Henri Barbusse, official biographer of Joseph Stalin. (November 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sobanet, Andrew
• Is Part Of: French cultural studies. Volume 24:Number 4(2013)
• Page Start: 359
• Page End: 375
• Publication Date: 2013-11
• Subjects: Henri Barbusse -- complicity -- political biography -- propaganda -- Joseph Stalin -- Stalinism; France -- Civilization -- 1945- -- Periodicals; 306.094405
• DOI: 10.1177/0957155813501119
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0957-1558

Abstract

This article represents the first sustained critical analysis of Henri Barbusse's Staline (1935), the first official biography of Joseph Stalin. The author traces Barbusse's evolution from a Goncourt-winning pacifist writer in the immediate post-World War I years to his position as a Stalinist propagandist at the end of his life. This article reads Staline as propaganda in the service of Stalin's personality cult, examining its overarching themes, its narrative mechanics, its reception and its legacy. Staline ultimately presents a case study of the dangers of complicity with the extreme left in the interwar period.