Восстание: Философия свободы и бунта (Vosstanie: Filosofiya svobody i bunta)

1951 book by Albert Camusthe book by Albert Camus

The Rebel is a 1951 book length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe. Examining both rebellion and revolt, which may be seen as the same phenomenon in personal and social frames, Camus examines several 'countercultural' figures and movements from the history of Western thought and art, noting the importance of each in the overall development of revolutionary thought and philosophy. He analyses the decreasing social importance of king, god and virtue and the development of nihilism. It can be seen as a sequel to The Myth of Sisyphus, where he ponders the meaning of life, because it answers the same question, but offers an alternative solution.

Camus relates writers, artists, politicians and revolutionaries as diverse as Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Marquis de Sade, Louis Antoine de Saint Just, Arthur Rimbaud, Mikhail Bakunin, Vladimir Lenin, Sergey Nechayev, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Adolf Hitler, Max Stirner, André Breton, Ivan Kalyayev, Joseph de Maistre, Comte de Lautréamont, Lucretius, Epicurus, Max Scheler, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dmitry Pisarev in an integrated, historical portrait of man in revolt. Fred Rosen has examined the influence of ideas of Simone Weil on Camus' thinking in The Rebel. According to him, Camus adopted her criticism of Marxism and her conception of the rebel as an artisan. George F Selfer has analysed parallels between Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche in philosophical aesthetics and found significant similarities and profound differences.

This work has received ongoing interest, influencing modern philosophers and authors such as Paul Berman. It was disliked by Marxists and existentialists, such as Jean Paul Sartre, who wrote a critical response to it in the review Les Temps modernes in 1952. Many European Communists considered his thoughts to be reactionary. Henri Peyre, writing for the Encyclopædia Britannica Online, considers the text to "consist of grave, but inconsistent and often unconvincing, essays loosely linked together." Aidan Curzon Hobson considers it to be an important educational resource. He also considers it to be Camus's "most underexplored" text. According to David Simpson, writing for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is "a reflection on the nature of freedom and rebellion and a philosophical critique of revolutionary violence." It explicitly condemns Marxism Leninism, emphatically denouncing unrestrained violence as a means of human liberation. With this book, Camus became an "outspoken champion of individual freedom and [ ] an impassioned critic of tyranny and terrorism, whether practiced by the Left or by the Right." "Philosophically, The Rebel is Camus's most important book", according to John Foley, "although it is much maligned and frequently ignored".