Georges Fontenis Papers

Period  1945-1975 (-2010)
Total size   0.75 m.
Consultation Not restricted

Biography

Born in Paris 1920, died in Tours, France 2010; teacher; anarchist; during the Second World War active in the underground trade unionist movement; from 1945 member of the Fédération Anarchiste (FA), founded in the same year; general secretary of the FA 1946-1948, 1950-1953 and director of its weekly Le Libertaire ; founded and led the Organisation-pensée-bataille (OPB), a small secret group within the FA which quickly gained control over its membership in several regions; author of Manifeste du communisme libertaire advocating a synthesis between anarchism and some elements of Marxism, adopted by the FA at its Paris congress in 1953, which led to a change of name into Fédération Communiste Libertaire (FCL); the FCL existed until 1957 and took part in elections; Fontenis was again its leader until 1956; because of his agitation against the Algerian War imprisoned in 1957; from 1958 member of the editorial staff of La Voie Communiste ; in 1969, while living in Tours, Fontenis, together with Daniel Guérin, succeeded in re-aligning several old and new anarchist groups in the Mouvement Communiste Libertaire (MCL); in 1971 a part of the MCL merged with the Organisation Révolutionnaire Anarchiste (ORA) into the Organisation Communiste Libertaire (OCL); Fontenis' publications include `L'Autre communisme, histoire subversive du mouvement libertaire' 1990; died in Tours on the 9th August 2010 at the age of 90.

Content

Membership cards 1947-1955; correspondence (mostly incoming letters) with Lorenzo de Athos 1950-1951, Jean Boucher 1945-1947, Guy Bourgeois 1968-1969, Henri Bouyé 1950, 1969, André Breton 1951-1952, Rémy Dugne 1949-1954, Louis Estève 1951-1954, Robert François 1952-1954, Daniel Guérin 1970-1983, Robert Joulin 1951, 1956-1957, 1968, Louis Lecoin 1949, 1951, Marcel Lepoil 1946-1947, René Lustre 1951-1954, Saïl Mohamed 1952-1953, François Munoz 1952, 1958, Serge Ninn and Giliane Berneri 1947-1953, Marcel Pennetier 1945-1948, Fernand Robert 1946-1954, Michel Tanforti 1954-1955, Louis Vandendriessche 1963-1964 and others; correspondence with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) in exile 1950-1951, the Internationale Communiste Libertaire (ICL), the Groupes Anarchistes d'Action Prolétarienne (GAAP) and anarchist groups in Italy, Germany, Spain and Switzerland 1954-1958; files concerning the FA 1947-1953, the FCL 1953-1956, the OPB 1952-1953, the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) 1958-1972, the Gérard Spitzer affair 1960, the Action Communiste 1957-1958, La Voie Communiste 1959-1963, the Comité d'Initiative pour un Mouvement Révolutionnaire (CIMR) 1968-1969, the MCL 1970-1971, the ORA 1968-1971 and the OCL 1971-1975; some documentation on antimilitarism, the LIP factory in Besançon and education 1970-1973 and n.d.; pamphlets, leaflets and other printed material on the May-June events in Paris, Tours and Macon 1968.

Processing information

Provisional list made by Henk Hondius in 1992