Soviet brutality shook Western Communist sympathizers including Sartre and Beauvoir

Evidence

For Communist sympathisers in the West, this demonstration of brute Soviet power was a great shock. Many tore up their Communist Party cards, and even the remaining believers wrung their hands and wondered how to incorporate the new development into their vision. Sartre and Beauvoir were among those most confused. In January 1957, they produced a special issue of Les Temps modernes condemning the Soviet action and giving space to many Hungarian writers to write about the events — but in private they continued to feel uneasy, and they disliked the way the right seized on the invasion to promote their own ideology. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 852

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later existentialist criticisms of totalitarianism and the French intellectual left’s troubled relationship with the USSR. — connects to: The Korean War and Soviet camp revelations reversed Merleau-Ponty and Sartre’s relative Communist sympathies — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 802; A bizarre persecution incident triggered Sartre’s political conversion to Communism. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 806; French defamation trials over Soviet-camp accounts raised Western awareness of Soviet crimes — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 769

Broader Connections

• The Korean War and Soviet camp revelations reversed Merleau-Ponty and Sartre’s relative Communist sympathies #corroborates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 802
• French defamation trials over Soviet-camp accounts raised Western awareness of Soviet crimes #expands (0.78) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 769
• A bizarre persecution incident triggered Sartre’s political conversion to Communism. #expands (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 806