Military discipline and revolutionary exaltation: The dismantling of "l'illusion lyrique" in Malraux's L'Espoir and Bataille's Le Bleu Du Ciel

Romanic Review, Nov 2000 by Boldt-Irons, Leslie Anne

Pour faction - ORGANISEZ-VOUS! Formez les sections DISCIPLINEES qui seront demain le fondement d'une autorite revolutionnaire implacable. A la discipline servile du fascisme, opposez la farouche discipline d'un peuple qui peut faire trembler ceux qui l'oppriment.13

If the servile discipline of fascism is to be avoided, the exaltation and passion upon which fascism builds is, on the contrary, a strength to be exploited by the revolutionary masses: "nous entendons a notre tour nous servir des armes creees par le fascisme, qui a su utiliser l'aspiration fondamentale des hommes a l'exaltation affective et au fanatisme" (UL, 382). In "Popular Front in the Streets," Bataille once again emphasizes the extraordinary force of passion when he writes that "strength results less from strategy than from collective exaltation, and exaltation can come only from words that touch not the reason but the passions of the masses."14 But lest the requirement that exaltation exceed reason be interpreted as a reduction of the role of discipline in revolutionary activity, Bataille returns in the same article with a formula that appears to give equal weight to discipline and to passion: "what we demand is a coherent, disciplined organization, its entire will straining with enthusiasm toward popular power..." (PF, 168). Beginning with the founding impetus of anguish, revolutionary fervour, for Bataille, must pass to discipline and organization without losing the violence of its exaltation in revolt.