Georges Politzer

Georges Politzer (; born Politzer György, ; 3 May 190323 May 1942) was a Hungarian-born French philosopher and Marxist theoretician of Hungarian Jewish origin, affectionately referred to by some as the "red-headed philosopher" (philosophe roux). He was a native of Oradea, a city in present-day Romania (then Nagyvárad, Kingdom of Hungary). He was murdered in Fort Mont-Valérien in Suresnes in the Holocaust.

Biography Politzer had already been a militant by the time of his involvement in the Hungarian insurrection of 1919, when he was 17, and by joining the Hungarian Communist Party during the Hungarian Soviet Republic, led by Béla Kun. He went into exile during the White Terror that preceded the establishment of a right-wing government under the regency of Admiral Miklós Horthy. In 1929, on a train, he met Marie Larcade, known as "Maï," a midwife who would become his second wife in 1931.

After meeting Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi in Vienna, he settled in Paris in 1921. He joined the French Communist Party between 1929 and 1931.

During the early 1930s, the party founded the Workers' University of Paris (Université Ouvrière de Paris), which lasted until its dissolution by German occupation in 1939. During his tenure at the university, Politzer was entrusted with and given charge of a course on dialectical materialism.

Meanwhile, he occupied the post of professor of philosophy at Lycée Marcelin Berthelot in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.

Mobilized to Paris in 1940, he remained close to the French Communist Party's secret command. Demobilized in July 1940, he oversaw the publication of a clandestine bulletin. After his comrade and friend Paul Langevin, a physicist of world renown, was arrested in October 1940, Politzer published the first edition of The Free University (L'Université Libre), which told of the imprisonment of scholars and denounced the extortions committed by invading fascists during World War II. He worked with other writers like Jacques Decour, Jacques Solomon and Valentin Feldman. All were executed by the Nazis in 1942.

In February 1942, Politzer's operations were stopped; he was arrested along with his wife, Mai, who was also a Communist and a member of La Résistance, for violating the law banning the Communist Party. He underwent torture, was turned over to the Nazis on 20 March 1942 and underwent execution by firing squad at their hands on 23 May of that year just after he had secretly published a French academic journal. His wife was transported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in March 1943.

Contributions A disciple of Marx and Lenin, Politzer was interested in psychology, preaching aspects of it and considered traditional psychology as abstract. He also took an interest in the nascent Freudian theory and its uses before eventually distancing himself from it.

Works

Against Bergson and some other writers, Philosophical Writings (Contre Bergson et quelques autres), 1924-1939 Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, French translation of Schelling, 1926 Critique of the Foundations of Psychology (Critique des Fondements de la Psychologie), 1928 Bergsonism, a Philosophical Hoax (La fin d'une parade philosophique: Le bergsonisme), 1929, under the name of François Arouet The Great Problems of Contemporary Philosophy (Les Grands Problèmes de la Philosophie Contemporaine), 1938 Philosophy and Myths (La Philosophie et les Mythes), 1939 Philosophy of the Enlightment and Modern Thought (La Philosophie des Lumières et la Pensée moderne), 1939 What is Rationalism? (Qu'est-ce que le rationalisme?), 1939 The End of Psychoanalysis (La Fin de la Psychanalyse), 1939 In the Cellar of the Blind, Chronicles on Nowadays Obscurantism (Dans la cave de l'aveugle, chronique de l'obscurantisme contemporain), 1939 Blood and Gold (Sang et Or) or Gold Vanquished by Blood (L'Or Vaincu par le Sang), November 1940 Revolution and Counter-revolution in the 20th Century (Révolution et Contre-révolution au XXè Siècle), Éditions Sociales, March 1941 Antisemitism, Racism and the Jewish Problem (L'antisémitisme, le racisme, le problème juif), 1941 Obscurantism in the 20th century (L'Obscurantisme au 20ème siècle), 1941 A Course on Marxism (Cours de Marxisme), 1935-1936 Elementary Principles of Philosophy (Principes Élémentaires de Philosophie), 1946, notes taken in the course taught at l'Université Ouvrière from 1935 to 1936 Crisis of Nowadays Psychology (La Crise de la Psychologie contemporaine), 1947 Foundamental Principles of Philosophy (Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie), edited by Guy Besse and Maurice Caveing, 1954 Writings 1 Philosophy and Myths (Écrits 1 La Philosophie et les Mythes), Éditions Sociales, 1973 Writings 2 The Foundations of Psychology (Écrits 2 Les Fondements de la Psychologie), Éditions Sociales