The Origins of the French Labor Movement: The Socialism of Skilled Workers 1830–1914Many historians have examined the French labor movement, but few have gone beyond chronicling unions, strikes, and personalities to undertake a concrete analysis of workers’ aims in their historical context. Searching for what Marx called the “real movement” of the working class, Bernard H. Moss presents a sophisticated revisionist interpretation that uncovers a core ideology of social vision underlying the many changes and variations in French socialism. To define this ideology and delineate its social base, Moss cuts through conventional distinctions between artisans and proletarians and between anarchism and socialism to derive an intermediate category, the federalist trade socialism of skilled workers. Originally manifested in the trade movement for producers’ associations and cooperatives, this socialism eventually found revolutionary expression in Bakuninism, possibilism, Allemanism, and revolutionary syndicalism. The social base of this movement was the skilled craftsmen undergoing a process of proletarianization. In The Origins of the French Labor Movement, Moss rehabilitates ideology both as a vital force in history and as a serious subject for scientific history. He proposes important revisions in our understanding of French politics and society in the nineteenth century and suggests a new approach to socialist ideology, not as abstract theory, but as the result of historical experience and process. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976. |
Contents
The Utopia of Association | 31 |
From Cooperation to Revolution | 71 |
Formation of the Parti Ouvrier | 103 |
Toward Revolutionary Syndicalism | 136 |
Socialism of Skilled Workers | 156 |
Bibliographical Essay | 201 |
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Common terms and phrases
Allemanists anarchists artisanal association movement Bakunin Barberet Benoît Malon Blanquists Boulanger bourgeois bourgeoisie Bourse du Travail Brousse Broussists capital capitalist centralist collectivism collectivist communist Compte-rendu Congrès national craft delegates democracy democratic economic elections emancipation factory federalist federation of trades Fernand Pelloutier formation France French labor movement Guesde's Guesdists Guillaume Histoire du mouvement Ibid ideology industrial workers International Jean Jules Guesde Jurassian L'Egalité L'Internationale labor aristocracy labor congress labor movement Lafargue leaders leadership Lyons Maitron Marseilles Marx Marxist ment middle class militants Mouvement ouvrier Mouvement social Opportunist organization organizational Paris Commune Parisian unions Parisian workers Parti Ouvrier Paul Brousse Pelloutier percent political possibilists Première Internationale production Prolétaire proletariat Proudhon Radical reformist reforms represented republican revolution revolutionary collectivism revolutionary syndicalism Revue Second Empire skilled workers socialist party Société strategy strike struggle syndicalist syndicats tailors tion trade federations trade socialism trade societies trade unions utopia vols wage system