Oldal 8 [8]
XsAsl4e August 52.
- page eight ¬
intellecthals, can best be seen in amost revealing declaration publish
by "Esprit" in January (#186, January 1952, pe70). An article, in
which J.-M. De (Jean-Marie Domenach) complained about an attack that
"Pravda" had directed against "Esprit" and its pergonalistic philos oph;
was completed by a post-scriptum, in which Domena e following |
lines:
At the very moment of publishing this note, we receive an article
of Pravda (December 12, 1951), given to that newspaper by Yves
Farge, during his visit to Soviet Russia and trying to inform the
Soviets on the different currents which in France fight for
peace. We quote in translation, what he (Yves Fagge) has to say
regarding "Esprit":
"As far as I personally and my French friends of the Peace
Movement are concerned, we attach the greatest significance
to the collaboration established with the Christian authors
of the group "Esprit". With Professor Jean Lacroix ¢who also
has signed the Appeal for the conelusion of a Peace Pact “,
with Professor Edmond Vermeil and with the Editor-in-Chief of
the review "Esprit", Jean-Marie Domenach, we organized in
Strasbourg a common meeting between Franch and German leaders ?
prpparing a joint declaration againstthe rearmament of Western
Germany. It is always with deep joy that, at the occasion of
important historic events, I find myself again united with those
with vhom in peaceful hours we might happen to have certain
differences in points of view, Therefore, at the present time,
where "Esprit" leads in the fight for peace and for independence
of France, I have to recall that the founder of the review has
been with us at the time of the Spamish war and that he stood in
line with all the patriots, when, under the occupation of France,
we had to fight the German invador.®
Without being a rectification, this text is at least a "rehabili¬
tation". We hope that, after having re-estab}ished the truth as
to the practical attitude of Esprit, the Pravda will use an
occasion for giving a less simplified presentation of personalism
at¢éwill continue the present and important effort of good faith.
Esprit's fundamental outlook on neutralism and French
indppendence has been explained in a series of articles published
by the review in its issues of March, November and December 1951.¬
Jean William Lapierre, in a study entitled "French neutrality, an
utopy or a solution ?" (#177, March 1951, pp.375-392), gives the
main features of neutralism as opposed to the id eal: of social
progressists:
The essential foundation of French neutrality can be expressed
by the following three thesis: 1. Peace can only be saved by
an initiative that would abruptly stop the policy of the tpuskxtxor
"positions of strength" ... a break with the policy of alliance
and its replacement by one independence and of mediation; France
is in a position to take such initiative. 2. Such an absolute
overthrow of French politics ese would change the basic facts of
the international problemf ... imply the denunciation by the c