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Title: Pierre Lanneret papers,
Date (inclusive): 1902-1994
Collection number: 93032
Creator:
Lanneret, Pierre, 1921-1993
Extent:
17 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box
(7.4 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Writings, notes, correspondence, serial issues, pamphlets, leaflets, internal bulletins, and photographs, relating to left-wing
resistance activities in France during World War II, and to libertarian socialist and communist movements in France, the United
States and elsewhere.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Languages:
English,
and French.
Collection is open for research.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], Pierre Lanneret papers, [Box no.], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1993.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.
| 1921 | Born, Auxerre, France |
| 1938 | Becomes employed as a typesetter |
| Joins La Jeunesse Revolutionnaire Socialiste, a Trotskyist group | |
| 1942-1943 | Sent to Germany as a laborer under the terms of la Service du Travail Obligatoire |
| 1943 | Joins the Groupe Révolutionnaire Prolétarien, a clandestine group of "revolutionary internationalists," in Paris |
| 1946-1950 | Active in the Bordigist group, la Fraction Française de la Gauche Communiste |
| 1950 | Joins Socialisme ou Barbarie |
| 1951 | Emigrates to Canada |
| 1958 | Moves to San Francisco, becoming member of the Typographical Union |
| 1970-1975 | Member, International Socialists |
| 1976-1979 | Member, A World to Win |
| 1985 | Third Camp Internationalists in France during World War II |
| 1993 | Dies |
Acquired in 1987, with a significant increment received in 2001, the Pierre Lanneret papers in the Hoover Institution Archives
provide a window on the history of 20th century French working-class radicalism, and in particular, on the life of small but
influential groups whose politics were situated well to the left of the French Communist Party. It also documents the activities
of similar groups in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Having entered the labor force as an adolescent in France, Lanneret worked in the printing trades as a typesetter and composer
until his retirement in 1984. At the same time, he devoted a life's work and intellectual effort to revolutionary politics,
participating as a militant in several organizations, and conducting an extensive correspondence with a number of like-minded
individuals, a connection which in many cases endured long after any period of formal organizational collaboration.
Lanneret's first political engagement was with a Trotskyist youth group in his native Auxerre, but by the time of the Second
World War, his views had shifted in the direction of a revolutionary internationalist perspective, which did not view the
Soviet Union as socialist, and which opposed both Nazi Germany and the Allied powers, seeing the war as the expression of
imperialist rivalries, not as an anti-fascist crusade.
At considerable personal risk, Lanneret evaded obligatory labor service in Germany during the Nazi occupation of France and
went underground in Paris, joining a small resistance group, the Groupe Révolutionnaire Prolétarien, which also espoused a
"third camp internationalist" perspective. This clandestine group engaged in limited propaganda work and some direct action.
Its history, along with that of other similar groups, is described in Lanneret's work,
Third Camp Internationalists in France during World War II, various editions of which are found in the collection, along with extensive research materials consulted in the preparation
of this monograph (see SPEECHES AND WRITINGS series). A German translation of the joint autobiography of Paul (Pavel) and
Clara Thalman, which also discusses the activities of the Groupe Révolutionnaire Prolétarien, is included in the WRITINGS
BY OTHERS series in the collection.
After the war, Lanneret was an early member of the group Socialisme ou Barbarie, whose ideas on modern revolution and the
nature of bureaucracy were later to exert a considerable influence on the anti-authoritarian currents of the student and worker
revolt in France during May-June 1968. Although he emigrated to North America, living first in Canada and then in San Francisco,
Lanneret continued to meet and correspond with his former associates in the French revolutionary milieu.
Among these was the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, the principal theorist of Socialisme ou Barbarie. The collection contains
Castoriadis's correspondence with Lanneret, translations made by Lanneret of some of Castoriadis's writings, and an extensive
selection of those writings in the original French (See TRANSLATIONS and WRITINGS BY OTHERS series). There are also copies
of the review,
Socialisme ou barbarie, in which can be found articles by Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, and others (see PRINTED MATTER series).
The PRINTED MATTER series in the collection also contains a number of rare or fugitive pamphlets and serial issues from political
groups in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. There are extensive materials from the British Solidarity group,
which was highly influenced by Socialisme ou Barbarie, and from the French councilist group Informations Correspondance Ouvrières,
an offshoot of Socialisme ou Barbarie. In addition, there is a considerable number of publications from fairly obscure leftist
groups in the United States in the 1930s, and from Trotskyist and Maoist groups in France in the post-1968 period. There is
a considerable amount of publications from groups identified with the Bordigist tendency in revolutionary Marxist politics.
The collection also contains some serial issues relating specifically to the May-June 1968 events in France (see OVERSIZE
MATERIALS), and recordings of songs associated with the Paris Commune, 1871.
A feature of the political movements in which Lanneret was involved was the common use of pseudonyms, both as a practice imposed
by conditions of wartime clandestinity and as a habit continued afterward. Where appropriate, these pseudonyms have been given
in the case of deceased individuals to aid in the identification of writings and correspondence.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the repository's online public access catalog.
Fourth International.
Anarchism--France.
Communism.
Communism--United States.
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements.
World War, 1939-1945--France.
World War, 1939-1945.
Socialism--United States.
Socialism--France.
French--United States.
Communism--France.
United States--Politics and government.
France.