Creating a Collective Intellectual in the Political Field

Abstract

The Rassemblement Démocratique Révolutionnaire [Revolutionary Democratic Rally] (RDR) was a political venture created in France in 1948 with the aim of defending a neutralist position, refusing the either-or alternatives between the Atlantic and Soviet blocs. This article begins with a sociographic presentation of the militant intellectuals who founded this original political initiative; then, we address the political activism and positionings of this distinctive partisan milieu, where intellectuals were characteristically overrepresented. We analyse the RDR’s methods of establishing a new position within the political and intellectual fields, as well as the way in which their forms of intervention and positionings were influenced by their members’ social profiles and trajectories as activists. Lastly, we question how the RDR’s members intervened within the domain of ideological production - both as a partisan venture and a collective intellectual - and to what extent the search for such a fragile equilibrium impacted its success or failure.