Marx, A French Passion

Despite the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, the spectre of Marx still haunts the French imagination. This is no accident, in a country whose intellectual life and political history have long been marked by his multiple presences.

This volume offers a historical and sociological insight into the way his thought has been received in the French context, from his own lifetime to the present. Analysing Marx’s place and influence in the French intellectual, political and artistic debate – across the political spectrum and even in the French-speaking colonial world – it helps us understand the uses and misuses of an œuvre of paramount importance.

Antony Burlaud is a doctoral student in political science at the Université de Paris 1 Sorbonne. He has published articles on French politics, Marxism and the history of the French left.

Publication date: March 26, 2024

Introduction: Writing the History of France’s Marxisms
 Jean-Numa Ducange and Antony Burlaud

Prologue: Karl Marx’s France
 Antony Burlaud

Part 1 The Political Uses of Marx

1 The Socialists’ Marx: The Guesde-Jaurès Moment
 Jean-Numa Ducange

2 The Socialists’ Marx: The Centenary of Marx’s Birth: A Challenge for the SFIO
 Raymond Huard

3 The Socialists’ Marx: The Blum Era
 Thierry Hohl

4 The Socialists’ Marx: From Guy Mollet to the Present
 Mathieu Fulla

5 The Communists’ Marx: Karl Marx, Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, 1920–55
 Serge Wolikow

6 The Communists’ Marx: A (Now-)Problematic Reference Point, 1956–2017
 Anthony Crézégut

7 The Far Left’s Marx: The Politicisation of a Scholarly Marxism
 Patrick Massa

Part 2 Translating, Editing, and Publishing Marx

8 How to Translate Marx into French?
 Guillaume Fondu and Jean Quétier

9 PCF Publishing Houses and Marx in France, 1920–60: From Politics to Scholarship?
 Marie-Cécile Bouju

10 Marx’s Works in the ‘Bibliothèque de la Pléiade’: A Paradoxical Legitimation
 Aude Le Moullec-Rieu

11 A Golden Age for Marxist Publishing? The 1960s and 1970s
 Julien Hage

Part 3 Marx and the Social Sciences

12 Marxism and Rationalism in the French Social Sciences (1930–60)
 Isabelle Gouarné

13 Marx’s Peculiar Fate in French Economic Scholarship
 Thierry Pouch

14 Sociology and Marxism
 Gérard Mauger

15 Marx and French Historians
 François Dosse

16 Marxism and Literary Criticism
 Lucile Dumont, Quentin Fondu and Laélia Veron

Part 4 Theoretical Hybridisations

17 Marx and the Marxists, Children of France’s Eighteenth Century?
 Stéphanie Roza

18 Marxism and Phenomenology in France
 Alexandre Feron

19 The Structuralist Marx
 Frédérique Matonti

20 Marx, an Avant-Gardist?
 Frédéric Thomas

21 Post-’68 Intellectuals and Marx: A Fascination with ‘Farewells’
 Antoine Aubert

22 Feminisms, Marxism, And Their Contentious Links
 Sylvie Chaperon and Florence Rochefort

Part 5 Seen from Elsewhere

23 Marx Seen from the Right: When French Economists Discovered Marx’s Capital
 Jacqueline Cahen

24 Marx Seen from the Right: Raymond Aron, Marxism and Communism
 Gwendal Châton

25 French Catholics and Marxism, from the 1930s to the ‘1968 Moment’
 Denis Pelletier

26 Marx in French-Speaking Africa
 Françoise Blum

27 Learning Marxism in Paris: Chinese Students in France, 1919–25
 Kaixuan Liu and Wenrui Bi

References
Index