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From New International, Vol. XVI No. 3, May–June 1950, pp. 190–191.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
To the Editors:
Henry Judd has done a disservice to the readers of The New International by the essentially negative character of his review of Daniel Guérin’s Lutte de classes sous la première république. His mistake is similar to the mistake made by Jacques a few issues back in a review of Ruth Fischer’s work on the German Communist Party. Jacques took a book whose primary value is its wealth of information, interestingly and intelligently presented on its subject, and spent all his time belaboring its biased criticisms of Trotsky, even its dishonest criticisms of Trotsky. Jacques’ specific points were correct, but the total effect of a review overwhelmingly related to attacking what is only a very small item in the book would be to discourage readers effectively from consulting a book which is very valuable to all socialists who want to study the German experiences.
Judd does the same thing. The reader of his review comes away feeling that Guérin has spent all his time riding his own screwy hobbyhorse – trying to apply the theory of permanent revolution to the French Revolution. All Judd’s time is spent polemicizing against Guérin’s theoretical views, while in a brief aside Judd informs the reader that Guérin’s work has been appraised from the standpoint of historical scholarship by Professor Palmer in the Journal of Modern History, which can be consulted by those interested. Practically nobody reads this Journal, and after reading Judd’s review, no one will feel that he ought to find out more about the book.
The fact is that socialists should naturally be more interested than anyone else in the precursors of Marxian socialism and in the precursors of the nineteenth century proletarian movements. Guérin performed a service, recognized by all historians in the field, of doing a positively first-rate job of writing the history of these movements in the French Revolution to the left of Robespierre – the Hébertists, the Enragés. No one else has done it, and all historical scholars who have reviewed Guérin’s work have agreed that he has demonstrated that previous historians underestimated the role of these groups, misunderstood many tilings about them, and as a result also misunderstood to some extent the role of the Robespierreans. This was especially true as the result of the work of an idolater of Robespierre like Albert Mathiez, on whom Guérin does quite a job.
It should be emphasized therefore that the book is very valuable to socialists as a study of some of their legitimate ancestors and as a study of class struggle in the French Revolution, and that Guérin’s ultra-leftist views have not prevented him from writing a book that should be consulted by all of us if we want to understand the French Revolution.
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