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At the meeting at the Salle des horticulteurs

(40th anniversary of the October Revolution )

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Vladimir Ilitch Oulianov, dit Lénine, Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just, Léon Trotsky

Description

Manuscript signed by André Breton and dated 6 November 1957.

Celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the Revolution of October 1917 during a meeting organised at the Salle des Horticulteurs, Breton evokes the memory of a ‘fervour’ by which he still abides. This loyalty to the idea of revolution is articulated by the twin refusals of capitalism’s injustices and of fatalism, of capitulation in the face of the fate of those hopes born in 1917. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Signed handwritten manuscript, Paris, 6 November 1957. 
1 in-4° manuscript page, titled and signed by André Breton with deletions and corrections, of a text in which Breton reaffirms his loyalty to the ‘cause’, at the same time as his support for the Spanish revolution, the Hungarian revolution and the Algerian people’s struggle for liberation. 
‘And that same look, that of Léon Trotsky, that once again I see fixed upon me twenty years ago in Mexico during our daily meetings, that look alone would be enough to command me ever since to maintain a total loyalty to that most sacred of causes, that of human emancipation.’ [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition publiée sous la direction d'Étienne-Alain Hubert avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier et Marie-Claire Dumas), « La Révolution d'Octobre », Alentours, Œuvres complètes, tome IV, Écrits sur l'art et autres textes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 2008, pp. 1076-1077, notice p. 1451.