Pierre Naville (1 February 1903 – 24 April 1993) was a French

Surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

writer and sociologist.Stubb, Jeremy
Obituary: Pierre Naville
''The Independent'', 3 June 1993. He was a prominent member of the "Investigating Sex" group of Surrealist thinkers. In politics, he was a Communist and then a

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...

, before joining the PSU. He led a career as an occupational sociologist.

Early life

Naville was born in 1903 in Paris, to a family of Swiss Protestant bankers.

Surrealist from its earliest times

In 1922 he founded the avant-garde periodical ''L'œuf dur'' (''The Tough Egg'') together with

Philippe Soupault Philippe Soupault (2 August 1897 – 12 March 1990) was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He was active in Dadaism and later was instrumental in founding the Surrealist movement with André Breton. Soupault in ...

François Gérard François Pascal Simon Gérard (, 4 May 1770 – 11 January 1837), titled as Baron Gérard in 1809, was a prominent French painter. He was born in Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador, and his mother was It ...

Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He ...

and

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European mo ...

. He was co-editor with Benjamin Péret for the three first numbers of ''

La Révolution Surréaliste ''La Révolution surréaliste'' (English: ''The Surrealist Revolution'') was a publication by the Surrealists in Paris. Twelve issues were published between 1924 and 1929. Shortly after releasing the first '' Surrealist Manifesto'', André Bre ...

'', founded the Bureau de Recherches Surréalistes in (1924 and participated in surrealist activities with André Breton before eventually opposing Surrealism because of his political divergences from the emerging Surrealist orthodoxy.

Politics

In 1926, Naville married fellow surrealist Denise Lévy.A. Cuenot
NAVILLE Denise, née KAHN Denise
''Maitron'', version posted on 30 November 2010, last modified 11 December 2020. Accessed 21 December 2020. That year he joined the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

(PCF), for which he managed the publication ''Clarté''. He was a member of a delegation that visited

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

in Moscow in 1927. He returned convinced by Trotsky's arguments and was expelled from the Communist Party in 1928 for deviationism. From this point onwards, he and his wife participated in the life of the French

extreme left and notably its publications. However, he became less and less convinced by Trotsky's position, and broke with the group in 1939. He then organised attempts to create a Marxist left, devoid of Communist and Trotskyist trappings, through a publication called the ''Revue Internationale''. Initially passing through the PSU, Naville continued to search for a modern left in the PSG, then the UGS, before taking part in the re-establishment of the Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU) under the Fifth Republic. He remained loyal to this party in spite of his opposition to the "realists" ( Gilles Martinet,

Michel Rocard Michel Rocard (; 23 August 1930 – 2 July 2016) was a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991 during which he created the ''Revenu minimum d'ins ...

) and showed total rejection of François Mitterrand.

Psycho-sociology of work

Appointed director of research at the CNRS in 1947, he worked with

Georges Friedmann Georges Philippe Friedmann (; 13 May 1902 – 15 November 1977), was a French sociologist and philosopher, known for his influential work on the effects of industrial labor on individuals and his criticisms of the uncontrolled embrace of techn ...

at the Centre d'études sociologiques, dedicating his work to the psychosociology of work, and the study of

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

, industrial society, the psychology of comportment, and the strategists and theoreticians of war, notably

Carl von Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...

. He supervised the French translation and publication of the complete works of Clausewitz.

Existentialism

He was the primary other contributor mentioned at the end of

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...

's ''

L'existentialisme est un humanisme ''Existentialism Is a Humanism'' (french: L'existentialisme est un humanisme) is a 1946 work by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, based on a lecture by the same name he gave at Club Maintenant in Paris, on 29 October 1945. In early translations, ...

'' (''Existentialism is a Humanism''), criticising

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

Honours

The laboratory of research in social sciences and management at the

University of Évry Val d'Essonne The Université d'Évry Val-d'Essonne (''Université d'Évry Val-d'Essonne'' or UEVE) is a French public university located in Évry-Courcouronnes, Île-de-France, and is one of the founding members of Paris-Saclay University. The UEVE is expecte ...

bears his name.

Works

Surrealist

*''Les Reines de la main gauche'', 1924

Political

*''La Révolution et les Intellectuels'', 1926 *''Les Jacobins noirs (Toussaint-Louverture et la Révolution de Saint-Domingue)'' with Cyril Lionel Robert James *''La Guerre du Viêt-Nam'', 1949 *''Le Nouveau Léviathan'', 1957–1975 *''Trotsky Vivant'', 1962 *''Autogestion et Planification'', 1980

Sociological

*''De la Guerre'', translated from

with

Denise Naville Denise Lévy, née Kahn, later Denise Naville (1896-1979) was a French writer and translator.Isabelle KalinowskiDenise Naville traductrice in Françoise Blum, ed., ''Les vies de Pierre Naville''. Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2007. Active ...

and Camille Rougeron *''La Psychologie, science du comportement'', 1942 *''Psychologie, marxisme, matérialisme'', 1948 *''La Chine Future'', 1952 *''La Vie de Travail et ses Problèmes'', 1954 *''Essai sur la Qualification du Travail'', 1956 *''Le Traité de Sociologie du Travail'', 1961–1962 *''L'État entrepreneur: le cas de la régie Renault'' with Jean-Pierre Bardou, Philippe Brachet and Catherine Lévy, 1971 *''Sociologie d'Aujourd'hui'', 1981

Others

*Memoirs (''Le Temps du surréel'', 1977)

Books about Pierre Naville

*''Des sociologies face à Pierre Naville ou l'archipel des savoirs'' – Centre Pierre Naville *''Les logiques de la découverte et celles de l'action par Pierre Rolle'' in: ''Pierre Naville, la passion de la connaissance'' – Michel Eliard, Presses universitaires de Toulouse-le-Mirail, 1996

References

External links

Obituary
by

Ian Birchall Ian Birchall (born 1939) is a British Marxist historian and translator, a former member of the Socialist Workers Party and author of numerous articles and books, particularly relating to the French Left. Formerly Senior Lecturer in French at Mid ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naville, Pierre 1903 births 1993 deaths 20th-century French writers French surrealist writers French sociologists French communists French socialists French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists French male writers