Georges Cogniot


Georges Cogniot was a French writer, philosopher and politician of the French Communist Party.

Biography

He was born Georges Auguste Alexandre Cogniot in to a middle-class family and graduated from École normale supérieure.
A member of the French Communist Party since 1922 he was elected to its central committee in 1926. Prior to the Second World War he was elected to the French National Assembly as part of the Popular Front. He was an organizer of the World Committee Against War and Fascism and protested against the Munich Agreement. He was the representative of the PCF in the Executive Committee of the Communist International and also succeeded Paul Vaillant-Couturier as editor of L'Humanité.
In 1938 with Paul Langevin, he created the Marxist journal La Pensée.
After the Nazi invasion of France, he was conscripted into the army however he de-mobilized for health complications. Cogniot was arrested by the German police in 1941 but managed to escape alongside other prisoners and became active in the French Resistance and was responsible for Communist Party press.
In 1944 he once again became editor of L'Humanité and was elected to the National Assembly. A close associate of Maurice Thorez, he was the first director of the Maurice Thorez Institute.
He was part of the Cultural Affairs Committee. In 1966, he was appointed member of the control commission responsible for examining the problems of orientation and selection in the public service of education.

Works

L'évasion. Récits, Éditions Raisons d'être, 1947Proudhon, Éditions de l'Union Française UniversitaireRationalisme et laïcité, Les Cahiers rationalistesLe Peuple est souverain, Librairie de la Renaissance FrançaiseDe l'enthousiasme à la conscience enchaînée. La question scolaire en 1848 et la loi Falloux, Éditions Hier et Aujourd'hui, 1948Hommage à Paul Langevin, texte inclus dans La Pensée et l'Action, les Éditeurs Français Réunis, 1950Réalité de la nation, l'attrape-nigaud du cosmopolitisme, Éditions Sociales, 1950Petit guide sincère de l'Union Soviétique, Éditions Sociales, 1954Conclusions in Mésaventures de l’anti-marxisme – Les malheurs de M. Merleau-Ponty, Paris, Éditions Sociales, 1956 ; p. 149-157.Laïcité et réforme démocratique de l'enseignement, Éditions Sociales, 1963Le matérialisme gréco-romain, Éditions Sociales, 1964Qu'est-ce que le communisme ?, Éditions Sociales, 1964La lyre d'airain : poésie populaire et démocratique, 1815-1918, Éditions Sociales, 1964Prométhée s'empare du savoir, la Révolution d'Octobre, la culture et l'école, Éditions Sociales, 1967Karl Marx notre contemporain, Éditions Sociales, 1968L'Internationale communiste. Aperçu historique, Éditions Sociales, 1969Présence de Lénine, Éditions Sociales, 1970Maurice Thorez : l'homme, le militant, avec Victor Joannès, Éditions Sociales, 1970Parti pris, Éditions Sociales, 1976Matérialisme et humanisme : Démocrite, Épicure, Lucrèce, Goethe, Marx, Le Temps des Cerises, 1998