Georges Cogniot (15 December 1901 in

Montigny-lès-Cherlieu Montigny-lès-Cherlieu () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. The Cistercian Cherlieu Abbey was sited here. See also *Communes of the Haute-Saône department The following ...

Haute-Saône Haute-Saône (; Frainc-Comtou: ''Hâte-Saône''; English: Upper Saône) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of northeastern France. Named after the river Saône, it had a population of 235,313 in 2019.

– 12 March 1978) was a French writer, philosopher and politician of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

Biography

He was born Georges Auguste Alexandre Cogniot in to a middle-class family and graduated from

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

. A member of the French Communist Party since 1922 he was elected to its central committee in 1926. Prior to the Second World War he was elected to the

French National Assembly The National Assembly (, ) is the lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral French Parliament under the French Fifth Republic, Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (France), Senate (). The National Assembly's legislators are known ...

as part of the Popular Front. He was an organizer of the

World Committee Against War and Fascism The World Committee Against War and Fascism was an international organization sponsored by the Communist International, that was active in the struggle against Fascism in the 1930s. During this period Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Italy ...

and protested against the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–194 ...

. He was the representative of the PCF in the

Executive Committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

of the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

and also succeeded

Paul Vaillant-Couturier Paul Vaillant-Couturier (; 8 January 1892 – 10 October 1937) was a French writer and communist. He participated in the founding of the French Communist Party (PCF) in 1920. Biography Born into a family of actors, Vaillant-Couturier studied la ...

as editor of ''

L'Humanité (; ) is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organisation of the SFIO, ''de facto'', and thereafter of the French Communist Party (PCF), and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, would not exist." History ...

''. In 1938 with

Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the '' Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an anti-fascist ...

, he created the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

journal ''La Pensée.'' After the Nazi invasion of France, he was conscripted into the army however he de-mobilized for health complications. Cogniot was arrested by the German police in 1941 but managed to escape alongside other prisoners and became active in the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

and was responsible for Communist Party press. In 1944 he once again became editor of ''L'Humanité'' and was elected to the National Assembly. A close associate of

Maurice Thorez Maurice Thorez (; 28 April 1900 – 11 July 1964) was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 1930 until his death. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister of France from 1946 to 1947. Pre-war Thorez, ...

, he was the first director of the Maurice Thorez Institute. He was part of the Cultural Affairs Committee. In 1966, he was appointed member of the control commission responsible for examining the problems of orientation and selection in the public service of education.

Works

* ''L'évasion. Récits'', Éditions Raisons d'être, 1947 * ''

Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, ; ; 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to ca ...

'', Éditions de l'Union Française Universitaire * ''Rationalisme et laïcité'', Les Cahiers rationalistes * ''Le Peuple est souverain'', Librairie de la Renaissance Française * ''De l'enthousiasme à la conscience enchaînée. La question scolaire en 1848 et la loi Falloux'', Éditions Hier et Aujourd'hui, 1948 * ''Hommage à

'', texte inclus dans ''La Pensée et l'Action'', les Éditeurs Français Réunis, 1950 * ''Réalité de la nation, l'attrape-nigaud du cosmopolitisme'', Éditions Sociales, 1950 * ''Petit guide sincère de l'Union Soviétique'', Éditions Sociales, 1954 * ''Conclusions'' in ''Mésaventures de l’anti-marxisme – Les malheurs de M. Merleau-Ponty'' (ouvrage collectif), Paris, Éditions Sociales, 1956 ; p. 149-157. * ''Laïcité et réforme démocratique de l'enseignement'', Éditions Sociales, 1963 * ''Le matérialisme gréco-romain'', Éditions Sociales, 1964 * ''Qu'est-ce que le communisme ?'', Éditions Sociales, 1964 * ''La lyre d'airain : poésie populaire et démocratique, 1815-1918'', Éditions Sociales, 1964 * ''Prométhée s'empare du savoir, la Révolution d'Octobre, la culture et l'école'', Éditions Sociales, 1967 * ''

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

notre contemporain'', Éditions Sociales, 1968 * ''L'Internationale communiste. Aperçu historique'', Éditions Sociales, 1969 * ''Présence de Lénine'', Éditions Sociales, 1970 * ''

: l'homme, le militant'', avec Victor Joannès, Éditions Sociales, 1970 * ''Parti pris'' (2 volumes), Éditions Sociales, 1976 * ''Matérialisme et humanisme : Démocrite, Épicure, Lucrèce,

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

, Marx'', Le Temps des Cerises, 1998

References

1901 births 1978 deaths People from Haute-Saône French Communist Party politicians Members of the 16th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the Provisional Consultative Assembly Members of the Constituent Assembly of France (1945) Members of the Constituent Assembly of France (1946) Deputies of the 1st National Assembly of the French Fourth Republic Deputies of the 2nd National Assembly of the French Fourth Republic Deputies of the 3rd National Assembly of the French Fourth Republic Members of Parliament for Seine French senators of the Fifth Republic Senators of Seine (department) Senators of Paris Writers from Bourgogne-Franche-Comté French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French philosophers 20th-century French translators 20th-century French male writers École Normale Supérieure alumni Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples {{France-translator-stub