Sex, Violence, and the Avant-Garde: Anarchism in Interwar France by Richard D. Sonn (review)

lettre de cachet tout en conjuguant son intérêt académique pour l’histoire de la folie, l’histoire de la Bastille, et celle de la tristement célèbre affaire des Poisons, auxquels il consacra des études séparées. Il repousse les idées reçues. Les anectodes en grand nombre limitent peut-être son caractère académique, mais en font un livre agréable à lire et accessible à tous. Retenons donc cette étude qui intéressera tous les passionnés de l’Ancien Régime, et soulignons également la multiplication actuelle de recherches sur l’histoire de la police en France. Ceux qui voudront y consacrer leurs lectures peuvent consulter le site de la Société Française de l’Histoire de la Police et compléter leurs connaissances avec la récente Histoire des polices en France, de l’Ancien Régime à nos jours de Jean-Marc Berlière et René Lévy. University of Alabama, Birmingham Catherine Daniélou SONN, RICHARD D. Sex, Violence, and the Avant-Garde: Anarchism in Interwar France. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2010. Pp. x + 259. ISBN 978-0-271-036632 . $65. The title promises more excitement than it offers. However, after reading this study, one does come away with a clearer appreciation of the post-Great War anarchist “hangover.” We are most familiar with the 1880–1914 era of anarchist activity, ending with the murder in Sarajevo of Archduke Ferdinand by a Serbian sympathizer. French anarchists of the 1920s–1930s were much more concerned with the sexualized body than with bombs and bullets. Physical education, nudism, birth control, abortion, vegetarianism—all became foci of their intellectual attention . Sonn’s study will surprise those who still conceive of anarchism in terms of black flags and cloak-clad figures scurrying through the backstreets of Europe. The study has two parts, and they are awkwardly connected. The first, “Anarchist Bodies,” is the better, it has a clear focus and an original approach. Sonn details how this insecure political movement became fractured along lines of sexuality and gender. The second part, “French Anarchists between East and West,” lacks the narrative drive of the first; it is a series of biographies connected only by the “progressive” and anarchist views of their subjects. Early on, Sonn sets his thesis forcefully: “The body and sexuality were central to anarchist discourse of the interwar period” (12). He tells us that anarchism had evolved from violence toward a heightened ethical consciousness, one focused on societal values as they affected the poor, working class, women and children. Also, he suggests that anarchists had become more practical: in order to have any influence for political change, negotiation and affiliation with other progressive groups were essential. As fascism and bolshevism began to attract the masses after World War I, the anarchist left felt compelled to offer clearer alternatives, which did not rely solely on impulsive violence. Being pro-peace or anti-war was not a sufficient platform from which to argue. So, they began to debate how careful attention to the body and the mind could lead to a new politics. “The [interwar] anarchists conveyed a sense of physicality lacking in the more sober movements of the left” (26), not to mention the right. For the first time, Freud’s theories were used by a political movement to justify societal changes, though some of its branches doubted the value of the irrational as a guide to daily conduct. One of the consequences of this “third way” was to offer to avant-garde artistic movements the Reviews 1185 intellectual and ethical scaffolding that enabled them to move away from both fascism and fervent Marxism. In interwar anarchist newspapers and magazines, debates about population control—even eugenics—contraception, abortion, and “free sex” dovetailed with debates about the role of women in a recently industrialized society. Not unsurprisingly for a male-dominated group, “anarchists were ambivalent about feminism and feminist goals of gender equality” (37). Yet some of their most notorious and brilliant avatars were women. In 1923, the trial of Germaine Berton created a popular female martyr to the cause of anti-patriarchy. Berton had shot a high-ranking member of the...