Les Parias

Les Parias by Christophe Dolbeau, 300 pages, 150 FF plus 35 FF postage from "Irminsul editons", BP 5051, Lyon Cedex 69245, France.

In the past century, from Ireland to India, from Flanders to Palestine, from America to Norway, exceptional individuals surfaced who denounced both capitalism and communism. They were tempted by different elements of fascism and national-socialism and showed sympathy for Mussolini's and Hitler's experiments - which is considered today an ultimate moral and intellectual crime. They became active in the wake of political and social tremors following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the decaying nature of early global capitalism. Half a century has passed by, and millions of young students and intellectuals in the USA and Europe remain unaware of names of thousands of those poets, writers and political leaders, whose legacy is still being devastated by crowded antifascist times.

In this scholarly, well illustrated and highly readable book, the French scholar Christophe Dolbeau depicts the political life and intellectual legacy of the early PLO Palestinian leader Amin Al -Husayni, the Indian Subhas Chandra Bose, the Romanian Corneliu Codreanu, the Fleming Staf De Clercq, the English Oswald Mosley, the Russian-American Anastase Vonsiatsky, the Manchuria-exiled Russian, Konstantin Rodzaevsky.

The author also covers the profascist sympathies and literary endeavors of great writers Rene Benjamin, Sisley Huddleston, Ezra Pound and Henry Williamson. Particularly interesting are pages about the Russian-American self-declared fascist Anastase Vonsiatsky. All these individuals and thousands more, had bad luck of being born at a wrong place and at wrong time. Their books have been removed from library shelves; they do not figure in any school syllabus.

Any student or scholar regardless of his profascist or antifascist views, must read this book. The prose does not subvert the reader; the book is well annotated with huge bibliographic sources in several languages. It is a treasure trove for understanding a Western past that won't pass away...

It has been suggested to the author to translate some chapters into English. For French speaking readers this book is a MUST. The author can be contacted at the above address.