Abstract
The second part concentrates on Jaurès’s relations with Germany. This was a country of primary importance in his era, as the question of “revanchism” fueled political debates. The texts reproduced here also shed new light on French–German relations, showing the premises of a Jaurèsian project for Europe based on peace and socialism. Jaurès sought to develop the bases of friendship between the two nations in order to avert any prospect of war. Throughout his career he would, moreover, revisit the history of this country neighboring France. His disputes with his social democratic friends in Germany displayed the real difficulties of grounding a French–German solidarity that could rise above the particular traits of each country’s socialist movement.
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Notes
- 1.
Albert Schäffle (1831–1903) was a conservative politician but sought to reconcile socialism with the Prussian state, and was thus considered one of the Kathedersozialisten.
- 2.
A Prussian association which aimed to uphold Germanic values and mobilize them against Napoleonic domination, between 1808 and 1815.
- 3.
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), one of the great German writers of the nineteenth century, an admirer of the French Revolution and a friend of Karl Marx.
- 4.
Ludwig Börne (1786–1837), oppositional German writer and a leading figure among the so-called “Young Germans.”
- 5.
Lassalle considered Germany’s other political forces a “reactionary mass”; he hoped that this tactic would preserve the independence of the workers’ movement.
- 6.
A reference to the 1904 Socialist International congress in Amsterdam.
- 7.
SPD chairman August Bebel (1840–1913) enjoyed considerable political and moral authority.
- 8.
The SPD’s Dresden congress in 1903 condemned any attempt to question the validity of Marxism.
- 9.
Victor Adler (1852–1918) was one of the main leaders of Austrian social democracy; Émile Vandervelde (1866–1938), was a Belgian social-democrat.
- 10.
Kurt Eisner (1867–1919), was prominent in the SPD nationally, a member of the Vorwärts editorial team and one of Jaurès’s few allies at this paper.
- 11.
Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), the main theorist of German social democracy, bore great influence in this period.
- 12.
Georg von Vollmar (1850–1922), one of the first German social-democrats to raise doubts over Marxism; Paul Göhre (1864–1928), a pastor-become-socialist and a critic of Marxism along with Vollmar.
- 13.
Édouard Vaillant (1840–1915) embodied the Blanquist sensibility in the socialist movement (so named after the famous nineteenth-century revolutionary Blanqui). An ally of Guesde’s, he was often hostile to Jaurès’s ideas.
- 14.
Friedrich Klopstock (1724–1803), a German poet famous for his 1789 poem greeting the French Revolution.
- 15.
Gotthold Lessing (1729–1781), a writer who was part of Germany’s own Enlightenment (Aufklärung).
- 16.
Bureau responsible for coordinating and directing the International’s actions.
- 17.
The speaker had good reason to mention the name of Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), especially highly regarded among the German social-democrats.
- 18.
An allusion to Ferdinand Lassalle, founder of the first German workers’ party in 1863. Lassalle’s notion of the “iron law of wages” held that wage-laborers would be unable to achieve a wage higher than that which would guarantee their most basic subsistance.
- 19.
Georg Herwegh (1817–1875), A German poet involved in the revolution of 1848.
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Ducange, JN., Marcobelli, E. (2021). The Champion of French–German Unity. In: Ducange, JN., Marcobelli, E. (eds) Selected Writings of Jean Jaurès. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71959-3_2
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