lecture 7, "mass politics and the political challenge from the left"
john merriman

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in 1864, the first international was founded -- dissolved in 1876 amidst great tension, and also in the shadow of the repression of commune (and working class politics in Europe and US)

in 1877, adoplh theirs, who crushed the commune, said "no one talks about socialism any longer, we are rid of it."

in late 1880s and above all 1890s, socialist parties become part of the political scene in western Europe, legally. above all in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain--this is part of the emergence of mass politics (creation of political associations, proliferation of daily newspapers, etc.).

Socialists proclaimed themselves internationalists--and so, one of the central questions in 1914 is whether they'll fight comrades in other countries.

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Socialists in France and other countries are divided into revolutionary socialists and reform socialists.

The former, inspired by Marx, of course--on principle, they didn't believe in elections, nor in reforms (the notion was that you were propping up the system; though this puts them in a bind, as you can't have a mass following without participating in this public way). Moreover, conditions for workers are getting absolutely better (prof says this is in contrast to Marxist theory!).

There was obviously also a history of revolutions that informed this political posture--people who were anticipating revolution couldn't be dismissed as unrealistic. Marxism introduced to France by Marx's son-in-law, Paul Lafargue and Jules Guesde.

The latter was a Parisian, born in 1845, son of a schoolmaster--gave up his own intellectual pursuits for lack of money, and became a journalist. Read Victor Hugo, became interested in plight of the poor; became a Republican, sentenced to prison but fled to Italy, where he read Marx. He wanted to capture the trade-union movement, strikes legalized in 1864 and unions in 1881 (called the "Red Pope" by his enemies). Alleged authoritarian personality, looked starved, "always ill and pale."

He helps found the first mass political party in modern France, which becomes known as The French Worker's Party. Which begins in 1881, though with some hesitation, to run candidates in elections--the goals, though, are revolutionary, so elections are obviously not the goal (Workers, prof is arguing, wanted "reform"; 8-hr day, decent wages, etc., etc.). The party does well in regions, but not generally, even within the socialists, precisely because of their intransigence. (Do well in the North, around large textile industries, do well in the center-South, and some places in the South). So Guesde, in this sense, is always on the outside of the movement looking in.

Prof noting that they're constantly on the move--giving hundreds of speeches a year, which is where the railroads come in (it's in the 1880s and 1890s that these lectures-cum-debates become possible; this was the germ of mass politics, of course). A similar thing had happened, on a smaller scale, in the lead-up to the commune.

Guesde's political rival, in the early 1880s, was Paul Brousse, initally an anarchist--who probably coined the term "propaganda of the deed." Left the anarchists and became a reform socialist. He objected to Guesde's authoritarianism, and argued that practical activity should be rooted in the reality of local circumstances (cannot simply be imported from elsewhere).

This debate informs tensions that go right through WWI, despite the union of reform and revolutionary currents in 1905 (under leadership of Jean Jaures)--the Guesdeists advocate a hierarchical organization, where leaders make decisions and pass them down, whereas the reform socialists want a much less authoritarian set-up. This tension bursts forward in 1920, and the Guesdeists end up being the Communists (when, then, in 1922/1923, Moscow orders intellectuals expelled from the party, woillah!).

Going back: Brousse's argument was that the revolutionary strategy got workers nothing--reform socialism saw itself as the "politics of the possible", and they damned their rivals as the "impossibilists." Broussists argued that local conditions were of paramount importance. They argued that the State was so powerful/ruthless (wine-workers/wine-owners strike repressed brutally in 1905), Broussists wanted to concentrate on winning local power rather than agitating for a far-off revolution.

The Broussists tried to win municipal power (even though the power of these municipal councils was seriously constrained), and do things for their working-class constituency. And they do come to power, in many working-class towns. (Late 1890s/ early 1900s they ally with the anti-clerical, social moderate Radical party in some places).

This, actually, leaves the revolutionary socialists behind, as workers prefer to vote for parties giving concrete reforms (and this is why the Guesdists find themselves eventually compelled to run candidates). Municipal socialism, then, is one of the things that emerges from this conjuncture.

1898/1899, the first socialist paper makes it to a cabinet meeting (the Guesdists go wild, of course, because you have a socialist sitting at the same table as a butcher from the commune--and they say, "there you go!").

Nevertheless, in 1905, the parties unify, though they don't fully paper over these differences.

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Brousse, as person: son of relative privilege (middle-class), knew Guesde. (Jean Allemane--who says that the reform socialists are all led by non-workers, the middle-class, their bourgeois!--creates another party, in which workers will be both leaders and followers) Brousse accepts class struggle, but makes this case for reform, again.

If you look at the Communist Party of the 1920s, the leader of the party are miners (the leaders have been expelled, cf. the same tensions identified by Allemane).

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Syndicalists (or anarcho-syndicalists), rather like Jean Allemane, argue that we don't want bourgeois leaders--and even more than this, we don't believe in politics. To get from here to the promise land, we need not pass through political engagement (you will end up propping up the bourgeois republic). They see the shop floor, the mines, etc., as the means and end of revolution--the radical syndicalists are very involved in the 1895-1907 strike wave. From the shop-floor you build the bricks that are going to overthrow the state by seizing authority at the local level.

One of the institutions they see as fundamental are the "Labor Exchanges"--places workers from out of town could go to see whether there were jobs, to get some money, where dancers were held for workers, etc. They become part of the syndicalist vision, insofar as they're local institutions that organize worker life in a given location.

They are the idea of a man named Ferdinand Pelloutier was himself bourgeois. Born in 1968, died in 1901. Son of a monarchist family, educated in a church school (kicked out for writing an anti-clerical novel). Failed his Baccaulaureate. But he had already contracted, at this stage, that working-class disease, TB. He was a journalist, but he had to drop out after 18 months, for medical purposes. The disease changed him--when he wrote about the dying capitalist society, he was writing about himself, as well. He believed that only workers could rehabilitate the world, transforming it into a free association of producers. (He still believed in class struggle, which distinguished him from the anarchists, who, prof says, believed more in general "poor" vs. state apparatus).

Georges Sorel, of course, also contributes to this tradition--his contribution was to come up with the notion of the "general strike". He thought of it as a myth, but of a positive sort--a myth that could motivate working-class militancy. People would shut capitalist down by saying that we're not going to work anymore.

When these strikes move from factory to factory, there was this hope that, who knows, maybe this is the general strike. Of course, it doesn't quite work, and the heroic age of syndicalism ends in 1907.

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Unification of the Socialist Party in 1905: how, why?

It becomes a major force in French politics, after unification, thanks to the work of Jean Jaures (in Germany, SDP is the largest party in the Reichstag by 1914--but it doesn't make any difference, as the country is an autocracy run by the extraordinarily stupid Kaiser Wilhem II). France, however, was a parliamentary regime, and Jaures became the unifying force behind French Socialist Party. (When in 1981, Mitterand was elected President, he pays homage to Jaures). So this is his importance--he gives the party this impetus and wide popularity, that would propel it beyond his death.

He was bourgeois by birth--ends up, having failed at business, with a smallish farm of 15 acres in the south of France. He was born in 1859, north-west of Toulouse. He got his education because of a wealthy uncle (won all the first prizes in school--like Robespierre, in a way, though he was a very different person than Robespierre). He did very well; became a teacher, lecturer, and eventually a professor of philosophy in the University of Toulouse. ("Looked like a bourgeois on holiday!). He was a tremendous orator, had the capacity of uniting people of diverse politics (the momentum to find conciliation). And that's what he did in 1905, says prof.

He became a political dynamo of the Left because of his ability to integrate the bigger project--the happiness of humanity--into his politics.