French socialism in 1900: The great debate between Jean Jaurès and Jules Guesde

Abstract

French socialism, which only a few years later, in 1905, would come together to form the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), organized, at the dawn of the 20th century, a debate in which its two main leaders confronted each other. : Jean Jaurès and Jules Guesde. Presenting the full text of the debate in a special supplement to L'Humanité Hebdo (November 2005)1, historian Jean-Louis Robert turns to the poet Louis Aragon to express how full of hope the beginning of the last century was: “soon, by a pass of magic, everything would change, everyone would see their evils end and a new life would emerge, wonderful [...]”. This utopian flight was very short. Since the beginning of the 1910s, war has been announced by unmistakable symptoms: an arms race, an increase in the duration of military service, the proliferation of xenophobic nationalism, etc. France and Great Britain, on the one hand, “central empires” on the other, were preparing to decide by force who would get the best and largest share of the world market and colonial booty.