protest against or our willingness to benefit from the exploitation of the
Arab population in Algeria or the locals in Southeast Asia, Sartre voices
the rhetorical judgment: “We are all guilty.” Doubtless this presumes
a degree of solidarity as well as an idea of collective responsibility that
Sartre has yet to justify beyond appealing to the “spirit of synthesis.”
But his practice is calling for a theory that theCritique of Dialectical
Reasonwill attempt to supply.
If the Spanish Civil War was “not his war,” as Roland Dumas
remarked years later, “The Algerian war washiswar.”^27 In January of
1955 ,LTMhad started a campaign in support of the Algerian rebels.
In 1957 its issues were confiscated on four occasions by the government
in Algeria. The November issue was seized by the metropolitan govern-
ment for the first time. Sartre’s essay on a case of torture by French
forces in Algeria appeared in the weeklyExpress(March 6 , 1958 ). That
issue too was confiscated. In the same month Sartre published an essay in
LTMentitled “We are all Assassins.” As the war progressed and the tide
turned in favor of the rebels, Sartre’s life was threatened and bombs were
exploded by members of the Organization of the Secret Army (OAS) on
two occasions at the entrance to his apartment on rue Bonaparte (July 19 ,
1961 and January 7 , 1962 ). The war ended July 3 , 1962 when France
granted Algeria independence after a referendum.
Sartre and Beauvoir accepted the invitation of the Cuban journal,
Revolucio ́n, to visit the island from February 22 to March 21 , 1960 , a year
after Castro had become premier. They were effusive in their praise
of the Cuban revolution and its charismatic leader. What seemed to
impress Sartre particularly was the evidence for “direct democracy” that
he thought he observed during his visit. We shall see that preference for
workers’ councils resonates with Sartre’s congenitally anarchistic leanings
when his sympathies turn toward the “Maoists” later in the decade. Still,
he acknowledged that this was the “honeymoon of the Revolution,” and
he warned that things could change significantly in the future. He had
described the petrification of spontaneous groups in the Bolshevik revo-
lution and in his major study,Critique of Dialectical Reason, had even
argued that this was its normal devolution in a society of material
scarcity of goods. So, despite the excessive rhetoric, reminiscent of his
(^27) Quoted from an interview of Oct. 15 , 1984 ;Life 440 – 444.
Between revolutions (1956–1969) 305