CHAPTER V
THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF FRANCE[ToC]
I
The Commune abruptly put an end to Socialism in France. The caldron boiled over and put out the fire. Thiers, in his last official message as president, claimed that Socialism, living and thriving in Germany, was absolutely dead in France. It was, however, to be revived in a newer and more vital form.
The exiled communards, in England and elsewhere, came in contact with Marxianism, and in 1880, when a general amnesty was declared, they brought to Paris a new and virile propaganda. The leader of the new Marxian movement was Jules Guesde, a tireless zealot, burning with the fire that kindles enthusiasm.
The "affaire Boulanger" absorbed attention at this time, and Guesde, in his newspapers, La Révolution Française and Égalité, supported the Republic. But he was also insisting upon "Le minimum d'état et la maximum de liberté" (a minimum of government and a maximum of liberty). This may be taken as the political maxim of the Socialists at that time, although it leads them into the embarrassing anomaly of using their own slave as their master.
Meantime a political labor party had arisen. In Paris, in 1878, a workingman became a candidate for the municipal council, and he headed his program with the words "Parti Ouvrier"—Labor Party. This is the first time the words were used with a political significance.[1] It was a small beginning, his votes were few, and the newspaper that espoused the workingman's cause, Le Prolétaire, was constantly on the verge of bankruptcy for want of proletarian support. In other cities the political labor movement began, and in 1879 a labor conference was held in Marseilles.
The two movements, labor and Socialist, drew together in 1880 at a general conference of workingmen at Havre. Here there were three groups which found it impossible to coalesce: the Anarchists, under Blanqui, formed the "Parti Socialiste Révolutionnaire"—the Revolutionary Socialist Party; the co-operativists, calling themselves the Republican Socialist Alliance, included the opportunist element of the Socialists; and the Guesdists, who were in the majority, organized the "Parti Ouvrier Français"—the French Labor Party—and adopted a Marxian program.