• DOI:10.2307/2128005
• Corpus ID: 153917297

Fascism and Individualism: The Political Thought of Pierre Drieu La Rochelle

@article{Tucker1965FascismAI,
  title={Fascism and Individualism: The Political Thought of Pierre Drieu La Rochelle},
  author={William R. Tucker},
  journal={The Journal of Politics},
  year={1965},
  volume={27},
  pages={153 - 177}
}

• William R. Tucker
• Published 1 February 1965
• History, Art
• The Journal of Politics

I N FRANCE THERE HAS rarely been a dearth of intellectuals who wrote brilliantly on any subject touching politics. While fascism has not come to power in that country, she has produced writers who chose the fascist solution to France's difficulties during the interwar period and who, in some cases, were active in the Collaboration movement during the German occupation. In their search for new values for man in the twentieth century, they participated in what now seems to have been a strange adventure ending abruptly with the military defeat of the fascist powers. While the passing of time has made of the Hitlers and the Doriots historical figures without the slightest positive accomplishment to their credit, fascist writers like Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle have survived the collapse of European fascism through their works. Partly as a result of scholarly inquiries, partly because of the revival of the Extreme Right in France and its self-interest in maintaining the intellectual tradition associated with it, these writers and others who participated in the same adventure are being rediscovered.' The revival of interest in their works is worth noting, for they managed to state, in a way the political leaders of their cause were incapable of doing, the moods and attitudes of some of those who were intellectual followers. Since Drieu was the best known and, perhaps, the most distinguished personality among the French literary fascists during the crucial years of the Nazi regime, the attitudes behind his attraction to Nazi Germany as well as his disappointment with his own coun-