Contenu du sommaire

The worldly intellectuals, Michel Winock « Where are Gide, Malraux, Alain ? » lamented Mr. Max Gallo, the government spokesman, during the summer of 1983. Indeed, after the death of J.-P. Sartre and R. Aron, the French intelligentsia has been struck by lethargy ; it is less involved in politics and is more modestly trying to find a new ethics. Is this a sign of a civilization's exhaustion, or a promise of a new spurt of intelligence ? The author shows how much the history of the intellectuals, born at the time of the Dreyfus affair, was woven in ambiguities : the scholars have often turned coats ; the moralists of the 1930s resigned at Munich ; the committed partisans of the 1950s covered up the worst excesses of totalitarianism. The 1970s have brought doubt and often silence.

Raymond Aron before Raymond Aron (1923-1933), Jean-François Sirinelli. How does one get born to oneself ? From brilliant student at the lycee Condorcet in the autumn of 1922 to French reader at the University of Cologne ten years later, Raymond Aron got his first political education as an intellectual while accumulating degrees at the Sorbonne and the Ecole Normale Superieure. Nothing exceptional. His school records and early writings show a « vaguely socialist » and « passionately pacifist» young man, a quasi-disciple of the philosopher Alain, at unison with his generation. He already had learned how to be himself and would soon refuse the dominant ideas. Raymond Aron was mature enough to become Raymond Aron on contemplating the Germany of Adolf Hitler and Max Weber. In the historic turbulence of the 1930s, a great intellectual emerged, the original « committed spectator».

America and its poor, from Roosevelt to Reagan, André Kaspi While Roosevelt's New Deal seemed promised to eternity, the economic crisis has led to a rejection of the costly beneflts of the Welfare State. The author tells its history, that of the heroic times of the 1930s when the government created it from scratch, and that of the 1960s, when prosperity recovered made the scandal of mass poverty unbearable to J. Kennedy. This led to legislation which modified substantially the social landscape in the United States. Today, the President no longer has a free hand . Welfare is denigrated, but poverty is still the « throbbing pain » of such a rich country.

out and in which he recognize himself.

From parity to floating currencies : the political debate on the international monetary System since 1940, Gérard Pogorel During the second world war, within the framework of the allies negotiations on the post war, the Americans, the English and the French established the foundations of a future international monetary System. The Bretton Woods conference set up in July 1944 the two key institutions — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The liveliness of the discussions on exchange parity and the use of the gold standard, and the weight of the dollar and of the pound sterling prevented the system from becoming operative until the end of the 1950s. The creation of the European Common Market and the competitiveness of Europe and Japan then aggravated the tensions between the United States and the rest of the world, especially General de Gaulle's France. A compromise was reached in 1967 with the creation of the Special Drawing Rights. But the economic crisis of the 1970s and the imbalance of international exchanges resulted in the tri-polar monetary System : the dollar, the yen and the ECU, created in 1979 within the European Monetary System. The failure of an international fiduciary currency is compensated by the flexibility of the new System, even if some heads of state are in the early 1980s speaking of a new Bretton Woods.

Luther, a citizen of both Germanies in 1983, Rudolf von Thadden Why were the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth in '1983, so successful in both Germanies ? In East Germany, because the communist power is sufficiently confident to enlist Luther at no risk : his teachings are used in the policy of separation between the Church and the socialist state, unlike Catholic Poland, and of emphasis on the work ethic. In West Germany, where the celebration was to concern only the man of faith, the Lutheran heritage still provides a good explanation of national characteris-tics, such as the taste for theory, the primacy of substance over form, and the protestants' singular devotion to the policy of peace.

The French Communist Party during the ordeal of the dark years, Jean-Pierre Azéma. Recent French publications and yet unpublished communications to a colloquium held in Paris in October 1983 indicate the progress in research on a particularly difflcult and still very contentious period in the history of the French Communist Party : that which started after Munich (1938) and ended with the laun-ching of the National Front (1941). The Party's geography and membership are better known. When it was hit by the war, the Party was losing momentum, but in the autumn of 1941, with 10 to 12,000 devoted militants, it was still the main organized force. The value of its cadres and the strength of its social roots can be perceived better. But divergent interpretations of its strategic line (whether dictated by the Komintern, or continually responsive to the theme of national independence) do not yet make it possible to give a clear answers to the central questions : when, why and how did the French Communist Party join the Resistance ?