Editing Surrealism (section)

==Surrealism and international politics==
Surrealism as a political force developed unevenly around the world: in some places more emphasis was on artistic practices, in other places on political practices, and in other places still, Surrealist praxis looked to supersede both the arts and politics. During the 1930s, the Surrealist idea spread from Europe to North America, South America (founding of the ''[[Mandrágora]]'' group in Chile in 1938), [[Central America]], [[the Caribbean]], and throughout Asia, as both an artistic idea and as an ideology of political change.<ref name="Bauduin et al">[https://books.google.es/books?isbn=135137902X Tessel M. Bauduin, Victoria Ferentinou, Daniel Zamani, ''Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvellous''], Routledge, 2017, {{ISBN|1-351-37902-X}}</ref><ref name="Spiteri">[https://books.google.es/books?isbn=0754609898 Raymond Spiteri, Donald LaCoss, ''Surrealism, Politics and Culture''], Volume 16 of ''Studies in European cultural transition'', Ashgate, 2003, {{ISBN|0-7546-0989-8}}</ref>

Politically, Surrealism was [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]], [[communist]], or [[anarchist]].<ref name="Bauduin et al" /> The split from Dada has been characterised as a split between anarchists and communists, with the Surrealists as communist. Breton and his comrades supported [[Leon Trotsky]] and his [[International Left Opposition]] for a while, though there was an openness to anarchism that manifested more fully after World War II. Some Surrealists, such as [[Benjamin Péret]], Mary Low, and Juan Breá, aligned with forms of [[left communism]]. When the Dutch surrealist photographer [[w:nl:Emiel van Moerkerken|Emiel van Moerkerken]] came to Breton, he did not want to sign the manifesto because he was not a Trotskyist. For Breton being a communist was not enough. Breton denied Van Moerkerken's pictures for a publication afterwards.<ref name="Moerkerken" /> This caused a split in surrealism. Others fought for complete liberty from political ideologies, like [[Wolfgang Paalen]], who, after Trotsky's assassination in Mexico, prepared a schism between art and politics through his counter-surrealist art-magazine ''[[DYN (magazine)|DYN]]'' and so prepared the ground for the abstract expressionists. Dalí supported capitalism and the fascist dictatorship of [[Francisco Franco]] but cannot be said to represent a trend in Surrealism in this respect; in fact, he was considered, by Breton and his associates, to have betrayed and left Surrealism. Benjamin Péret, Mary Low, Juan Breá, and Spanish-native [[Eugenio Granell|Eugenio Fernández Granell]] joined the [[Workers' Party of Marxist Unification|POUM]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref name="Bauduin et al" /><ref name="Spiteri" />

Breton's followers, along with the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]], were working for the "liberation of man". However, Breton's group refused to prioritize the [[proletarian]] struggle over radical creation such that their struggles with the Party made the late 1920s a turbulent time for both. Many individuals closely associated with Breton, notably Aragon, left his group to work more closely with the Communists.<ref name="Bauduin et al" /><ref name="Spiteri" />

Surrealists have often sought to link their efforts with political ideals and activities. In the ''Declaration of January 27, 1925'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1925Surrealism.html |title=Modern History Sourcebook: A Surrealist Manifesto, 1925 |publisher=Fordham.edu |date=1925-01-27 |access-date=2009-12-26}}</ref> for example, members of the Paris-based [[Bureau of Surrealist Research]] (including Breton, Aragon and Artaud, as well as some two dozen others) declared their affinity for revolutionary politics. While this was initially a somewhat vague formulation, by the 1930s many Surrealists had strongly identified themselves with communism. The foremost document of this tendency within Surrealism is the ''Manifesto for a Free Revolutionary Art'',<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.generation-online.org/c/fcsurrealism1.htm|title=Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art – Breton/Trotsky(1938)|website=Generation-online.org}}</ref> published under the names of Breton and [[Diego Rivera]], but actually co-authored by Breton and [[Leon Trotsky]].<ref>Lewis, Helena. ''Dada Turns Red''. 1990. University of Edinburgh Press. A history of the uneasy relations between Surrealists and Communists from the 1920s through the 1950s.</ref>

However, in 1933 the Surrealists' assertion that a "[[proletarian literature]]" within a capitalist society was impossible led to their break with the Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires, and the expulsion of Breton, Éluard and Crevel from the Communist Party.<ref name="grove"/>

In 1925, the Paris Surrealist group and the extreme left of the [[French Communist Party]] came together to support [[Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi|Abd-el-Krim]], leader of the [[Rif]] uprising against French colonialism in [[Morocco]]. In an open letter to writer and French ambassador to Japan, [[Paul Claudel]], the Paris group announced:

{{blockquote|We Surrealists pronounced ourselves in favour of changing the imperialist war, in its chronic and colonial form, into a civil war. Thus we placed our energies at the disposal of the revolution, of the proletariat and its struggles, and defined our attitude towards the colonial problem, and hence towards the colour question.}}

The anticolonial revolutionary and proletarian politics of "Murderous Humanitarianism" (1932) which was drafted mainly by Crevel, signed by Breton, Éluard, Péret, Tanguy, and the Martiniquan Surrealists [[Pierre Yoyotte]] and [[J.M. Monnerot]] perhaps makes it the original document of what is later called "black Surrealism",<ref>{{cite web |author-link =Robin Kelley|last=Kelley|first= Robin D. G.|date= November 1999|work = Monthly Review |url =https://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/a-poetics-of-anticolonialism/|title=A Poetics of Anticolonialism}}</ref> although it is the contact between [[Aimé Césaire]] and Breton in the 1940s in [[Martinique]] that really lead to the communication of what is known as "black Surrealism".

Anticolonial revolutionary writers in the [[Négritude]] movement of [[Martinique]], a French colony at the time, took up Surrealism as a revolutionary method – a critique of European culture and a radical subjective. This linked with other Surrealists and was very important for the subsequent development of Surrealism as a revolutionary praxis. The journal ''[[Tropiques]]'', featuring the work of Césaire along with [[Suzanne Césaire]], [[René Ménil]], [[Lucie Thésée]], [[Aristide Maugée]] and others, was first published in 1941.<ref>[[Robin Kelley|Kelley, Robin D. G.]] "Poetry and the Political Imagination: Aimé Césaire, Negritude, & the Applications of Surrealism". July 2001</ref>

In 1938 André Breton traveled with his wife, the painter [[Jacqueline Lamba]], to [[Mexico]] to meet Trotsky (staying as the guest of Diego Rivera's former wife Guadalupe Marin), and there he met [[Frida Kahlo]] and saw her paintings for the first time. Breton declared Kahlo to be an "innate" Surrealist painter.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fridakahlofans.com/chronologyenglish.html |title=Frida Kahlo, Paintings, Chronology, Biography, Bio |publisher=Fridakahlofans.com |access-date=2009-12-26 |archive-date=2010-04-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100402091826/http://www.fridakahlofans.com/chronologyenglish.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Internal politics===
In 1929 the satellite group associated with the journal ''Le Grand Jeu'', including [[Roger Gilbert-Lecomte]], [[Maurice Henry]] and the Czech painter [[Josef Sima]], was ostracized. Also in February, Breton asked Surrealists to assess their "degree of moral competence", and theoretical refinements included in the second ''[[Surrealist Manifesto|manifeste du surréalisme]]'' excluded anyone reluctant to commit to collective action, a list which included Leiris, Limbour, Morise, Baron, Queneau, Prévert, Desnos, Masson and Boiffard. Excluded members launched a counterattack, sharply criticizing Breton in the pamphlet ''[[Un Cadavre]]'', which featured a picture of Breton wearing a [[crown of thorns]]. The pamphlet drew upon an earlier act of subversion by likening Breton to [[Anatole France]], whose unquestioned value Breton had challenged in 1924.

The disunion of 1929–30 and the effects of ''Un Cadavre'' had very little negative impact upon Surrealism as Breton saw it, since core figures such as Aragon, Crevel, Dalí and Buñuel remained true to the idea of group action, at least for the time being. The success (or the controversy) of Dalí and Buñuel's film ''[[L'Age d'Or]]'' in December 1930 had a regenerative effect, drawing a number of new recruits, and encouraging countless new artistic works the following year and throughout the 1930s.

Disgruntled surrealists moved to the periodical ''[[Documents (magazine)|Documents]]'', edited by [[Georges Bataille]], whose anti-idealist materialism formed a hybrid Surrealism intending to expose the base instincts of humans.<ref name="grove"/><ref name="pompidou">[http://www.cnac-gp.fr/education/ressources/ENS-Surrealistart-EN/ENS-Surrealistart-EN.htm Surrealist Art] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120918070327/http://www.cnac-gp.fr/education/ressources/ENS-Surrealistart-EN/ENS-Surrealistart-EN.htm |date=2012-09-18 }} from [[Centre Pompidou]]. Retrieved March 20, 2007.</ref> To the dismay of many, ''Documents'' fizzled out in 1931, just as Surrealism seemed to be gathering more steam.

There were a number of reconciliations after this period of disunion, such as between Breton and Bataille, while Aragon left the group after committing himself to the [[French Communist Party]] in 1932. More members were ousted over the years for a variety of infractions, both political and personal, while others left in pursuit of their own style.

By the end of World War II, the surrealist group led by André Breton decided to explicitly embrace anarchism. In 1952 Breton wrote "It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself."<ref name="anarchosurrealism">{{cite web|url=http://libcom.org/history/1919-1950-the-politics-of-surrealism |title=1919–1950: The politics of Surrealism by Nick Heath |publisher=Libcom.org |access-date=2009-12-26}}</ref> Breton was consistent in his support for the [[Fédération Anarchiste|francophone Anarchist Federation]] and he continued to offer his solidarity after the [[Platformism|Platformists]] supporting Fontenis transformed the FA into the Fédération Communiste Libertaire. He was one of the few intellectuals who continued to offer his support to the FCL during the Algerian war when the FCL suffered severe repression and was forced underground. He sheltered Fontenis whilst he was in hiding. He refused to take sides on the splits in the French anarchist movement and both he and Peret expressed solidarity as well with the new [[Fédération anarchiste]] set up by the synthesist anarchists and worked in the Antifascist Committees of the 60s alongside the FA.<ref name="anarchosurrealism"/>