Symbolic Censorship and Control of Appropriations: The French Communist Party Facing "Heretical" Texts during the Cold War

• Published in: Libraries & culture 2001-12, Vol.36 (1), p.152-161
• Main Author: Pudal, Bernard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acquisition and access: development policy, licenses, censorship; Anti-communist movements; Anticommunism; Censorship; Cold War period; Cold wars; Collection management; Communism; Communist parties; Communist party; Exact sciences and technology; Forgery; France; History; Information and communication sciences; Information economics. Information policy; Information science. Documentation; Information service management; Intelligentsia; Library and documentation centre management; Library and information science. General aspects; Literature; Other economic or political aspects; Political aspects; Propaganda; Publishing; Sciences and techniques of general use; Session 3: Reading during the Cold War; Textual criticism; World wars
• ISSN: 0894-8631; 1932-9555; 1534-7591; 1932-9555
• DOI: 10.1353/lac.2001.0018

The author examines the methods used by the French Communist party (FCP) during the Cold War to control and neutralize the effects of anti-Communist or heretical texts as challenges to its ideology. The FCP was faced with a free publishing market and therefore followed a symbolic censorship action plan. This involved denouncing critical texts as enemy propaganda, either as forgeries or as part of an anti-Communist project, and discrediting their authors to avoid discussion of the arguments put forward. The climate of the Cold War with its bipolarization of ideology, perceived threat of a Third World War, idealization of the U.S.S.R. by Communists, and their world vision of history as a conspiracy against Communism contributed to successful implementation of the plan. The blurring of truth into opinion, the encouragement of Zhdanovjan campaigns denouncing other intellectuals, and the FCP's prohibition of critical confrontation encouraged intellectuals within the party to suspend their professional and scholarly critical mindset and accept plausibility over truth. Internal censorship was practiced through controlled reading programs that limited the exposure of other party members to heretical writings.