Contenu du sommaire : Les langues de l'internationalisme ouvrier (1850-1950)

In what sense can we say that translating and circulating theoretical texts from one language into another contributes to fostering partisan traditions? From Anti-Dühring, Engel's book published in German in 1878, through its various French translations and until 1911, the text's successive developments show how Marxism – as discussed by European socialists – grew through a series of controversies and reinterpretations. Circulated as a theoretical work and a pamphlet, Anti-Dühring gradually became a reference which legitimized political leaders or backed critical discussions on the meanings of Marxism at the turn of the century.

Did Esperanto provide an alternative to the diversity of languages in working class movements? This new language, created in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhof, echoed the concerns of Utopist movements in the first half of the 19th century. But while organized working-class parties kept it at bay for its purported links with bourgeois philanthropists, it was appropriated by militant groups, and more specifically by anarchists. The latter followed night classes held in union buildings and popular socio-cultural centers, and exchanged letters with workers from other countries thanks to that international language. From 1907 especially, it became a symbol of the type of universal fraternity they were hoping to see.

The variety of languages working class movements were confronted with was initially restricted to European idioms, which had a shared theoretical framework facilitating exchanges. But how to translate these concepts into non-European languages? The diversity of Chinese translations for the terms “anarchy” and “anarchism” testifies to the complexity of linguistic borrowing as well as to the creative dimension of translation processes. This new terminology was gradually introduced from the end of the 19th century and ushered in the influence of anarchism in post-imperial China between 1910 and 1920. The subsequent spread of the notion of “mutual aid” to Chinese society – borrowed from Peter Kropotkin – attests to the longevity of concepts promoted by anarchism outside of partisan circles.

From 1919 onwards, the diversity of languages of working-class movements seemed to be overcome by the Communist movement and the Komintern, which centralized and spread Russian-speaking propaganda. In France, the Communist party – linked to the Third International – became the main vehicle for this diffusion through the setting up of a well-structured propaganda service in the 1920s. Between the two World wars, the party strengthened its editorial organization, a fact which this bibliometric analysis helps to evaluate and qualify. If Russian then became the language of the Communist International, it wasn't that of French activists, who cared little for translations.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the USSR became the point of reference of the world revolution, and attracted militants from all around the world. Their visits required the use of mediators. Initially they were foreign activists who lived in the USSR in the 1920s or multilingual Soviets in exile. Then, gradually, those were replaced by professional interpreters. These mediators had various and complex missions which required that they learn a double-language – they had to satisfy to the demands of both the visitors and the Soviet government. Their testimonies, their reports, as well as their silences, show how difficult building Internationalism was through the practice of languages. Finally, their careers – when they are known to us – reveal the dangers to which they were more and more exposed because they were in contact with people who, although they were Internationalists, were foreigners nonetheless.

In 1934, Louis Aragon published his first realist novel, The Bells of Basel. The novel's epilogue describes the international socialist Congress that was held in that city in 1912, attended by delegations from all over Europe. It could have been an opportunity for the communist author to portray these foreign languages, for whom he never ceased to express his interest. However, Aragon basically glossed them over in favor of poetic French. To understand this omission requires that we consider Aragon's work in its entirety, and cross historical research with stylistic analysis at various levels. Indeed, articulating ideological and esthetic factors is the only way to make sense of the author's positioning.

Raymond Saleilles was a professor at the Paris Faculty of Law when he started documenting daily the Dreyfus case in his diary, sizable extracts of which are published here. He positioned himself as a revisionist from the get-go, for he believed the trial unfair and gradually came to believe Alfred Dreyfus was innocent. He was hostile to anti-Semitism and raged at the Catholics' connivance with nationalism. How could they be so oblivious of Justice? He praised the role that “intellectuals” could have in educating young Catholics.