{"id":3295,"date":"2020-11-24T00:03:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T00:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/?p=3295"},"modified":"2020-11-24T00:03:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-24T00:03:33","slug":"the-wsm-and-the-guesdists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/the-wsm-and-the-guesdists\/","title":{"rendered":"The WSM and the\u00a0Guesdists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the <\/strong>La Bataille socialiste<\/strong><\/a> blog<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Socialist Party of Great Britain was being founded in 1904, as a breakaway from the Social Democratic Federation which had pioneered Marx\u2019s ideas in Britain, the main issue confronting the international Social Democratic movement was \u201cMinisterialism\u201d, or whether or not Socialists should participate in a \u201cbourgeois government\u201d. In 1899 a prominent member of the French section, Alexandre Millerand (a later President of France), accepted a ministerial post in a left-of-centre Radical government. This led to a split in the already rather amorphous movement in France, with the walk-out of the \u201cGuesdists\u201d, as the Marxist Parti Ouvrier Fran\u00e7ais (French Workers Party) was known after its most prominent member, Jules Guesde, but which also included the more well-known, outside of France, Paul Lafargue, Marx\u2019s son-in-law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guesdists had once before, twenty years previously, split off from the reformists, who they called \u201cpossibilists\u201d and were in return dubbed by them \u201cimpossibilists\u201d (probably the origin of the term). They were implacably opposed to socialists participating in a government of capitalism and in 1902 joined with other anti-ministerialist Social Democrats to form the Parti Socialiste de France (Socialist Party of France). The ministerialists, led by the parliamentary orator, Jean Jaur\u00e8s, joined together in the Parti Socialiste Fran\u00e7ais (French Socialist Party) which was a pure and simple opportunist, reformist party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue had come up at the congress of the Social Democratic International in Paris in 1900 when a resolution, proposed by Kautsky, was passed which, while opposing as a general principle socialist participation in a capitalist government, left the door open for this in exceptional circumstances. Naturally, the ministerialists pleaded that the situation in France in 1899 had been exceptional. The Guesdists were not satisfied and at the next congress of the International, held in Amsterdam in 1904, moved a stronger anti-ministerialist resolution, which was passed. The SPGB was represented at this Congress (but didn\u2019t like having to sit as part of a single British delegation, alongside representatives of the ILP and the SDF from which they had just broken away) and applauded the carrying of this resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that year an SPGB member obtained an interview in Paris with Paul Lafargue, mainly about the implications of the Russo-Japanese War that had just broken out. This was published in the November 1904 issue of the SPGB\u2019s monthly journal, the Socialist Standard. In his write-up the member, after roundly condemning the attitude of Jaur\u00e8s, commented:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was not for nothing that our comrades of the Socialist Party of France moved the resolution at the recent International Congress, which declared against compromise and intrigue with capitalist parties. The Socialists of France have fought and are fighting the same battle against treachery and folly of opportunism, which we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain are waging in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Standard was still calling the Guesdists \u201cour French comrades\u201d in 1908. The January and February 1905 issues carried a translation of Guesde\u2019s basic socialist pamphlet The Social Problem and its Solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Guesdists had succeeded in pushing through a strong anti-ministerialist resolution at Amsterdam this turned out to be something of a pyrrhic victory for them in that the congress also voted that all the affiliated organisations in one country should take steps to unite into a single organisation. The SPGB refused this in Britain and eventually (1907 conference) decided not to be represented at the next International Social Democrat congress, in Stuttgart in 1907, but to try to enter \u201cinto communication with the known representatives of that uncompromising policy of which the SPGB are the exponents in Great Britain\u201d and who one delegated named as \u201cFerri, Michels, Guesde, Lafargue and others\u201d. The Guesdists, however, went along with unity call and in 1905 the Socialist Party of France and the French Socialist Party united to form a party with the unwieldy title of \u201cUnited Socialist Party (French Section of the Workers\u2019 International)\u201d or, in French, SFIO, by which name it was known until the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the beginning the Guesdists were able to dominate the united party\u2019s executive but soon the open reformists under Jaur\u00e8s got the upper hand, relegating the Guesdists to a minority tendency within the SFIO. In 1907 the Guesdists started their own publication, Le Socialisme<\/a>. The SPGB hoped that the Guesdists would split off from the reformist-dominated SFIO and form their own independent party. An article on \u201cThe International\u201d in December 1907 commenting on the proceedings of the SFIO\u2019s congress in August predicted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn France there was until the International Congress in 1904 at Amsterdam, a body of real revolutionaries \u2013 the Guesdists. But in consequence of the \u2018unity\u2019 craze these revolutionary fighters fused with the Reformers, the followers of Jaur\u00e8s, about two years ago ( . . . ) The Reformers have, at least temporarily, bamboozled the Guesdists; but judging from the proceedings at the last Congress of the Party, some weeks ago, there are already many bad sores which can only lead to a split in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This never happened and the Guesdists remained in the SFIO. Despite seeing this as a mistake, the SPGB continued to regard them as \u201creal revolutionaries\u201d. In the year 1908 the Socialist Standard carried in separate issues five articles translated from Le Socialisme and a sixth from Lafargue. A further four articles or news items from this journal were published in the following years, the last appearing in November 1912. The translations were done by French-speaking SPGB members, at least two of whom were working in France at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was Guesdism?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it that the early SPGB found in the Guesdists that led them to regard them as \u201creal revolutionaries\u201d and \u201cour French comrades\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, their Marxism. The Guesdists were the group which first introduced Marxist ideas into France in much the same way, and during the same period (1880s, 1890s), as the SDF in Britain. So, some of the articles chosen for translation were on aspects of Marxist theory. Three of them were translations of articles by Charles Rappoport on historical and philosophical subjects: \u201cEvolution and Revolution<\/a>\u201d (July 1905), \u201cThe Society of Tomorrow<\/a>\u201d (September 1908) and \u201cFatalism and Historical Necessity<\/a>\u201d (given front page treatment in April 1911). Another theoretical article, on \u201cThe Evolution of Society<\/a>\u201d, by the leading Guesdist Eduoard Fortin, had appeared in the September 1905 issue. Lafargue\u2019s article, in May 1908, dealt with \u201cThe Law of Value and the Dearness of Commodities<\/a>\u201d. In February and March 1912 the Socialist Standard carried a translation of an 1882 article by Lafargue on \u00ab Socialism and Nationalisation<\/a> \u00bb in which he argued that nationalisation was a capitalist reform not socialism. In fact, although the early SPGB did contain German as well as French speakers and the German Social Democratic Party was generally considered the most Marxist of such parties, apart from a translation of Karl Kautsky\u2019s The Erfurt Programme (published in the Socialist Standard and then as the Party\u2019s first three pamphlets) most translated articles on Marxist theory were from French not German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, their position on socialist tactics. This was \u201cthe economic expropriation of the capitalist class by their political expropriation\u201d; in other words, that the way to socialism lay via the conquest of political power by the working class. To this end, said the Guesdists, the working class needed to organise into a mass socialist party and it was the \u201cfirst duty of socialists<\/a>\u201d (the title of an article by Charles Verecque, translated in the June 1908 Socialist Standard) to build such a party by incessant propaganda and organisation. Socialists were, in a perhaps unfortunate phrase of Guesde\u2019s, to act as \u201crecruiting sergeants\u201d for this party. \u201cIt cannot be too often repeated\u201d, wrote Verecque,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthat what keeps the proletariat from its emancipation is the fact of its ignorance. If it could only understand it would free itself. The new form of Society is ready to take shape under its direction and for its benefit. Its consent is the only thing lacking. The daily task of Socialists is therefore to prepare the workers for the historic mission which they have to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe vote,\u201d wrote Guesde in an article on \u201cLegality and Revolution<\/a>\u201d published on the front page of the February 1908 Socialist Standard, \u201chowever legal it may be, is revolutionary when on the basis of class candidatures it organises France of labour against France of capital\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, and as a consequence of this basic position, their implacable opposition to anarchistic notions of minority \u201cdirect action\u201d and \u201cthe general strike\u201d. Of what might be called the leftwing of pre-WWI international Social Democracy\u2014the intransigent anti-Revisionists, anti-ministerialists, and anti-reformists\u2014the Guesdists and the SPGB were almost alone in taking up such a position. Others such as Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek were influenced by these ideas, though they talked about \u201cmass action\u201d and \u201cthe mass strike\u201d to distinguish themselves from the anarchists. In America Daniel De Leon embraced industrial unionism to \u201ctake and hold\u201d the means of production rather than \u201cthe economic expropriation of the capitalist class by their political expropriation\u201d. So too, in fact, did some of the founding members of the SPGB, one of whom, EJB Allen, became a prominent \u201cindustrial unionist\u201d and \u201crevolutionary syndicalism\u201d. This tendency was represented in the SFIO by Gustave Herv\u00e9 (and in the Italian party by one, Benito Mussolini).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guesdist position, shared by the SPGB, was put in an article by Paul-Marius Andr\u00e9 translated in the November 1908 Socialist Standard. Entitled \u201cThe Two Possibilisms<\/a>\u201d, it argued that the anarchist direct-actionists were just as much reformists as the parliamentary gradualists since they, too, were not prepared to knuckle down to the longish haul of winning majority support for socialism and of building up a strong socialist party that would eventually be able to gain control of political power and abolish capitalism, but wanted \u201csomething now\u201d\u2014reforms; the only difference between them and the parliamentary reformists was that they favoured \u201cdirect\u201d as opposed to \u201cparliamentary\u201d action to try to get them. Not only was this ineffective as a reformist strategy, but it unnecessarily put working class lives in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Standard of the period carried a number of articles, some written by members on the spot in Paris, recording the failure of the tactics of the anarchist leaders of the main French trade union grouping, the CGT, to hammer home the same point as the Guesdists: that the way to expropriate the capitalist class was not by industrial action with the state still controlled by their representatives but by political action once socialists had won sufficient working-class support to take over the state.

<\/strong>Were they really real revolutionaries?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But were the Guesdists the \u201creal revolutionaries\u201d that the early SPGB considered them to be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the SPGB was an organisation of a few hundred working men and women, the Guesdists had thousands of members, more than a dozen MPs and controlled a number of local authorities, including Lille, the third biggest city in France. This reflected itself in the different attitude towards reforms, which the Guesdists party had some chance of influencing. On paper, the Guesdists took the view that, as long as capitalism lasted, working-class problems would continue so that reforms would at most only be palliatives and single-issue campaigns were diversions from the struggle to win political power to expropriate the capitalist class and make the means of production the common property of society, which alone could provide the framework within which these problems could be solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, unlike the SPGB, they did advocate reforms. So, their MPs, mayors and councillors had not been elected on a straight socialist programme but on a programme of socialism and reforms. Which meant that, in practice, they were just as much the prisoners of their reform-minded, non-socialist voters as were Jaur\u00e8s and his supporters. No doubt this was why in the end, contrary to what the early SPGB hoped and urged, they were not prepared to break away from the reformist-dominated SFIO and branch out on their own in opposition to it. So they stayed in, with the result that, as an article in the Socialist Standard in October 1910 on the Copenhagen Congress of the Social Democrat International (the same article which represented the SPGB\u2019s definite break with the International, which was described as having been taken over by pro-capitalist elements), noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn France, the Guedists, who at one time, in spite of their small numbers, wielded enormous power for Socialist enlightenment, are absorbed by the reformist followers of Jaur\u00e8s and Vaillant\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another mistaken, or at least ambiguous, position of the Guesdists was their attitude to patriotism. This was an issue that had been discussed within the SFIO in the light of the anti-militarist and anti-patriotism campaign launched by Herv\u00e9. Even though Herv\u00e9 was not a Guesdist, the members of the SPGB who followed affairs in France were aware that some of his views on this question were similar to ours. Thus, the June 1907\u2002<\/a>Socialist Standard carried a translation of his views:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe workers are disinherited and ill-treated in every existing country. All nations are equal, or nearly so, in this respect, particularly now that the capitalist regime renders more and more uniform the material, intellectual, and political conditions of life for the labouring class in all countries; and now that the introduction of the capitalist system in Russia will compel even Tsarism to accord to the Russian workers the essentials of political liberty. No country at the present day, is so superior to the others that the workers of that country should get themselves killed in its defence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article agreed with this position, but went on to disagree with Herv\u00e9\u2019s conclusion that, in the event of war breaking out, the workers should stage an armed uprising to try to overthrow capitalist rule (\u201cRather insurrection than war\u201d, as he put it), pointing out that this \u201cwould be courting a shambles that would make war peace by contrast\u201d, with workers sacrificing their lives in \u201ca fruitless and bloody\u201d action. The article also pointed out that as militarism was the product of capitalism the only way to end it was to end capitalism; the efforts of socialists should be aimed at this rather than at mere anti-militarism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guesde and the Guesdists made the same two points in the debate within the SFIO, but they did not join Herv\u00e9 in denouncing patriotism. The full implications of this refusal to denounce patriotism did not become evident until the First World War broke out. Guesde himself entered the French War Cabinet. Herv\u00e9, it has to be added, did a complete U-turn and became an ardent patriot and nationalist, joining the army to go and fight. Jaur\u00e8s, who was assassinated before the war started, went down in history as an anti-war hero, even though there can be no doubt that had he lived he too would have rallied round the French flag and joined the war cabinet instead of Guesde. This of course completely discredited Guesde and the Guesdists with the SPGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the war, some Guesdists, Charles Rappoport for instance, went over to the Communist Party. Others remained in the SFIO (including Guesde who died in 1922 at the age of 77) and represented a strand of anti-Leninist Marxism in France that survived until a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Socialist Party of Great Britain<\/a> was being founded in 1904, as a breakaway from the Social Democratic Federation which had pioneered Marx\u2019s ideas in Britain, the main issue confronting the international Social Democratic movement was \u201cMinisterialism\u201d, or whether or not Socialists should participate in a \u201cbourgeois government\u201d. In 1899 a prominent member of the French section, Alexandre Millerand (a later President of France), accepted a ministerial post in a left-of-centre Radical government. This led to a split in the already rather amorphous movement in France, with the walk-out of the \u201cGuesdists\u201d, as the Marxist Parti Ouvrier Fran\u00e7ais (French Workers Party) was known after its most prominent member, Jules Guesde, but which also included the more well-known, outside of France, Paul Lafargue, Marx\u2019s son-in-law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guesdists had once before, twenty years previously, split off from the reformists, who they called \u201cpossibilists\u201d and were in return dubbed by them \u201cimpossibilists\u201d (probably the origin of the term). They were implacably opposed to socialists participating in a government of capitalism and in 1902 joined with other anti-ministerialist Social Democrats to form the Parti Socialiste de France (Socialist Party of France). The ministerialists, led by the parliamentary orator, Jean Jaur\u00e8s, joined together in the Parti Socialiste Fran\u00e7ais (French Socialist Party) which was a pure and simple opportunist, reformist party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue had come up at the congress of the Social Democratic International in Paris in 1900 when a resolution, proposed by Kautsky, was passed which, while opposing as a general principle socialist participation in a capitalist government, left the door open for this in exceptional circumstances. Naturally, the ministerialists pleaded that the situation in France in 1899 had been exceptional. The Guesdists were not satisfied and at the next congress of the International, held in Amsterdam in 1904, moved a stronger anti-ministerialist resolution, which was passed. The SPGB was represented at this Congress (but didn\u2019t like having to sit as part of a single British delegation, alongside representatives of the ILP and the SDF from which they had just broken away) and applauded the carrying of this resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that year an SPGB member obtained an interview in Paris with Paul Lafargue, mainly about the implications of the Russo-Japanese War that had just broken out. This was published in the November 1904 issue of the SPGB\u2019s monthly journal, the Socialist Standard. In his write-up the member, after roundly condemning the attitude of Jaur\u00e8s, commented:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was not for nothing that our comrades of the Socialist Party of France moved the resolution at the recent International Congress, which declared against compromise and intrigue with capitalist parties. The Socialists of France have fought and are fighting the same battle against treachery and folly of opportunism, which we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain are waging in this country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Standard was still calling the Guesdists \u201cour French comrades\u201d<\/em> in 1908. The January and February 1905 issues carried a translation of Guesde\u2019s basic socialist pamphlet The Social Problem and its Solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Guesdists had succeeded in pushing through a strong anti-ministerialist resolution at Amsterdam this turned out to be something of a pyrrhic victory for them in that the congress also voted that all the affiliated organisations in one country should take steps to unite into a single organisation. The SPGB refused this in Britain and eventually (1907 conference) decided not to be represented at the next International Social Democrat congress, in Stuttgart in 1907, but to try to enter \u201cinto communication with the known representatives of that uncompromising policy of which the SPGB are the exponents in Great Britain\u201d<\/em> and who one delegated named as \u201cFerri, Michels, Guesde, Lafargue and others\u201d<\/em>. The Guesdists, however, went along with unity call and in 1905 the Socialist Party of France and the French Socialist Party united to form a party with the unwieldy title of \u201cUnited Socialist Party (French Section of the Workers\u2019 International)\u201d or, in French, SFIO, by which name it was known until the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the beginning the Guesdists were able to dominate the united party\u2019s executive but soon the open reformists under Jaur\u00e8s got the upper hand, relegating the Guesdists to a minority tendency within the SFIO. In 1907 the Guesdists started their own publication, Le Socialisme<\/a>. The SPGB hoped that the Guesdists would split off from the reformist-dominated SFIO and form their own independent party. An article on \u201cThe International\u201d in December 1907 commenting on the proceedings of the SFIO\u2019s congress in August predicted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn France there was until the International Congress in 1904 at Amsterdam, a body of real revolutionaries, the Guesdists. But in consequence of the \u2018unity\u2019 craze these revolutionary fighters fused with the Reformers, the followers of Jaur\u00e8s, about two years ago ( . . . ) The Reformers have, at least temporarily, bamboozled the Guesdists; but judging from the proceedings at the last Congress of the Party, some weeks ago, there are already many bad sores which can only lead to a split in the future.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This never happened and the Guesdists remained in the SFIO. Despite seeing this as a mistake, the SPGB continued to regard them as \u201creal revolutionaries\u201d. In the year 1908 the Socialist Standard carried in separate issues five articles translated from Le Socialisme and a sixth from Lafargue. A further four articles or news items from this journal were published in the following years, the last appearing in November 1912. The translations were done by French-speaking SPGB members, at least two of whom were working in France at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was Guesdism?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it that the early SPGB found in the Guesdists that led them to regard them as \u201creal revolutionaries\u201d<\/em> and \u201cour French comrades\u201d<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, their Marxism. The Guesdists were the group which first introduced Marxist ideas into France in much the same way, and during the same period (1880s, 1890s), as the SDF in Britain. So, some of the articles chosen for translation were on aspects of Marxist theory. Three of them were translations of articles by Charles Rappoport on historical and philosophical subjects: \u201cEvolution and Revolution<\/a>\u201d (July 1905), \u201cThe Society of Tomorrow<\/a>\u201d (September 1908) and \u201cFatalism and Historical Necessity<\/a>\u201d (given front page treatment in April 1911). Another theoretical article, on \u201cThe Evolution of Society<\/a>\u201d, by the leading Guesdist Eduoard Fortin, had appeared in the September 1905 issue. Lafargue\u2019s article, in May 1908, dealt with \u201cThe Law of Value and the Dearness of Commodities<\/a>\u201d. In February and March 1912 the Socialist Standard carried a translation of an 1882 article by Lafargue on \u201cSocialism and Nationalisation<\/a>\u201d in which he argued that nationalisation was a capitalist reform not socialism. In fact, although the early SPGB did contain German as well as French speakers and the German Social Democratic Party was generally considered the most Marxist of such parties, apart from a translation of Karl Kautsky\u2019s The Erfurt Programme (published in the Socialist Standard and then as the Party\u2019s first three pamphlets) most translated articles on Marxist theory were from French not German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, their position on socialist tactics. This was \u201cthe economic expropriation of the capitalist class by their political expropriation\u201d<\/em>; in other words, that the way to socialism lay via the conquest of political power by the working class. To this end, said the Guesdists, the working class needed to organise into a mass socialist party and it was the \u201c<\/em>first duty of socialists<\/em><\/a>\u201d<\/em> (the title of an article by Charles Verecque, translated in the June 1908 Socialist Standard) to build such a party by incessant propaganda and organisation. Socialists were, in a perhaps unfortunate phrase of Guesde\u2019s, to act as \u201crecruiting sergeants\u201d<\/em> for this party. \u201cIt cannot be too often repeated\u201d<\/em>, wrote Verecque,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthat what keeps the proletariat from its emancipation is the fact of its ignorance. If it could only understand it would free itself. The new form of Society is ready to take shape under its direction and for its benefit. Its consent is the only thing lacking. The daily task of Socialists is therefore to prepare the workers for the historic mission which they have to accomplish.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe vote,\u201d<\/em> wrote Guesde in an article on \u201c<\/em>Legality and Revolution<\/em><\/a>\u201d<\/em> published on the front page of the February 1908 Socialist Standard, \u201chowever legal it may be, is revolutionary when on the basis of class candidatures it organises France of labour against France of capital\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, and as a consequence of this basic position, their implacable opposition to anarchistic notions of minority \u201cdirect action\u201d and \u201cthe general strike\u201d. Of what might be called the leftwing of pre-WWI international Social Democracy\u2014the intransigent anti-Revisionists, anti-ministerialists, and anti-reformists\u2014the Guesdists and the SPGB were almost alone in taking up such a position. Others such as Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek were influenced by these ideas, though they talked about \u201cmass action\u201d and \u201cthe mass strike\u201d to distinguish themselves from the anarchists. In America Daniel De Leon embraced industrial unionism to \u201ctake and hold\u201d<\/em> the means of production rather than \u201cthe economic expropriation of the capitalist class by their political expropriation\u201d<\/em>. So too, in fact, did some of the founding members of the SPGB, one of whom, EJB Allen, became a prominent \u201cindustrial unionist\u201d and \u201crevolutionary syndicalism\u201d. This tendency was represented in the SFIO by Gustave Herv\u00e9 (and in the Italian party by one, Benito Mussolini).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guesdist position, shared by the SPGB, was put in an article by Paul-Marius Andr\u00e9 translated in the November 1908 Socialist Standard. Entitled \u201cThe Two Possibilisms<\/a>\u201d, it argued that the anarchist direct-actionists were just as much reformists as the parliamentary gradualists since they, too, were not prepared to knuckle down to the longish haul of winning majority support for socialism and of building up a strong socialist party that would eventually be able to gain control of political power and abolish capitalism, but wanted \u201csomething now\u201d\u2014reforms; the only difference between them and the parliamentary reformists was that they favoured \u201cdirect\u201d as opposed to \u201cparliamentary\u201d action to try to get them. Not only was this ineffective as a reformist strategy, but it unnecessarily put working class lives in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Standard of the period carried a number of articles, some written by members on the spot in Paris, recording the failure of the tactics of the anarchist leaders of the main French trade union grouping, the CGT, to hammer home the same point as the Guesdists: that the way to expropriate the capitalist class was not by industrial action with the state still controlled by their representatives but by political action once socialists had won sufficient working-class support to take over the state.

<\/strong>Were they really real revolutionaries?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But were the Guesdists the \u201creal revolutionaries\u201d that the early SPGB considered them to be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the SPGB was an organisation of a few hundred working men and women, the Guesdists had thousands of members, more than a dozen MPs and controlled a number of local authorities, including Lille, the third biggest city in France. This reflected itself in the different attitude towards reforms, which the Guesdists party had some chance of influencing. On paper, the Guesdists took the view that, as long as capitalism lasted, working-class problems would continue so that reforms would at most only be palliatives and single-issue campaigns were diversions from the struggle to win political power to expropriate the capitalist class and make the means of production the common property of society, which alone could provide the framework within which these problems could be solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, unlike the SPGB, they did advocate reforms. So, their MPs, mayors and councillors had not been elected on a straight socialist programme but on a programme of socialism and reforms. Which meant that, in practice, they were just as much the prisoners of their reform-minded, non-socialist voters as were Jaur\u00e8s and his supporters. No doubt this was why in the end, contrary to what the early SPGB hoped and urged, they were not prepared to break away from the reformist-dominated SFIO and branch out on their own in opposition to it. So they stayed in, with the result that, as an article in the Socialist Standard in October 1910 on the Copenhagen Congress of the Social Democrat International (the same article which represented the SPGB\u2019s definite break with the International, which was described as having been taken over by pro-capitalist elements), noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn France, the Guedists, who at one time, in spite of their small numbers, wielded enormous power for Socialist enlightenment, are absorbed by the reformist followers of Jaur\u00e8s and Vaillant\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another mistaken, or at least ambiguous, position of the Guesdists was their attitude to patriotism. This was an issue that had been discussed within the SFIO in the light of the anti-militarist and anti-patriotism campaign launched by Herv\u00e9. Even though Herv\u00e9 was not a Guesdist, the members of the SPGB who followed affairs in France were aware that some of his views on this question were similar to ours. Thus, the June 1907\u2002<\/a>Socialist Standard carried a translation of his views:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe workers are disinherited and ill-treated in every existing country. All nations are equal, or nearly so, in this respect, particularly now that the capitalist regime renders more and more uniform the material, intellectual, and political conditions of life for the labouring class in all countries; and now that the introduction of the capitalist system in Russia will compel even Tsarism to accord to the Russian workers the essentials of political liberty. No country at the present day, is so superior to the others that the workers of that country should get themselves killed in its defence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article agreed with this position, but went on to disagree with Herv\u00e9\u2019s conclusion that, in the event of war breaking out, the workers should stage an armed uprising to try to overthrow capitalist rule (\u201cRather insurrection than war\u201d<\/em>, as he put it), pointing out that this \u201cwould be courting a shambles that would make war peace by contrast\u201d<\/em>, with workers sacrificing their lives in \u201ca fruitless and bloody\u201d<\/em> action. The article also pointed out that as militarism was the product of capitalism the only way to end it was to end capitalism; the efforts of socialists should be aimed at this rather than at mere anti-militarism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guesde and the Guesdists made the same two points in the debate within the SFIO, but they did not join Herv\u00e9 in denouncing patriotism. The full implications of this refusal to denounce patriotism did not become evident until the First World War broke out. Guesde himself entered the French War Cabinet. Herv\u00e9, it has to be added, did a complete U-turn and became an ardent patriot and nationalist, joining the army to go and fight. Jaur\u00e8s, who was assassinated before the war started, went down in history as an anti-war hero, even though there can be no doubt that had he lived he too would have rallied round the French flag and joined the war cabinet instead of Guesde. This of course completely discredited Guesde and the Guesdists with the SPGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the war, some Guesdists, Charles Rappoport for instance, went over to the Communist Party. Others remained in the SFIO (including Guesde who died in 1922 at the age of 77) and represented a strand of anti-Leninist Marxism in France that survived until a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E<\/strong>n <\/strong>F<\/strong>ran\u00e7ais<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lorsque le Parti Socialiste de Grande-Bretagne (SPGB) a \u00e9t\u00e9 fond\u00e9 en 1904, comme scission de la Social Democratic Federation qui avait initi\u00e9 la diffusion des id\u00e9es de Marx en Grande-Bretagne, le principal sujet de d\u00e9saccords dans le mouvement social-d\u00e9mocrate international \u00e9tait le \u00ab minist\u00e9rialisme \u00bb : les socialistes devraient-ils participer \u00ab \u00e0 un gouvernement bourgeois \u00bb ? En 1899 un membre important de la section fran\u00e7aise, Alexandre Millerand (par la suite Pr\u00e9sident de la R\u00e9publique), avait accept\u00e9 un minist\u00e8re dans un gouvernement radical de centre-gauche. Ceci a entra\u00een\u00e9 une division dans un mouvement fran\u00e7ais plut\u00f4t atone, la mont\u00e9e au cr\u00e9neau des \u00ab guesdistes \u00bb, le parti marxiste Parti Ouvrier Fran\u00e7ais (P.O.F.) \u00e9tant connu d\u2019apr\u00e8s son membre le plus important : Jules Guesde, quoiqu\u2019un autre membre, Paul Lafargue, gendre de Marx, \u00e9tait plus connu encore hors de France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Les guesdistes avaient scissionn\u00e9 vingt avant auparavant des r\u00e9formistes, qu\u2019ils appelaient \u00ab possibilistes \u00bb, ces derniers les taxant en retour d\u2019\u00eatre des \u00ab impossibilistes \u00bb (c\u2019est probablement l\u00e0 l\u2019origine du terme). Ils se sont implacablement oppos\u00e9s aux socialistes participant \u00e0 un gouvernement du capitalisme et en 1902 se sont r\u00e9unis avec d\u2019autre sociaux-d\u00e9mocrates anti-minist\u00e9rialistes pour former le Parti Socialiste. Les minist\u00e9rialistes, men\u00e9s par l\u2019orateur parlementaire Jean Jaur\u00e8s, se sont regroup\u00e9s dans le Parti Socialiste Fran\u00e7ais qui \u00e9tait un parti purement et simplement opportuniste et r\u00e9formiste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La question avait \u00e9t\u00e9 port\u00e9e \u00e0 l\u2019ordre du jour du Congr\u00e8s de l\u2019Internationale \u00e0 Paris en 1900 o\u00f9 l\u2019on vota une r\u00e9solution, propos\u00e9e par Kautsky, qui, tout en s\u2019opposant comme principe g\u00e9n\u00e9ral \u00e0 la participation socialiste \u00e0 un gouvernement capitaliste, laissait la porte ouverte \u00e0 celle-ci dans des circonstances exceptionnelles. Naturellement, les minist\u00e9rialistes ont plaid\u00e9 que la situation en France en 1899 avait \u00e9t\u00e9 exceptionnelle. Les guesdistes n\u2019\u00e9taient pas satisfaits et au congr\u00e8s suivant de l\u2019Internationale, tenu \u00e0 Amsterdam en 1904, ont fait voter une r\u00e9solution plus fermement anti-minist\u00e9rialiste. Le SPGB \u00e9tait repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 ce congr\u00e8s (quoique n\u2019ayant pas aim\u00e9 si\u00e9ger comme \u00e9l\u00e9ment d\u2019une seule d\u00e9l\u00e9gation britannique, aux c\u00f4t\u00e9s des repr\u00e9sentants de l\u2019ILP et de la SDF desquels il s\u2019\u00e9tait justement d\u00e9tach\u00e9) et a applaudi cette r\u00e9solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus tard dans la m\u00eame ann\u00e9e, un membre du SPGB a obtenu une entrevue \u00e0 Paris avec Paul Lafargue, principalement au sujet des implications de la guerre russo-japonaise qui venait d\u2019 \u00e9clater. Tout cela fut publi\u00e9 dans l\u2019\u00e9dition de novembre 1904 du journal mensuel du SPGB, le Socialist standard. Dans son article ce membre, apr\u00e8s avoir rondement condamn\u00e9 l\u2019attitude de Jaur\u00e8s, commentait :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab Ce n\u2019\u00e9tait pas pour rien que nos camarades du Parti Socialiste de la France ont port\u00e9 la r\u00e9solution au dernier congr\u00e8s international, qui s\u2019est d\u00e9clar\u00e9 contre le compromis et l\u2019intrigue avec les partis capitalistes. Les socialistes de France ont lutt\u00e9 et m\u00e8nent la m\u00eame bataille contre la trahison et la folie de l\u2019opportunisme, que nous-m\u00eames du Parti Socialiste de Grande-Bretagne menons dans ce pays. \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Socialist standard appelait toujours les guesdistes \u00ab nos camarades fran\u00e7ais \u00bb en 1908. Les num\u00e9ros de janvier et de f\u00e9vrier 1905 ont publi\u00e9 une traduction de la brochure de Guesde Le probl\u00e8me social et sa solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bien que les guesdistes aient r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 faire passer une forte r\u00e9solution anti-minist\u00e9rialiste \u00e0 Amsterdam cela s\u2019av\u00e9ra \u00eatre une victoire \u00e0 la Pyrrus car le congr\u00e8s avait \u00e9galement vot\u00e9 que toutes les organisations affili\u00e9es dans un pays devraient prendre des mesures pour s\u2019unifier. Le SPGB l\u2019a refus\u00e9 en Grande-Bretagne et par la suite (conf\u00e9rence de 1907) a d\u00e9cid\u00e9 de ne pas \u00eatre repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 au prochain congr\u00e8s social-d\u00e9mocrate international \u00e0 Stuttgart en 1907, mais d\u2019essayer d\u2019entrer \u00ab en communication avec les repr\u00e9sentants connus de cette politique intransigeante dont les [militants du] SPGB sont les repr\u00e9sentants en Grande-Bretagne \u00bb en citant \u00ab Ferri, Michels, Guesde, Lafargue et d\u2019autres \u00bb. Les guesdistes sont cependant all\u00e9s vers la fusion en 1905 du Parti Socialiste de la France et du Parti Socialiste fran\u00e7ais pour former un parti avec le titre un peu lourd de \u00ab Parti Socialiste unifi\u00e9 (section fran\u00e7aise de l\u2019Internationale des ouvri\u00e8re) \u00bb ou, en fran\u00e7ais, de SFIO, nom par lequel il a \u00e9t\u00e9 connu jusqu\u2019aux ann\u00e9es 70.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Au d\u00e9but les guesdistes pouvaient dominer la direction du parti unifi\u00e9 mais bient\u00f4t les r\u00e9formistes rang\u00e9s derri\u00e8re Jaur\u00e8s ont pris le dessus, rel\u00e9guant les guesdistes \u00e0 une tendance minoritaire dans la SFIO. En 1907 les guesdistes lan\u00e7aient leur propre publication, Le Socialisme<\/a>. Le SPGB a esp\u00e9r\u00e9 que les guesdistes se d\u00e9tacheraient d\u2019une SFIO domin\u00e9e par le r\u00e9formisme et qu\u2019ils formerait leur propre parti ind\u00e9pendant. Un article sur \u00ab l\u2019International \u00bb commentait en d\u00e9cembre 1907 le congr\u00e8s de la SFIO d\u2019ao\u00fbt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab En France il y avait jusqu\u2019au congr\u00e8s international en 1904 \u00e0 Amsterdam, un corps de vrais r\u00e9volutionnaires \u2013 les guesdistes. Mais suite \u00e0 l\u2019unit\u00e9 ces combattants r\u00e9volutionnaires ont fusionn\u00e9 avec les r\u00e9formateurs, les disciples de Jaur\u00e8s, il y a environ deux ans (\u2026) que les r\u00e9formateurs ont, au moins temporairement, embobin\u00e9 les guesdistes ; mais d\u2019apr\u00e8s les d\u00e9marches au dernier congr\u00e8s du parti, il y a quelques semaines, il y a d\u00e9j\u00e0 de nombreuses et mauvaises blessures qui ne peuvent que mener \u00e0 une scission \u00e0 l\u2019avenir. \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cela ne s\u2019est jamais produit et les guesdistes sont rest\u00e9s dans le SFIO. Tout en consid\u00e9rant qu\u2019il s\u2019agissait d\u2019une erreur, le SPGB a continu\u00e9 de les consid\u00e9rer comme de \u00ab vrais r\u00e9volutionnaires \u00bb. En 1908 le Socialist standard a publi\u00e9 cinq articles traduits de Le Socialisme et un sixi\u00e8me de Lafargue. Quatre articles provenant de ce journal ont \u00e9t\u00e9 publi\u00e9s les ann\u00e9es suivantes, jusqu\u2019en novembre 1912. Les traductions \u00e9taient faites par des membres francophones du SPGB, au moins deux travaillaient en France \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9poque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ce qu\u2019\u00e9tait le guesdisme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pourquoi le SPGB a t-il \u00e9t\u00e9 amen\u00e9 \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer les guesdistes comme de \u00ab vrais r\u00e9volutionnaires \u00bb et \u00ab nos camarades fran\u00e7ais \u00bb ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premi\u00e8rement, leur marxisme. Les guesdistes ont \u00e9t\u00e9 les premiers \u00e0 diffuser les id\u00e9es marxistes en France, et au cours d\u2019une m\u00eame p\u00e9riode (ann\u00e9es 1880 et 1890),  plus ou moins de la m\u00eame fa\u00e7on que la SDF en Grande-Bretagne. Ainsi, certains des articles choisis pour \u00eatre traduits portaient sur des aspects de th\u00e9orie marxiste. Trois d\u2019entre eux \u00e9taient des traductions d\u2019articles de Charles Rappoport<\/a> sur les sujets historiques et philosophiques : \u00ab Evolution & revolution<\/a> \u00bb (juillet 1905), \u00ab The Society of To-morrow<\/a> \u00bb (septembre 1908) et \u00ab Fatalism and Historic Necessity<\/a>\u00bb (publi\u00e9 \u00e0 la une en avril 1911). Un autre article th\u00e9orique, sur \u00abThe Evolution of Society<\/a>\u00bb, par le guesdiste Edouard Fortin, parut dans le num\u00e9ro de septembre 1905. Un article de Lafargue, en mai 1908, traitait de \u00ab The Law of Value and the Dearness of Commodities<\/a> \u00bb. En f\u00e9vrier et mars 1912 le Socialist standard a publi\u00e9 une traduction d\u2019un article de 1882 de Lafargue sur \u00abSocialism and Nationalisation<\/a> \u00bb expliquant que la nationalisation \u00e9tait une r\u00e9forme capitaliste et non le socialisme. En fait, bien que le SPGB ait eu autant de militants parlant l\u2019allemand que le fran\u00e7ais et que la social-d\u00e9mocratie allemande \u00e9tait g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement consid\u00e9r\u00e9e comme le plus marxiste des partis, hormis une traduction du programme d\u2019Erfurt de Karl Kautsky (publi\u00e9e dans le Socialist standard et puis en brochure) la plupart des articles sur la th\u00e9orie marxiste \u00e9taient traduits du fran\u00e7ais et non de l\u2019allemand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deuxi\u00e8mement, leur position sur la tactique socialiste. C\u2019\u00e9tait \u00ab l\u2019expropriation \u00e9conomique de la classe capitaliste par leur expropriation politique \u00bb ; en d\u2019autres termes, que le chemin vers le socialisme passait par la conqu\u00eate du pouvoir politique par la classe ouvri\u00e8re. Pour cela, disaient les guesdistes, la classe ouvri\u00e8re  devait s\u2019organiser dans un  Parti Socialiste de masse et c\u2019\u00e9tait le \u00ab premier devoir des socialistes<\/a> \u00bb (titre d\u2019un article de Charles V\u00e9recque<\/a>, traduit dans le Socialist standard de juin 1908) de construire un tel parti par la propagande et l\u2019organisation incessantes. Les socialistes \u00e9taient l\u00e0, dans une expression peut-\u00eatre malheureuse de Guesde, pour agir en tant que \u00ab sergents recruteurs \u00bb pour ce parti. \u00ab On ne r\u00e9p\u00e8tera jamais assez \u00bb, \u00e9crivait V\u00e9recque, \u00ab que ce qui \u00e9loigne le prol\u00e9tariat de son \u00e9mancipation est son ignorance. S\u2019il pouvait comprendre il se lib\u00e9rerait. La nouvelle forme de soci\u00e9t\u00e9 est pr\u00eate \u00e0 se dessiner sous sa direction et \u00e0 son avantage. Son consentement est la seule chose qui manque. La t\u00e2che quotidienne des socialistes est donc de pr\u00e9parer les ouvriers pour la mission historique qu\u2019ils doivent accomplir. \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab Le vote, \u00bb \u00e9crivait Guesde dans l\u2019article \u201cLegality and Revolution<\/a>\u201d publi\u00e9 dans le Socialist standard de  f\u00e9vrier 1908, \u00ab quand il existe, est r\u00e9volutionnaire quand il organise la France du travail contre la France du capital sur la base de candidatures de classe \u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Troisi\u00e8mement, et \u00e0 la suite de cette position de base, leur opposition implacable aux notions anarchistes de la minorit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00ab action directe \u00bb et de \u00ab gr\u00e8ve g\u00e9n\u00e9rale \u00bb. Au sein de ce qu\u2019on pourrait la gauche de la social-d\u00e9mocratie d\u2019avant-guerre \u2013 les anti-r\u00e9visionnistes, anti-minist\u00e9rialistes, et anti-r\u00e9formistes r\u00e9solus \u2013 les guesdistes et le SPGB \u00e9taient presque les seuls \u00e0 prendre une telle position. D\u2019autres comme Rosa Luxembourg et Anton Pannekoek ont \u00e9t\u00e9 influenc\u00e9s par ces id\u00e9es, bien qu\u2019ils aient parl\u00e9 d\u2019\u00ab action de masse \u00bb et de \u00ab gr\u00e8ve de masse \u00bb pour se distinguer des anarchistes. En Am\u00e9rique Daniel De Leon a adopt\u00e9 le syndicalisme industriel \u00ab pour prendre et tenir \u00bb les moyens de production plut\u00f4t que \u00ab l\u2019expropriation \u00e9conomique de la classe capitaliste par leur expropriation politique \u00bb. Il y eut bien aussi, en fait quelques-uns des membres fondateurs du SPGB, notamment E.J.B. Allen<\/a>, qui est devenu un \u00ab syndicaliste industriel \u00bb pour le \u00ab syndicalisme r\u00e9volutionnaire \u00bb.Cette tendance \u00e9tait repr\u00e9sent\u00e9e dans la SFIO par Gustave Herv\u00e9 (et dans le parti italien par Benito Mussolini).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La position des guesdistes, partag\u00e9e par le SPGB, fut expos\u00e9e dans un article de Paul-Marius Andr\u00e9 traduit dans le Socialist standard de du novembre 1908. Intitul\u00e9 \u00ab les deux possibilismes \u00bb, elle expliquait que les anarchistes d\u2019action directe \u00e9taient semblables \u00e0 bien des r\u00e9formistes et gradualistes parlementaires en ce qu\u2019eux aussi, n\u2019\u00e9taient pas disposer \u00e0 militer dans ce travail de longue haleine visant l\u2019adh\u00e9sion majoritaire au socialisme et la construction d\u2019un Parti Socialiste fort qui pourrait ainsi conqu\u00e9rir le pouvoir et supprimer le capitalisme, mais voulaient plut\u00f4t \u00ab quelque chose maintenant \u00bb \u2013 des r\u00e9formes ; la seule diff\u00e9rence entre les r\u00e9formistes parlementaires et eux \u00e9tant qu\u2019ils utilisaient l\u2019action \u00ab directe \u00bb  plut\u00f4t que \u00ab parlementaire \u00bb les obtenir. C\u2019\u00e9tait non seulement une strat\u00e9gie r\u00e9formiste inefficace, mais qui mettait inutilement les vies de la classe ouvri\u00e8re en danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Socialist standard de l\u2019\u00e9poque a publi\u00e9 un certain nombre d\u2019articles, certains \u00e9crits par des membres r\u00e9sidant \u00e0 Paris, enregistrant l\u2019\u00e9chec de la tactique des chefs anarchistes du principal groupement syndical fran\u00e7ais, la CGT, pour appuyer le point de vue guesdiste : ce n\u2019\u00e9tait pas l\u2019action syndicale (industrielle) qui permettrait d\u2019exproprier la classe capitaliste mais l\u2019action politique lorsque les socialistes auraient gagn\u00e9 suffisamment de soutien de la classe ouvri\u00e8re pour s\u2019emparer de l\u2019Etat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c9taient-ils de vrais les r\u00e9volutionnaires ?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mais les guesdistes \u00e9taient-ils de \u00ab vrais r\u00e9volutionnaires \u00bb comme les consid\u00e9rait le SPGB ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alors que le SPGB \u00e9tait une organisation de quelques centaines de travailleurs et de travailleuses, les guesdistes comptaient des milliers de membres, plus d\u2019une douzaine de d\u00e9put\u00e9s et administraient un certain nombre de collectivit\u00e9s locales, notamment Lille, la troisi\u00e8me ville de France. Cela s\u2019en est ressenti dans leur attitude envers les r\u00e9formes, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 le parti guesdiste avait une r\u00e9elle influence. Sur le papier, les guesdistes consid\u00e9raient que, tant que le capitalisme perdurait, les probl\u00e8mes de la classe ouvri\u00e8re continueraient de sorte que les r\u00e9formes ne puissent \u00eatre davantage que des palliatifs et des impasses faisant d\u00e9vier de la lutte pour la conqu\u00eate des pouvoirs publics afin d\u2019exproprier la classe capitaliste et faire des moyens de production la propri\u00e9t\u00e9 publique de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, cela seul fournissant le cadre dans lequel ces probl\u00e8mes pourraient \u00eatre r\u00e9solus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cependant, \u00e0 la diff\u00e9rence du SPGB, ils ont pr\u00e9conis\u00e9 des r\u00e9formes. Ainsi, leurs d\u00e9put\u00e9s, maires et conseillers n\u2019avaient pas \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lus sur un programme socialiste ferme mais sur un programme de socialisme et de r\u00e9formes. Ce qui signifiait qu\u2019en pratique ils \u00e9taient prisonniers d\u2019\u00e9lecteurs de mentalit\u00e9 r\u00e9formiste, tout comme Jaur\u00e8s et ses partisans. C\u2019est bien pour cela qu\u2019\u00e0 la fin, ils ne furent pas pr\u00eats \u00e0 quitter la SFIO domin\u00e9e par les r\u00e9formistes et \u00e0 s\u2019organiser hors d\u2019elle et contre elle, comme le SPGB l\u2019esp\u00e9rait. Il y rest\u00e8rent, avec pour r\u00e9sultat ce que d\u00e9crivait un article du Socialist standard d\u2019octobre 1910 sur le congr\u00e8s de Copenhague de la social-d\u00e9mocratie internationale (le m\u00eame qui pr\u00e9sentait la s\u00e9paration d\u00e9finitive du SPGB d\u2019avec l\u2019Internationale, d\u00e9crite comme conquise par les \u00e9l\u00e9ments pro-capitalistes) :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab En France, les guesdistes, qui malgr\u00e9 leur faible nombre, ont eu un \u00e9norme pouvoir pour l\u2019\u00e9dification socialiste, sont absorb\u00e9s par les disciples r\u00e9formistes de Jaur\u00e8s et de Vaillant \u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Une autre position erron\u00e9e, ou au moins ambigu\u00eb, des guesdistes \u00e9tait leur attitude \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard du patriotisme. C\u2019\u00e9tait une question qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 discut\u00e9e dans le SFIO suite \u00e0 la campagne anti-militariste et anti-patriotique lanc\u00e9e par Herv\u00e9. Quoique Herv\u00e9 n\u2019ait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 guesdiste, les membres du SPGB qui suivaient les affaires fran\u00e7aises se rendaient compte que certaines de ses vues sur cette question \u00e9taient alors semblables aux n\u00f4tres. Ainsi, le Socialist standard de juin 1907 a publi\u00e9 une traduction :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab Les ouvriers sont d\u00e9sh\u00e9rit\u00e9s et maltrait\u00e9s dans tous les pays. Toutes les nations sont \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard \u00e9gales, ou presque, particuli\u00e8rement \u00e0 notre \u00e9poque o\u00f9 le r\u00e9gime capitaliste uniformise de plus en plus conditions de vie mat\u00e9rielles, intellectuelles et politiques pour la classe travailleuse dans tous les pays ; et maintenant que l\u2019introduction du syst\u00e8me capitaliste en Russie obligera le tsarisme lui-m\u00eame \u00e0 accorder aux ouvriers russes les bases de la libert\u00e9 politique. Aucun pays aujourd\u2019hui n\u2019est \u00e0 ce point sup\u00e9rieur aux autres que les ouvriers de ce pays devraient se faire tuer pour sa d\u00e9fense. \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L\u2019article \u00e9tait conforme \u00e0 cette position, mais se concluait en d\u00e9saccord avec Herv\u00e9 sur la question de savoir si en cas de d\u00e9clenchement de la guerre, les ouvriers devraient ou pas  tenter un soul\u00e8vement arm\u00e9 pour essayer de renverser le capitalisme ( \u00ab plut\u00f4t l\u2019insurrection que la guerre \u00bb, \u00e9crivait-il), pr\u00e9cisant que cela \u00ab conduirait  au paradoxe de faire la paix par la guerre \u00bb, avec des ouvriers sacrifiant leurs vies dans une action \u00ab st\u00e9rile et sanglante \u00bb . L\u2019article pr\u00e9cisait \u00e9galement que puisque le militarisme \u00e9tait le produit du capitalisme la seule mani\u00e8re d\u2019en finir avec lui \u00e9tait d\u2019en finir avec le capitalisme ; les efforts des socialistes devraient viser cela plut\u00f4t que le seul antimilitarisme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guesde et les guesdistes firent les m\u00eames deux remarques pendant la discussion dans la SFIO, mais ils n\u2019ont pas  rejoint Herv\u00e9  dans la d\u00e9nonciation du patriotisme. Ce qu\u2019impliquait ce refus de d\u00e9noncer le patriotisme n\u2019est apparu clairement que lorsque la premi\u00e8re guerre mondiale ait \u00e9clat\u00e9. Guesde lui-m\u00eame est entr\u00e9 dans le  gouvernement fran\u00e7ais de guerre. Ajoutons qu\u2019Herv\u00e9 a fait volte-face, devenant un patriote et un nationaliste ardents, partant combattre dans l\u2019arm\u00e9e. Jaur\u00e8s, assassin\u00e9 avant que la guerre  ne commence, est entr\u00e9 dans l\u2019histoire en tant que h\u00e9ros pacifiste, quoiqu\u2019il ne puisse y avoir aucun doute que s\u2019il avait surv\u00e9cu il se serait  mis au service du drapeau fran\u00e7ais et  aurait rejoint le cabinet de guerre \u00e0 la place de Guesde. \u00c9videmment, cela a compl\u00e8tement discr\u00e9dit\u00e9 Guesde et les guesdistes aupr\u00e8s du SPGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apr\u00e8s la guerre, certains guesdistes, Charles Rappoport par exemple, sont pass\u00e9s au parti communiste. D\u2019autres sont rest\u00e9s \u00e0 la SFIO (notamment Guesde, qui est mort en 1922 \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e2ge de 77 ans) et ont incarn\u00e9 en France un courant du marxisme anti-l\u00e9niniste qui a surv\u00e9cu jusqu\u2019\u00e0 il y a quelques ann\u00e9es.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the La Bataille socialiste blog When the Socialist Party of Great Britain was being founded in 1904, as a breakaway from the Social Democratic Federation which had pioneered Marx\u2019s ideas in Britain, the main issue confronting the international Social Democratic movement was \u201cMinisterialism\u201d, or whether or not Socialists should participate in a \u201cbourgeois government\u201d. In 1899…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3297,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions\/3297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}