11

Means and ends: political

existentialism

I

nthischapterwe return to the texts that form the common source
for the ethical and political streams mentioned in theprevious
chapter. But now our intent is to review some of the same institutions,
structures and events from the perspective of Sartre’s developing polit-
ical theory and practice. Perforce, such a move will entail some repeti-
tion – a certain “rerun” of the film for the sake of a perspective politically
enriched much as Heidegger famously ventured when he undertook a
Wiederholung(repetition) of the first portion ofBeing and Timeunder the
aspect of “temporality” in the second. The political significance rather
eclipsed in theprevious chaptershould now achieve full view. As a
student in the lyce ́e, the young Sartre did not display a serious interest
in political theory or in practical politics generally. His natural tenden-
cies were anarchic. Toward the end of his years at the ENS, however, he
did publish an informed essay on contemporary French legal theories
“The Theory of State in Modern French Thought” ( 1927 ). It was in
the fall of that year that his close friend Paul Nizan joined the French
Communist Party (PCF). Nizan would later spend an idealistic year in
the USSR and return to lecture Sartre, Beauvoir and their mutual
friends on the promise of the Soviet Revolution. Sartre’s interests, at
that time, were more literary and philosophical than political. He
resisted the siren call of socialism, for example, that had turned the
heads of many of his classmates at the E ́cole, including Raymond Aron.^1
Eschewing party adherence, Sartre nonetheless was strongly opposed to

(^1) Ce ́r 476 – 477. This essay is a revision and expansion of my contribution toThe Cambridge
Companion to Existentialism, ed. Steven Crowell (Cambridge University Press, 2012 ), “Polit-
ical Existentialism: The Career of Sartre’s Political Thought,” used with permission.
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