La Révolution Surréaliste 1926
Source: La Révolution Surréaliste, No. 6, second year, March 1, 1926;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2012.
Since the war a new religion has been established, a religion that truly realizes a union sacrée among all men of the combatant nations, of which all the living are the austere priests, a religion more absurd and ugly than all the others: the religion of the dead.
And of what dead! Enslaved to all the bonds, all the commandments of a society founded on the basest of man’s realities; having proved their inability to disobey, having confirmed they were, when it comes to being heroes, nothing but death’s courtiers and the faithful servants of their masters. They had to be garbed in livery in order to fight. What hell did they not deserve? Cattle led to the slaughter are no more worthy of their horns than they were. Shame on all those soldiers who for so long lost the taste of freedom; shame on all those warriors watched over by gendarmes. And more than anything, shame on those who are dead, for they shall not be redeemed. All this blood spilled in the troughs now serves to recycle the worn out precepts of Christian and social morality. All this blood spilled for land and money is a violation of the security of the intelligence. Constrained and forced, some of them served the idea of the fatherland and others strengthened the sense of useless sacrifice. Some people portray the dead in three colors and others brandish them against the impudence of the living. The dead are there wherever you turn. Like god, they come in all flavors.
I assure you that this blood does not cry out for vengeance. Dead slaves remain slaves, nothingness.
There are 1,500,000 dead, there are 10,000,000 dead, there are 1,5000,000,000 dead. Cemeteries and triumphal arches are nothing but symbols: the earth is full of the dead. Enough!
We aren’t inspired by an immoderate respect for life, but the day it will please us to persuade ourselves that the time has come to die we will certainly not spend much time tormenting ourselves over the idea.
Respect for the dead is fear of death; it’s respect for cowardice in the face of death.
And yet, courage was easy. Recognize your enemy, count them, don’t forget them. But the order was given to advance and not look back. Their enemy was behind them. Except for those who fled the firing, all they ever did was turn their backs on their enemy, an unforgiveable crime. Since man no longer has the perfect candor of children he can no longer, like them, surrender without standing accused of cowardice.
Those who know evil will combat it, at however high a level it might be. We should remain silent about all those who accepted evil and may our thoughts forever forbid their ever entering their domain. And may their still living brothers return and be killed on the field of honor.