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vperyod93 · 4 years ago

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@sprawa-przybyszewskiej

Here--I guess--is a partial “review”/critique of Ingdahl’s book about Przybyszewska. It’s long (I tried to make it like the rough draft of an actual essay), but I hope it makes sense. :’)

In Kazimiera Ingdahl's invaluable and thorough study of Przybyszewska's work, Ingdahl at one point (lmao, I can't find the exact quote atm, but I don't think I'm making it up) draws attention to the tension between Przybyszewska's idealized Robespierre and what she [Ingdahl] calls the "truth" of history. However, Ingdahl's understanding of the historical "truth" of the revolution is very biased and Dantonist.

After dismissing the evidence of Danton's corruption, she provides for the reader "a brief account of the political situation in France during this period." According to her, Danton's program was "soberly realistic and pragmatic" in comparison to Robespierre's "spartan egalitarianism." She emphasizes that Danton wanted to rebuild commerce and industry by ending government restrictions and regulations of the economy, provide individual freedom, and end both the Terror and the war. She mentions Vieux Cordelier as the outlet for Dantonist politics, and of course explains that in his newspaper, Desmoulins denounced the policies of the Terror and advocated for clemency. "The Dantonists," she writes, "favored a pragmatic stabilization of France and had little patience with Robespierre's utopian notion of an 'Ideal Republic' based on the 'rules of political morality.'" In short, she makes Danton the consummate freedom loving, market loving bourgeois.

This is an extremely simplistic narrative. I won't go into each point, so I will just focus on the most prominent myth: that Danton was a down-to-earth peacemaker compared to the frigid, virtue obsessed puritan Robespierre. Regarding Danton as down-to-earth peacemaker, major historians of the Revolution would take issue with the assessment of Danton's program as "realistic and pragmatic." The staunchly Robespierrist Mathiez, who Przybyszewska respected most among the scholars of the revolution that she read, writes that if the Dantonists had been successful "before Toulon was taken back from the English, before Hoche chased the Austrians out of Alsace, even before the revolutionary government was fully organized, before the Maximum was assured in its application, the Dantonists would have shattered the revolutionary endeavour . . .” And here, he was just noting his agreement with the older historian Jaurès. Mathiez goes on: “He [Jaurès] has also noted that their policy of hazardous and outrageous moderation led to an inevitable alliance with the monarchists . . ." And he then lists evidence of corruption and treason that he discovered in his own research, making the case against Danton more compelling (if not quite conclusive) since Jaurès’ time.

The more cautious and circumspect Lefebvre is less blunt in his assessments, but he too notes the disadvantaged position from which Danton was attempting war-time negotiations, as well as the opportunism, corruption, and scandals that tainted the endeavor. These are both "pro-Robespierre" Marxist scholars, but Lefebvre can hardly said to be in the "hagiographic" tradition that Ingdahl is aware of and cites as Przybyszewska's bias.

Ingdahl also doesn't mention Robespierre's own attempts to moderate the terror nor show a deep understanding of the balance of political forces during 1793, which provides the context for his "utopian" (democratic) ideals as expressed in his speeches about "virtue and terror." In a word, she simply accepts the myths and caricatures about both Danton and Robespierre.

I suspect this bias on Ingdahl's part causes her to misread some of The Danton Case and Thermidor. Because she either doesn't know or doesn't accept scholarship against Danton and explaining Robespierre's decisions, she overlooks one of the (very valid) points Przybyszewska was trying to make about the actual historiography of the Revolution. In one of her letters, Przybyszewska writes:

I have the desire to beat into the mushy interior of the public brain a new image of the Revolution, an image which would not do a terrible wrong to a number of its heroes … but I know only too well that I won’t attain this goal. For one hundred and thirty-five years they have had an image of the Revolution that is incomparably simpler and much more comfortable, from both an intellectual and moral point of view. That’s something that won’t be given up so readily.

Unfortunately, Ingdahl was also unable to give up one hundred and thirty-five years of Thermidorian propaganda when writing about Przybyszewska. However, Przybyszewska herself saw the smearing of Robespierre's name as a historical injustice that she wanted to fight. She alludes explicitly to this injustice within The Danton Case when Danton, climbing the scaffold, unleashes a curse: "A few years from now my name will shine in luminous letters in the Pantheon of history, while yours--you villain Robespierre--will be imprinted forever in its indestructible black book!"

The meta-commentary on the historiography of the Revolution may connect with the theme of lies and truth, which are also connected to the gnostic metaphysics, in The Danton Case (and to a lesser extent in Thermidor). For Przybyszewska, lies are central in how a revolution breaks down and regresses:

Robespierre: Until man outgrows this beast in himself, he will time after time rebel and bleed--in vain. Revolution will not survive to achieve its aim this time, or the second time, or the fifth time. Danton's corruption, Danton's lie will after a while outweigh the upward momentum...

Lies go hand in hand with the realm of "matter" and "nature," which to Przybyszewska is a basically satanic evil that veils the higher truths of "spirit," which generate the possibility of human freedom. Przybyszewska elaborates on lies in Thermidor, when Robespierre explains the nature of propaganda: a concept detached from the concrete, runs amuck in the abstract, generating fantasies such as nationalistic fervor.

Robespierre: . . . Within the country the same destructive process is taking place. The citizen finds the war atmosphere to his taste and revels in it; he is even more disgusting than the mercenary soldier, since his pleasure is derived from pure imagination, it goes round and round in a vacuum. His emotions, removed from reality, feed on empty dreams and breed nightmarish visions. And here breaks the umbilical cord that binds man to earth. Phantoms appear in the place of concrete objects. Class feeling is replaced by an abstraction: nationality. The natural hatred of the exploited for his exploiter makes room for the pointless elemental hatred of a Frenchman for an Englishman. Communal feeling takes the form of a perverse idolatry of the French army. Truly, what a splendid organization! A war waged for profit isolates people from each other, and from earth, makes them prey to empty prejudices and groundless animoisities. In a vacant trance, deprived of spirit, these unhappy lonely people are enveloped by the thick fog of lies, breathe them in the place of air, drink them like posion . . .

It is interesting that she, who emphasized the vertiginous heights of reason against the evil of earthly matter, here posits the loss of connection with earth and the “concrete” as the work of unchecked “nature” expressed in nationalistic militarism. She may have been influenced by Freud, who described regression on an individual level as an inward retreat to a realm of fantasy. To me, it looks like Przybyszewska saw the tragedy of the revolution as one of regression on a historical level, the consequences of which continued to reverberate through history in the form of "lies" that sprout in the fields of capitalism and imperialism.

This is important because it brings attention to, not just tragedy caused by the chaos and upheaval of revolution, but the tragedy of what happens when revolutions fail. This changes things. It is no longer a story about how Robespierre has unbearably high standards that he inflicts on others and without him everyone would be able to enjoy frivolous pursuits, the 18th century equivalent of Marvel movie fandom or whatever instead of Robespierre making everyone read Rousseau everyday... because he's such an intolerant snob... and of course he guillotines anyone who doesn’t enjoy it (the propaganda image of Robespierre really is literally like this). Because Ingadahl misses this point and sees only a Thermidorian propaganda Robespierre, not what he is reacting against, she says that Robespierre’s republic “threatens the survival of humanity. This becomes even more obvious in his view that total destruction is a source of rebirth, and he actively tries to put it into practice.” She is refering to his plan in Thermidor to interfere with the armies and cause a foreign invasion, changing the aggressive offensive war into a defensive one. Ingdahl sees his actions as simply him being insane, and she sees his rant against Capital as evidence of it. But I think Przybyszewska’s intention, through the rant about Capital, nationalism, and wars was to have him prophecize the disasters of the 20th century and be driven to desperate extremes to try and prevent it. In other words, Robespierre has an actual altruistic reason for pursuing the hell of revolution: because otherwise there would still be hell, just of a different and even more hopeless sort. This, I think, is an even more bleak outlook than Ingdahl’s reading of Robespierre, so it seems in line with Przybyszewska's "pessimism." It makes it so that the triumph of "lies" has real consequences that Przybyszewska herself was witnessing in her own time, in the aftermath of World War I and rising fascism.

To Ingdahl, however, the binary between truth and lies is extremely ambiguous. She sees Przybyszewska's Robespierre as an anti-Christ and Satanic figure. She is aware that Przybyszewska intended for her Robespierre to be wholly good and heroic, but she also identifies what she considers unintended subtext as expression of a fundamental ambivalence (and maybe a deeper “truth” of history). Indeed, Przybyszewska was ambivalent about revolution in many ways. She emphasizes her pessimism and yet was unable to definitively reject revolution and its quest for the realization of human freedom on Earth as a hopeless endeavor (as conservatives writers like Dostoesvsky and Bernanos did). However, I don't think Przybyszewska's ambivalence expresses itself in her Robespierre as much as Ingdahl thinks it does.

Ingdahl describes Robespierre's tragedy as "ironic" based on a line by Fabre in The Danton Case. Fabre says:

"That's right, careful with the truth, friends. Do you know how one must think in our situation? That the sacrifice offered to an allusion, a useless sacrifice, is the most beautiful. That it is a good thing to wear a jewel, or to give it to a public charity, but that it is beautiful to throw it into the sea. Any truth can be tolerated in a tragic guise; and tragedy is not hard to come by."

Ingdahl explains: "He is referring to Danton's defeat, but the content of the aphoristic monologue summarizes above all Robespierre's predicament." But Przybyszewska would disagree that Fabre's line applies to Robespierre. One of her letters containts echos of the ideas expressed by Fabre:

It would seem that once we do away with sentimental illusions and see human nature dans toute son affreuse misère, and recognize the ugly underpinning of the most spectacular events -- we would then have to do away with the sense of tragedy since it vanishes into the muddy water along with the remants of all those dead concepts which are the cheapest of pleasurable narcotics. But that is not the case. Only two-thirds of what is commonly understood to be included within the word Tragic must be thrown out; there is still left one-third totally invisible to enthusiastic youth. This remaining one-third is intensely real; it is an attribute of heroism, which also exists (but not where school textbooks tell us it is).

To Przybyszewska, Robespierre--but not Danton or his followers--was in that “one-third” of truly tragic heroes on the side of a higher "truth." As Ingdahl obviously understands, the existence of this "truth" that transcends the “affreuse misère” of human nature was important to her, and by extension important to her Robespierre. To them its existence is simply "logical" and necessary (not just pragmatically but metaphysically) as a counter to the nihilism of Danton. In a key moment in The Danton Case, Robespierre echoes Fabre's comments about tragedy.

Saint-Just: . . . It was the desire for that freedom and the faith in it which roused the people after ten centuries of pasitivity! The same desire and the same faith have kept it for over four years in a superhuman strain of heroism! Robespierre: [sullen, leaning against the headrest of the bed]. What of it, child? This desire, this faith--could be an illusion. They may lead to chaos. Saint-Just: [sits down. After a long silence]. Even if it is so... one must go on. Let there be what must be. Even then it is worth dying for that faith, it is worth drawing the ultimate defeat on oneself... for there is nothing of more value on earth. Robespierre: [looks at him fascinated]. Worth dying... for a lie! A lie the highest value on earth!!... [His legs give way under him. He sits at the edge of his bed] Oh, you have finished me, you know.

Saint-Just is proposing the Nietzschean solution to nihilism: the necessity of lies, the need to create new values in the face of a world inherently devoid of meaning. Robespierre rejects this philosophy as conceding too much ground to nihilism. Unfortunately, the nature of faith is that it has no real answer to doubt. Robespierre cannot prove his "truth," so once doubt has been unleashed and allowed to infect the masses (through the betrayal of a leader), it is already too late. Ingadahl does a good job analyzing the theme of doubt and connecting it to Przybyszewska's favorite book, Sous le Soleil de Satan. But I think Ingdahl misses how that faith distinguishes the Robespierre dictatorship (as portrayed in Przybyszewska's plays since historically Robespierre was never a dictator!) from the nihilistic, regressive Danton or Bonapartist dictatorship. Ingdahl tends to reduce them to two sides of the same coin and attribute them to Przybyszewska's "ambivalence."

Ingdahl writes:

There is a destructive core in Robespierre's 'divine' pretentions, and on the subtextual level his transformation into dictator is at the same time a transformation into the Antichrist. Now he will follow in the footsteps of [Dostoevsky's] the Grand Inquisitor and create a dictatorship that fulfulls humanity's three basic needs: to have an idol to worship, to be liberated from conscience, and to join together in an anthill. When after his meeting with Danton Robespierre brands him a traitor whose ideas are from Satan he is in fact describing the essence of his own future strategy.

Ingdahl says again, elsewhere:

. . . This revolutionary spirit is ambivalent: it is evil disguised as good, and its perfect incarnation is the Antichrist. It is this duality in both Robespierre's and Danton's portraits that accounts for diametrically opposed interpretations of Przybyszewska's play as both pro- and counterrevolutionary.

However to Przybyszewska, the difference between Robespierre and Danton is that Robespierre's dictatorship is born from necessity in service to a higher (noble) ideal whereas Danton's ambitions and Bonapartism is dictatorship in service of nothing beyond individual glory--selfishness sanctified by the dynamics of imperialist war and capitalism.

Przybyszewska, as quoted by Ingdahl, explains her ideas of dictatorship:

The genius takes absolute and permanent possession of the idea as an active medium for its realization. It is only in his brain that it finds a formulation . . . The idea born of the masses as an impression of absence then returns via the genius and teacher to the masses as consciousness of the goal.

Since Przybyszewska believes in “the idea,” she cannot see the two types of dictatorship (the one in necessary service of the idea the other in service of “Nature”) as being fundamentally equivalent. However, if one does not believe in that idea, then ��dictatorship is dictatorship,” which is the reading that Ingdahl offers in order to trouble Przybyszewska’s attempt at portraying a heroic dictator. In doing so, Ingdahl makes a good case for the influence of some of Dostoevsky's writings, specifically characters such as Ivan Karamazov and Shigalev, who both start with premises of freedom and end in conclusions of slavery and dictatorship. However, I don't think Przybyszewska had the same angst about dictatorship in and of itself as Dostoevsky did.

In a letter, Przybyszewska elaborates her ideas about revolution and dictatorship:

. . . The basic evil in the mechanics of the revolution: the unavoidable necessity of centralizing the whole undertaking around individual leaders. Even worse: around a single leader -- for as long as there are many leaders they will have to fight one another. The thought, the will, the energy of a single human breain has to penetrate the entire society and decide its every movement. Robespierre’s dictatorship was a necessity for revolutionary France in the Year II; unfortunately the Brutuses of the Comité de Salut grew frightened at the sound of that word. -- I don’t know who said that democracy is the purest form of aristocratic government -- congratulating himself on inventing an extremely bold paradox. it’s not a paradox, but a sad and self-evident truth. Perhaps today the masses, having achieved consciousness, will no longer be shapeless and powerless raw material in the hands of the leader; nowadays a dictator will be subjected to tight control; mutual dependence between a dictator and the masses will be established, as Marat had insisted that it should be.

What Przybyszewska seems more troubled by is the alienation of the people from their leaders, due to lack of “consciousness,” which causes a breakdown in the revolutionary mechanism, and starts the feedback loop of greater and greater repressions--thus creating a true despotism and what I'll call "revolutionary regression."

In conclusion, I cannot prove it, but I suspect--and it is only a suspicion--that Ingdahl’s biased understanding of history influenced her reading of Przybyszewska’s plays. I also think she may have misidentified the source of the plays’ “ambivalence.” Actually, I don’t think she is wrong about there being contradictions and ambivalences, but I think they are not quite what she thinks they are. In fact, it would be interesting to elaborate on them more from a perspective of German Idealism, Hegelianism, and Marxism (traces of all of which seem to have been absorbed and remixed in Przybyszewska’s idiosyncratic theories).

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