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

Unlike Bataille's optimistic aspiration, in his early political writings, towards a hypothetical balance of discipline and exaltation in revolutionary activity, Malraux's novel appears to depict the difficulty of achieving this balance. Garcia notes for example that "il n'y a plus, desormais, de transformation sociale, a plus forte raison de revolution, sans guerre, et pas de guerre sans technique."19 Indeed, for him, the necessity for the implementation of efficacious technique is underscored when he observes: "J'appelle revolution la consequence d'une insurrection dirigee par des cadres (politiques, techniques, tout ce que vous voudrez) formes dans la lutte, susceptibles de remplacer ceux qu'ils detruisent" (136).

Yet, it is equally clear that discipline, technique and organization will not inspire the passionate adherence to a cause: "Les hommes ne se font pas tuer pour la technique et pour la discipline ..." (137). In an important distinction between exaltation and discipline, L'Espoir invites us to compare those who are "saouls d'une fraternitY" and who are "prets a mourir apres quelques fours d'exaltation - ou de vengeance, suivant les cas" (244) with those who understand that "une action populaire [ ... ] - ou meme une insurrection - ne maintient sa victoire que par une technique opposee aux sentiments" (140). Indeed, one of the strengths of the novel lies in this very questioning of how and even whether exaltation and discipline can coexist without compromising the values and goals of the Republican cause. That these two values are often at odds with one another in the novel is summarized at one point by the distinction between the communist wish to do something and the anarchist wish to be something, the former emphasizing discipline over exaltation, the latter valuing passion over organization. One notes that this recognition of the tension between exaltation and discipline is already more realistic, perhaps, than the optimism of Bataille's early political writings, for in Malraux's novel, it is a question of the creation and maintenance of opposing myths: "Les communistes veulent faire quelque chose. Vous et les anarchistes, pour des raisons differentes, vous voulez etre quelque chose ... C'est le drame de toute revolution comme celle-ci. Les mythes sur lesquels nous vivons sont contradictoires: pacifisme et necessite de defense, organisation et mythes chretiens, efficacite et justice, et ainsi de suite" (249). The question of myth - the myth of discipline, the myth of exaltation - needs to be addressed in Bataille's writing as well. Do his early political writings fall prey to a series of myths that the novel, Le Bleu du ciel, exposes by undoing them? In my view, Malraux's recognition of revolutionary myths in L'Espoir is less naive than Bataille's stance in Contre-Attaque, but less far-reaching than Bataille's critique of these myths in Le Bleu du ciel.