Pierre Daix
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Pierre Georges Daix (24 May 1922 – 2 November 2014) was a French journalist, writer and art historian. He was a friend and biographer of
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
. As a young man, Daix was an ardent Stalinist. He joined 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 ...
at the age of 17 in 1939 when the Communist Party was banned for supporting the German-Soviet pact. In July 1940, he created a student club, the Centre laïque des auberges de la jeunesse (Claj), which served as a legal screen for the clandestine Union of Communist Students. When David Rousset (1912-1997) spoke out about Stalin's vast system of prison camps, Daix attacked him as a liar, denying that the
GULAG The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
system existed in the Soviet Union, in a 16 page article in Les Lettres Françaises, entitled "Pourquoi M. David Rousset a-t-il inventé les camps soviétiques?". Rousset brought libel charges against Daix and there was a public trial in France, which Rousset, who had told the truth about the camps, won in 1950. As a French communist, Daix continued his uncritical support for the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
for many years, though late in life he admitted he had been wrong. From 1980 to 1985, he was a journalist for ''
Le Quotidien de Paris ''Le Quotidien de Paris'' (; The Daily of Paris) was a French newspaper founded in 1974 by Philippe Tesson. Along with ' and ', ''Le Quotidien de Paris'' made up the (Daily Press Group) which employed over 550 individuals," Philippe Tesson : « ...
''.


References

1922 births 2014 deaths People from Ivry-sur-Seine French journalists French art critics French biographers French male writers Writers from Île-de-France Lycée Henri-IV alumni Communist members of the French Resistance Mauthausen concentration camp survivors Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour Deaths from cancer in France category:Burials at Ivry Cemetery {{France-journalist-stub