Paul Vaillant-Couturier (French pronunciation: [pɔl vajɑ̃ kutyʁje]; 8 January 1892 – 10 October 1937) was a French writer and communist. He participated in the founding of the French Communist Party (PCF) in 1920.[1]
Born into a family of actors, Vaillant-Couturier studied law at the University of Paris. From 1914 until 1918 he fought in World War I. He joined the French Section of the Workers' International in 1916, and was a member of the party's internationalist left wing. In 1917, together with Henri Barbusse and Raymond Lefebvre, Vaillant-Couturier participated in the founding of the Association républicaine des anciens combattants ('Republican Association of Former Frontline Soldiers'), a radical veterans' organization.
He wrote of his experiences during the war in several of his works, such as La Guerre des soldats and Une permission de détente from 1919 and in the poetry collection Trains rouges from 1923.
In 1920, Vaillant-Couturier was a founding member of the French Communist Party (PCF). In 1921, he was elected to the Central Committee, and later to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PCF. He was also a delegate of the party to the Third Congress of the Comintern, held in Moscow in 1921. Vaillant-Couturier was re-elected a deputy for Paris in 1924 and served as editor in chief of L'Humanité, the central organ of the PCF, between 1926 and 1929 and again from 1935 until his death in 1937. In 1932, he participated in the founding of Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires, an association of revolutionary writers and artists.
Vaillant-Couturier spent much time in the Soviet Union, and worked at the Comintern headquarters in Moscow in 1931–1932. In 1933 he visited the Far East and met with Ho Chi Minh and other members of the Comintern's Far Eastern apparatus in Shanghai.
He lost the 1928 and 1932 parliamentary elections, but was elected a deputy again at the time of the Popular Front in 1936. As a journalist, Vaillant-Couturier made trips to China and Spain before his sudden death in 1937; his funeral was attended by thousands of people.
From 1934 until his death, Paul Vaillant-Couturier was married to Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier.[1]
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