作者：Casey Harison

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The Paris working class and the russian revolution of 1905

The degree to which newspapers, no less than political and labor leaders like Dubreuilh, Jaurès, Guesde or Vaillant, were truly representative of the French working class is debatable. There was, of course, no single working-class opinion about 1871, as about any topic. Even the leaders of syndicalism, a potent force in turn-of-the century France that was wedded to the idea of direct action and whose spokesman considered themselves more disposed toward workers’ sentiments than political parties, tended to cast the model of the Commune as futile.(62) Still, the crowds that joined the cortege for Louise Michel and participated in the marches to Père-Lachaise were evidence of the working class’s knowledge of its history. It is possible to assess how their perceptions of the revolution of 1905 and any parallels it had with the Commune were molded by surveying coverage in three newspapers directed toward them: L’Humanité, Le Socialiste and La Voix du Peuple.(63)

Founded in April 1904, L’Humanité was a daily publication. Along with the occasional editorials from Jaurès (the newspaper’s principal founder), L’Humanité attracted contributions from intellectuals and politicians on the left.(64) Its coverage focused on topics of interest to the working class, including strikes and political and economic news. In 1905, L’Humanité was in effect the organ for the Socialist Party, but in 1921, following a split the previous year in the SFIO, it became the voice of the new French Communist Party. The weekly Le Socialiste was founded in 1885 by Guesde and Paul Lafargue and, before folding in 1911, functioned as a de facto organ for Guesde’s Parti Ouvrier.(65) Unlike L’Humanité, Le Socialiste had always shown a marked interest in Russia. Lafargue, like Guesde one of the earliest French Marxists (and a son-in-law of Marx), wrote for both newspapers. He was also close to many Russian émigrés and so was regarded as something of a specialist on the country.(66) La Voix du Peuple was the voice of the CGT, the trades’ organization formed at Limoges in 1894, which spearheaded the revolutionary syndicalist movement. Begun in 1900, the newspaper was a weekly publication, four to five pages long, with national coverage focused even more intently than L’Humanité and Le Socialiste on labor issues—in particular, in 1905, strikes and union activities, the eight-hour day, the “repos hebdomaire” (weekly days of rest) and the new conscription law that was bound to have tremendous impact on labor. Georges Yvetot, the editor, and Emile Pouget wrote many of the paper’s editorials.(67)

Much of L’Humanité’s coverage of Russia in this period was about the war with Japan. But L’Humanité also kept its readers abreast of labor strikes and demonstrations, so that by Bloody Sunday the build-up to a social explosion appeared inevitable. On 22 January, it reported boldly on the front page: “Toward the Revolution: The Strikes in Petersburg.” This and related articles cast the demonstrations mostly as the work of “grèvistes” (strikers). The next day, just above a testament to the recently buried Michel, the paper printed a front-page editorial by Jaurès forecasting “The Death of Tsarism.” Soon after, well-known political and labor leaders and intellectuals came out “against Tsarism and for the Russian Revolution.”(68) At the same time in Paris there were student and worker demonstrations in support of the revolution and against the tsar, as well as meetings and lectures about Russia organized by the Socialist Party, at which Jaurès, Dubreuilh, Lafargue and others spoke.(69) Early in 1905, the revolution was big news for L’Humanité, whose front-page reporting comes across as a little breathless and expectant of the collapse of the old regime, even as the coverage provided little sense of what individuals or groups were competing for power. On 28 January, in its first direct analogy to the French revolutionary tradition, L’Humanité described the situation in Russia as “historic … the most important since the Commune of 1871.” The same article compared Bloody Sunday to the Champ de Mars massacre of 1791 (which had served as a prelude to the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1792).

The early coverage by Le Socialiste was more strident and supportive of revolution in Russia than L’Humanité. Week after week through January and February 1905, the newspaper offered front-page stories rooting on the revolutionaries and forecasting the “collapse of Tsarism.” Unlike L’Humanité, Le Socialiste specifically and insistently linked the narrative of revolution in Russia with the history of revolution in France and elsewhere: “The victory of the revolutionary Russian proletariat, the collapse of Tsarism will be a victory as well for the international proletariat.”(70) The newspaper’s rhetorical style very much reflected the influence of Marx, with the events in Russia cast as a “stage” in the history of revolution and the language of the editorials resolutely infused with the message of class struggle. But like L’Humanité, the historical analogies tended to be more with 1789 than with 1871.

La Voix du Peuple reported on the death of Louise Michel in its January issues, but the revolution in Russia did not appear until 5 February, at which time the front page burst with enthusiasm over the events. The newspaper told its readers that “the Revolution in Russia” had economic origins and that Russian workers were acting out in this genuine revolutionary setting the goals and tactics of the almost mythical “general strike.” The newspaper made direct comparisons with the year 1793 (rather than 1792, as was the case with L’Humanité and Le Socialiste) when the French Revolution had taken a radical turn, and briefly compared the “massacre” of Bloody Sunday to the “horrors of Bloody Week in 1871.” On behalf of the “Parisian working class,” the editors expressed the hope that the revolution would prosper and not be “stopped by mitrailleuses” (the early form of machine-guns used to defeat the Communards). A piece titled “A New 1789!” described the “natural solidarity” of the Russian and French proletariats, providing a concise history of 1789–94—again with emphasis on the radical policies of “’93.” But by March coverage of Russia in La Voix du Peuple had declined drastically. Even as the December street battles were occurring in Moscow, the newspaper instead reported on a big strike in the Paris construction industry.

Indeed, from March 1905, the headiness of the early days of revolution had dimmed—a shift reflected in the pages of all three newspapers, with the revolution now more often described simply as a “crisis.” L’Humanité’s coverage of the March commemoration of the Commune was brief: a short back-page article reviewed the speeches made by a familiar stable of speakers, including Vaillant. At the ceremony, Vaillant compared the Commune to “current events,” noting that the “disasters” of 1870–71 were similar to what was taking place in Russia. Invoking as he had so often done the “blood of the martyrs of 1871,” Vaillant ended with an analogy between the “massacres of proletarians” in May 1871 and January 1905. Le Socialiste provided more coverage of the March commemoration than L’Humanité, partly it seems because the former was inclined to celebrate the beginning of the Commune while L’Humanité tended to eulogize the agony of Bloody Week. Following the march to the Mur des Fédérés at a banquet where Vaillant, Dubreuilh and others spoke, Le Socialiste also reported the words of a “Citizen Fribourg” who “glorified the next Commune of St. Petersburg in the hope that, with a happier result than the heroes of 1871 … the Russian revolutionaries will at one and the same time get rid of their emperor and their exploiters.” At Avignon in the south of France, the paper noted, there had been mingled shouts of “Vive la Commune de Paris! Vive la Commune de St. Petersburg!”(71) But Le Socialiste also quoted Lafargue, who offered a decidedly ambiguous “salute” to the “Russian Revolution that will free Europe from the Tsarist reaction and which will do for socialism today what the Paris Commune did for Europe in 1871.” Later in the evening, Dubreuilh told his audience that “[t]his persistence in the memory and fidelity to an already remote past testifies to the fact that the work of the Commune was not useless, that it was not in vain that our elders placed themselves for two months behind the barricades.”(72) Like so many of the celebratory moments on this day, Dubreuilh’s talk provided the perfect opportunity to speak to the revolution in Russia, yet according to the newspaper no such words were offered.

The May anniversary of the defeat of the Commune elicited, as always, much coverage by L’Humanité. On 29 May, the newspaper led with a headline and a long article on “La Semaine Sanglante” (Bloody Week). The story emphasized the intimidating presence of police along the route to Père-Lachaise, the size of the crowd there, and the day’s festivities, which included the usual speeches and singing of revolutionary songs. But in comparison with previous pilgrimages, the crowd of 3,000 was not notably large.(73) The newspaper made no mention at all of Russia, nor offered the seemingly obvious analogies between the history of revolution in France and the ongoing revolution in Russia. Le Socialiste celebrated the history of the Commune during nearly the entire stretch of May–June 1905, beginning with the May Day (1 May) edition, which was printed in red. This issue also carried a front-page article on Russia, with a reprint of a long piece from the German Social Democratic leader Karl Kautsky, who made explicit comparisons between 1789 and 1905 but offered no observations at all on 1871.(74) The three editions of the newspaper from 21 May through 11 June carried stories on commemorations of Bloody Week, but with only passing allusions to Russia.(75)

By December 1905, the revolution in Russia was losing steam as the war with Japan ended with a settlement and as Tsar Nicholas II blunted the grievances of the middle and upper classes with the “October Manifesto” that hinted at a constitution and other reforms. Meantime, the authorities were putting down strikes and arresting rebel leaders.(76) Still, L’Humanité continued to cover events. From 23 through 31 December the newspaper offered front-page stories on the “Battle of Moscow” and the dissolution of the St. Petersburg Soviet. Though the newspaper made just one direct comparison to the Commune, its style of reporting on the fighting in Moscow must have evoked in the minds of readers the experience of Paris in 1871. Barricades and arrests were reported, with “innumerable victims” (later, the newspaper mentioned “10,000”) in the “terrible struggle,” during which the mitrailleuses and fusillades (summary executions) were used, as in 1871, to terrible effect.(77) Meantime, Le Socialiste asserted that “the Russian Revolution” was still alive. More articles from Kautsky appeared, including one that disparaged the Commune as “only a revolution in one city [that] was defeated in a few weeks.”(78) But the newspaper made only the briefest mention of the insurrection in Moscow. At the end of December, there was a front-page announcement calling for yet another anniversary commemoration: this one organized by the SFIO for the upcoming first anniversary of Bloody Sunday.79 Except for brief mention of the event itself, by the end of January 1906, coverage of Russia by Le Socialiste had virtually stopped.

There had been few real signs of working-class revolution in Paris since 1871, despite the city’s unique revolutionary legacy, the example of the Commune, the emergence of revolutionary syndicalism, the waves of strikes since the 1890s and, now, the inspiration of upheaval in Russia. The age of revolution seemed to have come to an end for France, and the reporting on Russia in 1905, especially by L’Humanité and Le Socialiste, if less directly in La Voix du Peuple, captured this shift. Though revolution in deed was over in France, revolution as word or symbol persisted. Even as L’Humanité was reporting on the repression in Moscow in December 1905, it was also describing international efforts to organize the upcoming commemoration of Bloody Sunday. Likewise, the anniversary marches to Père-Lachaise would continue for many years, and would even be reinvigorated by the revolution of 1917 and the founding of the PCF in 1920. But after 1905 and 1917, Russia, not France, would serve as the international model for revolution.