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nineteenth-century sinologists had laid the foundations for modern China in studies in the West.
But this long episode of almost total neglect of China was to come to an end with the unexpected ascendancy of Communist China. French intellectuals were caught completely unprepared, all the more since there was strictly no equivalent in France to the sympathetic writings of Snow, Smedley and so many other reporters who had prepared at least some sections of British and American public opinion for the Communist takeover. The French intellectual scene was a blank page - a very Maoist feature and this was a decisive contributing factor to what has since been described as the 'love affair' between Maoist China and French intellectuals.
This love affair is a very complex story, and requires a much closer look. It had first of all to do with the rejection on the part of the French intellectuals of Soviet-styled communism, once so popular with them. China and Maoism provided ex-Communist Party members with an occasion to settle their accounts with Moscow. Chinese communism was also considered a valuable experiment in Marxist economic theory, and noted economists, such as Charles Bettelheim, always made this point. For Jean-Paul Sartre, who was in the late 1960s at the peak of his cultural and political prestige, Peking was definitely different from Moscow.
China also met a basic aspiration among French left-wing intellectuals, which I would describe as political exoticism, that is, the tendency to look for a political homeland and model of reference in distant, exotic countries. At times in Cuba, at one time in Algeria, in Vietnam, then in China; each provided a substitute for the ideal society France was unable to develop at home, especially after the failure of the May '68 movement which had been so popular with most intellectuals, and not only with students. The radical young intellectuals of the May '68 generation, such as André Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy, who were later to establish themselves as trendy 'new philosophers', were among the most devoted Maoists.
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But it would be just too easy to restrict the love affair between Maoism and French intellectuals to such radical groups. At least
21
nineteenth-century sinologists had laid the foundations for mod- ern China in studies in the West.
But this long episode of almost total neglect of China was to come to an end with the unexpected ascendancy of Communist China. French intellectuals were caught completely unprepared, all the more since there was strictly no equivalent in France to the sympathetic writings of Snow, Smedley and so many other report- ers who had prepared at least some sections of British and Ameri- can public opinion for the Communist takeover. The French intel- lectual scene was a blank page - a very Maoist feature and this was a decisive contributing factor to what has since been described
and branded in some quarters with utter contempt 'love affair" between Maoist China and French intellectuals.
as the
This love affair is a very complex story, and requires a much closer look. It had first of all to do with the rejection on the part of the French intellectuals of Soviet-styled communism, once so popular with them. China and Maoism provided ex-Communist Party members with an occasion to settle their accounts with Mos- cow. Chinese communism was also considered a valuable experi- ment in Marxist economic theory, and noted economists, such as Charles Bettelheim" always made this point. For Jean-Paul Sar- tre, who was in the late 1960s at the peak of his cultural and political prestige, Peking was definitely different from Moscow.
China also met a basic aspiration among French left-wing intel- lectuals, which I would describe as political exoticism, that is, the tendency to look for a political homeland and model of reference in distant, exotic countries. At times in Cuba, at one time in Alge- ria, in Vietnam, then in China; each provided a substitute for the ideal society France was unable to develop at home, especially after the failure of the May '68 movement which had been so popular with most intellectuals, and not only with students. The radical young intellectuals of the May '68 generation, such as An- dré Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy, who were later to es- tablish themselves as trendy 'new philosophers', were among the most devoted Maoists.
—
But it would be just too easy to restrict the love affair between Maoism and French intellectuals to such radical groups. At least
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