Editing André Gide (section)

==Political views and the Soviet Union==
During the 1930s, Gide briefly became a Communist, or more precisely, a [[fellow traveler]] (he never formally joined any [[Communist party]]), but he, an individualist himself, advocated the idea of Communist individualism.<ref name="gf" /> Despite supporting the Soviet Union, he acknowledged the political repression in the USSR. Gide insisted on the release of [[Victor Serge]], a Soviet writer and a member of the [[Left Opposition]] who was prosecuted by the Stalinist regime for his views.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/victor-serge-the-spirit-of-liberty/ | title=Victor Serge: The Spirit of Liberty | date=23 August 2022 }}</ref><ref name="bio"/> As a distinguished writer sympathizing with the cause of Communism, he was invited to speak at [[Maxim Gorky]]'s funeral and to tour the [[Soviet Union]] as a guest of the Soviet Union of Writers. He encountered censorship of his speeches and was particularly disillusioned with the state of culture under Soviet Communism. In his work, ''Retour de L'U.R.S.S.'' (''Return from the USSR'', 1936), he broke with such socialist friends as [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}; the book was addressed to pro-Soviet readers, so the purpose was to expose a reader to doubts instead of presenting harsh criticism.<ref name="bio"/> While admitting the economic and social achievements of the USSR compared to the Russian Empire, he noted the decay of culture, the erasure of the individuality of Soviet citizens, and the suppression of any dissent:
{{quote|Then would it not be better to, instead of playing on words, simply to acknowledge that the revolutionary spirit (or even simply the critical spirit) is no longer the correct thing, that it is not wanted any more? What is wanted now is compliance, conformism. What is desired and demanded is approval of all that is done in the U. S. S. R.; and an attempt is being made to obtain an approval that is not mere resignation, but a sincere, an enthusiastic approval. What is most astounding is that this attempt is successful. On the other hand the smallest protest, the least criticism, is liable to the severest penalties, and in fact is immediately stifled. And I doubt whether in any other country in the world, even Hitler's Germany, thought to be less free, more bowed down, more fearful (terrorized), more vassalized.|André Gide ''Return from the U. S. S. R.''<ref>''Return from the U. S. S. R.'' translated in English, D. Bussy (Alfred Knopf, 1937), pp. 41–42</ref>}}
Gide does not express his attitude towards Stalin, but he describes the signs of his personality cult: "in each [home], ... the same portrait of Stalin, and nothing else"; "portrait of Stalin... , in the same place no doubt where the icon used to be. Is it adoration, love, or fear? I do not know; always and everywhere he is present."<ref>''Return from the U. S. S. R.'' translated in English, D. Bussy (Alfred Knopf, 1937), pp. 25; 45</ref> However, Gide wrote that these problems could be solved by raising the cultural level of Soviet society.

When Gide began preparing his manuscript for publication, the Kremlin was immediately informed about it,<ref name="rg">{{Cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314098942|title=Andre Gide's Retour de L'U.R.S.S. and Its Publication History: A View from the Kremlin}}</ref> and soon Gide would be visited by the Soviet author [[Ilya Ehrenburg]], who said that he agreed with Gide, but asked to postpone the publication, as the Soviet Union assisted the Republicans in Spain; two days later, [[Louis Aragon]] delivered a letter from [[Jef Last]] asking to postpone the publication. These measures didn't help, and as the book was published, Gide was condemned in the Soviet press<ref name="rg"/><ref name="bio"/> and by the "friends of the USSR": [[Nordahl Grieg]] wrote that the reason of writing the book was Gide's impatience, and that with his book he made a favour to the Fascists, who greeted it with joy.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NIZnEAAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-299-33650-9 | title=The Making of an Antifascist: Nordahl Grieg Between the World Wars | date=14 June 2022 | publisher=University of Wisconsin Pres }}</ref> In 1937, in response, Gide published ''Afterthoughts on the U. S. S. R.''; earlier, Gide read Trotsky's ''[[The Revolution Betrayed]]'' and met Victor Serge who provided him more information about the Soviet Union.<ref name="bio">Alan Sheridan. André Gide: A Life in the Present (1999)</ref> In ''Afterthoughts'', Gide is more direct in his criticism of the Soviet society: "Citrine, Trotsky, Mercier, Yvon, Victor Serge, Leguay, Rudolf and many others have helped me with their documentation. Everything they have taught me so far I had only suspected it – has confirmed and reinforced my fears".<ref name="aft">Afterthoughts: A Sequel to Back from the U.S.S.R (1937)</ref> The main points of ''Afterthoughts'' were that the dictatorship of the proletariat became the dictatorship of Stalin, and that the privileged bureaucracy became the new ruling class which profited by the workers' [[surplus labour]], spending the state budget on projects like the [[Palace of Soviets]] or to raise its own standards of living, while the working class lived in extreme poverty; Gide cited the official Soviet newspapers to prove his statements.<ref name="aft"/><ref name="bio"/><ref>[https://files.libcom.org/files/Vanguard%20(Vol.%204,%20No.%201,%20November%201937).pdf Gide answers his Bolshevik critics] libcom.org</ref>

During the World War II Gide came to a conclusion that "absolute liberty destroys the individual and also society unless it be closely linked to tradition and discipline"; he rejected the revolutionary idea of Communism as breaking with the traditions, and wrote that "if civilization depended solely on those who initiated revolutionary theories, then it would perish, since culture needs for its survival a continuous and developing tradition." In ''Thesee'', written in 1946, he showed that an individual may safely leave the Maze only if "he had clung tightly to the thread which linked him with the past". In 1947, he said that although during the human history the civilizations rose up and died, the Christian civilization may be saved from doom "if we accepted the responsibility of the sacred charge laid on us by our traditions and our past." He also said that he remained an individualist and protested against "the submersion of individual responsibility in organized authority, in that escape from freedom which is characteristic of our age."<ref name="gf">[http://chinhnghia.com/the-god-that-failed.pdf The God that failed] chinhnghia.com</ref>

Gide contributed to the 1949 anthology ''[[The God That Failed]]''. He could not write an essay because of his state of health, so the text was written by [[Enid Starkie]], based on paraphrases of ''Return from the USSR'', ''Afterthoughts'',  from a discussion held in Paris at l'Union pour la Verite in 1935, and from his ''Journal''; the text was approved by Gide.<ref name="gf" />