Integral Pacifism in World War II

Another view of French pacifism and the threat of fascism.

Hello folks, Derek here with the fourth entry in Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins’ special Foreign Exchanges series on the anti-war/non-violence movement as a political tradition. As I mentioned in the preface to his introductory piece, this series is being offered as a special for paid FX subscribers. I hope those who are interested in the piece will consider subscribing to FX to support Daniel’s work as well as everything else that goes on here. Please subscribe today:

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Last month I suggested, by examining the infamous political views of the collaborationist Marcel Déat, that in the run up to and aftermath of the fall of France in 1940 a kind of pacifism developed there that was based entirely in defeatism and a sense of fatalism. Nothing could be done to resist the juggernaut of Nazi imperialism, Déat insisted, as its military might was unmatched and it would soon dominate all of Europe, if not the world. Rather than throwing millions of lives away for nothing, Déat encouraged the French people to resign themselves to defeat, with the belief that France could play an integral role in Hitler’s new European order.

In today’s entry, I want to look at a rather different French pacifist response to Nazi imperialism. At the outset, you will find this form of pacifism difficult to grasp, as it accepted some level of violence for the purpose of defeating domestic fascist movements in France–which it connected to the French empire–while denouncing the use of military force against Nazi Germany. The essential context for understanding this paradoxical position is Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.

The subject of Hitler’s foreign policy intentions, after his election as chancellor, caused widespread debate in France and particularly for French pacifists. Part of the confusion lay in differing interpretations of Hitler’s early public speeches. They affirmed Nazi Germany’s desire to live in peace with Europe and the rest of the world—utterances blatantly at odds with the belligerency of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and its promise to seek revenge on France. Rejecting foreign war at all cost, some French pacifists took Germany’s new leader at his word.

One such thinker was the philosopher and adamant anti-colonialist Félicien Challaye, who defended “unarmed peace even in the face of Hitler.” To grasp Challaye’s position first entails understanding that he was an integral pacifist. This group of pacifists typically consisted of left-wing anti-fascists who sought to inform the general public that the Versailles peace settlement that ended World War I was a sham. They argued that the Allied Powers themselves had sinister economic and geopolitical motives that contributed to sparking the Great War. Their efforts in the war, judged integral pacifists, were equally as unjust as those of the Central Powers. The Allied Powers had thus established an unjust peace settlement, which integral pacifists viewed as the source of Europe’s divisions and were quick to connect to its imperial ambitions abroad.