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THE “CLARITY” GROUP
Writers and artists, responding to the ardenis wishes of some of them, and of guides, have resolved to join together to carry out a social action. These writers, who confer on me the honor of making known the decision, form an admirable elite; and it’s not without deep joy and emotion that I speak on their behalf. Their union represents a considerable moral force, their works have made them countless attentive friends; it is a broad and moving influence that they put at the service of the progress of ideas. By coming to line up side by side, they are not abdicating their independence of thought, their literary personality, their magnificently diverse artistic temperaments. But they agree on the essential principles of a clear and clear doctrine: that of the emancipation of men. They have the same respect for life, the same faith in the principle of Justice. They believe that the cause of the noblest moral ideas and the most that of all the opporimates, of all the poor, of all men. He believes that all progress, like all abuses, stands, requires each other without end, and that to go far is to see right. They are not afraid to contemplate events or ideas, to control them, to direct them to their extreme consequences; they are not afraid of the nariesses of reason or the violence of the truth.
They know that fully democratic progress is now the only solid here below. The war has revealed the abyss where we are going, and where we are still going. The old principles of oppression, autocracy, privileges and imperialism - which only hold on with money - have given their proofs of malfeasance 'tomorrow they will give their proofs of helplessness, with their provisional morality which s adapts to appetites, their false right begins a love, their short-sightedness and their contempt for the future. Sooner or later the same causes produce the same effects, despite the disguises of words and things. It is a question of life and death, for the human race that post the irremissibly triggered antagonism of the new order and the forces of the past.
In this fight for the fair and splendid future of which no citizen, and especially no artist, can no longer be uninterested, our comrades who were formerly only snipers or loose observers, bring all of a sudden and in the same meaning, their feelings and their energies.
That's not all. Servants of Republican idea in all its deep human gentleness and in all its global scope, the French writers who are grouping together today believe that they need the help of writers and thinkers from other countries; they reach out to them and call the Thought International parallel to the Peoples International.
By doing so, they are more patriotic than chauvinists. Partly holders of a national genius, which many of them have always served noble enterprises, they know that the good of each chacon - individual or nation - is linked to the good of all. This honors his country, which cries out that the cause of the suffering and the sacrificed is not confined to geographic lines, that the truth has no dimensions or limits. Nowhere is justice wrong, and the ideal is getting better as it grows.
This is the meaning of the idea that determined the neat coalition between the writers of this new group. This commitment made by spirit workers through themselves and towards others comes at a time. It has moral significance that will not escape anyone. The league, the family of free spirits, who understand and who love the public good, is now founded, vigilant permanence of thought. She takes advice and example from the most admired and most revered master of French letters: Anatole France.
It will continually grow in number of new will men during the surge of gradual events. We call friendly all our comrades by our side.
The members chosen for their grouping, as well as for the review which will be its first organ, the title of Clarity, in order to indicate that the mission which they assume is to combat prejudices, errors too skillfully maintained and above all isolate men and women have so far allowed them to be blindly thrown against each other.
The formidable popular power that is rising no longer needs anyone today to shake its chains. The movement at the head of which we deliberately place ourselves would be accomplished without us. Democracy is invincible. But this fatal resurrection of mankind flourished in a calmer and more beautiful way if it is enlightened by the elite, if the world is populated with lucid consciousnesses as well as with wills.
Henri BARBUSE.
For all communications of interest to the “Clarity” group, write to: Clarity, 13, rue Grange-Bateliere, Paris
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