SOUS LE FEU DES CANONS FRANCAIS… ET ALLIES.

Paris: Contre-Attaque, 1936

21 x 13.5cm, 1pp political tract. The Contre-attaque alliance was formed after the surrealist group finally broke with Moscow and suddenly found themselves politically alone in France facing the immanent fascist threat. More formally named, the United Struggle of Revolutionary Intellectuals, Contre-Attaque was a union of writers and artists who could not bring themselves to support the reactionary French state and who instead argued for a worker’s front that could resist both fascism and capitalism.

Many of the arguments of the group espoused in a series of ‘papillions’ were in fact those of Bataille rather than Breton – ideas that were badly ill-considered when hind-sight is applied. The alliance was short-lived but in a single year several public offerings were made including this manifesto signed by Acker, Aimery, Ambrosino, Bataille, Breton, Cahun, Chavy, Dautry, Delmas, Dubief, Ferdiere, Garbarg, Harfaux, Heine, Henry, Hugnet, Marcel Jean, Klossowski, Malet, Malherbe, Mouton, Pastoureau, Peret, Rollin and Rosey and which attacked in equal measure Hitler, the French state and the USSR. Thus leaving no obvious allies the group was bound to fail quickly and it did. Very rare. Fine.