Intellectual excitement about revolution coexisted with genuine fear in 1947 France

Evidence

The autumn saw a growing crisis, as the Gaullists’ marches and the Communist Party’s strikes and demonstrations (actively supported by the Soviet Union) both threatened the stability of the middle. People began to worry that there would be a civil war and even a revolution. Some found this prospect exciting. In a note to Merleau-Ponty, Sonia Brownell wrote that she’d just had lunch with some French writers in London who could not stop gabbling about the battles they intended to fight on Paris’ streets, and the best way of making petrol bombs. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 789

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of French writers gabbling about petrol-bomb recipes over lunch is a vivid, shareable anecdote.
• SHARE: Could send to a friend interested in existentialist-era Paris street politics — the Sonia Brownell petrol-bomb anecdote is a nice find.
• XREF: connects to: Europeans in 1948 shared horror and hope beyond national parallels — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 651; Fear of PCF power launched the Nouveaux Philosophes to prominence — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 70; Post-war existentialism thrived on the excitement of a shattered world — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 529

Broader Connections

• Post-war existentialism thrived on the excitement of a shattered world #complicates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 529