Georges Cogniot (15 December 1901 in Montigny-lès-Cherlieu, Haute-Saône – 12 March 1978) was a French writer, philosopher and politician of the French Communist Party.
Biography He was born Georges Auguste Alexandre Cogniot in to a middle-class family and graduated from École normale supérieure.
A member of the French Communist Party since 1922 he was elected to its central committee in 1926. Prior to the Second World War he was elected to the French National Assembly as part of the Popular Front. He was an organizer of the World Committee Against War and Fascism and protested against the Munich Agreement. He was the representative of the PCF in the Executive Committee of the Communist International and also succeeded Paul Vaillant-Couturier as editor of L'Humanité.
In 1938 with Paul Langevin, he created the Marxist journal La Pensée.
After the Nazi invasion of France, he was conscripted into the army however he de-mobilized for health complications. Cogniot was arrested by the German police in 1941 but managed to escape alongside other prisoners and became active in the French Resistance and was responsible for Communist Party press.
In 1944 he once again became editor of L'Humanité and was elected to the National Assembly. A close associate of Maurice Thorez, he was the first director of the Maurice Thorez Institute.
He was part of the Cultural Affairs Committee. In 1966, he was appointed member of the control commission responsible for examining the problems of orientation and selection in the public service of education.
Works L'évasion. Récits, Éditions Raisons d'être, 1947 Proudhon, Éditions de l'Union Française Universitaire Rationalisme et laïcité, Les Cahiers rationalistes Le Peuple est souverain, Librairie de la Renaissance Française De l'enthousiasme à la conscience enchaînée. La question scolaire en 1848 et la loi Falloux, Éditions Hier et Aujourd'hui, 1948 Hommage à Paul Langevin, texte inclus dans La Pensée et l'Action, les Éditeurs Français Réunis, 1950 Réalité de la nation, l'attrape-nigaud du cosmopolitisme, Éditions Sociales, 1950 Petit guide sincère de l'Union Soviétique, Éditions Sociales, 1954 Conclusions in Mésaventures de l’anti-marxisme – Les malheurs de M. Merleau-Ponty (ouvrage collectif), Paris, Éditions Sociales, 1956 ; p. 149-157. Laïcité et réforme démocratique de l'enseignement, Éditions Sociales, 1963 Le matérialisme gréco-romain, Éditions Sociales, 1964 Qu'est-ce que le communisme ?, Éditions Sociales, 1964 La lyre d'airain : poésie populaire et démocratique, 1815-1918, Éditions Sociales, 1964 Prométhée s'empare du savoir, la Révolution d'Octobre, la culture et l'école, Éditions Sociales, 1967 Karl Marx notre contemporain, Éditions Sociales, 1968 L'Internationale communiste. Aperçu historique, Éditions Sociales, 1969 Présence de Lénine, Éditions Sociales, 1970 Maurice Thorez : l'homme, le militant, avec Victor Joannès, Éditions Sociales, 1970 Parti pris (2 volumes), Éditions Sociales, 1976 Matérialisme et humanisme : Démocrite, Épicure, Lucrèce, Goethe, Marx, Le Temps des Cerises, 1998
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