Pierre Naville (; 1 February 1904 – 24 April 1993) was a French

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

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 Marxist-Leninist and then a

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

, before joining the PSU. He led a career as an occupational sociologist. He was born and died in Paris.

Early life

Naville was born in 1904 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 ini ...

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

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 c ...

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

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 ...

. 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 Bret ...

'', founded the Bureau de Recherches Surréalistes in (1924 and participated in surrealist activities with

André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

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 (, , 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 ...

(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,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

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 Trotskyist 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 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 ...

left, devoid of

Stalinist Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism in ...

or 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 (France), Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister of France, Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 199 ...

) and showed total rejection of

François Mitterrand François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was a French politician and statesman who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former First ...

Psycho-sociology of work

Appointed director of research at the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

in 1947, he worked with Georges Friedmann 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, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

industrial society In sociology, an industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world ...

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

Carl von Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz ( , ; born Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian general and Military theory, military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms meani ...

. 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 a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...

's ''

L'existentialisme est un humanisme ''Existentialism Is a Humanism'' () 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 and Humanism'' was the ti ...

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

existentialism Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and valu ...

Honours

The laboratory of research in social sciences and management at the University of Évry Val d'Essonne 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 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)

References

External links

Obituary
by Ian Birchall {{DEFAULTSORT:Naville, Pierre 1904 births 1993 deaths Writers from Paris French Communist Party members Internationalist Workers Party politicians Revolutionary Democratic Rally politicians Union of the Socialist Left politicians Unified Socialist Party (France) politicians 20th-century French writers French surrealist writers French male writers French sociologists French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists