- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
- Find Related Materials
Expanded View
Collection Overview
- Creator:
- Paix et liberté (Organization)
- Title:
- Paix et Liberté Collection
- Repository:
- Public Policy Papers
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/6w924b81b
- Dates:
- 1950-1952
- Size:
- 1 box and 1 folder
- Storage Note:
- Mudd Manuscript Library (mudd): Box 1
- Language:
- French
Abstract
French politician Jean-Paul David created Paix et Liberté, a French anti-Communist propaganda organization, in the fall of 1950 for the purpose of waging a poster campaign in direct opposition to political posters published by the French Communist Party since the end of World War II. The organization often used the words and themes of the French Communist Party's posters to ridicule their political agenda.
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Description:
Consists primarily of material published by Paix et Liberte including tracts, leaflets, handbills, stamps, letters to professional groups, posters, final press releases, and radio speeches, all in French. A few articles from the American press regarding the political and social impact of the group's posters in France are also present. The bulk of the collection consists of graphical and textual oversized posters. The graphic designs are either based on Picasso's dove or photographs and caricatures of PCF members or Soviet leaders, including Jacques Duclos, Marcel Cachin, Maurice Thorez, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin.
- Arrangement
The collection is arranged in two series by form: Documents and Posters. Series 1, Documents, consists primarily of material published by Paix et Liberté including tracts, leaflets, handbills, stamps, letters to professional groups, final press releases, and radio speeches, all in French. A few articles from the American press regarding the political and social impact of the group's posters in France are also found. Series 2, Posters, is comprised of 34 oversized posters; 20 of these are text only and the remaining 14 contain graphic designs either based on Picasso's dove or photographs and caricatures of PCF members or Soviet leaders. After the titles of the posters a notation indicates whether the poster is based on text or design material. These materials document Paix et Liberté's efforts to counteract French Communist Party propaganda distributed in post-World War II France.
- Collection Creator Biography:
Paix et liberté (Organization)
In the fall of 1950, Jean-Paul David, mayor of Mantes, Deputy from Seine-et-Oise and Radical Socialist Party politician, created the organization Paix et Liberté in order to expose what he perceived as the communist lies presented to the French public through the posters published and distributed by the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF). The PCF had developed an extremely successful billboard campaign using the 1949 drawing of Pablo Picasso's peace dove, which he created for the PCF's World Committee of Peace Partisans' conference held in Paris in the spring of 1949. The success of this poster in particular spurred David, with the support of Premier René Pleven, to organize a semi-private, anti-Communist agency. This agency published and distributed posters supplemented by newsletters, brochures, pamphlets, stickers, and tracts that used the words, themes and symbols of the Communist Party to counter their message. In fact, the Paix et Liberté poster titled "The Dove that Goes Bang" redesigned Picasso's peace dove adorning the dove with a tank-turret for a head and a cannon for a beak. The posters also criticized several important figures within the PCF including Maurice Thorez, head of the PCF from 1930-1964, a minister of state under de Gaulle in 1945 and deputy premier in 1947 and Jacques Duclos and Marcel Cachin, both party members. Other posters criticized Lenin and Stalin.
Collection History
- Acquisition:
This collection of posters, press releases, radio speeches and tracts was given by Jean-Paul David in 1952 through the courtesy of Oden H. Meeker, Class of 1941. (AM 14591).
- Appraisal
No information about appraisal is available for this collection.
- Processing Information
This collection was processed by Christine W. Kitto in June 1998. Finding aid written by Christine W. Kitto in June 1998.
Access & Use
- Conditions Governing Access
The Paix et Liberté Collection is open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. For quotations that are fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. For those few instances beyond fair use, researchers are responsible for determining who may hold the copyright and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from the Mudd Library to move forward with their use.
- Credit this material:
Paix et Liberté Collection; Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/6w924b81b
- Location:
-
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library65 Olden StreetPrinceton, NJ 08540, USA
- Storage Note:
- Mudd Manuscript Library (mudd): Box 1
Find More
- Subject Terms:
- Anti-communist movements -- France.
Communism -- France.
Communism and art.
Propaganda, Anti-communist -- 20th century
Propaganda, French -- History -- 20th century. - Genre Terms:
- Political posters, French -- 20th century.
Radio scripts.
Tracts (Documents). - Names:
- David, Jean-Paul
Duclos, Jacques, 1896-1975.
Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich, 1870-1924
Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973.
Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953.
Thorez, Maurice, 1900-1964.
