Augustin Frédéric Adolphe Hamon (3 December 1862 – 20 January 1945) was a French socialist-anarchist and later communist editor, translator, and writer on philosophy and

social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...

Biography

Hamon studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, where he lived until 1904. He was interested in psychology, criminology and politics. He began writing in 1881 and collaborated with various journals on science, sociology, and psychology. His first works, published from 1884 to 1891, were on hygiene; his first political book, co-authored with Georges Bachot, appeared in 1889. In 1893, he became an anarchist. A disciple of

Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary s ...

, he converted

Fernand Pelloutier Fernand-Léonce-Émile Pelloutier (1 October 1867, in Paris – 13 March 1901, in Sèvres) was a French anarchist and syndicalist. He was the leader of the ''Bourses du Travail'', a major French trade union, from 1895 until his death in 1901. H ...

to anarchism. Due to the publication of studies on anarchism, he was monitored by the police. In 1894, when President Sadi Carnot was assassinated, he left France. He returned after a year in England and Scotland. Hamon became a freemason since 1894 and belonged to several lodges. He was also a member of the French Association of Freethinkers. Hamon founded the anarchist magazine '' L'Humanité nouvelle'' in 1897, and edited it until 1903.Augustin Frédéric Adolphe Hamon Papers
at IISH Hamon met

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

for the first time at a Fabian Congress in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1894. From 1904 onwards he and his wife Henriette (née Rynenbroeck) translated Shaw's work into French. Hamon was a proponent of using antisemitism to appeal to a mass audience, arguing in an 1898 interview that "With the petty bourgeois especially, anti-Judaism is the road to Socialism. . .the stage through which the petty bourgeois passes before becoming a Socialist". During the First World War, not being mobilized, he went into exile with his family in Great Britain and, as a lecturer, gave 13 courses at the University of London. He returned to Brittany and involved in local political struggles. The electoral victory of the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

was an opportunity for a resurgence his notoriety, thanks to his stature as an anti-fascist and pacifist political writer. During the war, he participated in the Resistance on the side of the Communists. After the liberation, he joined the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

, shortly before his death. His papers are held at the

International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figu ...

.Augustin Hamon Papers
at IISH

Works

* ''Les hommes et les théories du l'anarchie'', 1893 * ''Psychologie de l'anarchiste-socialiste'', 1895 * ''La psychologie du militaire professionnel'', 1894 * ''Patrie et Internationalisme'', 1896 * ''Un Anarchisme, fraction du socialisme'', 1896 * ''Une enquête sur la guerre et le militarisme'', 1899. Reprinted 1972. *''The Universal Illusion of Free Will and Criminal Responsibility.'

1899. * ''The twentieth century

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and worl ...

: Bernard Shaw'', 1911 * ''The technique of Bernard Shaw's plays'', 1912 * ''Lessons of the world-war'', 1917

References

External links

Anarchist Encyclopedia: Augustin Hamon
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamon, Augustin Frederic 1862 births 1945 deaths English–French translators French anarchists French male writers French Section of the Workers' International politicians 20th-century French philosophers French psychologists Social psychologists 20th-century French journalists 19th-century French journalists 20th-century French translators 19th-century French translators French Communist Party members Communist members of the French Resistance French anti-fascists