Victor Méric is the pseudonym of Henri Coudon, a French journalist and libertarian author. He contributed to various anarchist journals before World War I. Despite being a pacifist, he served in the army during the war. Afterwards he joined the French Communist Party, but was expelled in 1923 for his pacifist convictions. He wrote a number of books, both fiction and non-fiction, and founded the Ligue internationale des combattants de la paix.
Life
Henri Coudon was born in Marseille on 10 May 1876. He moved to Paris, where he joined anarchist circles and took the pseudonym Victor Méric. He contributed to Le Libertaire, where he became a friend of Gaston Couté and Fernand Desprès. He was one of the founders of the Association internationale antimilitariste in 1904. In 1906 Méric joined the revolutionary socialists and contributed to Gustave Hervé's journal La Guerre Sociale. In 1907 Méric and Henri Fabre created the periodical Les Hommes du jour, illustrated by Aristide Delannoy, which was a great success. They were convicted twice for "insulting the army" and spent one year in prison, where Delannoy died. From 4 June 1910 Méric published the periodical La Barricade. With the outbreak of World War I, despite being pacifist he was mobilized and sent to the front line for four years. Victor Méric was one of the contributors to La Voix des femmes, founded in 1917 by Louise Bodin and Colette Reynaud. Others included Séverine, Marthe Bigot, Hélène Brion, Madeleine Pelletier, Magdeleine Marx, Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Léon Werth, Georges Pioch, Georges Yvetôt and Marianne Rauze. The journal covered a broad range of opinions, with a radical left-leaning outlook. It demanded full sexual equality and emancipation. After the war Méric was enthusiastic about the Russian Revolution. In 1920 he joined the French Communist Party and was elected to the steering committee of L'Humanité. Just after the end of the Tours Congress of 25–30 December 1920, pacifist intellectuals including Méric, Georges Pioch and others took a position of opposition to all war, including war for the defense of socialism. From 1921 he was opposed to the discipline of the Bolsheviks. In 1923 Méric was expelled from the PCF. Méric then participated in the Union socialiste communiste. In 1931 he launched the pacifist newspaper La Patrie Humaine and created the Ligue internationale des combattants de la paix. Victor Méric died of cancer in Paris on 10 October 1933. He was cremated on 13 October 1933 in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Work
Victor Méric contributed many articles to journals including Le Libertaire, La Guerre Sociale, Les Hommes du jour, La Barricade, La Voix des femmes, L'Humanité, La Patrie Humaine and others. He published several books, including:
Le Bétail : pièce antimilitariste en un acte , with Charles Malato, publications de l’Association internationale antimilitariste.
Opinions subversives de M. Clemenceau, chef du gouvernement , Éditions de la Guerre sociale.
Lettre à un conscrit , publications de l’Association internationale antimilitariste, 1904.
Quatre d'infanterie : front ouest, 1918 , from German novel Vier von der Infanterie by Ernst Johannsen, translated with Émile Storz, Éditions de l'Épi, 1929.
Les Bandits tragiques , Simon Kra editor, 1926
Les Compagnons de l'Escopette : roman de sac et de corde , Éditions de l'Épi, 1930.
Jean-Paul Marat, 1930
À travers la jungle politique et littéraire , 1930/1931.
La Guerre qui revient : fraîche et gazeuse Éditions Sirius, 1932.
