Socialism and Democracy in Europe Part 8

The government brought in two proposals, one pertaining to communal and industrial organizations, the other to the arbitration of industrial disputes. Both were tabled.

In 1887 a man appeared in the Chamber ready to debate the social questions with the keenest and the ablest. This was Jean Jaures, a professor of philosophy, whose profound knowledge and superb oratory immediately commanded attention. He was joined by another new deputy, M. Millerand, scarcely less proficient in debate, and even more extreme in his convictions. Both were considered members of the radical party. But they soon formed the nucleus of a new group, the Independent Socialists, that grew rapidly in influence and power.

The social question was forced on the public from yet another direction. The Anarchists, who had been expelled from the Havre conference, remained pa.s.sive until the organization of trade unions.

They then began to promulgate the doctrine of the general strike. The unionists began not only to compel their employers to accede to their demands, but to coerce workingmen to join the unions. It was during this agitation that the government established an elaborate system of labor exchanges--"Bourse du Travail."

From the labor unions the doctrine of the general strike was insinuated into Socialist circles. In 1890 it was proposed as a practical measure for enforcing the demand for an eight-hour day among the miners. In 1892 the Departmental Congress of Workingmen at Tours pa.s.sed a resolution favoring the general strike, and it was discussed a few days later in a general convention of the unions, at the suggestion of Aristide Briand, a Socialist who was destined to play an important role in the development of the theory and practice of general strikes.

The government could no longer dodge the social question. Millerand announced his conversion to Socialism and became the leader of a small parliamentary coterie who pressed the issue daily. In a signed statement to the unions they said: "The Republic has given the ballot into your hand, now give the Republic your instructions."[3] The parliamentary _entente_ of the liberal Socialists with the Radical Left dates from this time. The campaign spread with surprising fervor.

Labor unions and parliamentary Socialists joined their forces. In 1893 they elected forty Socialists to the Chamber of Deputies. Among them were Jaures, who now espoused the cause of the Socialist opportunists; Millerand, conspicuous as leader of the independent group; Guesde, the vehement Marxian; and Vaillant, a communard and Socialist of the older type.

Now began the actual parliamentary Socialism in France. Jaures, in introducing the group--they were scarcely a party--to the Chamber, affirmed their allegiance to the Republic and their devotion to the cause of humanity. The misery of the people had awakened, he said, after right of a.s.sociation had been granted. Labor had, through strikes, gained certain minor improvements. It was now prepared to conquer public authority. But so much of their time was spent in quarreling with each other, and debating whether they should vote with the Radicals, that very little substantial work was accomplished by the Socialists.

Finally, encouraged by their unusual success in the munic.i.p.al elections of 1896, the leaders of the various factions met at Saint-Mande to celebrate their victory. They were tiring of their quarrels and were ready to unite. At least they agreed that each group could name its own candidate for the first ballot; on the second ballot they should all support the Socialist who polled the most votes on the first ballot.[4]

But who is a Socialist? Here for the first time a political definition was attempted. Millerand, a Parisian lawyer who, we have seen, made his political debut with Jaures, as a member of the Radical Left, attempted the answer. It was made in the presence of Guesde, Vaillant, and Jaures, and many local leaders from various parts of France. So, for the moment and for the occasion of rejoicing, there was a united Socialism. And it gave a.s.sent, with varying enthusiasm, to the general definition and program outlined by Millerand. He defined the ground to be covered as follows:

"Is not the Socialistic idea completely summed up in the earnest desire to secure for every being in the bosom of society the unimpaired development of his personality? That implies two necessary conditions of which one is a factor of the other: first, individual appropriation of things necessary for the security and development of the individual, i.e., property; secondly, liberty, which is only a sounding and hollow word if it is not based on and safeguarded by property."

He then accepted _in toto_ the Marxian theory that capitalistic society bears within itself the enginery of its own doom. "Men do not and will not set up collectivism; it is setting itself up daily; it is, if I may be allowed the phrase, being secreted by the capitalistic regime. Here I seem to have my finger on the characteristic feature of the Socialist program. In my view, whoever does not admit the necessary and progressive replacement of capitalistic property by social property is not a Socialist."

Millerand was not satisfied with merely including banking, railroads, and mining in the list of "socialized" property. He believed that as industries become "ripe" they should be taken over by the state, and cites sugar refining as an example of a monopoly that is "incontestably ripe." Millerand also laid great stress on munic.i.p.al activities, and hastened to guarantee to the small property owner his modest possessions. All this taking over by the state was to be done gradually. "No Socialist ever dreamed of transforming the capitalistic regime instantaneously by magic wand." The method of this gradual absorption by the state must be const.i.tutional. "We appeal only to universal suffrage. To realize the immediate reforms capable of relieving the lot of the working cla.s.s, and thus fitting it to win its own freedom, and to begin, as conditioned by the nature of things, the socialization of the means of production, it is necessary and sufficient for the Socialist party to endeavor to capture the government through universal suffrage."[5]

This mild formulary, which places the "socialized society" far into the dim future, was accepted as long as it was rhetorical. But when Millerand himself became a member of the cabinet in the Waldeck-Rousseau coalition, and began to translate his words into deeds, a rupture followed.

In the meantime occurred the Dreyfus affair, which shifted all the political forces of the Republic. At first the Guesdists remained indifferent, while Jaures, with great energy, threw himself into the contest in behalf of Dreyfus. But when the affair took an anti-Republican turn and democracy was threatened, then all the Socialists united, with no lack of energy and zeal, in the defense of the Republic. On June 13, 1898, Millerand was spokesman in the Chamber of Deputies for the Socialist group, which now held the balance of power. With threats of violence against the Republic in the air, he a.s.sured the deputies that his comrades were united for "the honor, the splendor, and the safety of the Fatherland" (l'honneur, la grandeur, et la securite de la Patrie). And this was part of the price of their adhesion: old-age pensions, a fixed eight-hour day, factory legislation protecting the life and health of the workman, military service reduced to two years, and an income tax. The Radical Left adopted this "minimum program" of the Socialists, and the famous "Bloc" was formed. Jaures was made vice-president of the Chamber and soon proved himself master of the coalition. Now for the first time in history the Socialists were in political power, and what occurred is of the greatest interest to us.

III

And now for the first time a Socialist becomes a cabinet member. In 1899 Waldeck-Rousseau appointed Millerand Minister of Commerce, to the consternation of the Conservatives and the division of the Socialists.

Jaures congratulated his colleague on his courage in a.s.suming responsibility. But while the Independents were jubilant over the elevation of one of their number, the Guesdists and Blanquists withdrew from the "Bloc." They issued a manifesto setting forth their reasons.

They did not wish further alliances with a "pretended Socialist." They were tired of "compromises and deviations," which for too long a time had been forced on them as "a subst.i.tute for the cla.s.s war, for revolution, and the socialism of the militant proletariat."[6]

To them the war of the cla.s.ses forbade their entrance into a bourgeois ministry; and the conquest of political power did not imply collaboration with a government whose duty it was to defend property.

Jaures proposed to put the question up to the party congress, and in 1899 at Paris a bilateral compromise resolution was adopted. Guesde, however, restless and dissatisfied, compelled the congress to vote first upon the question, "Does the war of the cla.s.ses permit the entrance of a Socialist into a bourgeois government?" The answer was 818 "no," 634 "yes." Jaures' compromise was then adopted, 1,140 to 240.[7]

The international congress held in Paris, September, 1900, adopted Kautsky's resolution declaring that the acceptance of office by a single Socialist in a bourgeois government "could not be deemed the normal commencement of the conquest for political power, but only an expedient called forth by transitory and exceptional conditions."

At the Bordeaux congress, April, 1903, the whole time was given over to this perplexing question. The congress was composed largely of friends of Millerand and Jaures. By this time the Socialist minister had had three years' experience in the cabinet. The Waldeck-Rousseau premiership had given way to Combes, who was also dependent upon the Socialists for his power.

Millerand had especially offended the Socialists by voting against his party on three separate occasions: first, on a resolution abolishing state support for public worship; second, on a resolution to prosecute certain anti-militarists for publishing a book that tended to destroy military discipline; and, third, on a resolution asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs to invite proposals for international disarmament.

He had further offended the Socialists by officially receiving the Czar on his visit to Paris.

The debate, then, was disciplinary rather than doctrinal. But it was political discipline, evidence therefore that a party consciousness of some sort had been achieved. This meeting is significant because it tried to fix definite limits for Socialistic action and committed Jaures to the narrowing, not to the expanding, policy of the party.

M. Sarrante expressed the Millerand idea when he told the delegates that they were to judge "an entire policy," the policy of "democratic Socialism, which gains ground daily on the revolutionary Socialism, a policy which Citizen Millerand did not start, which he has merely developed and defined, and which forces itself upon us more and more in our republican country." The test of Socialism, he said, was just this "contact of theory with facts."

Jaures found himself in logical difficulty when he endeavored to reconcile both sides for the sake of party unity. He said that Sarrante was wrong "when he thinks it enough to lay down the principle of democracy in order to resolve, in a sort of automatic fashion, the antagonisms of society.... The enthronement of political democracy and universal suffrage by no means suppresses the profound antagonism of cla.s.ses.... Sarrante errs in positing democracy without noting that it is modified, adulterated, thwarted by the antagonism of cla.s.ses and the economic preponderance of one cla.s.s. Just as Guesde errs in positing the cla.s.s war apart from democracy."

To Jaures the problem was to "penetrate" this democracy with the ideas of Socialism until the "proletarian and Socialistic state has replaced the oligarchic and bourgeois state." This can be brought about, he said, by "a policy which consists in at once collaborating with all democrats, yet vigorously distinguishing one's self from them."

Jaures acknowledged the awkwardness of this policy, which required a superhuman legerdemain never yet accomplished by any party in the history of politics.

Guesde's motion to oust Millerand from the party was lost. And a compromise offered by Jaures censuring him for his votes, but permitting him to remain in the party fold, was adopted by 109 to 89 votes, fifteen delegates abstaining from voting. This was a very close margin, and in spite of Millerand's promise that he would in the future be more careful of his party allegiance he was expelled the following year from the Federation of the Seine. The stumbling-block was removed.[8]

More important than the party discipline is the question of the economic measures attempted by Millerand. In general he followed the outlines laid down in his Saint-Mande program.[9] His experience carried him farther away from the Guesdists every year until he repudiated the cla.s.s war and adhered to social solidarity; subst.i.tuted the method by evolution for the method by revolution, still espoused by Guesde; and placed the national interests upon as high a plane of duty as the international and the personal. His program of labor legislation was comprehensive, and he succeeded in getting some of it pa.s.sed into law. These were his leading proposals:

1. Regulating the hours of labor and creating a normal working day of ten hours. He began the reduction at eleven hours, reducing it to ten and a half, and then to ten within three years. In the public works of his own department he reduced the working day at once to eight hours.

2. In public contracts he introduced clauses favorable to workingmen.

These clauses embraced the number of hours in a normal work day, the minimum wage for every cla.s.s of workmen, prohibition of piece-work, guarantee of no work on Sunday, and the per cent. of foreign workmen allowed on the job. He arranged that the workingmen should unite with the employer in fixing the wages and the hours of labor before the contract was signed. In these contracts, furthermore, the state reserved the right to indemnify the workmen out of the funds due to the contractor.

3. An accident insurance law.

4. The abolition of private employment agencies, with their many abuses, and replacing them with communal labor bureaus free to all.

The voluntary federations of the trade unions were put on a similar footing with the communal labor exchanges, and were encouraged to co-operate with them. Millerand took great care to perfect the organization of trade unions. He introduced amendments to the old law of 1884, giving greater scope and elasticity to the unions, granting them greater corporate powers, and making the dismissal of a workman because he belonged to a union ground for a civil suit for damages. He began a movement to secure the co-operation between the unions and the state workshop inspectors. There had been a great deal of abuse in the operation of the inspection laws by the employers. An attempt was now made to define strictly the rights and duties of the inspectors.

5. His pet scheme was the establishing of labor councils (conseils du travail). On these councils labor and employer were to have equal representation. The duty of the councils embraced the adjudication of all disputes arising between employer and employee, suggesting improvements, and keeping vigilance over all local labor conditions.

In 1891 a supreme labor council had been established. To this Millerand added lay and official members and greatly increased its efficiency. He tried to make it a central vigilance bureau, keeping in close touch with local conditions all over the land.

6. He elaborated a plan for regulating industrial disputes. This was to be effected by a permanent organization in each establishment employing more than fifty men, a sort of committee of grievance to which all matters of dispute might be referred. In case of failure to settle their difficulties an appeal to the local labor council was provided. By this democratic representative machinery Millerand hoped to solve the labor problem.

It will be seen that Millerand's plan was an attempt, by law, to project the working cla.s.s, not into politics but into the capitalist cla.s.s. He would do this by compelling the employer to share the responsibility of ownership with his employees. This would mark the beginning of a revolution very different from the revolution ordinarily preached by propagandists, because this revolution would subst.i.tute cla.s.s peace in place of our present incessant economic cla.s.s war.

The Socialists made it plain that Millerand's procedure was not Socialism. When Millerand was first asked to take a cabinet portfolio his friend Jaures told him to accept. When he had perfected his practical procedure, and the bulk of the proletarians evinced their disappointment and chagrin that the elevation of a Socialist had not brought utopia, Jaures gradually slipped away from his former alliance and finally left the reformist group.

Jaures also had his day of power. The Dreyfus affair presented the issue in tangible form--the old traditions, religious, political, social, against the new ideas of society, property, and government. It was the heroic period of modern French Socialism. Red and black flags were borne by enthusiastic mult.i.tudes through the streets of Paris.

The "_Universite Populaire_" was inaugurated by students for the purpose of instructing the common people in the issues that were at stake. The flame of eager antic.i.p.ation spread over the Republic.

As master of the "Bloc" in the Chamber, Jaures became the first real head in the first French democracy. Two great reforms were undertaken: the disestablishment of the Church, carrying with it the secularization of education and the reorganization of the army. The old Royalist families had continued to send their sons into the army and navy. Many of the officers were suspected of royalist sympathies.

An elaborate system of espionage was inst.i.tuted, and the suspects weeded out. The last vestige of the old monarchy has now disappeared from French officialdom. France has a bourgeois army, a bourgeois school system, a bourgeois bureaucracy, thanks to the power of the proletarian Socialists led by Jaures in the days of the Republic's danger.

Jaures remained orthodox; Millerand became heretic. The Millerand episode left a deep impression on the public mind. The first Socialist minister shaped not only a program but an entire policy. In 1906, when a new cabinet was formed, Millerand declined a portfolio, but two other Socialists accepted cabinet honors; Viviani, a well-known Parisian lawyer, held the newly created ministry of labor and social prevision (prevoyance sociale), and Aristide Briand became Minister of Public Instruction and Worship, and later Minister of Justice.

The public regarded the elevation of two Socialists to the cabinet as a matter of course. Millerand's activity had taken the fear out of their hearts. Even the Marxian Socialists failed to notice the event.

They had written into their party by-laws that no Socialist could accept office, so the new ministers, by their own acts, ceased to be "Socialists."

Clemenceau, the new Premier, ushered in the next period of social adventure by a brilliant debate in the Chamber with Jaures in which the philosophical basis of individualism was reviewed with great skill and some of the social questions discussed.[10]

Jaures claimed for the Socialists a dominant share in the great victory won by the friends of the Republic during the Dreyfus turmoil, and made much of the mult.i.tudes of workingmen to whom the Republic was now under great obligation. These workingmen, the proletariat, were the force now to be dealt with. "If you really wish society to evolve, if you wish it really to be transformed, there is the force you must deal with, and that you must neither repress nor rebuff." The parliamentary experience of Socialism Jaures pa.s.sed over lightly; it added nothing new, he thought, to the theory or the arguments of the Socialists.

His opponent, however, in a single sentence laid bare the weakness of the Socialist's logic: "The truth is that it is necessary to distinguish between two different elements of the social organization, between the man and the system." Clemenceau read the Socialists'

program upon which they had won their victory. It embraced: the eight-hour day, giving state employees the right to form unions, sickness and unemployment insurance; a progressive income tax; ballot reform (scrutin de liste) and proportional representation, and "restoration to the nation of the monopolies in which capital has its strongest fortress."

"What a terribly bourgeois program!" exclaimed Clemenceau. "M. Jaures, after expounding his program, challenged me to produce my own. I had very great difficulty in restraining the temptation to reply: 'You know my program very well. You have it in your pocket. You stole it from me.'"

This debate was significant, not in what was said, but in the fact that it was possible to enlist the Prime Minister, the cleverest of French statesmen, and Jaures, the greatest of French orators, in a discussion of Socialism from the tribune of the Chamber of Deputies.

The whole country listened. During this brilliant tilt Clemenceau taunted Jaures that his Socialism was impractical, a dream. "You are a visionary, I am a realist; you have dreams, I have facts." Jaures replied with great fervor that he would prove to the people of France that Socialism is not impracticable and that within a year he would produce a plan for the new social order. The "Unified" Socialist Party, built up largely on Jaures' abandonment of his former colleague and his earlier liberal convictions, may be considered a part of the fulfilment of this promise. The other part, the plans and specifications for the new society, is not yet before the world. Its introduction, properly its prelude, is the volume published by Jaures in 1911, _L'Armee Nouvelle_, containing suggestions for reorganizing the state defense along lines of voluntary militia and cadets.[11]