![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Jean Jaurès (1859–1914) forged an innovative theory of radical reform by adopting a universalistic conception of human rights from the liberal tradition and a theory of capitalism and class from Marxism. He urged the labor movement to place less emphasis on the hope of a post-revolutionary “paradise” and instead to “live always in a socialist state of grace,” understanding socialism as a regulative ideal guiding a reformist practice. This liberal socialist politics could only take shape, he suggested, to the extent that liberal norms intersected with the self-interest of existing social movements: Jaurès's socialism, thus, is highly contingent, and makes no promises about political success. Jaurès prompts us to shift the focus of left democratic theory from the polity to the social movement, from “radical democracy” to “radical reform.”
Notes
J. Hampden Jackson, Jean Jaurès: His Life and Work (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1943), p. 7.
The “liberal tradition,” as I use the term, is the broad strain within modern political thought that privileges individual dignity and, thus, individual liberty. I understand John Locke and Immanuel Kant as the founding figures—but certainly not the only significant members—of this tradition.
The term “liberal socialism” is most closely associated with the Italian anti-fascist leader Carlo Rosselli, although it seems to have been first used by the French political philosopher Charles Renouvier in the 1870s. See Monique Canto-Sperber, “Qu'est-ce que le socialisme libéral?” in Monique Canto-Sperber and Nadia Urbinati (eds), Le socialisme libéral: Une anthologie: Europe-États-Unis (Paris: Éditions Esprit, 2003), p. 8; and Carlo Rosselli, Liberal Socialism, ed. and with an introduction by Nadia Urbinati, trans. William McCraig (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
For examples of brief references to Jaurès, see Stephen Eric Bronner, Reclaiming the Enlightenment (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); Dick Howard, The Specter of Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 153; and Ira Katznelson, Liberalism's Crooked Circle: Letters to Adam Michnik (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 36. The only book-length study of Jaurès's political thought in English is long out-of-print and deeply flawed, as it badly misrepresents Jaurès by downplaying the internationalist principles that were central to his thought: Harold R. Weinstein, Jean Jaurès: A Study of Patriotism in the French Socialist Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936). Significant recent French discussions of Jaurès's thought include Vincent Peillon, Jean Jaurès et la religion du socialisme (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2000) and Madeleine Rebérioux (ed.), Jaurès et la classe ouvrière (Paris: Les Editions Ouvrières, 1981).
Irving Howe, “Introduction to Jean Jaurès, ‘From the Rights of Man to Socialism,’” in Howe (ed.), Essential Works of Socialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), p. 213.
Jean Jaurès, “De la realité du monde sensible” and “Des Premiers Linéaments du socialisme allemand chez Luther, Kant, Fichte et Hegel,” in Annick Taburet-Wajngart (ed.), Oeuvres de Jean Jaurès: Tome 3: Philosopher à Trente Ans (Paris: Fayard, 2000).
See Jean Jaurès, Les Preuves: Affaire Dreyfus (Paris: La Petite République 1898).
Jean Jaurès (ed.), Histoire Socialiste (1789–1900) (Paris: Jules Rouff, 1901–1908).
See Jean Jaurès, L'Armée Nouvelle (Paris: L'Humanité, 1915).
Biographical information here is drawn from the authoritative historical work on Jaurès in English: Harvey Goldberg, The Life of Jean Jaurès (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968).
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), pp. 490–491.
Marx and Engels at times considered the possibility that democratic reformism might be sufficient, in some countries, to bring about a transition to communism. However, these themes in their works never become central to Marxism as a political doctrine, at least in its most prominent varieties. See, for example, Karl Marx, “The Possibility of Non-Violent Revolution,” in Tucker, op. cit., pp. 522–524.
Karl Kautsky, The Road to Power, ed. John Kautsky, trans. Raymond Meyer (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996), p. 34. See also Karl Kautsky, The Social Revolution, trans. A.M. and May Wood Simons (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1902).
See, for instance, section 3 of Part III of Marx and Engels, op. cit., p. 497–498.
Kautsky, The Social Revolution, op. cit., pp. 103, 107–183.
Eduard Bernstein, The Preconditions of Socialism, ed. and trans. Henry Tudor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 190. For a comprehensive recent discussion of Bernstein's thought, see Manfred B. Steger, The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard Bernstein and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Also useful is Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's Challenge to Marx, 2nd ed. (New York: Octagon Books, 1979).
See Steger, op. cit., p. 5 (note 13).
Bernstein, op. cit., p. 209.
Jean Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, ed. and trans. Mildred Minturn (London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1906); Jean Jaurès, “Bernstein et l'évolution de la méthode socialiste,” in Oeuvres, ed. Max Bonnafous, vol. 6 (Paris: Rieder, 1939); Jean Jaurès and Jules Guesde, “Les Deux Méthodes,” in Oeuvres, vol. 6. Further references to the second of these texts will be cited as: Jaurès, “Bernstein.” References to the third will be cited as: Jaurès and Guesde. The essays in Studies in Socialism were first published as Etudes Socialistes (Paris: Ollendorff, 1902).
See Mildred Minturn, “Introduction” in Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit.; and Daniel De Leon, Flashlights of the Amsterdam Congress (New York: New York Labor News, 1929).
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” p. 119. Translations from Jaurès's works are my own unless otherwise noted.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit. See in particular pp. 43–50, 60–93, and 130–169.
For Jaurès, as for many of his contemporaries—Kautsky and Bernstein included—the terms “socialism” and “communism” were nearly interchangeable. Their usage of these terms contains some variations in connotation: they tend to use “socialism” most often when talking about the movement, and “communism” when talking about its goals or ideals. This difference should not be stressed too much, however. The important point is that the term “communism,” for these writers, carried none of the authoritarian or totalitarian meanings it acquired after the Russian Revolution.
The Marx against which Jaurès was reacting was the Marx represented in the writings of orthodox Marxists like Kautsky and Guesde. Whether the historical Marx was really such a narrow deterministic thinker as Kautsky and Guesde believed him to be is another question entirely.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” pp. 124–127.
ibid., p. 127.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,”.
Tucker, op. cit., p. 481.
For Guesde's position, see Jaurès and Guesde, pp. 213–215.
For Guesde's position, see Jaurès and Guesde, p. 206.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit., p. 51.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit., pp. 51–59.
Bernstein, op. cit., pp. 47–97.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” pp. 121–123.
Bernstein, op. cit., pp. 56–78.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” pp. 131–133, 137–138.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,”, p. 138.
Jaurès and Guesde, p. 195.
Jaurès and Guesde, pp. 190 and 206.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” p. 139.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,”, p. 140.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit., pp. 11–12.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit., p. 13.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit., p. 12.
“Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” in Tucker, op. cit., pp. 60, 65.
Jaurès, Studies in Socialism, op. cit., pp. 15–16.
Later in his life, Jaurès proposed a similar educative function for existing political feelings within a different context, arguing that republican patriotism could provide an “apprenticeship” in cosmopolitan sensibilities and internationalist politics. See Jaurès, L'Armée Nouvelle, op. cit.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” pp. 134–135.
“For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing,” in Tucker, op. cit., p. 13.
See John Stuart Mill, “Chapters on Socialism,” in J.S. Mill, On Liberty and Other Writings, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Isaiah Berlin, “Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century,” in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 15; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971) pp. 270–274; and John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 135–140.
Jaurès and Guesde, pp. 191–193.
Jaurès, “Bernstein,” p. 136.
How much influence Jaurès has had on left politics in France or elsewhere—and why he has not had more—are questions beyond the scope of this paper. It is worth noting, though, that Jaurès's influence was limited by the fact that he and his allies lost the factional fights over the fundamental policies of French socialism during his lifetime, and by his death decades before the French socialists won any significant share of political power. Just as important, however, has been the tendency of French socialists to treat him hagiographically rather than with the serious and critical examination he deserves. On this tendency, see Madeleine Rebérioux's preface to Annick Taburer-Wajngart (ed.), Oeuvres de Jean Jaurès, vol. 3 (Paris: Fayard, 2000).
For a range of definitions of “radical democracy,” see David Trend (ed.), Radical Democracy: Identity, Citizenship, and the State (New York: Routledge, 1996). The idea of radical reform that I articulate here is also distinct from André Gorz's celebrated distinction between “reformist reform” and “non-reformist reform.” Gorz's distinction relies on the distinction between those reforms that alter fundamental power relations and those that do not; my notion of radical reform depends instead on the role of a demanding universalistic normative critique. See Gorz, Strategy for Labor: A Radical Proposal, trans. Martin A. Nicolaus and Victoria Ortiz (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967).