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	{{Short description\|French novelist and writer (1873–1935)}}		{{Short description\|French novelist and writer (1873–1935)}}
	~~{{More citations needed\|date=January 2010}}~~
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	{{Infobox writer		{{Infobox writer

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{{Short description|French novelist and writer (1873–1935)}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2010}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Henri Barbusse
| image = Henri Barbusse 1926.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Barbusse {{circa}} 1926
| pen_name =
| birth_name = Adrien Gustave Henri Barbusse
| birth_date = {{birth date|1873|5|17|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Asnières-sur-Seine]], France
| death_date = {{death date and age|1935|8|30|1873|5|17|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Moscow]], [[Russian SFSR]]
| occupation = Writer, poet, journalist
| period = 1895–1935
| genre = Novel, short story, poetry, biography, opinion journalism
| subject =
| movement =
| notable_work = ''[[Under Fire (Barbusse novel)|Under Fire]]''
| spouse = {{marriage|Helyonne Holmès|1898}}
| relatives = {{ubl|[[Catulle Mendès]] (father-in-law)|[[Augusta Holmès]] (mother-in-law)}}
| website =
| signature = Barbusse Signature.svg
}}

'''Henri Barbusse''' ({{IPA|fr|ɑ̃ʁi baʁbys|lang}}; 17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist, short story writer, journalist, poet and political activist. He began his literary career in the 1890s as a [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist]] poet and continued as a [[Naturalism (literature)|neo-Naturalist]] novelist;<ref name="britannica">{{cite web | url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-Barbusse | title=Henri Barbusse | World War I, Novelist, Fire | Britannica | date=26 August 2023 }}</ref> in 1916, he published ''[[Under Fire (Barbusse novel)|Under Fire]]'', a novel about [[World War I]] based on his experience which is described as one of the earliest works of the [[Lost Generation]] movement<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mkFdAgAAQBAJ The European Powers in the First World War]. p. 432</ref> or as the work which started it;<ref>{{cite book | last=Gutiérrez | first=E.A. | title=Doughboys on the Great War: How American Soldiers Viewed Their Military Experience | publisher=University Press of Kansas| year=2017 | isbn=978-0-7006-2444-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rSCpEAAAQBAJ| page=41}}</ref> the novel had a major impact on the later writers of the movement, namely on [[Ernest Hemingway]]<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RoFmDwAAQBAJ | isbn=9780737770698 | title=War in Ernest Hemingway's a Farewell to Arms | date=14 March 2014 | publisher=Greenhaven Publishing LLC }}</ref> and [[Erich Maria Remarque]].<ref name="Tate">{{cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to War Writing|chapter=The First World War: British Writing|first=Trudi|last=Tate|editor-first=Catherine Mary|editor-last=McLoughlin|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-521-89568-2|pages=160–174}}</ref> Barbusse is considered one of the important French writers of 1910–1939 who mingled the war memories with moral and political meditations.<ref name="britannica"/>

Before World War I, Barbusse was a [[pacifism|pacifist]], but in 1914, he volunteered for wartime service and was awarded the ''[[Croix de guerre 1914–1918 (France)|Croix de guerre]]''; during the war, he was influenced by the Communists and came to the belief that a Revolution against the imperialist governments would be the only quick way to end the war and to deal with militarism and reaction.<ref name="three">{{cite book | last=Field | first=Frank | title=Three French Writers and the Great War: Studies in the Rise of Communism and Fascism | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1975 | isbn=978-0-521-20916-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nEw9AAAAIAAJ|location=Cambridge}}</ref> In years following the war, his work acquired a definite political orientation; he became a member of the [[French Communist Party]]<ref name="britannica"/> and an [[anti-fascist]] and anti-war activist. In the 1930s, he supported the [[Stalinism|Stalinist regime]] despite having a friendly relationship with [[Leon Trotsky]] in the middle of the 1920s<ref name="three"/> and contributed to [[Joseph Stalin]]'s personality cult by writing his biography which became a 'canonical' text for the French Stalinists but wasn't in line with the glorification of Stalin in the USSR.<ref name="s">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eBUb83LPAJEC | isbn=978-0-19-979457-7 | title=Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941 | date=12 January 2012 | publisher=Oxford University Press, USA }}</ref> He died in 1935 and didn't see the events that followed, like the [[Moscow trials]] and the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]].

He was a lifelong friend of [[Albert Einstein]].<ref>Einstein on Politics, Princeton University Press, 2007</ref>

==Life==

=== Early life and career ===
Barbusse was born on 17 May 1873 in [[Asnières-sur-Seine]] to Adrien Barbusse and Anne Benson.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite magazine |title=Milestones, Sep. 9, 1935 |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,748978,00.html |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=9 September 1935}}</ref><ref name="Marriage 1898">{{cite journal |title=No.6 mariage Barbusse Adrien Gustave Henri et Mendès Helyonne Genevieve |journal=Actes de naissance, de mariage et de décès. |date=18 April 1898 |publisher=Archives départementales des Yvelines |location=Montigny-le-Bretonneux}}</ref> Barbusse's father was French and his mother was English.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Although he grew up in a small town, he left for [[Paris, France|Paris]] in 1889, at age 16. In 1895, he published a poetry collection ''Mourners'' (''Pleureuses''), which is sometimes identified as "neo-Symbolist".<ref name="f">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SXkVKq86YIkC | isbn=9781438108360 | title=The Facts on File Companion to the World Novel: 1900 to the Present | date=2008 | publisher=Infobase }}</ref> On 18 April 1898, Barbusse married Helyonne Holmès, the daughter of the poet [[Catulle Mendès]] and the composer [[Augusta Holmès]], in [[Croissy-sur-Seine]].<ref name="Marriage 1898"/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Guilleminot |first1=Geneviève |title=Henri Barbusse |url=https://comitehistoire.bnf.fr/dictionnaire-fonds/henri-barbusse |website=BnF Comité d'histoire |publisher=Comité d'histoire de la Bibliothèque nationale de France |access-date=1 August 2026 |location=Paris |language=fr}}</ref>

In 1908, Barbusse wrote his first novel ''[[Hell (Barbusse novel)|Hell]]'' (''L'Enfer''), in which he described the life of a young Parisian who lives in a boarding house and spies through a hole in his wall on the other boarders and sees birth, death, adultery and lesbianism. The novel produced controversy because of breaking taboos and crossing conventional moral boundaries of the time;<ref name="f"/> this work is identified as 'neo-Naturalist'.<ref name="britannica"/>

=== First World War ===
In 1914, at age 41, he enlisted in the [[French Army]] and served on the Western front during [[World War I]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Under Fire: The story of a squad|url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/under-fire-story-of-squad|access-date=2020-10-19|website=The British Library|archive-date=2021-09-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210908232525/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/under-fire-story-of-squad|url-status=dead}}</ref> Invalided out of the army three times, Barbusse served in the war for 17 months, until November 1915, when he was permanently moved into a clerical position due to pulmonary damage, exhaustion, and [[dysentery]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=barbusse|first=henri|title=Le Feu: Journal d'une escouade|publisher=gallimard|year=2006|isbn=978-2070342792|pages=483–484}}</ref> On 8 June 1915, he was awarded the [[Croix de guerre 1914–1918 (France)|Croix de guerre]] with citation.<ref name=":0" /> In 1916, he participated in the [[battle of Verdun]].<ref name="f"/> He was reformed on 1 June 1917.<ref name=":0" />

Barbusse first came to fame with the publication of his novel ''Le Feu'' (translated by [[William Fitzwater Wray]] as ''[[Under Fire (Barbusse novel)|Under Fire]]'') in 1916, which was based on his experiences during World War I. By this time, Barbusse had become a pacifist, and his writing demonstrated his growing hatred of [[militarism]].<ref name=":1" /> ''Le Feu'' drew criticism at the time for its harsh [[Naturalism (literature)|naturalism]], but won the [[Prix Goncourt]] in December 1916.<ref>{{cite web|last=Duffy|first=Michael|title=Henri Barbusse|url=http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/barbusse.htm|work=www.firstworldwar.com|access-date=26 July 2013}}</ref>

=== Political and cultural activities ===
In January 1918, he left France and moved to [[Moscow, Russia|Moscow]], where he married a Russian woman and joined the [[Bolshevik Party]]. His novel, ''Clarté'', is about an office worker who, while serving in the army, begins to realize that the imperialist war is a crime.{{citation needed|date=July 2013}} [[Vladimir Lenin]] commented that this novel was censored in France.<ref>{{cite news|last=Goode|first=WT|title=An interview with Lenin|newspaper=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/century/1910-1919/Story/0,,98448,00.html|access-date=19 October 2017}}</ref>

The [[Russian Revolution]] had a significant influence on Barbusse's life and work. He joined the [[French Communist Party]] in 1923 and later travelled back to the Soviet Union. His later works, ''Manifeste aux Intellectuels'' (''Elevations'') (1930) and others, show a more revolutionary standpoint. Of these, the 1921 ''Le Couteau entre les dents'' (''The Knife Between My Teeth'') marks Barbusse's siding with [[Bolshevism]] and the [[October Revolution]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=Relinger|first=Jean|date=3 November 2010|title=Barbusse Henri [Adrien Gustave Henri ]|url=https://maitron.fr/?article97985|access-date=2020-10-19|website=maitron.fr}}</ref> Barbusse characterized the birth of Soviet Russia as "the greatest and most beautiful phenomenon in world history".<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_gd1Aw0ZlEwC | isbn=9781906924270 | title=The End and the Beginning: The Book of My Life | date=2010 | publisher=Open Book Publishers }}</ref> The book ''Light from the Abyss'' (1919){{citation needed|date=July 2013}} and the collection of articles ''Words of a Fighting Man'' (1920){{citation needed|date=July 2013}} contain calls for the overthrow of capitalism. In 1925, Barbusse published ''Chains'', showing history as the unbroken chain of suffering of people and their struggle for freedom and justice.{{citation needed|date=July 2013}} In the publicistic book ''The Butchers'', he exposes the White Terror in the [[Balkan countries]].{{citation needed|date=July 2013}}

In 1927, Barbusse participated in the Congress of Friends of the Soviet Union in Moscow. He led the World Congress Against Imperialist War (Amsterdam, 1932) and headed the [[World Committee Against War and Fascism]], founded in 1933. He also took part in the work of the International Youth Congress (Paris, 1933) and the International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture. Additionally, in the 1920s and 1930s, he edited the periodicals ''[[Monde (review)|Monde]]'' (1928–1935)<ref name=":2" /> and ''Progrès Civique'', which published some of [[George Orwell]]'s first writings.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Barbusse|first=Henri|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dbx9CgAAQBAJ&q=barbusse+progres+civique&pg=PT4|title=The Inferno|date=2015-11-04|publisher=Read Books Ltd|isbn=978-1-4733-7657-1|language=en}}</ref> He was also [[literary editor]] for the daily newspaper ''[[l'Humanité]]'' from 1926 to 1929.<ref name=":2" />

In 1934, Barbusse sent [[Egon Kisch]] to Australia to represent the International Movement Against War and Fascism as part of his work for the [[Comintern]]. The resulting unsuccessful [[Attempted exclusion of Egon Kisch from Australia|exclusion of Egon Kisch from Australia]] by the conservative Australian government succeeded in energizing Communism in Australia and resulted in Kisch's staying longer than Barbusse had intended.{{citation needed|date=July 2013}}

An associate of [[Romain Rolland]]'s and editor of ''Clarté'', he attempted to define a "[[proletarian literature]]", akin to ''[[Proletkult]]'' and [[Socialist realism]].

Barbusse was an [[Esperantist]], and was honorary president of the first congress of the [[Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda]]. In 1921, he wrote an article titled "Esperantista Laboristo" ("Esperantist worker") for ''Esperanto'' journal.<ref>''[http://www.freeweb.hu/eventoj/steb/gxenerala_naturscienco/enciklopedio-1/encikl-b.htm Enciklopedio de Esperanto] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070708174358/http://www.freeweb.hu/eventoj/steb/gxenerala_naturscienco/enciklopedio-1/encikl-b.htm |date=2007-07-08 }}''. 1933.</ref>

=== Support for Stalin ===
In his 1928 book ''Voici ce qu'on a fait de la Géorgie'', Barbusse praised post-[[sovietization]] political, social, and economic conditions in [[Georgian SSR|Georgia]] and completely glossed over the brutal methods employed by Stalin which disturbed the dying Lenin,<ref name="three"/> triggering a critical response from the Georgian émigré Dathico Charachidze who published in 1929 ''Barbusse, les Soviets et la Géorgie'', with a sympathetic preface by [[Karl Kautsky]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 an Annotated Bibliography.|date=2006|publisher=Continuum International Pub. Group|location=London|isbn=1441119922|page=468}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=David-Fox|first1=Michael|title=Showcasing the great experiment: cultural diplomacy and western visitors to Soviet Union, 1921-1941|date=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0199794577|page=231}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Kandelaki|first1=Constantin|title=The Georgian Question Before the Free World|date=1953|publisher=Navarre|page=46}}</ref>

In 1930, he published a book ''Russie'', an account of year-long living in the Soviet Union which contained flattering references to Stalin.<ref name="three"/>

In 1932, Barbusse agreed to write a biography of Stalin.<ref name="three"/> Originally, Stalin wanted [[Maxim Gorky]] to write it, but he didn't, and the task was handed to Barbusse;<ref>{{cite book | last1=Geller | first1=M. | last2=Nekrich | first2=A.M. | title=Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present | publisher=Hutchinson | year=1986 | isbn=978-0-09-155620-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NmQjAQAAIAAJ| page=250}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Rosenthal | first=B.G. | title=New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism | publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-271-04658-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ppvr3LZ8o2wC | page=308}}</ref> the key condition was that it would be checked and subject to editorial changes in the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, and Barbusse assured that he would break with the "Trotskyist elements" in the editorial of his journal ''Monde''.<ref name="s"/> It appeared in 1935 as ''Staline: Un monde nouveau vu à travers un homme'' (''Stalin: A New World Seen Through the Man''). Barbusse praised Stalin, whom he called in his personal notes as "great comrade",<ref name="s"/> as a man with "the head of a scholar, with the figure of a worker, and with the dress of a simple soldier" and as the only true heir of Lenin;<ref name="three"/> one of the phrases of the book, "Stalin is the Lenin of today", became one of the most celebrated slogans of the Stalin cult; according to [[Isaak Mints]], the slogan was written by Stalin himself.<ref name="s"/> Although Barbusse had a friendly relationship with [[Leon Trotsky]] in the middle of the 1920s, in the book he was condemned as an intriguer and a deviationist, a [[Menshevik]] at heart.<ref name="three"/> Nevertheless, [[Aleksei Stetskii]], one of the chief ideologues of the Stalin cult, was concerned by Barbusse's description of Stalin not as "the greatest theoretician of Marxism after Lenin", as he was described in the Soviet Union, but as a "man of action" and practice, while Trotsky still seemed as a "different type of leader": the opposition between Trotsky and Stalin seemed as an opposition between Trotsky's intellectualism and Stalin's anti-intellectualism. The book was published in Russian in the same year.<ref name="s"/>

[[Victor Serge]], a writer and a member of the [[Left Opposition]], met Barbusse in the 1920s and tried to make him aware of the political repression in the USSR:
{{blockquote|When I told him about the persecution, he pretended to have a headache, or not to hear, or to be rising to stupendous heights: "Tragic destiny of revolution, immensities, profundities, yes... yes... Ah my friend!" My jaws juddered as I realised that I was face to face with hypocrisy itself.<ref name="three"/>}}
After this conversation, Barbusse made Serge one of the cosponsors of ''Monde'',<ref>Victor Serge. Memoirs of a Revolutionary</ref> but removed him from the masthead after his imprisonment.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cm3nDwAAQBAJ | isbn=9781781689578 | title=Victor Serge: A Political Biography | date=15 April 2014 | publisher=Verso Books }}</ref>

Trotsky criticised Barbusse as representative of a "pretentious ... humanitarian, lyric and pacifistical 'communism'".<ref>Trotsky, L ''The Revolution Betrayed'', Introduction https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/revbetray.pdf</ref>{{clarify|date=September 2025|reason=What does "pacificstical" mean?}}

==Death==
[[File:Grave of Henri Barbusse - panoramio.jpg|thumb|Grave of Henri Barbusse at the Père Lachaise Cemetery]]
While writing a second biography of Stalin in Moscow, Barbusse fell ill with [[pneumonia]] and died on 30{{nbsp}}August 1935.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> His funeral drew 500,000 people and he is buried at the [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]] in Paris.<ref name=":2" />

==Legacy==
In the [[Spanish Civil War]] in December 1936 the [[Henri Barbusse Battalion]] was formed as part of the [[XIV International Brigade]], named in honour of Henri Barbusse.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clifford |first1=Alexander |title=Fighting for Spain |date=2020 |publisher=Pen & Sword Military |location=Yorkshire |isbn=978-1-52677-438-5 |page=24}}</ref>

In the foreword to ''I Saw It Happen'', a 1942 collection of eyewitness accounts of the war, the book critic [[Lewis Stiles Gannett]] wrote: "We shall be hearing and reading of this war for decades to come. No one of us can yet guess who will be its [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]]s, its Barbusses, its [[Erich Maria Remarque|Remarques]] and its [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingways]]."<ref>{{Cite book|editor=Gannett, Lewis Stiles|title=I Saw It Happen: Eyewitness Accounts of the War|publisher=Pocket Books|date=October 1942|location=New York}}</ref>

The ''parc Henri Barbusse'' was the site of the [[Château d'Issy]].{{citation needed|date=July 2013}}

==Works==
*1895 – ''Pleureuses''; English translation: ''The Hired Mourners'' (poetry)
*1903 – ''Les Suppliants''; English translation: ''The Supplicants'' (prose novel)
*1908 – ''L'enfer''; English translation: ''[[Hell (Barbusse novel)|Hell]]'' (novel)
*1912 – ''Meissonier''; (biography)
*1916 – ''Le feu''; English translation: ''[[Under Fire (Barbusse novel)|Under Fire]]'' (novel)
*1919 – ''Clarte''; English translation: ''Light'' (novel)
*1921 – ''Le couteau entre les dents''; English translation: ''The Knife Between My Teeth'' (novel)
*1921 – ''Quelque Coins du Coeur'' (prose pieces with 24 woodcuts by [[Frans Masereel]])
*1923 – ''Esperantista Laboristo''; English translation: "Esperantist Worker" (magazine article)
*1927 – ''Jesus'', ''Les Judas de Jesus''
*1930 – ''Manifeste aux intellectuels''; English translation: ''Elevations'' (novel)
*1935 – ''Staline: Un monde nouveau vu à travers un homme'' (biography); English translation: ''{{Deprecated archive|url=https://archive.today/20130131235619/http://www.questia.com/library/book/stalin-a-new-world-seen-through-one-man-by-henri-barbusse-vyvyan-holland.jsp|title=Stalin: A New World Seen Through the Man}}'', translated by [[Vyvyan Holland]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=1472| name=Henri Barbusse}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Henri Barbusse}}
* {{librivox author | id=2089}}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/001000}}

{{Prix Goncourt}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbusse, Henri}}
[[Category:1873 births]]
[[Category:1935 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Asnières-sur-Seine]]
[[Category:Bolsheviks]]
[[Category:French Communist Party members]]
[[Category:French anti-fascists]]
[[Category:French biographers]]
[[Category:French Esperantists]]
[[Category:French journalists]]
[[Category:19th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French male novelists]]
[[Category:Marxist journalists]]
[[Category:Proletarian literature]]
[[Category:Writers from Île-de-France]]
[[Category:French military personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Prix Goncourt winners]]
[[Category:Honorary members of the USSR Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:French recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)]]
[[Category:French male biographers]]
[[Category:20th-century French biographers]]
[[Category:Lost Generation writers]]

Henri Barbusse - Revision history

Deleatur yhe at 01:50, 28 September 2026

Deleatur yhe: Created page