Henri Barbusse (Asnières-sur-Seine, 17 May 1873 - Moscow, August 30, 1935) was a writer, journalist and French communist militant.

His first studies realized them in the Rollin College where he obtained his vocation by the letters, penetrating in the poetry and later in the journalism. In 1910 he was appointed director of the magazine Je sais tout where he overturned his thinking and culture.

Barbusse acquires certain notoriety towards the year 1908 with a naturalistic novel, L'Enfer (The hell). He achieved fame with the novel Le feu (Fire), in 1916, based on his experience in World War I, which showed his growing hatred towards militarism. The book gets the Goncourt Prize.

His subsequent works, Manifeste aux Intellectuels, Elevations, and others, show a more revolutionary point of view. Among these, Le Couteau between les dents, 1921, marked the closeness of Barbusse to the Bolshevik movement and the Russian Revolution. It joins in 1923 to the Communist Party of France and it is rooted in the Soviet Union.