work, written in a clear and didactic manner, merits study and granting of the higher recognition it deserves. His posthumous work, Elementary Principles of Philosophy (Principes Élémentaires de Philosophie) based on notes taken by his followers, was the first work banished by the fascist military regime established in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
in 1980.
Quotations
- As much as one might say: there are, in the history of philosophy, philosophies without subject and philosophies which exhaust themselves in a debuachery of honest or pharisean artifice, with perfect unawareness of being without substance, one will not discuss more than the dates; as much as one might say: the rebirths of the spirit correspond to the discovery of a new subject and the nuances are then swept away because one poses problems in grander terms; they will congratulate us on the ingeniousness of our designs. But when one will say: forthwith, the problems will be posed in great terms; forthwith, the nuances will be swept away, because we see here the new substance: from here on we will not be more than the simple-minded and ignorant and as part of the bargain, ranters ; And all the good disposition that one could have for our ideas will evaporate, suddenly, from the mere fact that we want to convey the precision that they entail. For that is the law of the situation. The philosophers of philosophy without substance are unaware and the comedy brought to bear on them is that they know from science certain that they have had philosophers unaware of being without substance, and that they are perfectly incapable of diagnosing in themselves the ills that they recognize in others.
- Tant qu'on dira: il y a dans l'histoire de la philosophie des philosophies sans matière et des philosophies s'épuisant dans une débauche d'artifices honnêtes ou pharisiens, avec l'inconscience parfaite d'être privés de matière, on ne discutera plus que sur les dates; tant qu'on dira : les renaissances de l'esprit correspondent à la découverte d'une matière nouvelle et les nuances sont alors balayées parce qu'on pose les problèmes en grands termes, ils nous féliciteront de l'ingéniosité de nos vues. Mais quand on dira : il faut que dès maintenant les problèmes soient posés en grands termes; il faut que dès maintenant les nuances soient balayées, car voici la matière nouvelle: alors nous ne seront plus que des simplistes et des ignorants et par-dessus le marché, des énergumènes. Et toute la bonne disposition qu'on pouvait avoir pour nos idées s'évaporera, tout de suite, du seul fait que nous voulons leur donner la précision qu'elles comportent. Car telle est la loi de la situation. Les philosophes de la philosophie sans matière sont inconscients et le comique qui pèse sur eux c'est qu'ils savent de science certaine qu'il y a eu des philoosophes inconscients d'être privés de matière et qu'ils sont parfaitement impuissants à diagnostiquer chez eux la maladie qu'ils reconnaissent pourtant chez les autres. -drawn from The Mind (L'Esprit), Notebooks (Cahiers), May 1926
Supporters posit that all that was new, upsetting the house of Politzer, has been repudiated, riduculed; and all of that was not upsetting to the official dominant philosophy has been favored.
- And it is necessary to acknowledge that, for the new philosophy, there can not be dualism between certainty and security, since speculations connect those who extol it to those who one calls the enemies of society. And they find themselves therefore, happily, in discord with the state. The new philosophers will have nothing more than mere certainty. Truly, philosopher will become anew a dangerous occupation, as it was in heroic times. The philosophers will anew be the friends of the truth, but by the same turn, enemies of the gods, enemies of the state, and corrupters of youth. Philosophy will, anew, involve a risk. A selection will then take place. They will not arrive at the truth but who love it to the point of daring to transform spiritual ventures into material ones.
- Et il faut avouer que, pour la philosophie nouvelle, il ne peut pas y avoir de dualisme entre la certitude et la sécurité, puisque les spéculations rattachent ceux qui la préconisent à ceux qu'on appelle les ennemis de la société. Et se trouvant ainsi, heureusement, en désaccord avec l'État, les nouveaux philosophes n'auront plus que la certitude. Philosopher véritablement sera de nouveau une occupation dangereuse comme dans les temps héroïques. Les philosophes seront de nouveau amis de la vérité, mais par là même ennemis des dieux, ennemis de l'État et corrupteurs de la jeunesse. La philosophie comportera de nouveau un risque. Une sélection se produira donc. Ne viendront à la vérité que ceux qui l'aiment au point d'oser transformer les aventures spirituelles en aventures matérielles. -(ibidem)
Works
- Critique of the Foundations of Psychology (Critique des Fondements de la Psychologie), 1928
- Bergsonism, a Philosophical Hoax (Le Bergsonisme, une Mystification Philosophique), Éditions Sociales
- Blood and Gold (Sang et Or) or Gold Vanquished by Blood (L'Or Vaincu par le Sang), November 1940
- Revolution and Counter-revolution in the 20th Century (Révolution et Contre-révolution au XXè Siècle), Éditions Sociales, March 1941
- Elementary Principles of Philosophy (Principes Élémentaires de Philosophie), notes taken in the course taught at l'Université Ouvrière from 1935–1936
- Writings 1 Philosophy and Myths (Écrits 1 La Philosophie et les Mythes), Éditions Sociales, 1973
- Writings 2 The Foundations of Psychology (Écrits 2 Les Fondements de la Psychologie), Éditions Sociales