In the 1920s and 1930s, he also edited the periodicals Monde and Progrès Civique, which published some of the first writings of George Orwell. He took part in the work of the International Youth Congress (Paris, 1933) and the International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture. He led the World Congress Against Imperialist War (Amsterdam, 1932) and headed the World Committee Against War and Fascism, founded in 1933. In 1927 Barbusse was a participant in the Congress of Friends of the Soviet Union in Moscow. In the publicistic book 'The Butchers' he exposes the White Terror in the Balkan countries. In 1925, Barbusse published 'Chains', showing history as the unbroken chain of suffering of people and their struggle for freedom and justice. Barbusse characterized the birth of Soviet Russia as 'the greatest and most beautiful phenomenon in world history.' The book 'Light from the Abyss' (1919) and the collection of articles 'Words of a Fighting Man' (1920) contain calls for the overthrow of capitalism. Of these, the 1921 Le Couteau entre les dents (The Knife Between My Teeth) marks Barbusse's siding with Bolshevism and the October Revolution.

His later works, Manifeste aux Intellectuels (Elevations) (1930) and others show a more revolutionary standpoint. He joined the French Communist Party in 1923 and later traveled back to the Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution had significant influence on the life and work of Barbusse. The novel Clarté is about an office worker who, while serving in the army, begins to realize that the imperialist war is a crime. In January, 1918 he left France and moved to the city of Moscow, Russia where he married a Russian woman and joined the Bolshevik Party. Le Feu drew criticism at the time for its harsh naturalism, but won the Prix Goncourt. By this time, Barbusse had become a pacifist, and his writing demonstrated his growing hatred of militarism. Invalided out of the army three times, Barbusse would serve in the war for 17 months, until the end of 1915, when he was permanently moved into a clerical position due to pulmonary damage, exhaustion, and dysentery.īarbusse first came to fame with the publication of his novel Le Feu (translated as Under Fire) in 1916, which was based on his experiences during World War I. In 1914, at the age of 41, he enlisted in the French Army and served against Germany in World War I. Although he grew up in a small town, he left for Paris in 1889 at age 16. The son of a French father and an English mother, Barbusse was born in Asnières-sur-Seine, France in 1873. Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.

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