| Description |
xxi, 513 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Pt. I. In search of French Marxism. 1. Ideology, history, and the study of Marxism. 2. The Parti Ouvrier Francais: its history and historiography. 3. The axioms of class war: class, class consciousness, and class conflict -- Pt. II. The making of the French working class. 4. The capitalist mode of production and proletarianisation. 5. Unmaking the working class: lumpenproletarians and labour aristocrats. 6. A 'class for itself'; trade unions, cooperatives, and the 'labour movement'. 7. The bourgeois state versus the proletarian party. 8. Reform and revolution -- Pt. III. History and class conflict. 9. Vampire-Capital: Marxists indict the bourgeoisie. 10. Shopkeepers and artisans: the Guesdists and the petite bourgeoisie. 11. Aristocrats, peasants and labourers: Marxism and rural society. 12. Sales clerks and savants: Marxists encounter the 'new middle class'. 13. The proletarian revolution: from pauperisation to Utopia |
| Summary |
Despite a century of debate and criticism, Marxism as a mass ideological practice has remained an elusive topic. This book examines Marxist socialism as a mode of understanding and self-understanding treasured and transmitted by thousands of anonymous militants. It focuses upon the Parti Ouvrier Francais, the 'Guesdists', an archetypical movement of Marxism's 'Golden Age' before the First World War, the period when Marxist socialism evolved from sect to mass movement. Thousands of French socialists adopted Marxism due to the effectiveness of vulgar Guesdist polemic rather than to Marx's profound theoretical works, and entire communities were converted to an austere but messianic socialism which still affects French politics today. This book traces the doctrine's birth through conflict with liberals, proto-fascists, and anarchists; its 'making' of a working class; its attempted seduction of the middle class; and its confusion before alternative social visions - issues which today still condition the interpretive triumphs and political tragedies of Marxist ideology |
| Analysis |
France |
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Marxism History |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 503-508) and index |
| Subject |
Social classes -- France -- History -- 19th century.
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Socialism -- France -- History -- 19th century.
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Socialism -- France -- 19th century.
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| SUBJECT |
France -- History -- Third Republic, 1870-1940.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85051411
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| LC no. |
91027093 |
| ISBN |
0521415268 (hardback) |
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