Birth Pangs of French Socialism
HILL, GILBERT M.
Birth Pangs of French Socialism The Founding of the French Socialist Party (1893-1905). Reviewed by Gilbert M. Hill By Aaron Noland. History department temple University Harvard. 225 pp....
...The influence of the socialists in the legislature was deeply felt because the governments there were responsible to the legislature...
...Within his limited framework, Professor Noland has done a fine job...
...4.50...
...Such was not the situation in France and England...
...This spirit of compromise displayed here by the Guesdists, and displayed to an even greater degree by the followers of Jean Jaures in 1905, has not often characterized political groups under the Third and Fourth Republics...
...The same problem existed for the Germans, but the structure of the Imperial German Government before World War I made anything but relentless opposition futile...
...This was a question which plagued socialists of almost every nationality...
...More comment might have been made, also, on the social background of the period...
...The reader is, therefore, likely to ask if there were other factors which divided French socialists before 1905...
...German influence in the Second International was such that the German position on cooperation with bourgeois parties, embodied in the so-called Dresden Resolution, was made the official policy of that body at the Amsterdam Conference in 1904...
...Such correspondence is, however, difficult to come by, and the writer has done a remarkable job with what was available to him...
...The nature of this study is, as mentioned above, almost entirely political...
...Tha resolution of these issues by the French is the principal theme of Mr...
...Jaures, a truly great man, sacrificed much in personal opinion and belief to achieve this unity...
...That wing of the early movement which was most often associated with the leadership of Jules Guesde generally looked upon itself as the true interpreter of Marx in France, but even Guesde and his followers ultimately abandoned the idea of rigid adherence...
...The first was how closely the movement should be motivated by literal interpretations of Marxian doctrines...
...In writing this book, Professor Noland has relied largely on the variCONTl.VUED ON" PACE 26 ous journals and periodicals published by French socialist groups and on the reports, where they exist, of the conventions and meetings held by these groups...
...Henry Pelling and J. H. Stewart Reid have done capable jobs describing the birth pains of the British Labor party...
...Particularly, did they differ on matters of economic theory...
...His framework is, however, quite limited...
...Seldom does one encounter a writer who can remain so aloof from the passions of his narrative...
...The manner in which the early French socialists viewed Marx and orthodox Marxism is most interesting...
...Professor Aaron Noland has now added an excellent account of the early years of the French Socialist party, probably the first work of this kind in English...
...His book deals only with the actual growth of political parties —ultimately one single party—within the French social democratic movement...
...If his sympathies lay with the factions led by either Guesde or Jaures, they are well concealed in the pages of this book...
...Among the compliments paid to Aaron Noland should be one directed at his sense of objectivity...
...The course of consistent cooperation with the left bloc followed by Alexandre Millerand is in many ways similar to that taken by John Burns in England...
...Aside from some comments on the relationship between the socialists and the labor movement, almost nothing is said about economics...
...The acceptance of this policy by the French leaders who favored cooperation, notably Jaures, led to the unity necessary for the formation of a single French Socialist party in 1905...
...The last few years have seen the appearance of several works dealing with the origins of the modern European Social Democratic parties...
...Noland's book...
...The second issue concerned the relationship of the socialists to left-wing bourgeois political parties...
...It was subjected to great divisions within its ranks, principally on two issues...
...His subject is restricted by his title to the years 1893-1905, though a long introduction and postscript carries his story from 1877 to 1914...
...The English did, and so did the Germans...
...Marx himself prepared a platform for French socialism in 1880 called the Programme Minimum...
...G. D. H. Cole is trying, on a larger scale, to cover the entire growth of the socialist movement in his multi-volume History of Socialist Thought...
...A further examination of the correspondence of socialist leaders might add some insights which are not to be found in more official utterances...
...The French socialist movement in the late decades of the 19th century experienced an early growth not too dissimilar from that which occurred in most other states in Western Europe...
...Much more vexing to the movement was the question of its relationship to bourgeois political parties...
Vol. 40 • April 1957 • No. 16
