Abstract: The aristocracy, situated at the pinnacle of the social pyramid under the ancien régime, is, for Roger Vailland, represented by the Bolshevik, the elite member of the working class. At the same time, it is nonchalance much more than adhesion to dogma which characterises the behaviour of this new aristocracy, characterised by indifference, disinterest, and impassibility, the privileges of free beings whose sovereignty can only take effect in solitude.
