Georges Politzer: The Philosopher as Combustible Rebel

A new biography by Michel Politzer and a reissue of Politzer's anti-Bergson pamphlet prompt a reassessment of the Hungarian-born French philosopher and resistance martyr. Georges Politzer (1903–1942) was a fiery thinker who fused Marxism, psychoanalysis, and surrealist provocation. His 1928 'Critique of the Foundations of Psychology' challenged Freudian interiority, advocating for a concrete, dramatic psychology. Politzer's 1929 pamphlet 'The End of a Philosophical Parade: Bergsonism' attacked Henri Bergson with deliberate bad faith, as later noted by Georges Canguilhem. Politzer was executed by firing squad at Mont-Valérien on May 23, 1942. His son Michel's book 'Les Trois morts de Georges Politzer' combines biography and autobiography in an act of reparation. The reissued pamphlet, edited by Roger Bruyeron, includes a preface acknowledging its polemical excess. Politzer was part of a circle including Norbert Guterman, Georges Friedmann, Pierre Morhange, and Henri Lefebvre. Michel Leiris said of him: 'Next to Politzer, everyone else seems like puppets.'