Watchdogs", an exposé on materialist philosophy, and the novels Antoine Bloye and The Conspiracy. In August 1939, he broke with the French Communist Party following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. His motive was not a moral judgment against the USSR; on the contrary, he criticized the French Communist Party for having lacked cynicism: Given his active participation in the anti-fascist movement, as well as his commitment to the republican cause of the Spanish Civil War, Nizan could not accept the party's rapid shift against the popular front. Soon thereafter, Nizan enlisted to fight in the French army with the onset of World War II, and was killed in action on 23 May 1940 at the Château de Cocove in Recques-sur-Hem, during the German offensive against Dunkirk. Politics Nizan's politics took a number of sporadic turns throughout the course of his life, with Sartre noting that Nizan in his youth had vacillated between fascist and communist sympathies, attracted to both extremes of the political spectrum. Nizan also approached the priesthood as a young man but soon turned away from that decision. Eventually, Nizan settled on membership in the French Communist Party, under whose auspices Nizan's public life as an author began. Within the party, Nizan wrote extensively for official communist publications and had his works sold in party bookstores, although his most celebrated work today is his fiction. In his various novels, Nizan explores modern alienation, as well as the situation of the radical petit-bourgeois milieu caught between contending class forces. While Nizan was a loyal adherent to the policies of the Communist Party, his writings anticipate elements of postwar radical existentialism, leaving the contemporary reader with an ambiguous image of Nizan's political standing. Works Aden Arabie (1931), (1960) Les Chiens de garde [The Watchdogs] (1932) Antoine Bloye (1933) Le Cheval de Troie [The Trojan Horse] (1938) La Conspiration [The Conspiracy] (1938) Morceaux choisis de Marx (1934) Introduction by Henri Lefebvre Chronique de septembre (1939) Paul Nizan, intellectuel communiste. Articles et correspondance 1926-1940 (1967) Pour une nouvelle culture (1971) Articles littéraires et politiques, volume I (2005) See also Emmanuel Todd, his grandson References External links La nature et l’anthropologie dans Antoine Bloyé de Paul Nizan 1905 births 1940 deaths Writers from Tours, France 20th-century French philosophers École Normale Supérieure alumni French Communist Party members French military personnel killed in World War II Prix Interallié winners Lycée Henri-IV alumni 20th-century French