French Socialist Research Articles

Russian writers in french press at the turn of the XIX-XX century. Newspaper “L’Aurore”

The subject of the study is the interest of the French socialist press at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries in the spiritual and political position of Russian writers (using the example of the socialist newspaper "L'Aurore". The article is devoted to an urgent topic – Franco-Russian cultural ties based on the analysis of the Russian literature Since 1870. The purpose of the work is to analyze and generalize the semantic content of published texts from the perspective of determining their adherence to a given political course and the idea of engagement. The material was selected by the method of directional sampling, collection and classification of articles, taking into account the editors' particularly close attention to such writers as F.M. Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky. The research methodology is complex and includes content analysis using biographical, historical, cultural and comparative methods. The author's special contribution to the research of the topic is the explication of the close attention of the Western press, especially of the left, to the position of Russian writers, which served to attract the interest of the mass reader to their works. However, the main conclusion of the author is that the driving incentive for the press to address the names of great thinkers was the affirmation of socialist ideals and the idea of the writer's engagement, his unity with the people and opposition to power. The novelty of the work is determined by the scrupulous selection of relevant material and the practical development of this topic, which has so far remained outside the field of research by other authors.

Suzanne Labin: socialist, anti-communist and ‘Globalist’

This article follows the transnational career of Suzanne Labin, a French socialist and anti-communist professional, in order to analyse the roles and agencies of individuals while the global connectivity of anti-communist actors was growing during the ‘long 1960s’ (approximately 1955–1980). Retrospective analysis, as well as accounts from contemporaries, describes this period as a time of multi-polarisation and globalisation. I will chart Labin’s path from anti-Stalinist circles in France to conservative circles in the US, to finally becoming the first and only female permanent member of the global anti-communist umbrella organisation, the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), chairing its French chapter in 1972. An analysis of Labin’s seemingly ambiguous alliances as a socialist with anti-communist and right-wing organisations will shed light on the particularities of international anti-communism during the ‘long 1960s’ on three levels. First, it will show the dynamics between anti-communist networks and actors on national, transatlantic and global levels, especially their contact points. Second, it will underline the diversity of anti-communism and its capacity to integrate several (even contradictory) ideologemes. Third, by following Labin’s global anti-communist engagement within the WACL and her cosmopolitan lifestyle, this article will argue that anti-communist actors were actively involved in the process of globalisation during the ‘long 1960s’.

1981년 5월 10일, 미테랑의 대선 승리와 프랑스의 사회주의 정치

1981년 5월 10일, 미테랑의 대선 승리와 프랑스의 사회주의 정치

Feminist Ideas of V. Woolf on The Material of the Essay “A Room of One's Own” and “Professions for Women”

The term “feminism” (from Lat. femina – woman) was first introduced by French socialist theorist Charles Fourier in the beginning of the 19th century. Fourier wrote how what he called the “new woman” had the potential to change social life and the role of womanhood. He went as far as stating that “the empowerment of women is the main source of social progress”. Parallel to this new era of critical understanding, art needed to take not only new forms, but also contain completely new content. It is therefore not surprising that a peculiar refraction of the female image in English literature became reflected in the work of the leading figure of modernism —Virginia Woolf. Writing at the turn of the century, Woolf reimagined the place of women writers in literature, proclaiming for the first time women's right to express their own vision and experience, their right to write and to think differently. Women's literary works were perceived extremely critically by male writers specifically and the Victorian society at large. The target of Woold’s later essays would, therefore, be this very attitude towards women's intellectual creativity. In this article, our purpose is to consider Virgina Woolf’s ideas in her essays “A Room of One's Own”, and “Professions for Women” in the context of the feminist movement in England at the turn of twentieth century, determining their significance in the development of feminist critical literature. Keywords: [feminism, feminist ideas, women’s right, feminist movement]

Usages partisans de « la diversité » : contourner l’indicible. Le cas du Parti socialiste

À partir d’une analyse lexicométrique de corpus de textes issus des congrès du Parti socialiste et d’une enquête par entretiens auprès de militants et de cadres du parti, cet article propose d’analyser les usages partisans du terme « diversité ». Après avoir interrogé leur dimension formulaire, il se penche sur une approche de « la diversité » en tant que dispositif sociopolitique, c’est-à-dire qui combine l’analyse du discours politique avec celle des pratiques partisanes. Situant le discours socialiste de « la diversité » dans la dynamique globale de l’organisation, nous montrons ainsi que, tout en répondant à une logique de racialisation, le terme n’acquiert sa pleine signification qu’en tant qu’il est susceptible d’objectiver le renouvellement du Parti socialiste.

Ideological impact on social behavior: theoretical and methodological aspects (Continuation)

In this article, the author attempts to analyze the key components of radical ideological constructs that directly or indirectly justify ways to solve social problems in a radical and, as a rule, illegitimate way. Among such ideologies, researchers include anarchism and socialism, which are discussed in detail in this article.The English political philosopher W. Godwin is considered the pioneer of anarchism, and the first researcher who called himself an “anarchist” and introduced the term “anarchism” into circulation was the French socialist P.-J. Proudhon. Each country in Europe, North or South America and Asia has its own publicists, writers, public figures who defend anarchist views, anarchism has a long history in Russia, where the classics of anarchism grew up – M.A. Bakunin and P.A. Kropotkin.The author analyzes the theoretical core of anarchism, which is formed by a number of radical political constructions – anti-statism, natural order, anti-clericalism and a free economy. At the same time, it is noted that all anarchists categorically assert that both power and private property are the cause of all human misfortunes, and, as a rule, they identify themselves with the “poor and oppressed”. They call for a revolution on behalf of the “exploited masses”, as a result of which both capitalism and the state will be wiped off the face of the earth, actively promote “ anarchy and anarchist tactics”. By anarchist tactics is meant such a merciless violent struggle that will sweep away in its path all the institutions of slavery of the old system and all their representatives and defenders in order to create a new, free system, for the spirit of destruction is at the same time a creative spirit.The article also examines in detail the origins, essence and fundamental components of the socialist ideology, the radical varieties of which include Marxism and communism.The author substantiates the position that, in general, the ideology of socialism is close to the ideology of communism. However, the communist ideal is more radical: the communists advocate the complete socialization of production, the complete rejection of private property (in all forms) and the centralized distribution of benefits, which takes place within the framework of a specially organized form of government – the commune. Under communism, absolute equality of people must be established, a kind of ideal society must be established, where everyone will work to the best of their abilities and receive everything they need from society. It is this aspect of communism that is the pipe dream of its supporters, leaving it a social utopia, while the ideology of socialism put forward more specific and achievable goals.The fundamental economic, social and political reasons are analyzed, due to which the practical implementation of the ideology of socialism – the “socialist experiment” of the 20th century ended in complete failure. It is shown that it is the socialist ideology that significantly simplifies the transition to a totalitarian political system.

Philosophical foundations of E. Durkheim’s sociological theory

The article considers the philosophical basis of Durkheims sociological theory, which consists of such metaphysical concepts as society, solidarity, sacredness and human nature. The author also focuses on the philosophical theories based on these concepts, which became the foundations of Durkheims sociological theory. There are ontological and epistemological philosophical foundations, on the one hand, and social-philosophical foundations secondary to them - on the other hand. The article raises the question about the connection between Durkheims theory and the philosophical systems of Spinoza, Kant and Renouvier. This, Spinozas ontological pantheism influenced the concept of sacred in Durkheims theory. On the contrary, there is no reason to consider the influence of Kants philosophy on Durkheims ideas decisive. Although sometimes Renouvier is called a neo-Kantian, he developed his own philosophical system, the elements of which were used by Durkheim, especially for the concept of social representations. The author argues that sociological realism and holism of Durkheim oppose the sociological nominalism common for the British social philosophy and sociology, and believes in the conceptual continuity of Durkheims system with the theories of Montesquieu and especially Rousseau (the idea of society as a deified collective being). In the systems of Montesquieu and Rousseau, human nature is understood not as exclusively individualistic and selfish; therefore, in society, the main role is played not by competition, but by cooperation and integration. The article also considers French socialism of the 19th century, especially Simonism as a direct ideological predecessor of Durkheims sociology. The author argues that Soviet works created a distorted, simplified and demystified image of the French socialists of the 19th century (for example, of Lerouxs concept of solidarism later developed by Durkheim). Although the founder of the French sociological school distanced himself from the mysticism of the socialists of that time, he is undoubtedly their ideological successor.

The French Socialist Party in 2017–2021: adaptation to the new situation

For the first time in the Belarusian research literature, the activities of the French Socialist Party (FSP) to overcome the most severe ideological and political crisis that clearly manifested itself in the 2017 elections is examined. The author shows the results of the internal party struggle on the strategy of restoring the party’s position in the political life of the country. In the article the changes in the ideology are characterised and the degree of renewal of the party doctrine is determined, the features of the activity of the FSP in the role of the opposition party are established, the efforts of socialists to rally the left forces are shown, the specifics of the role of the FSP in political life and the left political camp of France are established. It is concluded that the FSP refused a deep revision of ideology and political strategy and kept the ideological and political identity of the left government party, its authorities managed to avoid transformation to a micro-party, but they were unable to restore the former role of the main party of the left political camp and one of the two leading parties in the country.

A Note on African Socialism

A Note on African Socialism

Unearthing the Subtext of Slavery in Zola’s Germinal

Abstract On the surface, Zola’s Germinal (1885) has little to say about France’s non-European ‘others’, despite the facts that the coal industry and late-nineteenth-century imperial expansion were linked and the rise of the beet-sugar industry in Europe led to the eventual call for labourers of colour in France. Nonetheless, the subtexts of colonialism and slavery surface in the text via the tropes of colonial metaphor and metonymy. When Zola suggests the material oppression of his miners is ‘like’ the suffering of enslaved and colonized peoples, he is participating in a nineteenth-century rhetorical tradition shared by both the realist novel and French socialist discourse: one that frequently analogized the subjugation of France’s wage labourers to the abject suffering of its colonial subjects. The presence in the novel of colonial products and exotic goods points synecdochically to France’s colonies and their systems of exploitative labour even as those objects circulate within metropolitan milieus. This essay excavates the colonial referents of Germinal, examining how the novel represents domestic and colonial servitude within a single novelistic ‘economy’.

Kindness as the Foundation to Community: For a ‘Radical Equality Tempered by Benevolence’. Joseph Rey of Grenoble (1779-1855)

Abstract This article examines the work of the jurist and political and social theorist, Joseph Rey. It explores Rey’s role within a French and international network of intellectuals and conspirators who sought to overthrow established monarchies and replace them with popularly elected democratic republics. The article shows how Rey’s extensive writings on legal, political, social and educational questions give a unique insight into France’s political, intellectual, social and ideological life in the first decades of the nineteenth century. We argue that Rey’s contribution to the debates that defined the modern ideological categories of liberalism, republicanism and socialism was significant in its endeavour to reconcile all three. This attempt at reconciliation was motivated by a powerful desire to end the internecine struggles that marked France in the aftermath of the Revolution and Empire. This led Rey to draw on the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and the Philosophical Radicals in order to nourish a French republican liberalism rooted in the work of the Idéologues and combine this with his profound reading of Robert Owen’s work on co-operation. It goes on to show how Rey became known as France’s principal representative of Owenism, and sought to shape the debates between the dominant schools of French Socialist thought, Fourierism and Saint-Simonianism, by introducing into those discussions a radical conception of equality and the idea of co-operation. Rey’s attempts to reconcile the liberal-republican preoccupation with liberty and self-governance with socialist considerations on equality and social justice stand out from the works of his contemporaries. It is this unique, and long-forgotten, contribution to French and European political and social thought that makes Rey worthy of renewed attention.

« L(’)Égalité veut d’autres lois » Légalité, légitimité, et parole pamphlétaire chez Eugène Pottier.

This article intends to analyze the literary transcription of themes and structures in the work of Eugene Pottier which revolve around the fact of being an outlaw. Pottier, a French socialist songwriter of the 19th century, is best known for being the author of “L’Internationale”. The article also tries to show how protest songs can deal with the question of being against the law.

The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, 1600–1870 by Daniel R. Mandell

Reviewed by: The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, 1600–1870 by Daniel R. Mandell John Majewski (bio) Keywords Inequality, Economic equality, Capitalism, Egalitarianism The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, 1600–1870. By Daniel R. Mandell. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. Pp. 314. Cloth, $49.95.) Historians seeking to more explicitly link the past to current economic and political debates can choose between two basic strategies. One strategy—which the 1619 Project used to such great effect—is to expose [End Page 681] the injustices of the past and trace their impact to the present. The other strategy—which Daniel R. Mandell employs in this thought-provoking synthesis—is to recover ideas and movements from the past that can inspire change and reform in the present. Mandell argues that from its colonial origins, a series of thinkers and activists believed that economic equality—whether achieved through universal education, land reform, or government regulation of market activity—was an important value that profoundly influenced government policy. Mandell seamlessly analyzes a number of different egalitarian traditions with nuance and sophistication. He begins in early modern England, where groups such as the Levelers called for the end of great estates and the redistribution of property. Powerful landlords violently crushed the Levelers, but echoes of the movement survived in a republican commonwealth tradition that that linked economic inequality with political inequality and corruption. That tradition took root in colonial North America, where far higher percentage of households owned land. North American Indians—often portrayed in Enlightenment discourse as noble savages— came to symbolize full economic and social equality. As inequality grew in the second half of the eighteenth century, a revolutionary tradition developed that linked economic inequality with British corruption and aristocracy that influenced the anti-Federalists as well as the opponents of Hamiltonian economic policies. Mandell proceeds to show how diff erent movements in the early republic grappled with inequality through the expansion of schooling, the removal of property requirements for voting, and the rise of workingmen parties that supported higher pay for journeymen workers and a ten-hour work day. While these reform movements achieved some significant political successes, they did not halt the advance of capitalism. The movement to expand education, which received strong support from farmers and workers, often resulted in a curriculum that tacitly endorsed inequality and social hierarchies. Political reformers successfully eliminated property requirements in a number of states, but universal white male suffrage did little to remove the influence of the wealthy and well connected. The workingmen parties sometimes put forth socialist ideas, but the Democratic Party successfully incorporated their attacks on wealth and privilege without “fundamental restructuring of the American economy” (119). In the aftermath of financial panics and economic depression in the late 1830s and early 1840s, more radical critiques found significant traction. [End Page 682] Some focused on developing communal alternatives to capitalism. Albert Brisbane found initial success in organizing cooperative communities founded on the ideas of the French socialists Charles Fourier. The communal enterprises ultimately failed, but managed to attract significant support from political and intellectual elites such as Horace Greeley, giving hope that a message of cooperation over competition might find traction. Founded in 1844, the National Reform Association (NRA) fused land reform, anti-rent rhetoric, and support for a ten-hour workday to put forward a political platform explicitly critical of great concentrations of wealth. The NRA could not find political traction as an independent movement, but its central idea that all government land should become free and open to ordinary farm families eventually found a home in the Republican Party. The failure to redistribute land to formerly enslaved families during Reconstruction marked the limits of the land reform movement. Liberal conceptions of private property triumphed throughout the Gilded Age. Mandell successfully demonstrates that a number of vibrant egalitarian traditions offered important critiques of economic inequality in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book represents a deep engagement with a broad array of thinkers, all of whom are put into specific political, cultural, and social contexts. Specialists and researchers will find Man-dell’s sophisticated and insightful analysis deeply engaging, yet the book’s writing is so...

La nación contra el fascismo: PSOE y SFIO, 1933-1936

Este artículo propone un estudio del antifascismo socialista en España. Al respecto, se apuesta por situar la nación como referente cultural y político en el centro del análisis, y aplicar una perspectiva comparada con el caso de Francia. Dicho análisis se plantea para el período inmediatamente anterior a la Guerra Civil en España y toma como principal fuente a la prensa socialista.El artículo se desarrolla en dos grandes bloques, con la Revolución de Octubre de 1934 como hito. A partir de entonces emergió en el seno del PSOE un enfrentamiento por el control de la organización. El artículo se centra en el estudio de la corriente caballerista, considerada el ala izquierdista, a la cual se contrapone el caso del socialismo francés y, especialmente, el de la facción de la Bataille Socialiste, situada también a la izquierda de la SFIO. La comparación puede resultar relevante para observar la concepción del antifascismo diseñada por dichos sectores y la articulación entre las identidades de clase y de nación. De esta manera, el artículo pretende acercarse a qué había más allá de la divisa del antifascismo, qué referentes e ideas hubo en su forja y crecimiento.

Industrialism in the mirror: Edward S. Mason, reader of the Saint-Simonians

In this article we will first briefly discuss Edward Mason’s biography (I) and then recall his contribution to the birth of the field of Industrial Organisation (II). We then focus on his series of contributions to the study of French socialism, from around 1930 (III), and finally we assess his reading of Saint-Simonianism (IV).

프랑스 사회당(SFIO) 전국당대회(1905-1914) - 연구의 기초로 ‘연맹’에 관심을 두고 -

통합 프랑스 사회당은 1905년 SFIO(국제노동자협회 프랑스 지부)라는 또 하나의 이름으로 창당한 후 연차 전국당대회 속기록을 발간해왔다. 전국당대회가, 여러 갈래로 갈라졌던 사회주의 정치 세력에게 새로운 현상은 전혀 아니었으나 이제 사회당은 당헌으로 당을 지도하는 것은 전국당대회라고 명백히 규정했다. 전국당대회에 대한 우리의 관심은 당대회 속기록이 그와 같은 수준의 정치적 의미를 지닌다는 사실에 연유했다. 그러한 당대회 연구의 기초로 우리는 1차 대전 이전의 당 창건기 10년 동안 중앙 권위와 계서제에 반대하여 개체의 자유와 자율성을 주장하는 연맹에 주목했다. 이 글이 제기한 문제는 세 가지이다. 연맹과 당 사이의 현실, 약소한 당 재정 속에서 특히 선거철을 맞아 벌이는 선전활동, 그리고 주로 노동자와 민중층으로 구성된 연맹원들과 선출직인 의회 사회주의그룹 사이의 갈등 관계이다. 당대회가 무엇이었는가 하는 문제의식 끝에 이 글은 다음과 같은 결론에 가까이 가게 되었다. 난점에도 불구하고 당대회는 자율의 정신과 권능을 당의 토양에 뿌리내리는 작업을 하고 있었다. 그것은 민주적이고 사회주의적인 당의 건설을 위해서였다.

The Comparison of Two Different Election Campaign Films in Terms of Their Approaches towards National History and Development

In this article the 1988 presidential election campaign film of French Socialist Party “La France Unie” and 2016 presidential election campaign film of Turkish AK Party “Anka Kus u” were analyzed in terms of their approaches to history and development. The films were analyzed by taking semiotic, discourse and rhetorical analysis methods into consideration. The focus has been kept on text and the message given by both parties in the films. The comparison clearly points out the differences regarding the approach of the both parties towards history and development.

Война любой ценой! Французская пропаганда в России в 1917 году

In the period between the two Russian revolutions of 1917 Russia’s Allies were intensifying constantly their efforts to affect the development of domestic affairs in Russia. Various French representatives in Russia were actively carrying out a propaganda work. This activity was boosted during the visit to Russia of a prominent French socialist and member of the French Government A. Thomas. It was his initiative to create a unified French organization using existing French centres of propaganda and to involve new people in its activities. Special missions and individuals were sent to Russia to exercise an influence on various groups of the Russian society. French socialists were trying to convince their Russian colleagues — first of all members of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies — that for establishing a truly lasting peace it was necessary to destroy German militarism. Soldiers and officers from the French military missions were visiting Russian army units striving to convince Russians to continue fighting until complete victory. The French propagandist organization was publishing and distributing numerous leaflets and other materials all around Russia. The article studies the main directions of these activities and means which were used. That helps to better understand the goals pursued by the French government’s policy in Russia between the February and the October Revolutions of 1917.

LEGAL SOCIALISM IN THE HISTORY OF FRENCH POLITICAL AND LEGAL THOUGHT OF THE 19TH–20TH CENTURIES

The article investigates the characteristic features of legal socialism as one of the popular directions of French political and legal thought during the period of existence of the French Third Republic (1870–1940). For the fi rst time in the Russian science the similarities and differences of French legal socialism with the related political and ideological systems (Marxism, solidarism) and also with some foreign legal doctrines (legal socialism of Anton Menger von Wolfensgrün, Ferdinand Lassalle) are highlighted. The article focuses on the political and legal views of Emmanuel Levy, a prominent French jurist and socialist, who, according to many contemporaries, was the founder of legal socialism in France. On the basis of the analysis of literary sources of the epoch as well as modern publications, the author of the article evaluates Emmanuel Lévy’s contribution to the substantiation of socialism in legal categories (legal description of the logic of socialism). To achieve this goal, the author of the article considers Lévy’s ideas about the relative nature of law, about class antagonism as a factor of social life, about the absorption of individual law by collective law, about the triumph of collective law as the fi nal chord of the historical epoch of industrialisation, about the understanding of law as a social function and about the expansion of the boundaries of legal responsibility. Lévy’s ideas about the parameters of a peaceful and non-violent social revolution, the realization of which was linked to the growing infl uence of socialistically thinking judges in the French judicial hierarchy, were also studied. Responding to the social markings of the epoch and the demands of public opinion, these judges were to promote the establishment of a socialist legal order in the state by means of free interpretation of bourgeois laws (in the interests of poor classes).

Nationalism, transnationalism and European socialism in the 1950s: a comparison of the French and German cases

ABSTRACTThis article explores national dimensions of transnational interaction between the French Socialist Party (SFIO) and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the 1940s–1950s within a comparative framework. Doing so allows us to uncover why the French and German parties retained intensive transnational contacts with one another despite their disappointments with postwar socialist internationalism. The SFIO and SPD were eager to put a socialist stamp on reconstruction, European integration, and French-German relations. The article shows why transnational engagement with their cross-Rhine colleagues appeared the most promising path to do so. Despite lengthy conflicts on Cold War politics, the international politics of reconstruction, and, later, decolonization and the Algerian and Suez Wars, the SFIO and SPD successfully compartmentalized their differences by establishing an autonomous track for transnational relations in European parliamentary assemblies. French-German cooperation on matters of European integration yielded the period’s greatest transnational successes, including the establishment of the Congress of Socialist Parties of the European Communities. In the early 1960s, the two-track nature of French-German inter-socialist relations endured but structural factors eroded the balance of power between French and Germans needed to sustain the mutual satisfaction with transnational cooperation that had peaked in the mid-1950s.