Between Humanism And Terror: The Problem Of Political Violence In Postwar France, 1944-1962

TL;DR: Paulhan as mentioned in this paper argued that even had some men put on trial at the Liberation committed straightforward criminal acts (not merely “political” crimes, a category Paulhan refused to countenance), nevertheless none of the judgments handed down by the purge courts were valid.

Abstract: ideal of wholly rational Justice while in fact merely functioning as a “cloak” for Communist-directed political assassination. This polemic depended, of course, on a view of Vichy as a legal regime, participation in which had not been criminal but merely politically offensive to those who, by the turn of history’s wheel, happened to emerge as victors in 1944. It also hinged on a deliberately formalist understanding of “Justice” as a pure entity constantly under risk of being contaminated by base “passions”: thus, even had some men put on trial at the Liberation committed straightforward criminal acts (not merely “political” crimes, a category Paulhan refused to countenance), nevertheless none of the judgments handed down by the purge courts were valid. This was because juries had been composed of resisters – that is, Paulhan explained, of the victims of those on trial. And victims, even if they had the best intentions in the world, by virtue of their suffering could not possibly serve as properly rational, impartial judges (any more than could Communists, blindly committed to the hyperrational project of eliminating political enemies). The épuration had thus been a bloody farce. And, in countenancing this development, exresisters had rendered themselves “no less cowards and traitors, no less unjust, than he 57 See Simonin, “1815 en 1945.” 58 Paulhan, Lettre, 48: “...les quelques soixante mille Français qui ont été par la Libération torturés, fusillés, brûlés vifs.” Paulhan inserted a footnote after “les quelques soixante mille Français” claiming (based on evidence from The American Mercury and Le Crapouillot) that “Les évaluations courantes varient entre 60.000 et 200.000 morts.” Paulhan’s method of accounting was so outrageous that, as Anne Simonin has documented, Paul Rassinier sent him a letter that called it “vraiment abusif” (Le Déshonneur dans la République, 644). 59 Ibid.: “manteau légal.”