He joined the French Communist Party (PCF) during the Second World War while participating in the Resistance. In 1944, he was arrested at the Au Vieux Paris café in the company of fellow Communist resistance members.[2] After the Liberation, he joined the editorial staff of the weekly L'Action, close to the Communist Party.
In 1946, Maurice Thorez asked him to hold the international section of L'Humanité which directed it until his death. In April 1948, he was in Genoa with Roger Vailland and Claude Roy to cover the major strikes taking place there. He also contributed to other Communist Party publications, including Les Cahiers du communisme, Démocratie nouvelle, L'Humanité-Dimanche. He was sent as a permanent correspondent for L'Humanité in Moscow.[1]
Courtade decided to leave Moscow at the end of April 1963; his successor, Jean Kanapa, had already been appointed. Fifteen days after his return to Paris, he was hospitalized and died of cardiac complications.[3]
Works
Novels and stories
Les Circonstances, recueil de nouvelles, Les Éditeurs français réunis (EFR), 1946 et 1954 (illustrated by Édouard Pignon); Le Temps des Cerises, 1991
Elseneur, roman, La Bibliothèque française, 1949
Jimmy, EFR, 1951 Paris in-12 Broché, 358 pages
La Rivière noire, EFR, 1953
Les Animaux supérieurs, recueil de nouvelles, Éditions Julliard, 1956
La Place rouge, roman, Éditions Julliard, 1961; coll. «10/18», 1970; EFR, 1978; Temps Actuels, 1982
Le Jeu de paume, roman, Le Temps des Cerises, 1997
Non-fiction
Essai sur l'antisoviétisme, Éditions Raisons d'être, 1946
Images de la Russie, Éditions du Chêne, 1947
L'Albanie : notes de voyage et documents, Éditions Sociales, 1950
Dessins de Louis Mitelberg, présenté par Pierre Courtade, Éditeur Le Cercle d'Art, 1953
Khrouchtchev inédit, Éditions Sociales, 1960
Roger Vailland et le héros de roman, introduction de Pierre Courtade, Legs Roger Vailland
References
^ abCourban, Alexandre (2022-08-07), "COURTADE Pierre", COURTADE-CABESSANIS Pierre, Henri, dit (in French), Paris: Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier, retrieved 2022-08-11
^Saint-Girons, Baldine (1995). "Pierre Kaufmann". Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger. 185 (4): 586–588. ISSN0035-3833.