French Workers' Party
The French Workers' Party was the French socialist party created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law. A revolutionary party, it aimed to abolish capitalism and replace it with a communist society.
The party originated with a secession from Federation of the Socialist Workers' Party of France, which was founded in 1879, after a split with Paul Brousse's possibilists. The party's programme, written by Guesde with input from Marx, Lafargue and Friedrich Engels, was approved at the opening congress. The party officially became the POF in 1893.
In 1902, the party merged with the Blanquist Central Revolutionary Committee to form the Socialist Party of France and finally merged in 1905 with Jean Jaurès' French Socialist Party to form the French Section of the Workers' International. Marcel Cachin, who would lead the split in 1920 which led to the creation of the French Communist Party and edited L'Humanité newspaper, became a member of the POF in 1891.
The Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Loire and Allier were the principal bastions of POF electoral strength.
Principal members
- Jules Guesde, founding member and elected deputy
- Paul Lafargue, son-in-law of Karl Marx and elected deputy
- Marcel Cachin, member from 1891, led the SFIO Tours split in 1920, future director of L'Humanité
- , professor and future elected deputy for the SFIO
- , elected deputy Isère
- Bernard Cadenat, shoemaker, elected deputy Bouches-du-Rhône and mayor of Marseille
- Ulysse Pastre, researcher and elected deputy Gard
- , printer, elected deputy Hérault and president of the typography workers union
- , barber, elected deputy Seine and founder of the coiffeurs workers union who quit the SFIO in 1914 to found a small workers party promoing a return to class war
- Hubert Lagardelle, revolutionary syndicalist
- , elected deputy for Marseille in 1898–1910, mayor of Toulon and vice president of the General Council
- Jean Bertrand, elected deputy for Corbeil
- Pierre Mélin luthier, vice president of the Valenciennes's Labour Court and elected deputy
- Georges Vacher de Lapouge, antisemitic anthropologist and eugenist, Attorney of the Republic and professor
French
- C. Willard C.. Le Mouvement socialiste en France, 1893-1905. Les guesdistes. Ed. sociales.
- J. Verlhac. La formation de l’unité socialiste . L'Harmattan. Reissue of a memoir published in 1947