D O C U M E N T 3 0 3 N O V E M B E R 1 9 2 1 1 8 9
Clarté is not a political party. It was a mistake that its significance was changed
through certain circumstances and presented like an annex of the Communist
Party.[3]
In reality Clarté tries to erect what is certainly the most urgent and—from
the social point of view—the most important oeuvre in the world: it is an institution
striving to organize a kind of world collaboration supported by international centers
with the aim of triggering, from events and modern ideas, grand general principles
that must form the basis of the minds and consciences of decent people. Currently
the world is far too replete with cultivated and adeptly propagated errors; the public
conscience is far too distorted or dissolute for there to be any chance of a radical
social modification like the one imposing itself has, to implant itself and endure.
Things should be brought back to the beginning. The paths to common sense and
reason should be broken through secular obscurantism. This is what our group tries
to do by means of conferences, publications, and articles. Airing the idea in Ger-
many for a long while will, I think, allow it to take form in a serious way.
I have thus conveyed to you some points about our movement in case you had
an inexact idea about it and were thinking that we were either stooping to party pol-
itics or were an incoherent group of unfocused intellectuals.
I am, dear Sir, in devoted admiration, yours,
Henri Barbusse.
302. From Louis G. Du Pasquier[1]
Neuchâtel (Switzerland), 33 Sablons, 19 November 1921
[Not selected for translation.]
303. To Elsa Einstein
[Leyden,] 20 November
1921[1]
[. .
.][2]
Dear Else,
Many thanks for the letters from you and
Ilse.[3]
In one week I’ll be marching in
on you again. S[iements]-H[elmholtz] is the most extravagant and repulsive hussy
on Earth, by
God.[4]
I’ll write to her. Now it looks like I’ll be staying in Berlin for
a very long time, because the curs[ed] Japanese oversalted my brew and watered it
down as
well.[5]
I don’t know yet whether or not I’ll be visiting the man in Düssel-
dorf; it’ll be too much over
there.[6]
Geiger is seriously ill with stomach ulcers, as
his wife wrote me. It’s a big misfortune and fatal for our
experiment.[7]
Yesterday
I was in Utrecht to visit Ornstein and
Julius.[8]
The Ornsteins send friendly