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André Prudhommeaux | |
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| Born | (1902-10-15)15 October 1902 |
| Died | 13 November 1968(1968-11-13) (aged 66) Versailles, France |
André Prudhommeaux (15 October 1902 – 13 November 1968) was a French anarchist bookstore owner whose shop in Paris specialized in social history and was a place for many debates and discussions. He was an agronomist,libertarian, editor ofLe Libertaire andLe Monde Libertaire, writer, and journalist.
André Prudhommeaux was born on 15 October 1902, in thePicard town ofGuise, to Jules Prudhommeaux and Marie Dollet, two members ofJean-Baptiste André Godin's co-operative community. His family moved through many cities throughout France, before settling in Paris, where Prudhommeaux studied at theInstitut national agronomique Paris Grignon.[1]
By the mid-1920s, Prudhommeaux had joined theYoung Communists, his activism with which got him expelled from university. He married fellow communist activist Dori Ris, with whom he opened a book shop and moved towardscouncil communism. In 1930, the couple travelled throughout Germany, meeting members of theCommunist Workers' Party of Germany and becoming interested in theSpartacist uprising andKronstadt rebellion, which marked the beginning of his move towardsanarchism.[1]
The following year, he moved toNîmes, where he opened a new printing co-operative. In the wake of theReichstag fire, Prudhommeaux mounted a campaign to defend the accused Dutch communistMarinus van der Lubbe. This completed his departure from Marxism and acceptance of anarchism; before long he had joined the Francophone Anarchist Federation and was publishing its newspaperTerre libre, which published appeals for aid for political prisoners in theSoviet Union.[1]
Prudhommeaux visitedBarcelona during theSpanish Revolution of 1936 and began publishingL’Espagne antifasciste following his return, which he edited simultaneously withTerre libre. Along withVolin, he opposed theCNT-FAI's collaboration with the Spanish Republican government. AsWorld War II approached, he worried that the anarchist movement was rapidly losing ground. During theNazi occupation of France, Prudhommeaux lived in exile in Switzerland, where he became friends withLuigi Bertoni and contributed to the journalTémoins.[1]
After the war, Prudhommeaux and his family moved toVersailles, where he began editingLe Libertaire and worked to reestablish international relations between anarchist groups in different countries. He also wrote forPreuves during this time. He was one of the first to be alarmed by the rise ofGeorges Fontenis'platformist tendency within the Francophone Anarchist Federation, going on to found a newAnarchist Federation outside of Fontenis' influence.[1]
Throughout the 1950s, Prudhommeaux contributed to numerous different anarchist publications and concerned himself deeply with the situation in theEastern Bloc. In 1960, he began to suffer fromParkinson's disease; Prudhommeaux died from this illness on 13 November 1968. His archives were collected by theCentre International de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme and theInternational Institute of Social History.[1]
