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[And first, today, here, in 1934...]

Letter dated 1934

Manuscript

Author

Author René Crevel
People cited Maréchal Foch, Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler, Karl Marx, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Staline, Otto von Bismarck, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Letter to André Breton

Description

Handwritten letter from René Crevel to André Breton, dated 1934, filed in a folder ‘Question Dalí affair’
The Dalí affair, between the end of January and the beginning of March 1934, involved the painter accused of having made fascist remarks. As he defended himself, as several letters sent to Breton in this file attest, it quickly became apparent that the question went far beyond his individual case. In fact, against a backdrop of social unrest (see the Nice letters from Tzara and Éluard on this point), the surrealists were brought to clarify their position vis-à-vis the Third International. A difficult thing, because the AEAR affair, the previous year, had left some traces, with the Stalinist infiltration of this association’s institutions having resulted in the departure of Breton and his friends. Thus, a subtle distinction emerged between the cultural policy of the Third International, which almost everyone rejected, and its political options, which were better accepted by the members of the group. The Dalí question was thus taken in a context of a more general crisis, inside and outside a movement finding some difficulty, as Crevel wrote, in making ‘the synthesis of the poetic and the political’. Letters, telegrams, meeting reports, official declarations comprise a fascinating file. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten letter from René Crevel to André Breton, dated 1934, filed in a folder ‘Question Dalí affair’
- Letter signed by René Crevel, 2 pages large in-4° (each page consists of three strips glued horizontally) handwritten in black ink and dated 1934:
‘And first, today, here, in 1934, and in France since I am a Frenchman in 1934, at the most putrid stage of capitalist decomposition.’
Crevel explained his political positions on the French Communist Party, its cultural organization (the A.E.A.R., from which he resigned), took a position against the cultural policy of the Third International and ended with a vibrant: ‘Long live the Soviets.’ [sale catalog, 2003, translation by Christina Heflin, 2023]