Pierre Guillaume (born 22 December 1940) is a French political activist and publisher. He was the founder of the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

book shop La Vieille Taupe in 1965 and later the

Holocaust denying Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

publishing house of the same name. A former member of ''

Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie () was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the '' Junius Pamphlet'', but which pr ...

'', he moved to ''Pouvoir Ouvrier'' with

Jean-François Lyotard Jean-François Lyotard (; ; ; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and ...

and Pierre Souyri.

Biography

Guillaume's name is associated with La Vieille Taupe, which was an ultra left bookstore founded in 1965 and closed in 1972. The name was taken over by Guillaume,

Serge Thion Serge Thion (25 April 1942 – 15 October 2017, Créteil) was a French sociologist. A former researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, he was dismissed from his position at the center for Holocaust denial activities."His Hol ...

and Alain Guionnet in 1979 for the distribution of

Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

books and the

Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Interna ...

pamphlet, ''Auschwitz, or the great alibi''. From 1957 to 1959, he prepared for archery at the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr at the

Prytanée National Militaire The Prytanée national militaire is a French military school managed by the French military, offering regular secondary education as well as special preparatory classes, equivalent in level to the first years of university, for students who wish ...

, and became eligible, but changed his mind. He joined

, without playing a "remarkable role" according to the account of

Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, ps ...

. He fought in the Algerian War. In 1965, with the help of Jacques Baynac, he opened La Vieille Taupe bookstore, which was linked to the group ''Pouvoir ouvrier'', a French

ultra-left The term ultra-leftism, when used among Marxist groups, is a pejorative for certain types of positions on the far-left that are extreme or uncompromising. Another definition historically refers to a particular current of Marxist communism, where ...

group sharing a critical stance to

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

as Socialisme ou Barbarie from whom they had split in 1963. In September 1967, when his exclusion was imminent, Guillaume and Beynac left ''Pouvoir ouvrier'', followed by most of the young members of the group. Then, La Vieille Taupe became the name of a small, informal group of people interested in studying the ultra left, the Situationist International, and Rosa Luxemburg. The current bookstore named La Vieille Taupe in Paris sells books that are fundamental to these movements. In 1980, Guillaume edited the

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

essay "Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression" and the 1996

Roger Garaudy Roger Garaudy (; 17 July 1913 – 13 June 2012) was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. In 1998, he was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law for claiming that ...

book ''The Founding Myths of Modern Israel''. The politics of Guillaume and other ultra-left Holocaust deniers (including

and

Paul Rassinier Paul Rassinier (18 March 1906 – 28 July 1967) was a political activist and writer who is viewed as "the father of Holocaust denial". Totten, Samuel; Bartrop, Paul Robert; Jacobs, Steven L. "Rassinier, Paul", ''Dictionary of Genocide'', Vo ...

) have been characterized as "anarcho-Marxist." According to

Alain Finkielkraut Alain Finkielkraut (, ; ; born 30 June 1949) is a French philosopher and public intellectual. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics, many on the ideas of tradition and identitary nonviolence, including Jewish identity and ant ...

, Guillaume's commitment to Holocaust denial stemmed from his ultra-left politics, rather than from antisemitism. The genocide of the Jews was seen by Guillaume and others as a distraction from class struggle, and as playing into the hands of

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

and Stalinist ideologies, and was hence denied.

Biography

References

See also