1956 as dual conjuncture: Aimé Césaire between Paris and Fort-de-France.

In October 1956 the Martinican communist and parliamentary deputy Aimé Césaire announced his resignation from the French communist party in an open letter to Maurice Thorez. Widely cited in contexts of black Marxism and anti-colonialism, the letter is a famous testimony to 1956 as a year of disillusionment with Stalinism. This paper shows that it has tended to be abstracted from its immediate political context and Césaire's relationship with communism underplayed or misrepresented in a good deal of commentary on his career as a public intellectual. Focusing on Césaire's relationship with both French and Martinican communism, we explore the interplay of anti-Stalinism and anti-colonialism, both in Césaire's very public defection and in the reactions it provoked among other Martinican communists usually overlooked, most notably René Ménil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]