Raymond-Louis Lefebvre (24 April 1891,

Vire Vire () is a town and a former commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region in northwestern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Vire Normandie. Geography The town is located on the river Vire. Much of it ...

– presumed date of death 1 October 1920) was a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

writer and political activist. He attended the

2nd World Congress of the Comintern The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International was a gathering of approximately 220 voting and non-voting representatives of Communist and revolutionary socialist political parties from around the world, held in Petrograd and Moscow from J ...

from 19 July to 7 August 1920, but along with two other French delegates disappeared in the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

whilst returning.John Riddell (editor and translator), ''Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!: Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920'' (p. 7). In two volumes. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991 Lefebvre served as a soldier during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and in 1917 described his experiences in ''Le sacrifice d'Abraham'' ("The Sacrifice of Abraham"). He had been wounded and was revolted by the whole experience. This work placed him alongside

Henri Barbusse Henri Barbusse (; 17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party. He was a lifelong friend of Albert Einstein. Life The son of a French father and an English mother, Barbusse was born in Asnièr ...

Georges Duhamel Georges Duhamel (; ; 30 June 1884 – 13 April 1966) was a French author, born in Paris. Duhamel trained as a doctor, and during World War I was attached to the French Army. In 1920, he published '' Confession de minuit'', the first of a serie ...

Marcel Martinet Marcel Martinet (Dijon, 22 August 1887 – Saumur, 18 February 1944) was a French pacifist socialist revolutionary militant and a prolétarian writer. Life Martinet, a Communist and pacifist, opposed the First World War from its outset: his antiw ...

– amongst others – as one of the writers who developed a revolutionary perspective during the war. He was involved in setting up a radical veterans' association, the Association Républicaine des Anciens Combattants. After attending the 2nd Congress of the Comintern, he was appointed to the Provisional International Bureau of the

Kultintern Kultintern was an international organisation set up to enable the Russian Proletkult organisation to work with an international network of contacts alongside the Comintern. Its goal was to spread "proletarian culture". It was first proposed in an is ...

, an organisation set up to promote proletarian culture.

References

1891 births 1920 deaths Political activists 20th-century French non-fiction writers {{France-nonfiction-writer-stub