Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms) 3030740838, 9783030740832

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MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS

Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists

Elisa Marcobelli

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Series Editors Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique of capitalism re-emerges, there is an intellectual and political demand for new, critical engagements with Marxism. The peer-reviewed series Marx, Engels and Marxisms (edited by Marcello Musto & Terrell Carver, with Babak Amini, Francesca Antonini, Paula Rauhala & Kohei Saito as Assistant Editors) publishes monographs, edited volumes, critical editions, reprints of old texts, as well as translations of books already published in other languages. Our volumes come from a wide range of political perspectives, subject matters, academic disciplines and geographical areas, producing an eclectic and informative collection that appeals to a diverse and international audience. Our main areas of focus include: the oeuvre of Marx and Engels, Marxist authors and traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries, labour and social movements, Marxist analyses of contemporary issues, and reception of Marxism in the world.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14812

Elisa Marcobelli

Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists

Elisa Marcobelli University of Rouen-Normandie Rouen, France

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic) Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ISBN 978-3-030-74083-2 ISBN 978-3-030-74084-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: © Corn Leenheer, Group portrait, Amsterdam congress august 1904 [Second International collection], International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Series Editor’s Foreword

Titles Published 1. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, A Political History of the Editions of Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts, 2014. 2. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts: Presentation and Analysis of the “Feuerbach chapter,” 2014. 3. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The History and Theory of Fetishism, 2015. 4. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Marx’s Associated Mode of Production: A Critique of Marxism, 2016. 5. Domenico Losurdo, Class Struggle: A Political and Philosophical History, 2016. 6. Frederick Harry Pitts, Critiquing Capitalism Today: New Ways to Read Marx, 2017. 7. Ranabir Samaddar, Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age, 2017. 8. George Comninel, Alienation and Emancipation in the Work of Karl Marx, 2018. 9. Jean-Numa Ducange & Razmig Keucheyan (Eds.), The End of the Democratic State: Nicos Poulantzas, a Marxism for the 21st Century, 2018. 10. Robert X. Ware, Marx on Emancipation and Socialist Goals: Retrieving Marx for the Future, 2018.

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11. Xavier LaFrance & Charles Post (Eds.), Case Studies in the Origins of Capitalism, 2018. 12. John Gregson, Marxism, Ethics, and Politics: The Work of Alasdair MacIntyre, 2018. 13. Vladimir Puzone & Luis Felipe Miguel (Eds.), The Brazilian Left in the 21st Century: Conflict and Conciliation in Peripheral Capitalism, 2019. 14. James Muldoon & Gaard Kets (Eds.), The German Revolution and Political Theory, 2019. 15. Michael Brie, Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and Metaphysics of Domination, 2019. 16. August H. Nimtz, Marxism versus Liberalism: Comparative RealTime Political Analysis, 2019. 17. Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello and Mauricio de Souza Sabadini (Eds.), Financial Speculation and Fictitious Profits: A Marxist Analysis, 2019. 18. Shaibal Gupta, Marcello Musto & Babak Amini (Eds), Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences: A Critical Examination on the Bicentenary, 2019. 19. Igor Shoikhedbrod, Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality, and Rights, 2019. 20. Juan Pablo Rodríguez, Resisting Neoliberal Capitalism in Chile: The Possibility of Social Critique, 2019. 21. Kaan Kangal, Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature, 2020. 22. Victor Wallis, Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories, 2020. 23. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The Bourgeois and the Savage: A Marxian Critique of the Image of the Isolated Individual in Defoe, Turgot and Smith, 2020. 24. Terrell Carver, Engels before Marx, 2020. 25. Jean-Numa Ducange, Jules Guesde: The Birth of Socialism and Marxism in France, 2020. 26. Antonio Oliva, Ivan Novara & Angel Oliva (Eds.), Marx and Contemporary Critical Theory: The Philosophy of Real Abstraction. 27. Francesco Biagi, Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Theory of Space. 28. Stefano Petrucciani, The Ideas of Karl Marx: A Critical Introduction. 29. Terrell Carver, The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels, 30 th Anniversary Edition

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30. Giuseppe Vacca, Alternative Modernities: Antonio Gramsci’s Twentieth Century. 31. Kevin B. Anderson, Kieran Durkin & Heather Brown (Eds.), Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism: Race, Gender, and the Dialectics of Liberation. 32. Marco Di Maggio, The Rise and Fall of Communist Parties in France and Italy. 33. Ryuji Sasaki, A New Introduction to Karl Marx: New Materialism, Critique of Political Economy, and the Concept of Metabolism. 34. Kohei Saito (Ed.), Reexamining Engels’s Legacy in the 21st Century. 35. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Socialism in Marx’s Capital: Towards a Dealienated World. 36. Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. 37. Michael Brie & Jörn Schütrumpf, Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary Marxist at the Limits of Marxism.

Titles Forthcoming Miguel Vedda, Siegfried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisations Gianfranco Ragona & Monica Quirico, Frontier Socialism: Self-organisation and Anti-capitalism Vesa Oittinen, Marx’s Russian Moment Kolja Lindner, Marx, Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism Jean-Numa Ducange & Elisa Marcobelli (Eds.), Selected Writings of Jean Jaures: On Socialism, Pacifism and Marxism Adriana Petra, Intellectuals and Communist Culture: Itineraries, Problems and Debates in Post-war Argentina George C. Comninel, The Feudal Foundations of Modern Europe James Steinhoff, Critiquing the New Autonomy of Immaterial Labour: A Marxist Study of Work in the Artificial Intelligence Industry Spencer A. Leonard, Marx, the India Question, and the Crisis of Cosmopolitanism Joe Collins, Applying Marx’s Capital to the 21st century Levy del Aguila Marchena, Communism, Political Power and Personal Freedom in Marx Jeong Seongjin, Korean Capitalism in the 21st Century: Marxist Analysis and Alternatives Marcello Mustè, Marxism and Philosophy of Praxis: An Italian Perspective from Labriola to Gramsci Satoshi Matsui, Normative Theories of Liberalism and Socialism: Marxist Analysis of Values Shannon Brincat, Dialectical Dialogues in Contemporary World Politics: A Meeting of Traditions in Global Comparative Philosophy

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Stefano Petrucciani, Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophy, Society, and Aesthetics Francesca Antonini, Reassessing Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire: Dictatorship, State, and Revolution Thomas Kemple, Capital after Classical Sociology: The Faustian Lives of Social Theory Tsuyoshi Yuki, Socialism, Markets and the Critique of Money: The Theory of “Labour Note” V Geetha, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India Xavier Vigna, A Political History of Factories in France: The Workers’ Insubordination of 1968 Attila Melegh, Anti-Migrant Populism in Eastern Europe and Hungary: A Marxist Analysis Marie-Cecile Bouju, A Political History of the Publishing Houses of the French Communist Party Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello & Henrique Pereira Braga (Eds.), Wealth and Poverty in Contemporary Brazilian Capitalism Peter McMylor, Graeme Kirkpatrick & Simin Fadaee (Eds.), Marxism, Religion, and Emancipatory Politics Mauro Buccheri, Radical Humanism for the Left: The Quest for Meaning in Late Capitalism Rémy Herrera, Confronting Mainstream Economics to Overcome Capitalism Tamás Krausz, Eszter Bartha (Eds.), Socialist Experiences in Eastern Europe: A Hungarian Perspective Martin Cortés, Marxism, Time and Politics: On the Autonomy of the Political João Antonio de Paula, Huga da Gama Cerqueira, Eduardo da Motta e Albuquer & Leonardo de Deus, Marxian Economics for the 21st Century: Revaluating Marx’s Critique of Political Economy Zhi Li, The Concept of the Individual in the Thought of Karl Marx Lelio Demichelis, Marx, Alienation and Techno-capitalism Dong-Min Rieu, A Mathematical Approach to Marxian Value Theory: Time, Money, and Labor Productivity Salvatore Prinzi, Representation, Expression, and Institution: The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Castoriadis Agon Hamza, Slavoj Žižek and the Reconstruction of Marxism Kei Ehara (Ed.), Japanese Discourse on the Marxian Theory of Finance Éric Aunoble, French Views on the Russian Revolution Elisa Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists Paolo Favilli, Historiography and Marxism: Innovations in Mid-Century Italy Terrell Carver, Smail Rapic (Eds.), Friedrich Engels for the 21st Century: Perspectives and Problems Juan Dal Maso, Hegemony and Class: Three Essays on Trotsky, Gramsci and Marxism

SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD

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Patrizia Dogliani, A Political History of the International Union of Socialist Youth Alexandros Chrysis, The Marx of Communism: Setting Limits in the Realm of Communism Stephen Maher, Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State: General Electric and a Century of American Power Paul Raekstad, Karl Marx’s Realist Critique of Capitalism: Freedom, Alienation, and Socialism Alexis Cukier, Democratic Work: Radical Democracy and the Future of Labour Christoph Henning, Theories of Alienation: From Rousseau to the Present Daniel Egan, Capitalism, War, and Revolution: A Marxist Analysis Genevieve Ritchie, Sara Carpenter & Shahrzad Mojab (Eds.), Marxism and Migration Emanuela Conversano, Capital from Afar: Anthropology and Critique of Political Economy in the Late Marx Marcello Musto, Rethinking Alternatives with Marx Vincenzo Mele, City and Modernity in George Simmel and Walter Benjamin: Fragments of Metropolis David Norman Smith, Self-Emancipation: Marx’s Unfinished Theory of the Working Class Ronaldo Munck, Rethinking Development: Marxist Perspectives

Acknowledgments

This book is the English translation of the publication of my PhD thesis, defended at EHESS Paris and FU Berlin in December 2015. I would like to thank once again and always sincerely my thesis directors, Christophe Prochasson (EHESS) and Oliver Janz (FU) for guiding me along the research path and allowing me to complete it. I would like to thank the Institut Historique Allemand in Paris and its director, who provided me with the material conditions to carry out the research, and Arndt Weinrich of the First World War research group, an enlightened guide. I heartily thank Jean-Numa Ducange for allowing my doctoral dissertation to become first a book, then even translated into English. I also thank him for welcoming me into the international socialism research group EuroSoc, for allowing me to continue researching comfortably even after my Ph.D. was over and for being always full of ideas, energetic and optimistic. Thanks to Marcello Musto, the editor of this series, for agreeing to publish this book, and to the always kind Rebecca Roberts for her important and patient help. It goes without saying, an everlasting thank you goes to my family in Italy and to my beloved and comfortable small Italian protective network in Paris.

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Contents

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Introduction General Introduction Development of the Research Socialism in the Three Countries France Germany Italy Time Frame of the Research Historiographic Framework Sources

1 1 12 19 19 29 39 51 54 62

2

Creating a Sense of Community: The II International Between 1889 and 1900 The II International, Its Practices, Its Opposition to War Paris 1889 Brussels 1891 Zurich 1893 London 1896 The First Challenge: The Fachoda Crisis (1898) A “War of Nerves” International Reactions The French Attitude In Germany and Italy

67 67 75 80 85 87 91 91 93 96 97

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CONTENTS

“Doppelkrise” and Shy Reactions The Russo-Japanese War A Conflict Not So Far Away International Socialism and the Conflict: Amsterdam 1904 French and German Socialists and the Russian-Japanese War The Reaction of the Italian Socialists The First Morocco Crisis The Tangier Crisis A Slow and Cautious International Response Socialists Confronting the Morocco Crisis In France Reaction to Reaction: Wait-and-See Attitude of the German Social-Democrats French and Italians Facing the German Attitude After the Crisis An Internationalist Practice: International Inquiry

101 101 101

Two-Speed Reactions Stuttgart 1907: The Discussion on the War International Tensions in 1908: An ISB Resolution Between Stuttgart and Copenhagen Copenhagen 1910: General Strike as a Means of Struggle The Second Morocco Crisis and the First International Reactions The “Jump of the Panther” At the International Level Relations Between Parties: Unity The Jena Congress French Commentaries About Jena Italian Comments to the Jena Congress The Limits of This Unit: French Uncertainties The Limits of This Unit: The Attitude of the PSI The Italo-Turkish War Context and Meaning PSI’s Relations with the International The Italian Socialists Facing the Italian-Turkish War In France and Germany: The Reactions

155 155

103 110 117 119 119 122 129 130 135 141 144 146

161 163 168 170 172 177 182 187 189 190 194 197 197 200 208 219

CONTENTS

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Commitment Against War The Debates on Military Reforms and Socialist Imperialism Military Reforms in the Three Countries Socialist Imperialism Italy and Militarism in France and Germany The Balkan Wars The Conflicts ISB’s Response The Basel Congress of 1912 French, German, and Italian Socialists and the Situation in the Balkans

229 229 230 239 244 247 247 249 257

Internationalism in Crisis? Before the War An “improbable War” for the Socialists? Socialism Around August 1914 At International Level The Outbreak of the War In Italy In France In Germany New Ministers Sembat and Guesde: German and Italian Reactions The Italian Neutrality Seeking to Convince the Italian Socialists Mussolini and the War Italy Enters the War

267 267 268 271 277 279 279 284 286

Conclusion

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Index

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288 290 290 296 301

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

General Introduction “Abolition of the standing armies and arming of the people”1 : this was the fourth and last question on the agenda of the first congress of the Second International, the Paris congress of 1889. It was the subject of marginal discussions. The 1912 congress in Basel, the last before the outbreak of the First World War, was an enormous symbolic staging which the participants used to show their opposition to the war. In the midst of the Balkan Wars, the only item on its agenda was: “The international situation and the agreement for action against war”.2 The next meeting, the 10th congress of the new socialist International, was to be held in Vienna in August 1914. Representatives of the socialist parties are expected to discuss the various items on the agenda and take the opportunity to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Second International. However, this meeting did not take place. The First World War broke out at the beginning of August and the internationalism of the socialist parties was 1 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. Ordres du jour et résolutions. In: (1976) Histoire de la II e Internationale. Documents généraux, vol. 3. Geneve: Minkoff, 1902, 8. 2 “The international situation and the agreement for action against war”. Invitation to the International Socialist Congress in Basel (24, 25, 26 November 1912)”. Bulletin périodique du Bureau socialiste international 9, 1912. In: Histoire de la II e Internationale, vol. 22. Geneva: Minkoff, 1980, 17.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9_1

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weakened by the declaration of war. In the summer of 1914, the socialist deputies of the European nations voted in favor of war credits, socialist activists were called to arms and, like their fellow citizens, went to war to fight against those who, a few weeks earlier, were still their political brothers in arms. What happened between the congress of 1889 and that of 1912 for the latter to become the great socialist demonstration of opposition to the war that it was? How did the practical organization and staging of the congresses change as a result? What role did the members of the French, German, and Italian socialist parties play in this progression from international socialism to the peace movement? And to what extent did relations between the three parties hinder this process? What role did the successive international diplomatic crises in the years of activity of the Second International play? And, finally, what happened between 1914 and 1915? The events of the summer of 1914, which led both the French socialists and the German social-democrats to de facto endorse the entry into the war of their respective countries, have remained in the memories and analyzed by historians as the failure and betrayal of the new International, which quickly became labels for interpreting this series of events: betrayal of the members of the socialist parties by their own leaders; failure of the very spirit of the International, born to strengthen the principles of transnational solidarity of the working class and to help it build common struggles. And indeed, the words “failure” and “betrayal” are put down on paper by the members of the socialist parties themselves. Lenin spoke of them as early as 1915.3 The historiography of the new International has turned these ideas into a statement. Even if, officially, the International continued to exist until 1923 and if some socialist representatives will sought to organize new international meetings, even if restricted ones, during the fighting (such as the meetings of Zimmerwald and Kienthal), most of the works dealing with the second socialist International places its chronological end

3 Cf. Vladimir Ilitch Oulianov Lénine. Le socialisme et la guerre. Paris: Éditions sociales 1952 (1915).Karl Kautsky Sozialisten und Krieg. Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte des Sozialismus von den Hussiten bis zum Völkerbund. Prague: Orbis, 1937.

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in 1914, with the beginning of the war.4 Jacques Droz, in the ambitious Histoire générale du socialisme which he edited between 1972 and 1977, states: “In total, the International failed as an International: just as the Franco-Prussian War had wounded the First International, just as the Third International later disappeared in the course of the Second World War, so the Second International had to recognize in 1914, according to Kautsky’s atrocious word, that it was not made for wartime”.5 For James Joll, the causes of this failure, of this “Scheitern der Antikriegsbewegung”6 in the words of Wolfgang Kruse, are to be found in the fact that the International was based on doctrines that were too rigid and monolithic, unsuited to a more nuanced reality. The failure of the International is thus, for Joll, the result of the constant divorce between theory and practice.7 An idea was taken up by Jean-Jacques Becker, who argues that the problem with the new International is that it had too ambitious objectives, which led it to bankruptcy.8 One of the tasks that the socialist International had set for itself, the fight for peace, thus ended in the most flagrant failure of all its objectives. Annie Kriegel also blames the failure of the entire International on the failure of the fight against the war: “From July 31 to August 4, 1914”, the historian states, “the mechanism on which the workers’ International counted to stop the war became jammed: the International had to admit defeat. With it, peace and

4 The German historian Agnes Blänsdorf has conducted a different study in this sense, as she has set herself the goal of analyzing the internationalism of the Second International for the period 1914–1917. The fact that she chooses not to end her analysis of the history of the Second International with the outbreak of the war does not prevent her from dedicating an entire chapter of her work to what she calls the “Zersplitterung der Zweiten Internationale”, the break-up of the Second International in front of the beginning of the war. Agnes Blänsdorf. Die Zweite Internationale und der Krieg. Die Diskussion über die internationale Zusammenarbeit der sozialistischen Parteien, 1914–1917 . Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979. 5 Jacques Droz (ed). Histoire générale du socialisme 2: De 1875 à 1918. Paris: PUF, 1997, 583. 6 Wolfgang

Kruse. Krieg und nationale Integration. Eine Neuinterpretation des sozialdemokratischen Burgfriedenschlusses 1914–15. Essen: Klartext, 1993, 29. 7 James Joll. The Second International, 1889–1914. London: Weidenfel and Nicolson, 1995. 8 Jean-Jacques Becker. La IIe Internationale et la guerre. In: Les Internationales et le problème de la guerre au xxe siècle: actes du colloque, 22–24 novembre 1984 Rome. Milan and Rome: Università di Milano and École française de Rome, 1997, 9–25.

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socialism”,9 even if she acknowledges that, on the other hand, this institution had some success: within it, a discourse for peace was born; within it, the proletariat managed to organize itself in a more systematic way. It is necessary to qualify these observations: over the years of its existence, the International has learned to react to international danger. It has put in place a whole panoply of means to publicly affirm its opposition to war. In spite of this, and particularly at the level of exchanges between the representatives of the different national parties, it has nonetheless shown some ambivalences. The research undertaken here obviously comes after decades of scientific work on the attitude of the Second International and its representatives to the danger of the outbreak of war. In the historiographical debate, two tendencies are discernible: one attaches great importance to the commitment of the International in the struggle against the war and explains the failure of the International by its failure in this struggle; the other frees the International from this responsibility, focusing instead on its developments, its speeches, its initiatives, independently of its struggle against the war: in this enterprise, in its capacity to organize itself, to unite the workers’ movements of the different countries, the International has not failed. This work lies at the crossroads of these two historiographies: it studies the life of the International independently of what happened in 1914, but it includes in the analyzes of its development the fight against the war, while it was still alive. In this sense, it is inspired by the method of a widespread trend in the most recent historiography of the origins of the Great War, which, after several decades of wondering about the outbreak of the war in 1914,10 is now rather wondering how it came to be in July 1914—as Arndt Weinrich has pointed out.11 This work, then, is not (only) wondering why the International reacted the way it did just before the war, but is interested in the path it has taken so far. In this sense, the struggle of the International against the war does not constitute a failure. Rather, it contributes to a “victory” of the institution, to 9 Annie Kriegel. Aux origines du communisme français. Paris: Flammarion, 1964, 31. 10 Cf. for exemple William Mulligan. The Origins of the First World War. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2010. Christopher Clark. The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914. London: Allen Lane, 2012. 11 Arndt Weinrich. Grosser Krieg, grosse Ursachen? Aktuelle Forschungen zu den Ursachen des Ersten Weltkriegs. Francia. Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 40, 2013, 233–252.

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the fact that it has managed to create a sense of community based on its willingness to oppose the war and its capacity to respond to situations of international danger. A “victory” also because, over the years, it has become increasingly reactive to situations of diplomatic crisis; but the crisis of 1914 overwhelmed it and its response was not sufficient. This element also accords with another trend in the most recent historiography on the origins of the war, strictly related to the one sketched above, which consists in “relativizing the linearity at least implicit in the evolution towards war inherent in the numerous structural explanatory approaches, in favor of a stronger accentuation of the contingency of the events of 1914”.12 In the 1950s, Milorad M. Drachkovitch, author of one of the only works specifically devoted to French and German socialists facing the problem of the war before 1914, analyzed the question through the prism of failure. Taking up the idea of a failure of the International in 1914, he researched the way in which French socialists and German socialdemocrats dealt with the questions of war and peace. According to him, it was the “psychological, historical and sociological differences” between the two countries that were at the root of the socialists’ different attitudes to the idea of war, which led to the disaster of 1914.13 Naturally, it is difficult to espouse such a thesis, which explains the reasons for the conflicts between the two countries by a simplistic collective psychology of the two peoples. Nevertheless, Drachkovitch’s study remains interesting insofar as it puts the members of the two socialist parties in parallel and goes back further in time. Following his example, other studies, going back to the Franco–German War, attempt to seek the origins of the disintegration of the International independently of the events of the summer of 1914. Marie-Louise Goergen, who analyzed the relations between the French socialist party and German social-democracy from the end of the war of 1870–1871 until the beginning of the World War, wonders whether 1914 was a decisive turning point. According to her, there was real solidarity between the two parties, but not in the fight against the war, and the

12 Ibid., 237. 13 Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Les socialismes français et allemand et le problème de la

guerre, 1870–1914. Geneva: Droz, 1953, 345–351.

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beginning of the conflict did not change this.14 In Goergen’s thesis, the second historiographical trend outlined above also emerges: alongside the dysfunction of the opposition to war, the historian emphasizes that internationalism has had positive results, but only in areas other than the fight against war: “In the search for an ‘internationality’ that ultimately proved illusory, [the socialists] have nevertheless demonstrated a detectable internationalism in areas where one would perhaps least expect it. For, if there is failure in the struggle against the war, a certain reality demonstrates – or so we assume – that the fraternity between French and German socialists before 1914 is not an empty word”.15 As it will show later, the present book does not share these conclusions. The most recent historiography tends to highlight the fact that, in addition to the discordances, there were also common points between the parties making up the International. Moira Donald’s work is an example of this: the historian emphasizes the existence of two different planes within the International, thus nuancing the thesis of failure. She proposes two opposing theses, explaining how the experience of the Second International would be a failure, but also a success. Certainly, the dimension of failure is evident in the opposition to the war, but the socialist institution would on the contrary have achieved positive results in everything that involved relations between citizens of different countries: communications, transport, the press…16 We do not fully share her conclusions, since the opposition to the war gave an important impetus to the development of expressions of the International, such as demonstrations or congresses, for which the struggle against the war was a driving force. According to Kevin J. Callahan, an American historian, neither the thesis of the betrayal of the Second International nor that of its failure makes sense, because both are based on false premises. It cannot be a failure, because that would imply defining internationalism solely as a

14 Marie-Louise Goergen. Les relations entre socialistes allemands et français à l’époque de la Deuxième Internationale (1889–1914). PhD in history (supervised by Madeleine Rebérioux). Paris: Université Paris 8, 1998, 20–21. 15 Ibid., 24. 16 Moira Donald. Workers of the World Unite? Exploring the Enigma of the Second

International. In: Martin H. Geyer and Johannes Paulmann (eds). The Mechanics of Internationalism. Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 177–234. Cf. also Nicolas Delalande. La lutte et l’entraide. L’âge des solidarités ouvrières. Paris: Seuil, 2019.

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struggle against war, which has not been the case. Moreover, it would imply that the Second International had sufficient weight to prevent Europe from sinking into a world conflict, which is a bold hypothesis. But if the Second International failed in its policy of opposition to the war, it did achieve some positive results, for example, by opening the way for the peace movements that succeeded it and that were inspired, among other things, by the way it organized its public demonstrations, which Callahan calls “demonstration culture”.17 This research will show that the “demonstration culture” of the Second International, contrary to what Callahan asserts, is intimately linked to its opposition to the war. Over the years, it has been nourished by the struggle against the war in order to gain strength, in the capacity to awaken minds and to propose ever more significant initiatives. Historian Holger Afflerbach, for his part, states that if socialists put forward opposition to the war, it is because of its symbolic importance: they no longer really believed in the possibility of the outbreak of war, as did diplomats, politicians, military leaders, and public opinion in general.18 According to Afflerbach, the socialists used the theme of the inevitable war, which they repeatedly assert in the socialist press, above all as an effective argument to federate the workers’ movement in order to fight the arms race and, in the specific case of Germany, to lead the political struggle against the political majority in the Reichstag.19 In addition, Afflerbach emphasizes the surprise of the European socialists at the outbreak of war in August 1914.20 As he says, opposition to war was indeed a great unifying symbol, an argument for fighting against governments and their decisions, especially in military and foreign policy. But, more generally, anti-war mobilization was not, in my opinion, just a propaganda tool for socialists; rather, it corresponded to a real apprehension of war. The successive diplomatic crises and the arms race of 1912 and 1913 made the hypothesis of war present, whether or not one believed that a conflict could actually break out. Moreover, peaceful 17 Kevin J. Callahan. Demonstration Culture. European Socialism and the Second International, 1889–1914. Leicester: Troubador, 2010, 300. 18 Holger Afflerbach. The Topos of Improbable War in Europe Before 1914. In: Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (eds). An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture Before 1913. New York: Berghahn, 2007, 161–182. 19 Ibid., 173. 20 Ibid., 174.

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feeling was an easily federating symbol: it was immediate, easily shared, and recognized militarists and chauvinists as its direct enemies. But not, as Afflerbach says, only in a negative sense, to oppose the enemy political faction: it also had a positive meaning, which served to federate socialists internationally. This work tries of course to avoid the “teleological history”, which would read the years of existence of the International and the socialist struggle for peace in the sole light of the vote for war credits in 1914. It also tries to avoid falling into what William Mulligan calls the “teleological tunnel”21 : this interpretation of the history of pre-war international relations through the prism of the events of 1914. This same proposition was first put forward by Georges Haupt who, in his research on the “failed” Congress of Vienna, urged historiography to free the history of the Second International from the sword of Damocles of its presumed failure, which structures the reading of its entire commitment to peace, indeed of all its internationalist efforts. He thus begins an analysis in which he highlights the discrepancies between the points of view of the German and French socialists on the question of war and the means of maintaining peace in the years preceding 1914, independently of the war that followed.22 This research shares these same guiding ideas. It questions the global place of the struggle for peace in the construction of the International and the evolution of this struggle in the face of the various international diplomatic crises that have followed one another during the years of its existence. It thus eliminates the idea of the failure of the International, but that of crisis—of repeated crises—is fundamental to it. The difference between the two concepts is significant for our reasoning. If the concept of failure is totally negative, the concept of crisis can be negative or positive. Crises followed one another before 1914, the International had to face them, socialists in different countries came out of them— more or less well, but they came out of them. Pursuing this idea, the summer of 1914 is to be considered a moment of crisis like any other. The question is therefore not to understand why socialists were able to vote the war credits in 1914, but rather how socialist thinking on war and

21 Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War. 22 Georges Haupt. Le congrès manqué: l’Internationale à la veille de la Première Guerre

mondiale. Étude et documents. Paris: Maspéro, 1965.

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peace and the internationalist practices of the Second International gradually evolved throughout its existence. And how, subsequently, it faced the events of 1914. The internationalism and internationalist practices of the Second International, as well as the close relations within the institution between the socialist representatives of the three countries studied, will be the objects of the analysis. What happens to the practices of the International and of this trinational network when socialist parties have to prove the solidity of their links and the rooting of their convictions, so when they are confronted with the danger of war? This is the question that this work would like to answer. The cases of the French, German, and Italian socialist parties will be studied, particularly their reactions to the international diplomatic crises between 1898 and 1913—the Fachoda crisis (1898), the Russo– Japanese War (1904–1905), the first and second Morocco crises (1905 and 1911), the Italian-Turkish War (1911), and the two Balkan Wars (1912–1913)23 —and then to the declaration of war in 1914. This analytical device allows us to move beyond the Franco–German framework and, more generally, binary studies on socialism. The words of Georges Haupt were particularly inspiring: “During diplomatic crises, the socialist parties of countries that were in contrast with each other revealed their profound disagreement: each tended to soften the responsibilities of its own country and to offload the task of struggle onto the party of the other country, finding justifications for its own inaction. The mistrust between the different brotherly parties, barely veiled in the international congresses, seemed to be fully evident in these moments of crisis”.24 The present work extends and exploits this path that Haupt has only stated. In moments of crisis in the international situation, the socialist representatives, whose respective parties were united in the Second International, adopted two ambivalent attitudes. Their international institutions (the International itself, then the ISB from 1900) based their “demonstration culture” on opposition to war and, in addition, learned over the 23 In Jaurès’ speech in Berlin, which will be discussed below, he acknowledged a direct causal link between the crises in Morocco, the Italian–Turkish war and the conflicts in the Balkans: “We social-democrats of France had foreseen that the Moroccan question would be the first ring in a chain of destiny: Bosnia, Tripoli, the Balkans. Morocco was the first ring in the chain, the first bow of the bad dance”. Jean Jaurès. Friedensarbeit! Die internationale Demonstration gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 18 November 1912. 24 Georges Haupt. L’internazionale socialista e la conquista libica. Movimento operaio e socialista 13 (1), 1967, 3.

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years to react to international crisis situations. This work thus contradicts Haupt’s assertions and demonstrates how the International was beginning a learning curve, learning little by little how to react to these crisis situations. If the crisis of Fachoda did not provoke a reaction at the level of international socialism, if the crisis of Morocco in 1905 had only a late echo, things changed afterward. The crisis in Morocco in 1911, for example, despite the involvement of France and Germany, engendered a concerted reaction of socialism at the international level. Thus, in 1912, the congress of Basel was a rapid and imposing reaction to the complexity of the international situation generated by the outbreak of the war in the Balkans. International institutions learned the temporality of crises. The Second International had therefore not failed in this respect. On the contrary, it has learned to react to crises, showing governments that in the event of war it was capable of mobilizing its forces. In this context, we must of course insist on the asymmetries between different countries: the more a country was involved in a crisis, the more difficult it was for its socialists to really commit themselves to the struggle for peace. Moreover, the impact on the ISB and the International was very different if France and Germany were involved in a situation of international danger or if Italy was involved25 or, even more so, if the crisis did not involve any of these three countries. This is the ambivalence: among the three socialist parties, there were still preconceived ideas that hindered, or even made it impossible to act effectively at the international level—a mechanism that was put in place mainly when one or the other country was directly involved in the current crisis. Often, when faced with a situation of danger, socialist representatives, far from acting, were content to observe and analyze the actions of their foreign comrades. Sometimes they found that their counterparts, despite their efforts, failed to translate into action what they would like to do. In other cases, socialists in one country displayed an openly critical and sometimes hostile attitude toward their foreign comrades, accusing them of being immobile because they fundamentally agreed with the initiatives of their governments. This 25 We underline this difference between France and Germany on the one hand and Italy on the other because their weight within the International was completely different. When France and Germany were involved in a crisis, the action of the International was blocked. When, among the three countries, only Italy found itself involved in a complicated situation of international diplomacy, the International, on the other hand, functioned well (such was the case during the Italo-Turkish war). This observation also demonstrate how little weight Italian socialism carried within the International.

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attitude played an extremely important role, to the point of sometimes preventing effective concerted action, when countries were involved in crises. Throughout the period under study, however, a certain optimism can be observed in the socialist ranks: the actors fundamentally believed in the peaceful will of their comrades and, over the years, the success of the International in its capacity to respond to crisis situations only increased this optimism. The temptation to define socialists as “pacifists”, or to simply evoke their pacifism without having to resort each time to periphrases such as “opposition to war”, “fight against war”, “fight for peace”, has been strong throughout the writing of this work. But, in the end, were the actors of this analysis really “pacifists”? From a purely linguistic point of view, the answer is negative. In sources, such as the reports of the congresses of the International or the national socialist parties, or articles in newspapers and magazines, the socialists spoke, as far as they are concerned, of peace, internationalism, and anti-militarism, but they did not define their thinking and their efforts by the term “pacifism”. They considered pacifism to be a bourgeois movement, which expressed itself in France through the Ligue internationale et permanente de la paix and the Association de la paix par le droit, in Germany through the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft and in Italy through a series of associations of Garibaldian and republican inspiration. To define the specificity of their opposition to war, socialists preferred to use the term “anti-militarism”. In occasion of his conference on the Russo–Japanese war, Francis de Pressensé stated: And I am pleased that we socialists are not leaving the honor of this necessary protest to pacifists alone. No one more than myself esteems and respects the pacifists; I am all the more grateful to them for the courage they have often displayed in protesting against the war in the midst of the Europe of armed peace, that I note a certain inconsistency; between their general conceptions, too often conservative and individualistic, and the courage of their protest.26 Moreover, the actors of this analysis cannot be defined univocally as pacifists, nor can the contents of their assertions. Often, in fact, the socialist representatives of the three countries, with distinctions that will

26 Francis de Pressensé. La guerre russo-japonaise. La Revue socialiste 234, 1904, 679.

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be widely discussed in the course of this work, did not defend peace at all costs.

Development of the Research In 1889, the members of the various socialist parties decided to revive the institution of the International, after a first attempt had failed, the institution having been dissolved as a result of differences of opinion between socialists and anarchists. The new International, as contemporaries call it, was created to give a supranational organization to the various national socialist parties that were being formed or gaining strength. Its purpose was to unite the socialist forces internationally in order to be stronger in the struggles for the benefit of the peoples, thus fulfilling the ideal of the union of proletarians throughout the world. However, the International was also founded with the intention not to impose directives from above on the national socialist parties, but to leave them a large room for maneuver, independent of each other and of the decisions of the International. Finally, in its early years, the institution only really existed through regular meetings: it was not until 1900 that it had a permanent body, the International Socialist Bureau (ISB).27 This work will analyze the international dimension of the Second International and the importance of the opposition to war within it. The meetings of socialist representatives at congresses, where the major issues facing the socialist world were discussed, or at certain gatherings or demonstrations that gave them the opportunity to meet, had the objective of nourishing and feeding a discussion on a larger scale, so that the socialist “message” could flourish and acquire an international dimension. Opposition to the war and the “practical” dimension of the International, i.e., its organizational capacity—international demonstrations and other demonstrations of solidarity and unity—were developing in parallel. The former was in a way the cornerstone of the latter, which was the consequence of the former. If opposition to war became the 27 Agnes Blänsdorf acknowledges in this willingness to give freedom of action to the different national parties a weakness, from an organizational point of view and with regard to the initiatives that were taken, of the New International. Blänsdorf, Die Zweite Internationale und der Krieg, 16. Andrea Benedetti is writing a PhD thesis specifically dedicated to the ISB: Andrea Benedetti. Le Bureau socialiste international: instrument de coopération internationale? (1900–1918). Under the supervision of Maurice Carrez (UMR 7367 DynamE, University of Strasbourg).

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goal of the International itself, internationalism and expressions of international solidarity were the means to this goal. This mixture between opposition to war and “demonstration culture”, specific to the Second International, originated in the last decade of the nineteenth century, with the congresses of Brussels and London. The first test it faced was the Fachoda crisis in 1898. During the existence of the Second International, socialist internationalism was the result, on the one hand, of the efforts of the International itself to create socialist internationalism from above and, on the other hand, of a whole series of networks that developed between the socialist representatives of the different countries.28 Creating a unity that could touch the affective field, a sense of belonging among the members of the International, was fundamental because of the consistent theoretical differences that exist between the different socialist parties. Kevin Callahan highlighted a set of means used by the organizers of the International’s congresses to create a socialist and internationalist feeling. According to him, the Second International (1889–1914) created a mass-based political culture of demonstration that effectively displayed a united image of socialist solidarity in the public sphere while promoting a sense of common purpose and fraternity amid great ideological, national and cultural diversity within its sections. As such, international socialism in the time of the Second International may best be defined as an inter-national performative movement of symbolic demonstration.29 Callahan thus transfers to the Second International the theses expressed by Benedict Anderson in relation to the creation of nations. According 28 Selection of general works on the Second International: Wolfgang Abendroth. Sozialgeschichte der europäischen Arbeiterbewegung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1965. Julius Braunthal. Geschichte der Internationale. Hanover: J.H.W. Dietz, 1974. Blänsdorf. Die Zweite Internationale und der Krieg. Markus Bürgi. Die Anfänge der Zweiten Internationale. Positionen und Auseinandersetzungen 1889–1893. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1996. Callahan, Demonstration Culture. Haupt, Le congrès manqué. Martin H. Geyer and Johannes Paulmann (eds). Aspects of International Socialism, 1871–1914. Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press/Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1986. Jürgen Kocka (ed). Europäische Arbeiterbewegungen im 19. Jahrhundert. Deutschland, Österreich, England und Frankreich im Vergleich. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983. Joll, The Second International, 1889–1914. Gerhart Niemeyer. The Second International, 1889– 1914. In: Milorad M. Drachkovitch (ed). The Revolutionary Internationals, 1864–1943. Stanford and London: Stanford University Press/Oxford University Press, 1966, 95–127. 29 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, XII.

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to Anderson, the nation is to be seen as the product of cultural and conceptual processes, it is an artificial construction based on a set of symbols and traditions that must create a common imaginary and a certain number of traditions shared by a community: “So often in the ‘nationbuilding’ policies of the new states one sees both a genuine, popular, nationalist enthusiasm, and a systematic, even Machiavellian, instilling of nationalist ideology through the mass media, the educational system, administrative regulations, and so forth”.30 It is the latter set of means that can create a sense of community that makes a nation, according to Anderson, an “imagined community” in the sense of a “cultural artifact”, a socially constructed community, in which people see themselves as part of a group.31 To show that such a thesis can also be applied to the Second International, Callahan carefully describes the practices, rituals, and symbolism put in place at the congresses of the International. This is how the organizers of the congresses of the Second International wanted to create a sense of identity, common to all their participants, so that they felt part of a well-identified group, a community. The public events organized in conjunction with the congresses, the mass meetings, the speeches held in public had to create the same sense of belonging among those involved—who were not necessarily delegates participating in the work of the congresses but could also be sympathizers, curious people—, among those who therefore constituted the bases of the socialist movement. It is this set of practices that constituted what Callahan calls the “demonstration culture”32 of the International.

30 Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso, 1983, 156. 31 Anderson applies this concept to the process that, at the end of the nineteenth century, led to the birth of nations. 32 Callahan, Demonstration Culture. As regards the term “culture” in relation to socialism, Christophe Prochasson, continuing the reflections of Madeleine Rebérioux, decrees the plural character of socialism (Becker and Candar speak of “lefts”: Jean-Jacques Becker et Gilles Candar (eds). Histoire des gauches en France. Paris: La Découverte, 2004) precisely because it cannot be reduced either to its doctrines or to its practices. It is rather a “fact of culture” (Christophe Prochasson. Le socialisme, une culture. Paris: Fondation Jean-Jaurès, 2009, 5), “culture” being here to be understood in its anthropological sense, as a “set of values”, “collective behavior”, “system of representation of a society” (Serge Berstein. La Culture politique, 11). Cf. as well, on the German side, Brigitte Emig. Die Veredelung des Arbeiters: Sozialdemokratie als Kulturbewegung. Frankfirt am Main: Campus, 1980.

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Creating a sense of belonging, an internationalist feeling: this question did not arise in the first attempt of the labor movement to organize internationally. On the one hand, this was because the ambitions of the International Workers’ Association (IWA or First International) were different from those of the new International: with far fewer delegates from fewer countries, it did not face the same problems as its successor. On the other hand, this attitude was a product of its time. In the words of Anne Rasmussen, the internationalism that the socialists of the Second International wanted to create is not to be interpreted “as a permanent structure of longue durée”33 : rather, it should be “seen as the temporary object of a revival, a high point, a circumstantial change, which raises questions similar to those raised by nationalism”.34 The internationalism that took shape within the Second International was the fruit of its time for several reasons. The end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century were the time of nationalisms and imperialisms. Socialist internationalism was a reaction, a counterweight to this. Secondly, it should not be forgotten that socialist internationalism was only one of the internationalisms among others that developed at the end of the nineteenth century. The will to give itself a more organized reality, articulated in periodic congresses and seeking to gain international visibility, was not specific to it. The 1889 Paris congress was part of the Universal Exhibition, at a time when a large number of international associations were flourishing under the impetus of transport and

33 Anne Rasmussen understands “long-term perennial structures” in this sense: “just like Braudelian structures that become stable elements for an infinite number of generations: they clutter up history, hinder it and therefore control its flow” Anne Rasmussen. Tournant, inflexions, ruptures: le moment internationaliste. Mil neuf cent. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 19, 2001, 27. 34 Rasmussen asserts that, “rather than trying to identify a chronologically founded

turning point, it seems more fruitful to make shifts that restore intellectual logics, to the detriment of a narrowly ideological vision that would lead to sticking to socialist internationalism”, ibid., 41. We also think, strictly concerning the internationalism of the practices of the Second International, that it is necessary to identify a chronological turning point in 1889, or perhaps rather in 1891, the date of the first real congress.

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communications, which were booming at the time.35 The new International was also created to respond very concretely to issues specific to its time, which involved and closely affected the labor movement, particularly that of labor regulations. In order to create this internationalism, the new International used a whole series of representations of itself, among which the congresses were of primary importance: born as places of discussion, they became, over time, true international events. Throughout this work we will use the terms manifestation or demonstration in a broad sense, as a “form of political expression”36 used to achieve a goal, to affirm a common will, to deliver a message. Within the Second International, which was born as the cradle of internationalism and whose main goal was to improve the lives of the workers, opposition to war did not find its place: it was not one of the reasons that gave impetus to the creation of this institution. However, the issue is gradually gaining importance. From not being the reason for its birth, it became a reason for its existence and the main goal to which international and internationalist socialism tends. And if opposition to war was the goal, internationalism was the means to prevent a conflict from breaking out. Or, to be more explicit, the manifestations aimed at the birth of an internationalist sentiment represented the praxis, while opposition to war, anti-militarism, the internationalist ideal constituted the values of the political culture37 of the Second International. Internationalism and opposition to war were marching in unison within the International and its “demonstration culture” developed in strict connection with opposition to war. 35 For a detailed study, cf. Madeleine Herren. Internationale Organisationen seit 1865. Eine Globalgeschichte der internationalen Ordnung. Darmstadt: WBG, 2009. In her already quoted article, Anne Rasmussen underlines that “in the field of politics, it is of course the Second International which is emblematic of the internationalist effort”. Rasmussen, Tournant, inflexions, ruptures, 34. 36 Olivier Fillieule and Danielle Tartakowsky. La Manifestation. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2008, 11. 37 Serge Berstein gives in the introduction to a book he edited a definition of political culture as understood by historians. He defines it as a “set of representations, bearers of norms and values, which constitute the identity of the great political families, far beyond the reductive notion of political party or force”. Serge Berstein (ed). Les cultures politiques en France. Paris: Seuil, 1999, 9–10. Cf. as well Michel Winock. La culture politique des socialistes. Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4, 2001, 593–616. Wolfgang Hardtwig (ed). Politische Kulturgeschichte der Zwischenkriegszeit, 1918–1939. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005.

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Indeed, in the first years of the new International’s existence, the debates on the attitude to adopt in the face of the danger of a possible war, although on the agenda at its constituent congress in Paris from July 14 to 21, 1889, ended quickly and were the subject of very general resolutions. The workers’ movement of the late nineteenth century was above all waging other battles: labor regulations or the well-being of the working class, themes for which the Second International wanted to be the spokesperson. The question of opposition to war became more and more central as international diplomatic crises followed one another and as socialists—and European public opinion in general—realized that the possibility of war was no longer so implausible. For example, one of the main forms of expression of the New International, the International Workers’ Day on May 1st , established in 1889, was not, at first, a demonstration against war. Its demands, from 1889 to 1892, were primarily concerned with the reduction of working hours and its regulation. It was not until the congress of the International of 1893 that it was decided that the May Day demonstrations would also be dedicated “to the universal affirmation of the proletariat for the maintenance of peace between nations”38 (in 1891, this proposal had been rejected at the Brussels congress). From then on, the rallies on Workers’ Day increasingly affirmed their opposition to war. This trend reflected a broader one, discernible in the general attitude of the internationally organized socialist movement: at congresses, discussions on how to oppose the war became more and more concrete over the years and international meetings became the occasion to display and stage this opposition to war. The Stuttgart congress of 1907, for example, focused on the general strike as a means of opposing the war; from then on, the International dealt with the issues of peace and war in a systematic and passionate manner. The extraordinary congress in Basel in 1912 was in the end only a large socialist demonstration of opposition to the war. This work will also look at the relations between the socialists in France, Germany, and Italy. The international dimension was indeed not only imposed from above and was not only the fruit of more or less official meetings: it was based on very close relations between representatives of the different nations too. During the existence of the Second International, ideas and theories circulated widely among comrades of 38 Bureau socialiste international. La Manifestation du 1er Mai (1906). In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3. Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 25.

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the different countries. Socialist representatives frequently crossed borders to meet and exchange with their foreign counterparts. They were called upon to write in foreign journals, their texts circulated and were translated. A dense network thus took shape, drawing an international base for socialism.39 Naturally, these exchanges were not without content. The circulation of people and ideas gave rise to debates involving international actors. The theories that emerged through a nation’s borders did not exist independently of similar debates that were developing in neighboring countries. And these reflections addressed all the major issues that involve the working class—in this research, we will focus more specifically on discussions around war and peace. The distinction between the plan of the International as such and that of relations between socialists in the three countries made sense insofar as these two dimensions testified to a different genesis and evolution. Indeed, if, on the side of international socialism, interest in the questions of war and peace was constantly growing over the years, and if internationalism and opposition to war grew together, the relations between the three countries developed in a different way. From the point of view of the ideas that circulate, the issues of war and peace were a constant topic in the exchanges between countries. From the point of view of demonstrations, at the level of the three countries, the growing opposition to war stimulated transnational expressions (between two or more countries), as at the level of the International. However, relations between national socialisms were not free of contradictions. First of all, ideas about war and peace were not fundamental to bi- or trilateral exchanges. They circulated from one country to another in the same way as many other debates. Sometimes they aroused only relative interest among socialists more concerned with other subjects, such as socialist participation in bourgeois governments or the French law on the separation of Church and State, which also generated debates in Germany and Italy. Opposition to the war was not the essence of relations between the socialisms of the 39 Research on these topics has been carried out by Georges Haupt and, more recently, by Emmanuel Jousse, who has dealt with the modalities of plurilingual exchanges during the congresses of the International (cf. Emmanuel Jousse. Les traducteurs de l’Internationale. Cahiers Jaurès 212–213 (2–3), 2014, 181–194). A recent book by Amaury Catel, taken from his Master 2 thesis, mixes social and intellectual history with the history of translations: Amaury Catel. Le traducteur et le démiurge. Hermann Ewerbeck, un communiste allemand à Paris (1841–1860). Nancy: Arbre bleu, 2019. Callahan has already been mentioned.

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different countries—on the contrary, it was the essence of the internationalism of the International and from a certain point on its raison d’être. Much more: sometimes, some preconceptions in the relations between the parties of the different countries made it difficult or even impossible to set up a concerted strategy to react to a situation of stress, especially when one or the other country was directly involved in the diplomatic crisis situation. Here it will be a question of analyzing how exchanges between socialists, declarations of friendship and solidarity evolved when the international situation was tense, in a dynamic and chronological perspective: how and to what extent did opposition to war change when the “other”, the foreign comrade, became a potential threat to the own nation? The French and German cases are significant in relation to each other because of the innumerable relations between the socialist members of the two countries, but also, more generally, because of the close relations between France and Germany.40 Italy, for its part, is an interesting case for several reasons: on the one hand because Italian socialists forged their identity by adopting the German model, at least until the revisionist quarrel, after which they opted for the French model; on the other hand because, as far as international conflicts are concerned, Italy follows a different path from that of other countries: it was actively involved in the Italian-Turkish War in 1911 and the socialists of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) had to justify themselves to the French and German comrades who considered their opposition to the entry into the war too timid. On the other hand, the country remained neutral during the summer of 1914, not taking part in the war until May 1915. The months of its neutrality redrew the relations between the three socialist parties.

Socialism in the Three Countries France Specific works on both French socialism and the war are rare. These questions have been analyzed by historiography, among others, in general works on socialism.41 Broadly speaking, historiography on French

40 Goergen, Les relations. 41 Selection of works: Becker and Candar (eds), Histoire des gauches en France. Chris-

tine Bouneau. Socialisme et jeunesse en France, 1879–1969. Acteurs, discours, moments et lieux. Pessac: Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, 2009. Gilles Candar and

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socialism is unanimous enough to recognize that 1905 and the first crisis in Morocco were a key moment in socialism’s commitment to the struggle for peace. This is emphasized, for example, by Madeleine Rebérioux, who devotes a few pages to this question in “Socialisme français de 1871 à 1914”, her contribution to Jacques Droz’s Histoire générale du socialisme. Here, starting from the observation that “French socialism wanted to be the ‘party of peace’”,42 Rebérioux describes the ideas on war, nation, internationalism of the different tendencies of French socialism. Before her, Drachkovitch, in his work on French and German socialism in the face of the question of war, before linking French socialism and German social-democracy, offers a very broad synthesis of the attitude of the different tendencies of socialism in France on this topic. Drachkovitch also underlines the strength of French socialism’s commitment to the struggle for peace, which was given a boost in 1905 and was then constantly reinforced until the beginning of the First World War.43 This assertion also emerges from the latest biography of Jean Jaurès by Gilles Candar and Vincent Duclert and from the latter’s work, published in 2013, which attempts to understand the Jaurèsian attitude toward the war.44 In the absence of a general historiography on the question of the war for French socialism before 1914, many studies have focused on more specific aspects of the subject. To our knowledge, there are no

Vincent Duclert. Jean Jaurès. Paris: Fayard, 2014. Philippe Chanial. La délicate essence du socialisme. L’association, l’individu et la République. Lormont: Le Bord de l’eau, 2009. Édouard Dolléans. Histoire du mouvement ouvrier 2: 1871–1920. Paris: A. Colin, 1967 (1953). Annie Kriegel. Aux origines du communisme français. Contribution à l’histoire du mouvement ouvrier français. Paris: The Hague: Mouton, 1964. Annie Kriegel. Le pain et les roses. Jalons pour une histoire des socialismes. Paris: PUF, 1968. Goergen. Les relations. Gerd Krumeich. Aufrüstung und Innenpolitik in Frankreich vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Die Einführung der dreijährigen Dienstpflicht 1913–1914. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980. Christophe Prochasson. Les intellectuels, le socialisme et la guerre, 1900–1938. Paris: Seuil, 1993. Madeleine Rebérioux and Gilles Candar (eds). Jaurès et les intellectuels; 8–9 janvier 1988. Paris: Les Éditions de l’Atelier, 1994. Madeleine Rebérioux. Le socialisme français de 1871 à 1914. In: Droz (ed). Histoire générale du socialisme 2, 133–236. Robert Stuart. Marxism and National Identity. Socialism, Nationalism, and National Socialism During the French Fin de Siècle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. 42 Rebérioux, Le socialisme français de 1871 à 1914, 224. 43 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes. 44 Candar and Duclert, Jean Jaurès. Vincent Duclert. Jean Jaurès, combattre la guerre, penser la guerre. Paris: Fondation Jean-Jaurès, 2013.

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major debates that could divide historians concerning French socialists and their attitude to the war in the years of the International. This changes when one speaks about 1914 and the entry into the war. A big question is that of the penetration of internationalist and socialist thought into the working masses regarding what to do in the event of war. Annie Kriegel’s answer to this question in 1964 was negative: “Since 1905, despite appearances, it is the patriotic current that has grown the fastest in the French working class”.45 Besides this, Kriegel emphasized the “failure” of the International in 1914, resulting, among other things, from the contradiction between patriotism and internationalism at the very heart of French socialist thought: “If, on the emotional level, one can react both as an internationalist and a patriot, there is, on the other hand, a need to opt, on the level of political practice, between an internationalist strategy and a strategy of national defense. To this option, the three “heads" of pre-1914 French socialism did not resign themselves”.46 Guesde, Vaillant, Jaurès were patriots before being internationalists. This was, according to Kriegel, the French contribution to the defeat of the International in 1914 and the reason why the Socialists also adhered to the Union Sacrée. A new light in the analysis of French feelings at the outbreak of the war was shed by Jean-Jacques Becker in 1977. The historian emphasized the lack of enthusiasm of the French population for the war,47 which would explain, for the questions that interest us in this work, the socialist breakthrough in the May elections. In fact, the socialists supported the Caillaux government, which was fervently in favor of a rapprochement with Germany. With regard to the Union Sacrée, Becker also emphasized in his work 1914. Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre that for the socialists it was only a temporary solution, a truce totally directed

45 Kriegel, Aux origines, 51. 46 Ibid., 46. 47 “[…] the reactions of each and every one were not homogeneous. There were indeed

enthusiasts, even if they were only a small minority. […] As at all times, public opinion has been heterogeneous, diverse; nevertheless, for the most part it has essentially welcomed the order to mobilize without impetus” Jean-Jacques Becker. 1914. Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre. Contribution à l’étude de l’opinion publique, printemps-été 1914. Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1977, 575.

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toward the defense of the Republic.48 Besides this, some other books have dealt with more specific aspects of the question.49 In France, a first unitary socialist structure was created in 1879: the Fédération du parti des travailleurs socialistes de France. However, its disunity was immediately apparent and five parties, representing the five main currents of French socialism, were formed from the Fédération. They were the guesdists, the brousssists, the allemanistes, the blanquistes, and the independent socialists. Above all, we will highlight their attitude to questions of war and peace. The guesdists, organized in the Parti ouvrier français (POF), took an interest in these questions as soon as the party’s program was drafted, Article 4 of which concerns the abolition of the permanent armies and the general armament of the people. Their arguments, set out by their leaders Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue in the commentary to the program, had similarities with the ideas of other socialists and were opposed above all to the institution of standing armies because of their class character, their propensity to turn with great ease against the workers and their inefficiency in defending the country. The general armament of the people had the merit of costing less and putting the proletariat on the same level as the bourgeoisie, also giving it responsibilities within the Republic, which could contribute to the strengthening of France. The national council of the POF repeatedly defined the attitude that the party should adopt toward patriotism and war; a certain dualism between patriotism and internationalism emerged. A manifesto published in January 1893 under the name Socialisme et patriotisme described the fatherland as a necessary step toward “human unity”,50 at the same time accusing the opponents, the non-socialists, of “distorting [their] internationalism”.51 In the name of a certain worker internationalist patriotism, the council of the party proclaimed in this manifesto that it did not want war but peace, “because we are patriots”.52 In another manifesto, again in 1893, the POF proclaimed itself to be the “only truly patriotic party [that] will remake the great France, the emancipatory France that, to impose peace on the world, will only have to take 48 Ibid. 49 Cf. for exemple: Prochasson, Les Intellectuels, le socialisme et la guerre. 50 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes, 65. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid.

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the lead in the international socialist movement”.53 A closer look at the ideas supported by Jules Guesde provides a better understanding of the POF’s attitude. The leader leaned very clearly in favor of international proletarian solidarity and was therefore opposed to ministerial participation of socialists in bourgeois governments. According to Guesde, once in government, socialist representatives would also accept the colonialist and nationalist game of their country and would be pushed to vote for war credits. This, of course, would jeopardize the very survival of the socialist International. In Amsterdam in 1904, at the congress of the International, Guesde accused Jaurès of being “only a new kind of nationalist and more dangerous than the other”54 because of his ministerialism, and affirmed the internationalist orientation of his party.55 The so-called possibiliste tendency of French socialism had a much less nuanced position than that of Guesde’s supporters. As to the questions that interest us here, the possibilists proposed measures to prevent a war from breaking out: the suppression of the permanent armies and the international collaboration of the workers. This current gave birth, in 1890, to a group of partisans who were inspired by the ideas of Paul Brousse, hence their name broussistes. They made anti-patriotism the main tendency to eradicate. They defended internationalism, but not to the point of opposing the idea of nationhood. The Allemanistes (from the name of their leader, Jean Allemane), who first met in congress in Paris in 1891, took a different way. Opposed also to the institution of permanent armies, they voted at their first meeting for a resolution about proletarian opposition to war by “abstention or revolt”.56 They were thus the precursors

53 Ibid. 54 Sixième congrès socialiste international tenu à Amsterdam du 14 au 20 août 1904. Compte rendu analytique. Bruxelles 1904. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 14. Geneva: Minkoff, 1985, 481. 55 “The socialists of the Bloc, who participate in bourgeois governments […] can speak of peace, as they speak of class struggle; but how could they be the guardians of international peace when they vote the war and navy budgets, when they vote colonial appropriations? It is colonial policy which, by unleashing the competing and contradictory appetites of the capitalist classes of all countries, is currently the greatest danger to European peace: witness Fachoda yesterday, witness Manchuria today, which has been killing each other for months now between the Japanese and Russians. And by providing, with the millions, the ways and means of this policy, far from being a guarantee of peace, we are – no matter what anyone says – a permanent risk of war”. Ibid., 480. 56 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes, 68.

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of the current of general strike action in the case of war. In addition, they plead for anti-patriotism, in complete opposition to the ideas of the broussistes. For their part, the Blanquistes were also in favor of the abolition of a permanent army; they collaborated and then merged with the Guesdistes, abandoning Blanqui’s patriotism to gradually espouse the internationalist ideas of Guesde and his supporters. Finally, the independent socialists, the group with the most weight and strength, declared themselves patriots and internationalists, criticized the permanent army and claimed the creation of a federation of nations—such is the case of Benoît Malon and the group that organized around him and which survived him. The main ideas of the independents were best expressed in the many writings of Jean Jaurès published in La Dépêche de Toulouse and La Petite République.57 Jaurès was a convinced supporter of the fight for peace and saw class society and capitalism as the cause of war. Only a change in the internal organization of the countries in a socialist direction could put an end to possible conflicts. With regard to the question of the motherland—essential for all socialist currents, as we have already said—Jaurès opted for a position of socialist patriotism: before international peace was secured by the universal union of socialists, it was the duty of socialists to defend their homeland against all aggression. In the meantime, an international tribunal charged with arbitrating relations between countries had to guarantee peaceful relations between nations. This is essentially what he wrote in L’Armée nouvelle in 1911, when he declared that “a little internationalism takes away from the fatherland; a lot of internationalism brings back to it. A little patriotism takes away from the International; a lot of patriotism brings back”.58 Jaurès also spoke out against the permanent armies and in favor of the popular militias, in order to defend the motherland. According to Drachkovitch, the ideas of Jaurès were those of the majority of French socialists before the unification of the currents within the SFIO59 and continued to be afterward. They were expressed essentially by a mixture of workers’ internationalism and patriotism, by opposition to excessive warfare, and by

57 Bonnafous Max (ed). Jean Jaurès. Pour la paix. Textes. Toulouse: Éditions historique et politique, 1996. 58 Jean-Jacques Becker (ed). Œuvres de Jean Jaurès 13: L’Armée nouvelle. Paris: Fayard, 2002, 418. 59 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes, 75.

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the necessary recourse to international arbitration and progressive disarmament to avoid the outbreak of conflicts. Numerous works have studied the question of the opposition to war of the main representative of French socialism during the period analyzed here.60 Historians seem unanimous in considering that his commitment to the war was his great struggle, a struggle that he waged crescendo from 1905 until his death. The most recent biography of the man from the Tarn, published in 2013 by Gilles Candar and Vincent Duclert, begins with an introduction about the last days of his life. The two historians paint the following portrait of him: “Jaurès was one of the most committed craftsmen in the search for lasting peace between nations”.61 There is no doubt that it was Jaurès as the defender of peace, who was remembered by posterity. In 2013, Vincent Duclert has also published a book devoted specifically to the thought and action of Jean Jaurès regarding war. Duclert underlines once again the pacific impulse of Jaurès, which would have been his main springboard: “From the crisis in Tangier with Germany – about the conquest of Morocco –, and the nationalist turn that followed in France and Europe, Jaurès made the fight against war and for the establishment of lasting peace in the world his most important commitment, the one that dominated all his other concerns”.62 However, Jaurès’ thinking on this issue deserves to be nuanced. Duclert continues: “For all that, Jaurès, contrary to the image of integral pacifist that is often associated with him, did not condemn the armed conflict. Like true pacifists, he demanded the right

60 Nor for Jean Jaurès, even if the question of his “pacifism” is often evoked, the works that specifically focus on his ideas on war, peace and his approach to avoiding conflicts are not very numerous. Cf. for exemple: Ernest Labrousse (ed). Actes du colloque Jaurès et la nation. Toulouse: Association des publications de la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de Toulouse, 1965. The articles of: Georges Haupt. Jaurès à la réunion du BSI des 28 et 29 octobre 1912. Bulletin de la Société d’études jaurésiennes 11, 1963, 3–9 and Georges Haupts. Jaurès et l’amendement Keir Hardie-Vaillant en juillet 1914. Bulletin de la Société d’études jaurésiennes 15, 1964, 7–11. As well as: Carlo Pinzani. Jean Jaurès, l’Internazionale e la guerra. Bari: Laterza, 1970. Annie Kriegel. Jaurès en juillet 1914. Le Mouvement social 49, 1964, 63–77. Gian Mario Bravo. Internationalisme et patriotisme dans le “marxisme” de Jean Jaurès. In: Ulrike Brummert (ed). Jean Jaurès. Frankreich, Deutschland und die Zweite Internationale am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges. Tübingen: Narr, 1989, 51–63. Ulrike Brummert. De la “petite patrie” à l’Internationale. In: Brummert (ed). Jean Jaurès, 67–85. Ernst Engelberg. Einige Aspekte der Friedenspolitik von Jean Jaurès. In: Brummert (ed). Jean Jaurès, 87–92. 61 Candar and Duclert, Jean Jaurès, 13. 62 Duclert, Jean Jaurès, combattre la guerre, 6.

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to choose the war that deserved to be waged, to define the objectives to be achieved through it, to design the armies and strategies that would be employed”.63 At the turn of the century, the tendencies we have just described came together in two entities, the Parti socialiste français, led by Jean Jaurès, which mainly brought together independents and broussistes, and the Parti socialiste de France, born in 1901, which brought together groups with more revolutionary ideas. The guesdists made up almost all the members. The unification of French socialism was completed in 1905 with the birth of the SFIO, unitary socialist party. Three major tendencies emerged in the face of issues related to war and peace. The most extreme positions were those defended by Gustave Hervé, anti-militarist and unpatriotic, who advocated insurrection if a war broke out. His motions generally received little support, but his influence, both within the SFIO and abroad, was quite strong. After unification, the Guesdist current continued to stand out: it defended Marxist ideas, envisaged measures for daily struggle against militarism and war, without losing sight of the fact that the main struggle had to be waged against capitalism, which was responsible for the war. Guesde did not, therefore, plan any specific action against the war because, for him, it was not necessary to wait for the war to fight the bourgeois government. Rather, he preached the reduction of military service on an international scale, the refusal of war credits, and the substitution of permanent armies with the general armament of the people. The third current, rather eclectic, grouped together the majority of the party and recognized in Jean Jaurès and Édouard Vaillant its principal representatives. According to the ideas of this group of French socialists, all means to oppose the war were good: unlike the guesdists (and it was at the origin of the internal divisions of the SFIO) this third current pleaded for unreserved recourse to general strike action in the event of war. It also advocated other measures, such as parliamentary intervention, public agitation, popular demonstrations, or international arbitration. Questions about war and how to deal with it were widely discussed at SFIO congresses. Those of Limoges (1906) and Nancy (1907) laid the foundations of French socialist doctrines on war and peace. At these two congresses, Hervé presented a motion on the general strike in the

63 Ibid.

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event of war which, even though it received very few votes, gave rise to a fierce debate between the representatives of the different currents, with Jules Guesde asserting himself as its main opponent.64 Guesde defined his two objectives: to fight the idea of a general strike in case of war and to make the fight against capitalism the main struggle of socialism. Thus, the motion he presented at the Limoges congress maintained that it was not necessary to wait for the bourgeois government to unleash a war before opposing it with a continuous insurrection. Only a seizure of power by the proletariat could guarantee peace. The motion he proposed to Nancy the following year was along the same lines, even more critical of the supporters of the general strike. These two motions were fiercely attacked and criticized by Hervé and by Jaurès and Vaillant and their groups. Guesde also relied on the situation in Germany to defend his positions in Nancy: since the Limoges congress, a new event took place which reinforced his convictions and was a good example of the mistrust that existed occasionally among members of the International. August Bebel, the secretary of the SPD, had just drafted a declaration in the name of German social-democracy in which it was “stated in full” that he and his group intended to contribute to the defense of Germany, reported Guesde. Then he quoted Bebel’s word at the SPD congress in Essen, where the German said: “If we really have to defend the homeland, we defend it because it is our homeland, the territory in which we live, whose language we speak, whose customs we possess, because we want to make it a country that is equal in perfection and beauty to no other in the world”.65 It would therefore be foolish, according to Guesde, for France to respond to a conflict with a strike: “If Germany is attacked, the German socialists will defend it, and if France is attacked, you would give the impression that the French socialists would disarm it and hand

64 “Guesde’s dogmatic sclerosis prevents him from fighting against the clouds of war. At the Limoges congress (1906), he fought against the project of a general strike and insurrection against the war, advocated by G. Hervé. But neither at Limoges nor afterwards did Guesde present concerted means of proletarian struggle against the war. For him, such a struggle would divert the proletariat from its only goal, social revolution”. Claude Willard. Jules Guesde, l’apôtre et la loi, Paris: Les Éditions ouvrières, 1991, 100. Cf. as well: Jean-Numa Ducange. Jules Guesde. L’anti-Jaurès? Paris: A. Colin, 2017. 65 Werner Jung. August Bebel, deutscher Patriot und internationaler Sozialist. Seine Stellung zu Patriotismus und Internationalismus. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1986, 107.

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it over!”66 It is interesting that Guesde gave the example of the German comrades to speak out against the solution of the general strike in case of war. Defiance of the social-democratic neighbors was thus one of the causes of the division of the SFIO on the question of the general strike in case of war. This attitude was recurrent and cannot be attributed solely to the Guesde, as we will see below. During these two congresses, the motions of Vaillant and Jaurès rallied the majority of the party. It was in fact the same motion presented at both conventions. The main points that were developed were, on the one hand, the need for the disarmament of the bourgeoisie and the arming of the working class; on the other hand, an explicit invitation to use all means to oppose the war: “Parliamentary intervention, public agitation, popular demonstrations, up to the general strike and insurrection”.67 The two congresses of 1906 and 1907, and in particular the latter, gave rise to violent discussions around this motion. The approach of Guesde and that of Jaurès and Vaillant (Hervé slipped away from the discussion) continued to divide the party until the eve of the First World War. During the following congresses, some issues related to war and peace were also discussed. For example, the 1910 Paris congress put international arbitration and disarmament on the agenda, themes that were widely debated. The motion proposed by Marcel Sembat was adopted, advocating international arbitration as the main means of avoiding conflicts between nations. The following year, in Saint-Quentin, the socialist delegates reiterated their party’s desire to guarantee peace and to increase propaganda in its favor. Once again, they declared themselves in favor of international arbitration. The last congress before the outbreak of the war, that of Brest in 1913, was devoted to another debate, namely, armament in France. Discussions focused on the Three-Year Law, the bill that sought to restore the three-year military service that had been abolished in France in 1905.68 The socialists fiercely opposed this law, through

66 SFIO 4 e congrès national, tenu à Nancy, les 11, 12, 13 et 14 août 1907, compte rendu sténographique. Paris, 1907, 181. 67 SFIO, 3 e congrès national, tenu à Limoges, les 1, 2, 3 et 4 novembre 1906, compte rendu analytique. Paris, 1906, 261–262. 68 Krumeich, Aufrüstung und Innenpolitik. Elisa Marcobelli. La France de 1914 était-elle antimilitariste? Les socialistes et la Loi des trois ans. Paris: Fondation Jean-Jaurès, 2013.

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the voices of Vaillant, Paul Mistral, and Francis de Pressensé, who uttered violent words of denunciation in Brest.69 At the legislative elections of 1893, about fifty socialists, including twenty-one independents, were elected to the Chamber, compared with twenty in 1889 and only eight in 1885, representing 5.6% of the vote. In the following elections, the socialists, benefiting from the Dreyfus affair, managed to rise to 9.7% (57 seats out of 585), returning to a more modest score (7.3%, 43 seats out of 589) in the 1902 elections. After unification and up to the declaration of war, the number of votes in favor of the unified SFIO increased steadily. In 1906, it obtained 9.2% of the vote (74 seats out of 585), and in 1910, the party significantly surpassed the one million vote for the first time, winning 12% of the vote (107 seats out of 590). In 1914, the SFIO even received 1,400,000 votes, that means 17% of the vote (126 of 601 seats70 ). This was a triumph for the party, even though it had less support than its German counterpart. On the eve of the war, the SFIO was not yet a mass party like the SPD, but it had become a large parliamentary party, capable of making its voice heard in government decisions.71 Germany Regarding German historiography of the SPD,72 the greatest debates took place during the years of the two Germanies and focused above 69 Cf. SFIO, X e congrès national, tenu à Brest, les 23, 24 et 25 mars 1913, compte rendu sténographique. Paris, 1913. 70 It should be noted that until the 1902 elections, independent socialists were included in the percentages. From 1906 onwards, the numbers are for the SFIO alone. In all three elections, the independents recorded 4–5% of the votes. 71 On the percentages cf. Paul Baquiast. La Troisième République, 1870–1940. Paris:

L’Harmattan, 2002, 61. Rebérioux, Le socialisme français de 1871 à 1914, 213. 72 Stefan Berger. Ungleiche Schwestern? Die britische Labour Party und die deutsche Sozialdemokratie im Vergleich, 1900–1938. Bonn: Dietz, 1997. Wolfgang Huber and Johannes Schwerdtfeger (eds). Frieden, Gewalt, Sozialismus. Studien zur Geschichte der sozialistischen Arbeiterbewegung. Stuttgart: Klett, 1976. Arno Klönne. Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung. Geschichte, Ziele, Wirkungen. Düsseldorf and Kölln: Diederichs, 1983 (1980). Gerhard A. Ritter. Arbeiterbewegung, Parteien und Parlamentarismus. Aufsätze zur deutschen Sozial- und Verfassungsgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976. Gerhard A. Ritter and Klaus Tenfelde. Arbeiter im Deutschen Kaiserreich. 1871 bis 1914. Bonn: Dietz, 1992. Guenther Roth. The socialdemocrats in Imperial Germany. A Study in Working-Class Isolation and National

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all on the social-democratic party before the Great War and its integration into the Wilhelminian Empire. One of the fundamental works of this debate was published by Dieter Groh in 1973. The historian applies the concepts of “negative integration” (negative Integration) and “revolutionary attentism” (revolutionärer Attentismus) to the question of the SPD’s place in the empire. “Negative integration” is a formula forged ten years earlier by Guenther Roth, who had already devoted a study to the question.73 The concept of “negative integration” defines the fact that the pressure exerted on the socialists by the German state contributed to the creation of a fairly homogeneous socialist milieu. Groh argues that even though the working class was able to organize itself in free parties and trade unions during the Wilhelminian Empire, and even though, economically speaking, the living conditions of the imperial society have visibly improved for all,74 the integration of the working class into Reich society remained incomplete in the long term. In fact, the imperial ruling classes had taken a series of decisions that went against equal rights for the working class in society; at the same time, all demands for the organization by the workers have been met with repressive measures on the part of the state and society. Groh combines this interpretation with that of revolutionäre Attentismus, a characteristic he recognizes in the working class under the Second Empire, defining the concept as “a conglomerate of defensive attitudes toward the possibility of a political overthrow of existing relations, which would have as its goal the hope of revolution and verbal radicalism”.75 The working class, including that organized in the SPD and the unions, therefore had, according to Groh, neither the means nor—and this was fundamental—the impulse to achieve something radical, revolutionary, or simply independent from the ruling classes. According to the German historian, social-democracy was only a toy in

Integration. Totowa: Bedminster, 1963. Jutta Seidel. Internationale Stellung und internationale Beziehungen der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 1871–1895/96. Berlin: Dietz, 1982. 73 Roth, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany. 74 Cf. on this topic Frank-Lothar Kroll. Geburt der Moderne. Politik, Gesellschaft und

Kultur vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Berlin: be.bra Verlag, 2013. 75 Dieter Groh. Negative Integration und revolutionärer Attentismus. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges. Darmstadt: Propyläen, 1973, 36. Cf. also Wolfram Wette. Militarismus in Deutschland. Geschichte einer kriegerischen Kultur. Darmstadt: Primus, 2008 that reconsidered the SPD’s anti-militarism.

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the hands of the ruling classes, and its passivity accentuated this condition even more. The vote for war credits on August 4, 1914 was proof of this. Subsequent research took the thesis of the integration of the socialdemocrats into the society and political system of the Reich even further. Gerhard A. Ritter and Klaus Tenfelde point out that a part of the SPD recognized itself in the nation, at least as far as its defense was concerned: “Even if the ‘antinational’ attitude of the SPD was constantly demonized by the state, the armed forces and the bourgeoisie, many social-democrats – certainly not all – found no contradiction in recognizing themselves in their party and in the nation at the same time. Even the workers, even the social-democrats, more or less consciously regarded the nation as a community of culture and destiny”.76 Heinrich August Winkler described an SPD that was, albeit with nuances and limitations, embedded in the German political system.77 The most recent research speaks of the integration of the SPD into the Reich. Stefan Berger emphasizes that the party was on the right path to integration into the Reich: there is no doubt that the primary locus of action of the social-democrats was the nation-space, even though the party claimed to be based on the principles of internationalism. The SPD was strongly oriented toward parliamentarianism and saw parliamentary participation as the path to the people’s democratic state (demokratischer Volksstaat),78 which the Social Democrats wanted to establish.79 Berger also relativizes repressive measures such as the Sozialistengesetze: “However, the state and entrepreneurship have not only developed repressive strategies in relation to the labor movement. The behavior of many entrepreneurs was characterized by a pronounced social paternalism”.80

76 Ritter and Tenfelde, Arbeiter im Deutschen Kaiserreich, 745–746. 77 Heinrich August Winkler. Histoire de l’Allemagne, xixe -xxe siècle. Le long chemin

vers l’occident. Paris: Fayard, 2005, 247–255. This is the French translation of Heinrich August Winkler. Der lange Weg nach Westen. München: Beck, 2000. 78 Stefan Berger. Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung und bürgerliche Gesellschaft

in Großbritannien und Deutschland am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges. In: Thomas Schleper (ed). Aggression und Avantgarde. Zum Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges. Essen: Klartext, 2014, 216. Cf. also: Berger, Ungleiche Schwestern? 79 For an extensive analysis of the relationship between labor movement, party and parliament, cf. Ritter, Arbeiterbewegung, 31–50. 80 Berger, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterbewegung, 213.

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This great debate, which crosses the whole of German historiography, received a new contribution in 1993 with the publication of Wolfgang Kruse’s thesis. He attributes different reasons to the SPD’s decision to join the German Union Sacrée or “party truce” (Burgfrieden) in 1914, to the national unity of all parties in the face of war. According to the historian, the cause of this, contrary to what Groh asserts, lies in the will of the social-democrats to integrate positively into Wilhelminian society. Joining the Burgfrieden would therefore be an attempt to achieve an integration that was still not complete, and this because of a highly contradictory attitude.81 Lothar Wieland, for his part, focuses in 1998 on the accession of SPD members to the Burgfrieden in 1914, in the light of the party’s pre-war relations with peace societies such as the Friedensgesellschaft. According to Wieland, social-democracy had aligned itself with the Burgfrieden because it did not recognize in the peace discussion a goal to be achieved at all costs (unlike the Friedensgesellschaft).82 It should not be forgotten, however, that the SPD also joined the Burgfrieden out of interest, fearing that if it did not, the party could be dismantled— an attitude that shows that the party was ultimately more important than peace. Arno Klönne points out in this regard that long before 1914, there already existed within the SPD a fracture on issues of war and peace, which would result in the dissidence of the USPD.83 Bernhard Neff also takes part in this debate, but in a more succinct way, merely analyzing the parliamentary integration of the SPD with regard to debates on military issues. The conclusion reached in his research is also similar, but in different ways, to those of his predecessors. He states: “On the eve of the First World War, the only thing they wanted to banish as such was mistreatment in the army; the military system itself was tolerated in silence”.84

81 Kruse, Krieg und nationale Integration, 10. 82 Lothar Wieland. Die Verteidigungslüge. Pazifisten in der deutschen Socialdemokratie.

Bremen: Donat, 1998, 14–18. 83 Arno Klönne. Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung vor 1914: eine Friedensbewegung? In: Gernot Heiss and Heinrich Lutz (eds). Friedensbewegungen. Bedingungen und Wirkungen, München: Oldenbourg, 1984, 136–151. 84 Bernhard Neff. Wir wollen keine Paradetruppe, wir wollen eine Kriegstruppe. Die reformorientierte Militärkritik der SPD unter Wilhelm II. 1890–1913. Kölln: SH-Verlag, 2004, 24.

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In the early years of the German Reich, the representatives of social democracy were brought together in two main groupings, the Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiterverein (ADAV) founded by Ferdinand Lassalle and the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (SDAP) of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. In 1875, they called for a joint congress in Gotha, where the two parties met in a common entity, the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (SAP). For twelve years, however, from 1878 to 1890, the series of laws known as the Sozialistengesetz, passed by the German Reich Parliament, banned socialist organizations and activities in the empire, and the social-democrats were forced to continue their activities underground. Once the Sozialistengesetzt was repealed, the SAP gained adherents, extended its influence and finally changed its name to Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) at the first “free” congress in Halle in 1890. The following year, delegates at the Erfurt congress adopted the new party program. However, it took a long time for the SPD to reach a definitive organization. Until 1908, the party members in each city choose trusted men to represent them before a central body. The central body consisted of an annual congress of delegates, chosen in the same way as the trusted men, a Parteivorstand (“party executive”) consisting of representatives elected by the congress, and the leadership of the social-democratic daily newspaper Vorwärts. It was only after 1908 that the party developed an organization worthy of a large mass party and admitted women as members. It had two presidents.85 The Erfurt program, whose guidelines were drawn up by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, was adopted and defended by the SPD. The questions of interest to us were addressed in the third point, which envisaged three ways of averting the danger of war: the German social-democrats, like their French comrades, advocated the replacement of the standing armies by the Volkswehr, “the people’s army”; they wanted decisions on war and peace to be taken by representatives of the people (Volksvertretung); and they too wanted disputes between nations to be settled by an arbitration commission.86

85 The presidents were, for the years that interest us: Paul Singer, from 1890 to 1911; August Bebel, from 1890 to 1913; Hugo Haase, from 1911 to 1916 and Friedrich Ebert from 1913 onwards. 86 This is the text of the Erfurt program, quoted here from the Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten zu

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Like its French counterpart on the other side of the Rhine, the SPD also had different currents, which adopted different attitudes toward the conduct that must be followed to prevent a war from breaking out. There were two extreme positions, that of Karl Kautsky on the one hand and that of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on the other. Most of the SPD lied between the two, led by August Bebel. Kautsky advocated the idea of a certain patriotism,87 which he reconciled with internationalism in the Marxist sense of the term. According to him, the possibility that the socialists would enter a bourgeois government in dangerous circumstances for the preservation of peace had to be taken into consideration, provided that the socialist party continued to support its representative. He proposed a resolution to this effect at the congress of the International held in Paris in 190088 (he then abandoned this position). In his articles entitled Patriotismus und Sozialdemokratie, which first appeared in the Leipziger Volkszeitung89 and later in pamphlet form,90 he stated as follows: “From what I see, the socialists of all countries are unanimous in their aspiration to confront every threat of war in the most energetic way, because since the beginning of the Russian revolution no war can be expected any longer, to which the patriotism of the proletariat, all its interests and goals, does not put up the most pronounced resistance”.91 Kautsky refuted the possibility of a common form of patriotism in the society of the time: he made a clear distinction between proletarian and bourgeois patriotism.92 He thought that the two classes Halle an der Saale vom 12. bis 18. Oktober 1890. Berlin, 1891, 4. The Erfurt program is quoted at the beginning of all the reports of the pre-1914 SPD congresses. 87 Massimo L. Salvadori. Kautsky e la rivoluzione socialista, 1880–1938. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1976. 88 Kautsky draft resolution, Cinquième congrès socialiste international tenu à Paris du 23 au 27 septembre 1900. Compte rendu analytique, Paris, 1901. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13. Geneva: Minkoff, 1980, 94–98. “Regarding alliances and coalitions with bourgeois parties, I can be extremely brief: they should be used with the utmost circumspection, because they can weaken the class conscience of the proletariat. But, let us not forget, coalitions are sometimes a necessary evil”. Ibid., 95. 89 December 16, 1905 and May 6, 1907. 90 Karl Kautsky. Patriotismus und Sozialdemokratie. Leipzig: Leipziger Buchdruckerei,

1907. 91 Ibid., 7. 92 “Both are meaningless, but we’ll never be able to agree on that with our opponents

because our patriotism is different from theirs. By the same word, two opposing notions

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will never be able to fight side by side, and that the proletarians of the various nations, all united (internationale Solidarität), will have to fight against the bourgeoisie. However, he also identified situations in which the proletarians and the bourgeoisie of the same country would have to defend the same interests and he recognized the existence of “situations in which both types of patriotism can converge towards a common effect and even in a war”,93 for example, if the independence of the nation would be threatened, or if it was necessary to defend democracy against absolutism. However, once these goals have been achieved, proletariat and bourgeoisie would have to distance themselves from each other again. For example, after the war of 1870–1871, in Germany, once this patriotism was no longer necessary, the two classes returned to conflictual relations dictated by the economic laws of capitalism. Bernstein’s position was also fairly moderate and resembled Kautsky’s in many ways. The ideas of the two men, on the other hand rather distant, came closer on this point. According to Bernstein, the means that the resolutions of the Erfurt program retained to oppose the war were partly unfeasible: the duty of the workers was, as for all other citizens of a nation, to defend their fatherland. However, this does not contradict the internationalism of the proletariat. In his 1899 article on imperialism and social-democracy in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, Bernstein advocated a socialist policy in favor of the colonies: since all other countries are involved in colonial enterprises, Germany must also safeguard its interests.94 At the Stuttgart congress of 1907, he defended the same position.95 On this point, a great debate saw him opposing Kautsky,

are referred to as fire and water and never has the opposition between the two been as strong as it is now”. Ibid., 13–14. 93 Ibid., 20. 94 Eduard Bernstein. Sozialdemokratie und Imperialismus. Sozialistische Monatshefte 5,

1900, 239. He stated here: “Today we see imperialist tendencies on all sides”. He went on to cite the examples of France, England, the U.S. and Czarist Russia. 95 “[…] we cannot maintain our purely negative point of view on colonial matters. […] We must reject the utopian idea, the outcome of which would be the abandonment of the colonies. […] The colonies are there, they must be taken care of and I consider that a certain tutelage of civilized peoples over uncivilized peoples is a necessity. […] I believe that we must place ourselves on the ground of real facts and we must oppose capitalist colonial policy to socialist colonial policy”. VII e congrès socialiste international, tenu à Stuttgart du 16 au 24 août 1907. Compte rendu analytique, Bruxelles, 1908. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 17. Geneva: Minkoff, 1985, 625–626.

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who conceived of socialist colonial policy solely as civilizing and did not tolerate, as his comrade dis, that a social-democrat admitted the need to keep economic interests in the colonies. In general, the revisionist current of the SPD, of which Bernstein was the intellectual father, does not have a chauvinist or imperialist character, although its positions were not in total opposition to any form of war. At the other end were the theses defended by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who demonstrated the most radical opposition to the imperialist currents, showing uncompromising anti-militarism, concretized on the ground by extensive propaganda work. During the 1904 SPD congress in Bremen, Luxemburg sought to extend this work to the entire party and to institutionalize it. In order to do this, it proposed to set up a propaganda campaign against militarism, particularly aimed at young people, but its project was rejected. The question was again raised by Karl Liebknecht96 at subsequent SPD congresses in Jena in 1905 and Mannheim in 1906. On the basis of the decision of the Paris International congress in 1900 to make anti-militaristic propaganda to young people his duty,97 the German social-democrat insisted in Jena that his party should also adopt a resolution calling for a major anti-militaristic propaganda campaign.98 During the vote on the war appropriations in Parliament in August 1914, only Karl Liebknecht abstained, and the d eputy Fritz Kunert intentionally did not stand for election. It should be noted, however, that this parliamentary vote did not correspond to the will of the entire party. In the meeting of the SPD parliamentary group on 3 August 1914, social-democrats decided that their representatives had 96 This topic was important to him: in 1907, he wrote the book Militarismus und Antimilitarismus, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der internationalen Jugendbewegung, Leipzig, that will be discussed below. 97 Congress Resolutions: “4th issue – International Peace. Militarism. Abolition of

standing armies. Resolutions, I. The congress declares that it is necessary to redouble in all countries the zeal, energy and vigor in the daily struggle against militarism and that it is necessary above all to oppose the alliance of the bourgeoisie and the imperial governments with the alliance of the proletarians of all countries. The congress indicates as means of action: 1. the various socialist parties are committed to carefully pursue the education and organization of youth, with a view to combating militarism […]”. Cinquième congrès socialiste international tenu à Paris du 23 au 27 septembre 1900. Compte rendu analytique, Paris, 1901. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13, 139. 98 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten zu Jena vom 17. bis -23. September 1905. Berlin, 1905 (cited next as: Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1905), 283–284.

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to vote against the war credits in the Reichstag the following day. But this tendency was losing out, as 78 others wanted the comrades to vote for the credits and 18 abstained or were not present at the meeting. The majority of the SPD, represented mainly by Bebel, defended intermediate positions, halfway between patriotism and internationalism: internationalism was a workers’ issue, and was expressed in an almost radical anti-militarism, but which only concerned domestic politics. Bebel was one of the greatest critics of the German military system, but without attaining the virulence of a Karl Liebknecht. Before 1905, he questioned certain aspects of the army (especially demonstrations, such as parades), but he was convinced that Germany would sooner or later have to use its soldiers to defend itself from Russia. After the Russian Revolution, Bebel became a supporter of the institution of the Volksheer in Germany. In any case, he never forgot German national interests and national defense.99 Regarding the SPD’s attitude to the question of a general strike in the event of war, the party definitively opposed it at the 1906 Mannheim congress, following Bebel’s indications. The resolution, known as the Mannheimer Abkommen, affirmed the equal importance of the party and the trade unions in Germany. With this Mannheim agreement, it was decided that the union leaders—not the party leadership—would decide whether or not to call a general strike in specific situations. This indicated the power gained by the trade unions in the Empire. It also indicated the fact that the majority of the SPD did not attach great importance to the strike as a means of struggle. The Mannheimer Abkommen is fundamental: the question of the general strike, even in times of war, was left in the hands of the unions. This also explains the party’s leadership behavior in the International in Stuttgart in 1907. Moreover, Bebel was fiercely convinced of the duty of every German to defend the fatherland. Regarding colonial policy, he admitted it as a duty of civilization.100 To sum up, the positions and attitudes of the majority of SPD representatives were those contained in the party’s electoral manifesto for the 1912 elections: 99 Cf. Wette, Militarismus in Deutschland, and Neff, Wir wollen keine Paradetruppe. 100 Bebel exhibited his patriotic ideas and his conceptions of war at the SPD congresses

in Essen in 1907 and Jena in 1911, then at the International congress in Stuttgart in 1907 and at the Reichstag in 1913. Here, a year before the war began, Bebel declared that there was no man in Germany who would leave his country undefended in the face of a foreign attack.

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Organization of national defense on democratic bases. Implementation of compulsory military service for all men fit for arms.101 Reduction of military service to the necessary time required for training in national defense. Education of the youth in the capacity of defense. Elimination of the oneyear voluntary military service privilege. The elimination of all expensive military and naval uniforms and pomp and circumstance.102

More generally, the SPD’s positions were: critics about the government’s plans to expand the army or navy; constant refusal of military credits; opposition to imperialist colonial policy; denunciation of the government’s friendly policy toward tsarist Russia and the mistreatment of soldiers in the army103 (a phenomenon that was also found in France and Italy). On the other hand, they pleaded for an improvement in diplomatic relations with England. The weight of the SPD within the German political system was important from its foundation until the beginning of the war. In the Reichstag elections of 1893, the first after the party’s unification, the socialdemocracy won 23.3% of the vote and 44 of the 397 seats. The other largest groups were the Konservative with 19.2% of the vote and 100 seats, the Zentrum with 19.1% and 96 seats, the National-Liberals with 13% and 53 seats, and the Linksliberale (Liberale Vereinigung, Deutsche Fortschrittspartei and Deutsche Volkspartei) with 14.8% and 48 seats.104 It should be remembered that the German Reich since 1871 was one of the only European countries (along with France and Greece) to have adopted the system of direct, secret, and universal suffrage—this applied to all men aged 25 and over.105 The SPD gradually gained strength, from 384,327 members in 1905106 to almost 1,000,000 in 1912. When the 101 Behind this lied the idea that the social-democrats wanted to democratize the army: in Germany, the practice was to call only those who were not workers (about half of them) from among able-bodied men, because it was supposed to be possible to use the army also against workers. This was not the case in France, where two thirds of the able-bodied were called up. 102 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten zu Chemnitz vom 15. bis 21. September 1912. Berlin, 1912, 24. 103 These positions are all contained in the parliamentary report presented by the socialdemocratic deputies at the Chemnitz congress of 1912. Ibid., 105. 104 Other parties: 10,6%. 105 Kroll, Geburt der Moderne, 35. 106 No reliable data is available for previous years.

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war broke out in 1914, the threshold of one million registered members was crossed.107 In addition to its growing membership, the party received a steadily increasing number of votes—except for a drop in 1907, when a small number of fewer votes resulted in a large loss of seats in Parliament (almost half of the number of the previous elections). The party received 27.2% of the vote in 1898 (56 seats), 31.7% in 1903 (81 seats), 28.9% in 1907 (43 seats), peaking at 34.8% in 1912 (110 seats out of 397), the last election before the war. In comparison, the Zentrum obtained 16.4% of the votes in these elections, making it the second-largest party in the Empire, far behind the social-democrats. The Konservative obtained 12.2% of the vote, giving them 57 seats in the Reichstag under the current system.108 Italy Regarding the PSI’s attitude to the war, historians have examined the issue mainly for the years from the Italian–Turkish conflict to the First World War. Andrea Geuna’s ongoing thesis109 departs from this logic, in that it traces the attitude to the war of the different currents of the PSI between 1892 and 1914 and then deals in greater detail with some of the anti-militarist campaigns that took place in Italy at that time.110 This work takes up, reframes, and completes the work done almost thirty years ago by Gianni Oliva, who was more specifically interested in anti-militarist propaganda and in the initiatives taken in this direction by representatives

107 See the tables of Klönne, Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung, 114. 108 Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Informationen zur politischen Bildung 315,

2012. http://www.bpb.de/izpb/142137/1880-bis-1914?p=all (accessed February 10, 2021) and Gerd Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka and Gerhard A. Ritter. Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch 2: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs, 1870–1914. München: Beck, 1978, 173–175. 109 Andrea Geuna. Aspetti del pacifismo socialista in Italia (1892–1914). Ongoing PhD thesis under the supervision of Daniele Menozzi (SNS Pisa) and Christophe Prochasson (EHESS Paris). 110 An article on this topic has already been published: Andrea Geuna. Forme di propaganda antitripolina in Emilia Romagna: i casi di Forlì, Parma e Reggio-Emilia. Annali della Fondazione Ugo La Malfa 25, 2010, 91–111.

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of the Italian labor movement during the years from the birth of the Regno d’Italia (1861) to the outbreak of the First World War.111 The PSI’s relationship to the Italian-Turkish war has aroused much interest among Italian historians. Part of the historiography, the oldest part, has emphasized the PSI’s inability to react to the events in Tripolitania, but without taking into consideration the opposition demonstrations that the party managed to set up. This historiographical tendency directly links the war with the crisis of socialist reformism. As will be emphasized in the chapter of this work devoted to the Tripolitan expedition, the Italian socialists did not expect Giolitti to bring the country to war. Filippo Meda insisted as early as the 1920s on the socialist disarray in the face of the Italian-Turkish war,112 taking up the thesis of Gaetano Salvemini, a contemporary of the facts, who asserted that the socialist leaders were unable to react to the political novelty of the war.113 The historian Arfé also emphasized the lack of immediate reaction of socialism to the war.114 Leo Valiani, Alceo Riosa, and Giuseppe Mammarella also stressed the disarray of Italian socialism in the face of the events in Tripolitania and their inability to react, as did Gioacchino Volpe, who minimized the impact of the general strike of September 27, 1911.115 Valiani also saw in the war the cause of the split of the PSI in 1912.116 Renzo De Felice, in his historiographical synthesis of this period, also stressed the important role of the war in the crisis of reformism.117 Brunello Vigezzi found the cause of the lack of socialist reaction to the war and the crisis of reformism in the fatigue of its leaders, Filippo Turati and Anna Kuliscioff.118 111 Gianni Oliva. Esercito, paese e movimento operaio. L’antimilitarismo dal 1861 all’età giolittiana. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1986. 112 Filippo Meda. Il socialismo politico in Italia. Milan: Unitas, 1924. 113 Augusto Torre (ed). Gaetano Salvemini. Come siamo andati in Libia e altri scritti

dal 1900 al 1915. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1963. 114 Arfé, Les socialistes italiens. Cf. as well Gaetano Arfé. Italie: les socialistes, l’Éthiopie et la Libye. In: Georges Haupt, and Madeleine Rebérioux (eds). La Deuxième Internationale et l’Orient. Paris: Cujas, 1967, 205–210. 115 Gioacchino Volpe. L’impresa di Tripoli, 1911–1912. Rome: Leonardo, 1946. 116 Valiani, Il Partito socialista italiano, 287–288. 117 Renzo De Felice. L’età giolittiana. Studi storici 10 (1), 1969, 178–180. 118 Brunello Vigezzi. Giolitti, il Partito socialista e la guerra in Libia nelle lettere di

Filippo Turati e Anna Kuliscioff (1912). Rome: Quaderni di Mondo operaio, 1973.

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Another historiographical trend, on the other hand, has highlighted the fact that the Italian socialists organized a series of initiatives to affirm their opposition to what was happening: Paolo Maltese published a work that is above all a description of the events, among which the protest initiatives also find their place.119 The same was done by Francesco Malgeri, who outlined a complete framework of the war in all its aspects of internal and external politics.120 In the early 1970s, Maurizio Degl’Innocenti stressed that the triumph of the revolutionaries in 1912 should not be seen only in the crisis of the reformists due to the war, but also in the growing success of revolutionaries among the Italian socialist mass in recent years. According to Degl’Innocenti, the Italian revolutionary current must also be given renewed importance for its vivacious reaction to the events in Tripolitania.121 Leonardo Saviano, finally, gave much importance in his article to the general strike of September 27, 1911, which the PSI succeeded in organizing in response to government initiatives in Tripolitania.122 Degl’Innocenti, in his book published in 2015, points out that, even with internal differences, the choice of neutrality in 1914 was quite simple for Italian socialists, undoubtedly simpler than for comrades in other countries. The conditions in Italy are indeed different: Giolitti himself and about 300 members of parliament did not want war,123 as did a large part of society and public opinion. Opposed on the whole to the entry into the war, Italian socialists tended to distinguish clearly between their responsibility and that of the ruling groups. In doing so, they managed to keep a political space alive during the conflict, with the goal to restart political action once it was over. Thus, Degl’Innocenti makes a positive reading of the attitude of Italian socialism before and during the war, and in so doing distances himself from all the historiography that has emphasized its inability to act. Leo 119 Paolo Maltese. La terra promessa. La guerra italo-turca e la conquista della Libia, 1911–1912. Milan: Sugar, 1968. 120 Francesco Malgeri. La Guerra libica, 1911–1912. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1970. 121 Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. La guerra libica, la crisi del riformismo e la vittoria degli intransigenti. Rome: Instituto Gramsci, 1972. 122 Leonardo Saviano. Il Partito socialista italiano e la guerra di Libia (1911–1912). Aevum 48 (1–2), 1974, 102–130. 123 Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. La patria divisa. Socialismo, nazione e guerra mondiale. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2015, 175.

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Valiani studied the attitude of the PSI during the few months of Italian neutrality, highlighting above all the dichotomy between the obstinate opposition to the war embodied by Filippo Turati and a majority that did not hide its sympathies for the conflict (considered then as a necessary defense), which was grouped behind the figure of Leonida Bissolati.124 Luigi Cortesi treated this question in a broader perspective: the ideological fracture caused by the Italian-Turkish war and by the world conflict would, according to the historian, be at the origin of the split of a wing of the PSI, which led in 1921 to the birth of the Partito Comunista Italiano.125 But these studies were not international in scope. For this, we must wait for Francesca Canale Cama’s thesis, published in Italy in 2007, which proposes an analysis of the socialist attitude toward the questions of the war outside national borders, the Italian historian having been interested in the behavior of Italian and French socialists in the face of the danger of war between 1911 and 1916. According to her, in 1914, the failure of the Second International was due to a lack of political reflection within the various socialist parties, particularly on the subject of the war.126 Like in France and Germany, much researches have focused on specific cases.127 In the chapters dedicated to the Italian-Turkish War and the years of Italian neutrality, we will have the opportunity to enter into the details of this historiographical debate. From the 1880s onwards, two parties imbued with socialist ideas emerged in Italy. The first was the Partito socialista rivoluzionario di Romagna, founded in 1881 by Andrea Costa. Costa was active for some time in the anarchist movements, which led to his exile in Switzerland.

124 Leo Valiani. Il Partito Socialista Italiano nel periodo della neutralità, 1914–1915. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1963. Other studies on this topic are: Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. Il socialismo italiano e la guerra in Libia. Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1976. Saviano, Il Partito Socialista Italiano. Brunello Vigezzi. L’Italia di fronte alla Prima guerra mondiale. Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1966. Gian Biagio Furiozzi (ed). Le sinistre italiane tra guerra e pace, 1840–1940. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2008. 125 Luigi Cortesi. Le origini del PCI. Studi e interventi sulla storia del comunismo in Italia. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1999. 126 Francesca Canale Cama. Alla prova del fuoco. Socialisti francesi e italiani di fronte alla Prima guerra mondiale (1911–1916). Naples: Guida, 2008. 127 To mention just two of them: Claudio Ragaini. Giù le armi! Ernesto Teodoro Moneta e il progetto di pace internazionale. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1999. Ruggero Giacomini. Antimilitarismo e pacifismo nel primo novecento. Ezio Bartalini e “la Pace”, 1903–1915. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990.

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He met there Anna Kuliscioff, a Russian exile and a fine connoisseur of scientific socialism, who pushed him to deepen his reading of Marx’s texts and contributed decisively to his adherence to the doctrines of Marxist socialism. Costa’s rallying to the revolutionary socialism dates from this period.128 At the same time, in Milan, a current called “operaista” (of the workers) was developing, which included some of the workers in Milan’s industries (Lombardy was the most industrialized region in Italy at the time), who were increasingly critical of the intellectual leaders. This current finally came together in 1882, on the initiative of Giuseppe Croce129 and Costantino Lazzari,130 in the Italian Workers’ Party (Partito operaio italiano, POI). Socialist ideas took root in Italy in the 1880s, which, combined with the first electoral reform in the Italian kingdom, led to the election of the first socialist deputy, Andrea Costa, to Parliament in 1882. The electoral reform, enacted on May 7, 1882, broadened the franchise131 : it lowered the age limit from 25 to 21, the minimum income required to participate in the ballot was halved and finally, the right to vote was extended to citizens who had attended the first two years of elementary school, which had become obligatory after the Coppino Law of 1876. This reform thus gave the right to vote to 7% of the Italian population (then about 27 million people) and, for the first time, it was not only the bourgeois or large landowners who benefited. With the progress of the socialist movement in Europe, the creation of the Second International and the clear victory of the SPD in the elections of 1890, Marxist ideas began to spread more widely in Italy.

128 For a biography of Andrea Costa, cf. Gino Cerrito. Andrea Costa nel socialismo italiano. Rome: La Goliardica, 1982. 129 See the entry “Croce, Giuseppe”, in the Enciclopedia Treccani, online: http://www. treccani.it/enciclopedia/giuseppe-croce/ [20 September 2019]. 130 See Fulvio Conti. Costantino Lazzari. In: Dizionario biografico italiano, 64, 2005. http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/costantino-lazzari_%28Dizionario_Biogra fico%29/ [20 September 2019]. 131 The right to vote in united Italy was restricted by age, income and education (one had to be able to read and write), which limited it to 2% of the population. After unity, Italy was a largely rural country. Only a tiny part of the proletariat was educated, concentrated in the North. The proletarians working in the cities were mostly employed in handicraft enterprises. Most of them were peasants. In the new kingdom of Italy, proletarians were excluded from the right to vote, based on income and level of education. It was in this context that anarchist ideas spread.

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Antonio Labriola, a connoisseur of scientific Marxism and a close associate of the German social-democrats,132 held a series of lectures on Marxism at the University of Rome. The Capital of Marx was translated (finally!) into Italian in 1886,133 soon followed, in 1888, by the Manifesto of the Communist Party.134 In this context the figure of Filippo Turati appeared, a lawyer from a Milanese bourgeois family, seduced by socialist ideas. In 1889 he founded the Socialist League (Lega Socialista), which brought together representatives of Milanese socialism. In 1891, he took over the direction of a democratic-republican journal, Cuore e critica, with which he had previously collaborated, renaming it Critica sociale and transforming it into a specifically socialist support, defending political and cultural interests. Turati wanted it to become the common reference point for the socialists of Romagna and Milan, the two main poles in which socialism was already organized. In fact, its aim was to unify the different groups of Italian workers into a national socialist party. He also pleaded for the Italian workers’ movement to emancipate itself definitively from the anarchizing groups that persisted in Italy. The Italian Socialist Party (Partito socialista italiano, PSI) was founded in 1892, following the congress of the International held in Brussels the previous year and the Erfurt program of German social-democracy. Commenting on the latter, Filippo Turati welcomed the fact that the SPD was abandoning doctrinarianism in favor of seeking to obtain as many advantages as possible through politics and existing institutions.135 According to Turati, it was necessary for the Italian socialists to follow this example and create a party that can grow and develop within the bourgeois state. From August 14, 1892, some 200 representatives of various associations of the Italian labor movement met in Genoa. After 132 Valentino Gerratana. Labriola e l’introduzione del marxismo in Italia. In: Eric J. Hobsbawm and Georges Haupt (eds). Storia del marxismo 2: Il marxismo nell’età della Seconda Internazionale. Turin: Einaudi, 1979, 619–657. 133 This is rather late if we refer to the French and English translations. It should be noted that the translation was not directly from the German original, but from the French version. 134 Cf. on this topic Gian Mario Bravo. Marx ed Engels in Italia. La fortuna, gli scritti, le relazioni polemiche. Rome: Editori riuniti, 1992. In particular the chapter on the first writings that circulated in Italy (I primi scritti di Marx e Engels in Italia, 63–80) and the one on the publication of the Capital in Italy (La pubblicazione del Capitale, 81–124). 135 Filippo Turati. Lo stato libero e l’azione socialista presente. Critica sociale, 10 March

1891.

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days of discussions and despite strong opposition from the anarchists, Filippo Turati and his group (Anna Kuliscioff, already mentioned, who had become Turati’s life partner and would remain so throughout her life, Guido Albertelli, Claudio Treves, Leonida Bissolati, Arcangelo Ghisleri, Enrico Ferri) presented the program and statutes of the new Italian Workers’ Party, Partito dei lavoratori italiani, which would become Partito socialista italiano the following year. The party had a social, proletarian, and popular base. Ideologically, it was inspired by a Marxist program, i.e., the struggle for political power. Politically, it wanted to definitively cut the bridges with the anarchists. And finally, but not in order of importance, it wanted to be a national party, which was not only the representative of the socialists of Romagna or Milan, but which also welcomed the members of the socialist leagues from other Italian regions present in Genoa. The PSI was then structured into different streams. The first, more intransigent, was nevertheless unable to apply its revolutionary precepts in practice, while the second had the greatest difficulty in developing a coherent reformist policy. Numerically, the reformists were the most numerous and constituted “the backbone of the PSI”, in the words of historian Zeffiro Ciuffoletti.136 They were organized around the figures of Turati, Anna Kuliscioff, Leonida Bissolati, director of Avanti! since 1901, and Claudio Treves. According to the main theoretician of this current, the new order, that was to be born, had to be the result of a gradual evolution of capitalism toward socialism, through a succession of reforms. Following the example of the other two socialist parties, the question of anti-militarism had been part of the PSI’s programs from the very beginning. This theme was the subject of a very first deliberation on the occasion of the congress of the Milanese Socialist League of 1891, which preceded that of Genoa, the founding congress of the PSI. The workers’ movement affirmed its anti-patriotic and anti-authoritarian stance and expressed its desire to see the permanent armies abolished.137 Although the Genoa congress ignored the question of militarism, it was

136 Ciuffoletti, Storia del PSI , 10. 137 “The political ideal of socialism – which defines itself as unpatriotic and anti-

authoritarian – finds its natural and necessary preconditions in the abolition of the narrow borders that existed in other times […] and in the tendency to abolish standing armies”. Lega socialista milanese, Programma socialista. Milan, 1891 quoted from Oliva, Esercito, paese e movimento operaio, 119–120n. A four-point program was then formulated. It is reproduced in the Critica sociale of April 30, 1891.

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nevertheless debated in a series of articles that appeared in the Critica sociale between late 1892 and early 1893, signed by some of the leading figures of Italian socialism, such as Claudio Treves and Filippo Turati. Once again, they took a stand against the permanent armies138 and in favor of international arbitration.139 These same objectives were defended by the most enlightened bourgeoisie and, according to Treves, socialism had to make itself an ally to obtain them. Such a proposal was clearly part of a broader strategy, that of the PSI’s participation in the government, an issue which, as we have already pointed out, occupied a central place within the party from its foundation until the Great War. For his part, Turati affirmed that the socialist party had to be a party of peace140 and the anti-militarist struggle a class struggle—the abolition of the permanent armies being, in this perspective, only a transitory objective.141 With Crispi’s authoritarian policies, the defeat of Adoua in 1896142 and the repression of the popular riots in Milan in 1898 by General BavaBeccaris,143 the debate became more concrete. With regard to colonial policy, Andrea Costa demanded the withdrawal of troops from Africa (December 16, 1896) and protest movements were organized in several urban centers.144 However, this protest soon died out, as no political 138 Claudio Treves. Per la pace e per il socialismo. Critica sociale, 30 December 1892. 139 Claudio Treves. Polemizzando. Critica sociale, 15 February 1893. 140 It thus takes up the Liebknecht-Vaillant agenda of the Brussels congress: Filippo Turati. Guerra intorno alla pace (fine di una polemica). Critica sociale, 16 February 1893. 141 Filippo Turati. La pace e il socialismo. Critica sociale, 30 September 1891. 142 The Italian colonial adventure in Eritrea began in 1882 with the official acquisition

of the Bay of Assab. Eritrea was then declared an Italian colony in 1890. In the years that followed, Italy continued its expansion towards the interior of the country, which led to an open conflict between the country and Ethiopia ending in 1896 with Italy’s defeat in Adoua. Through the subsequent Addis Ababa peace treaty, Italy recognized the independence of the Ethiopian Empire and the latter recognized the Italian colony of Eritrea. 143 The revolt of Milan took place between May 6 and 9, 1898. The workers demonstrated against the bad working conditions and the increase in the price of bread. Violent clashes with the police and the military took place. The news coming from Milan led the government to declare a state of siege and to give full powers to General Fiorenzo BavaBeccaris, who acted with violence to stop the riots, using firearms and cannons against the demonstrators. The bloody repression of this revolt has remained engraved in the Italian memory. 144 Filippo Turati. Il domani. Critica sociale, 16 March 1896.

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force tried to channel or organize it. During the 1890s, anti-militarism, as the socialist leaders themselves admitted,145 constituted a fertile ground for propaganda, but in no way conducive to the organization of class opposition. Moreover, the prudence of the reformists resulted in the rejection of class struggle against the war and the adoption of positions close to those of ministerialism.146 In 1901, the PSI, led by the group of reformists, decided to support the bourgeois Zanardelli-Giolitti government by voting in Parliament the balance sheets of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior. According to Turati, socialism must ally itself with the progressive bourgeoisie and its Parliament in order to modernize the country, which was a step toward the institution of the new order. He thus took up the distinction made in the 1890s, and proposed again by Treves at the congress of Rome,147 between programma massimo and programma minimo. The first aimed at collectivization and the establishment of the socialist order; the second set itself similar objectives, but through reforms that had to be wrenched from Parliament. Turati defended the programma minimo and therefore pleaded for support for the government, the only concrete action that, he believed, could protect the interests of the workers. Among other reforms, the programma minimo proposed the abolition of the permanent armies, to be replaced by the Nazione Armata (armed nation). It also condemned colonial policy and demanded that the right to decide on war and peace be given to the representatives of the people.148 The two 145 Giovanni Lerda. Il socialismo e l’esercito. Critica sociale, 30 January 1893. 146 Giovanni Lerda stated in the pages of the Critica sociale that the anti-militarist

problematic is an effective weapon in the field of propaganda, but that it is useless to have illusions about its concrete results. Giovanni Lerda, “Il socialismo e l’esercito”, quoted by Oliva, Esercito, paese e movimento operaio, 128 and 149–151. 147 “Theoretically the whole minimal program is contained in these three paragraphs:

(1) Political transformations, that is to say, the search for a democratic state where the proletariat feels truly equal politically and legally to the capitalist […]; (2) Economic transformations for the social defense of the wage earner, with the aim of obtaining laws that eliminate competition within the working class; (3) Administrative and fiscal transformations for all those reforms and institutions that, apart from the two fields considered in the previous paragraphs, raise the value of the proletarian as a man and as a citizen, improving the conditions as a consumer and providing the financial means indispensable for other reforms already indicated”. PSI. Rendiconto del VI° congresso nazionale (Roma, 8–9-10–11 settembre 1900). Rome, 1901, 126. 148 Item 6 on the agenda: “Armed Nation. Right of peace, of war and of stipulating treaties, entrusted to the elective representation of the nation. Abandonment of any

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reformist leaders, Turati and Bissolati, did not oppose military spending in toto but in a more nuanced way, for example, by refusing any increase in the budget. A coherent position, which went hand in hand with their recognition of existing of the nation and the need to defend it in case of danger.149 That was opposed to the ideas of the revolutionary syndicalists and their anti-patriotism, against which the reformists were carrying out a permanent campaign. In any case, since the danger of war was perceived as remote, they continued to oppose any increase in funding for the navy and army. On the other hand, the PSI as a whole constantly objected against the systematic repression of popular protest by the army.150 The long-term perspective remained the creation of an armed nation. Antimilitarism was never a major preoccupation in the minds of the socialists: the only congress where it was really debated was that of Florence in 1906, where Turati had to admit that the party did not really have a military policy, in the absence of any foreign policy.151 Thus, no real unitary project was born within the PSI concerning military matters. For its part, the revolutionary current of the PSI, which supported the programma massimo, rejected any idea of collaboration with a bourgeois government. Only through class struggle and strike action was it possible to overcome the established order, a condition for building a socialist society. The general strike must also be a means to oppose the war. The revolutionaries were led by Arturo Labriola, known as the “enfant terrible of Italian socialism”,152 Costantino Lazzari, Enrico Ferri, who succeeded Bissolati as director of Avanti! in 1903, and Andrea Costa. In 1903–1904, the years of the first general strike in Italy, the revolutionaries became a majority within the party, a dominant position that the reformists then occupied from 1906 onwards, before their expulsion in

colonial policy based on military conquest” PSI, Rendiconto del VI° congresso nazionale, 124. 149 On February 25, 1904, Bissolati told the Chamber that they were internationalists, but that they recognized the nation. 150 PSI, Rendiconto del VI° congresso nazionale, 124. In Italy, this idea was part of a long perspective, which took up the Garibaldian tradition, cf. Giuseppe Conti. Fare gli italiani. Esercito permanente e “nazione armata” nell’Italia liberale. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2012. 151 PSI, Rendiconto del VI° congresso nazionale, 214. 152 Mattera, Storia del PSI , 40.

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1912.153 At the Modena congress of 1911, the reformists emerged victorious but divided on the question of the Italian-Turkish war, with on the one hand the left-wing reformists, who condemned the war and wished to withdraw their support from the government, and on the other the right-wing reformists who defended the opposite position. At the end of the debates, a compromise motion was approved, drafted by Treves and supported by Turati,154 which opened the way for the rise of revolutionaries and settled the divorce between the masses, who demanded an end to the war, and the reformists. We will have the opportunity to deepen the analysis of this question in the chapter devoted to the Italian-Turkish war. The reformists experienced a rapid decline and at the next congress (in Reggio-Emilia in 1912) a new figure of socialism appeared, a revolutionary, Benito Mussolini, who called for the expulsion of Bissolati and Bonomi. The subsequent elections confirmed the expulsion of Bissolati, Bonomi, Cabrini, and Podrecca, who founded the Partito socialista riformista. A new leadership of the PSI was elected, headed by Costantino Lazzari as secretary. In this context, the revolutionary syndicalists, who were on the side of the revolutionary wing of Italian socialism, deserve a special mention. As far as they are concerned, this is an Italian specificity. Arturo Labriola and his group, who were inspired by the teaching of the Frenchman Georges Sorel and nourished by Hervé’s anti-patriotism, defended positions that were the opposite of those of the revisionists, particularly on the war. Shortly after being expelled from the PSI in 1910 because of deep differences with Turati’s group, Arturo Labriola published an essay entitled Storia di dieci anni (Ten Years’ Story),155 which was a great success.156 In it, he described Italy in the first ten years of the twentieth century as a confrontation between “the ideal forces of life and principles” and “bourgeois positivism, proletarian reformism and governmental pacifism”.157 In the 153 Ibid., 55. 154 Direzione del Partito socialista italiano. Resoconto stenografico dello XII Congresso

Nazionale del Partito socialista Italiano (Modena, 15–16-17–18 ottobre 1911). Milan, 1912, 318–320. 155 Arturo Labriola. Storia di dieci anni (1899–1909). Milan: Il Viandante, 1910. 156 For a detailed study of the work and its reception in contemporary Italy, we refer

to Maddalena Carli. Nazione e rivoluzione. Il “socialismo nazionale” in Italia. Mitologia di un discorso rivoluzionario. Milan: Unicopli, 2001, 43–66. 157 Labriola, Storia di dieci anni, 5–6.

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conclusion of his work, he invoked war as the only possible truly revolutionary novelty, capable of changing existing balances and opening the way for revolutionary minorities. The convictions of Labriola and his group espoused those of “national socialism",158 a union of revolutionary nationalists and trade unionists born in Giolitti’s Italy, which opposed his politics and the cultural trend based on positivism that was in vogue in Italy at the beginning of the century. When the Italian–Turkish conflict made war a reality, Labriola interpreted it as a revolutionary possibility, an opportunity to change the established bourgeois order. Moreover, he wanted the participation of the proletariat in the war as an exercise in preparation for the social struggles. The references to Sorel and his theory of the formative and regenerative role of war were obvious. As the historian Marzio Zanantoni has pointed out, one clearly perceives the traits of a cult of war within this national socialism (socialismo nazionale), which was the union between nationalism and revolutionary syndicalism and had a broad influence on the political choices of part of the workers’ movement.159 This notion of a cult of war was not peculiar to the nationalists, but also concerned certain figures of the workers’ movement who claimed to be left wing. The war is, according to them, an educating action of the working class.160 It is with these precedents that Italy confronted the Italian-Turkish war, which led to a definitive rupture within the party. Between 1895 and 1914, the Italian population was between 31 million (1895) and 36 million (1914). Until the elections of 1909, 7% of the population enjoyed the right to vote. This changed with the electoral laws of June 30, 1912 and June 22, 1913, which extended suffrage to all men over the age of 30. This limit was lowered to 21 years of age for those who had completed military service, or school, or were able to pass an examination showing that they were literate, or paid a tax, or received state recognition (such as a military decoration). In the elections of November 27, 1913, the first after the reform, 23 percent of the population had the right to vote. The first election after the birth of the PSI was held in 1895, with the following results: 334 ministerial deputies (65.7% of the vote), 104 constitutional deputies (20.5%), 47

158 Maddalena Carli, in the work that we have just quoted, studies this concept at length. 159 Bianchi (ed), Militarismo e pacifismo, 39–40. 160 Ibid., 47.

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radicals (9.2%), 16 socialists (2.9%), 8 from various parties (1.5%).161 The number of socialist deputies rose to 33 in 1900,162 29 in 1904,163 and 41 in 1909.164 In 1913, the novelty was not only the electoral reform, but also the fact that the socialist party was split. The extension of the right to vote had a direct effect on the number of socialists elected: the PSI sent 52 deputies to Parliament, the Socialist Reformist Party 19, and the Independent Socialist Trade Unionist Party 5,165 making a total of 76 deputies from a socialist grouping, 3.5 times more than in the first election after the birth of the PSI.

Time Frame of the Research The inclusion of the years of Italian neutrality is therefore fundamental to this work. This is why it ends with the entry of this country into the Great War. For the rest, it follows the temporal framework of the Second International, distinguishing two crucial moments. The first is that of the last decade of the nineteenth century, when a decisive turning point in the International’s interest in opposition to war occurred. The second moment includes the years 1911–1914: during this period, the International progressed unfailingly in its opposition to the war and succeeded in setting up a succession of international protest measures, which followed one another almost without interruption, from 1912 onwards. Such a chronology challenges the usual chronologies on two levels: first, because it does not adopt the year 1914 as the endpoint of the International’s discussions on war and peace. The months between August 1914 and Italy’s entry into the war are characterized by intense debates and confrontations around the question of war in the Italian public space, and

161 Pasquale Buccomino (ed). Il parlamento italiano, 1861–1988, vol. 6: Crispi e la crisi di fine secolo, da Crispi a Zanardelli. 1888–1901. Milan: Nuova CEI, 1989, 43. 162 Ibid., 44. 163 Pasquale Buccomino (ed). Il parlamento italiano, 1861–1988 7: L’età di Giolitti,

da Zanardelli a Giolitti. 1902–1908. Milan: Nuova CEI, 1990, 23. 164 Id., Il parlamento italiano, 1861–1988, vol. 8: Da Giolitti a Salandra, la Libia e l’interventismo: 1909–1914. Milan: Nuova CEI, 1990, 25. 165 Ibid., 26.

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the attitude of the PSI in these months is the object of analysis and discussion by members of the SFIO and the SPD166 : even after the outbreak of the war, there was a residual internationalism. But this chronology questions the usual chronologies also because it pushes back further, that is, to the end of the nineteenth century, the period of great international unrest that awakened socialist consciousness and inspired its opposition to the war. The reason why the International began to express itself publicly against the war at the end of the 1890s is probably the result of different factors: of course, one of them is the fact that the international situation is not calm. This is not really a novelty, however, if one takes into account that in the preceding decade’s Bismarck often evoked the possibility of a preventive war against France. On the other hand, for the years that interest us, this is to be put in relation to a new situation: quite banally, if one begins to openly oppose the war, it is also because one is authorized to do so. In the different countries, in fact, a discourse on the brutality of war and on the misdeeds of military life was taking shape, at a time when people were beginning to enjoy greater freedom of expression.167 This work distances itself from this general historiography, which sees 1905 as the pivotal year in terms of the importance of the question of war at the beginning of the century. It thus distances itself from it in two directions: on the one hand, by going back to the 1890s to note the emergence of sensitivity toward the question of war; on the other hand, by going as far as 1911–1912 to see the birth of a real international commitment, constant, and profound, which is opposed to the warmongering policy pursued by the European states.

166 The choice of 1915 as the final date for this study is therefore dependent on the method of crossed history that we apply in this research. One of the first problems that arise when applying this method is that of chronological breaks that do not necessarily coincide for all the countries analyzed. This is what led us to choose this somewhat unconventional date, which has the advantage of including Italy’s entry into the war and the months of its neutrality when France and Germany are already engaged in combat and, as a result, the socialists in these two countries have already voted in favor of war credits. 167 It is sufficient to read the main daily newspapers in the three countries to see that almost every day there is an article about episodes of violence or illness in the barracks.

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The years between the Fachoda crisis and Italy’s entry into the war were very turbulent. From one crisis to the next,168 it regularly happened that the front page of the daily newspapers reported on an international crisis or war. As such, the great diplomatic crisis of July–August 1914 was by no means a new event. Under conditions that were of course very different from those of 1914, socialists must already put their theories denouncing war to the test during moments of diplomatic tension, which made nations fear being involved in an armed conflict. For convenience, these moments are called in this work “international crises”, giving this concept a very broad meaning of “moment of rupture within an organized system”169 which implies an acceleration of events whose outcome cannot be predicted. Such situations therefore require decisions to be taken as quickly as possible in order to avert the worst, the least desirable scenario being, for the countries analyzed, direct involvement in an armed confrontation. This dimension of fear about the imminent outbreak of war—or even the participation of one’s own nation in a conflict—is very important in this analysis, and even more so in the reflection that leads us to recognize the crisis as “a risk to national or international security”.170 In the notion of international crisis, we have therefore grouped together two types of “feared conflicts”: international crises that did not give rise to armed confrontations (the Fachoda crisis and the two Moroccan crises) and “distant wars”, i.e., that did not take place on the territory of the countries discussed here, but in which they were nevertheless involved, directly or indirectly, or which made them fear a major involvement on their part (the Russian-Japanese War, the Italian-Turkish War, the two Balkan Wars). We exclude from this definition the crisis of the summer of 1914 and the months of war until 1915, insofar as the countries analyzed here participated directly in the conflict. The international diplomatic crises thus defined are considered in this work as factual “tests” of the

168 We will deal with the issue later in this work, when we address the debate on the origins of the war. Cf. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War. Clark, The Sleepwalkers. Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich (eds). Vermiedene Kriege. Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg 1865–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1997. 169 Jean-Louis Dufour. Un siècle de crises internationales. De Pékin (1900) au Caucase (2008). Bruxelles: A. Versaille, 2009, 21. 170 Ibid.

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socialist opposition to the war, as it emerges from the debates within the International, the socialist congresses, or the various writings.

Historiographic Framework The cultural history of politics, with a touch of social history, constitutes the main approach of this work in terms of its object of study. In the wake of the most recent historiography of socialism, such an approach moves away from pure social history, which until the late 1980s was the framework for interpreting the history of socialism. Following the line that Gilles Candar and Jean-Jacques Becker set for themselves in their Histoire des gauches en France, this work seeks to grasp “an attitude, a behavior, a sensibility”171 of socialism: in the present case, we attempt to study its apprehension of international solidarity and its reactions to situations of international crisis. The historiography of socialism has experienced a revival in recent years. As the Italian historian Patrizia Dogliani observed in a 2009 article, historians have taken an interest in the Second International over a specific period of time, from 1953 (the year George D. H. Cole’s first volume was published172 ) to 1989 (the centenary of the foundation of the Second International and the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall). The most abundant research on the subject was carried out during an even shorter period, in the 1960s and 1970s, with a significant decline already in the early 1980s.173 Until the early 2000s, the historiography of socialism and labor movement paradoxically remained anchored at the national level. As an illustration, one needs only to cite the monumental work directed by Jacques Droz, Histoire générale du socialism,174 published in four volumes in the 1970s, or that of Jürgen Kocka who, in 1982, directed a work on the European workers’ movement in the

171 Becker and Candar, Histoire des gauches en France 1, 12. Cf. as well Prochasson, Le Socialisme, une culture. 172 George Douglas Howard Cole. A History of Socialist Thought. I. The Forerun-

ners 1789–1850; II. Marxism and Anarchism, 1850–1890; III. The Second International (2 vol.); IV. Communism and social-democracy, 1914–1931 (2 vol.); V. Socialism and Fascism, 1931–1939. London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, 1953–1960. 173 Patrizia Dogliani, Socialisme et internationalisme. Cahiers Jaurès 191, 2009, 11–30. 174 Jacques Droz (ed). Histoire générale du socialisme. Paris: PUF, 4 vol, 1972–1978.

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nineteenth century.175 While these two studies adopt an international perspective, devoting entire chapters to the socialist movements of the different countries and even a few paragraphs to the Socialist Internationals, they nevertheless clearly separate the histories of socialisms in each country. The work of Georges Haupt is an exception in that he has opted for a very “international” approach in his way of treating and studying the history of the workers’ movement. In the years preceding the fall of the Wall—which led to a renewed interest among researchers in the history of socialism—Haupt, a Franco-Romanian historian, attempted to apprehend the workers’ movement in its international and relational dimension. In his studies, he was interested in the international institutions themselves (Second International, ISB and their meetings), as well as in the exchanges between national socialist parties.176 The aim of his work was to “allow first of all for the undertaking, on a solid documentary basis and on an international scale, of a history of socialism which will necessarily have to be the goal of teamwork, also on an international, or at least European, scale; to inscribe finally, in its international context, the history of the workers’ movement of the different countries, which has too often been treated in a narrow, provincial spirit”.177 Haupt also edited, with Michel Winock, a monumental work, Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale, published by Minkoff Editions of Geneva, which brings together, in sixteen volumes,178 a large number of documents on the congresses of the International.179 His works are fundamental to this book, as much 175 Kocka (ed), Europäische Arbeiterbewegungen. 176 To cite just a few of his writings: Georges Haupt. La Deuxième Internationale. Étude

critique des sources. Essai bibliographique. Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967. For the Minkoff publishing house in Geneva, he edited the proceedings of the congresses of the Second International in Amsterdam (published in 1985), Stuttgart (1985), Copenhagen (1981), Basel (1980) and Stockholm (1980). With Madeleine Rebérioux, he has edited in 1967 an already cited book entitled La Deuxième Internationale et l’Orient. 177 Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale, 16. 178 From volume 6 to volume 22 of the collection. Volumes 1 to 5 reproduce texts

from the time of the International, but the reprinting of the sources specifically related to the congresses only begins in volume 6. 179 For the most part, these are conference proceedings and the press articles that

concern them. This sum ended in 1912 with the Basel congress. The twenty-third and last volume of the collection, also presented by Haupt and published in 1979, brings together the eleven issues of the bulletin of the International Socialist Bureau published between 1909 and 1913 and a number of documents relating to it. Independently of this monumental work, Haupt had already published a critical edition of the sources

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for the wealth of sources they offer as for the analysis that the historian makes of them. The untimely death of Georges Haupt in 1978 marked a turning point for research on socialism at the international level. The abandonment of studies on the international labor movement seems to have been definitive in the 1990s, to the point that the International Review of Social History devoted a whole issue in 1993 to their presumed death: the interest of researchers in the history of the labor movement is explained by external factors, in particular by the new political situation after 1989.180 In reality, the history of the workers’ movement has not disappeared, it has simply changed. Stefan Berger emphasizes as follows: “When, in the 1980s, cultural history began to be in vogue, social history experienced a crisis, which also affected the history of the workers’ movement. A comparative and transnational orientation was propagated by some historians of the workers’ movement as a possible way out of the crisis”.181 Haupt’s work did not go unheeded. Proof of this is the thesis of Patrizia Dogliani, who traced the history of another International, that of the Socialist Youth.182 The history of socialism took on an international dimension during these years, adopting the methods of cross-history and cultural transfers, starting in the 1990s. John Horne thus analyzed the development of the labor movement in France and Great Britain during the First World War,183 while Katharina Keller’s work, devoted to the exchanges and reciprocal influences between Italian socialists and German social-democracy on major theoretical issues, such as the rural question or the revisionist debate, was published in 1994.184 The historian wonders to what extent the SPD was a model for the positioning of of the Second International, accompanied by a long bibliographical essay (Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale) and a collection of ISB materials, of which only the first volume was published (Georges Haupt (ed). Bureau socialiste international. Comptes rendus des réunions, manifestes et circulaires 1, 1900–1907 . Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1969). 180 Marcel Van Der Linden (ed). The End of Labour History?, supplément de International Review of Social History 38, 1993. 181 Stefan Berger. Die europäische Arbeiterbewegung und ihre Historiker. Wandlungen und Ausblicke. Jahrbuch für europäische Geschichte 6, 2005, 152. 182 Patrizia Dogliani, La “Scuola delle reclute”. L’Internazionale giovanile socialista dalla fine dell’Ottocento alla Prima guerra mondiale. Turin: Einaudi, 1983. 183 John N. Horne. Labour at War. France and Britain, 1914–1918. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. 184 Katharina Keller. Modell SPD? Italienische Sozialisten und deutsche Sozialdemokratie bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Bonn: Dietz, 1994.

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the PSI on these issues. The following year, the Italian historian Maurizio Degli’Innocenti proposed a study of Filippo Turati’s relations with his foreign correspondents based on his voluminous correspondence,185 positioning the Italian socialist leader on the European chessboard. In 1998, Marie-Louise Goergen defended a thesis dealing with the relations between German and French socialists during the period of the Second International186 and in 1991 Gary P. Steenson was interested in the influence of Marxism on the socialist parties of Germany, France, Austria, and Italy, concluding that it was the Austrian social-democracy that was the party most imbued with Marx’s ideas.187 Friedhelm Boll wrote a comparative history of the strike in 1992, comparing the struggles of the workers in Germany, Great Britain, and France.188 The new impetus that the history of socialism during the period of the Second International has experienced in France in recent years definitively seals the victory of the internationalist approach applied to socialist studies. In 2007, Emmanuel Jousse returned to the revisionist quarrel to analyze its reception in France within reformist socialism. Jousse’s research is based on the work of Michel Espagne on the concept of cultural transfer.189 This concept, as well as the method of the histoire croisée, is also the basis of Jean-Numa Ducange’s thesis, defended in 2009 and published in 2012. In it, the historian deals with the reception of the French Revolution by the German and Austrian socialists. Using the methods of the histoire croisée, Ducange traces the reception of the Jaurès’ Histoire socialiste in Germany and the circumstances of the French translation of Kautsky’s work on the French Revolution.190 In an article published in 2013 in the Cahiers Jaurès, Andrea Geuna took a similar approach by questioning the reception of L’Armée nouvelle of Jaurès in Italy, evoking rather a “missed 185 Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. Filippo Turati e la nobiltà della politica. Introduzione alle

carte di Filippo Turati. I corrispondenti stranieri. Manduria: Lacaita, 1995. 186 Goergen, Les relations. 187 Gary P. Steenson. After Marx, Before Lenin. Marxism and Socialist Working-Class

Parties in Europe, 1884–1914. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991. 188 Friedhelm Boll. Arbeitskämpfe und Gewerkschaften in Deutschland, England und Frankreich. Ihre Entwicklung vom 19. Zum 20. Jahrhundert. Bonn: Dietz, 1992. 189 Emmanuel Jousse. Réviser le marxisme? D’Édouard Bernstein à Albert Thomas, 1896–1914. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007. 190 Jean-Numa Ducange. La Révolution française et la social-démocratie. Transmissions et usages politiques de l’histoire en Allemagne et Autriche, 1889–1934. Rennes: PUR, 2012.

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reception”.191 These new perspectives on the history of socialism were brought together at the colloquium entitled The International and Internationalisms Facing the War, which took place in Paris in March 2014.192 Kevin J. Callahan’s work, which we have already had the opportunity to discuss extensively, also falls within this horizon. In France, Danielle Tartakowsky has analyzed practices such as those of the American historian,193 while in Germany, Marie-Luise Ehls has studied all the street demonstrations under Weimar.194 However, Callahan’s ambition is more precisely to go beyond national borders and to study how the member countries of the International have presented themselves, expressed themselves, put themselves in play at the international level. His work is original in that it analyzes the European socialist parties as a bloc, focusing more on common actions than on the specificities of each one. It should be noted that his object of study gives him this latitude: he does not analyze socialist debates, which are too full of subtleties, but the implementation, the public staging—and even the “creation”—of internationalism. Callahan’s main interest is to describe the new political culture, with an international dimension, that is emerging thanks to the practices of the new International.195 Such a study is fundamental to the part of this work that focuses on the emergence of an international sensibility within socialism in the years 1889–1914.196

191 Andrea Geuna. La réception manquée de L’Armée nouvelle par le mouvement ouvrier italien. Le cas de la revue Critica sociale. Cahiers Jaurès 207–208, 2013, 103–114. 192 The proceedings of the conference have been published by Emmanuel Jousse (ed).

1914. L’Internationale et les internationalismes face à la guerre. Cahiers Jaurès 212–213 (2–3), 2014 and Emmanuel Jousse (ed). L’Internationale et les internationalismes face à la guerre. Cahiers Jaurès 215–216 (1–2), 2015. In 2012, these same Cahiers Jaurès devoted their first issue of the year to Georges Haupt, with the aim of forging links between the new historiography and the works and method of the French historian: Maria Grazia Meriggi, Marion Fontaine, and Jean-Numa Ducange (eds). Georges Haupt, l’Internationale comme méthode. Cahiers Jaurès 203 (1), 2012. 193 Michel Pigenet and Danielle Tartakowsky (eds). Histoire des mouvements sociaux en France. De 1814 à nos jours. Paris: La Découverte, 2014. 194 Marie-Luise Ehls. Protest und Propaganda. Demonstrationen in Berlin zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. 195 Callahan, Demonstration Culture. 196 It is not accidental that we do not quote German works on this point. German

historiography is rather focused on studies of the GDR: with the opening of the archives, the interest of historians has shifted toward the study of communism.

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The attitude of the socialist parties to the issues of war and peace in the pre-1914 period has not really been the subject of systematic study. Although the issue is addressed in the various histories of socialism of the three parties (SFIO, SPD, PSI), works that exclusively analyze the pre-1914 socialists’ approach to the problem of war are rare and often confined to a national level. Leo Valiani was interested, for example, in the attitude of the PSI during the months of Italian neutrality,197 Andrea Geuna (in his PhD thesis) in the “pacifism” of Italian socialism from the foundation of the PSI until 1914,198 Brunello Vigezzi in PSI’s attitude to the First World War,199 Wolfgang Kruse and Susanne Miller in the attitude of the SPD’s around August 4, 1914.200 Bernhard Neff sought to understand how the SPD could reconcile its criticism of militarism with its constant integration into the Kaiserreich.201 Finally, Édouard Dolléans studied the question of socialism and the Great War in France.202 Even rarer are studies of this kind devoted to more than one national party at a time. Milorad M. Drachkovitch’s work is an exception for its time: here, debates on war and peace are studied within the framework of the congresses of the French and German socialist parties as well as those of the International. But this research is a daughter of his time: it is content to put the German and French cases side by side without making them engage in dialogue.203 Let us give Drachkovitch credit, however, for having raised the debate, for having gone beyond a strictly national framework, by focusing his attention on the questions of war and peace at the level of the International, an approach that Jean-Jacques Becker took up in his article on the International and war.204 In this context, the name to be cited is once again that of Georges Haupt, who addressed the

197 Valiani, Il Partito Socialista Italiano. 198 Geuna, Aspects du pacifisme socialiste en Italie. 199 Vigezzi, L’Italia di fronte alla Prima guerra mondiale. 200 Kruse, Krieg und nationale Integration. Susanne Miller. Burgfrieden und Klassenkampf. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie im Ersten Weltkrieg. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1974. 201 Neff, Wir wollen keine Paradetruppe. 202 Dolléans, Histoire du mouvement ouvrier 2. 203 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes. 204 Becker, La Deuxième Internationale et la guerre.

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question in his 1965 book on the congress of Vienna.205 Afterward, we will have to wait for Francesca Canale Cama’s PhD thesis of 2007, which we have already had the opportunity to talk about. No systematic study of the reactions of socialist parties to international crises has yet been carried out, either internationally or nationally. Only a few very specific works exist. The reworked version of Abdelkrim Mejri’s thesis, published in 2004, specifically analyzes the SFIO’s attitude to the two Moroccan crises. Its event-driven approach, however, does not take into account the SFIO’s international connections, even though they played an important role in the party’s attitude to Moroccan events.206 The Italian-Turkish war aroused the interest of Italian socialist historians, and a few books have been written on the subject. We will quote again Francesca Canale Cama,207 but also Georges Haupt, who wrote a short article on the Second International and the war in Tripolitania,208 while Franco Pedone and Maurizio Degl’Innocenti were interested in the attitude of the Italian socialists to the events of 1910 to 1914.209 From the historiographical point of view, our research on the socialist reaction to international crises aims to complement these studies, from a trinational perspective. Our analysis combines the historiography of the Second International with that of the relations between the three national socialist parties (SFIO, SPD, and PSI). It is not able to disregard the historiography of socialism’s opposition to the war. In addition, our work takes into account the historiographical debate on the origins of the war, which we are going to discuss later. We will examine this “crossroads” between the socialists of the three nations and their respective historiographies and what happens in this common international space when socialists are confronted with questions of war and peace and international crises: this approach allows us to get out of a binary logic. We can conclude from this rapid historiographical panorama that the process is therefore slow, but that the history of the labor movement is

205 Haupt, Le congrès manqué. 206 Abdelkrim Mejri. Les socialistes français et la question marocaine (1903–1912). Paris:

L’Harmattan, 2004. 207 Canale Cama, Alla prova del fuoco. 208 Haupt, L’internazionale socialista e la conquista libica. 209 Degl’Innocenti, Il socialismo italiano e la guerra in Libia.

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certainly opening up a more international and global perspective. “We now find ourselves in an important situation of transition, in which the discipline [the history of the labor movement] is beginning to reinvent itself […]. This development also allows us to look at European workers’ history from a new critical perspective. It will be a question of taking up the efforts of older research in a new approach”.210 This is what we have done in this work, creating an intermediate space between nations, which has allowed us to go beyond the strictly national framework. The result has been an entangled history211 of the opposition to the war in the three countries: we have not only compared the three national realities, we have also shown how the question has brought together the socialist representatives of the three nations, how it has contributed in an essential way to the constitution of socialist internationalism. We have built on the foundations of the histoire croisée, constructing what Michel Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann have defined as “theoretical frameworks and methodological tools to address phenomena of interaction, involving a plurality of directions and a multiplicity of effects. It seems to us that the figure of the crossroads offers the possibility of thinking about such configurations”.212 Equally fundamental was the study of cultural transfers between the three countries. This is how we approached the question of socialist opposition to the war in the three countries, observing how this debate has crossed borders and what changes it has undergone in the process. The theory of cultural transfers has its origins very precisely in this definition: “Any passage of a cultural object from one context to another results in a transformation of its meaning […]. To transfer is not to transport, but rather to metamorphose, and the term is by no means reduced to 210 Marcel van der Linden. Transnationale Arbeitergeschichte. In: Gunilla Budde, Sebastian Conrad and Oliver Janz (eds). Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Thendenzen und Theorien. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010, 268–269. Cf. as well Jürgen Kocka. How Can One Make Labour History Interesting Again? European Review 9, 2001, 201–212. 211 It is therefore a history that does not take into account the historical or historiographical point of view of the countries studied here. It is a concept that is applied above all to global history. Cf. Sebastian Conrad and Shalini Randeria (eds). Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002. 212 Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann. Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empirie et réflexivité. Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales 1, 2003, 15.

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the poorly circumscribed and very banal question of cultural exchanges. It is not so much the circulation of cultural goods as their reinterpretation that is at stake”.213 We have applied this method to the question of opposition to the war of the socialists by analyzing how it has been expressed, how it has been “enacted” at the international level and how it has been perceived at the level of national socialism. Above all, we examined in detail the attitude of a socialist party to the question of the war and how it was perceived by the socialist representatives of another country. One cannot describe the socialist reaction to international dangers in one country without taking into account those of socialists in other countries or omitting what is happening at the level of the International or the ISB. Crossed history, entangled history, cultural transfers are all concepts that are part of the same will, namely, to write a history that is no longer fragmented, fractured, broken up into different geographical parts. These concepts also suggest the idea of a comparative history, which focuses primarily on the exchanges between the realities studied.

Sources The minutes of the congresses of the International, the ISB meetings, and the congresses of the socialist parties are essential sources for understanding the reactions of socialist leaders to a moment of international danger. The minutes of all the congresses of the Second International have been gathered together in the collection Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale, which we have already mentioned above. For the ISB, the bulletins edited from 1909 to 1913 were gathered in volume 23 of this same collection. Georges Haupt has also gathered and published in two books a series of documents concerning the congresses of the Second International214 and the meetings of the ISB.215 The main daily newspapers and socialist journals supplement the information on the congresses with reports and detailed descriptions, all of 213 Michel Espagne. La notion de transfert culturel. Revue Sciences/Lettres 1, 2013, 2,

http://rsl.revues.org/219. https://doi.org/10.4000/rsl.219 [7 September 2015]. Cf. as well: Michel Espagne and Michael Werner. Transferts. Les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand ( xviiie -xixe siècles). Paris: Éd. Recherche sur les civilisations, 1998. Michel Espagne. Les Transferts culturels franco-allemands. Paris: PUF, 1999. 214 Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale. 215 Haupt (ed), Bureau socialiste international.

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which are accompanied by commentaries. As regards archival research on the two international institutions, we should add the Second International collection of the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam (IISH) and the Huysmans collection of the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan, where we have been able to consult circulars and other texts distributed during the congresses.216 Whether texts or the correspondence of socialist representatives circulating from one country to another, this material has allowed us to more accurately assess the importance and the real extent of the exchanges between members of the SFIO, the SPD, and the PSI. For correspondence that has not been edited,217 we were able to consult the Bebel, Bernstein, Guesde, Kautsky, Karl Liebknecht, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Vollmar fonds of the IISH in Amsterdam, as well as the archives of the Feltrinelli Foundation (Huysmans fonds, etc.).218 These epistolary exchanges have often given us the opportunity to better understand the feelings hidden behind official speeches. The various pamphlets that we have cited in the course of this work come from the IISH in Amsterdam, the BDIC in Nanterre (now called La Contemporaine), the Fondazione Feltrinelli in Milan, and the Lisi e Lelio Basso and Antonio Gramsci Foundations in Rome. The reports of the national congresses of the three parties have also been a valuable source for measuring more precisely socialist reactions within a nation. Those of the SFIO congresses have been digitized, as have the minutes of the SPD congresses.219 As for those of the PSI congresses, they were available at the Feltrinelli Foundation. In order to better appreciate the socialist reactions within a country, we relied on the minutes of parliamentary sessions from time to time. In this case, they were available online for France and Germany. For Italy, on the other hand, we used the 216 For an in-depth description of the state of the sources concerning the Second International, see Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale, 95–101. 217 This is the case, for example, of August Bebel’s correspondence (August Bebel. Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften 5 and 9. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1995–1997), Filippo Turati’s correspondence with Anna Kuliscioff (Alessandro Schiavi, Franco Pedone (eds). Filippo Turati and Anna Kuliscioff, carteggio (1898–1925). Turin: Einaudi, 6 vol., 1949– 1977) and Filippo Turati’s correspondence with with foreign comrades (Daniela Rava [ed]. Filippo Turati e i corrispondenti stranieri. Lettere 1883–1932. Manduria: Lacaita, 1995). 218 This collection is particularly important because it brings together the exchanges of socialist representatives with the leadership of the ISB. Huysmans was its director. 219 This work was carried out by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

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publications on the parliamentary activity of the Italian socialists, edited by Gaetano Arfé and published by the Ente per la storia del socialismo e del movimento operaio italiano (ESSMOI).220 For the “test” that the international diplomatic crises constituted for the socialists of the three countries and their internationalism, we drew most of our sources from the socialist press. In this case, we carried out a cross-examination, in order to get around a difficulty peculiar to the press, which is often used as a means of political propaganda, especially toward the outside world. Reading a national daily newspaper often offers the possibility of evaluating more clearly or resizing the statements contained in the press of another country. The daily newspaper is a kind of measuring instrument, a thermometer for assessing socialist agitation: it follows the course of the passions that agitate the actors, it observes solidarity or, on the contrary, mistrust which, day by day, increases or decreases as events unfold. Theoretical writings on crises are certainly just as fundamental for this research, but the press, especially the daily press, will always be favored for its dynamic character. In these journals and newspapers, articles in which socialists in one country deal with issues concerning their foreign comrades occupy a central place in the corpus of sources: it may be a commentary on an ongoing debate in a neighboring country, or a reaction to an initiative of foreign comrades. The “silence” of the documents is equally important for the present work: the fact that an initiative of comrades from other countries is completely ignored does not mean that it goes unnoticed. We analyzed the main socialist dailies in the three countries: in France, La Petite République for the period before 1904 and L’Humanité from April 1904, the date of its foundation; in Germany, Vorwärts; and in Italy, Avanti! In addition to these, we occasionally consulted articles from La Dépêche de Toulouse, in particular to deepen our understanding of the Jaurès’ point of view. The daily Leipziger Volkszeitung and the weeklies La Guerre Sociale and Avanti della domenica allowed us to cite different points of view from those presented by the major socialist newspapers. If the dailies and weeklies have served us to measure the rash reaction of socialist opinion, the socialist theoretical journals, for their part, have allowed us to deepen certain questions, to analyze the thinking of 220 ESSMOI, Attività parlamentare dei socialisti italiani (presentazione di Gaetano Arfè) 1: 1882–1900. Rome, 1967, 2: 1900–1904. Rome, 1970, 3: 1904–1909. Rome, 1973, 4: 1909–1913. Rome, 1979, 5: 1913–1919. Rome, 1982.

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socialist representatives in reaction to crises. Thus, for France, we looked at La Revue socialiste, Le Mouvement socialiste, La Vie socialiste; for Germany, Die Neue Zeit, which represented the revolutionary wing of the party, and the Sozialistische Monatshefte, a journal in which the revisionists expressed themselves; for Italy, we consulted Critica sociale, the main organ of theoretical expression of the party. For its part, the journal Contre la guerre, founded and directed by Charles Rappoport, was only published between November 23, 1912 and January 1, 1914; it was a sort of “international” journal in the sense that it published articles from different countries, translated into French, with the proviso that they dealt with questions of opposition to the war. We were able to consult it at the IISH in Amsterdam.

CHAPTER 2

Creating a Sense of Community: The II International Between 1889 and 1900

The II International, Its Practices, Its Opposition to War During the years from 1889 to the First World War, the congresses of the new socialist International were held regularly. During this period, there were nine of them. They were never held twice in a row in the same city: at each new meeting, the delegates decided by a vote where the next congress would be held, so that the representatives of international socialism had the opportunity to meet each time in a different place and showing at the same time that these meetings and their participants were attached neither to a particular city nor to a particular country. There were thus two congresses in Paris (1889 and 1900), one in Brussels (1891), Zurich (1893), London (1896), Amsterdam (1904), Stuttgart (1907), Copenhagen (1910), and, finally, Basel (1912). The 1914 congress should have been held in Vienna. These international meetings always brought together a large number of delegates, mostly from Europe but also from other geographical areas. The presence of delegates of non-European origin increased especially after the turn of the century. The number of countries represented at the congresses of the International varied from seventeen in Brussels (1891)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9_2

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to twenty-five in Amsterdam (1904) and Stuttgart (1907).1 With the exception of the constitutive congress, where twenty-three different countries were represented, plus Alsace-Lorraine which is counted separately in the sources, the 1904 congress seemed to mark a difference in terms of the nationalities represented. The most significant novelty was, of course, the presence of the delegate of the Japanese Socialist Party, Sen Katayama: he and the Russian delegate were invited to the congress to show their solidarity as their two countries clashed in Manchuria. From the Dutch congress onwards, i.e., after the Russo-Japanese war and the revolution of 1905, the Russian delegates showed great assiduity at the congresses of the International. The presence of the Scandinavian countries became stronger after 1900, as socialism was organized in the peninsula, to the point that a congress was held in Copenhagen. South Africa also sent its delegates (to Amsterdam and Stuttgart, for example).2 There were also delegates from Canada and Argentina. The relatively high number of German and French delegates was a constant in all congresses, even if there were significant differences, most often linked to logistical circumstances (location of the congress, travel prohibitions by certain governments, etc.). In this regard, we refer to the graphs drawn up by the historian Moira Donald on the percentage of delegates from each nation attending the various congresses, and here we limit ourselves to quoting the one giving the figures for the entire period from 1889 to 1912: the country that sent the largest total number of delegates is France (with 26% of the attendance), followed by Germany and Great Britain (16% each). That France was the country with the highest overall number of delegates is hardly surprising, since the International met twice in Paris (1889 and 1900) and only once in Great Britain (1896) or Germany (1907). Considering this factor, the number of delegates from the three countries at the International’s congresses could be estimated to be equivalent. The Italian participation, on the other hand, was relatively low, with Italian delegates constituting only 2%

1 We have compiled these statistics from the proceedings of the International congresses. At the beginning of each one, it is indicated how many delegates attend and where they come from. 2 They are, however, men from Germany, grouped together in the Socialist Union of Johannesburg, Vorwärts. They speak German. We found information about them in the report of the Stuttgart congress, cf. Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 16. Geneva: Minkoff, 1978, 185–186.

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of the total attendance3 : four delegates were present at the congresses of 1891 and 1904, and their number fluctuated between ten and seventeen in the following congresses, a situation that can be explained by the “lack of internationalism” of Italian socialism, which has been highlighted by historiography.4 In this international horizon created by the congresses of the Second International, gathering delegates coming from political and social realities sometimes very different, it was necessary that a sociability among those who participated is formed, having therefore necessarily an internationalist character. The common value on which such sociability could be built naturally rested on socialist doctrines5 and the goal was the birth of the same internationalist sentiment among the delegates. To this end, a whole series of practices were put in place. Thus, as Kevin J. Callahan suggests, this internationalist effort of the Second International transforms congresses into “supreme acts of propaganda”.6 As they succeed one another, to a strictly congressional component (debates) was gradually added the practice of events, that became more and more important. Congresses were no longer simply places for discussion, they became the theater for the staging of socialist internationalism. Discussions were surrounded by a whole series of ceremonies, that became “symbolic activities for the creation of meaning”,7 that served to build a common set of experiences among participants. This shift took place at the same time as the International’s congresses were transformed into anti-war demonstrations.

3 Moira Donald’s graphs show very clearly the relationship between the number and origin of delegates to the International’s congresses. Moira Donald. Workers of the World Unite? Exploring the Enigma of the Second International. In: Geyer and Paulmann (eds). The Mechanics of Internationalism, Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 183–187. 4 Franco Andreucci. Il partito socialista italiano e la Seconda Internazionale. Studi Storici 18 (2), 1977, 35–58. Franco Andreucci. Il marxismo collettivo. Socialismo, marxismo e circolazione delle idee dalla Seconda alla Terza Internazionale. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1986. 5 Congresses as places of international exchange have been studied by: Christophe

Prochasson Les intellectuels, le socialisme et la guerre, 1900–1938. Paris: Seuil, 1993. Christophe Prochasson. Les congrès, lieux de l’échange intellectuel. Introduction. Mil neuf cent. Revue d’histoire intellectuelle 7, 1989, 5–8. 6 Kevin J. Callahan. Demonstration Culture. European Socialism and the Second International, 1889–1914. Leicester: Troubador, 2010, 79. 7 Ibid., 149.

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Callahan speaks of six forms of symbolic acts, which regularly recurred in congresses: rhetorical songs and slogans, scenes of international fraternity, demonstrations of international solidarity of the working class, resolutions of sympathy or protest, readings aloud of telegrams and finally words of greeting and tributes to socialist leaders, living or recently deceased.8 Another symbolic dimension of congresses consisted in the care taken in the decoration of the halls where debates were held. The use of songs and slogans was indeed an essential component in the formation of collective identity. Songs were basically used to emphasize the highlights of congresses and were often exhortations to persevere in the socialist struggle during troubled times. In most cases, they recalled the memory of the protagonists of past socialist struggles and the martyrs who fought for the cause. Such was the case of The Red Flag, written in 1889 by the Irishman Jim Connell: “The people’s flag is deepest red, / It shrouded oft the martyred dead, / And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, / Their hearts’ blood dyed its ev’ry fold”. Songs could also be inspired by the national history of one country or another. The most striking example of this is the numerous revisions of the text of La Marseillaise, renamed La Marseillaise des travailleurs, which thus became the most performed song at the meetings of the International. La Marseillaise des travailleurs is not a French song, as one might think: it is a Russian revolutionary anthem, written to the same music as the French Marseillaise. Its lyrics were first published in 1875 and the song became so popular from the 1905 revolution that it was used as the national anthem by the provisional government in 1917. The text was later translated into other languages. Thus, the refrain became in French: “Debout, debout, travailleurs! / Debout contre les ennemis, frères affamés! / En avant! En avant! Le peuple crie vengeance / En avant! En avant! En avant! En avant ! / Le riche, l’exploitant, l’avare / te prive de ton travail si durement / dans ta sueur l’avare / déchire ta dernière miette de pain” (“Stand up against the enemies, hungry brothers! / Onward! Onward! The people cry out for vengeance / Forward! Onward! Onward! Onward! / The rich, the exploiter, the miser / deprives you of your work so hard / in your sweat the miser / tears your last crumb of bread”). The German version, the Arbeiter-Marseillaise, was composed in 1864. As in French, the text urged the workers to fight against the bourgeois enemy and for

8 Ibid., 150.

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bread and freedom: “Nicht fürchten wir den Feind / stehn wir im Kampf vereint ! / Marsch, marsch, marsch, marsch ! / und sei’s durch Qual und Not / für Freiheit, Recht und Brot!”9 (“We do not fear the enemy / we are united in the fight! / Go, go, go, go! / through suffering and need / for freedom, justice and bread!”). At the death of Ferdinand Lassalle, the chorus is changed and the song even takes the name of Lassallienne: “Doch ob wie die Flammen die Gefahr / Mög’ über uns zusammenschlagen, / Nicht zählen wir den Feind, / Nicht die Gefahren all ! / Der kühnen Bahn nur folgen wir, / Die uns geführt Lassall!”10 (“But if, like flames, danger / wishes to strike us / We do not count the enemies / nor the dangers / We just follow the bold path / that Lassalle traces out for us!”). It will continue to be widely sung at the German social-democratic congresses or those of the International. After the turn of the century, the song L’Internationale took the place of La Marseillaise des travailleurs: it was to become the most sung song at the meetings of the Socialist International. Written in 1871 by Eugène Pottier,11 inspired by the Paris Commune and set to music in 1888 by Pierre Degeyter, it is a general invitation to struggle (“It’s the final struggle, let’s join together”), which can therefore easily involve all the participants in the meetings of the International. The text also contains a message steeped in hope: Pottier prophesies a “final struggle” and a “tomorrow” where the International will have coincided with “the human race”. It is curious to note that this last passage is the one that, in the English and German translations, underwent the most changes—even if it is surely only a metric adaptation. Eleanor Marx translates it as: “The International unites the human race”, while Mehring transforms it into the German: “Die Internationale erkämpft das Menschenrecht” (“The International fights for human rights”). This hymn was first sung at the Paris congress of 1900 and was then sung at all subsequent congresses, although other songs also continued to be played, such as The red flag and The socialist march. The national delegations also wished that songs from their own country were sung in the congresses.12 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Cf. Jacques Gaucheron. Eugène Pottier. Poèmes & chansons. Montreuil: Le Temps des cerises, 2016. 12 Pierre Alayrac demonstrated the articulation between national identity and the international level at the London congress of 1896, cf. Pierre Alayrac. L’Internationale au

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No less important, slogans played a role similar to that of songs. They were useful in the construction of collective identity, often opposing the “us” of the workers, the socialists, the delegates to the congresses, to the “them” that indicates the bourgeois exploiters. Most often, the Marxist slogan “Workers of all countries, unite” had its place on flags and banners, carried or displayed on walls, but such slogans as “Long live the International!” “Long live the Social Republic!” “Long live the Social Revolution!” could also be red. Naturally, the slogans were also adapted to the country in which the congress was held. Moreover, they were not only written and displayed slogans, but also vocal slogans, repeated in unison by the delegates. For example, the apparitions of Édouard Vaillant at the meetings was often accompanied by the call of “Vive la Commune!” The German representatives, Paul Singer and August Bebel, urged those present to repeat this slogan three times: “Hoch lebe die Internationale! Hoch, hoch, hoch!” Among the important symbolic moments were also those when two delegates showed a significant friendship or rapprochement: such was the case, for example, of the handshake already mentioned between the Japanese Katayama and the Russian Plekhanov at the opening of the 1904 Amsterdam congress, in the middle of the Russo-Japanese war. We will have the opportunity to return to this initiative, which is of particular interest to us because it is a means not only of creating socialist sentiment, but also of taking a clear stand for peace. Another practice regularly used at the beginning of congresses was the reading aloud of telegrams sent by different groups or socialists who, for one reason or another, were not at the meeting. They usually contained messages of greetings or support for the work of the delegates, various information such as messages of condolence for the disappearance of a socialist personality, or news about one or other of the socialist groups. For example, at the Amsterdam congress of 1904, during the plenary assembly of August 17: “The International secretary, Victor Serwy, informed the assembly that there were 482 delegates present and that the congress had received telegrams of sympathy and encouragement from a very large number of Russian cities, from various German cities, as well as from socialist groups and workers’ organizations in Bucharest,

milieu du gué. De l’internationalisme socialiste au congrès de Londres (1896). Rennes: PUR, 2018.

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Sydney, Cuba, Milan, Johannesburg, etc.”.13 In the appendix to the minutes of this same congress, there is a list of the 42 telegrams and 14 addresses received by the congress.14 The fact that they were so many indicates the importance of these messages: they showed to the delegates that their work and presence were externally validated. A delegate may also personally bring greetings from a national socialist group, as, for example, the German Paul Singer did at the beginning of the Paris congress in 1900: “I have been instructed by the national congress of German social-democracy, which has just taken place in Mainz, to come here to welcome you and to bring you the cordial greetings of your fellow activists of all races, of all nations”.15 A fundamental unifying moment at each congress of the International was the homage to the personalities of international socialism, both living and dead. These are highly sentimental moments, meant to touch the hearts of those present. It was in this sense that Engels participated in the morning of August 12, 1893, in the eleventh and last session of the Zurich congress to salute the new International. Once the discussions were concluded, the president of the session, the Italian Anna Kuliscioff, informed those present that she still had some news to announce: the presence at the congress of the “spiritual pioneer of international socialism”.16 His presence having not been announced beforehand, the delegates let out cries and applause when the dean of socialism took the stage17 : “This news and the appearance of Engels, who enjoyed magnificent freshness and health, were greeted with jubilation. Enthusiastic cheers rang out again and again, in which the delegates and the public

13 Sixième congrès socialiste international, tenu à Amsterdam du 14 au 20 août 1904. Compte rendu analytique, Bruxelles, 1904. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 14. Geneva: Minkoff, 1985, 304. 14 Ibid., 486–488. 15 Cinquième congrès socialiste international tenu à Paris du 23 au 27 septembre 1900.

Compte rendu analytique. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13. Geneva: Minkoff, 1980, 51. 16 Protokoll des Internationalen Sozialistischen Arbeiterkongresses in der Tonhalle, Zürich vom 6. bis 12. August 1893, Zürich, 1894. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 9, Geneva: Minkoff, 1977, 259. 17 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 158.

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in the galleries welcomed the courageous comrade”.18 Engels delivered a stirring speech, in which he briefly traced the history of the International, and then finally declared the Zurich congress closed: “I declare the congress closed. Long live the international proletariat!”19 The report of the congress describes this moment: “The assembly burst into enthusiastic shouts. The joy lasted a long time. Those present stood up and sang the Marseillaise”.20 Tributes were also paid to past leaders, to keep their memory and honor alive. Callahan emphasizes that this practice was not new in socialism, and that it did not in any way take on the dimensions that it will have later on the death of personalities such as Jaurès, Lenin, or Mao.21 There were many ways to honor a dead socialist man. Already, the halls where congresses are held were always decorated with portraits of Marx and other personalities embodying the ideas of socialism.22 It was customary for speakers to honor their recently deceased comrades before beginning their speech, often preceded by a minute of silence. Tributes was paid on the occasion of the deaths of Engels, César De Paepe, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Andrea Costa, Paul Singer, Laura and Paul Lafargue, and August Bebel. After the 1900 congress, members of the ISB executive committee played the important role of spokespersons for the International on the occasion of the death of a comrade. ISB secretaries sent a telegram to the family and party of the deceased and usually also attended the funerals, especially if the ceremony was for a former member of the Bureau. Between 1900 and 1914, members of the executive committee spoke on behalf of the International at the funerals of Paul Singer, Laura and Paul Lafargue, August Bebel, and Jean Jaurès. With the death of Wilhelm Liebknecht on August 7, 1900, the death of a socialist leader was for the first time transformed into a 18 Protokoll des Internationalen Sozialistischen Arbeiterkongresses in der Tonhalle, Zürich vom 6. bis 12. August 1893. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 9, 259. 19 Ibid., 260. 20 Ibid. 21 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 159. 22 This did not fail to generate some critics, as Callahan always points out: the French

delegates protested that the characters used as symbols of international socialism were basically Marx and Engels, two Germans. Such critic is significant for understanding that national identity was far from being erased, even in the international framework of the congresses. Ibid., 173.

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demonstration with an international character.23 In addition, during the two congresses of Paris (1889 and 1900), a visit of the Federated Wall in the Père Lachaise cemetery was organized. On September 28, 1900, about 700 delegates and activists met in front of the main entrance of the cemetery. The procession was opened by women carrying placards dedicated “To the victims of the Commune”. Those present were divided into several groups. While one group approached the Wall, the others waited at the entrance singing L’Internationale or La Carmagnole. An impressive number of police officers escorted the first group: about 300 activists and delegates were surrounded by no less than 60 policemen. Arriving in front of the Wall, “the citizen Vaillant invites those present to shout: ‘Long live the Commune! And long live the International!’. He wants to continue, but he is prevented by the police who declare that only one foreign delegate will speak, and for no more than ten minutes. In order not to give a pretext for incidents, citizen Vaillant thanks the foreign delegates for their presence and invites citizen Singer to speak on their behalf”. Singer’s speech was translated by Clara Zetkin: “Singer respectfully salutes the heroes who have fallen for freedom. We have come to bow respectfully before those who died thirty years ago for the emancipation of the entire proletariat. Like the men of the Commune, we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the whole of humanity. All socialists, despite their differences, remain united to fight, hand in hand, for the final struggle. When we return to our countries, we will bring back to our friends the feeling of solidarity that brought us together in Paris, and we will all resume the struggle to defeat the incapable bourgeoisie and bring up the emancipation of the entire proletariat”.24 The effort to create a common feeling is therefore constant and strong—we will have the opportunity to go into the details of each congress in the following paragraphs.

Paris 1889 The dimension of opposition to the war was still far away from the first congresses of the Second International. Between 1889 and 1896, the set of rituals and symbols aimed at creating a sense of community among

23 Ibid., 162. 24 P. Forest. Au mur des fédérés. La Petite République, 30 septembre 1900. In: Histoire

de la Deuxième Internationale 13, 746–747.

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socialists at the international level began to be established. From the Paris congress in 1889 on, this effort to create a sense of belonging among the delegates is to be found. The question of war and peace was of secondary importance. A socialist congress bringing together representatives of several countries was to be held in Paris from July 14 to 21, 1889, during the Universal Exhibition. As a result of dissent between different trends of the workers’ movement, two congresses, the Marxist congress and the Possibilist congress, were finally held in parallel. There were three items on the agenda, the same for both congresses, all focusing on labor legislation. The questions of militarism or war were not mentioned.25 However, the Paris organizing committee added a fourth point, which provided for discussions on the “abolition of standing armies and the arming of the people”.26 The so-called “possibilist” congress met in rue de Lancry. It brought together mainly trade unionists, the vast majority of whom were French (521 French delegates representing 227 trade union chambers and social study circles, and only 91 foreign delegates representing 124 trade union groups and chambers). We will deal here with the other congress, which met in the Salle Pétrelle: organized by the French Marxists and Blanquistes, it welcomed a large number of foreign delegates, with an important German presence (221 French, including 81 from Paris, 81 Germans,27 22 English, 14 Belgian, 8 Austrian, 3 Hungarian, 4 Dutch, 6 Russian, 3 Swedish, 1 Norwegian, 3 Danish, 6 Swiss, 5 Polish, 2 Spanish, 5 Romanian, 4 American, 1 Portuguese, 1 Czech, 1 Bulgarian, for a total of 391 members).28 The relatively large number of German delegates is remarkable because the country was still in the midst of the Bismarckian reaction under the Anti-Socialist Law.29 It was thus the first major international socialist congress since the end of the old International. The event opened on the morning of July 14, 1889, in a room draped in 25 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3. Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 7. 26 Ibid., 12. 27 The high number of German delegates was all the more remarkable considering that

the Franco-German war had been over for less than twenty years. 28 For the numbers see Léon de Seilhac. Les Congrès ouvriers en France de 1876 à 1897 . Paris: A. Colin, 1899, 156. 29 Jean Longuet. Le mouvement socialiste international. Paris, 2013. Reprinted in: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 4. Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 19–20.

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red. The choice of such a symbolic date is explained in the report of the congress organizing committee: “The socialists of France could not let the centennial of the bourgeois revolution pass without affirming the next coming of a workers’ revolution, which on the ruins of capitalist society will proclaim for all equality at work as well as in the means of existence and enjoyment”.30 The atmosphere is carefully described in the German report of the days of discussions: The meeting room, decorated in red – the Pétrelle Hall – is full at 9 o’clock. On the red wall behind the rostrum, the inscription in gold letters of Marx’s words: ‘Proletarians of all countries, unite’, shines brightly. To the right and left, on two placards, are inscribed two names, here that of the Workers’ Party and there that of the Central Revolutionary Committee, on which the main French cities represented [at the congress] are also listed. Above the two panels is the red flag. In the middle is a third panel, with the inscription: ‘In the name of Paris of June 1848 and of March, April and May 1871 and of the France of Babeuf, Blanqui and Varlin, greetings to the socialist workers of both worlds’. In the foreground we can see the indication of the goals and demands of all the workers, if they are organized somewhere in a socialist party: the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class, the collectivization of the means of production31 .

This set of symbols intended to federate the present was not a characteristic of the first day or of the Petrelle Hall alone. In the other rooms where debates were held (the Salle Petrelle is quickly abandoned because it is too small), particular attention was paid to the decor and ritual practices. Elements of the “internationalist” ritual we described in the previous chapter could already be observed: the cries most frequently uttered unanimously were “Long live the social revolution!” and “Long live the Commune!” as well as “Long live the International!” As was then also the case at the Paris congress of 1900, the delegates made a pilgrimage to the Père Lachaise cemetery, like a religious procession. There, in the name of the congress, “German, English, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Spanish, Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, Danish, American socialists protested their hatred 30 Rapport de la Commission d’organisation, Paris, 1889. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7. Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 3. 31 Protokoll des Internationalen Arbeiter- Congresses zu Paris, abgehalten von 14. bis 20. Juli 1889, Nürnberg, 1890. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7, 49.

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for the massacres of Versailles, their admiration for the Communards who fell, in the name of the socialist proletariat and calling: ‘Long live Humanity!’, in the bloody social uprising of 1871”.32 More “secular” rituals also took place: the Paris City Council offered everyone wine and proposed a toast “to the delegates of the two congresses without distinction and to thousands of French and foreign socialists brotherly convoked and who came eagerly; […] we could hear under the vaults of the municipal palace the superhuman accents of our Marseillaise and the valiant notes of Garibaldi’s Hymn resounding successively in the vast halls of the municipal palace, glorifying the brotherhood of peoples”.33 These rituals still had nothing to do with the battle against the war—this question was simply relegated to a few passages in the debates. The conference opened with some inaugural words from Paul Lafargue, Édouard Vaillant, and Wilhelm Liebknecht,34 followed by Liebknecht’s opening speech, which called for the international unity of the proletariat: “We would have liked to see in this room the workers and socialist delegates from all over the universe […]. What a superb dream! To bring together fraternally the delegates of all the proletarians, of all the workers of the world, to unite them in the same Paris which, a hundred years ago, proclaimed the Human Rights, and to make them solemnly declare that they will have no truce, no rest until they have conquered the Workers’ Rights, until they have made justice and equality the rule of all human relations!” The same evening, a friendly reception for the congress delegates was organized by the Parisian workers in the Salle Wagram. The crowd arrived from eight o’clock on, and soon “seven or eight hundred congress delegates and representatives of Parisian corporations took their seats around the tables of the immense Salle de l’Étoile”.35 Citizen André-Gély, on behalf of the Bourse du travail, welcomed the delegates. Usually, the discussions followed one another from 9:00 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. or even midnight, with a lunch break. The report carefully highlights the massive participation of delegates at the congress, even at 32 Benoît Malon. Les congrès socialistes internationaux de Paris en 1889. La Revue socialiste 56, 1899, 129–138. 33 Ibid., 138. 34 Protokoll des Internationalen Arbeiter- Congresses zu Paris, abgehalten von 14. bis 20.

Juli 1889. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7, 49–51. 35 Ibid., 210.

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the earliest hours. Finally, the congress ended with a farewell banquet. “Three hundred and fifty guests, including many women and children, had responded to the organizers’ call; all the foreign delegations that came to the congress were represented there […]. The hall was beautifully decorated with the flags of the groups of the Workers’ Party and badges bearing as inscriptions the great proletarian dates and ‘Long live the Social Revolution!’”36 The discussions, for the most part, were dedicated to the split between the two currents and to the attitude to adopt toward anarchists. The possibilist congress did not confront the questions of peacekeeping or military organization. During the Marxist congress, on the other hand, they were discussed, but rather superficially. Édouard Vaillant referred to them in his opening remarks, in which he insisted on the fact that the assembled delegates have to “emphasize the necessity of international peace, [their] will to maintain this peace and to put in the place of militarism, in the place of the policy of plunder and conquest, the policy of defense of peoples, who are organized and armed, and to protect, alongside their independence towards the outside, the security and development of their freedom, against any disturbance”.37 In the afternoon of July 20, a resolution on militarism was put to the vote and accepted without prior discussion. It denounced the anti-democratic and antirepublican character of the Permanent Army, accusing it of being the “result and cause of the system of aggressive wars”38 and of the “disorganization of all civil life”. As a result, the congress “highly repudiates the bellicose projects maintained by desperate rulers; affirms peace as the first and indispensable condition for all workers’ emancipation; and demands, with the suppression of the permanent armies, the general armament of the people”.39 Peace was considered here in relation to the improvement of the conditions of working life, which strictly linked this resolution to previous ones adopted by the congress, which were concerned with the improvement of labor legislation. The resolution ended with the following words: 36 Ibid., 278. 37 Protokoll des Internationalen Arbeiter-Congresses zu Paris, abgehalten von 14. bis 20,

Juli 1889. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7, 50. 38 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, 7. 39 Ibid.

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“The congress furthermore declares that war, a fatal product of the present economic conditions, will only disappear definitively with the very disappearance of the capitalist order, the emancipation of labor and the international triumph of socialism”.40 The reports of the two congresses of 1889 are unfortunately very incomplete and in both cases only the plenary sessions are reported.41 There are a few references to the Boulangist crisis, which in 1889 was well and truly over, peremptorily affirming socialism’s opposition to Boulanger and all that he represented (“Boulanger is the enemy. But he is not the only enemy. Ferry is next to him”42 or “Long live the social! Down with Boulanger!”).43 Since the Boulangist crisis has had repercussions on Franco-German diplomatic relations, denouncing it was also tantamount to asserting a desire for friendship that did not take into account the diplomatic problems between the two countries. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1871 was still relatively recent and a Franco-German war in 1889 was still a fairly probable event.

Brussels 1891 At the Brussels congress of 1891, a whole set of practices aimed at creating a sense of belonging to the same group was once again put in place. And as in Paris two years earlier, they were detached from the delegates’ desire to display their opposition to war: “The main hall of the Maison du Peuple was invaded by a cosmopolitan public who took their seats in the room decorated with red drapes and banners”.44 A large table was covered with a red flag with the inscription “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. The report then recounts the arrival of the delegates the day before

40 Ibid. 41 Michel Winock. Les congrès internationaux ouvriers socialistes de Paris, juillet 1889. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7, V. 42 Protokoll des Internationalen Arbeiter- Congresses zu Paris, abgehalten von 14. bis 20.

Juli 1889. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7, 65. 43 Compte-rendu du Congrès international ouvrier socialiste, tenu à Paris du 15 au 20 juillet 1889. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 6–7, 211. 44 Congrès international ouvrier socialiste, tenu à Bruxelles du 16 au 23 août 1891. Rapport, Bruxelles, 1893. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 8. Geneva: Minkoff, 1977, 43.

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the opening of the congress: “After shaking hands and exchanging information, we gradually parted. Everyone goes to their hotels, waiting for the next day and the opening of the congress”.45 But the real novelty of this congress, which shows a step forward in the setting up of a ritual ceremony, was the imposing opening ceremony held on the Saturday before the official opening of the congress in the main hall of the Maison du Peuple, prepared for the occasion46 and decorated with flowers. The Maison du Peuple, repainted for the occasion, was not the only place where the events take place: the delegates arriving at the station on that same Saturday were led by other comrades to the place of the ceremony. The event thus moved through the streets of the Belgian capital, where, among others, representatives of German workers’ associations paraded through the streets to pick up their comrades arriving from Germany at Brussels North station. The inhabitants of the city accompanied these processions by displaying red flags in their windows and the congress thus became an event involving the entire city. In the city hall, many members of the Brussels workers’ associations welcomed the foreign delegates. On the model of the Parisian trip to Père Lachaise two years earlier, a trip to Ghent was organized, as well as a number of evening celebrations. For example, on Sunday evening the Flemish workers’ associations organized a “summer festival” at the Lyric Theatre, with humorous and satirical performances. No wonder: most of these were political satire and the main target was the King of the Belgians, Leopold II. In one sketch, for example, a model representing the king was disguised as a delinquent being prepared to be guillotined. In another, he had a rope around his neck. Yet another depicted devils forcing priests and capitalists into hell. The following evening, the foreign delegates were invited to drink and eat in the hall of the Maison du Peuple. The tables were covered with white tablecloths and decorated with red flowers. While the delegates fraternized, the Belgian socialists went from one table to the other, building relationships with the foreign guests. A pianist played La Marseillaise des travailleurs, so that “the whole room rose enthusiastically, hats and handkerchiefs were thrown in the air and the revolutionary song was sung in all languages”. Other musical and dance initiatives, as well as theatrical

45 Ibid., 41. 46 For the description of the Brussels congress, we made extensive use of Kevin

Callahan’s description in his book.

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performances, were organized in the other evenings, in order to entertain the participants and create links that step out of the debates specific to the days of the congress. Jean Volders, who was a member of the organizing committee, gave the welcome speech, emphasizing the progress made by socialism at different levels on the road to unity, congratulating the French socialists for arriving in Brussels all together as a united delegation (he emphasized this because, as we know, a unitary socialist party did not yet exist in France) and welcoming the strong representation of the English trades unions, which had not been the case in 1889. After Volders’ speech, delegates from the different national socialist parties spoke. Afterward, the daughter of one of the Brussels delegates played music. Volunteers from the different national parties continued by each singing a socialist song from their own country. The English sang a song normally used to accompany the scotch. All evening black coffee and cognac were served and smokers were allowed to light their cigars. The purpose of all this was always the same and is again emphasized by Callahan: “The ritual of reception forged common bonds between foreign delegates and functioned in this regard much like events of sociability. Foreign delegates were also given ample opportunity to fraternize with comrades of the host movement”. In addition, Callahan continues, foreign delegates “were treated as the royalty of the international socialist movement”, through big banquets and city tours accompanied by musicians: they gained the awareness of being representatives of a great international movement. The result was the birth of a communitarian feeling: the socialist delegates represented an “us” that was opposed to the “others”: the capitalist international class. The international ceremony gradually turned into a well-organized ritual, producing a solemn collective experience. The inaugural ceremony thus represented a form of socialist liturgy.47 If the will to create the common feeling of internationalism can be observed at the Brussels congress, the questions of war and peace did not yet have their place. The question of militarism was debated at the Belgian congress, but as a question among others on the agenda, still detached from the “demonstration culture”. It had not yet become a common theme that contributed to creating a sense of international unity among the delegates.

47 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 118–119.

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The two rapporteurs for the session on militarism were Wilhelm Liebknecht and Édouard Vaillant, a symbolic choice tending to confirm what the former had affirmed from the very first words of his speech: there is no division between Germans and French following the war of 1870. Liebknecht declared: “There was no need to fear that French socialists were motivated by a desire for revenge against Germany. […] The question of Alsace-Lorraine is not a socialist question”. And he continued: “The enemy of the German worker is not the French citizen, it is the German bourgeois. On the contrary, the French proletarian is his ally”.48 The resolution proposed by Liebknecht and Vaillant proclaimed that “the duty and interest of all those who want to end the war is to join the international socialist party which is the true and only party of peace”49 and affirmed “that all attempts to abolish militarism and bring about peace between peoples […] can only be utopian and impotent if they do not reach the economic sources of evil; that only the creation of a socialist order putting an end to the exploitation of man by man will put an end to militarism and ensure permanent peace”.50 The proposal of a radical resolution by the Dutch delegate Domela Nieuwenhuis, however, disrupted these declarations of friendship and international solidarity. For him, national distinctions mean nothing to the proletariat and modern wars only serve the capitalist class. Consequently, no government could use it as an excuse that it was provoked, since war was the result of the international will of capitalism. Nieuwenhuis thus rejected the distinction between offensive and defensive war and called on the proletarians of all countries to respond to any proposal for war with a general strike.51 Moreover, he accused his German comrades of not having the international sentiments advocated by socialism: “One must always tell the truth to his friends. In my opinion, the German brothers do not have the international sentiments advocated by socialism”. He unleashed all sorts of protests on the benches of the German delegation.52 Liebknecht called

48 Congrès international ouvrier socialiste, tenu à Bruxelles du 16 au 23 août 1891. Rapport. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 8. Geneva: Minkoff, 1977, 96. 49 Ibid., 99. 50 Ibidem. 51 Ibid., 102. 52 Ibid., 101.

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the Dutchman’s proposal unacceptable and absurd.53 It comes, he said, from a country that does not have the overwhelming weight of militarism at home. The general strike is not a solution, it would be impossible to carry out at the time of the declaration of war and those who would try to organize it would be suppressed before they could act. The German social-democrat then defended his German comrades attacked by the Dutchman: “The attacks on the German socialists are unjust. They are not chauvinistic, as they are accused of, they are less chauvinistic than any other socialists. The German socialist party has proved, under various circumstances, that it is not affected by chauvinism. In 1870, during the war, the German socialists fought it at the price of their freedom and their lives”.54 At the time of the vote, only three of the sixteen nations represented choose the Dutch proposal.55 All the other delegates voted for the resolution of Liebknecht and Vaillant, which came from the most orthodox Marxism. The idea set out in the resolution was that a peaceful system would be created at the same time as the establishment of the socialist system. The means of overcoming once and for all the peril of a war outbreak were therefore not directly discussed, the resolution concentrating mainly on the change of the economic system. Nieuwenhuis judged this resolution so measured that “the Pope could accept it if only one word, socialism, were to be changed into the word Christianism”.56 The fact that, during these first congresses of the new International, war and peace were the subject of debate but were not yet the driving force for concrete action became clear during the discussions on the May 1st demonstration. During the debates in Brussels, the Central Socialist Revolutionary Committee of Paris (CCSR) proposed that the initiatives of the May Day also be devoted to peace between nations, along with the principle of the eight-hour workday. In the agenda, this proposal was formulated as follows: “International celebration of May 1st , devoted simultaneously to the principle of the eight-hour workday, to the regulation of work and to the universal affirmation of the proletariat for

53 Ibid., 104. 54 Ibid., 105. 55 Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Les socialismes français et allemand et le problème de la guerre, 1870–1914. Geneva: Droz, 1953, 316. 56 Quoted from: ibid., 316–317.

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the maintenance of peace between nations”.57 However, the congress rejected it. The Germans and the English rallied to the French veto, who emphasized that the “demonstration will always have as its main object the demand for the eight-hour day”.58 According to the majority of the delegates at the Brussels congress of 1891, the May Day must retain its true character: to demand the improvement of working conditions, to claim the eight-hour day, to promote class struggle.59 The institutionalization of an international demonstration for peace did not seem essential, probably because the danger of the outbreak of war seemed remote: the representatives of the labor movement sought rather to act concretely on certain aspects of workers’ daily lives.

Zurich 1893 This attitude faded away soon. The creation of an internationalist common feeling among the socialist delegates attending the congresses was increasingly seen as a necessity after the Zurich congress and then the London congress three years later. This awareness thus came at the same time as the question of opposition to war was included in the agenda of the International’s congresses. From this moment on, it became the unifying symbol of the international expressions of socialism. In 1893 in Zurich, a new system was put in place: for the first time, a mass meeting was organized before the start of the congress. From then on, this was the case at every congress. The mass meetings or demonstrations all had more or less the same characteristics. Although, as we will see, they had very different impacts, motivations, and dimensions. The symbols used at the opening ceremony of the Brussels congress were once again used: flags and panels, normally red, on which quotations were transcribed; the socialist delegates occupied a place of honor throughout the entire course of the initiative—the front row during the speeches or the head of the parades; the speeches, delivered in most cases by the most prominent and charismatic personalities of the socialist scene, did not go into theoretical details, which were left to the internal discussions of the congresses: 57 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, 29. Agenda item n. 8. 58 Congrès international ouvrier socialiste, tenu à Bruxelles du 16 au 23 août 1891. Rapport. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, 121. 59 Ibid., 123.

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they were expressed in an inspired and quasi-religious tone, with the aim of creating feelings of unity and sharing among those present. Often, the places chosen for these events were symbolic, for one reason or another.60 These initiatives sought each time to impress both the delegates and the citizens who had flocked to watch what was happening in the streets of the city. Thus, during the Zurich meeting, a columnist wrote in La Revue socialiste, not without irony, that “the party, I mean the congress”, opened in jubilation on Sunday, August 6, around 2 p.m., under the sun: a solemn parade took the direction of the cantonal school square, where speeches were given in front of a large audience. The delegates were surrounded by gymnasts, musicians, and flag-bearers. The tour of the city was completed between hedges formed by a cheerful crowd. The number of participants in the parade was estimated at 5.000–10.000. They all met at last in front of the school: a cart was positioned there as a podium, around which musicians and choirs took their places. The Swiss Herman Greulich, the Englishman J. A. Hobson, August Babel, Filippo Turati, and Jean Volders spoke. Finally, once the speeches were over, everyone dispersed to the Bierhalle in Zurich.61 Most of the Zurich workers’ associations had created allegories of their professions and displayed them on banners. On the others, there were slogans specific to the Swiss labor movement and classic slogans of the socialist movement, among them the typical May 1 slogan: “Eight hours’ labor, Eight hours’ recreation, Eight hours’ rest”, and also the one that interests us most here: “War to war”.62 It was indeed in Zurich that the International showed its interest in getting closer to the question of opposition to the war. This appeared in two different resolutions approved by the congress, first in the one proposed by Plekhanov and amended by Volders. Basically, it was very similar to that of Brussels, providing that “with the suppression of class domination, the war [would disappear] as well. The fall of capitalism

60 For a more detailed analysis of the characteristics of socialist demonstrations, cf. Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 129–130. 61 V. Jaclard. Le congrès socialiste international de Zurich. La Revue socialiste 105, 1893, 294–296. 62 Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 130–131.

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means universal peace”.63 The amendment drafted by Jean Volders of the Belgian workers’ party, however, marked a notable difference with the decisions taken in Brussels, because it finally tackled, in a more concrete way, the question of opposition to the war. It incited the workers’ representatives in the parliaments to always and under any condition refuse to vote the war budget. The question of the abolition of standing armies was also briefly evoked there: “The representatives of the workers’ party in the deliberative assemblies […] must unceasingly protest against standing armies and demand disarmament”.64 But it was more precisely with the resolution adopted about May Day that a shift occurred and a new attention to the questions of war became more perceptible: the demonstrations of May 1st were certainly demonstrations for the introduction of the eight-hour day, but they must also reflect the firm will of the proletariat to overcome class differences through a reorganization of society. And it was—according to the resolution—the only way that could lead to peace within each people and therefore to international peace. The demonstration must therefore affirm “the energetic will of the working class to hope for social transformation and to bring about international peace”.65 From that moment on, May 1st became undeniably linked to the opposition to the war. Peacekeeping was a goal to be achieved, for which it was necessary to demonstrate.

London 1896 This shift of the question of opposition to the war to an increasingly central place in the congresses of the Second International can be observed at the London congress in 1896: it began, as in Zurich, with a meeting the day before the start of the discussions. It did not, however, have the character of a festive parade, as was the case in Zurich. The meeting of July 26, 1896 was named “peace demonstration”.66 No other reasons were put forward by the organizers and participants to justify 63 BSI (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, 8. 64 Ibid., 8–9. 65 Protokoll des Internationalen Sozialistischen Arbeiterkongresses in der Tonhalle, Zürich

vom 6. bis 12. August 1893. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 9, 243. 66 Official Program of the Peace Demonstration in Hyde Park on Sunday, July the 26th, 1896. Second International Archives, IISG Amsterdam.

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this mass meeting. The English and foreign delegates—all the participants of the next day’s congress were invited—met on the banks of the Thames and then proceeded to Hyde Park. The scale of the event was enormous: 35 corteges left from as many parts of London to reach the Thames Embankment at around 1 p.m., where one big parade had to reach Hyde Park. These processions marched through most of the city on the morning of July 26th, even before the big parade in the afternoon. London thus became, for a whole day and over a large part of its territory, the theater where international socialism expressed its ideas and affirmed its opposition to war. The big peace demonstration in the afternoon was organized in great detail, on the one hand to avoid any problems with the police and on the other hand to give it a symbolic charge. The order in which the participants were called to march had been fixed: congress organizers in the lead, English and foreign delegates right after them. Behind them, the committees of the various organizations, the multitude of trade union associations, all followed by a group of socialist cyclists (“they are socialist societies that are cycling”,67 explained Augustin Hamon, who attended the congress) and other vehicles.68 The procession was to take place in an orderly and calm manner and was supervised by a large number of police officers, as well as by 20 workers in charge of the event’s security, who marched on horseback at the head of the procession and wore blue scarves. For the London parade, emblematic places of the workers’ movement were also chosen: the procession passed through Trafalgar Square, which had already been the scene of many meetings of the English workers’ movement, as well as in front of the War Office. Hyde Park, chosen for the final meeting, was the traditional setting for the London demonstrations on May 1st . The parade was imposing and the number of participants was estimated at 60.000 by the

67 Augustin Hamon. Le socialisme et le congrès de Londres. Étude historique. Paris, 1897. We quote here the reprint of this work that can be found in: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 12. Geneva: Minkoff, 1977, 93. 68 Official Program of the Peace Demonstration in Hyde Park on Sunday, July the 26th, 1896. Second International Archives, IISG Amsterdam.

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organizing committee.69 Augustin Hamon wrote in his study “Socialism and the London congress”: In accordance with the program, all the demonstrators gradually massed on the banks where stationed vendors of gingerbeer, lemonade, sodawater and where some sold Justice, Labour leader, the official program and a poster, a drawing against John Burns70 with this title: Judas Burns betraying the Christ of labour. The sky is gray, full of clouds, threatening; but the crowd is constantly arriving, ranks in the long procession with method, the foreigners: Germans, French, Belgians, Italians, etc., are in the lead. In groups, the people stop and talk, while in the breaks that pass by one can notice Mr. Bebel, Singer, Millerand, Jaurès, Guesde, Deville, etc.71 The parade is colored by the countless flags and banners carried by the various workers’ associations72 : Most of these banners are quadrilaterals of gummed silk (about 15 square meters), mounted on sticks, or rather yards. They are illustrated with scenes painted in a more or less naive way and display mottos and maxims. There are all kinds of them […].73

The parade arrived at about 3:30 p.m. in Hyde Park, where several socialist representatives gave speeches. Twelve wagons transformed into stands74 were set up in the park so that as many speakers could speak at the same time. The highlight of the event was the 5:00 p.m. reading 69 It is Augustin Hamon who gives this information: see Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 12, 93. Kevin Callahan talks about 75.000 people in his book: Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 133. Callahan and Hamon also tell us that the French nonsocialist newspaper Le Temps estimated the number of participants at no less than 110.000. Jaurès, on the other hand, speaks of “about thirty thousand men”: “There were four hundred banners deployed over several kilometers, and grouping about thirty thousand men” Jean Jaurès. Meeting. La Dépêche, 29 juillet 1896. The fact that a nonsocialist newspaper gives a much higher number of participants in a socialist demonstration than that estimated by the socialists themselves is probably an indication of a willingness to point out that socialism is capable of organizing itself internationally and perhaps also to indicate that this may constitute a threat to governments, or at least a force that they must take into consideration. 70 John Burns was an English trade unionist. Initially a socialist, he later became a liberal. 71 Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 12. Geneva: Minkoff, 1977, 91–92. 72 Cf. Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 135. 73 Histoire de la II e Internationale 12, 92. 74 Georges Renard. Le congrès international de Londres. La Revue socialiste 140, 1896,

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of the same resolution from the twelve stands. It opened with a profession of faith of internationalism: “This international meeting of workers recognizes that peace among the nations of the world is the essential basis for international brotherhood and the progress of humanity”.75 Then the question of war was addressed: the assembly recognizes capitalism as the main cause of war and, consequently, commits itself to do everything possible to replace the capitalist system with the socialist system. It acknowledges international arbitration as the only means of resolving quarrels and conflicts between different countries.76 The conference itself took place in the red-painted Queen’s Hall77 and, as a collective liturgy, was fully in line with previous congresses.78 The big question that occupied it was the definitive exclusion of anarchists from the International’s organs: discussions on this subject took so much time that all the other points on the agenda were treated only summarily. The debate on the war was no exception. Nevertheless, a resolution on this subject was approved, which was also in line with the contents of the previous ones: it highlighted the causes of war, which “are not religious or national differences, but the economic antagonisms to which the leading classes of the various countries are driven by the mode of production” and evoked the question of the permanent armies, “whose maintenance already exhausts the nations in peacetime and whose costs are borne by the working class [and which] increase the danger of war between nations”.79 The text adopted in London was, however, more elaborate and precise than those of previous congresses and, for the first time, the participants called for the establishment of an international arbitral tribunal with supreme right of decision. In the case that governments did not accept the tribunal’s order, the final decision on the question of war and peace would be “left directly to the people”.80 The congress then

75 Speaker and Resolutions, p. 6, Second International Archives, IISG Amsterdam. 76 Ibid. 77 The Queen’s Hall was a concert hall in central London that could hold up to 3,000 people. It was destroyed in 1941 by German bombing. 78 Pierre Alayrac dedicated his Master 2 thesis to the London congress: Alayrac, L’Internationale au milieu du gué. 79 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, 9. 80 Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 10. Geneva: Minkoff, 1980, 92.

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reiterated that the May Day should also be dedicated to “international peacekeeping”.81 These resolutions all remained on a very theoretical level, as if the possibility of a war seemed to be always present, but at the same time remote in time and space, a peril that should not really be feared, that should not be taken too seriously. On the other hand, the fact that May 1st was also decreed as a time to call for universal peace, and that the London congress was opened by the great anti-militarist demonstration in Hyde Park, shows that the question of peace and war was becoming central to international socialism. At this stage in the development of the International, however, opposition to war was more a unifying symbol than a burning issue discussed at congresses, as it was from the 1907 Stuttgart congress onwards. Nevertheless, it contributed greatly to the development of the demonstration culture of international socialist meetings.

The First Challenge: The Fachoda Crisis (1898) A “War of Nerves”82 In this context, while the new International was still trying to define its identity and while issues of war and peace were being discussed, diplomatic tensions between France and England developed on the territory of Fachoda, a Sudanese town located on the shores of the White Nile: this was the first diplomatic crisis since the constitution of the International. It was not the only point of international tension, other colonial wars were taking place in parallel with the Sudanese crisis: Italy fought against Ethiopia for the protectorate of Eritrea (1895–1896); Spain and the United States fought over Cuba from April to August 1898; in South Africa, the Boer War pitted the British against the South African colonists of Dutch origin from 1899 to 1902; in 1900 the so-called Boxer War began in China. These four conflicts, if they were the object of debate in the colonial European countries and if traces of them were found in the colonial policy adopted by the different congresses of the International,

81 Ibid., 80. 82 Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich (eds). Vermiedene Kriege.

Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg 1865–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1997, 491.

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never made people fear that they could turn into European conflicts. They were clearly colonial wars, taking place in countries far from the mother country. They were also conflicts that saw a European country fighting against a non-European population, never two European forces facing each other. This was different from the crisis of Fachoda, which saw France and England confronting each other over the occupation of the territories of Upper Nile. The two colonial powers disputed the region—the town of Fachoda was on the border between their possessions—because to possess it meant having an access point on the White Nile. In France, the Colonial Group, which set in the Parliament where it had a lot of influence, pleaded for a French mission in the Nile valley, which is obtained.83 As a result of this parliamentary decision, marine infantry captain Jean-Baptiste Marchand, who had already led an expedition to the Congo, was sent to Upper Nile. He arrived in Fachoda on July 10, 1898 and declared the town French property two days later. Shortly before, the sirdar Horatio Herbert Kitchener had received orders from the British Prime Minister to repel any foreign invasion of the Upper Nile. At the beginning of September he learned the news of the arrival of the French expedition. He was then in Khartoum, from where he left immediately, accompanied by a troop, in the direction of Fachoda. There he met Marchand on September 19 and asked him to withdraw his men from the territory, which the Frenchman refused to do. Two months of negotiations between their respective chancelleries followed this meeting, during which the two troops continued to face each other, dragging each other into a “war of nerves” (Nervenkrieg).84 The two countries, and England more than France, were getting ready for an open war in the territory. The tensions and the continuation of the negotiations, which repeatedly raised fears of the outbreak of armed conflict, had a great deal of resonance in public opinion. The French deputies finally recognized that the military favor was on England’s side. Théophile Delcassé, the brand new Minister of Foreign Affairs, who wished to conduct a policy of alliance with England, with the more distant objective of making a common front against the expansionist aims of the German Empire, pleaded for a peaceful resolution of the Sudanese question. The French government ordered its troops

83 Dülffer, Kröger and Wippich (eds), Vermiedene Kriege, 493. 84 Dülffer, Kröger and Wippich (eds), Vermiedene Kriege, 491.

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to withdraw on November 3. Tensions did not cease, however,85 until an agreement on zones of influence was signed on March 21, 1899, in which France recognized England’s dominant position on the Nile. For France, this was a diplomatic failure. But, through its peaceful policy, through the recognition of English power in the territory, its way of acting laid the foundations of the Entente Cordiale signed in 1904. International Reactions The Fachoda crisis was not a cause for the development of the Internationals debates on the issues of opposition to the war, as this was already becoming more pronounced, but it had undoubtedly accelerated it. However, it did not favor any initiative of opposition to the war within the International, which was not yet ready to face international diplomatic tensions. The congress of the Second International that came after the Fachoda crisis was the 1900 one in Paris, two years later. Certainly, this congress also had other issues to discuss—Germany was in the midst of the revisionist quarrel, in France it was the Millerand case that inflamed the spirits of the socialist representatives—, but this experience, which raised fears of a war between two European powers, left a mark that can be seen in the debates. The sixth item on the agenda concerned colonial policy and the seventh, whose rapporteur was Rosa Luxemburg, was entitled: “International peace, militarism, suppression of standing armies”.86 The relationship between these two agenda items and the Fachoda crisis had already been highlighted by the historian Milorad M. Drachkovitch: “The congress itself took place at a time when the colonial expansion of the great powers was in full swing, provoking several extra-European wars (the war between Spain and the United States over Cuba in 1898; the Boer War in South Africa since 1899; the so-called ‘Boxer War’ in China, which began in 1900) and almost led to the war between France and

85 Another moment of high tension took place in January. Jost Dülffer and Martin Wippich spoke of “the second high point of the war of nerves”. Dülffer, Kröger and Wippich (eds), Vermiedene Kriege, 512. For information on the Fachoda crisis, ibid., 491–512 and Paul Webster. Fachoda. La bataille pour le Nil. Paris: Éd. du Félin, 2001. 86 Ordre du jour du congrès de Paris, 23–27 septembre 1900. In: Georges Haupt, La

Deuxième Internationale. Étude critique des sources. Essai bibliographique. Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967, 172.

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England over Egypt in 1898. To show the intimate if not causal links between colonialism and the war, the Paris Congress examined them both successively”.87 Regarding the demonstration culture, the Paris congress88 linked it directly to the opposition to the war, as the London congress did. The declarations about the war symbolically played a central role from the opening speech of the congress, delivered by Jaurès, which was exclusively centered on the question of peace. As such, it took the form of a strong statement of opposition to war, in which Jaurès asserted that such an issue must have a fundamental role throughout the congress. The socialist speaker denounced the “chauvinistic bestiality” and the “nationalist delirium” of capitalism. Faced with this, “it is with a great and necessary demonstration that the proletariat today affirms its will to maintain universal peace”.89 It is interesting to note that in the Germanlanguage transcript of this same speech appears a sentence that was not in the French-language analytical report (which is the one we have just quoted), a sentence that is nevertheless very significant for the reasoning we are pursuing. According to the German version, Jaurès would have said: “That is why the most important issue on the agenda is the organization of international peace and international brotherhood”.90 It is unclear whether Jaurès really uttered this sentence or whether it was simply added on the initiative of the editors of the German report. In any case, it illustrates the extreme importance that the questions of war and peace have taken on in the congresses of the International.

87 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes, 320–321. 88 The delegates of international socialism had planned to hold the congress in Germany,

but the SPD members considered it too risky in view of the repressive attitude of the imperial government toward the social-democrats and urged their French comrades to hold the congress in Paris. Cf. the “Circulaire du Comité d’entente socialiste aux organisations socialistes et ouvrières du monde entier” (March 1899). In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13. Geneva: Minkoff, 1980, 17–19. 89 Cinquième congrès socialiste international tenu à Paris du 23 au 27 septembre 1900. Compte rendu officiel analytique, Paris, 1901. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13, 50. 90 “Daher ist von all den wichtigen Fragen, die auf der Tagesordnung stehen, die wichtigste die Organisation des internationalen Friedens und der internationalen Verbrüderung”. Internationaler Sozialisten-Kongress zu Paris 23. bis 27. September 1900. Berlin, 1900. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13, 369.

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In the end, there was no real debate on the issue, but resolutions of a rather practical nature were adopted: “The socialist deputies, in all countries, commit themselves to vote against any military expenses and any expenses for the navy and for colonial military expeditions”. For the first time, it was also the question of creating, “in all cases of international importance, a uniform and common anti-militarist movement of protest and agitation in all countries”,91 the coordination of which had to be the task of the International Socialist Bureau. This shift toward more concrete action was partly linked to the international situation, which was no longer the same as at the previous congress four years earlier. In the years between the two international meetings, both the Fachoda crisis and the Boer War took place and the socialists of the International, therefore, seemed to have a duty to prevent a new conflict, a necessity in which the peace associations had visibly failed. In fact, if in 1893 in Zurich it had been decided that the socialist parties should support “all associations which have as their goal universal peace”, in 1900 the discourse changed: “The congress protests against the so-called Peace conferences like the one in The Hague, which in today’s society can only lead to unfortunate disappointments, as the Transvaal War has recently shown”.92 The debates in Paris resulted in two resolutions. One, which declared that colonial expansion was a direct consequence of capitalism and a cause of imperialism, limited itself to submitting the problem to the study of the various national socialist parties. The other, proposed by Rosa Luxemburg, had two parts: the first listed the means of action against militarism, the second denounced with indignation the oppression of the Polish and Finnish peoples by Russian tsarism, the atrocities of the English government against the Boers in South Africa and the massacres in Armenia.93 Reflection on the means of opposing war, alongside existing practices that have been accentuated and renewed, was taking place. In the resolution presented by Rosa Luxemburg, adopted by the congress, all the issues that became then the topics of the following debates of the International about war and peace were already present. Luxemburg spoke of “the education and organization of young people to combat militarism” 91 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13, 10. 92 Ibid. 93 Compte rendu du cinquième congrès socialiste international, tenu à Paris du 23 au 27 septembre 1900. Paris, 1901. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 13, 140.

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and then hoped that the socialist deputies of all countries “commit themselves to vote against any military expenditure”. With regard to the organization of socialism at the international level, she declared: “The Permanent international socialist commission will be responsible for initiating and regulating, in all cases of international importance, a uniform and common anti-militarist protest and agitation movement in all countries”.94 It was during this period, in those four years from the congress of London in 1896 (included) to that of Paris in 1900, that the Second International began to direct its actions and interest to the opposition to the war. The French Attitude The Fachoda crisis had more repercussions in the nationalist press than in the socialist one. The reason for this is probably to be found in the fact that part of the socialist press, refusing to play the game of the imperialist and nationalist newspapers, tended not to give too much space to events. Moreover, France’s involvement in the crisis especially posed a limit to the efforts that could have been made at the international level to resolve the question. Louis Dubreuilh, in La Petite République, underlined the seriousness of the situation, affirming that between France and England it was now a question of force95 and no longer of diplomacy, something that had been well highlighted by the English newspapers. The crisis was also generating antipathies between the socialists of both countries, as we read in several background articles published in La Petite République. Dubreuilh wrote on October 21, on the front page of the newspaper: “Among the socialist organs themselves, some have allowed themselves to be contagious and we read an article by the citizen Morrisson Davidson, usually better inspired, where it is said that Great Britain has nothing to give to a degenerate France led by reactionaries and Jesuits”96 . He continued a few days later in the same direction: “The best that can be done is to work to prevent this fratricidal war, whose outcome, whatever it may be, would be so fatal to the development of human civilization and

94 Ibid., 139. 95 Le Socialiste also insists on this topic: Bonnier. Sur le Nil. Le Socialiste 11, 2 October

1898. 96 Louis Dubreuilh. Halte-là. La Petite République, 21 October 1898.

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to the triumph of the ideas of freedom in the world. On this point, we French socialists have done our duty and will continue to do so. It is up to our friends across the Channel to do theirs as energetically, as loyally. It seems to us that a general demonstration of the workers’ groups and trades-unions [sic] so powerful among our neighbors would be of decisive effect in these days of crisis. No more protests behind closed doors; we expect the comrades to protest in broad daylight”.97 Jaurès hoped, a few days later: “Ah, if the French proletariat and the English proletariat could hear each other and raise their voices!”98 This wish also emerged in a commentary that the same Dubreuilh formulated once the peak of tensions had passed: “The French and English proletariat have to take advantage of this détente to tighten the bonds that should unite them and make it impossible in the future for such alarm bells to ring”.99 Apparently, this had not worked in 1898. There was a certain fear (especially in Dubreuilh) that socialism was not up to the task of opposing anything. But there was also a certain confidence that the union of socialism could avoid the development of situations of tension. In the rest of the French socialist press, the Fachoda crisis did not arouse too many feelings. Le Socialiste tended to undervalue the issue: it engaged in a polemic against the press in general, which, according to it, gave too much importance to what was happening, taking a strong position for the fatherland and transforming something almost derisory into a circumstance full of meaning and possible consequences. In Germany and Italy As far as the German socialists were concerned, their worry about the international situation and the reaction of their French comrades was expressed above all by the fact that they carefully observed and described the latter’s initiatives. Vorwärts wrote on November 3 that “most French

97 Louis Dubreuilh. La paix du monde. La Petite République, 4 November 1898. 98 Jean Jaurès. Pas de surprise! La Petite République, 5 November 1898. Jaurès approved

the solution of the peaceful evacuation of the territory on the part of the French. The crisis of Fachoda gave him the opportunity to plead in La Dépêche de Toulouse for a diplomatic rapprochement between France and England. Jean Jaurès. Pour la paix. La Dépêche, 9 November 1889. In: Rémy Pech and Rémy Cazals (eds). Jaurès: l’intégrale des articles de 1887 à 1914 publiés dans La Dépêche. Toulouse: Privat, 2009, 453–454. 99 Louis Dubreuilh. Vers la paix. La Petite République, 6 November 1898.

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dailies are taking a position against the evacuation of Fachoda, which would be a humiliation for the country”.100 The article was, however, very short and only factual, and it did not specify the position of the German socialists. In Die Neue Zeit, Eduard Bernstein published an article on the relations between England and France in this period of crisis. The German revisionist mainly described the mood of public opinion in England during the Fachoda crisis. He did not take sides with either country, but there was a certain anxiety in his observation of his comrades. Concerning the critics to the French, he asserted that the English, “without any difference between the groups”,101 would not and never have made any in their press: “In England there is no one who wants to damage France”.102 However, Bernstein pointed out the opinion expressed by Hyndman in the journal of the English socialdemocratic federation, Justice: “We socialists […] are not at all for peace at all costs”.103 Hyndman went on to say that if someone attacked the colonies where the English had their trade since centuries, the English socialists would protest strongly against this imperialist theft.104 Bernstein agreed with this statement of his English comrade: “In our opinion, Hyndman has earned great merit through these sincere words. In specific situations, it is right and necessary for peace to extinguish in the neighboring folk any illusion about the mood of one’s own nation, and this is probably in no other case more opportune than with the French, who – and this excuses many things about them – are one of the most naive people in the world, always tending to deceive themselves about their behavior towards other countries”.105 The German also described another episode that showed that the mood of the English—and also of the socialists—was in line with Hyndman’s words. Trade-unionist John Burns was reported to have said at a conference that “England will not now give up Egypt”, provoking by saying it “loud applause” from the

100 Die Faschoda-Frage. Vorwärts, 3 November 1898. 101 “Without distinction of fractions”. Eduard Bernstein. England und Frankreich. Die

Neue Zeit, 9, 1899, 271. 102 Ibid. 103 “We Socialists […] are by no means in favor of peace at any price”. Ibid., 272. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid.

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audience.106 The conclusion of the article did not hide a certain concern for the European political balance, in which Russia also played its role, Bernstein said: “Without a confrontation between England and France, the confrontation between Russia and England is absolutely implausible. If we were to arrive at the first one – and this is not yet out of the realm of the politically possible – and if Russia intervened by the force of its alliance with France, England would not be caught off guard”.107 Kautsky also wrote about England and what was happening in Africa (he talked as much about Fachoda as he did about the war in South Africa and led a more global reflection on colonialism). According to him, as according to his compatriot, the current crisis could lead to the militarization of English society, and “once the current crisis is over, we must expect in England a powerful movement for a transformation of its army that would overthrow its bases”.108 His conclusions, however, went a little further than Bernstein’s: Kautsky argued that, although not in itself his wish, increasing militarization could have a positive effect: “And so the battle against militarism may at last come to an impulse that will bring the mass of the English proletariat to join the ranks of international social democracy”.109 According to Kautsky, what was happening in Africa could result in the strengthening of the social-democratic spirit in the English proletariat. A certain anxiety emerged from these writings. Alone one of the first sentences of Bernstein’s article demonstrated that: “There can be not the slightest doubt that the arms race of recent weeks was more than a vain demonstration and that Lord Salisbury’s government had his whole nation behind him”.110 The socialist consciousness of international balances was changing. And this became more and more evident starting with the next event that endangered peace between nations: the RussoJapanese war. The Italian socialists, for their part, did not pay attention to what was happening in Fachoda, probably feeling little or no concern about this episode.

106 Ibid., 273. 107 Ibid., 275. 108 Karl Kautsky. Militarismus und Sozialismus in England. Neue Zeit 19, 1900, 589. 109 Ibid., 597. 110 Eduard Bernstein. England und Frankreich. Neue Zeit 9, 1899, 269 (the article is dated differently in the journal. It was written in London on 14 November 1898).

CHAPTER 3

“Doppelkrise” and Shy Reactions

The Russo-Japanese War A Conflict Not So Far Away The years 1904 and 1905 saw two major critical events concerning the international political and diplomatic situation, which led to 1905 being called the year of the “double crisis” (“Doppelkrise”1 ) by historians Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich: the war between Russia and Japan and the diplomatic crisis caused by French and German expansionist claims on Moroccan territories.2 In these years, one can notice a change in the way the International acted: it committed itself for the first time to give an answer to diplomatic crisis situations at the international level. 1 Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich (eds). Vermiedene Kriege. Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg 1865–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1997, 9. 2 For the most recent studies on the Russian-Japanese War, cf. Olivier Cosson. Préparer la Grande Guerre. L’armée française et la guerre russo-japonaise (1899–1914). Paris: Les Indes savants, 2013. David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye. Toward the Rising Sun. Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path of War with Japan. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001. John W. Steinberg. All the Tsar’s Men. Russia’s General Staff and the Fate of the Empire, 1898–1914. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. John W. Steinberg. Was the Russo-Japanese War World War Zero? Russian Review 1, 2008, 1–7.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9_3

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Russia and Japan fought for control of Manchuria from February 8, 1904 to September 5, 1905. The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on 5 September, ratified the victory of the Japanese Empire, which gained control of part of the territory south of Manchuria and part of the Russian island of Sakhalin. Although the theater of combat remained limited to the eastern end of the Asian continent, around the Pacific, the conflict had repercussions in Europe on several levels. The Japanese victory was so fraught with consequences that historian Geoffrey Barraclough asserts that it was the war in Manchuria that determined the effective beginning of the twentieth century.3 From the point of view of alliances, Russia was bound to France, and Japan to England: the possibility of an extension of the fighting involving European states was taken into account by the latter. From a military point of view, it was “the first symmetrical and industrial war in the last thirty years”,4 during which the Japanese army showed “a level of military science and technology that had hitherto been exclusively Western”5 that would lead it to victory over the Russian enemy. These events raised Japan to the rank of a great power at international level. The military leaders immediately understood the importance of this conflict and the major European powers sent military observation missions there. Literature on this war began to appear even before the end of the conflict and continues to this day.6 This conflict frightened European countries first of all because it may involve them, but also because it showed that non-European powers were capable of waging war, thus defying the powers of Europe. It thus became conceivable for the first time that a conflict could take on a scale never known before and that non-European countries could become a menace to the Old Continent. The performance of the Japanese, even if they did not totally destroy the Russian army, and despite their material exhaustion in the spring of 1905, would have undeniable consequences on the balance between the world powers. Historian John W. Steinberg has defined this conflict as

3 Geoffrey Barraclough. An Introduction to Contemporary History. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 1967, 154–155. 4 Cosson, Préparer la Grande Guerre, 11. 5 Ibid. 6 Cf. The Literature of the Russo-Japanese War, I & II. American Historical Review 16, 2011, 508–528 and 736–750.

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the “first global war of the twentieth century”7 and “World War Zero.”8 These apprehensions were also to find among socialists and the conflict between Russia and Japan represented for them a moment of a posteriori awareness: the involvement of the International in the struggle for peace crystallized the protests against the war that were defended there by some. According to Gilles Candar, the Russo-Japanese war was very important in the very development of Jaurès’ thinking about peace: “The RussoJapanese war seems to be one of the elements that determined Jaurès to a reorientation of strategy in 1904–1905: rapprochement with the socialist left, constitution of the SFIO, priority to social and international questions, distancing himself from radicals and independent socialists, desired completion of secular and anticlerical action with the passing of the law of separation of Church and State.”9 As far as France and Germany were concerned, the interests of the socialists were not the same: the French, allied to the Russians, were more concerned by what was happening in Manchuria than the Germans. France could be directly involved in the conflict. Germany, for its part, had everything to fear from a possible entry into the war by France alongside Russia, which would cause an extension of the conflict. It goes without saying, therefore, that their positions with regard to the current war were different: while the French were very anxious to assert their opposition to the conflict, the Germans did not take a specific position, while on the other hand being very attentive to the attitude of their French comrades. For the Italian socialists, the question was somewhat different: since their country was in no danger of being drawn into the conflict, they observed and described in their newspapers what was happening to their French and German comrades without taking a position. International Socialism and the Conflict: Amsterdam 1904 These novelties thus revealed a change in the attitude of the International with regard to its opposition to the war, which became even more evident after the Amsterdam Congress in 1904. This was also partly due to the

7 Steinberg, All the Tsar’s Men, 111. 8 Steinberg, Was the Russo-Japanese War World War Zero?. 9 Gilles Candar. Jaurès et l’Extrême-Orient. Paris: Fondation-Jean Jaurès, 2011, 22.

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fact that from the Amsterdam congress onward, the International Socialist Bureau (ISB) took over and centralized the organization of congresses, as Kevin J. Callahan points out: “From the 1904 Amsterdam congress onwards and for all subsequent congresses, the ISB assumed the important position of mediator between the interests of the different national movements and set the calendar of congresses, allowing the local organizing committees to focus solely on setting up spectacular events.”10 Until then, it was in fact the representatives of the socialist parties of the country where the event was taking place who were in charge of this aspect of things. The organizational differences between the congresses therefore also depended on their decisions and of course on the local contexts (e.g., more or less severe police repression). Since the Second International did not have a permanent structure at its beginnings, it existed in practice only when the delegates met in congress. Quite soon, however, its members began to advocate for the creation of structures of a permanent nature and in 1896 the decision was taken to create a “permanent international executive committee, with a responsible secretary based in central Europe”. In 1900 the ISB was born. If necessary, it was able to meet independently of congresses, send out circulars, draft manifests, or adopt resolutions. Operating more nimbly than a meeting of the entire International, it could respond more immediately to contingencies.11 For this reason it occupies a place of prime importance in our demonstration. The Amsterdam congress was therefore the first organized by the ISB. Moreover, it took place during the fighting in Manchuria, from August 14 to 20, 1904: the Russian-Japanese war had already been going on for six months. The socialist protest against the war was precisely in the process of forming on an international level and the congress assumed a symbolic character, even if it was still only partly devoted to issues directly related to the war. In the circular with agenda items sent by the ISB to future participants, the issues of militarism and international arbitration

10 Kevin J. Callahan, Demonstration Culture. European Socialism and the Second International, 1889–1914. Leicester: Troubador, 2010, 82. 11 Cf. Andrea Benedetti, Le Bureau socialiste international: instrument de coopération internationale? (1900–1918). Ongoing PhD-thesis under the supervision of Maurice Carrez (UMR 7367 DynamE, University of Strasbourg).

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ranked 12th and 15th respectively, among the “other issues”.12 On the other hand, from a symbolic point of view, the congress had the character of a manifestation dedicated to underline the socialist opposition to the war. The setting was similar to that of previous congresses: At the back of Amsterdam’s most elegant concert hall, the Concert Gebouw, a stage is set up, decorated with red drapes. A garland of red flowers runs along the ramp. Behind the stage, from the floor to the ceiling, a long canvas extends, on which you can read in gigantic letters the war call with which Karl Marx’s communist manifesto ended in 1848, and which is the very motto of the International: “Proletariers Van Alle Landen Vereinigt U – Proletarians of all countries, unite!” Unite for the class struggle against the capitalist bourgeoisie, your only enemy. Peace between nations, war between classes, between exploiters and the exploited, until the final expropriation!13

But from the point of view of the opposition to the war, the most solemn symbolic moment was the handshake between Russian socialist Plekhanov and his Japanese comrade Katayama in front of the assembled assembly, greeted by a standing ovation: “The whole room, long, frantically cheers them”,14 Albert Thomas relates in his description of the congress for La Revue socialiste. Although Thomas was somewhat skeptical about the spontaneity of this gesture, he couldn’t help but speak of the Amsterdam congress in these terms: “But what remains of this manifestation of the congress is a powerful demonstration of international socialism in favor of peace. […] Therefore, the Russian-Japanese demonstration in Amsterdam was essentially a renewal, in more solemn circumstances, of the unanimous protest of the proletariat”.15 The pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes showed this same feeling: “The socialists of the continent are skillful directors and they know how to organize their theatrical performances. In Amsterdam, they showed a Japanese Marxist, a Hindu parsi and Russian revolutionaries. In order to make

12 Bureau socialiste international, “Aux organisations socialistes et ouvrières. Camarades, le Bureau socialiste international vous invite”, signé V. Serwy, secrétaire, Bruxelles, 1904. Print. IISG, Second international archives, supplement 1, document no. 393. 13 Jean Bourdeau. Au congrès d’Amsterdam. Revue des Deux Mondes 23, 1904, 277. 14 Albert Thomas. Le congrès d’Amsterdam. L’Humanité, 15 August 1904. 15 Albert Thomas. Le congrès d’Amsterdam. La Revue socialiste 237, 1904, 261.

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the glaring contrast of proletarian civilization and capitalist barbarism, which fills the Far East with blood and ruins, citizen Plekhanoff and citizen Sen Katayama solemnly shook hands amidst the hurrahs and palpitations of the audience”.16 Likewise, the declaration of solidarity with the Japanese and Russian proletarians, “massacred by the crime of capitalism and their governments”,17 voted unanimously at the very beginning of the meeting, also gave this congress of the International the character of an anti-war demonstration. The motion, presented by the Allemanistes, the French socialists grouped around the ideas of Jean Allemane, invited “the socialists and workers of all countries, guardians of international peace, to oppose by all means any extension of the war”.18 The presence of Katayama was seen in itself as a great symbolic demonstration of opposition to the war in progress and the daily L’Humanité gave it much resonance: “The citizen Sen Katayama”, wrote the French newspaper before the appearance of the Japanese socialist, “will tell the European comrades about the organizational efforts that the Japanese militants have already made there. He will recount their first successes and their already notable influence, and he will be there to affirm, against the appalling struggles of the present time, the desire for peace of the proletarians”.19 These words showed great confidence in the ability of the labor movement to lead an effective opposition against the ongoing conflict, an attitude that was also found in the greeting sent by the Dutch socialist daily Het Volk, which decisively proclaimed: “Against this irresponsible power we are directing our fighting forces to the call of: Organization and Unity!”20 The delegates present in Amsterdam expressed their conviction that a stronger unity among socialists of all countries could be a good way to oppose the conflict, that their protests could ensure that the war remains confined to the territories between Russia and Japan and does not involve any other country. Jaurès spoke out on the question of military alliances between countries, which he saw as one of the causes of the climate of tension that reigns in Europe at the beginning of this century.

16 Jean Bourdeau. Au congrès d’Amsterdam. Revue des Deux Mondes 23, 1904, 276. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 262. 19 Albert Thomas. À Amsterdam. L’Humanité, 14 August 1904. 20 Albert Thomas. Le congrès d’Amsterdam. L’Humanité, 15 August 1904.

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In his speech in Amsterdam, the French politician acknowledged that there was a tension, a specific issue at stake between France and Germany: I am surprised, I say this with respect, but with frankness and sadness, that our socialist comrades in other countries, and in particular our comrades in Germany, have not sufficiently perceived the efforts we have made in this direction and have not sufficiently recognized them. You know very well what often in France threatens the cause of peace. They say: bourgeois and capitalist class calculations. I don’t deny that there is this permanent danger of war unleashed by the antagonism of capitalist interests and by the bitter search for distant outlets. But in France we also have another cause for danger: it is a Caesarian, chauvinistic, bellicose demagogy which, under the guise of revolution, tries to exploit the worst instincts, a demagogy which had massed around general Boulanger and which constituted for Europe a menace of war and for Germany a menace of militaristic reaction. This was the reason that Bismarck invoked for increasing the military charges.21

The situation thus created had immediate consequences on the action of the comrades on the other side of the Rhine: “And every time our chauvinistic demagogy raises its head, screams in the streets, sends its representatives, its declaimers to the parliament, the task of our socialist comrades in Germany becomes more difficult”.22 In Jaurès’ opinion, it was therefore necessary to denounce chauvinism: that was one of the duties of socialism. And it was in order to advance with such a policy of progress and civilization that we [French socialists] have helped with all our sympathy, with all our effort, with all our political and parliamentary action, to the rapprochement, the conciliation, the agreement of the same governmental France and the same governmental Italy and the same governmental England. First of all because it is there, in the rapprochement of free Western nations, a guarantee of progress and peace for Europe. And furthermore, the most effective way, you hear me well, to loosen the bonds of the alliances that bound France and Russia together. Our defeated and bruised country, and which, with the hallucinations of defeat believed itself threatened, even when it was not, this country had justified the prophecy of Marx and

21 Jean Jaurès. Discours de Jaurès à Amsterdam. La Revue socialiste 237, 1904, 297. 22 Ibid.

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Engels saying to Mr. von Bismarck: ‘The stranglehold on Alsace-Lorraine will throw France into the arms of Russia’.23

Jaurès also recognized in his intervention the special link between France and Germany in matters of war and peace. There was an action–reaction relationship between these two countries and according to him this explained in part the attention that the socialists of both countries paid to each other throughout the months of conflict. The final resolution submitted in Amsterdam by the delegates of the French socialist workers’ party, and adopted unanimously, was in line with Jaurès’ speech: The congress, considering that the common and concerted action of the workers and socialists of all countries is the essential guarantee of international peace, at a time when tsarism is struck by both war and revolution, sends its fraternal greeting to the Japanese and Russian proletarians massacred by the crime of capitalism and their governments; and call the socialists and workers of all countries, the guardians of international peace, to oppose by all means any extension of the war.24

However, the resolution did not make a more direct statement against the conflict, nor did it call for an international protest or anything similar, which indicated, in this specific case, a certain slowness on the part of the International to take initiatives.25 This also applied to the ISB. During the years of the Russo-Japanese war, the ISB met on January 15, 1905 in Brussels. It cannot be said that this meeting was a direct reaction to the conflict: its raison d’être was rather the new union of socialism in France and the desire to affirm the unity of socialism.26 However, the question of the ongoing war found its place: Édouard Vaillant proposed,

23 Ibid. 24 Congrès socialiste international: Amsterdam 14–20 août 1904. Compte-rendu analytique. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 14. Geneva: Minkoff, 1985, 299. 25 The following debates deal with the question of socialist participation in bourgeois governments (the debate between Jaurès and Kautsky on this issue has remained famous), but no further words on the ongoing conflict were uttered. 26 The proceedings of the congress can be found in Vorwärts, 18 January 1905 (“erste Beilage”) and in Bureau socialiste international. L’Humanité, 16 January 1905. The documents can be found in: Georges Haupt (ed). Bureau socialiste international. Comptes rendus des réunions, manifestes et circulaires 1, 1900–1907 . Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1969, 114–129.

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in the name of the French socialists, an agenda on the Russo-Japanese war, which was unanimously adopted: “The Bureau renews its appeal to the vigilance and effort of the socialist parties of all countries, so that, by all means, they prevent any participation of their countries in the war, any violation of neutrality. But it can count and relies only on the heroic socialist party of Russia to complete the defeat of tsarism begun by the war and the revolutionary force of its events and to put an end, then and thus, to a war of colonial piracy”. He then added: “The Bureau, in the name of the international socialist party, addresses to the socialists and militant proletarians of Russia, the testimony of its admiration and its fraternal sympathies, with the ardent wishes that the revolutionary struggle liberates Russia and the world as soon as possible from the tyranny and the obstacles of tsarism and gives to the proletariat of Russia the conditions of its organization and its emancipatory action”.27 The Amsterdam congress was perceived in different ways by French, German, and Italian socialists. While in France, as we have seen, Albert Thomas hailed it as a step forward in the socialist struggle against the war, especially because of its symbolic charge, in Germany one of the main actors of social-democracy, Eduard Bernstein, did not mention in the Sozialistische Monatshefte28 either the Russian-Japanese war or the resolutions on militarism. The same applied to Kautsky’s summary and commentary in the pages of Die Neue Zeit.29 Although Vorwärts devoted a long article to the repercussions of the congress discussions among the French socialists, he only referred to the debate on ministerialism in Amsterdam.30 Similarly in Italy: the congress was described in Avanti! but the expression of friendship between Katayama and Plekhanov was not mentioned there either.31 This difference in attitudes between German and Italian socialists on the one hand and French socialists on the other showed that the war did not have the same meaning for all parties, a consequence of France’s major involvement in the ongoing conflict in Manchuria due to its alliance with Russia. We will have the opportunity to come back to

27 Ibid., 118. 28 Eduard Bernstein. Der internationale Congress in Amsterdam und die sozialistische

Taktik. Sozialistische Monatshefte 8, 1904, 589–595. 29 Karl Kautsky. Der Kongress zu Amsterdam. Die Neue Zeit 48, 1904, 673–682. 30 Der Wiederhall von Amsterdam in Frankreich. Vorwärts, 24 August 1904. 31 Il congresso internazionale socialista. Avanti!, 21 August 1904.

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this. This was the first time since the birth of the Second International that a war was underway. However, the assembled socialists were unable to take the slightest initiative and, in fact, no demonstration of opposition to the war was organized in Amsterdam by the International. Beyond this, however, both the Amsterdam congress and the ISB meeting showed a socialist willingness to continue the debates on war and peace at the international level: the tendency of socialists from every nation was to show a benevolent face of their country, always declaring it in favor of the unity of socialism at the international level and against war. The crisis didn’t change the calendar of the International, there was no discussion about the need to call for an extraordinary meeting in response to the RussianJapanese war—which was the case for future crises. Reactions were slow (the Amsterdam congress was not held until six months after the beginning of the war and was called independently of it) and undecided. The International and the ISB had not yet learned how to deal with situations of international danger.

French and German Socialists and the Russian-Japanese War The report on the Amsterdam congress by Albert Thomas, in La Revue socialiste and L’Humanité has been discussed above. He described, in particular, the handshake between Katayama and Plekhanov: if he was critical of the gesture itself, he recognized the congress as a symbolic manifestation of the struggle against war. In Germany, it was August Bebel, also present in Amsterdam, who was responsible for giving a report of the Dutch congress at the SPD congress, which was held from 18 to 24 September 1904 in Bremen. He did not mention the symbolic gesture between the Russian and the Japanese and offered a summary of the debates. He mainly referred to the discussion on “die Frage der politischen Taktik” (“the question of political tactic”: the debate on ministerialism), which in his opinion was the “Hauptgegenstand”32 (“the main object”) of the congress discussions. Only one sentence of his report referred to Russia, after a long development on the attitude of the French

32 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages des sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten in Bremen vom 18. bis 24. September 1904. Berlin, 1904, 303.

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socialists about their possible unification, and it concerned only the revolution: “Another fact that we are happy about is that the different Russian groups of the Amsterdam congress also exerted a very beneficial influence, so that a part of those who came to Amsterdam as enemies became aware that because of what is happening in Russia it is absolutely necessary to undertake common actions against the common enemy”.33 The Russo-Japanese war had begun on February 8, 1904 with the naval battles of Port-Arthur, and a first article by Vorwärts on the attitude of the French socialists toward the war in East Asia appeared on the 16th February. The editor, who did not sign it, stressed from the very first lines that, “with the exception of the irresponsible nationalist editorialists, who seek to forcefully rekindle warmongering passions, no one here wants French interference in the Russo-Japanese war”.34 As a basis for this declaration, the article reviewed the positions taken by the various trends or representatives of French socialism, taking care to highlight their unanimity in opposing France’s participation in this conflict.35 The unknown author also quoted an article by Édouard Vaillant published by Le Socialiste, in which the French socialist asserted with determination his opposition to the Franco-Russian alliance, and also expressed his conviction that a popular revolt (a general strike) would be necessary in the eventuality of the outbreak of an armed conflict. Vorwärts also quoted passages from an appeal to the CGT workers and an excerpt from the speech made by Jaurès at the congress of the French socialist party in Saint-Etienne a month earlier. The common denominator was the opposition to France’s entry into the war on the side of the Russian Empire. At the Saint-Etienne congress, held from 4 to 7 January 1904, a few weeks before the outbreak of the war, a manifesto emphasizing the will and ability of the French socialist party to firmly oppose a possible armed confrontation was drafted, which in fact stated that it was “by propaganda of peace, arbitration and cordial understanding that the war could 33 Ibid., 311. 34 Die französischen Sozialisten und der ostasiatische Krieg. Vorwärts, 16 February

1904. 35 As French socialism had not yet unified in the SFIO, its two main currents were united in 1904 in the more revolutionary Parti socialiste de France, whose leaders were Édouard Vaillant and Jules Guesde, and the more reformist Parti socialiste français, of which Jean Jaurès was a member.

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be contained”.36 The manifesto also insisted strongly on the balance of the international situation, stating that “no one would dare, today, neither in Parliament nor in the country, to take open responsibility for unleashing the war”.37 A certain confidence in the maintenance of such a balance was evident throughout the manifesto, so much so that the signatories declared their desire to ensure and maintain peace: “[W]e will oppose”, they wrote, “any avowed or underhanded policy of war with a wise and unalterable firmness”.38 The manifesto concluded with a clear statement against the war: “We once again declare war on war, the supreme diversion and supreme hope of reaction. And in consolidated peace we will work on the necessary cause of social justice”.39 A new article by Vorwärts on February 20, 1904 quoted excerpts from this document, in German translation, followed by a commentary. The German editor indicated the passage that was supposed to be of most interest to Germany, the one dedicated to the Franco-Russian alliance.40 Written by Jaurès, the manifesto had been in France the subject of strong criticism from the French radical and republican left, which opposed with all its strengths a possible break in the alliance between France and Russia. Vorwärts’ article, however, underlined the moderation with which the manifesto actually evoked such a possibility, just as the moderation with which Jaurès referred to it in his speech in Saint-Etienne, highlighting the fact that the Frenchman never invoked the dissolution of the alliance: “Jaurès did not speak of a dissolution [Kündigung] of the alliance […], but of a relaxation [Lockerung] of it in future times”. Indeed, the SFIO leader only asked for French strict neutrality during the war. The editor of Vorwärts thus wanted to underline the nonsense of the critics of this French left which pleaded for the rupture of the alliance: their only result was to strengthen the nationalists. The latter hoped that the Left bloc would disintegrate, bringing with it the fall of the Combes government. A third article by Vorwärts expressing almost the same ideas, published

36 Parti socialiste français. Congrès socialiste de Saint-Étienne, 4–7 janvier 1904, Paris: Édition de La Revue socialiste, 1904, 364. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 364. 40 Jaurès Neutralitätsklausel. Vorwärts, 20 February 1904.

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five days after the previous one, still attested to the fact that the FrancoRussian alliance was at the center of German preoccupations.41 The texts quoted were the same manifesto signed by Jaurès and his speech at the congress of Saint-Etienne.42 This article by Vorwärts, like the previous one, paid a lot of attention to the reaction of the French political landscape to Jaurès’ statements: the editor underlined again the support that the different political forces offered to Russia and its alliance with France. Very interested in the Franco-Russian alliance, the SPD representatives were disappointed by Jaurès’ cautious attitude: Even without talking at all about the nationalist press, Le Temps, a very informal newspaper, dragged Jaurès before the court of patriotism because of the loosening of the alliance he had taken into consideration. And the wise radicals immediately manifested themselves to the magistracy to save their patriotic reputation, given that they sit in the same block as Jaurès. The right wing of the bloc, the democratic union, and the mixed group of the radical union repeated the Franco-Russian oath with particularly strong conviction. Only the left-wing radicals refused – at least until further notice – to take this oath.43

Three days later, on February 28th, Vorwärts devoted an article to another manifesto published in France about the alliance with Russia and the war in Asia44 : the manifesto of the Parti socialiste de France. The latter differed in many aspects from that of Saint-Etienne because it firmly opposed the Franco-Russian alliance, Czarism, and the French bourgeoisie that supports it.45 It affirmed that the socialist party was “the only one that not only wants, but can have peace”. By getting closer to the party, the proletarians thus work for the establishment of

41 Das französische Bürgertum und der Krieg. Vorwärts, 25 February 1904. 42 Even at the Amsterdam congress seven months later, Jaurès never supported the idea

of breaking the alliance with Russia, but only of making it less binding. Discours de Jaurès à Amsterdam. La Revue socialiste 237, 1904, 288–312. 43 Das französische Bürgertum und der Krieg. Vorwärts, 25 February 1904. 44 Manifest der sozialistischen Partei Frankreichs gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 28

February 1904. 45 Unité socialiste révolutionnaire, appel aux travailleurs du Parti socialiste de France. Quoted in: La guerre russo-japonaise et le socialisme international. Le Mouvement socialiste 134, 1904, 327–329.

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a peaceful era.46 The manifesto went on pointing out that the proletarians of France had a more immediate task to accomplish with regard to the war in progress, which consisted in their duty to “effectively oppose” the peril that the widening of the conflict, involving France itself, as well as England and the United States, would represent. It thus expressed the confidence of French socialism in the ability of the populations of the different countries to maintain peace. “Any participation of France in the war would be a crime against the proletariat, against your class, against yourselves”,47 continued the manifesto. An article by Vorwärts, after a brief introduction underlining the essential difference between this text and the one written in Saint-Etienne, gave the complete translation of the manifesto. The fact that it was published in German in its entirety leaves little doubt that Vorwärts agreed with its contents, rather than with the opinions of Jaurès and his group—which the German daily newspaper calls Jaurès’ “Neutralitätsklausel” (neutrality clause). Although there was no comment in Vorwärts’ articles on the French positions taken just after the beginning of the fighting in Asia. The socialists expressing themselves in this daily newspaper were very interested in the attitude of their French comrades, while not taking any specific position toward the conflict: this attitude was due to the fact that they were not directly involved, unlike the French. The only feeling they showed was the fear of France’s entry into the war: this fear was increased by the fact that the SPD members had realized that for the French socialists too, the Franco-Russian alliance had become important. The attitude of the French was quite different. As we have just seen from the German commentaries, the two French socialist parties, the Parti socialiste français and the Parti socialiste de France, were pronouncing themselves, in accordance with their ideology, on the ongoing conflict. The congress of Saint-Etienne was the theater of Jaurès’ speech and the vote on the manifesto mentioned above. The other wing of French socialism also took initiatives, such as the other manifesto mentioned in the previous paragraph. In fact, the conflict occupied a large place in the public debate of the socialists, who gave it a great deal of significance, as can be seen from the very high number of newspaper articles and conferences they devoted to it. On May 28, 1904 at a meeting organized at

46 Ibid., 328. 47 Ibid., 329.

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the Cirque d’hiver by the inter-federal committee of the Parti socialiste français and the Fédération de la Seine, Francis de Pressensé held a conference on the war in progress, the text of which was published in full in La Revue socialiste. In it, the Frenchman welcomed the efforts made by the socialists to protest against the conflict.48 He therefore proposed a definitive solution to prevent situations that could endanger peace from arising in the future: he bitterly criticized “this hypocrisy of peace that is called armed peace”49 and advocated the disarmament of nations: “It is not only a question of fighting and protesting against the scandalous explosion of war when it occurs; it is a question of fighting against the monster and the plague of armed peace that weighs down on our civilization, it is a question of stopping the ever-increasing flow of military spending”.50 Within the Universités populaires, a whole cycle of conferences on this war, of which we unfortunately have neither the texts nor the program, was even organized. An article on the congress of the Universités populaires of 1904 gave us such information.51 At the end of this meeting, a wish was formulated (no resolutions were taken in this congress, which should not be of a political nature, but wishes were formulated which were then voted on by those present): “At a time when the RussianJapanese conflict in the Far East is multiplying suffering, massacres and calamities of all kinds, the congress of the Universités populaires, meeting in Paris, once again protests against the horrors of war, and expresses the hope that in future lectures given in the Universités populaires this beautiful and useful maxim will be developed as often as possible: ‘If you want peace, prepare for peace’, which alone can lead to the establishment of the United States of the world”.52 Returning to the German socialists, in the official SPD discourse on the war, we do not encounter at all the 48 “I welcome the fact that the issue of the Russo-Japanese War and its consequences has been put on the agenda tonight. I welcome it first of all, because it is good, because it is just, because it is necessary that every time the scandal of war breaks out, every time human beings kill themselves at the behest of other men, every time a cursed fiction of the law of nations permits and commands crime, the protest of the human conscience should rise and silence for a moment the clash of arms. And I am pleased that we socialists do not tire of the honor of this protest, which is necessary only for pacifists”. Francis de Pressensé. La guerre russo-japonaise. La Revue socialiste 234, 1904, 679. 49 Ibid., 693. 50 Ibid. 51 Le congrès des UP. Textes et documents. Cahiers de la Quinzaine, May 1904, 79. 52 Question n. VIII, p. 135.

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same feeling of confidence present among the French comrades. At least at the beginning. Optimism about the ability of the labor movement to organize internationally and to establish a mechanism for fighting the war seemed to reign at least among some French socialists. An article by Charles Rappoport provided further evidence of this. He stated that socialists were often asked whether they were on the side of the Russians or the Japanese and that according to him the answer must be: “[We are] for the proletarians, equal for which country”. This does not prevent, he continued, to see that in the Russo-Japanese war the victory of Japan would result in the political emancipation of Russia.53 This last question was indeed important in the socialist debate of this period, both in France and in Germany. Among the French socialists, the attitude was rather nuanced. Vaillant affirmed in an article in the Mouvement socialiste that the international labor movement had to position itself on the side of Japan: “What is called the ‘yellow danger’ will put an end to ‘white banditry’ and it has nothing to worry about. We socialists, no less than the yellows, look forward to the defeat of the Russians”.54 On the German side, declarations of support for Japan were made during the Jena congress of 1905, during which Bebel stated: “I think that all our sympathies55 were at that time and still are today on the side of Japan. We celebrated its victories, because they were defeats not for the Russian people, but in the first place for Russian despotism”.56 It thus aligned itself with the declarations of Vaillant that we have just cited, of Guesde and, as we are about to examine, those of Filippo Turati, the leader of the Italian socialist party.

53 Charles Rappoport. Le péril jaune. Le Socialiste 96–97, 1904. 54 Vaillant’s response to La guerre russo-japonaise et le socialisme international. Le

Mouvement socialiste, 15 March 1904. 55 At the Bremen Congress of 1904, which also took place during the war between Russians and Japaneses. 56 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1905, 149.

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The Reaction of the Italian Socialists “What a joy, my dear! The Russians have taken a beating, and a strong one, at sea as well it seems – and we hope it will be definitive”,57 wrote Filippo Turati to Anna Kuliscioff on May 25, 1905. A few days later, it was Kuliscioff’s turn to rejoice at the defeat of Russia which, according to her, was synonymous with the defeat of autocracy: “It seems that we are living in a time of barbarism, where war is still a coefficient of civilization”.58 The position regarding the war of the main Italian socialist leader and the great theorist, who was his partner, was therefore clear. However, the question did not seem to have occupied their minds too much, these two quotations being the only references they made to it in their very regular correspondence. French confidence in the ability of the internationally organized labor movement to effectively oppose conflict was understood and highlighted by the Italian socialists. The newspaper Avanti! observed, as did Vorwärts, the attitude of Jaurès and French socialism toward the ongoing war. In an article on February 14, Jaurès’ words at the Saint-Etienne congress were summarized as follows: “Jaurès expressed the wish that France remain outside the conflict”.59 The analysis of Avanti! was, however, different from the German newspaper’s one: the article underlined the will of the united French socialism to oppose the war, without dealing with the differences between its various currents. This was undoubtedly a way of portraying France and its socialists in a favorable light, since the PSI was very critical of the Triple Alliance, that had linked Italy to the German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian Empire since 1882, and wished instead for a diplomatic agreement with the French. Like Vorwärts, Avanti! then quoted Vaillant’s article in Le Socialiste. However, the Italian daily made almost no difference between the words of Jaurès and those of Vaillant. It rather tended, in this article, to emphasize the unity of French socialism in its opposition to the war. The only difference that Avanti! highlighted between Jaurès and Vaillant was a difference in method, the 57 It is the naval defeat of the Tsushima Strait. Filippo Turati to Anna Kuliscioff, Rome,

25 May 1905, in: Alessandro Schiavi, Franco Pedone (eds). Filippo Turati and Anna Kuliscioff, carteggio (1898–1925) 2. Turin: Einaudi, 1977, 267. 58 Anna Kuliscioff to Filippo Turati Milan, 30 mai 1905, in: Turati and Kuliscioff, Carteggio 2, 274. Ernesto Teodoro Moneta was the founder of the Unione lombarda per la pace e l’arbitrato. 59 Un discorso di Jaurès. Avanti!, 14 February 1904.

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latter proposing insurrection to oppose the war. Jaurès’ manifesto was translated into the Italian daily newspaper on February 19th. But the article, unlike the Vorwärts article, did not comment on the neutrality reproached to Jaurès by the Germans.60 The Italian socialists, through their official organ, only underlined the opposition of the French socialists to the war and, for this reason, they reported on the demonstrations organized in France.61 With regard to Germany, Avanti! quoted an article from Vorwärts on the “yellow danger” and put a strong emphasis on the fact that German socialism took the side of Japan against Russia, an opinion that the newspaper shared: “Socialism sees in Japan, facing Russia, a progressive people whose victory would also be a victory of the Russian people against absolutism”.62 On May 11, another article cited Bebel as saying that while the German emperor sympathized with the tsar, the proletarian supported Japan.63 This trend would be found in the pages of the Italian daily newspaper in the months that followed: everything that concerned Germany in relation to the war in Manchuria was related to its support for Japan. On September 19, 1905 an article on the socialist congress in Jena reported that the Japanese victories were greeted with joy by the German proletariat for having dealt a blow to Russian absolutism.64 The relations between these three socialist parties (German, French and Italian) were clearly shown by the official visit of the President of the French Republic Émile Loubet to Italy in April 1904, shortly after the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war. On several occasions, Avanti! described this event as a great manifestation of friendship between France and Italy. L’Humanité gave even more meaning to this visit, stating that it would be highly appreciated on the French side if Italy withdrew from its alliance with Germany to create one with France. German socialists observed carefully these expressions of friendship between the socialists of the two countries and German socialist newspapers gave daily news of what was going on in Italy. An article by Vorwärts on the topic was

60 Un manifesto di Jaurès contro l’alleanza franco-russa. Avanti!, 19 February 1904. 61 Cf. Dimostrazioni ed agitazioni in Francia. Avanti!, 14 march 1904 and Una grande

festa internazionale a Parigi. Avanti!, 5 juni 1904. 62 Da Berlino. Avanti!, 17 February 1904. 63 Il parlamento tedesco. Avanti!, 11 May 1904. 64 Il congresso socialista a Jena. Avanti!, 19 September 1905.

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translated into Italian in the columns of Avanti!.65 The anonymous author did not hide the fact that the SPD was looking with some concern at the diplomatic maneuvers of rapprochement between France and Italy and with even more concern at the expressions of sympathy for this possible new alliance shown by the French and Italian populations through street demonstrations and enthusiastic articles: it would in fact be an alliance of two democracies against German imperialism. Let’s now summarize the positions of the three parties regarding the Russo-Japanese war. French socialism tended, in these troubled times, to believe in the potential of the International to oppose the war. Dubreuilh saw the conflict as a way for socialists to become more involved in the cause of peace. After the end of the conflict, he repeated in an article in the Mouvement socialiste that the Russo-Japanese war remained confined to the belligerent countries, but that it could easily have spread to other countries at any time: “This horrible nightmare is over. The workers’ International will take advantage of the respite granted to it by the capitalist International, the one of which Roosevelt was the mastermind, to consolidate the understanding of proletarians everywhere, to systematize their anti-militarist action, to strive to create the true league of Peace, against which no outside force will prevail”.66 The International did not really take the initiative during the conflict, but Dubreuilh trusted in the ability of the internationally organized socialists to exert real pressure to oppose future armed conflicts. The Italians, for their part, did not seem to have a very strong position on this point, but they were keen to show that French socialism was united in this battle. They felt closer to the French political system than to the German Empire to which, however, Italy was bound by the Triplice. The Germans, for their part, looked at the French only through the prism of the Franco-Russian alliance and otherwise took no specific position with regard to events.

The First Morocco Crisis The Tangier Crisis Another event upset the international situation during the year 1905. It was a diplomatic crisis, the so-called “first Morocco crisis” or “Tangier 65 Il “Vorwärts” sulla visita di Loubet. Avanti!, 28 April 1904. 66 Louis Dubreuilh. Conséquences prochaines. Le Mouvement socialiste 19, 1905.

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crisis”, and it seemed for a while to endanger European peace.67 From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the desire to make Morocco a colony had been recognized in great measure in European countries such as France, Great Britain, Germany, and Spain. The French colonial aimed on this territory became definitively clear in 1904, when Eugène Étienne, leader of the colonial party, created the Committee of Morocco.68 In 1901, the assassination of an Algerian merchant in the Rif region led to an “agreement” between Morocco and France, which authorized the latter to help the former to maintain order in its eastern regions, thus on the border with Algeria, then already a French colony. Foreign minister Théophile Delcassé knew that, without the withdrawal of England, which also had economic, political, and strategic interests in Morocco, France could not achieve its penetration. Negotiations between the two countries began in 1903 in London and concluded with the signing of the FrancoBritish agreements on April 8, 1904. They definitively settled the issues concerning Egypt, Morocco, Newfoundland, French West Africa, Siam, Madagascar, and the New Hebrides. With regard to Morocco, the second article of the agreement confirmed the French rights over this territory and the political withdrawal of Great Britain.69 The French presence in Morocco was therefore growing. Delcassé was in favor of a broadening of France’s colonial domination and he took advantage of this somewhat confused situation to entrust Saint-René Taillandier, the French minister in Tangier, with the mission of meeting with the Moroccan Sultan Abdelaziz, in order to propose to him to announce a series of reforms, which

67 General bibliography on the first Morocco crisis: Jean-Claude Allain. Agadir 1911. Une crise impérialiste en Europe pour la conquête du Maroc. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1976. J.-H. Lasserre-Bigorry. Le mythe d’Algésiras. Étude sur le statut international du Maroc en matière économique. Politique étrangère 3, 1950, 317–341. Martin Mayer. Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung. Die Parlamente in Frankreich, Deutschland und Grossbritannien und die erste Marokkokrise 1904–1906. Düsseldorf: Droste, 2002. Abdelkrim Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine (1903– 1912). Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004. William Mulligan. The Origins of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Paul Webster, Fachoda. La bataille pour le Nil. Paris: Éd. du Félin, 2001. 68 For a history of the colonial party cf Charles-Robert Ageron. Le “parti” colonial. 2005. https://histoirecoloniale.net/le-parti-colonial-par-Charles.html [19 September 2019]. 69 On the Franco-German treaties, cf. Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine, 61–62.

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would primarily benefit France.70 However, this growing presence was not appreciated by the Sultan, who understood that Morocco’s independence was threatened. He thus resisted French interference in the administration of his country. Abdelaziz was not the only one worried about this. The reforms proposed by the French in Morocco were also of concern to Germany, which had economic interests in the region. The German emperor therefore decided to make a dramatic move: he landed on March 31, 1905 in Tangier to meet the sultan, parading on horseback through the city, surrounded by his entourage. He promised the Sultan that he would guarantee his sovereignty and the independence of his empire and spoke of the need to institute an open door policy in Morocco. This was a hard blow for France, which had completely neglected the possibility of German intervention. “All of a sudden, French penetration in Morocco was called into question by Germany’s entry on the scene. It was a crisis between two European countries over a colonial question, a crisis full of dangers for European peace”,71 summarizes historian Abdelkrim Mejri. This situation of uncertainty lasted a few months. In July, France and Germany reached a first agreement on Morocco, which included recognition by both countries of the integrity of the Moroccan Empire, the Sultan’s independence, and its economic freedom. In addition, the agreement recognized France’s privileged position in the country and the need to undertake reforms along the lines previously proposed by Saint-René Taillandier. It was also agreed that an international conference should be organized to definitively resolve the issue and that its program should be set in agreement with the Sultan. The conference took place on January 16, 1906 in Algeciras, with the participation of twelve states and three representatives of the Moroccan Empire. It constituted a peaceful conclusion of the crisis, forcing France to renounce, at least temporarily, to settle in Morocco. A set of reforms was elaborated there, which the Sultan committed himself to introduce in Morocco. France and Spain obtained a privileged position there, because the act signed in Algeciras recognized their right to assist the Sultan in the implementation and application of some of these reforms. Germany also 70 As described by Abdelkrim Mejri, this involved the reorganization of the Cherifian army, the creation of a police force, the foundation of a state bank, the control of Cherifian finances and public works and mining concessions for the benefit of French companies. Ibid., 73. 71 Ibid., 74.

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obtained privileges over the North African country, mainly in financial matters, an area in which France, Spain, and Great Britain were also at an advantage.72 The resolution of this first crisis, which saw Morocco as an involuntary protagonist, thus led to an “internationalization of Morocco, or even to the institution of a kind of international protectorate over Morocco”73 : the nerve centers of the country’s administration, economy, and finance remained in the hands of the sultan, but were controlled by several European powers. This situation lasted only until 1911, when the disputes between these powers triggered a new diplomatic crisis. A Slow and Cautious International Response The response of international socialism to the Moroccan crisis came in a staggered manner in relation to events, at the beginning of July 1905. Before then, for reasons to which we will return, the attitude of international socialism was rather passive, a consequence of the inertia of the SPD’s leading group.74 This inertia was, at first, general within the German party and resonated at the international level. After a spring that saw no socialist reaction to the current crisis, the situation evolved a little during the summer. Two demonstrations of international dimension were finally planned by members of the SPD for July 9. Why only then? Probably because of the gradual relaxation of the international situation—during the summer of 1905, the danger that the Russo-Japanese war would involve France or that the Moroccan crisis would develop into a war was a thing of the past. The first event was scheduled to take place in Berlin: its highlight was the presence of Jaurès, who was to give a speech there (Bebel had been invited to do the same in Paris). On the same day another event was to take place—this time in the city of Constance, in which the Swiss Herman Greulich, the Austrian Victor Adler and the 72 For more complete information on the Algeciras conference and the acts that were signed there cf. Lasserre-Bigorry, Le mythe d’Algésiras, 319–320 and Allain, Agadir 1911, 33–38, which insists on the consequences of the conference. Cf. as well: Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 49–62. 73 Ibid. 74 The passive attitude was not unique to the entire SPD, and not at all times. “In the summer of 1905, the German socialist press celebrated the union of the German and French proletariats with rare unanimity”. Dieter Groh, Jaurès und die deutsche Sozialdemokratie. In: Ulrike Brummert (ed). Jean Jaurès. Frankreich, Deutschland und die Zweite Internationale am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges. Tübingen: Narr, 1989, 21.

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Italian Angiolo Cabrini were invited to participate. The keynote speech at this event was to be given by SPD leader August Bebel.75 It should be noted that it was not the SPD board that takes the initiative to organize these three different events: the driving force behind these decisions was Kurt Eisner, editor in Vorwärts, who was supported by the social democracy groups of Berlin and Baden-Württemberg. The two manifestations were however subject to drastic government restrictions, which made them lose the international character that was their raison d’être: Chancellor Bülow gave the order to forbid Jaurès to enter Germany, so that he could not travel to Berlin. This initiative of the German government had a very important echo in the socialist press of both countries and became the target of numerous and unanimous criticisms. Similarly, the idea of Bebel’s move to Paris did not succeed. In reality Bülow, as Dieter Groh points out, “had nothing to object to the coming of Jaurès“, but rather worried about its probable consequences: the chancellor feared that a series of demonstrations by international social-democracy against his domestic policy might follow this Franco-German demonstration, which would shake up his country’s external positions.76 But this decision was also a diplomatic one. The consensus among the Germans, and above all among some of the conservatives, provoked by the French socialists’ demand for the resignation of Delcassé, could be an indication of secret collaboration between some members of French socialism and the German bureaucracy. It was the French daily Le Temps that put forward such a hypothesis. At a time when bourgeois fear of the “red danger” was spreading on all sides, such suspicion could only harm the German foreign office. The French ambassador himself agreed with the imperial decision to ban Jaurès from participating in the Berlin demonstration: interference in policy by a socialist—and especially by a foreigner one—would not do German diplomacy any good.77 Jaurès understood the situation in a different way: the socialists and the German Empire pursued the same goal, peace, “but because this affirmation of peace was the result of socialist thought, it seemed intolerable”.78 Bülow’s refusal showed

75 On details on these initiatives, cf. Ibid., 1–23. 76 Ibid., 16. 77 On this second reason of Bülow’s refusal, cf. Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie, 223. 78 Jean Jaurès, La peur du socialisme. L’Humanité, 7 July 1905.

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both the growing strength of the proletarian International, which obviously could only be stopped by force, and its ever-growing involvement in political issues, where it had become a pawn with equal weight on the international chessboard. According to Jaurès, who defined himself as a “companion in the struggle of the German socialists”, “this force for peace will be exercised, despite government prohibitions. It is already an excellent sign the unanimity with which the German and the French proletariat approved the socialist meeting in Berlin”.79 German press underlined this same unity. L’Humanité published Vorwärts’ observations on the subject: on the one hand, the German daily criticized the Chancellor for “playing into the hands of the French patriots, who will not fail to interpret his decision as a manifestation of Germany’s hatred of France” and on the other hand it invited “the fellow socialists to come en masse on Sunday to protest against the measure against the citizen Jaurès, who has done more for peace than all the French and German diplomats put together”.80 The two dailies thus showed that they believe in joint action by both parties. Vorwärts expressed its intention to publish—and indeed did it on the following Sunday—the speech that Jaurès should have given in Berlin81 and L’Humanité claimed that it was going to do the same.82 They thereby indicated their willingness to contribute to these expressions of Franco-German cohesion. In this speech, the SFIO leader used the Moroccan crisis, which he considered to be in the process of being resolved, as a pretext to begin a more general development on the means available to the socialists to oppose the war. Jaurès maintained on this occasion that an action against the war, “to be effective, should be international”. Welcoming the Russian example, he seemed more and more convinced that “from a European war can arise the revolution”. This had something in common with Richard Fischer’s speech in Berlin in replacement of Jaurès: according to Fischer, if a war broke out against “Millerand’s people”, it would lead to a situation similar to

79 Ibid. 80 La réunion de Berlin interdite. L’Humanité, 8 July 1905. 81 Die Friedensidee und die Solidarität des internationalen Proletariats. Vorwärts, 9 July

1905. 82 Le discours de Jaurès. L’Humanité, 8 July 1905.

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the one in Russia.83 And Bebel made the same statement the same day in Constance: “It can very easily happen to us something similar to what happened in Russia”.84 The events in Russia had indeed provoked a rise in optimism among the socialists. However, this was the only common ground between the two discourses. Very quickly, Jaurès formulated in his speech a true declaration of peace with Germany, wiping out the war of 1870, as well as the consequent loss of Alsace and Lorraine. In the name of the French socialists, he asserted that he repudiated “completely, today and forever, and whatever the conjectures of changing fortune may be, any thought of military revenge against Germany, any war of revenge”. He insisted on this point. According to him, the only guarantee of peace was that the French and German socialists “take an oath to abjure all pride, all hatred, all distrust, to work all together, with one and the same heart, to found the definitive peace of Germany and France”. From a practical point of view, he reiterated the importance of “a loyal and lasting understanding with Germany”. The union of the French and German proletariats could offer great results: “When therefore international socialism organizes itself to ensure peace between peoples through the suppression of capitalist privilege, through the emancipation of labor, it is not only against injustice and violence that it strives; it also struggles against the ambiguities and contradictions that in the long run distort the moral life of peoples. For this great work of social and moral revolution, the German and the French proletariat can do much by their union, by their common action. Our duty is loud and clear: always to propagate the idea, always to hope, always to struggle until the final victory of international social-democracy, the generator of justice and peace”. The speech continued with a long reflection on the international diplomatic alliances which were, according to Jaurès, the conditions for a lasting European peace.85 Jaurès’ venue was replaced, on the same day as planned, by a demonstration of the German socialists. The motto of the demonstration was the 83 Für den Weltkrieg des Proletariats! Gegen die Weltstörung durch Polizei und

Diplomatie. Vorwärts, 11 July 1905. 84 Die Friedenskundgebung in Konstanz. Vorwärts, 12 July 1905. 85 Jean Jaurès, La paix et le socialisme. Discours de Jaurès. L’Humanité, 9 July 1905.

The text of Jaurès’ speech can also be found in Vorwärts (Für den Weltkrieg des Proletariats Gegen die Weltstörung durch Polizei und Diplomatie. Vorwärts, 11 July 1905) and in Avanti! (La pace e il socialismo. Avanti!, 14 July 1905).

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protest against the Chancellor and “the idea of peace and the solidarity of the international reaction”.86 Jaurès sent a telegram to the demonstrators, a real call for unity between the two parties, which is read by Eugen Ernst, social-democrat collaborator of Vorwärts: Comrades! I am wholeheartedly with you and truly present at this assembly to affirm the union of the French proletariat and the German proletariat. They will work together to affirm world peace through the conquest of social justice and political freedom. Nothing can separate us, neither chauvinistic prejudices, nor government prohibitions, nor the crude artifices of diplomatic praise. We are all united, we are all the same; we have the same will, the same conscience. We cannot strike one without praising the other. It is a worn-out tactic of the leading classes of each country to oppose the socialists from within to the socialists from without. In reality it is yet another tribute to the strength of international socialism, which governments can only fight by trying to divide it. And it is all the more reason for all of us to cheer together for the one and indivisible international socialist democracy.87

As has been said, SPD member Richard Fischer gave the keynote speech at the Berlin event in place of Jaurès and his words “were often interrupted by enthusiastic approvals, especially when he ironically overwhelmed Bülow’s decision”.88 Fischer’s speech was indeed largely devoted to the ban formulated by the Chancellor. He incited the German proletariat to protest to underline its disagreement with the government’s decision not to bring Jaurès into Germany, thus showing, as the current demonstration was itself doing, that the government was weak in the face of social-democracy.89 The discourse continued in this sense, with Fischer primarily addressing issues internal to Germany and the SPD and openly polemicizing with the government. Referring to Jaurès’ speech, which was published that morning in Vorwärts, Fischer asserted that

86 La réunion de Berlin interdite. L’Humanité, 7 and 8 July 1905. It is a press review of the German newspapers on the issue. 87 Für den Weltkrieg des Proletariats! Gegen die Weltstörung durch Polizei und Diplomatie. Vorwärts, 11 July 1905. 88 Le meeting de Berlin. L’Humanité, 10 July 1905. 89 Für den Weltkrieg des Proletariats! Gegen die Weltstörung durch Polizei und

Diplomatie. Vorwärts, 11 July 1905.

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“his fundamental idea is also the common good of international socialdemocracy”,90 before commenting on the various points dealt with by the French leader. He concluded with a statement made in the name of the SPD: “Social-democracy will remain as it was and will be what it is: the unfailing representative and precursor of the peoples’ peace against all hostile efforts, whether they come from parties or governments”,91 but did not venture into declarations of solidarity with France. L’Humanité, in its abstract of Fischer’s speech, emphasized his protests against Bülow’s decision and his praise of Jaurès, who “showed the same civic courage as Bebel and Liebknecht when, in 1870, they protested against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine”.92 Then an answer to Jaurès written by the Berlin social-democratic group is read by Eduard Bernstein, acclaimed by the crowd. The text was along the same lines as that of the French leader himself, entirely devoted to underlining the unity of purpose of the socialists in both countries93 : “[…] international proletarian socialism is repairing the fracture of European democracy, filling the abyss that thirtyfive years ago the war of the leading classes dug between the working classes of France and Germany”.94 The event in Constance, which took place on Sunday, July 9, had also undergone some changes: it was supposed to take place from beginning to end in this city, but the ban imposed by the Baden administration changed the program and the event, at the initiative of Bebel, who was invited to give a speech, was held in two parts. First, the participants gathered in Konstanz, where Bebel delivered his speech, and then they walked the few kilometers that separated them from Kreuzlingen, the Swiss village closest to the German border. There they were welcomed by the Austrian, Swiss, and Italian delegates Victor Adler, Herman Greulich and Mario Todeschini (not Angiolo Cabrini, as announced), who were unable to make it to Constance. The daily newspaper Vorwärts reported:

90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Le meeting de Berlin. L’Humanité, 10 July 1905. 93 “You have translated in a very expressive way the feeling which animates us all, which

animates the workers of Germany as well as the workers of France”, Le meeting de Berlin, ibid. 94 Ibid.

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Yesterday, Sunday,95 the small medieval town of Constance saw a crowd of over ten thousand people who had followed the invitation of the local comrades to the international fraternity festival called by themselves. From Württemberg, Bavaria, Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Tyrol and Switzerland, special trains and vaporettos brought thousands of new people again and again: Germans, Italians, partly even Russians arriving from Switzerland. Such a number of people had not stayed in the city since the days of the Council of Constance, which is remembered everywhere in the city by many monuments.96

The newspaper described a festive crowd, carrying red scarves and banners, as soldiers in the barracks were ready to face a revolution in the city. Around eleven o’clock in the morning, the police prohibited the display of red flags and those decorating the stands where speeches were held must be removed. Bebel still delivered his speech there. He first praised the actions of Jaurès in France, his commitment to the opposition to the war and to the reunification of the different French socialist parties into one big unitary party. Then he too criticized Bülow, denouncing his willingness to turn German and French proletarians against each other and condemning the government’s ban on foreign comrades to visit and give speeches at demonstrations in Berlin and Constance. In a very optimistic way (even if one might wonder whether this is mere windowdressing optimism),97 he declared himself sure of the fact that “today a war is not possible if the people oppose its ban”98 and he then listed the progress made by the SPD after the end of the Bismarckian Anti-Socialist Laws. In his conclusion, his speech took up internationalist accents, Bebel pronouncing on this occasion a tribute to solidarity between peoples and against the bourgeoisie.99 Bülow’s ban turned both demonstrations into protests against the government, depriving them of their original character, namely the common socialist disapproval in different countries of the international political situation. However, there was no shortage of declarations of international solidarity in both Fischer’s and Bebel’s 95 The article was published on July 11th, but is dated July 10th. 96 Die Friedenskundgebung in Konstanz und erneute Reaktionsblamage. Vorwärts, 11

July 1905. 97 On Bebel’s optimism in the summer of 1905, see the following paragraph. 98 La pace e il socialismo. Avanti!, 14 July 1905. 99 Ibid.

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speeches. The demonstrators therefore moved to Kreuzlingen, where Adler and Greulich spoke (the Italian delegate did not intervene). They criticized harshly, as Bebel had done a few hours earlier in Germany, the Baden’s government ban and Bülow’s ban imposed to Jaurès. Finally, a resolution was unanimously approved in which those present declared their commitment “in the future as in the past […] for the maintenance of peace among the peoples, a necessary condition for the liberation of the proletariat from the political and economic chains of the class state and for the transformation of capitalist society into a socialist society”.100 Socialists Confronting the Morocco Crisis The Moroccan crisis had a strong Franco-German character.101 The scenario was different from that of the Russian-Japanese war: that allows to analyze how French and German socialists reacted when their countries were involved identically in a situation of international tension. Such an important circumstance for the political situation in both countries was of course amply commented on by their socialist representatives, who reacted very differently to events. The parliamentary group of French socialists was fully committed to finding a way to resolve the situation. The SFIO, which had just been formed by bringing together the different French socialist currents, was immediately confronted with the other major issues that occupied the French political space, such as the debate for the approval of the law for the separation of Church and State, which involved it at the same time as the Morocco crisis. Its reaction to Moroccan events was on the whole fairly unified, except for a few critical voices. The direct cause of this unity of action and thought was probably to be found in the recent creation of the party. The reaction of the SPD, on the other hand, was much less assertive, to the point that its members were accused by both internal party personalities (Robert Michels)102 and by their French and Italian comrades of not acting sufficiently. However, the issue was much more complex than that, because the attitude of the 100 Francis de Pressensé, Un débat nécessaire. L’Humanité, 10 July 1915. 101 Allain, Agadir 1911, 37–38. Dufour, Un siècle de crises internationales, 55. Candar

and Duclert, Jean Jaurès, 323. 102 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten zu Jena vom 17. bis -23. September 1905. Berlin, 1905 (cited next as: Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1905), 216.

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SPD parliamentary group was very different from that of its more radical representatives. In France The declarations of the French socialist representatives were not long in coming after the visit of William II to Tangier. Above all, what aroused their indignation was Delcassé’s attitude: urged by the Senate to express itself on the Moroccan situation, the minister did not comment on the turmoil caused by the visit of the German emperor. He continued to treat the issue as if it were purely Franco-English. For their part, socialist parliamentarians accused him of having made a mistake by leaving Germany out of all arrangements on Morocco.103 Jaurès and his group were the first in the Parliament to pronounce the word “Germany” in relation to Morocco, after having previously denounced the attitude of the minister in the pages of L’Humanité.104 Francis de Pressensé was one of the harshest critics of the minister’s silence—which he often took as a target— and he even went so far as to accuse him of experiencing an “old ferment tainted with Germanophobia”.105 “The events that followed the Tangier crisis brought Jaurès to the forefront of the campaign against the goals pursued by France in North Africa. While expressing confidence in German social-democracy, he had no illusions about the immediate possibilities of the International”106 : this is how Georges Haupt sums up Jaurès’ attitude in 1905. As Gilles Candar and Vincent Duclert pointed out, the French leader, “for a long time a colonial leader, slowly evolved on these issues” over the years.107 103 Until then, two main agreements had in fact sought to unravel the situation in the North African country: a Franco-English agreement on April 8, 1904 and a FrancoSpanish agreement on October 3 of the same year. Cf. Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine, 74. 104 Jean Jaurès. Parole et silence. L’Humanité, 1 April 1905. Francis de Pressensé. La grande pensée de M. Delcassé. L’Humanité, 2 avril 1905. Francis de Pressensé. Doit-il le dire? L’Humanité, 9 April 1905. Rémi Fabre speaks, in his biography of Francis de Pressensé, of a “daily campaign led by the socialists against Delcassé from April to June 1905”. Rémi Fabre. Francis de Pressensé et la défense des droits de l’homme. Un intellectuel au combat, Rennes: PUR, 2004, 365. 105 Francis de Pressensé, Le Maroc, l’Allemagne et M. Delcassé. L’Européen, 8 April 1905, quoted from: Fabre, Francis de Pressensé, 366. 106 Haupt (ed), Bureau socialiste international, 146n. 107 Candar and Duclert, Jean Jaurès. Paris: Fayard, 2014, 323.

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And this evolution was precisely ongoing when the Morocco crisis arose. He began to prefer a policy of “peaceful penetration” to that of colonial pressures, opposing the idea of creating real protectorates in “colonial” countries and advocating a more decentralized approach. In this way, control would not be exercised over the sultan from above, but would penetrate the structure of the country: in order to do so, European countries must exercise power directly over the various tribes present on the territory.108 His views still evolved during the crisis: Jaurès became little by little the partisan of the institution in Morocco of a kind of international protectorate, under the joint legislation of the European countries. More precisely, he spoke of an “international organization of control and guarantee”.109 France would have everything to gain in such a situation: if, indeed, an international regulation of police and finance maintained order in Morocco, a regulation that would not be the sole responsibility of France, it would only find advantages, thus safeguarding its “legitimate interests”.110 Jaurès thus envisaged a solution for the North African country: “What are we asking of Morocco? Order on our borders, security for foreign residents and traffickers, a financial organization that guarantees the debts of the past and allows the normal development of the resources of the empire. When this is achieved, when Morocco begins to organize itself, France’s economic activity will naturally be carried out there, through the Algerian border as well as through the Mediterranean”.111 But that was not all. Peaceful penetration had another goal, the highest according to the French politician. Once order reigned in the country, it would make possible the civilization of its populations: “The day when all the countries of Europe would be interested in the maintenance of order, the good financial management, the development of works of public utility and exchanges in Morocco, the day when they would be reassured by the principle of the open door and by international agreements against any exclusive company and any policy of monopole, this day the sultan would certainly bow before the force of the united Europe and he would let develop civilization in his

108 This would primarily involve the construction of infrastructures. 109 Jean Jaurès. La question marocaine. L’Humanité, 2 September 1905. 110 Jean Jaurès. Au Maroc. L’Humanité, 31 August 1905. 111 Jean Jaurès. Le point vif. L’Humanité, 6 September 1905.

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empire”.112 To this end Jaurès, supported by the members of his parliamentary group, proclaimed very soon after the beginning of the crisis the need to negotiate with Germany in order to avoid any international complication.113 He insisted on holding an international conference with the aim of resolving the question of Morocco in a unitary and definitive manner.114 On April 4, 1905, the first parliamentary initiative of the French socialists was announced by Jaurès.115 He said he wanted to interpellate the government on the Moroccan question and Franco-German relations. In its meeting, the socialist parliamentary group gave him and Francis de Pressensé the mandate to submit to Parliament a request for interpellation on Morocco. The citizens Vaillant and Sembat associated themselves, in the name of the revolutionary socialist group, with this demand, which was formulated as follows: “We ask to question the minister of Foreign Affairs on the situation in Morocco and on the relations between France and Germany. Jaurès, Pressensé, Vaillant, Sembat“. The next day, during the parliamentary session, Jaurès insisted at length on the importance of this interpellation, asking his colleagues to deal and speak as soon as possible about “this very important and urgent issue”.116 April 5, 1905 was a Wednesday: interpellations are normally discussed during the Friday session, however there was no real debate on the subject on April 7. Delcassé gave a short speech which ended with the decision to postpone the discussion, if the crisis was not resolved, to an undetermined date. He was almost certain that he had not to face this discussion because, according to him, the situation had soon calmed down. Jaurès welcomed this position of the minister of Foreign Affairs. On the other hand, he 112 Jean Jaurès. La question marocaine. L’Humanité, 2 September 1905. 113 Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine, 75n. 114 “It is through the international conference now that the policy of peaceful penetration can be taken up by us. […] it is necessary […] that the work of the international conference be serious, and taken seriously by all the powers participating in it”. Jean Jaurès. Le point vif. L’Humanité, 6 September 1905. 115 On the actions of the French socialists in the face of the Moroccan crisis, we will rely on the study of Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine. More precisely on the attitude of Jaurès towards the Moroccan question, we point out the work of Rémi Fabre. Jaurès et le Maroc. Un long combat pour la paix et le droit des peoples. Paris: Fondation Jean Jaurès, 2015. 116 Séance du 5 avril 1905, Chambre des députés, Journal officiel de la République du 6 avril 1905, 1247.

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stated that his “concerns remain and that his words [those of the minister] have not completely dissipated them […] because the minister of Foreign Affairs seems stubbornly not to recognize the changes that have taken place”.117 Jaurès referred to the new position of Germany. However, the socialist leader accepted the adjournment of the discussion and the question of the interpellation stopped there. No more words were said on this subject in the pages of the daily newspapers or magazines, nor in the parliamentary sessions. But the opposition to Delcassé’s policies and their consequences on events in Morocco continued in the pages of L’Humanité, which undertook a tenacious campaign calling for a prompt resolution of the crisis. The request for the resignation of the minister of Foreign Affairs was seen as a necessary step toward calming the situation. Jean Jaurès and Francis de Pressensé spoke for the desire of the French socialists of all trends to ask Delcassé to resign. The two leaders’ strongest criticism of Delcassé was his choice to ignore Germany’s intentions toward Morocco and the fact that he did not even bother to inform the neighboring country about the agreements signed in April of the previous year with England, which were supposed to settle the Moroccan question. Jaurès ended up asking, in his April 1 editorial, whether Delcassé was “playing a game of hide-and-seek with the difficulties”,118 while de Pressensé pointed out “the fundamental tendency of Mr. Delcassé’s policy of ignoring Germany”.119 In the words of Jaurès, Delcassé, informed by the Senate “of the things of Morocco and of the attitude of part of the German press”, replied “as if he had not heard the word Germany”.120 Jaurès thus accused him of spoiling, by this attitude, “the only great and good thing he has done”, the agreement with England. He blamed him, along with Germany, for the current crisis and the fact that it could lead to war at any moment. Other articles in this spirit followed in L’Humanité throughout the month of April.121 In his

117 Séance du 7 avril 1905, Chambre des députés, Journal officiel de la République du 8 avril 1905, 1251. 118 Jean Jaurès. Parole et silence. L’Humanité, 1 April 1905. 119 Francis de Pressensé. Doit-il le dire? L’Humanité, 9 April 1905. 120 Ibid. 121 Francis de Pressensé. La grande pensée de M. Delcassé. L’Humanité, 2 April 1905. Francis de Pressensé. Doit-il le dire? L’Humanité, 9 April 1905. Jean Jaurès. Voie ouverte. L’Humanité, 10 April 1905.

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editorial of the 24th, Jaurès finally formulated the request for the resignation of the minister: “If Mr. Delcassé abused the false situation in which he placed the country to continue underhandedly the very policy that has thrown us into this embarrassment, if he did not use his survival to repair the most deplorable effects of his vain and clumsy bias, he would be the most guilty of men. Let the government beware: by keeping him, it has assumed responsibility for his actions, and therefore has a duty to control him”.122 Delcassé resigned on June 6. Jaurès welcomed this event as the beginning of the relaxation of the relations between France and Germany.123 As it has been pointed out, according to Jaurès, in order to resolve the crisis and prevent future ones, Morocco should become a kind of international protectorate. This could be achieved through a new international conference. Following the resignation of the minister, diplomatic relations between Germany and France were relaxing a little. The socialist group believed that the time had come to organize a meeting to resolve the dispute once and for all. This was, quite simply, the application of the principle of international arbitration, of which Jaurès had always been a fervent supporter. On the other hand, as early as July 1905, Édouard Vaillant was already enthusiastic about Henry Hyndman’s proposal124 to call for a new meeting of the ISB in order to “seek the most appropriate international measures to avert the threat of war, as in the recent Moroccan case, and to anticipate and prevent it by an agreement and an organized preparation, to that purpose, of the socialist parties of the various countries”.125 An international diplomatic assembly and a renewed meeting between international socialists: this was what the French socialists were asking for after Delcassé’s resignation, in order to seriously face the crisis and possible future international tensions.

122 Jean Jaurès. L’un et l’autre. L’Humanité. 24 April 1905. 123 Jean Jaurès. Le commencement. L’Humanité, 7 July 1905 and Mejri, Les socialistes

français et la question marocaine, 76. 124 Immediately after Delcassé’s resignation, Henry Hyndman, an English socialist belonging to the Marxist current, sent a letter to the ISB headquarters in Brussels requesting an immediate meeting of the Bureau. “His motivation was really vague (since the arrival of William II in Tangier ‘something unusual is happening’)”. Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie, 221. 125 Georges Haupt (ed). Bureau socialiste international, 175 (letter of July 21, 1905).

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Reaction to Reaction: Wait-and-See Attitude of the German Social-Democrats The most complete reports of what was happening among the French socialists at this time of international tension can be found in the German socialist press and above all in Vorwärts. In fact, it described, day after day and in a very careful manner, the actions undertaken by the French comrades regarding the Moroccan events. Comments on their attitude followed one another and much attention was paid to the speeches of French socialist leaders on the subject. The German socialists, for their part, tended to do nothing: they observed what was happening in the neighboring country, but without taking the initiative and sometimes making a few critics about the actions undertaken by the French comrades. If during the Russo-Japanese war their lack of initiative was justified by their lesser involvement, in the crisis in Morocco the Germans were nevertheless as involved as the French. The only explanation for such an attitude lied in their skepticism toward the ability and willingness of their comrades across the Rhine to take any action to confront the danger. In spite of this enormous attention of the socialist press toward the French comrades, neither the parliamentary group nor the leading group showed the same attitude. Georges Haupt spoke on this occasion of the “wait-and-see attitude of the German socialists” which, according to the historian of international socialism, “contrasted singularly with the firmness of the French socialists, who led a sustained campaign in the press and in the Chamber of Deputies”.126 The French parliamentary interpellation of 5 April seemed to reawaken the interest of the German social-democrats in what their counterparts across the Rhine were undertaking in those early months of 1905. From one day to the next, the efforts of the French socialists began to occupy substantial space in the columns of German daily newspapers and socialist journals. The interpellation was described, quoted, and commented on over the course of the days and the debates were closely followed. An article in Vorwärts on 6 April announced the news of this initiative undertaken by the French parliamentary group as follows: “The socialists want to ask during Friday’s parliamentary session that their interpellation be discussed without delay. The French Socialists aspire to the improvement of Franco-German relations and at the same time share the objective of social-democracy to

126 Ibid., 146n.

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succeed in getting rid of the resentment provoked by diplomacy”.127 This description by Vorwärts made the content of the interpellation more radical than it was in reality. Certainly the French socialists really aspired to what the German daily writes, notably to improve relations between the two countries, but the last point of Vorwärts’ article was not mentioned in the French text, which in fact limited itself to affirming, in an absolutely neutral manner, the will to question the Parliament on Franco-German relations. The demand for Delcassé’s resignation was also the focus of the German social-democrats’ attention. The fact that their French comrades were doing “everything to force Minister Delcassé to negotiate with Germany”,128 even going so far as to ask him to resign, was the subject of regular discussions, articles, and comments. However, reporting on what was happening in the neighboring country did not mean supporting its initiatives. On the contrary, in the case of Delcassé’s resignation, it was rather an internal German polemic that occupied the SPD representatives: the demand of the French socialists was more strongly supported and backed by the German conservatives than by the social-democrats. Indeed, supporters of Bülow’s government policy in Morocco also wanted the French minister to resign, but for reasons obviously different from those of the socialists across the Rhine. In fact, in the conservative and pro-government press in Germany, statements of support for the French socialists’ initiative had followed one after another. Seeing the conservatives in their country supporting socialists seemed to come as a great surprise to the SPD representatives, as these were the same conservatives who would never support any of their business and who were ready to call them “unpatriotic” as soon as they dared to criticize Bülow’s policies.129 Their position was therefore delicate: by aligning themselves with the initiative of their French comrades, they would find themselves sharing the position of their country’s conservatives. Otherwise, they would seem to renounce their support for the French socialists. The journal Die Neue Zeit published only one article on “Morocco and French colonial policy” (“Marokko und die Kolonialpolitik Frankreichs”). Charles Rappoport, its author, criticized the colonial thought of Jaurès. The choice of Rappoport as the sole commentator on these events

127 Marokko. Vorwärts, 6 April 1905. 128 Zur Marokkofrage. Vorwärts, 12 April 1905. 129 Ibid.

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in the journal was not meaningless. This French socialist activist of Lithuanian origin had often been critical of Jaurès’ thinking and more generally of the actions undertaken by French socialist leaders. Above all, he was reticent about any socialist participation in a bourgeois government and considered Jaurès’ reformist strategy illusory.130 With regard more specifically to the issues of peace and war and the conduct that he and his comrades must have, he was a proponent of the most orthodox pacifist cause. Die Neue Zeit, by choosing Rappoport as the sole commentator on the international situation and the colonial question in France in this period of crisis, thus took a very clear position. In doing so, it also showed that even some French socialists were critical of Jaurès’ attitude (and thus also of the attitude of the SFIO parliamentary group). This choice took on a very important significance, because it justified part of German social-democracy in its criticism of the attitude of part of the SFIO in crisis situations. And Rappoport did not disappoint expectations: on the one hand, he praised the attitude of “Jaurès and the socialists” regarding the Moroccan crisis: “The great orator is always on the front line, he doesn’t let any incident go by without jamming the government. For that, he needs real courage, because the bourgeois parties reproach him for taking care of the affairs of foreign countries in all indiscretion”.131 On the theoretical level, however, Rappoport was very critical of his comrade. He rejected the notion of peaceful penetration, formulated and so strongly supported by Jaurès, which according to him had merely a “utopian character”.132 In fact, he called this doctrine “socialist colonization”,133 thus retaining in its formulation the term “colonization” which Jaurès tried so hard to eliminate and which maintained the impression that it was in fact a violation, an imposition on a country. More generally, he considered it improbable that someone coming from a capitalist system could settle in a foreign country peacefully and driven by a kind of socialist civilizing mission: “To require a socialist colonial policy on the part of 130 Marc Lagana. Présentation. Charles Rappoport, un marxiste internationaliste. In: Harvey Golberg and Georges Haupt (eds). Charles Rappoport. Une vie révolutionnaire, 1883–1940. Les mémoires de Charles Rappoport. Paris: Ed. de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1991, 2. 131 Charles Rappoport. Marokko und die Kolonialpolitik Frankreichs. Neue Zeit 22, 1908, 755. 132 Ibid., 756. 133 Ibid.

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a capitalist society is as utopian as asking the Russian czar to act in a republican manner. Building capitalist colonies using socialist methods is as impossible as introducing a socialist society into colonies set up within the capitalist order. This is the clearest utopia, long known in the field of colonial politics”.134 However, the opinion expressed by Die Neue Zeit was not shared by all German social-democrats. Some of them even adopted the government’s point of view. In his writings for the revisionistleaning journal Sozialistische Monatshefte, Max Schippel left aside the astonishment expressed by his comrades at the German government’s attitude toward the French socialists. It aligned itself with the convictions expressed by the latter, and therefore with the judgments made by the German conservatives, and declared itself in agreement with the initiatives they had taken. Max Schippel was pleased that the French comrades had recognized the German point of view as well-founded, i.e., they too believed that the attitude of their foreign minister toward Germany was not correct. He therefore welcomed their efforts to force Delcassé to resign. He also supported their call for a new international conference.135 In the pages of Bernstein’s journal, this conviction was carried to its climax by Richard Calwer, who held one of the most right-wing positions among the German revisionists. It was anything but insignificant that a member of the most right wing of the SPD was the author of all the articles on the Moroccan crisis in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, except for the one by Schippel, which we have just cited. Calwer defined himself as a “German social-democrat”, showing the priority he gave to his national affiliation rather than to his membership in a socialist international community. On the whole, he supported the German government’s colonial initiatives: “As a German socialist, however, I want Germany to reach the peak of economic progress as far as possible. This also implies that Germany should develop its political power”.136 He went on to assert that he did not want in any way to “risk that the capitalist foreigner gains, vis-à-vis Germany, one advantage after another”.137 He was in all points in the colonial game, finding nothing to say against the initiative taken by 134 Ibid. 135 Max Schippel. Die französische Handelspolitik in den Kolonien. Neue Zeit 9, 1905,

356. 136 Richard Calwer. Das Fazit der Marokkoaffäre. Sozialistische Monatshefte 5, 1906,

356. 137 Ibid.

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Emperor William to land in Tangier, because he shared with his government the desire that Germany had more power in Morocco. The reason was that “the socialist also has to admit in this case that Germany could not bear in silence the non-respect and the fact of feeling put at a disadvantage by England and France”.138 Calwer finally stated: “And when one asks whether the outcome of the Moroccan case favors the political and economic development of the capitalist system in the direction indicated, as a social-democrat one can remain rather passive in front of all the action or also bitterly criticize some side effects, but there is not a sufficient reason to judge the action in itself”.139 Regarding Delcassé’s resignation, the question underlying the German social-democrats’ positions was not whether they support the French comrades or not, but rather their positioning vis-à-vis their own government. However, through this example, we also notice that the socialist representatives of the two countries did not share the same a priori—in particularly Rappoport’s words didn’t. Until then, in any case, the SPD had only waited for the events to unfold, paying much attention to the actions of their French comrades. The difference between the will of the SPD’s ruling group and the actions of their French comrades would first become apparent when the secretary of the German social-democratic Party refused to comply with the ISB’s request to call a new international meeting to deal with the events. As we saw in the previous chapter, this request was made by the British socialist Henry Hyndman and obtained the enthusiastic favors of Édouard Vaillant in France. The call for a new international socialist meeting was indeed what the SFIO leaders aspire to, with Jaurès himself being the first to support this need. However, the leading figures of German socialdemocracy did not seem to share this enthusiasm: August Bebel was openly opposed to the proposal.140 According to the German leader, the international situation was not serious enough to make necessary a new meeting of the members of the Board and he wrote to Camille Huysmans, the director of the ISB, on June 25, 1905: “We cannot admit that the Moroccan events have taken a character that would justify a meeting

138 Ibid. 139 Ibid., 360. 140 Unfortunately, we did not find statements by other SPD members contrary to the

opinion of the party leaders.

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and a voting by us”.141 Indeed, no new meeting of the ISB took place before March 1906, once the Morocco crisis was over. On this occasion, it was again up to the Frenchman Vaillant to deal with questions concerning international crises and conflicts and to propose a resolution on the measures to be taken in case of menace or declaration of war.142 According to historian Martin Mayer, the reason Bebel did not want an ISB meeting is because of issues of balance of influence within the Bureau itself. The German leader knew that in general social-democratic initiatives in response to the Moroccan crisis were strongly bilateral, specifically Franco-German. Bebel argued that this should remain unchanged, while Britain’s Hyndman sought to bring this into play. An example of this was what happened when Jaurès received an invitation from Kurt Eisner, director of Vorwärts, to speak in Berlin in the name of peace and friendship between the two peoples. When this request was made public, Hyndman was in Paris. He took the opportunity to meet with the SFIO leader and tried to convince him, without success, not to go to Berlin. The Englishman thus shows his fear that his French and German comrades might get too close.143 According to Mayer, it seemed very obvious that if Bebel wanted to avoid a meeting of the ISB, it was to deprive his English comrade of the possibility of having the SPD’s policy in Brussels condemned.144 In addition, the beginning of the Moroccan crisis gave rise to enmity between Hyndman and Bebel. Bebel’s blatant lack of reaction to the decisions taken by the Reichstag and to William II’s trip to Tangier did not go unnoticed. Hyndman was the first to open up to the BSI, in a letter sent to Huysmans on 7 June 1905, in which he stated that the SPD had not yet “made the slightest attempt to influence the policy of [his] government”.145 Indeed, the leader of the SPD

141 Letter from August Bebel to Camille Huysmans of 25 July 1905. In: Anneliese Beske and Eckhard Müller (eds). August Bebel, Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften 9: Briefe von 1899 bis 1913. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1997, 99. 142 Georges Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale. Étude critique des sources. Essai bibliographique. Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967, 262. 143 Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie, 221. 144 Ibid., 223. Cf. also Dieter Groh and Peter Brandt. Vaterlandslose Gesellen.

Sozialdemokratie und Nation 1860–1990. Munich: Beck, 1992, 96–97. The episode is also quoted in Callahan, Demonstration Culture, 226. 145 “Dear Comrade Huysmans, If ever there was a time when the ISB had to be convened, it seems to me that this is the present time. It is useless to hide from

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seemed, by his attitude, to believe neither that the socialists would have done anything in case of war, nor that the union between the French and German peoples could be sincere and have any effect in any way.146 We thus find here a certain caution, on the part of both the SPD leadership group and Hyndman, with regard to the issues that internationalization can bring with it. The action undertaken by Hyndman to ask Jaurès not to go to Berlin was strong and showed that the fear of a Franco-German axis was more powerful than the support for international socialist initiatives of protest against what was happening in Morocco. Bebel’s attitude showed on the other hand the fear that England could gain influence. In this example, it was the links between France, Germany, and Great Britain that were at stake and this triangulation followed its internal logic, independent of the International. French and Italians Facing the German Attitude This lack of initiative on the part of the Germans did not go unnoticed in France, Italy, or even Germany. Jaurès made some observation on this underlining the difference between the measures that the French wanted to adopt and the immobility of the Germans, but he did not seem to want to be too critical. His point of view on the situation was very clearly summarized in these few lines written on April 24, 1905 in L’Humanité: There are probably enough healthy forces in both peoples to prevent this disaster and to bring both governments back to equity and common sense. The seemingly contrary language of the French and German socialists was astonishing. Basically, they agreed. All of them were working to repress bad chauvinistic thoughts, to put down the excessive pretensions of the two peoples or of the two governments; and the German socialists denounced above all the faults of German diplomacy, the French socialists denounced

ourselves that the international situation is particularly frightening. Our French comrades have done their utmost to avoid any unpleasantness between France and Germany. Our German comrades, unfortunately, have not yet recognized that something unusual is happening, nor have they made the slightest attempt to influence the policy of their government. Needless to say, relations between England and Germany are not too cordial at the moment. In such a situation, a general meeting of the International Socialist Bureau should have a beneficial effect”. Letter from Henry Mayers Hyndman to Camille Huysmans of 7 juni 1905. In: Haupt (ed). Bureau socialiste international, 146. 146 Groh and Brandt, Vaterlandslose Gesellen, 96.

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above all the faults of French diplomacy. When this attitude will prevail in international relations, peace and justice will be assured.147

We find in this article by Jaurès the dilemma of the propagandist that we discussed in the introduction of this work. Jaurès overplayed here the solidity of Franco-German relations: he wanted to show that all was going well, but he was aware that there were problems. Other representatives of socialism, be they French, German, or Italian, expressed more openly the real stakes behind this Jaurès’ propagandist benevolence. In Germany itself, the most virulent criticism of the SPD came from Robert Michels, a great figure of international socialism and the main German collaborator of the Mouvement socialiste, in which he signed 19 articles until 1913. He denounced the impotence of the SPD in a retrograde country that granted omnipotence to the emperor, while the bourgeoisie formed a united block against socialism. Moreover, Michels lamented the lack of revolutionary tradition within the German workers’ movement. In addition, he was a member of the PSI, participated in many PSI and SPD Congresses, and was Italy’s delegate to the sessions of the International.148 At the time of the Jena congress, his “sympathy for French revolutionary syndicalism was known everywhere”149 and it was there that he delivered a highly critical speech about socialdemocracy. He attributed to his party the fault to have made international socialism believe, through its inaction, that the SPD supported government enterprises in Morocco.150 But it was in his study Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie im internationalen Verbande, published in 1907, that his criticism was most severe: “The decadence of the hegemony of German social-democracy in international socialism is a result of its impotence”,151 he said. According to Michels, the SPD’s attitude in the spring of 1905 contributed greatly to its loss of international credibility vis-à-vis the other socialist parties, mainly because of the difference between the 147 Jean Jaurès. L’un et l’autre. L’Humanité, 24 April 1905. 148 Cf. Katharina Keller, Modell SPD? Italienische Sozialisten

und

deutsche

Sozialdemokratie bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Bonn: Dietz, 1994, 117–130. 149 Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Les socialismes français et allemand et le problème de la guerre, 1870–1914. Geneva: Droz, 1953, 276. 150 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1905, 217. 151 Robert Michels. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie im internationalen Verbande. Archiv

für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 25, 1907, 190.

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revolutionary position of the SFIO and the isolation of the SPD.152 The representatives of Italian socialism, on the other hand, did not seem very concerned by what was at stake between France and Germany regarding the situation in Morocco. The events of 1905 found little room for debate among members of the PSI. In the correspondence of Filippo Turati and Anna Kuliscioff, who exchanged almost daily on issues occupying Italian and, to a lesser extent, international politics, no reference to Moroccan events are to find. The only news about Morocco that seemed to attract the attention of the Italian socialists was Bebel’s refusal to support a new ISB meeting. Avanti! also gave very little information on the attitude of German and French socialists to the Moroccan question. However, it quoted in full, in the name of transparency, Bebel’s letter to Huysmans in which he stated his disagreement with the ISB meeting. As already pointed out, a complex thought concerning the balances of international socialism lied behind this declaration. The Italian newspaper, probably for propaganda reasons, gave Bebel’s words a different meaning. For the author of the article, this was neither an underestimation of the international danger, nor a lack of confidence in the effective possibility of ISB action. For him, Bebel saw no need for a Bureau meeting because he firmly believed in the will of his people to oppose with all their strengths the outbreak of a war against France. And, he added, “this is now confirmed by the fact that the Berlin socialists and Vorwärts have invited Jean Jaurès to a public gathering in Berlin”.153 The Italian daily therefore tended to emphasize the desire for peace of the Germans and to bring together all the social-democrats, without taking differences into account. On reading this article, it seemed that Bebel had the same positions as the Berlin socialist group and Vorwärts. The article’s concluding statement (“This is how, now, Jaurès in Berlin will be the new symbol of international solidarity”)154 highlighted the editor’s desire to show that socialism, German, and international, was united and unanimous. It was the same will that was shown as the Italian daily newspaper dealt with the ban on Jaurès going to Berlin. On July 7, Avanti! published Bülow’s telegram to the German ambassador in Paris, Radolin, informing him of the

152 Ibid., 190–205. 153 La politica estera del partito socialista. Avanti!, 3 July 1905. 154 Ibid.

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ban and then, on July 8, Jaurès’ reaction: “The diplomatic declaration – said Jaurès – through which the Chancellor of the German Reich forbids the Berlin meeting is a decisive symptom of the continuous increase of socialism, of its ever-growing strength and its international diffusion”.155 This confidence shown by Italian socialism in the will of international socialism to affirm its union is also to be found during the crisis of July 1914. The PSI did not want to take a stand and remains in a position that cannot even be described as a “wait-and-see” attitude. The lack of debate on the subject was glaring, as was later the case in France.156 Italian socialists did not yet participate in international life, as internal party issues involved them much more. This was no longer the case in 1911. After the Crisis Bebel displayed completely new arrangements at the Jena congress, the first SPD congress since the end of the Moroccan crisis: the situation was calm and the decision to call for a new international conference had been taken. The leader of the SPD stated that nobody thought, during the summer of 1905, that a war could break out and that in general everything must be done to oppose the war. This attitude was not limited to the SPD, the French comrades being, according to him, “animated by the same feeling as the German workers”.157 He then continued the polemic against Bülow about the absence of Jaurès at the Berlin demonstration.158 Discussions on the Moroccan question stopped here. The great debate that animated the meeting in Jena was actually about another major issue, that of the general strike in case of violation of “the right to universal, equal, direct and secret voting” or of “the right to coalition”.159 On the bangs of this debate, the topic that interested most the opponents of the labor movement was the party’s attitude toward foreign policy and antimilitarist propaganda. Two resolutions along these lines were proposed 155 Il divieto di Bülow a Giovanni Jaurès. Avanti!, 10 July 1905. 156 It should be noted that there is not a word about the crisis in Morocco either in

the most important theoretical review of the PSI, Critica sociale, or in the correspondence we have read. 157 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1905, 35. 158 Ibid. 159 Resolution n. 151: Der politische Massenstreik und die Sozialdemokratie, das allgemeine, gleiche, direkte und geheime Wahlrecht and die Koalitionsfreiheit. Ibid., 142.

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by the party leadership and approved by the congress: one was a declaration of peace and friendship toward the English socialists; the other criticized Bülow’s bans on participating in the demonstrations in Berlin and Constance in July 1905.160 This second resolution was an opportunity for the SPD members present in Jena to declare their friendship with the French comrades. They affirmed that the ban was even more painful for the German social-democrats, because “the purpose of these two demonstrations was to remedy, as far as possible, the distrust of the people and in particular of the French people towards the love for peace of the German people”161 and to ensure that the German social-democracy relentlessly considered its main tasks: to declare war on war and, especially with regard to the French people, to always seek, above all, international agreements to resolve conflicts and ensure peace.162 The historian Martin Mayer wondered whether this was not a purely verbal commitment, by which the SPD was trying to redeem itself on the international scene after the passivity it had shown during the Moroccan crisis, including this reflection in a teleological vision of relations between the two countries: “On the appearances, they were still showing cohesion; behind the scenes, however, there was a lot of noise. For now, not only Hyndman, but also Jaurès and Vaillant even had a lot of resentment towards the SPD leadership”.163 We do not share this analysis, having found no trace, in our research, of a general antipathy growing over the years on the part of French socialism toward its German comrades. As it was later visible again during the second Moroccan crisis of 1911, although less clearly, the cohesion displayed by socialists in various countries often coexisted, at the beginning of the century and in the circumstances of crisis, with fundamental divergences, not only on the theoretical level but also on that of the effective action to be carried out in these periods. In these years 1904 and 1905, the French socialists limited themselves to taking initiatives within the framework of their parliament, 160 Resolution n. 141: Resolution des Parteivorstandes, die Friedens- und Freundschaftserklärung der englischen Parteigenossen und Gewerkschaften and Resolution n. 142: Resolution des Parteivorstandes, die Redeverbote gegen die Parteigenossen Adler-Wien, Greulich-Zürich und Todeschini-Rom in Deutschland. Ibid., 139. On the Jena congress, cf. as well: Groh and Brandt, Vaterlandslose Gesellen, 101–102. 161 Ibid. 162 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1905, 139. 163 Mayer, Geheime Diplomatie, 225.

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as agents of France’s internal politics. They did not do much on the international level, with the exception of Vaillant’s call for a new meeting of the ISB. The Germans, for their part, did not take any spontaneous initiative and some of them were even ready to declare themselves on the side of defending Germany’s interests, as we saw with Calwer’s article. However, even if this did not lead to much, socialism was trying to mobilize at the international level against the ongoing war and crisis: the initiative of a new ISB meeting showed this. It did not succeed, of course, because the Germans were opposed to it, but they were isolated in this initiative. Their opposition depended on a question of balance between socialist parties and had nothing to do with taking a stand against the war. At the Franco-German level, Jaurès’ invitation to Berlin was of great importance. If it failed, it was for reasons independent of the socialists. International socialism was progressing in learning how to respond to crisis situations.

An Internationalist Practice: International Inquiry International inquiries into the issue of war deserve a separate paragraph. During the year of the “Doppelkrise”, the French press published two of them—this was indeed a fairly widespread practice in French socialist journals of the period under analysis. The first, entitled “The Russian-Japanese War and International Socialism”, appeared in March 1904. The other, on socialist internationalism, appeared in 1905 in the pages of the review La Vie socialiste. The form of the international inquiry was a very significant example of socialist transnationalism and testified the efforts of the actors of the different socialist parties to network among themselves, including beyond the congresses of the International. The principle was as follows: a journal addressed one or more questions to socialists in different countries and then published the answers. In this way, it brought together the ideas of socialists from different backgrounds and provided an overview of a specific topic, while at the same time demonstrating the attention paid to the ideas of foreign comrades and the willingness to give a certain international dimension to the debates and exchange of ideas. The first inquiry to be discussed here, about “The Russian-Japanese War and international socialism”, was published, with all the answers, in the March 15, 1904 issue of the Mouvement socialiste. It must therefore had circulated as early as February, at the very beginning of the war in Manchuria. With the exception of the opinion of the Japanese Katayama, which was taken

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from an article of December 1903, the replies were written between 18 February and 4 March 1904.164 In the preamble to the inquiry, André Morizet, a socialist activist from Champagne who was close to the Parti socialiste de France,165 underlined the starting points of the investigation, in particular the fact that “socialist opinion is one”166 and that it must circulate as much as possible. For him, it consisted of firm opposition to all war: “Internationalists and anti-militarists, the socialists abhor all war. They are for peace; they are all the more so because socialism alone will be able to do what neither the leagues of sensible women nor the grotesque and hypocritical conferences of The Hague will be able to do. Only socialism is able to establish universal peace”.167 The Mouvement socialiste, through this inquiry, also proposed to explain to the workers the causes of the ongoing war in Asia and to bring together and clarify the positions of the different socialist parties regarding the conflict. Morizet, for his part, supported Japan, thus opposing tsarist absolutism. He further stated that it was important for the socialists to express their ideas on the war because, he said, “it is necessary above all, running in the greatest hurry, to keep the war within its present limits and to warn the peoples against war madness and criminal excitement”.168 The manifesto of the Parti socialiste de France was cited as the overall response of the French revolutionary socialists to the war and these same ideas about the danger of an international war and the support of the French socialists in Japan against Russia could be found in the first French response to the investigation, that of Jules Guesde. Guesde imagined what would happen both if Russia won the war and if it loosed it: “Russia being crushed […] is czarism on the ground, not surviving, not being able to survive the military power on which it is based and with which it is confused”. It

164 Karl Kautsky’s answer is dated March 3, 1901, but this is most likely a mistake, as the article refers to the ongoing Russian-Japanese War. Read March 3, 1904 instead. 165 For more complete bibliographical information, cf. Justinien Raymond’s entry on André Morizet in the Maitron. Dictionnaire biographique mouvement ouvrier, mouvement social, online: http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article89693 [10 February 2021]. 166 La guerre russo-japonaise et le socialisme international, 327. 167 Ibid., 324. 168 Ibid., 326.

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was, according to Guesde, “the first necessary step towards social revolution, the broken backbone of European reaction”.169 On the other hand, if Russia won the war, it is England or the United States that will intervene militarily, not to defend or avenge Japan, which no one cares about, but because they cannot allow the seas of Japan and China to be transformed into a Russian lake. There is no guarantee, in this case, that France will not be drawn into the conflict. The conclusion Guesde reached was that “in the interest, for the peace of France and the world; in the interest, for the liberation of Russia itself, it is necessary to be against Russia, for Japan. Long live Japan!”.170 The only other response emanating from French socialism was given by Édouard Vaillant, who seemed to fear very much the direct involvement of his country in the conflict. In his opinion, it was therefore necessary to “seek all modes of prevention and action against the war” among which he cited national and international demonstrations “which impose themselves as a duty. […] In the meantime, not a group, union, or municipal council meeting where a socialist is present should take place without a strong motion for peace and against war being voted on”.171 And should these protests fail and France become involved in the war, the socialists “should no longer just talk and agitate, but act with all their energy and strength and by all means, for peace, against war!”.172 For Germany, Karl Kautsky and Franz Mehring answered the questionnaire. The first, after repeating that international socialism was unanimous in its opposition to tsarism and thus, with regard to the war in Manchuria, in its support for Japan, devoted his intervention to the role of the French socialists, without even uttering a word about the tasks of German social-democracy, or about what it could do to prevent the conflict from spreading.173 Franz Mehring, on the other hand, paid more attention to what the SPD should do to prevent Germany from becoming involved in combat. According to him, for the German and international proletariat, there was no difference between a Russian or Japanese victory. The working class must therefore oppose any form of war. As far as the Germans were concerned, if a war seemed to 169 Ibid., 332. 170 Ibid., 333. 171 Ibid., 358. 172 Ibid., 359. 173 Ibid., 343–345.

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them a more distant prospect in time, they should not hesitate to oppose the demagogic campaigns (the series of articles on the “yellow danger”, for example) that the bourgeoisie was carrying out in its press organs. Furthermore, Mehring argued that Germany did not plan to participate in the Russo-Japanese war, since the bourgeoisie was opposed to it. The fear of war, however, being for the bourgeoisie “a very uncertain guarantor of peace”, “German neutrality will only be ensured if the working class is careful to keep a close eye on Bülow’s Cossack policy”.174 The attitude of the French and Germans in their responses to this inquiry thus indicated, on the whole, confidence in the maintenance of peace and in the opposition to war of the international proletariat, even if the French and German national cases were asymmetrical, given their different implications in the current war. Only Édouard Vaillant was a little more alarmed when he said that France might well be led to enter the war. Only one answer was signed by an Italian pen: that of Enrico Ferri. It went rather in the direction of the certainty that the international proletariat did not want war. It remained on a very general level, a consequence of the fact that Italy was not involved in anything. Ferri described the causes of the current war, defining the conflict as nothing more than robbery, which was why socialists and men of common sense were all necessarily against war: “War has robbery as its goal, murder as its means”,175 he stated. He then spoke about the French people who, according to him, “will never be pushed to march for the Russian-Japanese war”.176 This answer was taken up, translated, and expanded in the autumn of 1905 by an Italian journal, the Divenire sociale.177

174 Ibid, 353. 175 Ibid., 331. 176 Ibid. 177 Francesca Canale Cama, Alla prova del fuoco. Socialisti francesi e italiani di fronte alla Prima guerra mondiale (1911–1916). Naples: Guida, 2008, 18. The review Il Divenire sociale, close to Italian revolutionary trade unionism, was founded on January 1, 1905 by Enrico Leone, a militant journalist and editor-in-chief of Avanti! Leone was a critic of revisionist doctrines and his review was to serve as a space for the reaffirmation of the ideas of orthodox Marxism after the only journal of the Italian left, Il Socialismo, had disappeared. Cf. Willy Gianinazzi. Il Divenire sociale e Pagine libere. Cahiers Georges Sorel 5, 1987, 119–130.

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The second inquiry was published in La Vie socialiste. This magazine, created in 1904, grouped the left wing of Jaurès’ party.178 It defined itself by its subtitle Revue bimensuelle internationale: it was therefore one of those journals that had the ambition of an internationalist dimension, following the example of Charles Rappoport’s Contre la guerre. This last publication deserved a few more words. Charles Rappoport, of Russian Jewish origin, lived in Berlin before going into exile in France and becoming an SFIO activist.179 He regularly collaborated with Die Neue Zeit and became the spokesman of an internationalism opposed to war by creating, in 1912, a magazine precisely named Contre la guerre (Against the war). It had a short life: the first issue came out on November 23, 1912 and the tenth and last on January 1, 1914. It was an interesting experience, however, as it hosted original articles and texts from other European countries translated into French—mainly Russian and German, languages that Rappoport spoke, in addition to French. There was also, for example, a text by Amilcare Cipriani180 and letters from socialist representatives from Bulgaria.181 The articles were of various kinds: a translated version of Ledebour and David’s speech given to the Reichstag,182 letters from German delegates addressed to Rappoport encouraging him in his new venture,183 the manifesto by the French and German socialist parties

178 Some bibliographical information on the journal La Vie socialiste can be found in: Fabre. Francis de Pressensé, 279 and Gilles Candar. Jean Longuet, 1876–1938. Un internationaliste à l’épreuve de l’histoire. Rennes: PUR, 2007, 60. 179 For biographical information about Charles Rappoport, cf. Harvey Goldberg. Charles Rappoport ou la crise du marxisme en France. L’homme et la société 24–25, 1972, 127–150. 180 Amilcare Cipriani. Contre la guerre. Contre la guerre, 16 January 1913. 181 Retour d’Andrinople (une lettre de Bulgarie) and Aloeuche. Les beautés de la

guerre, lettre de Bulgarie, Contre la guerre et la paix armée, 10 May 1913. As war was raging in these territories, the magazine launched a major campaign for the rapid restoration of peace. It should be noted that the magazine changed its name from the first issue in March 1913 to Contre la guerre et la paix armée (Against War and Armed Peace). 182 La Guerre à la guerre en Allemagne. Le discours de Ledebour au Reichstag and Le discours de David au Reichstag. Contre la guerre, 16–31 December 1912. 183 Lettre du comité directeur du Parti social-démocrate. Contre la guerre, 16 janvier 1913. This is a letter from Hermann Müller dated January 6, 1913.

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against the arms race of March 1913.184 All the journal’s publications were tinged with a strong anti-militarism. Its vocation was to unmask “the militarist ideology”185 and it also insisted on the need for Franco-German solidarity. If its founder belonged to this group of socialist activists who were international by their personal history, the magazine was an attempt to create a place for international exchange, just as was La Vie socialiste: internationalism was their raison d’être, the initial objective of their creation, unlike publications such as La Revue socialiste, Die Neue Zeit, Critica sociale and others socialist national journals. The editor-in-chief of La Vie socialiste was Francis de Pressensé, president of the League of Human Rights. A fervent Dreyfusard, he had turned his back on his conservative past. From 1904 to 1905, he became one of the main actors of national and international socialist congresses and a very active contributor to the pages of L’Humanité. He was one of the very first protagonists of the pacifist efforts of French socialism before 1914.186 La Vie socialiste launched its inquiry on the issue of May 20, 1905. What subject could be more in line with an international inquiry than the internationalism of socialists and the attitude they must adopt in the face of the danger of war? This initiative was also a daughter of its time: the inquiry was launched during the war in Manchuria and the crisis in Morocco exploded as it unfolded. The magazine thus expressed its willingness to give an internationalist response to events that risked causing rifts between countries and, consequently, between the socialist representatives of different states. The inquiry must, moreover, through its questioning of the ideas of nationhood and internationalism, constitute a response to the anti-militarist and anti-patriotic theses that Gustave Hervé had begun to defend since the congress of the SFIO in 1905. The question asked to the various representatives of international socialism was based on a statement contained in the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels: “The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We 184 Manifeste des partis socialistes Allemand et Français. Contre la guerre et la paix

armée, 15 March 1913. Immediately after the manifesto, a commentary published in Vorwärts is translated in its entirety, followed in turn by a commentary by Louis Dubreuilh. Contre la guerre et la paix armée, 15 March 1913. 185 La Rédaction et l’Administration de Contre la guerre et la paix armée. Notre but. Contre la guerre et la paix armée, 15 March 1913. 186 For a biography of Francis de Pressensé, cf. Fabre, Francis de Pressensé.

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cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word”.187 In 1905, this subject became more topical than ever. The questions were four: 1.what do you think of this thesis and how do you interpret it; can patriotism and internationalism be reconciled? 2. what practical attitude, what form of propaganda does internationalism impose to the socialists in the face of militarism, “colonialism”, their causes and their economic repercussions? 3. what role do the socialists have to play in international relations (customs tariffs, labor legislation, etc.)? 4. what is the socialist duty in case of war?188

The link between internationalism and the means to oppose the war emerged once again clearly from the questions and then from the answers of the socialist representatives. We will focus our attention on the French, German, and Italian responses. The first were those of Édouard Vaillant, Paul Lafargue, Gustave Hervé and Alexandre Luquet (CGT). For Germany, both the moderate wing (Eduard Bernstein) and the revolutionary wing (Karl Kautsky), as well as the parliamentary fraction (through August Bebel) were represented. Italy was rather little present, the only Italian to answer on behalf of the PSI being Enrico Ferri. His compatriot Amilcare Cipriani also gave his opinion, but as a delegate of the French socialist party to the International Socialist Bureau, and his answer was rather from an internationalist perspective. The responses of the representatives of the labor movement included the whole range of positions on internationalism and war; they were published in the pages of La Vie socialiste between June and August 1905. To the question of how to conjugate fatherland and internationalism, Vaillant answered as follows: since internationalism did not yet exist, there was no contradiction between internationalism and nation, especially as he considered the latter as a necessary step toward the end of capitalism and the transition to internationalism.189 Karl Kautsky gave the same answer, acknowledging 187 Manifeste communiste, translated by Laura Lafargue, cited in: Socialisme et internationalisme. Une enquête de La Vie socialiste. La Vie Socialiste 14, 1904, 833. 188 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 14, 1905, 833–834. 189 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 15, 1905, 902.

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the existence of nations. However, he believed that the individual and the nation must always be subordinated to the emancipatory struggle of the proletariat.190 Bernstein, for his part, interpreted the International as an existing entity superior to nations. He supported the fact that the worker had a fatherland and must collaborate for its independence and wellbeing, according to the principles of the International. Finally, for Bebel, internationalism did not presuppose “the suppression of nationalities, nor the violent fusion of peoples, but the maintenance and progress of peaceful relations of civilization between peoples”.191 According to him, internationalism was more a matter of concluding trade agreements and maritime conventions, international labor protection laws, with the ultimate goal of creating a “world parliament”. Bebel continued: “Patriotism and internationalism do not oppose, but complement each other, for the benefit of an ever more perfect human civilization”.192 Enrico Ferri also aligned himself with this trend of opinions: “I think, therefore, that patriotism and internationalism are compatible and must even coexist in every conscious and modern man”.193 Internationalism as a goal or internationalism as an essential part of the socialist International: these were the two ideas that emerged from the inquiry. Gustave Hervé’s answer, which once again denied any idea of homeland, was by far the most radical: “Can patriotism and internationalism be conciliated? Yes, more or less like water and fire”.194 Paul Lafargue, for his part, reaffirmed his internationalist convictions: refusing to decide between anti-patriotism and patriotism, he advocated more the need for an international proletarian revolution to fight the bourgeoisie. With its extinction, “the world will be the fatherland [of the proletariat]”.195 Two fundamentally opposed positions confronted each other on the question of war. On the one hand, there were those who distinguished between aggressive and defensive war: according to Bebel, the proletariat had the duty to fight for its country in case it is aggressed; if it is the aggressor, the people must on the contrary refuse to take up arms. On the other side were those who 190 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 17, 1905, 12. 191 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 16, 1905, 961. 192 Ibid., 962. 193 Ibid., 968. 194 Ibid., 970. 195 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 19, 1905, 118.

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affirmed, with Ferri: “In the face of militarism – national or colonial – the socialists can only have an attitude of absolute opposition”.196 As far as war was concerned, they recognized the duty to defend, but strongly condemn all aggression. Kautsky, for his part, advocated the creation of an international arbitration tribunal to settle disputes between nations, but believed that societies had not yet reached a sufficient level of wisdom. He therefore adhered to the distinction between defensive and aggressive warfare and called on the proletariat to participate in conflicts of the first type.197 On the other hand, Gustave Hervé believed that war must metamorphose into social revolution and condemned them all, whether offensive or defensive.198 An opinion shared by Cipriani: “Since the wars provoked by capitalist governments are ALL damaging and fatal to the social future of the workers, we must fight them all, knowing that we will not be able to prevent them, not being the strongest”.

196 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 16, 1905, 969. 197 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 17, 1905, 11–12. 198 Socialisme et internationalisme. La Vie socialiste 16, 1905, 974.

CHAPTER 4

Two-Speed Reactions

Stuttgart 1907: The Discussion on the War Georges Haupt pointed out the importance of the Stuttgart Congress in the International’s progress in organizing its congresses with great care and attention to detail and in transforming them into real demonstrations. In his opinion, it was a “great event that works like a precise mechanism”, “where all the material details are regulated to perfection”: “there is no trace of the improvisation, the tumult, the outbursts, the theatrics that made up the atmosphere of the previous congresses of the Second International. The style of this congress is gravity and representativeness. Delegates arrive in Stuttgart in possession of printed documents, reports on the issues on the agenda and activity reports that inform them of the progress made by the various components of the International. A festivities sub-committee ensures a meticulous staging”.1 Haupt continued: “The solemn opening sets the tone and creates the exhilarating atmosphere. As the members of the ISB, the most prestigious leaders of international socialism, take their seats at the presidium table, the organ resounds and the choir sings the paraphrased Lutheran anthem: Eine feste Burg ist unser Bund (instead of unser Gott).2 The pathetic 1 Georges Haupt, Congrès de Stuttgart (1907). In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 17. Geneva: Minkoff, 1985, 7–8. 2 “Our alliance is a strong fortress” instead of “Our god is a strong fortress”.

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tone, the themes covered in the opening speeches specify the image that the International accredits”.3 The congress took on previously unknown dimensions, which also led to organizational difficulties: “Twenty-seven nations were represented. Never before had so many delegates from all parts of the world, from Japan, Argentina, the United States, South Africa, and Russia flocked to the congress: 460 in Amsterdam, 880 in Stuttgart. Such crowds made public discussion impossible. Congress had to limit itself, so to speak, to recording the decisions of the commissions. One hundred and fifty socialist deputies to the various Parliaments, many of whom were lawyers, were among the delegates”.4 In spite of this, as the French delegate André Bruckère noted, “this great international congress was above all a Franco-German congress”, given that the anti-militarist question, which “dominated the entire congress”, was mainly debated between delegates from these two nations. As for the organization of the event, Bruckère recounted: “Our German brothers had done things well, with a kind of refined elegance of comfort. In the vast Liederhalle, each congressman found a portfolio (ministerial hopes!) with all kinds of papers, reports, programs, notebooks, tourist guides, and three large books from the International Socialist Bureau. Great vocal and instrumental concert on Sunday, fair on Wednesday, nothing was missing. The Württembourgeois [intentional misprint!] state railway station had even loaned a waiting room, with a large banner, for the reception of delegates getting off the train”. Bruckère’s critical comment to the SPD was: “The relations between the King of Württemberg and the harmless social-democracy seiner Majestät are so full of courtesy”. The description of this “good and quiet” socialism (“how good and quiet it is to be a revolutionary in this way”), which was not without a mocking air, continued: “Comfortable congress, where you could sit comfortably, where there were two reading rooms, a garden, and a cosy restaurant, where the Kellnerinnen were pretty. […] Let’s not joke too much. Some moments were very grabbing. After Bebel’s opening speech, a speaker of rare power, the 800 delegates rose together to push the triple hoch! the loud Germanic cheer, in honor of the progress of world socialism

3 Ibid., 8. 4 Jean Bourdeau. L’Internationale socialiste au congrès de Stuttgart. Revue des Deux

Mondes 41, 1907, 427.

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over the past three years”.5 All these efforts (more or less approved by those present, as we have seen) were aimed at the creation of an imagined international community, a shared feeling and a socialist and internationalist sociability. And the unifying element was now the struggle against war, which from the Stuttgart congress onward became a major topic of debate. This was expressed not only during the congress itself, but even before it opened: eleven years after the Hyde Park demonstration, the 1907 Stuttgart congress also opened with a meeting in Cannstatt, where the socialist representatives were called upon to affirm their rejection of war. The ISB’s convocation circular stated that “on Sunday, August 18, at 4:30 a.m., large popular gatherings will take place at Volksfestplatz, near the King Charles Bridge over the Neckar River”.6 The meeting brought together 6.000 participants. Representatives of the most important parties of the International gave fiery speeches. On the square, decorated with red flags, came a disparate audience, including families with children, as well as delegates from all over Württemberg. The German delegate Singer opened the demonstration, then gave the floor to Jaurès (whose speech was translated by Kautsky), who introduced himself as “the interpreter of the workers’ solidarity that unites the Germans and the French”.7 Afterward, many delegates spoke (Luxemburg, Vaillant, MacDonald, Adler…), thus demonstrating the will of the whole International to act as guarantor of peace between nations. Troelstra, a Dutch delegate, called the Cannstatt meeting “a peaceful war conference” because, according to him, peace must be won “by the weapons of the spirit, by the weapons of the organization”. After the failure of the first conference in The Hague, the second, which was underway during the congress,8 defended the same principles and is therefore, from a socialist point of view, doomed to 5 André Bruckère. Le congrès de Stuttgart. Impressions d’un congressiste. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 18bis. Geneva: Minkoff, 1985, 931–932. 6 BSI, An die Genossen Delegierten des Kongresses! (juin 1907). In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 17, 43. 7 VII° Congrès socialiste international, tenu à Stuttgart du 16 au 24 août 1907. Compte rendu analytique. Bruxelles, 1908. In: ibid., 419. 8 In 1899, the first International peace conference was held in The Hague at the

request of Tsar Nicholas II. These negotiations saw international arbitration as a means to guarantee peace between nations. The final act it adopted laid the foundations for the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the regulation of war. A second conference was then held between June and October 1907, the final resolution of which was largely based on that of 1899. The prevailing feeling among socialist representatives regarding these

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failure. That was why “the proletariat […] must continue the great work of pacification”.9 Hyndman declared on his side, and in German, that “the English people do not want war between nations”10 and Greulich emphasized once again on behalf of his comrades that social-democracy wanted nothing but peace.11 The meeting in Stuttgart marked a significant turning point in the way the International was moving regarding the opposition to the war, which was also reflected in the content of its debates. The problem of militarism and international conflicts was the first item on the agenda.12 Discussions on this subject were to become famous, because it was at this point that the great quarrel about whether or not to declare a general strike in the event of the outbreak of war broke out. The polemics began after August Bebel13 proposed his draft resolution. It was entirely inspired by the decisions of previous international congresses, stressing that “wars between states, based on the capitalist economic order, are generally consequences of their rival competition on the world market, since each state tends not only to secure the use of its markets, but also to acquire new ones […]. Wars are fostered by the prejudices of one people against another, prejudices that are systematically cultivated among civilized nations in the interest of the ruling classes. Wars are therefore the essence of capitalism; they will only cease when the capitalist order is suppressed”. The working class, according to the project of resolution, was “the natural adversary of wars, because they are in contradiction with the goal it pursues”. The workers and their parliamentary representatives must therefore “fight with all their strength against the armaments of land and sea, pointing out the class character

initiatives was one of mistrust, due to the “bourgeois” character of these two conferences and their strict liaison with the tsar. 9 Ibid., 422–423. 10 Ibid., 425. 11 Ibid., 426. The translation of his speech into French was provided by Bernstein. 12 Article Der internationale Sozialistenkongress in Stuttgart inserted in a Swiss brochure

on various subjects. Signed Dr. Julian Reichesberg (Berne), undated, 359. IISG, Second International Archives, supplement 1, document n. 448. 13 On August Bebel, see Werner Jung. August Bebel, deutscher Patriot und internationaler Sozialist. Seine Stellung zu Patriotismus und Internationalismus. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1986 and William Harvey Maehl. August Bebel: Shadow Emperor of the German Workers, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1980.

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of bourgeois society and the reasons for maintaining national antagonisms, and refuse all pecuniary support for this policy. […] When a war threatens to break out, workers and their parliamentary representatives in the countries concerned are obliged to do their utmost to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, and if it does break out, to bring it to a speedy end”.14 In the eyes of some delegates in Stuttgart, the problem with this resolution was that Bebel did not specify what “[these] means” consisted of. This was, however, very well explained in two other resolutions also proposed in Stuttgart.15 The first, submitted by Hervé, invited “all citizens to respond to any declaration of war, from whichever side it comes, by military strike and insurrection”. The second, put forward by Vaillant and Jaurès, called on the proletarians and socialists of all nations to “make possible the effect of these decisions by means of the national and international socialist workers’ organization of a prepared, orderly and combined action, first of all in the countries concerned, and according to the circumstances in activity, all the energy and effort of the working class and the socialist party for the prevention and impediment of war by all means, from parliamentary intervention, public agitation, popular demonstrations, to the general workers’ strike and insurrection”.16 These proposals generated a great debate between supporters and opponents about the advisability of a general strike as a means of preventing war. The main problem raised by some delegates was that this means was not suitable for all countries. Bebel asserted that it was not a solution applicable in Germany, for example, where antimilitarist agitation was difficult, given the severity of the penal code. A sub-commission was created with the aim of drafting the final resolution that was presented to the plenary session on the last day of the congress and approved unanimously. Finally, it started from the resolution proposed by Bebel, amended mainly on the suggestions of Luxemburg, Lenin and Martov. As stated by Adler, “all the objections made by the

14 VII° Congrès socialiste international, tenu à Stuttgart du 16 au 24 août 1907. Compte rendu analytique. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 17, 444–445. 15 A fourth resolution, proposed by Guesde, does not deal with the issue of general strike in case of war. According to him, it is necessary to fight against war and militarism “through the reduction of military service pursued internationally, through the simultaneous denial of any credit for war, the navy and the colonies and through the general armament of the people in place of the permanent army”. Ibid., 442. 16 Ibid., 443–444.

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comrade delegates were taken into account. We have rounded off the angles and thus obtained a unanimity which alone can exert the moral influence necessary to achieve a tangible result”.17 This final resolution was significantly longer than previous ones and touched on many different issues. A long historical excursus found its place, in which the successes of the working class in different countries in the peaceful resolution of crises that threatened peace, such as Fachoda or the first Morocco crisis, were cited: “All these efforts attest to the growing power of the working class and its increasing preoccupation with maintaining peace through energetic interventions”. The International had the duty to coordinate the efforts of the various socialist parties in the case of the possible outbreak of war and it prepares the ground for such collaboration with incessant propaganda.18 It prescribed imperatively: If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working class in the countries concerned, it is the duty of their representatives in the Parliaments with the help of the International Bureau, a force for action and coordination, to make every effort to prevent war by all means which seem to them to be the most appropriate and which naturally vary according to the acuteness of the class struggle and the general political situation. Should war nevertheless break out, it is their duty to intercede to bring it to a prompt end and to use all their strength the economic and political crisis created by the war to agitate the deepest popular strata and precipitate the fall of capitalist domination.19

In addition, a passage was added, absent from Bebel’s proposal, mentioning the need to make use of international arbitration which, put into action under the pressure of the proletariat, had to replace the “ pathetic attempts of bourgeois governments”20 to settle disputes. The peoples had thus to be able to enjoy general disarmament, which hat to allow the money destined for the army to be invested in works for the progress of civilization. Other discussions were less far-reaching:

17 Ibid., 512. 18 BSI (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Interna-

tionale 3. Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 11. 19 VII° Congrès socialiste international, tenu à Stuttgart du 16 au 24 août 1907. Compte rendu analytique, dans Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 17, 751–752. 20 Ibid., 751.

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the Stuttgart congress had been almost entirely dedicated to the question of opposition to the war. And its very form, with the Cannstatt meeting, echoing that of Hyde Park in 1896, was in itself an expression of opposition to the war.

International Tensions in 1908: An ISB Resolution Between Stuttgart and Copenhagen Two other episodes of international tension took place in 1908, which nevertheless ended without generating too much debate in the three European countries that occupy us, which is why we do not devote much space to them in this study: the first one again in Morocco, the second in Bosnia. On September 25, 1908, six legionnaires of German origin deserted Casablanca. They were quickly arrested. According to a French agent, the German vice-consul, an accomplice in the desertion, insulted the gendarmes and insulted a French officer who wanted to restore order. This banal incident is exploited by the two governments to reopen the question of their economic interests in Morocco, but the situation calmed down again without increasing tensions or changing the situation: the agreement concluded by the two governments on February 8, 1909 affirmed the maintenance of the Algeciras Agreements.21 The second episode was the Bosnian crisis, very important on the international level because it also concerned Serbia and Russia, which were opposed to this annexation. That endangered the precarious equilibrium in the Balkans. On 5 October, when the Ottoman Empire was unable to react because of the revolt of the Young Turks, Austria-Hungary simply annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina to its territory, in response to the loss of Veneto and Lombardy, itself a consequence of the three Italian wars of independence (1848–1849, 1859, 1866). But how did it get there? The Berlin congress of 1878, which followed the Russian-Turkish War (1877–1878), ceded the administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary, as compensation for its non-opposition to the Russian military offensive, while leaving it formally under the sovereignty of the

21 The episode is narrated by Abdelkrim Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine (1903–1912). Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004, 139–140.

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Ottoman Empire and while Serbia still hoped to annex it itself, considering it as one of its national provinces. At the beginning of the twentieth century, discontent with the Austrian occupier was extremely widespread in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where there was a desire for the liberation of the territory. In Vienna, on the other hand, the hypotheses of annexation of the Slavic state to the Empire became more and more pressing. However, the decision was not taken until after the rebellion of the Young Turks— after they had obtained the restoration of the constitution of the Ottoman Empire: Austria feared that the Bosnians would take inspiration from this to revolt or to claim the definitive return of the country to the Ottoman Empire. Austria had indeed assured Berlin in 1878 that its occupation of the country would be temporary. It is for all these reasons that the annexation of 1908 was full of consequences for the development of the territory: it shattered the détente between Russia, strongly opposed to the annexation, and Austria-Hungary, and reawakened the antagonism between Russia and Germany, which sided with Austria. These countries all hoped in fact to gain something from the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.22 These two events were the subject of a resolution voted by the ISB on October 11, 1908: Observing in particular: That the English and German socialists, by their demonstrations of peaceful solidarity; That the French socialists, by their agitation against the expedition of Morocco; […] have acted in accordance with the mandate of the International; considering, however, that the danger persists; that imperialist capitalism is still intriguing in England and Germany; that the Moroccan expedition and speculation continue; […] that in the Balkans foreign interference and ambitions excite more than ever and in their sole interest the nationalist and religious passions; that in recent times, the declaration of independence of Bulgaria, and especially the annexation of Bosnia, have made the danger of a breach of the peace more threatening and acute; that everywhere at last the alliances of governments, the excess of armaments and militarism, as well as capitalist competition and colonial piracy threaten peace. Affirming once again that the socialist party and the organized proletariat are the only effective forces of international peace and that they must ensure it; the International Socialist Bureau, for the certain application, to this end, of the decision

22 Cf. William Mulligan. The Origins of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 62–66 and Christopher Clark. The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914. London: Allen Lane, 2012, 177 and 258–259.

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of the Stuttgart congress, invites the socialist parties of all countries to redouble their vigilance, activities and efforts; invites their steering and administrative committees, their parliamentary groups, their delegations, to seek with the ISB secretariat the practical means and measures which, nationally and internationally implemented, can best, according to the case and circumstances, prevent war and maintain peace.23

The resolution of the ISB came very quickly after the crises, which were very short and did not give the impression of being able to threaten peace between European states, at least in the short term. With it, the ISB showed itself conscious of its mission to federate socialisms in the fight against war. This resolution showed optimism about what socialism could accomplish in facing situations of international danger. These two moments of tension were the subject of resolutions at the next congress in Copenhagen—the agenda was already closed at that time. The Serbian delegate Dimitrije Tucovi´c asked however for a modification of the resolution proposed in Copenhagen, based on what happened between the Austrian and Hungarian social-democrats and the Serbian socialists about the crisis in Bosnia. We will see this in the following paragraph.

Copenhagen 1910: General Strike as a Means of Struggle The Copenhagen congress of 1910 was similar to its predecessor, both in its meticulous organization and in the equally central place occupied by the opposition to the war. The congress opened with a “particular brilliance”, as Georges Haupt notes.24 Let us now turn to the conference proceedings, which described the opening session as follows: The international socialist congress is held in the magnificent hall of the Palace of Concerts. Such is the attendance of delegates from all parts of the world that the huge hall is, in a manner of speaking, too small. The building is very artistically decorated; the entrance colonnade is stretched out in red. A large banner bears the Danish inscription: “Ottende Internationaler Socialist Kongress”. The hall is also very well decorated and has

23 Résolutions politiques votées par le Bureau depuis 1907. Bulletin périodique du BSI 5 (1). In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 19. Geneva: Minkoff, 1981, 136–137. 24 Haupt, Copenhague (1910). In: ibid., 7.

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a very imposing appearance. At the back of the stage is a large awning on which two large blue globes represent the hemispheres that are joined by a large red ribbon with the motto: “Workers of all countries, unite!”. Around the room, in the domes, are grouped the red emblems of the cooperatives and various organizations, embroidered with white and gold. In the galleries, along which run interlaced garlands of greenery in Danish colors, hang twelve banners representing the arms and national colors of the great nations. The hall is also decorated with red banners bearing inscriptions in four languages, Danish, German, English and French, summarizing the program of the international social-democracy. These inscriptions are: “Work is the source of all prosperity” - “Solidarity is our basis” - “Knowledge is power” - “Religion is a private matter” - “Abolition of class division” - “Abolition of private monopolies” - “The will of the people is the supreme law” - “Universal suffrage for all” - “Maximum eight-hour day” - “Disarmament is peace” - “Give women the same rights as men” - “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”. Delegates are seated, in rows of nine, at long tables perpendicular to the desk. The first table to the left of the president is occupied by the Swedish delegation, the second and third by the German delegation, the fourth by the Austrian delegation, the fifth table, forming the center, is reserved for delegates from Serbia, Turkey, Romania, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Russia and Poland; the sixth table is for Belgium, Hungary-Croatia and Bohemia; the seventh table for France and Holland; the eighth for Finland, the United States of America, Norway, while the ninth is occupied by the delegates of Great Britain. The numerous Danish delegates could not find seats on the first floor and occupy the gallery on the right, while the gallery on the left is reserved for one hundred and twenty-five representatives of the press. The very large audience is crowded in the central gallery, which is very full. At 11:30 a.m., the congress is opened with the performance of a cantata, written especially for the congress by the well-known socialist writer, deputy A. C. Meyer, who is at the same time one of our best propagandists. The music was composed by a conductor from Copenhagen, J. Hemme, on motifs borrowed from socialist songs from all over the world. The revolutionary arias of all nations resounded, cut off from solos, to finally confuse all the voices in a huge ensemble song of the International.25

25 Huitième Congrès socialiste international, tenu à Copenhague du 28 août au 3 septembre 1910. Compte rendu analytique, Gand, 1911. In: ibid., 287–289.

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To strengthen the cohesion between the delegates, an excursion followed by a meeting in the Søndermarken, a park near Copenhagen, was organized in the afternoon of the opening day. It was rented for the occasion by the Danish comrades and only participants in possession of a red badge had access to it. “At four o’clock in the morning” said the report “the procession formed on the West Boulevard, not far from the station, set off, and the countless crowds that made up the procession walked happily the five quarters of an hour that separated it from the park”. The procession was opened by the two socialist burgomasters of the city and by the socialist members of the City Council and the Parliament. “Three white transparencies, worn at the head of the procession, bear the following inscriptions in red letters: Long live the workers’ International! Long live the international proletariat! Long live the international brotherhood of workers against capitalism!”26 The conference proceedings described the rest of the day: Fifteen bands are part of the procession and countless red banners are waving above their heads. Mounted police lead the way through the crowd, massed on both sides of the streets. At the windows, the crowd is also gathering, greeting the procession as it passes by. Almost all the participants are decorated with flowers or carry a bouquet, which decorates the end of their cane. The employees of the socialist postal association, dressed in their Sunday costumes, whose scarlet color attracts attention, have taken their places in the ranks. They also carry flowers and garlands. Women, with Phrygian caps on their heads, hold the cords of the banner of the Union of clothes and seamstresses. The banner of the workers of metals carries an inscription, indicating that their corporative international has 800.000 members in the various organizations. Many soldiers also carry the congressional insignia and give a standing ovation to the foreign delegates. There are even some in the procession. The streets surrounding the People’s House and the area around the park are decorated with triumphal arches, banners and garlands. Educational, sport and leisure associations, tramway employees, firemen, sailors walk in tight rows. Everywhere the red and white flag of Scandinavian democracy, which was also adopted by the party, is flown. Long before the arrival of the procession, a considerable crowd gathers in the park. The event is a real popular festival. There are whole families, father, mother, son, daughter and the baby in his cart! The day was already waning when the procession arrived at the

26 Ibid., 305.

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park. Soon the world is getting smaller and the passage becomes almost impossible. Four grandstands were erected in the park, the first one for the orchestra and the singers. Most of the procession has not yet entered the park when the cantata, already heard in the morning at the opening of the congress, resounds. Then the speakers of the International harangued the huge crowd of 100.000, maybe 150.000 people that crowded the stands.27

This inaugural meeting in Søndermarken Park saw many leaders of international socialism, Jaurès first, speak. Once the opening ceremonies were over, the discussions of the Danish congress begin. Arbitration and disarmament was one of the main items on the agenda and the final resolution confirmed “the resolutions of previous congresses and in particular that of the Stuttgart congress”. Indeed, this resolution quoted it almost to the letter, while showing on the one hand a growing concern about the international diplomatic situation28 and on the other hand proposing a very concrete solution to oppose a possible war, a solution that involved the ISB. After citing the anti-war measures already included in the Stuttgart resolution, the Copenhagen resolution added: In order to ensure the execution of these measures, the congress invites the International Socialist Bureau, in cases of international conflicts, to reach agreement for joint action among the workers’ parties of the countries concerned, in order to prevent war. In all cases where there is a risk of conflict between two or more countries, if there is hesitation or delay in the decision of the national parties consulted, the secretary of the ISB, at the request of at least one of the proletariats concerned, shall urgently convene the ISB and the inter-parliamentary commission, which shall immediately meet, either in Brussels or in any other place which, according to the circumstances, seems more appropriate.29

27 Ibid., 306–307. 28 Congrès international de Copenhague, 1910, Résolution de la commission III

(arbitration et désarmement), print, Copenhagen, undated. IISG, Second International Archives, supplement 1, document n. 461. 29 VIII° Congrès socialiste international, tenu à Copenhague du 28 août au 3 septembre 1910. Compte rendu analytique. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 19, 716–717.

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The resolution generated a great debate in congress, which in part also related to the Bosnian crisis of 1908. Dimitrije Tucovi´c, the Serbian delegate, criticized the Austrian social-democratic party for its attitude during the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina: During the last conflict between Austria and Serbia, the Serbian socialists were in a very difficult situation, but they did not hesitate for a moment. The Austrian and Hungarian comrades reproached us for being chauvinistic. Very well! But then, in the future, you will have to take on the Austrian and Hungarian governments’ appetites for conquest instead. Socialists in large nations must support those in small nations. Serbian socialists fought the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina at Skupchina, but they did not find the necessary support among Austro-Hungarian socialists to fight Austro-Hungarian imperialism. […] Socialists have less to worry about the mysteries of diplomacy than about the defense of small nations that have a right to exist and do not want to be absorbed by the great powers. This point of view is vital for socialists in small countries.30

Tucovi´c also criticized German social-democracy for not having intervened “more actively” in favor of its Serbian counterpart, whom it defined as “its younger sister”.31 On this basis, Tucovi´c asked the congress of the International to add this new paragraph to the resolution: “The congress declares that in order to vigorously combat colonial and conquest policy, in the sense of the Stuttgart resolution, it is the duty of the comrades of the capitalist states and nations to make contact with the comrades of the oppressed countries who have to suffer from this policy, in order to facilitate their struggle against militarism and chauvinism”.32 It was the Austrian Karl Renner who answered him, affirming that his comrades, Austrians and Hungarians, had done everything necessary in facing the crisis: “We demanded the autonomy of the Bosnian populations. As far as the press is concerned, we fought against the Austro-Hungarian monopoly policy and we fought for peace. Adler raised the whole parliament with his presentation from our point of view. We fought against imperialism in Austria”.33 Regarding the proposal of Tucovi´c, however, 30 Ibid., 447–448. 31 Ibid., 448. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 450–451.

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Renner stated that it should not be included in the congress resolution because “we cannot codify here all our demands against the war. Here we can only state our agreement”34 and that it was rather in the socialist programs of the individual countries that the specific issues must be dealt with. Even if this debate did not finally yield any results, a specific crisis became the subject of a proposal to amend an International resolution. The latter was beginning to be seen as an actor with the means to deal with certain events. The debate on the general strike in case of war also continued. Vaillant and Keir Hardie proposed an amendment declaring the need for “a general workers’ strike, especially in those industries that provide the instruments of war”.35 This proposal, after lengthy debate, was neither accepted nor rejected: both Vaillant and Keir Hardie agreed to sign the following motion, presented to the congress by several leaders of the different socialist parties, including Émile Vandervelde, Victor Adler, Friedrich Ebert and Rosa Luxemburg: “The congress decides that the Keir Hardie-Vaillant amendment will be referred to the International Socialist Bureau for study and that the latter will report to a future international socialist congress on the proposals contained in the amendment”.36 The debates of the socialist International around the question were far from being over.

The Second Morocco Crisis and the First International Reactions For the European international balance before 1914, 1911 is considered a key year. In that year, tensions concerning the colonial policy of European countries were indeed going to be exacerbated and this time lead to a major crisis and even to open warfare. The danger that the European

34 Ibid., 451. 35 Congrès international de Copenhague, 1910, Sub-amendement (Text in French

and German), signed Vaillant, Keir Hardie, print, Copenhagen, undated. IISG, Second International Archives, supplement 1, document n. 461. 36 VIII° Congrès socialiste international, tenu à Copenhague du 28 août au 3 septembre 1910. Compte rendu analytique. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 19, 334. In an article published in La Guerre sociale, Louis Perceau defines this congress as a new victory for international anti-militarism, while acknowledging the more committed action of German social-democracy in this direction. La Guerre sociale, 7–13 September 1910.

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peace was actually wavering had never seemed so real. It was in July that the question of Morocco was for the second time at the center of preoccupation.37 Much more than in 1905, the European balance seemed to be played out around the North African country. Then in the autumn, the Italo-Turkish War began: it was no longer a simple international crisis, this time a Western European country, with a strong united socialist party, found itself directly involved in an armed conflict. This international constellation of crises is all the more interesting because it took place after the turning point that the congresses of Stuttgart and Copenhagen signified for the socialists of the Second International and their attitude to war.38 From these two congresses, issues of war and peacekeeping became truly central to the debates of the new International and international socialism also took steps forward in terms of responses to crises. The years 1911–1912, with the crisis in Morocco and the beginning of the Italo-Turkish War, were indeed central in the development of international socialism’s capacity to oppose crisis situations: its reactions came much more quickly than before and there was a real willingness to give the ongoing diplomatic tensions an internationally organized socialist response. During the second Moroccan crisis, for example, international socialism managed to put in place a rapid and unitary response – even though France and Germany were directly involved in the dispute. This had not been the case six years earlier, during the 1905 Morocco crisis, when the response of international socialism had had difficulty in getting off the ground.

37 As we have seen, the first Morocco crisis occurred in 1905 and was followed by a second moment of tension in 1908. 38 Cf. Francesca Canale Cama. Alla prova del fuoco. Socialisti francesi e italiani di fronte alla Prima guerra mondiale (1911–1916). Naples: Guida, 2008, 20–21.

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The “Jump of the Panther”39 The crisis of 1905 had concluded with the Algeciras agreements (April 7, 1906), which had put an end to the quarrels between France and Germany over the question of the protectorate by placing Morocco under the protection of the great European powers. Following the alliance already signed by France and Great Britain in 1904—in which the two countries promised, among other things, not to harm each other’s interests in North Africa—France was the only country to benefit de facto from the open-door policy intended by the Algeciras conference. This seemed to have been definitively endorsed by the colonial agreements between Germany and France on February 9, 1909, by which Berlin accepted France’s privileged position in Morocco. Spain was also present on the territory, where it had five possessions.40 These agreements gave France a certain political freedom in the North African country, but economically it must limit itself to playing the same role as the other powers. This equilibrium situation lasted only two years: from 1911 on, France sought to transform Morocco into one of its protectorates. “As in 1905, France’s aggressive policy in Morocco triggered an international crisis. In Germany, public opinion was outraged by French actions. Kiderlen, the guide of German policy in the crisis, also saw Morocco as an opportunity to extract concessions from France in Central Africa. While French policy triggered the crisis, Kiderlen’s reaction turned it into a wave of widespread war panic”.41 On May 17, 1911 the French began their march to Fez, violating the Algeciras agreements. The pretext for this political interference in Morocco was given to the French by 39 Clark, The Sleepwalkers, 204–214. Ralf Forsbach. Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter (1852– 1912). Ein Diplomatenleben im Kaiserreich. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997, 411–532. J.-H. Lasserre-Bigorry. Le mythe d’Algésiras. Étude sur le statut international du Maroc en matière économique. Politique étrangère 3, 1950, 317–341. Jean-Claude Allain. Agadir 1911. Une crise impérialiste en Europe pour la conquête du Maroc. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1976, 252–277. Jean-Marc Delaunay. Méfiance cordiale. Les relations métropolitaines franco-espagnoles de la fin du xixe siècle à la Première Guerre mondiale. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010. Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich (eds). Vermiedene Kriege. Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg 1865–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1997, 615–640. Emily Oncken. Panthersrprung nach Agadir. Die deutsche Politik während der Zweiten Marokkokrise 1911. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1981. 40 Cf. Allain, Agadir 1911, 245. 41 Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War, 71.

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Sultan Moulay Abd al-Hafid who, following the revolts of several tribes in his country in May 1911, asked Paris for help. Fearing that the French might take too much power in the country, the Spanish also responded to the call by sending troops. In the meantime, pressure in Germany had increased. The possibility of French intervention in Morocco to help the Sultan was seen by Berlin as too much of a power grab. However, between March and May 1911, the German government concealed the fact that it too wanted to defend its interests in Morocco. As the government’s reaction had been slow because William II was reluctant to act,42 there was a belief in Germany that the country had once again missed the opportunity to become a world power on a par with France. When French troops occupied the cities of Rabat, Fez, and Meknes, the German government, pressed by public opinion and considering the French intervention as a violation of the Algeciras agreements, finally decided to react with an offensive gesture by sending on July 1, 1911 the SMS gunboat Panther in the port of Agadir. This event went down in history as the “Panther jump”. Germany did not really anticipate the consequences of its act. Berlin hoped to halt French expansion in Morocco while weakening the Entente Cordiale signed between Britain and France in 1904: quite the opposite happened. The English declared themselves ready to position themselves on the side of France and adopted a threatening tone toward Germany, which, for its part, was not ready to abandon its positions: the possibility of a conflict with the French was becoming more and more probable.43 The war did not break out, however, but negotiations between the two powers continued until a treaty was signed on 4 November: France had a free hand in Morocco, in exchange for which it gave up several regions of equatorial Africa. On November 28, Berlin withdrew its buildings from Agadir. These events also resulted in the strengthening of the alliance between France and Great Britain. This second Moroccan crisis, in these long months of diplomatic negotiations between governments, during which no one knew if a war for Morocco could break out or not, also played a key role in the positioning of socialist parties on the issues of war and peace and in relation to each other.

42 Ibid., 69–71. Clark, The Sleepwalkers, 205–206. 43 Allain, Agadir 1911, 316–317.

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At the International Level No congress of the International was taking place during the second Moroccan crisis, but members of socialist parties from some European countries met. There were four meetings: in Berlin, Paris, London, and Madrid. We focus on the first two. These were extraordinary meetings, organized as a direct reaction to the international situation, which indicated an awareness of the need to discuss in depth, at a level that went beyond national borders, the attitude to adopt in the face of this new diplomatic crisis. Although a meeting of the International was not called, the two trade unionist and socialist meetings and the ISB meeting that were about to take place showed that socialism was managing to organize itself much better than before and to adopt a position in the face of the crisis, which therefore began in July 1911. The first of these reunions was Franco-German.44 It took place in Berlin on July 28, 1911 in the two halls of the Neue Welt in Hasenheide and was an initiative of local trade unionists. Their French counterparts sent 45 delegates, who joined the 30.000 workers present.45 Four weeks had elapsed since the beginning of the crisis, so the reaction was faster than during the first crisis in Morocco in 1905. However, four weeks did not mean an immediate reaction either: in any case, the unfolding of the crisis over several months gave the international socialists time to implement their response. It was precisely this reaction time that they then lacked in 1914: the crisis of July 1914 was beyond them and although the International had learned to react quickly to crises, this was not enough in the summer of 1914. But let’s go back to Berlin. Vorwärts said: “Already at 7:30 a.m. the two enormous halls of the establishment were full and new people were continuously pouring in”. We find the same rituals, in a smaller room, as those used at the International congresses: the delegates sang songs, read telegrams. The only item on the agenda of the meeting was: “The solidarity of the French and German working class”. The first to speak was the German Robert Schmidt, whose speech, translated into French by Bernstein, denounced the situation in Morocco, which is the fruit of bourgeois and industrial interests: “The German and French workers must therefore do everything to counter this criminal drift and use everything to keep the peace”. The French trade unionist Léon Jouhaux spoke 44 Die sozialdemokratische Partei und die Marokkofrage. Vorwärts, 4 August 1911. 45 De retour de Berlin. L’Humanité, 4 August 1911.

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after him: his speech, with the same content as that of his predecessor, concluded with the cry “down with the war!” and was greeted by “violent, almost furious applause”. Finally, the resolution was red, accepted by unanimous applause: The gathered people declare that they feel one with the working class world of France and other countries, in the will to guarantee peace to the peoples and to oppose the machinations of the ruling classes that push for war. War only serves for the acts of power, which is stolen and enjoyed by a minority, while the vast majority of all peoples want peace, because only they must bear the sacrifice of war. The people gathered here call upon the workers of Germany and France, in the light of the present danger of war that threatens, to be ready at all times and to mobilize all their influence to prevent war. They demand that representatives of the people be appointed, which will make it possible to take a joint decision on the resolution of international conflicts.46

The French representatives took the opportunity of the Berlin meeting to invite their comrades to a meeting in Paris. However, as denounced by L’Humanité, the French bourgeois press did everything possible to hide this event from public opinion. Indeed, it was very important for it to convince its readers that the Germans were “cautious, timid, embarrassed”47 at the idea of taking any action to oppose the war. In doing so, it wanted to succeed in convincing its readership that in the event of war all Germans, without exception, were ready to follow the government’s decisions. L’Humanité wanted to demonstrate exactly the opposite: the German working class, represented by the members of the social-democratic party and the trade unions present in Paris, just like the French working class, was ready to do anything to oppose its government’s policy of conquest. The German workers were all united to achieve this goal: “It is both the political and economic organization that manifest their peaceful will”.48 And this was what the Parisian meeting of

46 Für den Völkerfrieden. Eine deutsch-französische Kundgebung gegen Kriegshetze und Diplomatenintrigen. Vorwärts, 29 July 1911. 47 Ibid. 48 These are once again the words of: Albert Thomas. Le meeting international contre la guerre. L’Humanité, 5 August 1911.

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August 4, 1911 highlighted.49 Only ten days after the arrival of the Panther in Agadir, Vorwärts announced the news of a protest meeting against the “danger of war” organized by the French in Paris.50 Following the model of the Berlin confreres, the CGT in fact called for a “great workers’ demonstration against the war”,51 which was going to take place in the Wagram hall and where trade unionist representatives and members of the socialist parties met. The nations represented were those most closely involved in the Moroccan dispute: representatives of the English and Spanish labor movements attended the session alongside the French and Germans.52 L’Humanité described the arrival at the Gare du Nord of “Robert Schmidt, deputy and member of the ‘General Kommission’; Silberschmidt, of the building federation, and Bauer, of the Berlin employees. They [are] accompanied by comrades Molkenbuhr, member of the Reichstag, and Ernst, delegated by the executive committee of the German socialist party”.53 All must “participate with Ledebour, deputy, who arrived in the afternoon, in the demonstrations that are or can be organized in Paris against the war by French trade unionists and socialists”.54 The Spanish there were Vicente Barrio and José Negre, Harm Kolthek represented Holland, Tom Mann represented England. For France, L’Humanité spoke of a large number of trade unionists and socialists together, plus a crowd of 6.000 people (5.000 according to Vorwärts),55 but only named Jean-Baptiste Lavaud of the SFIO and for the trade unionists, Jouhaux, Yvetot, Savoy, Pericat, and Bidegaray. This meeting was, according to the daily, proof that the “peaceful will of the working class” was the only certainty that remained.56 A resolution was voted unanimously, which once again underlined the cohesion of the proletariat of the countries represented:

49 Ibid. 50 Die Internationale gegen die Kriegsgefahr. Ein Protestmeeting in Paris. Vorwärts, 11 July 1911. 51 The call can be found in the issue of L’Humanité of 4 August 1911. 52 Le meeting international contre la guerre. L’Humanité, 5 August 1911. 53 Les délégués allemands à Paris. L’Humanité, 4 August 1911. 54 Ibid. 55 Die Internationale gegen die Kriegsgefahr. Ein Protestmeeting in Paris. Vorwärts, 11 July 1911. 56 Les délégués allemands à Paris. L’Humanité, 4 August 1911.

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The workers gathered on August 4, 1911, in the Wagram Hall, are unanimous in their strong protest against the leaders of all nations who, in order to resolve their industrial antagonism, seek, under the pressure of the pirates of finance, to drag the workers into an international conflagration. To this capitalist competition, the workers oppose their class solidarity. Consequently, the delegates of the German, Spanish, English, Dutch and French workers’ organizations declare their readiness to oppose any declaration of war by all means in their power. Each nation represented undertakes to act in accordance with the decisions of its national and international congresses against all criminal activities of the ruling class and they separate at the cry of ‘war to war!’

The Berlin and Paris resolutions were similar, but there were differences too: the former, the result of a Franco-German meeting, looked at the initiatives to be undertaken by these two countries together and advocated more diplomatic action than the Paris resolution, which, for its part, proposed the use of “all means” to oppose the war. In the absence of a congress of the International, not scheduled for 1911, the ISB met in Zurich on September 23 and 24 for the thirteenth time since its creation. The proposal to convoke its members to deal with the crisis in Morocco was made by Camille Huysmans in the early days of July. However, the meeting only took place in September, mainly due to the reluctance of the two members of the SPD leadership group, Molkenbuhr and Bebel, who in July still saw no need to meet to discuss the issue. This attitude was the cause of countless polemics. The events in Morocco were the first item on the agenda and the first of the two resolutions adopted by the Bureau was about “the colonial conflict in Morocco”.57 The decision was taken not to publish any official report of the meeting, in order not to publicize the discussions on the issue of Morocco58 and—as Georges Haupt pointed out—to avoid it becoming too big. Only the resolutions voted are communicated to the press59 and a more or less detailed report of the meeting could be found in the ISB 57 La conférence de Zurich. Bulletin périodique du Bureau socialiste international 8,

1911, 127. 58 This decision is mentioned in the final resolution: “The question of Morocco was then the subject of a long and very thorough debate, but it was decided by the Bureau not to give any publicity to this discussion”. Ibid. 59 Georges Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale. Étude critique des sources. Essai bibliographique. Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967, 269.

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journal.60 L’Humanité, for its part, reserved little space to the meeting61 and some information was relayed in La Revue socialiste.62 The impression that the ISB did not want the Moroccan issue to become too big at the international level was confirmed by the fact that the final resolution gave it a relatively small place, even though the meeting was convened to give an answer to the Agadir crisis. Among other resolutions (organization of socialist youth and the question of high cost of living), the ISB adopted “the motion drafted by the sub-commission, composed of Bebel, Adler, Vaillant, Rosa Luxemburg, and Vandervelde on the international situation. […] This motion vigorously affirms the will of the proletariat to prevent war; notes with satisfaction the efforts made; invites the parties to intensify their protests against colonial banditry; decides that the bureau will take the initiative to organize large colonial demonstrations against war”.63 The official text of the ISB resolution was published the following day by L’Humanité and La Revue socialiste. A short reference was made to Morocco and the discourse then extended to all countries threatened by war. The ISB members noted that the proletarians of these countries had already invested a lot to oppose the war and continue the fight toward universal peace and affirmed that they want to leave an important place for the action of each socialist party: “The ISB reminds each of the national sections, especially those in countries now threatened by the Moroccan conflict or other colonial conflicts, Germany, England, France, Turkey and Italy, the resolutions of their national congresses and the international congresses of Stuttgart and Copenhagen against the war. The International Bureau counts on them, on their individual and common action to prevent and avert war”.64 Finally, the Bureau was in charge of organizing, in agreement with the national parties, international demonstrations against the war and of developing by all means the anti-war movement. 60 All resolutions are quoted in: La conférence de Zurich. Bulletin périodique du Bureau socialiste international 8, 1911, 127–129. 61 Jean Longuet. Le Bureau Socialiste International. Partis et syndicats contre la guerre. L’Humanité, 24 september 1911. There is a complete list of the delegates at the meeting. 62 Jean Rouge. Mouvement politique: l’agitation contre la guerre. La Revue socialiste 322, 1911, 367–369. 63 Jean Longuet. Contre la guerre. La vie chère. L’Humanité, 25 September 1911. 64 Les décisions de l’Internationale contre la guerre, contre la vie chère. L’Humanité,

26 September 1911.

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These three international events (Berlin, Paris, Zurich) demonstrated that collaboration between socialist parties in different countries was seen as a real way of dealing with a dangerous international situation. The problem however was that these meetings and the few resolutions voted were the only initiatives that have been taken and they were insufficient to deal with the situation. The Zurich resolution did not even deal with the question of decisions to be taken in case the situation worsens. The general strike was evoked in Paris, but surprisingly, the discussions on the topic were evoked only by Vorwärts, L’Humanité completely ignoring them. An attitude that could be found by observing more closely what was happening at the level of the national socialist parties. Something had changed from the international point of view: the International and the ISB had managed to organize themselves and the Bureau had met, albeit belatedly and with timid results: the international socialist institutions were making progress in their learning of the temporalities of the crisis. The action of the International was blocked by the fact that two of its main member countries were directly involved in the crisis—the demonstrations in Berlin and Paris were held at the initiative of trade unionists and members of the socialist parties limited themselves to attending. In the Italian-Turkish War, which broke out a few months later and which did not involve France or Germany in the foreground, the new reaction ability of the ISB became clear. Relations Between Parties: Unity “Marokko ist nicht die Knochen eines deutschen, nicht die Knochen eines französischen Arbeiters wert!”65 (“Morocco is not worth the skin of a German worker, nor that of a French worker!”): during the 1911 crisis, this sentence was often repeated in the German press, as a ritual phrase, a leitmotiv supposed to remove from itself the danger of a conflict between the two parties over the Moroccan question and the equivalent could be found in the French press.66 The relationship between SFIO and SPD in this period appeared to be most cordial. The German press constantly underlined the great cohesion and willingness to collaborate that binds

65 Among others: Die Friedenskundgebung Berlins. Vorwärts, 22 August 1911 and Franz Mehring. Das Marokko-Abenteuer. Die Neue Zeit 41, 1911. 66 Rouge, Mouvement politique, 371.

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the SPD to the SFIO. Members of both parties, moreover, did not miss an opportunity to highlight the commitment of their comrades from the other party in the fight for the cause of peace, and vice versa. In the first days following the arrival of the Panther gunboat in Agadir, expressions of confidence in the peaceful will of the German comrades followed one another in the French press. The German people “would repulse with great energy a military adventure on Morocco”, proclaims an article in L’Humanité of July 467 and Jaurès asserted a few days later: “We have seen with joy the vigorous protest of our German socialist comrades. They can be sure that the French socialists are following events with anxious attention and that they will not fail in their duties”.68 As the Agadir crisis erupted, the central debate in the German parliament concerned the reform of the right to vote. These discussions were not confined to the Reichstag, they strongly involved the social-democrats outside the hemicycle, who were organizing several meetings and demonstrations to discuss and express their views. After the “jump of the Panther”, these meetings were oriented toward the Moroccan question, which was at the forefront of the discussions. The meetings on voting rights reform thus spontaneously turned into demonstrations where the question of how to act in favor of peacekeeping was raised. It should be noted, however, that these were not meetings organized at the national level: they were set up on an ad hoc basis, at the initiative of the locally based SPD groups. As will be shown below, the attitude of the SPD leadership group remained very moderate. However, these local initiatives were spotted and praised at length by the French press, according to which “these meetings proved that the proletarian and socialist mass easily accepted the ‘radical’ theses of the anti-war party. The German people have truly demonstrated their pacifying intentions and a horror for the policy of conquest in Morocco”.69 Whether in the German or French press, at the beginning of the summer of 1911, declarations of German solidarity with French comrades abounded. Franz Mehring, from the left wing of the SPD, praised on

67 L’incident d’Agadir et l’opinion internationale. Articles significatifs de la presse berlinoise. L’Humanité, 4 July 1911. 68 Jean Jaurès. Sang-froid et danger. L’Humanité, 7 July 1911. 69 Rouge, Mouvement politique, 372.

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July 8, on the pages of the newspaper Die Neue Zeit, the firm attitude of the SFIO in this moment of tension and emphasized that the Germans were ready to follow it: the French socialists “have decreed energetic action by the entire party to force the government to make peace; faithful to the decisions of the international socialist congress they want, if necessary, to oppose by all means the outbreak of a fratricidal war. These decisions of our French comrades find the most vivid echo in the German working class, which undoubtedly does everything in its power to support the action of French social-democracy”.70 When Mehring wrote these words, the French were indeed preparing the meeting that took place in the Wagram Hall at the beginning of August. His attitude was not, by the way, the prerogative of the left wing of German social-democracy. Throughout the period of the crisis, Vorwärts drew the attention of his readers to the feelings of fraternity that bound the SPD to the comrades of the SFIO and to the German willingness to collaborate with the French socialists. Demonstrations of friendship thus followed one another on both sides. On July 12, the SFIO, in collaboration with the Fédération de la Seine, organized a major meeting “for international peace” at the Manège Saint-Paul in Paris. Long speeches by Francis de Pressensé and Jean Jaurès, among other speakers, were planned, even if Jaurès, victim of a malaise, was finally not able to attend. At the opening, Louis Dubreuilh read the solidarity telegram sent by the SPD leading group: according to the missive, if no Germans were at the meeting, it was for the simple reason that they were informed too late.71 “Long live international socialism, liberator of peoples!”, the telegram, which was a true declaration of solidarity with the French comrades, stated: “We can assure the socialist party of France that the German working class opposes the criminals who are pushing for war in its country with the same energy shown by the French proletariat, when at today’s meeting organized by the Fédération de la Seine, it will condemn the crime of the warlike excitement of the chauvinists and will vote against imperialism and for peace”.72 During the debates, it was the Alsatian socialist and

70 Mehring, Das Marokko-Abenteuer, 506. 71 Der Grüß den französischen Kampfgenossen! Vorwärts, 13 July 1911. 72 Le meeting du manège Saint-Paul. L’Internationale contre la guerre. Une magnifique

protestation des travailleurs allemands. L’Humanité, 13 July 1911.

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director of the Deutsches sozialistisches Leseclub in Paris Salomon Grumbach who, although not directly sent by the SPD, expressed the firm will of the German labor movement to hinder a possible rise in tension caused by the situation in Morocco, so much so that the article in L’Humanité describing the meeting was subtitled “A magnificent protest by German workers”.73 SPD organized a large event in Treptow Park in Berlin. Unlike the July 28th demonstration, this was an initiative of the social-democrats. Vorwärts published several calls for participating to declare “war on war”74 and did not miss the opportunity to underline once again the solidarity with the English and French comrades.75 Ten tribunes were set up in the Berlin park, where the speeches of the various representatives of social-democracy were held at the same time, resulting in a multitude of speeches throughout the day, in front of an estimated 400.000 spectators, according to L’Humanité76 : From eleven o’clock in the morning, one noticed in the city of Berlin long processions of properly dressed workers accompanied by their wives and children, who were heading towards the south-east of the city, where the Treptower Park, which is the Berlin Bois de Vincennes, is located. The place of the meeting was the large lawn which is located in the center of the park. Ten stands, stretched out in red, had been erected on the perimeter. At the signal of a trumpet blast, the meeting was opened. The speakers harangued the immense assembly, distributed in perfect order around these ten stands, following the patterns of Berlin’s districts.

Two trends were noticeable among the speakers. Most of them pronounced moderate words, general calls for peace: in tribune no. 2, the socialist Büchner affirmed that capitalism must be defeated in order to eradicate war; Groger, in tribune no. 9, for his part, was convinced that 73 Ibid. 74 On August 30, an appeal against the war was published in the pages of Vorwärts: Gegen den Krieg! Für den Völkerfrieden! Vorwärts, 30 August 1911. 75 Call on the first page of the Vorwärts issue of September 1, 1911: Volk von Berlin! Gestalte die Demonstration am Sonntag zur machvollsten Kundgebung Deines unerschütterlichen Friedenswillen! Marokko ist nicht die Knochen eines einzigen deutschen Arbeiters wert! Nieder mit den Kriegshetzern! Hoch die Solidarität mit unseren englischen und französischen Brüdern! Vorwärts, 1 September 1911. 76 Une manifestation à Berlin. L’Humanité, 4 September 1911.

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in France people aspired to the same peace as in Germany. Others adopted more precise positions: Ledebour, in this same tribune No. 9, invoked the general strike as a means of fighting the war. The speech with the most radical accents was that of Karl Liebknecht in tribune no. 7, whose strong words met with public approval: “Today we swear that we want to keep the peace under all conditions, in common with the proletariat in England and France and with all men who also want to keep the peace under all conditions”, said the representative of the SPD left wing, who continued by affirming that “socialism is peace. Let’s light the fire of war against war!”77 In L’Humanité’s report,78 only Liebknecht’s speech was quoted. The article did not report his words, but underlined the success that his vehement words had with the audience. The French daily thus displayed once again the German will to oppose any conflict. The article went on to quote in its entirety the resolution approved at Treptow, in which the German proletariat asserted its readiness to use all political and economic means to prevent war: The working people gathered on September 3 in Treptow Park to protest vigorously against the infamous war excitement of the industrial capitalists, manufacturers of armor plates and cannon. They are convinced that all colonial policy is merely a consequence of the capitalists’ ambitious imperialism, which makes the conquering peoples it destroys more brutal. The workers gathered in this meeting therefore protest against these adventurous enterprises. They demand that in such grave circumstances the opinion of the representation of the people be taken into account. The proletariat assembled in this meeting declares that it will use all political and economic means to ensure the maintenance of peace. The workers affirm that, despite the bellicose propaganda of those involved, they will remember in the next elections the exploitative spirit shown by the ruling parties and the government that relies on them.79

This resolution was unanimously approved: “With another blow of the trumpet, the 400.000 people attending the meeting raised their hands, thus approving the resolution with a single gesture”. Louis Dubreuilh’s

77 The report of the event and the speeches podium by podium can be found in the long article: Die Armee des Friedens. Vorwärts, 4 September 1911. 78 Une manifestation à Berlin. L’Humanité, 4 September 1911. 79 Ibid.

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comment was enthusiastic: “War is therefore impossible” if all these workers had come together for this cause.80 The Jena Congress This willingness to underline the unity of socialism at this critical moment was also palpable in the comments of the official press of the different socialist parties at the Jena congress a week later. However, as could already be glimpsed in the speeches in Treptow Park, the debates that took place in Jena demonstrated that, on some issues, the SPD representatives were not unanimous. The debate of German socialists in general around the Moroccan crisis revealed that for part of the SPD internationalism and peace did not prevail over homeland and war.81 The Jena congress took place from September 10 to 16, 1911, just before the ISB meeting. Two intrinsically related discussions characterized this congress for the subject matter here: a polemic that pushes Rosa Luxemburg to oppose the party’s leading group on the one hand and the resolutions on the Moroccan question on the other.82 The international situation and the attitude that the SPD wanted to adopt toward what was happening in Morocco formed the backdrop to the two debates, which saw two quite distinct groups opposing each other: the question of the right attitude toward a possible war was already dividing the party before the First World War. At the beginning of July, a few days after the Panther gunboat was sent to the port of Agadir, ISB director Camille Huysmans sent a letter to the secretaries of the socialist parties of the International. He asked their opinion on the need to convene the meeting of the delegates of the socialist parties of the countries involved in the Moroccan question (this was the meeting that indeed took place in September). On the SPD side, Molkenbuhr and Bebel had responded to this missive, independently and yet in the same direction. Molkenbuhr saw no urgency in

80 Louis Dubreuilh. La paix certaine. L’Humanité, 4 September 1911. 81 To have a general overview of the socialist debate contemporary to the crisis see Max

Schippel. Marokkofragen in der Sozialdemokratie. Sozialistische Monatshefte 15–17, 1911, 1511–1517 and Karl Kautsky. Weltpolitik, Weltkrieg und Sozialdemokratie!, Berlin: Paul Singer, 1911. 82 Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages des sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten in Jena vom 10. bis 16. September 1911. Berlin, 1911 (next: Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1911), 192–194 and 202–267.

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this meeting. In his opinion, it was necessary to wait a little and observe the evolution of the international situation. Bebel, for his part, was even clearer, stating that the crisis was not serious enough to require an international meeting of socialist leaders. Faced with the lack of firmness of these positions, which she deplored, Rosa Luxemburg had decided to publish part of the correspondence between Huysmans and Molkenbuhr in the newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung on 24 July. By this act, she wanted to show her dissatisfaction with the attitude of her comrades, whom she considered too moderate and too backward in relation to events. However, she was accused of disloyalty,83 with the justification that the correspondence between Huysmans and Molkenbuhr should not be made public. In his speech at the Jena congress, Bebel had some scathing words: She has allowed herself to make our dealings, which were of a strictly confidential nature, incomplete publications, which is considered a disloyalty by all concerned. And she has done this in a way that is in contradiction with the truth. […] Comrade Luxemburg stated that Molkenbuhr and the party’s executive committee simply opposed the meeting. She was only able to deliver this statement because she diverted the last line [of Molkenbuhr’s letter to Huysmans]. She published the whole letter, but she omitted the first and the concluding passage, in which it was stated that it can be provisionally waited about the meeting.84

In fact, Bebel said that the executive committee only thought it necessary in July to wait a little longer before convening a meeting and categorically denied a priori opposing a meeting of ISB representatives on the Moroccan issue. Moreover, Luxemburg was not alone in its critic about the party’s executive committee. Salomon Grumbach, who spoke just after Bebel, announced on his side: “I completely agree with Bebel about the criticism of the behavior of comrade Luxemburg, even if I cannot help saying that I do not find correct the way in which the leading committee has acted in the face of the Moroccan situation”.85 Rosa Luxemburg, supported by Clara Zetkin, tried to defend herself: she did not mention any names and thought she had done the right thing by making the proletariat aware of the wait-and-see attitude of the SPD leadership group. 83 Ibid., 204. 84 Ibid., 215. 85 Ibid., 218.

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In her defense speech, she thus submitted Bebel’s way of acting to the debate.86 The discussion about this “disloyalty” of Rosa Luxemburg continued and occupied many pages of the congress report.87 Such a controversy was not new within the SPD: for some months now, the Leipziger Volkszeitung, under the pen of Rosa Luxemburg herself, had already been accusing the leading group of not facing up to the development of the situation in Morocco enough.88 In fact, this was not a simple trial of intent by Rosa Luxemburg. The question behind the polemic that opposed her to Molkenbuhr and Bebel, and more generally to the leading group of her party, was central. It was the editor-in-chief of the Leipziger Volkszeitung and SPD member Paul Lensch who explicitly formulated it in Jena: the basic problem was not whether Rosa Luxemburg’s attitude was right, he said. It was rather a question of “whether the party’s executive committee has fulfilled its duties in the Moroccan question or not”.89 Part of the SPD, like Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Lensch, Clara Zetkin, Georg Ledebour and Karl Liebknecht, accused the ruling group of not having used all the means at its disposal to allow a rapid and peaceful resolution of the Moroccan question. The leaders defended themselves from the accusations, claimed to be as committed as they were to a crisis resolution and, more generally, declared their opposition to war in all its forms. The first proposed resolution (which wasn’t adopted) reflected this moderate attitude of the leading group. It stated that German socialdemocracy considered that its main duty in international politics was to work for a peaceful and sustainable balance of international interests “in union with sister parties abroad”.90 The resolution continued with these words: “Such a balance is, however, only possible if no nation claims for itself a monopolistic advance in colonial supply”.91 In this context, as long as this balance had not been achieved, social-democracy, in collaboration with the German people, must oppose any willingness of other countries to extend their colonial influence to the disadvantage of Germany. Such

86 Ibid., 215. 87 Ibid., 192–194 and 202–267. 88 Die sozialdemokratische Partei und die Marokkofrage. Vorwärts, 4 August 1911. 89 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1911, 207. 90 Ibid., 156. 91 Ibid.

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attempts would reduce the room for maneuver of the German economy— the proposed resolution continued. Thus, the cultural growth of German workers would stop or become dependent on the uncontrollable fates of the economic policies of other countries. As long as the sole purpose of German diplomacy was to prevent British and French diplomacy from acting without concern for German economic interests, the SPD had no reason to oppose the government’s domestic or foreign policy and, “as long as an agreement on these bases is not reached, social-democracy will oppose in collaboration with the other parts of the German people all attempts by the other colonial powers”.92 This moderate attitude of the SPD leadership group was not surprising if one remembers that the country was, as we know, involved in the Moroccan crisis. The resolution finally adopted by the congress took a somewhat firmer stance, although, as proposed by the party’s leadership group, it remained faithful to the more moderate ideas. It protested “against any attempt to wage a murderous war between civilized peoples, whether French, English or German”.93 Such a war “would necessarily become a world war and would end in a general catastrophe”.94 Finally, the resolution announced that “the party congress refuses with indignation that anything can be imposed on the masses and expects the German working class to use all means at its disposal to prevent a world war. The party congress calls for the immediate convening of the Reichstag, so that the representatives of the people have the opportunity to express their opinion and to deal with the anti-popular machinations”.95 Even if it did not contain the statements on the defense of the German economy discussed above, it was nevertheless far from being a radical stand against any colonial interest or war of expansion. Moreover, according to Gustave Hervé, if Bebel included the formula on “all possible means to prevent a world war”, it was for the sake of form and with the sole aim of not losing the support of the left wing of his party.96 Hervé’s remark, signed

92 Ibid. 93 Ibid., 160. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 160. 96 Un sans-patrie. Paris contre la guerre. La Guerre sociale, 27 September–4 October

1911.

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under his pseudonym “un sans-patrie”, can, of course, be seen as tendentious or distorted, but it nevertheless reflected the thinking of a certain part of the French and European left. In reality, the only demand of this resolution that could avoid, through concrete action, the rise of tension following the Moroccan crisis was the immediate convening of parliament. The representatives of the people could express their opinions there and oppose the machinations going against its interests.97 Apart from this point, Bebel openly declared that Germany was against the general strike,98 even if this statement must be nuanced: since the Mannheimer Abkommen99 was signed, the general strike had become the task of the German trade unions more than of social-democracy. Rosa Luxemburg, Gustav Koch and Clara Zetkin called for a fourpoint amendment to be added to the resolution, which would make it look less temperate. The first two points stated that the party protested against what was happening in Morocco “as it protests against every war that leads to the subjugation of barbaric or semi-barbarian peoples to capitalist states”,100 and that it stood against “the oppression and exploitation of native peoples”.101 The third point took a resolute stand against all the German parties who incited to “arms madness”,102 which could lead “sooner or later […] to a world war”.103 The fourth point, finally, was against German colonial policy in general.104 These amendments were, however, all rejected by the congress and no credit was given to Liebknecht’s commentary, which emphasized and criticized the fact

97 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1911, 160. 98 L’Humanité cites Bebel’s speech in Jena, in which he states that the SPD, unlike

the SFIO, is opposed to the possibility of calling a general strike in the case of war. The article limits itself to quoting Bebel, without adding any commentary. Au congrès de Jena. La social-démocratie contre la guerre. Un grand discours de Bebel. L’Humanité, 15 September 1911. 99 We have already had the opportunity to mention the Mannheimer Abkommen in the introduction. 100 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1911, 162. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid., 163. 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid.

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that no reference to the role of the masses in the struggle against the war was present in the adopted resolution.105 French Commentaries About Jena L’Humanité followed the Jena congress step by step, which was also attended by French delegates. The daily thus provided its readers with an account of the debates on the publication of the Huysmans-Molkenbuhr correspondence, with a focus on what concerned French and international socialism more closely. For example, the newspaper reported on Rosa Luxemburg’s questions about the SFIO’s reaction to the positions taken by the moderate wing of the SPD: “She in turn accuses the committee of having adopted a hesitant attitude towards the question of Morocco, which certainly did not gain the approval of the French socialists, whose action against the Moroccan capitalist policy it should have supported”. Ledebour, for his part, asserted that there was no need for large demonstrations to get out of the contemporary international situation, but rather an “understanding with foreign socialist parties, because only the union of the international proletariat can avoid war”. Like Luxemburg, he was openly critical of his party’s leaders. According to him, the steering committee did not work to strengthen ties with other socialist parties: “It was its inaction at such a critical moment that brought it criticism from abroad. […] It must be acknowledged that the executive committee has deceived the expectations of many members of the German party and the congress has the right to ask it to fulfill all its duties”. L’Humanité also cited Bebel’s immediate reaction, which underlined the loyal commitment to his foreign counterparts on the SPD’s executive committee, “who, far from ignoring his duty, was the one who went the furthest of all the socialist committees, since he was the only one who demanded the eventual convocation of the entire International socialist committee”. His reply, however, did not refer specifically to the situation in Morocco.106 The article in L’Humanité merely reproduced this tiny portion of the Jena debates, without adding the slightest comment. It is difficult to know why the author choose this brief passage among the long debates: to underline

105 Ibid., 370. 106 “It affirms, by the authority of all the Delegates, that the Proletariat is set up against

the war”. Le congrès socialiste d’Iéna. L’Humanité, 12 September 1911.

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that the German social-democrats did not act sufficiently at the international level or, on the contrary, to highlight, thanks to Bebel’s declaration, the commitment of the SPD? We lean rather toward the second hypothesis, also supported by the fact that the resolution concerning Morocco was quote, which was a frank stand against the war. No reference was made to the proposed resolutions, nor to the very uninternationalist character of some of them. And, indeed, the next day, another article in L’Humanité reported that the entire French press praised the resolution voted at Jena, which was translated in full into French in the pages devoted to the struggle against the war in the October issue of La Revue socialiste.107 In this resolution a “will to prevent war by all means”108 was clearly stated, according to the journalist of L’Humanité: from now on, France’s task was to make the same commitment. Following the vote on this resolution, the permanent administrative commission of the SFIO published an anti-war manifesto in which, following the German demonstrations and the debates of the congress, it incited the French working class to respond with “a unanimous revolutionary uprising” to the “crime of the governors”.109 Jena’s quarrel between the SPD leadership group and its left wing also found its place in the columns of L’Humanité. The conclusion clearly revealed the message that the author wanted to convey: as Liebknecht lamented, the governing group could have pressed for an ISB meeting to be called immediately, instead of advising to wait. But, the article asserted, “current criticism shows that the German proletariat, socialists and trade unionists are all united in the Moroccan question and in the efforts against the war”.110 What emerged from L’Humanité’s analysis of the Jena congress was the strong and unanimous will of the SPD as a whole, in accordance with the principles of the SFIO, to ensure that the situation in Morocco did not lead to war. Here it was the socialist press that spoke, that underlined this unity of socialism. As Louis Dubreuilh pointed out, French and German socialists were working side by side for peace, to guarantee it by all means: “Yes, the French proletariat is peaceful. Yes, it is ready to fight by all means against war. But

107 Rouge, Mouvement politique, 363–364. 108 À notre tour. L’Humanité, 13 September 1911. 109 Rouge, Mouvement politique, 365. 110 Au congrès de Jena. Contre la guerre à l’unanimité. L’Humanité, 13 September

1911.

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the German proletariat is also animated by the same peaceful will and is equally determined to fight by all means against the war. By all means, this is the very formula that our friends have just used in their congress in Jena”. The hostility between them would be just an “old cliché”.111 Italian Comments to the Jena Congress We find the same attitude in Italy, but with less involvement in discussions and positions: we must take into account the lesser involvement of this country in the crisis. The daily newspaper Avanti! nevertheless followed closely the Jena congress and devoted several articles and comments to it, drawing attention above all to the unity of the German proletariat in the face of the Moroccan crisis and more generally to the question of war. The fierce discussions in Jena between the left and the party’s leadership group were very briefly summarized: in an article on September 13, Avanti! stated that they are about form, the contents being the same for both the left and the right wing of the party,112 and concluded as follows: “Since this debate, which will reappear later during the work of the congress, is for the moment closed, we are witnessing a sympathetic and moving affirmation of international solidarity”.113 Avanti!’s expressions of confidence in the SPD’s willingness to fight the war in a united way were manifold. After describing in detail the first day of debates, the Italian daily concluded: “Today has shown that once the first doubts, the first uncertainties have been dispelled, the whole German socialist party, including the trade unionists, is ready for any action”.114 In fact, Avanti! attached little importance to the debate between Rosa Luxemburg and the management group. It also quoted Eduard David, one of the leaders of the German revisionists, as saying that there was no reason to make much of the Panther’s sending to Agadir as long as one listened to and understood the motivations that drove the government. The Italian daily concluded that “[…] the whole German social-democracy is ready

111 An article on the front page: Louis Dubreuilh. Vieux cliché. L’Humanité, 16 September 1911. 112 Il congresso annuale del partito socialista tedesco. Avanti!, 13 September 1911. 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid.

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to oppose the general strike to the menace of war”.115 From Avanti’s point of view, therefore, there was nothing to fear: the German socialists themselves were convinced that their government had no warmongering intentions. And should they be wrong on this point and find that their country actually wanted to wage war, Italians trusted their German comrades to declare a general strike and stop the conflict. In general, Avanti! leaned more toward the positions of the left wing of the SPD. The article of September 13 showed a benevolent look at Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas and the polemic opposing her to the leading group of her party. The Limits of This Unit: French Uncertainties As we have seen, the unity of opinion of the SPD on the Moroccan events and the means to oppose them, so much praised by the French and Italian press, did not correspond to reality. But in spite of the disagreements, the resolution adopted in Jena declared the SPD’s willingness to firmly oppose the war, even if the question of a general strike in case of conflict, the topic of many debates at the International congress, was barely dealt with. Even if the French press seemed not to want to notice it, the SFIO’s attitude in these months of crisis demonstrated that the French socialists were aware of what was happening among their German comrades.116 During the first crisis in Morocco, the socialist reaction had been nuanced: indeed, a reaction had begun to take place, especially at the international level. Among the German social-democrats and the French socialists, however, some uncertainty about the attitude to adopt had persisted as a consequence of their direct involvement in the tense situation. The Panther moored in the port of Agadir on July 1. At first, the SFIO socialists did not seem to take this show of force too seriously.117 Jean Longuet asserted the next day that the Germans could have sent their fleet, but that in the end they only sent one gunboat: the action of the German government was therefore clearly demonstrative and there

115 Tra un pericolo che dilegua e uno che sorge. Avanti!, 14 September 1911. 116 In the next chapter we will discuss the debate on Charles Andler’s theses on the

imperialism of German social-democracy. 117 Cf. Mejri, Les socialistes français et la question marocaine.

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was no risk of it becoming offensive.118 Jaurès wasn’t alarmed either. This was the third time that there had been a situation of this kind in Morocco, he said, and nothing serious was going to happen this time either.119 But ten days later, their attitude changed, a sign of increasing international tension.120 In spite of this, no major anti-war action had yet been called or undertaken. The first session of the 8th national congress of the SFIO was held in April in Saint-Quentin. During the debates, Jean Longuet’s view that common action by all socialist parties was fundamental to confronting international tensions won general support.121 The resolution voted on the issue remained quite cautious: the congress decided “to intensify the propaganda in favor of peace and compulsory international arbitration to resolve conflicts between nations other than by force of arms”. It asked the ISB to “provoke, in all countries, large public and parliamentary demonstrations where, recalling the resolutions of the congresses of Stuttgart and Copenhagen, the workers’ International will proclaim its peaceful will”.122 The need to use “all means”123 to oppose the war had been affirmed during the debates of the congresses of Limoges (1906) and Nancy (1907).124 Certainly the tension around Morocco was increasing, the landing of French troops had caused dissension with Spain, but the resolution voted in Saint-Quentin did not seem to be the answer to a period of crisis. The situation had not yet escalated and the reaction of the socialists meeting in the Aisne was rather calm. But the terms of the resolution 118 Jean Longuet. L’inévitable. L’Humanité, 2 July 1911 (commentary of the article by Jean Jaurès). 119 Jean Jaurès. Sang-froid et danger. L’Humanité, 7 July 1911. 120 Jean Jaurès. Aggravation. L’Humanité, 9 July 1911. 121 VIII° congrès national, tenu à Saint-Quentin les 16, 17, 18 et 19 avril 1911. Compte rendu sténographique. Paris: Librairie du parti socialiste, 1911, 237. 122 Ernest Poisson. Le congrès de Saint-Quentin. La Revue socialiste 316, 1911, 402. 123 “From the parliamentary intervention, the public agitation, the popular demonstra-

tions, up to the workers’ general strike and the insurrection”. SFIO. III° congrès national tenu à Limoges les 1er , 2, 3 et 4 novembre 1906, Paris, 1906, 262 (it is in particular the text of the motion proposed in Limoges by Jean Jaurès, the contents of which were then discussed at length in Nancy). 124 The congresses of Limoges and Nancy “laid the foundations of French socialist doctrines on the war”. Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Les socialismes français et allemand et le problème de la guerre, 1870–1914. Geneva: Droz, 1953, 98.

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were very moderate and did not give the impression of a party ready to reopen the discussion should the situation deteriorate. Perhaps the socialists were underestimating the risk of a worsening international situation. Either because the SFIO did not want to, or cannot, take strong positions against the war, or because it did not believe that the situation was really dangerous, it displayed the same caution at its next meeting, in November 1911 in Paris. This was an extraordinary session of the congress of Saint-Quentin, for the revision of the statutes. This could have been an opportunity to discuss the Moroccan question, if only on the sidelines of the congress. But the issue was not even raised. These French uncertainties are underlined by La Guerre sociale, which asked: “What is the unified party waiting for to do the same, on its side, and to put itself in a position to keep its word and unleash the insurrection?”125 Hervé’s daily admitted that the SFIO and the CGT were badly prepared for the 1911 crisis, as was the case in 1905. In one of his articles, still signed by “a man without homeland”, Hervé advocated several measures to effectively oppose the war.126 According to him, the only solution that could prevent an international conflict remained the general strike, which should be called neither too late nor too early.127 In September 1911, he devoted an entire article to the fact that, on the German side, the socialists took many more initiatives against the war: “The German comrades march very well, they march better than we do”. Hervé emphasized what he called “apathy” and “powerlessness to organize in France anything grandiose like a popular demonstration against the war”,128 in comparison with the hyperactivity of certain parts of the German proletariat. His statements seemed to be out of step with the general opinion of the SFIO regarding comrades across the Rhine. In reality, Hervé analyzed the situation of German social-democracy in the face of the Moroccan crisis in much more depth than did, for example, L’Humanité. The articles quoted here were written during the Jena

125 Un sans-patrie. Toujours les menaces de guerre. La Guerre sociale, 23–30 August

1911. 126 Un sans-patrie. Après l’alerte marocaine. La Guerre sociale, 9–15 August 1911. 127 Un sans-patrie. Plutôt l’insurrection que la guerre. La Guerre sociale, 6–11 October

1911. This article also discusses the war in Tripolitania. 128 Gustave Hervé. Les socialistes allemands contre la guerre. La Guerre sociale, 13–20 September 1911.

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congress: instead of celebrating a substantive unity among German socialists (a unity that was not really founded), Hervé named the differences between the left wing of the SPD and the leading group gathered around the charismatic figure of Bebel. Moreover, his position was similar to that of the former, whom he called “unknowingly Hervéist”,129 who of course were those who were making a real contribution to the anti-war protest in Germany. Bebel was indeed, according to Hervé, “an old man of 72 years”130 and the great parliamentary leaders were “always a little asleep”. The left wing of the SPD, on the other hand, asserted that in the event of war it wanted to use “the great means”, among them the general strike. This noisy minority reproached Bebel and the executive committee for “being too soft in the face of the threat of war”.131 In the same way that he compared the German left wing to the group that formed around it, Hervé compared Bebel’s way of proceeding to that of Jaurès in France.132 He thus underlined the fact that the left wing of the German party managed to make itself heard better than his group. The immobility of the SFIO parliamentary group could thus be compared to the attitude of its German counterpart, even if different contemporary analyses, with the exception of those of La Guerre sociale, tended to hide the existing divisions within the SPD. Pressensé, concluding his description of the Moroccan crisis, once again declared himself opposed to any colonial war. The reason, however, was for him the interest of not destroying the defensive force of France.133

129 Ibid. 130 Les discours de Bebel contre la guerre. La Guerre sociale, 27 September–4 October

1911. 131 Hervé, Les socialistes allemands contre la guerre. 132 Les discours de Bebel contre la guerre. La Guerre sociale, 27 September–4 October

1911. 133 “The more passionately I am attached to the cause of peace, the more I repel all

the foolish and villainous chimeras of aggressive nationalism, and the more at the same time I consider it indispensable in the social and political state of Europe not to weaken, above all not to destroy the defensive strength of France by devoting it to the formidable and sacrilegious task of conquering a race”. Francis de Pressensé. Les affaires marocaines. La Revue socialiste 320, 1911, 110–111.

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The Limits of This Unit: The Attitude of the PSI Italian socialists did not really take part in international debates about Morocco. There were no delegates present at the meeting in the Wagram Hall and only one delegate,134 the party secretary Pompeo Ciotti, traveled to Zurich.135 The reason was simple: Italy was not directly involved in the crisis. The Italian socialists were simply observing the attitude of their comrades. They also faced difficulties in their own country: the nationalist upsurges in Tripolitania, which were a consequence of the crisis in Morocco, intensified in the summer of 1911. The 11th PSI congress was held in Modena in October 1911. The climax of the Agadir crisis was already in the past, but the agreements between France and Germany had not yet been ratified. However, not a single word was uttered about Morocco, as the members of the socialist party were already too busy discussing the war in Tripolitania that had just started.136 This lack of interest from Italians was also reflected in the pages of Avanti! and Critica sociale. Turati’s magazine only mentioned the Moroccan question, very briefly, in one single article: its author, Filippo Turati himself, recognized however that one of the main causes of the Italian government’s willingness to undertake the adventure in Tripolitania was due to Moroccan events.137 Avanti! reported on what was happening in Morocco, focusing on the reaction of foreign comrades, especially German socialists in Jena. As we have seen, he praised the unity of the SPD in opposition to his government’s actions in Morocco. Avanti! also tended to highlight the unity of the SFIO138 and, moreover, it exalted the solidarity between the comrades of the SFIO and those of the SPD. In the middle of the Jena congress, he quoted French socialist Bracke, who stated that “the French proletariat is linked to the German

134 Maurizio Degl’Innocenti affirms that PSI is never very present at ISB meetings. Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. Filippo Turati e il socialismo europeo. Naples: Guida, 1985, 108. 135 Meetings of the International Socialist Bureau, delegates present, agendas, in: Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale, 268. 136 Direzione del Partito Socialista italiano. Resoconto stenografico dell’undicesimo Congresso del PSI, Modena, 15–16-17–18 ottobre 1911. Milan, 1912. 137 Filippo Turati. Da Jena, al Marocco a Tripoli passando per Roma. Critica sociale, 18 September 1911. 138 Il partito socialista francese contro l’eventualità di una guerra. Avanti!, 17 September

1911.

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proletariat by the feeling of the most intimate solidarity”.139 Like their French comrades, the Italian socialists did not hesitate to criticize the positions considered too moderate by part of the SPD. Avanti! titled one of its first articles on the attitude of foreign comrades to the Moroccan question: “An obscure parenthesis in Franco-German conversations about Morocco. Convergence of views in the socialist party to demand respect for the Algeciras Pact. Bernstein and Jaurès”.140 The author affirmed that, in France and Germany, everyone agreed to return to the Algeciras Pact and respect it. These words were pronounced in late August 1911, when the worst of the crisis had passed. The German people were unanimous in their protest against any action of their government in Morocco. On the other hand, a few socialists—Bernstein and the revisionists grouped with him—reopened the debate and explained the economic and political reasons likely to go against the pact: The first to wave the flag of positive politics was Bernstein – to mention only the best known. It is good – he said – that we are protesting against the war; but all that is not enough. The socialist party is now such an important factor in the political life of civilized nations that it cannot be satisfied with negations alone. If it rejects one program, it must propose another. Now, as far as Morocco is concerned, the first truth that jumps out is exactly this: in the current situation, the state cannot disregard the Moroccan question, it must unite with the imperialists in their effort to push back the policy of compensations, on which the Franco-German agreement seems to be based.141

The article went on to quote Bernstein again, who argued that the motivations of the socialists differed from those of the imperialists: the imperialists wanted to exploit Morocco and the socialists saw this as an opportunity to expand the market in European countries and create new jobs. If, he continued, the German government ratified a pact giving more privileges to another country than to Germany, it is clear that the German economy, and with it the German worker, would suffer the consequences.

139 Il congresso annuale del partito socialista tedesco. Avanti!, 13 September 1911. 140 Una parentesi oscura nelle conversazioni franco-tedesche pel Marocco. Concordia

di vedute nel partito socialista di reclamare il rispetto del patto di Algesiras. Bernstein e Jaurès. Avanti!, 27 August 1911. 141 Ibid.

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The article went on to argue that this scenario was happening. Bernstein, wrote Avanti!, demanded that the German government required the French government to respect the pact. For his part, Jaurès claimed the same. The Italian daily thus sought to highlight a certain confluence with the demands of the transalpine comrades, while recalling that Jaurès added to its request the immediate withdrawal of the troops involved in Morocco. It quoted another SPD member, Max Mauerbrecher, who difended even more “reformist” theses than those of his comrade Bernstein. Mauerbrecher demanded “nothing less than collaboration between the socialists and all the other [German] parties to prevent the other states from enlarging their colonial territory at Germany’s expense”.142 This proposal could hardly be combined with a relentless struggle against the colonial war. What Bernstein and Mauerbrecher proposed, the first in a moderate way, the second in a radical way, was that socialism, in its colonial policy, collaborated with the parties and the “bourgeois” government. According to Avanti, “this would not be a proletarian policy, but a policy worthy of a desperate petite-bourgeoisie”.143 Socialism had only one task: that of “persuading the proletariat that imperialism and capitalism are the same thing”.144 It was therefore necessary to fight both. To conclude on the consequences of the second Moroccan crisis: the French and German socialist parties did not differentiate in their conduct. In both cases, a left wing insisted that more initiatives could be taken by the leading groups, which is criticized for its too moderate, even soft attitude. The official press, on the other hand, was very busy emphasizing the unity within and between the different parties. This was even more true for the Italians, who observed what was happening among their comrades beyond the Alps without really committing themselves. Solidarity seemed unshakeable. In France, L’Humanité made the tactical choice to underline the unity of the SPD and its opposition to the war: it thus showed its will to prove that internationalism was very real and that it acted firmly, while concealing the clues that might lead one to think otherwise. The fact that La Guerre Sociale did the same was a sign of a willingness to criticize the SFIO representatives by opposing them to the German counterexample. Hervé’s newspaper made it clear being aware that it was not the leading

142 Ibid. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid.

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group in Germany that played the greatest role in the fight against the war. As for the SFIO, apart from what the press announced, it seemed to want to gain time. As the German socialists had done during the first months of the Russo-Japanese war, the French socialists carefully observed their comrades across the Rhine and examined their maneuvers, before defining their position and starting a firm and constant action of protest against the situation in Morocco. Alongside declarations or demonstrations of international solidarity, there was inevitably some reticence. In the specific case of Morocco, these were mainly those of the French and Italian socialist parties toward the conduct of SPD representatives. The two Moroccan crises, in 1905 and 1911, thus gave rise to different reactions, even though the forces at play were the same. While attempts to convene the ISB failed in 1905, this was no longer the case in 1911, when a Bureau meeting was held, albeit well after the dispute had begun. The ISB reacted to a situation of international danger, even though two of the main countries making up the International were directly involved in the current crisis. International socialism displayed that it had taken a great step forward in its ability to react to crises. The Italo-Turkish War, which involved neither France nor Germany directly, then saw a strong response from the International. Italy, for its part, remained on the sidelines during the two Moroccan crises, not being directly involved.

The Italo-Turkish War Context and Meaning “Dal ‘loro’ Marocco alla ‘nostra’ Tripoli” was the title of an article by Filippo Turati published at the beginning of September 1911 on the front page of the daily newspaper Avanti!145 “Their” Morocco and “our” Tripoli, claimed the leader of the PSI: Italy, which felt and was effectively on the bangs of the discussions at the international policy level, positioned itself in a very short period of time in the forefront of the scene. Thus, even if Turati did not yet believe in a declaration of war by Italy against Turkey, his article revealed his concerns: “The Franco-German agreement has awakened Italian self-esteem – oh man! – and we have to be left hungry for more?… And so the nationalists and moderates, the 145 Filippo Turati. Dal “loro” Marocco alla “nostra” Tripoli. Avanti!, 9 September

1911.

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very ones who, a few years ago, were very opposed to the enterprise in Tripolitania, are shouting ‘To Tripoli! To Tripoli!’”146 Turati recounted an episode that had just taken place: the day before, a German newspaper, the Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung, “unknown in Italy”, was distributed in several copies in the Italian editorial offices. One of its articles urged Italians to renounce their irredentist and anti-German passions, since their fate was rather an expansion into the Mediterranean, where “we [Italians] stupidly allowed the French colonial empire to expand”.147 Part of Italian public opinion (and part of the government) did indeed want the country to enter the colonial game, in which Italy had until then a rather marginal role. Less than twenty days after the publication of Turati’s article, Italy presented Turkey an ultimatum. This was the beginning of the conflict that would see the two countries fighting for the possession of the Tripolitania and Cyrenaica regions and which would not end until a year later. Peace was in fact signed in Lausanne on October 18, 1912: Turkey recognized Italy’s sovereignty over the two regions and, in exchange, regained control of Rhodes and other islands of the Dodecanese that the Italians had occupied during military operations. The foreign policy conducted during the period known in Italy as the “età giolittiana”148 was strictly linked to the Triplice and still marked by that which the government of Francesco Crispi had tried to conduct. He, as prime minister, had already tried to transform Italy into a colonial power during his third and fourth governments (1893–1896). But the intended expedition to

146 Ibid. 147 Ibid. 148 Even though Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928) had already been prime minister from May 1892 to December 1893, it is only the first fifteen years of the twentieth century (from the end of the 1890s to 1914, to be exact) that are called “età giolittiana” in Italy. During this period, Giovanni Giolitti was minister of the Interior in the Zanardelli government (February 1901–November 1903) and then prime minister three more times: November 1903–March 1905; May 1906–December 1909; March 1911–March 1914. He was prime minister for a fifth and last time, from June 1920 to July 1921. The “età giolittiana” was a period of great political, social and economic change in Italy. The Giolitti governments approved several major reforms: they extended social legislation, passed laws to improve working conditions and extended the right to vote. In addition, Giolitti supported the need to integrate the labour and socialist movement into the institutional system. This is how the right to strike was actually admitted in Italy. Cf. Giorgio Candeloro. Storia dell’Italia moderna 7: La crisi di fine secolo e l’età giolittiana. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1974. Emilio Gentile. L’età giolittiana (1899–1914). Storia dell’Italia contemporanea 2, Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1977.

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West Africa, which culminated in the Battle of Adoua (1896), had been a military as well as a political failure. After the defeat, the government resigned. One of the reasons for this failure was that Crispi had claimed to conduct an imperialist policy in Africa without the prior agreement of England and France. Giovanni Giolitti’s task in this new colonial enterprise was therefore to claim for Italy a certain freedom from these two powers. And he succeeded: France and England recognized Italy’s freedom of action in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. In exchange, the Italian government had to recognize French control in Morocco and English control in Egypt. One of the most important consequences of Italy’s (re)positioning on the international chessboard was Italy’s rapprochement with the Franco-English Agreement and its distance from the Triplice, which would constitute an essential element of Italy’s entry into the First World War. The prism between the three powers was, at the end of 1911, taking the form it would have at the outbreak of the Great War, in a diplomatic context that did not evolve. Moreover, the conflict in Tripolitania directly affected a European country. The danger—and the fear of contemporaries—was that the fighting spread and dragged other powers into the conflict, transforming this colonial expedition into a “Weltkrieg”.149 This fear was also the consequence of the use in this war, for the first time, of novelties in military engineering. The most spectacular, and at the same time frightening, came from military airplanes, no longer used only to observe territories, but also to bomb them. It is essential to understand why Giolitti pursued such a far-reaching colonial policy in order to understand how PSI members fitted into the national political debate. For the leader of the Italian government, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica had no particular significance, but it was important to him that Italy and not another power imposed its control over these two regions. Otherwise the balance of power in the Mediterranean would be altered to the detriment of Italy. However, it was not only foreign policy issues that encouraged the Italian prime minister to undertake the expedition: domestic policy issues were much more important. Giolitti’s policy in Italy was moderately progressive—debates on universal male suffrage had already begun in the country—but at the same time he sought to keep in touch with the right wing of parliament. This is a good example of the 149 It was the Germans who used the term World War, such as Bebel in the 1911 resolution against the crisis in Morocco, cf. Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1911, 160.

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transformative (trasformista) politics that the Italian statesman practiced throughout his government terms.150 For Giolitti, agreeing to launch the expedition to Tripolitania meant making concessions to the nationalist right in parliament, while he made concessions to the left by supporting the introduction of universal suffrage. In early twentieth-century Italy, the nationalists were a group whose weight should not be underestimated: they began to organize themselves and held their first congress in 1910 in Florence. They called for war, wanted the country to become a colonial power like other European countries. Italy was entirely traversed by warmongering passions and, alongside the nationalists, a large part of public opinion was in favor of a colonial policy. The territories to be conquered were seen as providing jobs and wealth for the country.151 When the government therefore decided to undertake the expedition to Tripolitania, the socialist party found itself in a country where public opinion and many forces were more or less united in their readiness for war. PSI’s Relations with the International In international socialist meetings, the PSI had so far played a marginal role in questions of internationalism and imperialism. It had not really taken part in the debates on these issues and Italy had never been the object of discussion, as the country had played only a minor role in colonial politics. The decision to carry out this expedition to Tripolitania worried the European powers, who apprehended Italy’s entry into the colonial field. The members of the ISB themselves feared that maintaining peace in Europe became an increasingly difficult task with the arrival in the colonial logic of a new country which, moreover, was linked to other European nations through alliances. But the representatives of international socialism had other reasons to be worried.

150 Giovanni Giolitti based his policy on the method called trasformismo, not without contempt. That consisted in a policy of compromise, based on coalitions within Parliament between moderate political forces. Its main aim was to give strong stability to the government by isolating centrifugal extremisms. 151 Cf. Francesco Malgeri. La Guerra libica, 1911–1912. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1970 and Paolo Maltese. La terra promessa. La guerra italo-turca e la conquista della Libia, 1911–1912. Milan: Sugar, 1968.

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The leadership of the Bureau seemed to doubt the willingness and ability of PSI members to oppose the war. Their inaction was perceived, observed, commented on, and criticized by foreign comrades. But what was most criticized by members of the International was that some representatives of the socialist party had adhered to the decision taken by the government. Until then the ISB had always needed a lot of time to organize its action: for the Moroccan crisis of 1911, it did not manage to meet in plenary session until September, when any action on its part was in any case too late. It was not the same for the Italo-Turkish War. Given the fact that he had just gathered (the meeting about Morocco took place on September 23 and 24 in Zurich, and Italy sent its ultimatum to Turkey on the 28th) and also that the French and German socialist parties were not involved in the crisis, its reaction was not long in coming. And this rapidity made that, at the initiative of the ISB executive committee, the international mobilization did not stop between the crisis in Morocco and that in Tripolitania. The Bureau thus showed that it had learned the reaction timing to international crises, which required rapid responses. In doing so, it sent an important message to governments: international socialism was able to respond to the danger of war. The president of the ISB, Belgian delegate Emile Vandervelde, present in Zurich, described this moment in his speech in Paris at the November 5 meeting against the Italo-Turkish War: On September 25 [sic]152 the International Socialist Bureau met in Zurich and, just as it was about to end its meetings, a telegram announced from a reliable source that the Italian government had decided to send an ultimatum to Turkey and to unleash war immediately afterwards. Forty-eight hours later, the ultimatum was issued and immediately, with unparalleled brutality, the Italian government proclaimed a state of war. Under these conditions, the duty of the ISB was clear: it had to apply the general resolutions of the international congresses of Stuttgart and Copenhagen and the decision that had just been taken in Zurich to organize meetings against the war to prevent it or to ensure that it ended153

152 Actually it is September 24th, the Zurich meeting having taken place on September 23rd and 24th. 153 Émile Vandervelde. La guerre italo-turque et l’Internationale. La Revue socialiste 324, 1911, 484.

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In Zurich, the ISB executive committee decided to send a confidential circular to the delegates on October 7, which circulated then to all member parties of the International on October 19. The task of the Bureau, it was written in the missive, was to prevent each of the powers that might intend to instrumentalize the war in Tripolitania in its own interest, to prevent the Italian-Turkish conflict from spreading to the Balkans and to facilitate the realization of an immediate peaceful solution.154 During the discussions on the drafting of this circular, the positions taken were firm. The executive committee of the BSI asked the member parties for authorization to intervene directly against the ongoing war, denouncing the attitude of the Italian working classes, who “not only made a demonstration against the war that many comrades considered insufficient and, what is more serious, found in their ranks some support for the imperialist policies of the Giolitti government”.155 The distancing between the BSI and the PSI was inevitable. The next action taken by the ISB in opposition to the ongoing conflict was a manifesto written and distributed in early November 1911. Its main objective was to promote a major demonstration against the war. Both the manifesto and the demonstration had to show the aversion of international socialism to “the unspeakable act of banditry committed by Italy against Turkey”. The idea that an international demonstration could be a legitimate means of opposing the war had been discussed and accepted by the last two congresses of the International, those of Stuttgart and Copenhagen: on September 24th in Zurich, the members of the ISB stressed the necessity that such a possibility should become a reality in case of war danger. The manifesto considered that one of the main interests of socialism was to prevent and stop armed conflicts. Indeed, in the event of war, it was the working class that provided the largest number of soldiers and had to bear the greatest material sacrifices. The ISB therefore called for the resolution of all disputes through international arbitration. In early November 1911, international socialism respected the objectives it had set for itself in the event of impending war. It managed to set up 154 Degl’Innocenti, Il socialismo italiano e la guerra di Libia, 152. 155 ISB Executive Committee Circular n. 9, 1911 “À tous les partis affiliés ”, Brux-

elles, 19 October 1911. Letter printed in: Georges Haupt. L’internazionale socialista e la conquista libica. Movimento operaio e socialista, 13 (1), 1967, 18–19. The same circular is also cited by Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. Il socialismo italiano e la guerra in Libia. Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1976, 154.

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this great socialist demonstration: the International seemed to be able to oppose its organized force to the risk of war. The only weak point resided in its relations with the Italian socialists, which remained complicated. Regarding the PSI and its action against the war, the manifesto stated: “Already, against the expedition to Tripoli, our Italian comrades did what they could, under unfavorable circumstances. They have fought, they will continue to fight, step by step, against nationalist bestiality. But their effort must be supported by the entire International; all our sections must give them the testimony of their moral solidarity”.156 In the pages of Avanti! of November 2, there was a commentary on the manifesto—if not the text itself, which was not fully translated until two days later. Its readers were therefore first entitled to the commentator’s observations, which strayed somewhat from the context of the manifesto, without having had the opportunity to read the text beforehand and without, for example, being aware of the quotation we have just given. The daily affirmed that the ISB recognized the PSI and the Italian labor confederation for having fulfilled their duty to oppose the expedition to Tripolitania. It recalled that the Modena congress also did its best, when the majority of those present decided to move the parliamentary socialist group into opposition, a concrete action that showed the non-alignment of the PSI with the warmongering policy of the government.157 In reality, the manifesto was not so enthusiastic about the action of the Italian working class in the face of the military initiatives of Giolitti government. Avanti!, whose objective was to insist on the effectiveness of the PSI’s action, a position that ran counter to the apparent opinion of the BSI, masked this lack of enthusiasm with a slight imprecision in the translation: while in the French version the Italian socialists did “what they could, in unfavorable circumstances”, in the Italian version the same socialists happened to have done “what they could”, yes, but “in very unfavorable circumstances”.158 The ISB’s judgment of the PSI’s action was far from being enthusiastic and it was part of a critical background that Avanti!, for its part, failed to mention.

156 Appel du Bureau socialiste international. L’Humanité, 5 November 1911. 157 Il manifesto del Bureau socialiste international contro la guerra. Avanti!, 2

November 1911. 158 L’Internazionale socialista per la pace. Avanti!, 4 October 1911.

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Georges Haupt, who has studied the correspondence between Huysmans and Pompeo Ciotti, the secretary of the PSI in 1911, affirmed that while “in its public documents, the Bureau avoids stigmatizing the failure of the Italian socialists, and while it seems not really convinced by the efforts they claim to be making, confidentially, however, through Huysmans, it continues to exert pressure on the PSI leaders, reminding them of their duty”.159 The Bureau’s condemnations of the PSI’s way of acting were multiple. Huysmans forwarded to Ciotti, at the beginning of October, a letter he received from Vaillant, in which the Frenchman stated: “I judge with you that it is truly unfortunate that the resistance to the war could not be carried out in Italy as the Italian delegate to the ISB in Zurich had hoped. I judge with you that in Italy as elsewhere the socialist who does not remember the mandate of his national congresses and the international congresses of Stuttgart and Copenhagen against the war is failing in his international duty”.160 The condemnation was absolute. However, the Italian daily stated that it had received praise from the ISB through the manifesto. There are probably two reasons for this. The first, already encountered during the first Morocco crisis, is the will to show the unity of the socialist parties of the International and to hide its fragility—we are only talking here about the issue of opposition to the war. This thesis is supported by the extreme confidence in the real possibility that a socialist protest can prevent a conflict, as shown by the commentary in Avanti!: “The immutable coherence of the socialist protest establishes its sincerity”, wrote the author of the article. And, to reinforce this idea, he quoted some examples of past protests that had a positive outcome: against German exactions directed against the Hereros or against Belgium in the Congo. The second reason is this: conscious of their failure, Italian socialists not only wanted to show that they did everything possible to oppose the expedition, but also to continue to enjoy the approval of international socialism. They were seeking to defend their actions and to demonstrate that the accusations of ISB members against them were unfounded. This can also be seen in Ciotti’s letters to Huysmans. The Italian socialist constantly assured the executive committee of the International that the PSI, and above all its leading group, did not fail

159 Haupt, L’Internazionale socialista e la conquista libica, 11. 160 Letter from Camille Huysmans to Pompeo Ciotti of October 10, 1911. In: ibid.,

17–18.

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“to remain ‘socialistically’ [socialisticamente] coherent with the common principles and decisions of the international congresses”.161 The tone of the epistolary exchanges between Huysmans and Ciotti hardened at the end of October. Ciotti applied himself at length to demonstrating that his party had done “more than what international socialism advised and hoped for”.162 He also reiterated that the BSI did not show any solidarity during the Italian general strike at the end of September163 —an accusation that Huysmans immediately rejected in a letter that ended with a wish164 : “I hope that after all these explanations […] you will be glad to collaborate with us in the success of the big demonstrations at the beginning of November”.165 However, even after this month of demonstrations, his judgment of the Italian comrades remained very mixed: “In spite of international protest, the Italian-Turkish War continues. Did the Italian socialists, who alone could act effectively and who had committed themselves to it since Zurich and during the recent demonstrations, keep their word? I would be grateful if you would let me know, in the interest of socialism, what action they have organized for peace and what chances of success, however desirable, it may have”.166 Avanti! did not comment in any way on what is happening. It did quote the manifesto, but did not ask any questions about organizing a demonstration in Italy. On its side, L’Humanité published the list of all the meetings that were to take place following the call of the Bureau. The cities concerned were Paris, Brussels, Berlin (where the demonstration was scheduled for November 12 in the presence of Albert Thomas), Amsterdam, London, three Czech cities (Prague, Pilsen, Brunn), Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia, Stockholm, Lisbon, and Budapest. In

161 Cf. the Huysmans-Ciotti exchange and in particular the letters from Huysmans

of October 28 and November 29, 1911. In: ibid., 16–24. Ciotti writes to Huysmans sometimes in Italian, sometimes in French. Huysmans answers in French. 162 Letter from Pompeo Ciotti to Camille Huysmans of October 20, 1911. In: ibid., 20–21. 163 Ibid., 20. 164 Letter from Camille Huysmans to Pompeo Ciotti of October 28, 1911. In: ibid.,

21. 165 Ibid. 166 Letter from Camille Huysmans to Pompeo Ciotti of November 29, 1911. In: ibid., 22–23.

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addition, on November 4, an important socialist meeting was to be held in Thessaloniki. No Italian city was included in this list. Paris respected the schedule established by the BSI. The SFIO and the Fédération de la Seine were in charge of the organization of this demonstration “against the Italian-Turkish War”,167 which took place on November 5 at the manège Saint-Paul. Vandervelde, Jaurès, Pressensé and Sembat were the main speakers. Throughout the speeches, the contrasts between the ISB and the PSI resurfaced. Vandervelde was once again very critical and virulently denounced “Italy’s brutal aggression” in Tripolitania.168 Jaurès, for his part, put the PSI out of the balance game for peacekeeping. In his speech, he praised the action accomplished by his party during the last crisis: “The socialist party can proudly claim to have denounced for years the perils of Moroccan politics” and he supported “the need for a policy of conciliatory loyalty with Germany” in order to avoid new dissensions. He concluded his speech with these words: “It is a joy and a comfort for us to have seen that at the call of the International Socialist Bureau, our organizations and L’Humanité, the people of Paris has responded and has expressed with us its abhorrence of the war, its disapproval of the atrocities of the Italian-Turkish War and the prisons of Spain”.169 Speaking in this way on behalf of France and Germany and setting aside Italy, the country most directly concerned, was an attitude that could be found again at the Berlin meeting. The Frenchman Albert Thomas was there, which marked a significant difference with the 1905 meeting, which his compatriot Jaurès had not been allowed to attend. Thomas affirmed what he already demonstrated by his presence: “The peoples of France and Germany want peace”. He said that he was sent to Berlin by his party to express his comrades’ feelings of fraternity toward the German proletariat. The rest of his speech was a firm stand against the war: “We are not only protesting against the way the campaign in Tripoli was conducted, we are also protesting against the causes of the war. We even protest against the colonial madness, which pits people

167 Contre la guerre italo-turque et les atrocités d’Espagne. Grand meeting. L’Humanité, 5 November 1911. 168 Le meeting du Manège Saint-Paul. Le prolétariat contre toutes les guerres. L’Humanité, 6 November 1911. 169 Ibid.

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against each other and threatens world peace”.170 The French socialdemocracy, said Thomas, had protested several times against colonial enterprises: “It protested most strongly during the Moroccan affair, which came close to leading to a war between Germany and France”.171 The Frenchman concluded his speech by affirming that “the organization of world peace is the great work that social-democracy must accomplish”.172 The daily newspaper Vorwärts gave a detailed report of the meeting. It devoted its second supplement of November 14 to this rally against “the poisoned flower of imperialism, against the offensive in Tripolitania”,173 which took the form of an imposing demonstration, with many speeches and simultaneous meetings in different districts. The entire capital was involved, from Mitte to the working-class neighborhoods furthest from the city center. Among the speakers were many representatives of the SPD as well as socialists from different countries (Karl Renner from Vienna, Winarski also from Austria, Huysmans, and Vandervelde from Brussels, Albert Thomas already mentioned), but no Italian. Vorwärts gave much resonance to this international participation: “Their presence was a visible demonstration of the growing efficiency and capacity for action that the International has conquered”.174 In the speeches, nothing was said about Italian socialism and its past or future initiatives. However, the Berlin meeting managed to avoid direct polemics, as the speakers always spoke in very general terms of the war in progress, of the alliances that should have been made between socialists of all countries, or of the various circumstances that could lead to a war (especially in the Balkans and between Italy and Austria), dangerous for the peace of the whole of Europe. Only Ludwig Frank, a social-democrat from Baden, speaking from the platform in Moabit, had a word of solidarity for the Italian working class. He claimed that the Italian workers had not committed any fault, that they protested against the expedition, as it was their duty as socialists to do. Frank concluded his intervention with a declaration of fraternity:

170 The report of the day can be found in: Die Internationale des Friedens, Zweite Beilage. Vorwärts, 14 November 1911. 171 Ibid. 172 Ibid. 173 Ibid. 174 Ibid.

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“The workers of Germany […] extend a fraternal hand to the Turkish and Italian people”.175 PSI did not respond to the Bureau’s call to participate in the event due to its disagreement with the ISB. In reaction to Huysmans‘ letter inviting him to take part, the secretary of the PSI merely sent a telegram of solidarity of the Italian socialists with the parties and the working class of other countries involved in the preparation of the demonstrations.176 Neither the PSI nor any other force capable of uniting the working class organized anything in Italy at the beginning of November. This international wait-and-see attitude was the object of harsh criticism. “They disgrace themselves in front of the entire International!”177 was the title of an unsigned article, but most likely wrote by Gustave Hervé, published in La Guerre sociale. Moreover, on the Italian side, events abroad were not mentioned even once in the pages of Avanti!. The only lines that the Italian daily devoted to this flood of protests supported by the ISB were to be found in the commentary to the early November manifesto mentioned above. The French and German socialist parties followed the line of the ISB in their criticism of the actions of the Italian comrades and this attitude was somehow “justified” by the fact that it was also the one adopted by the International. In turn, the ISB’s coldness toward the Italian socialists was based on their inability to implement an effective reaction to their government’s decisions on the Tripolitan question. However, it should also be added that the SFIO and the SPD also wanted to display a renewed unity, after the disunity they showed during the Moroccan crises: they were doing this “on the backs” of the Italians, possibly forcing the line on the latter’s alleged apathy. The Italian Socialists Facing the Italian-Turkish War Italy’s non-participation in the international protests did not mean that the debate on the conflict within the PSI did not have a wide scope and that the socialists did not try to organize a protest in their country.

175 Ibid. 176 Telegram from the secretary of the PSI to the secretary of the ISB, Milan, November 4, 1911. In: Haupt, L’Internazionale socialista e la conquista libica, 22. 177 Pour nos Amis d’Italie. La Guerre sociale, 8–14 November 1911.

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The government’s decision to prepare for this operation in Tripolitania contributed significantly to the party’s internal debates and accentuated its divisions. The discussions, both before and after the expedition, became intertwined with a very common debate within Italian socialist ranks, that of their participation in power as ministers. All of this deepened the gulf that already separates the supporters and opponents of this participation. After the expulsion of the revolutionary syndicalists in 1907, the PSI was fundamentally articulated in three currents. The first was revolutionary, the second was reformist with a “right-wing” tendency and the third was reformist with a “left-wing” tendency. The latter two had renounced intransigence and revolution and the question that really divided them was that of ministerialism. The right-wing reformists, gathered around Leonida Bissolati, accepted the principle that a socialist became a minister in a “bourgeois” government, a prospect absolutely excluded by the left-wing reformists, whose leader was Filippo Turati.178 In 1911, Italian prime minister Giovanni Giolitti offered Bissolati the chair of minister of agriculture, industry and commerce. This followed another event: at the beginning of the year, the socialist agreed to be received by the King to explain his vision of the political crisis the country was going through. This visit drew him a lot of fierce criticism from his party mates, and it was probably for this reason that Bissolati resigned, judging that the PSI was not mature enough and that his nomination would have led to the division of the party.179 He did not foresee that the situation was already very serious and that the PSI unit, which was in danger, was living its last months. During the Italian-Turkish War, a new subject of dispute appeared between the two currents. The group articulated around Bissolati began to support the government in the colonial operation, while the left-wing reformists remained hostile to it. The close link between the Tripolitania debate and the debate on ministerial participation was observed by the historian Luigi Cortesi, who, in his work on the origins of the Italian communist party, provides a fundamental analysis

178 Leonardo Saviano. Il Partito socialista italiano e la guerra di Libia (1911–1912). Aevum 48 (1–2), 1974, 103. 179 Angelo Ara. Leonida Bissolati. In: Dizionario biografico degli Italiani Treccani 10, Rome: Instituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1968.

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of the relationship between these debates and the expulsion of the “ultrareformists” from the PSI in 1912.180 At the extraordinary congress of Reggio Emilia in 1912, in fact, following the differences of opinion on the ministerial participation and on the expedition to Tripolitania, the PSI experienced its first major split. The right-wing reformists, with their leaders Bonomi and Bissolati, were expelled from the party and founded the Partito socialista riformista italiano (PSRI). But let’s return to the spring and summer of 1911. While the conflict and the reactions of the representatives of Italian socialism to the government’s initiative had great repercussions and had the consequences we have just described, the discussions within the party or with members of the government were not accompanied by an effective protest against the war on the part of the PSI. The Italian socialists began mobilizing against the conflict much too late, the situation became so serious that it could no longer be improved. Moreover, a large part of the PSI—its leadership and parliamentary group, as well as many of its representatives—was still very cautious in its protest. In the last months of peace preceding the expedition against Turkey, the Italian socialist leaders had not really taken a position on an operation that was becoming more and more uncertain day by day. “It is not easy to find in the spring and summer of 1911, when the press campaign for Tripoli was broadcast, socialist statements expressing the attitude of the party towards the problem of Tripoli and the threat of war”,181 stresses historian Leonardo Saviano. Only Avanti! formulated a condemnation through a series of polemical editorials, whose publication, however, ceased very quickly due to the lack of public stance taken by the party leadership and the parliamentary group. The party’s leadership was not convened until the second half of September, and before that, during the spring and summer of 1911, the majority of the socialist press remained silent in the face of the mobilization of public opinion in favor of the expedition.182 The PSI certainly underestimated the extent of the demonstrations of support for the operation in Tripolitania, which was omnipresent in the press and in the Italian squares and did not believe that the government would actually persevere 180 Luigi Cortesi. Le origini del PCI. Studi e interventi sulla storia del comunismo in Italia. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1999, 61–72, in which the historian describes the splitting of the Reggio Emilia congress. 181 Saviano, Il Partito Socialista Italiano e la guerra di Libia, 108. 182 Degl’Innocenti, Il socialismo italiano e la guerra di Libia, 10.

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in its colonial intention. On September 16, 1911, Filippo Turati wrote: “No line has yet been written here about the Tripolitan trap. […] Let’s confess: so far we have not managed to take it seriously. From our point of view, the question does not even exist”.183 Luigi Cortesi points out that even an observer of Italy’s political reality as attentive as Turati was therefore completely dumbfounded by the government’s colonial initiative.184 Indeed, the PSI leader, until the last moment, believed that the threats of shipments to Africa were merely a domestic policy maneuver by the government, mounted to break the alliance with the PSI. Moreover, the Milanese socialist was convinced that, if the government did indeed attempt the operation, an alliance of the socialists with the republicans would be enough to stop it. He was sure of the strength of the forces that would oppose the government. This was what led him to conclude his editorial of September 16, 1911 with an exclamation of defiance: “Go ahead, gentlemen, we are ready!”185 After the outbreak of the war, Turati himself admitted his own and his party’s error of appreciation, confident that he did not think Giolitti was the man to drag Italy into a colonial war, as his predecessor Crispi had done with such disastrous results for the Italians. Turati’s “confidence in Giolitti“ in his opposition to any action in Africa, long described by historian Francesco Malgeri,186 dissipated instantly at the end of September 1911 with the Italian ultimatum to Turkey, which led to the “political disorientation” and “bitter surprise” of the Italian socialists.187 These hesitations did not go unnoticed in the German press. In midOctober, two weeks after the ultimatum, social-democrat journalist Oda Olberg188 noted in the magazine Die Neue Zeit that Critica sociale had

183 Filippo Turati. Dal “loro” Marocco alla “nostra” Tripoli. Avanti!, 9 September 1911. Cf. as well Canale Cama, Alla prova del fuoco, 29–30. 184 Cortesi, Le origini del Partito Comunista Italiano, 8–10. 185 Filippo Turati. Da Jena al Marocco passando per Roma. Critica sociale 19, 16

September 1911. 186 Malgeri, La guerra libica, 218. 187 The word “disorientation” (disorientamento) to characterize the attitude of the PSI

towards the outbreak of war in Tripolitania can also be found in: Saviano, Il Partito Socialista Italiano e la guerra di Libia, 107. 188 Oda Olberg, editor of the Neue Zeit, married in 1896 the Italian socialist Giovanni Lerda, with whom she lived in Italy. The couple were the liaison between PSI and SPD. Cf. Keller, Modell SPD?, 117–130.

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not yet taken a position on the conflict now under way.189 Olberg quoted Turati, who explained that no one had really envisaged that the expedition could actually take place. The article did not stop there and became very critical of the action, or rather inaction, of the PSI. The magazine Critica sociale was not the only one that did not pronounce on the question of the war: the article informed its German readers that no Italian socialist newspaper did so and that all the actions coming from the PSI were insignificant—if there were many at all, which was not the case: “Considering the action of the proletariat as a whole, it must be said that the leading group was absent, that the parliamentary group did not do what logic would have demanded either”.190 According to Olberg, the only one that had not failed in its duty was the general confederation of labor (Confederazione generale del lavoro, CGL), the PSI having, for its part, disappointed all expectations. These remarks were, however, somewhat unfair. From the very beginning of the fighting, the PSI succeeded in organizing protest actions against the policies pursued in Tripolitania by its government. We will now look at three key moments in this Italian protest, which began in September 1911: the general strike at the end of September, the 12th PSI congress in Modena in mid-October and the various initiatives in December, which were widely commented on by representatives of the SFIO and the SPD. On September 17, 1911 the PSI leadership finally managed to meet to discuss a possible entry into the war by Italy. The historian Maurizio Degl’Innocenti points out that the meeting was held late, probably due to the hesitant attitude that had characterized the party’s actions up to that point: “Not only was the PSI leadership called too late to hope to take any decisive action, but it also appeared that it did not want to take note of the precipitate nature of the situation, which it had not been able to foresee earlier”.191 In the document of the deliberation of this meeting, the leadership declared itself “resolutely opposed to any military adventure in Tripolitania whatsoever” and affirmed its conviction that “on such an issue, it is mainly up to the parliamentary group to manifest its

189 Oda Olberg. Die italienische Parteiaktion vor dem tripolitanischen Kriegszug. Neue Zeit 2, 1911, 41. 190 Ibid., 43. 191 Degl’Innocenti, Il socialismo italiano e la guerra di Libia, 32.

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own thinking”.192 But if it shined by its inaction, there was still more effervescence at the local level in the autumn of 1911 in Italy. It is still Maurizio Degl’Innocenti who describes in detail the various initiatives of the local branches of PSI in several cities.193 Grassroots movements were pushing the party leadership, its entire parliamentary group and the CGL’s governing council to organize a meeting on September 25 in Bologna. There was indeed a decision to be taken: was it necessary to proclaim a general strike against the war? At this meeting, the members of the PSI aspired to unity: everyone wanted the Italian labor movement to oppose the government’s decision. The group formed around Emanuele Modigliani, who was positioned on the extreme left of the reformist current, recognized the general strike as a means of protest. Other members of the party, mainly the group of Filippo Turati, were also in favor of the proletariat taking to the streets, but wanted a demonstration that was as disciplined as possible. In the end, it was Turati’s proposal that was unanimously approved,194 which demanded “the immediate convocation of the Parliament of the nation; and […] invites the workers to maintain the general strike within the strictest discipline and within the time limits set by the confederation. To prolong it and to go beyond the wish of its organizers would give, today in Italy, no other result than the strengthening of the militaristic and reactionary currents that lead our fleet to Tripoli”.195 The very first stand of the PSI was therefore strong: nothing less than a call for a general strike, even if more concrete action was delegated to other levels of working-class organization. If on 17 September it was the steering committee that delegated the initiative to the parliamentary group, here it was the two together and the CGL that entrusted decision-making and action to local workers’ organizations, formulating, moreover, a very negative judgment on the weight of the latter in the “battle on the political terrain”. Moreover, as Degl’Innocenti also points out, “the agenda […] was not only intended to minimize the scale of the demonstration as much as possible, but also to emphasize the negative aspects rather than the positive ones”.196 All this meant 192 Avanti!, 18 September 1911. In: ibid. 193 Ibid., 34–35. 194 Cortesi, Le origini del Partito Comunista Italiano, 12–13. 195 Quoted from: Degl’Innocenti, Il socialismo italiano e la guerra di Libia, 36–37. 196 Ibid., 37.

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that what could have been a large and significant demonstration by the Italian socialists to show both the Giolitti government and the members of the International their opposition to the war was going to prove disappointing. The strike encountered organizational difficulties, to the point that in some cities the demonstrations took place on September 28, the day after the planned day. It was sometimes proclaimed for the whole day, sometimes only for the afternoon. On the 26th, the national union of railroaders put a stop to the success of the strike by announcing that it would not participate in it. On the same day in Turin, in Piedmont, the Chamber of Labour proclaimed the general strike for the following day, but the local socialists of revolutionary tendency also decided not to participate in it. Other minor towns in the same region, such as Asti, Alessandria, and Biella among others, went on strike. In Lombardy, in Milan, where the reformists prevailed, the strike, declared on the 24th for the 25th, did not take place, however: the gendarmes arrested the people gathered in the Cathedral square who wanted to give life to a revolutionary trade unionist demonstration. They also banned another socialist rally planned in the capital of Lombardy. These bans considerably weakened the adherence to the general strike of the 27th in Milan. In Genoa, the workers massively followed the call for a strike, which was not the case in Venice or Verona, nor in Florence. It did not have much success in Bologna, contrary to what happened in several cities of Emilia, as in Modena, which became the scene of clashes between police and demonstrators following the announcement of the death of a demonstrator killed in Nonantola, about ten kilometers from Modena. Accidents also occurred in Forlì, where the strike, led by Benito Mussolini for the socialists and Pietro Nenni for the republicans, continued for two days. In Rome, where the revolutionary socialists prevailed, the assembly that had to decide whether to declare the strike or not met on 25 September. Socialists, revolutionary trade unionists, and republicans participated. The result was an overwhelming call for a strike on the 26th, but it was a bitter failure: on the morning of the 27th, the end of the strike was already declared. Regarding central Italy, it was in the Marche region that the strike was most successful: it was significant in Ancona, Chiaravalle, and Jesi. In all these cities the left-wing reformist tendency dominated. The strike was less successful in the south of the Peninsula: in Naples, where the right-wing reformist tendency was in the majority, a resolution against the war was voted. However, the strike had little success there. It had some success only in Bari. In Sicily, in Palermo, on the evening of the

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27th September, the socialist section, with a left-wing reformist tendency, voted unanimously against the war and for the peaceful penetration of Italy into North Africa.197 Even if the day did not meet with the expected success, the PSI, with an initiative as strong as a call for a general strike, showed its willingness to give an answer to what was happening in Italy. According to Francesca Canale Cama, the party had decided for this brilliant gesture in order to align itself with the expectations of the comrades of the International198 : “little involved in the Moroccan events, the PSI was in the condition of having to quickly recover ground compared to other sections of the International”.199 This judgment seems somewhat limiting: as Leonardo Saviano pointed out, historiography has tended to neglect this initiative of the Italian workers’ movement.200 Degl’Innocenti, for his part, is convinced that it is necessary to restore the importance of the Italian revolutionary current, given its strong reaction to the events in Tripolitania.201 In the end, many Italian cities participated in the strike, and even when this was not the case, the debate was discussed in assemblies and newspapers. Moreover, Avanti!’s commentary on the days of demonstrations was enthusiastic and completely positive, a symptom of the newspaper’s desire to show the unity of the party in the battle against the war, even if it was not real. Indeed, we must not forget the reticence of the PSI’s top leaders: as Saviano notes, Avanti! itself did not campaign for the strike in the days leading up to September 27.202 This reticence was even noted and criticized at the PSI congress in Modena a few weeks later:

197 Saviano, Il Partito Socialista Italiano e la guerra di Libia, 122–128. 198 We had already the occasion to underline the tendency of historiography not to give

too much meaning to the general strike of September 27, 1911. For his part, Leonardo Saviano gave it a lot of importance and he gave a thorough description of it: Ibid. Luigi Cortesi says about this day of strike that it “succeeded only in part” (“riuscì solo in parte”): Cortesi, Le origini del Partito comunista italiano, 39. 199 Canale Cama, Alla prova del fuoco, 27. 200 Saviano, Il Partito Socialista Italiano e la guerra di Libia, 102–104. For more

in-depth information on the historiography, see the paragraphs of this work on Italy. 201 Degl’Innocenti, La guerra libica, la crisi del riformismo. 202 Saviano, Il Partito Socialista Italiano e la guerra di Libia, 129.

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The failure (it is better to speak clearly) of the general strike against the war in Tripoli demonstrated that direct action in the public square was not effective. Huh! Note that this argument can be turned against you. Direct action may not be effective, but it depends on how you implement it. Meeting in Bologna, not excluding a priori the possibility of a war of conquest, declaring oneself all against the general strike before proclaiming it, thus demonstrating the lack of confidence in such a movement. It is easy to understand that all this produces the failure of popular movements. It is you who have undermined the general strike with your behavior.203

The 12th PSI congress was held in Modena from October 15 to 18, 1911. As the expedition to Tripolitania had begun a month earlier, it goes without saying that this meeting opened with a protest. The party leadership invited the congress to listen to and approve a declaration in which, in the name of all members of the PSI and the entire organized proletariat, it affirmed its irreducible opposition to war: The congress expresses its highest protest against international politics which, removed from the discussion and examination of the national delegation, results in colonial and militaristic enterprises and expeditions. In this regard, the congress welcomes the very strong stand taken by the economic organizations of the socialist party against the Tripoli enterprise through the general strike. It confirms the irreducible opposition to the war of the socialist party and the organized proletariat and sends a fraternal greeting to the Turkish socialists. At a time when socialists all over the world are in the process of denouncing an event that falls within the systems and methods characteristic of bourgeois civilization, he hopes that the growing increase in the propaganda and discussion of socialist ideas will direct the solution of international problems towards methods and systems inspired by the high sentiments of social solidarity.204

The declaration was acclaimed by the entire congress and approved unanimously.205 However, this proposal was not discussed at the congress,

203 Direzione del partito socialista italiano. Resoconto stenografico del XII° congresso del Partito Socialista Italiano (Modena 15–16-17–18 ottobre 1911). Milan: Società anonima editrice Avanti!, 1912, 47. These are the words of Michele Terzaghi, from the revolutionary wing of the PSI. 204 Ibid., 9–10. 205 “Your unanimous approval” (“la vostra approvazione unanime”). Ibid., 10.

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so much so that historian Luigi Cortesi defined it as “platonic”.206 The debates on the current war were related to the issue of ministerialism and the positions taken reflected those of the various members of the PSI on the issue of participation in government. There was indeed an intention to undertake a protest against the war, but in the end it did not lead to much success at the level of the party’s senior leadership. This was due to differences of opinion among the various currents in the party. Bissolati and the group of right-wing reformists supported the expedition and the government. They supported the need for socialists to participate in government and to take power gradually, working with other parties. Emanuele Modigliani and the group of left-wing reformists, on the other hand, were in favor, with “an extra touch of anti-ministerialism”,207 of the PSI parliamentary group moving into opposition in order to counter the Giolitti government in its colonial policy. The other left-wing reformists, grouped around Turati and Treves, were also opposed to the conflict. They sought to dissociate the reformist tradition from the “right-wing deviation”,208 that they saw, on the contrary, irrevocably associated with the ideas of Bissolati’s group. But their attitude was more moderate than Modigliani’s, making them the target of criticism from the revolutionary wing of the party, which refused both the colonial policy of the government and the ministerial participation of the socialists. Francesco Ciccotti, a representative of this wing, who took part alongside Mussolini in the demonstrations in Forlì, accused the left-wing reformists of being “favorably opposed”209 to socialist participation in government. If they opposed the colonial expedition, it was, according to him, only for reasons of internal politics. The PSI management decided to convene a plenary meeting at the beginning of December. A thirteen-page booklet entitled Against the War, written by Camillo Prampolini, Giovanni Zibordi and Armando Bussi, men rather close to the Turati current (Prampolini was with him one of the founding fathers of the PSI in 1891), was issued. The introduction announced the party’s intention to continue the protests—”the

206 Cortesi, Le origini del Partito Comunista Italiano, 16. 207 Quel che ha detto il congresso di Modena. Critica sociale 21, 1 November 1911

(the article is signed “La Critica sociale”). 208 Cortesi, Le origini del Partito Comunista Italiano, 21. 209 Ibid.

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war on war is not only fought in peacetime, it is also fought in the noise of arms”—and was followed by a long theoretical discourse about the fatherland and the war. This could support Maurizio Degl’Innocenti’s thesis that the PSI’s campaign against the war in Tripolitania was nothing more than “printed paper” propaganda.210 The war in Tripolitania was really approached close to the end of the writing (p. 12), where its outbreak was explained by clearing the Italians, who would have been dragged into the conflict “by historical fatality, i.e. the interests of other nations”.211 The text thus bore witness to opposition to the conflict in Tripolitania, but not in the name of general opposition to the war: it was above all economic and social reasons that should have dissuaded Italy from embarking on such an adventure. The country should not have undertaken such an expedition because it “was not capable of exporting civilization”.212 Above all, he should have thought about the condition of his cities which was, especially in the Mezzogiorno, often archaic. In addition, Italy did not have the financial capacity to continue the fighting, Tripolitania was to be conquered at the expense of the Italians’ wallet, to be finally exploited by the Germans, the French, and the English. The attack on Tripoli blocked the democratic path that the country was taking. The booklet ended with the authors’ enunciation, in the name of the Italian socialists, of “our duty”,213 to develop civilization in Italy. There was no reference to a peaceful duty or to an attempt to stop the war. Once again, it is clear that the PSI did not demonstrate unconditional opposition to the war. However, we cannot deny this opposition. Filippo Turati, his companion Anna Kuliscioff and their entire group, the largest in numbers, continued to express their anger against government policy and their opposition to the conflict. The most convinced revolutionaries even succeeded in organizing protest actions. But all the opposition remained either very circumscribed or very moderate. The differences between the leadership of the BSI and the PSI did not help the Italian socialists to overcome them: they did not conform to what was organized internationally, and no longer enjoyed the esteem of foreign comrades. Through the ordeal of the Italo-Turkish war, Italy thus withdrew from

210 Degl’Innocenti, Il socialismo italiano e la guerra di Libia, 193. 211 Direzione del Partito Socialista Italiano. Contro la guerra, 13. 212 Ibid. 213 Ibid., 15.

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international solidarity. As a result, the attitude of the PSI was criticized both by comrades from other nations and within Italy itself, and the party remained isolated. In France and Germany: The Reactions The fact remains that Italy called for a general strike: such a far-reaching event could not, of course, be ignored by the socialist, French or German, press. The SPD press was bluntly pointing out the failure of this day of protest. The daily Vorwärts seemed to have no confidence in the Italians’ willingness to oppose the expedition in any case, even before the general strike failed. An article of 27 September was entitled “On the road to Tripoli”, a sign of a certain skepticism on the part of the Germans as to the effectiveness of the movement led by the PSI to prevent the expedition. The article wrote: “The socialist protest has begun” and then reported on the meeting in Bologna of representatives of the Italian working class and their decision to conduct “a calm general strike”.214 The article did not fail to point out that several members of the PSI were opposed to the strike, whether calm or violent, including even Filippo Turati, alongside Bissolati, Trapanese and Graziadei. Turati had never been a great supporter of the strike in the socialist struggle but, in Bologna, he formulated the call for the “moderate general strike”. To assert without any nuance that the main leader of the PSI declared himself opposed to the general strike, even if he denounced the government’s intention to conquer, was to discredit the party at its highest level. Moreover, the article argued that the four cited PSI personalities “protested against every intention of conquest, even in the case that there was a need for an expansion of Italy”.215 Vorwärts pointed out that Italian socialists recognized that there may be a need for their country to expand its borders. Regarding the resolution proposed by Turati, the Vorwärts journalist wrote only that it was strongly opposed to the war and that it was adopted unanimously. But what interested him most was that this event meant that “Bissolati, who is in open opposition with the party majority,

214 Auf dem Weg nach Tripoli. Vorwärts, 27 September 1911. 215 Ibid.

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will come out of it”.216 Once again, the article highlighted an element of weakness in the PSI. The daily L’Humanité, for its part, was more confident than its German counterpart in the ability of Italians to organize a protest movement. It devoted a short feature to the Italian day of action, listing the cities that followed the strike and those that did not. The French editor then looked at the case of Milan, where an anti-expedition demonstration and a nationalist demonstration took place in parallel. The daily drew the conclusion that “8.000 to 10.000 workers were on strike”.217 The protests therefore took place in Italy and were even somewhat successful, but the support of other nations was lacking, continued L’Humanité in an article on September 30: “Faced with a fait accompli, all the steps that friendly or interested powers could attempt to prevent the conflict, therefore become impossible!”. The international proletariat, for its part, “which unfortunately is not yet strong enough to prevent these acts of aggression, will not fail to remind governments of their duty”.218 The failure of Italian socialism would therefore be a failure of the international proletariat, and the socialist struggle to prevent wars must continue. A few days later, another positive comment appeared in the French newspaper, stating that it was the bourgeois press that proclaimed “in every tone that the general strike organized by the general confederation of labor and the Italian socialist party to protest against the war had failed”. The editor explained: “It is in his chauvinist interest to conceal the truth. But it must be added that these versions are too ‘Roman’”. By these words, he insinuated that the bourgeois press drew its conclusions from the events in the Italian capital, where the public service workers “renounced the traditions of proletarian solidarity”. They went to work, the streetcars rolled and as a result Rome was not paralyzed for twenty-four hours as it should have been. The article concluded however: “But it would be unfair to claim that the protest of the proletariat was not imposing and dignified. Moreover, it cost the lives of many victims”.219 Gustave Hervé, for his part, did not try to soften the scope of the movement’s bankruptcy. The responsibility, according to him, was to be attributed to

216 Ibid. 217 Grève générale en Italie. L’Humanité, 27 September 1911. 218 L’Italie déclare la guerre. L’Humanité, 30 September 1911. 219 Le prolétariat italien contre la guerre. L’Humanité, 6 October 1911.

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the Italian workers’ movement itself and to the way in which it organized the days. According to him, the failure of the protest was to be expected, simply because it started too late. So the problem lied upstream: the Italians did not manage to organize before the outbreak of the conflict, or did not want to.220 Oda Olberg was not so negative and put forward other arguments to explain the relative failure of the strike. She noted in Die Neue Zeit that “the working class of no other country was able to oppose, in any case, to the colonial adventure of its own government a resistance of the magnitude of the Italian one by the strike of 26 and 27 September”.221 However, Olberg could not deny that the PSI protest was insufficient and had neither the scope nor the success it could have had. According to her, the blame lied with the leaders of the PSI, who did not officially take part in the protests, while local socialist groups organized the strike and the population participated. In Bologna, for example, she wrote, the CGL and the parliamentary group each proposed a resolution: the leading group remained silent. Oda Olberg’s conclusion was therefore: “As regards the leading group […], it has totally failed”.222 The same applied to the parliamentary group. If, after the day of the strike, L’Humanité moderated its judgment a little and personalities such as Gustave Hervé or Oda Olberg tried to highlight the causes of its failure, the judgment of Vorwärts remained entirely negative. The title of the article about the strike, “No general strike”, left no doubt. The author emphasized that although the strike was proclaimed in many cities, it did not actually take place or was not followed. Not only did all work activities continue that day in Italy as if nothing had happened. Worst of all was that the population found itself in the streets and stations much more to cheer on the soldiers of the 1888 class, called to arms in those same days to leave for Tripolitania: “Even though the general confederation of labor, in agreement with the socialist party, had proclaimed a general strike for 24 h to protest Italy’s attitude toward the Tripolitan question, here [the article refers to the city of Rome] there has been no disruption of work so far. As it is communicated from Milan, Turin, Venice, Genoa, Ancona, Florence, Bologna,

220 Un sans-patrie. Plutôt l’insurrection que la guerre. La Guerre sociale, 6–11 October

1911. 221 Oda Olberg, Die italienische Parteiaktion, 36. 222 Ibid., 38.

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and other places, these cities also show their usual aspect. All the public companies are in operation. The strike has taken only small dimensions. In all the main cities the soldiers of the 1888 class, called up to serve in the army, were the object of demonstrations of enthusiasm”.223 Vorwärts denounced the weakness of the reaction of the Italian comrades and, consequently, expressed his skepticism regarding their real will to act. How can we explain this lukewarm reaction from the SFIO, to say the least, and truly negative reaction from the SPD? The PSI had nevertheless called for a general strike, which was no small thing and, moreover, its attitude was not so far removed from that of the SFIO during the second crisis in Morocco. It seemed that the SFIO and the SPD decided to force the line on the Italian failure in order to relativize their own lack of reaction during the previous crises and to show themselves united again, which was not the case in other moments of international tension. The official discourse of the SPD was already raising its voice before the outbreak of the war to criticize the Italian comrades: it did not really change its attitude after it began. The focus was still on the weaknesses of the PSI, on its inability or unwillingness to really oppose the conflict. Karl Kautsky asserted in an October 1911 article that in all countries militaristic and capitalist tendencies were present. If war was not everywhere, it was because the proletariat constituted the opposite tendency, which managed to counterbalance these opposing forces. In Italy, on the contrary, “the opposite tendencies, which prevent in modern states that the way of thinking of finance capital, militarism, colonial policy from spreading without hesitation, are exceptionally weak […], which goes hand in hand with the weakness of its proletariat”.224 A major magazine like Die Neue Zeit, in its only article on the Modena congress, written by Oda Olberg, in no way related the debates between right-and leftwing reformists: it was only interested in the discussions on the ministerial participation of the socialists (which was certainly the most important debate of the congress) and never discussed the war.225 Vorwärts, on the other hand, repeatedly cited the Modena discussions on the Tripolitan expedition, never losing an opportunity to highlight the positions of the

223 Kein Generalstreik. Vorwärts, 28 September 1911. 224 Karl Kautsky. Banditenpolitik. Die Neue Zeit 1, 1912, 5. The journal was published

on 6 October 1911. 225 Oda Olberg. Der Parteitag von Modena. Die Neue Zeit 4, 1912, 137–146.

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right-wing reformists and to underline the weakness of their ideological opposition to the war, or even their acceptance of the conflict. One article reported the words of Bonomi, who did not believe that the general strike was the right way to oppose the government’s colonial policy, which he saw as the necessary development of capitalism, and therefore wondered: “Why should the proletariat violently oppose a necessity? […] The French proletariat did not protest against the expedition to Morocco by the general strike and the German proletariat did not protest against the fact that its government interfered”.226 The German daily also quoted Bissolati’s position, which was also naturally against the strike, and stated without too many nuances that he accepted the expedition, which he considered to be the lesser evil: “Bissolati’s objections to the war are primarily political”, said the Vorwärts editor. “He points out the danger of diverting Italian attention and forces from the Adriatic Sea. On the other hand, he asserts that the present war may have prevented something worse, which could have been caused by the French or German appropriation of Tripolitania”.227 Vorwärts then deemed it important to inform his readers of the existence of members of the PSI who were not in Modena and therefore were never named during the debates, and who, like “Podrecca, think that the occupation of Tripolitania is justified and desirable because of the presumed economic benefits”.228 The speeches of the right-wing reformists in Modena also seemed to worry the editors of L’Humanité. However, in this area too, the French showed more confidence in the anti-war movement of a large part of the PSI, even if criticism was never far away. The Modena congress was analyzed by L’Humanité to evoke above all the socialist participation in the government, and it affirmed that the Italian-Turkish conflict “that nobody had ever thought of”229 arose brutally. The newspaper blamed the Italians for reacting too late. Its description, like that of Vorwärts, gave pride of place to the statements of Bissolati’s group: “One of Bissolati’s lieutenants, the citizen Angiolo Cabrini, provoked a real uproar by stating that since Italy had

226 Der Parteitag von Modena. Vorwärts, 19 October 1911. 227 Ein Nachwort zum Parteitag von Modena. Vorwärts, 26 October 1911. 228 Ibid. 229 En Italie. Le congrès du parti socialiste. L’Humanité, 17 October 1911.

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occupied Tripolitania, it was now up to the socialists to wish the national army success”.230 But the French editor recalled: It is noteworthy that in the previous day’s session, the congress had expressed its opinion on the war by voting, on the initiative of the party leadership, on the following agenda: the congress deplores the fact that international politics is removed from the control of the people and that it results in exaggerated spending and disastrous colonial adventures. It welcomes the fact that the general protest strike has shown the indignation of the Italian people against the occupation of Tripoli. It sends its fraternal greetings to the Turkish proletariat and hopes that the reign of brutal force will soon be succeeded by a political orientation inspired by feelings of international solidarity.231

In addition to paying attention to the disconcerting statements of the right-wing reformists, L’Humanité emphasized the positions taken by the part of the PSI that was opposed to the conflict. This tone was not found in the pages of Vorwärts, which continued in the months following the Modena congress to show a lively interest, mixed with a very critical, not to say appealing, look at the attitude of some members of the PSI. In December 1911, Vorwärts devoted a long article to the meeting of the PSI leadership at the beginning of the month. It again declared itself against the expedition, “but this is not the case of the socialist parliamentary group”. It was Bissolati’s turn, again, to speak out, and it was still his words that Vorwärts reproduced. The right-wing reformer represented the opinion that “today a party agitation against the war would not be opportune. Through it, the diplomatic difficulties, which are opposed to peace, would become stronger, and Turkey would see them as a sign of Italian weakness, which would strengthen it in its resistance”.232 To oppose the events at this time would lead to a worsening and prolongation of the war. And Vorwärts again pointed out that Bonomi joined his comrade’s position and reported another event that occurred in the same session. While Turati, Modigliani and Prezzolini were united against the right-wing reformists on the idea of abandoning

230 Le congrès socialiste italien. L’Humanité, 18 October 1911. 231 Ibid. 232 Die italienische Parteileitung über die Agitation gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 9 December 1911.

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agitation against the war now, a representative of the revolutionary wing, Musatti, proposed to organize large simultaneous protest demonstrations throughout the country, having announced them and justified them with a manifesto. This manifesto was eventually replaced, as we have seen, by the thirteen-page fascicle referred to above, without any demonstrations. Of course, this article by Vorwärts also cited the positions defended by other members of the PSI, but it highlighted the orientations of the right wing of the PSI, without approving or contradicting them. It examined their position attentively, after criticizing the attitude of the Italian labor movement as a whole during the failure of the September strike. And he did it again in February 1912, after the speech for the reopening of the Italian Chamber. With some disbelief, the German daily noted that Bissolati “explains that he does not believe that the socialist party should distance itself from the feelings of the entire nation. He pays homage with a patriotic heart to the heroic courage of the fighters on sea and land, who helped to increase Italy’s moral standing”—the editor’s comment to this sentence was a simple exclamation mark.233 Then the Italian reformer, whose statements were accompanied by “intense applause”, “acknowledged that the occupation of Libya by another nation should never had been accepted by Italy”.234 This statement was also followed by strong applause, the editor insisted on underlining it. And still the same article quoted a few lines on Turati’s speech: the leader of the PSI reaffirmed that he considered the expedition to be untimely and that he wanted a colonial policy of labor and not of arms. His words were accompanied this time by the noisy protest of the Parliament, which Vorwärts made a point of mentioning. The issue of the PSI board of directors, which had been circulating in Italy since December, was also commented on in the columns of the German daily newspaper. Most of the comments, however, related to the theoretical part of the paper, which we have already mentioned above. Several passages were translated from it, but only one about the war in progress: “It is not Italy that wants Tripoli, but the Italian bourgeoisie, which naturally, as always, adorns itself with the name ‘mother country’. It is an unparalleled illusion to think that in the colonies the impassable class laws can be attenuated or abrogated”.235

233 Die Parlamentsgroteske. Vorwärts, 24 February 1912. 234 Ibid. 235 Der italienische Sozialismus und der Krieg. Vorwärts, 5 January 1912.

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Vorwärts also wanted to show that while there was opposition to the war among PSI members, it was not based on peaceful principles. In the passage quoted, the PSI asserted that the expedition should not be supported on the grounds that it would not benefit the working class. We know that part of the Italian socialists were opposed to the conflict on principle and defended ideas of peace: this was certainly not highlighted by Vorwärts. No reference to this fraction of the PSI appeared in the two major German social-democratic journals. Die Neue Zeit merely occasionally published articles by Oda Olberg, whom we have already cited in this chapter, and Karl Kautsky’s critique in his article “Banditenpolitik”, also discussed above. The main journal of the German revisionists, the Sozialistische Monatshefte, for its part, published an article justifying the attitude of right-wing Italian reformists. It was written by Bonomi, who was very critical of the left of the PSI. According to him, it was not true that in Italy there were socialists in favor and others opposed to the Tripolitan expedition. They only exercised their opposition in different ways236 : The conflict of opinions is therefore not played out between the defenders and opponents of the conquest of Libya. Rather, it affects the different types and degrees of this adversity. The socialist left believes that this adversity must be sharpened in continuous opposition and expressed in violent opposition to all those parties that wished or tolerated the expedition; the right believes that it must be limited to distinguishing the responsibility of the party from that of the government and to containing the demands of nationalists and militarist extremists. If one wants to understand the different attitudes of these two groups, one must first analyze the overall Italian situation and its particular political situation at the moment.237

The policy defended in this article was that of collaboration with other political forces. In Tripolitania, there was still fighting, but the author did not say anything about a possible protest by his group to demand an end to the conflict. In the German press the positions of those Italian socialists could be found, who opposed the war without any force or effectiveness, or who did not oppose it at all. But here the situation was different from the cases cited earlier: the Sozialistische Monatshefte did not seem

236 Ivanoe Bonomi. Der Tripolisfeldzug und die italienische sozialistische Partei. Sozialistische Monatshefte 8, 1912, 470. 237 Ibid.

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to publish this article to denounce them, but rather to justify a ministerialist and moderate position, that of the Italian right-wing reformists, very close to that of its editors. As for the International Socialist Bureau, we have seen that up until the expedition to Tripolitania, in the face of crises and wars, it had always shown its desire for the International to remain united, to proclaim on behalf of all its members its will of solidarity, to face danger. In 1911, when for the first time since the birth of the New International, a country with a strong enough socialist party, a country that was among the “civilized” European countries, pursued an aggressive policy, this international solidarity did not hold. The reason for this was not a principled exclusion of the PSI from the ranks of the ISB, but rather the lack of resolution of the PSI itself regarding the action to be taken against the war. This was the cause of an attitude betraying a certain mistrust among the socialists of the International, of which Huysmans‘ letters to Ciotti in October and November 1911 were the most striking example. This was not a simple failure. The situation created unease with the PSI but, as Kautsky summarized in Die Neue Zeit, the International worked: “Now that the fire has broken out because of this weakness, the proletarians of all other countries must prevent the fire from spreading with redoubled force. […] The fight against the war will be our most important task and the ISB meeting showed that the socialist parties of all countries are determined to use all the means at their disposal to preserve the people from the fury of war”.238 The ISB was indeed managing to organize a large-scale movement. The cause of the attacks against the PSI, which casted doubt on its effective willingness to do everything possible to oppose a conflict situation, was to be found, once again, in the varying involvement of the three countries in the current war: the French and the Germans, who were not primarily involved in the crisis, could make a common front and turn their dissensions against their Italian comrades. However, the year 1911 was also another important milestone for international institutions in their development of crisis behavior. That of Morocco had already seen important international reactions: in the face of the Italo-Turkish war, the ISB reacted very quickly, accompanied by other international protests. Thus, we entered those years that would see the socialist protest against the war finally succeed in organizing itself and giving effective results.

238 Karl Kautsky, Banditenpolitik, 5.

CHAPTER 5

Commitment Against War

The Debates on Military Reforms and Socialist Imperialism After the manifestations of international skepticism around the two crises of 1911, it was not easy for the socialists to reaffirm their international unity in the face of the danger of war. However, during the tensions in the Balkans, the response of the ISB was swift, majestic, imposing, for two reasons. First, the ISB had advanced in its learning of the crisis temporalities, it was now aware of the necessity to react quickly and through a maximum of transnational manifestations. From this point of view, the international socialist institutions were now going to function very well, especially in 1912 and 1913, when the initiatives of opposition to the war of international socialism succeeded one another. Secondly, the noninvolvement of the International’s guide countries in the Balkan Wars enabled them to multiply their numerous and powerful initiatives, while sending a strong signal as to their capacity to mobilize. In October 1912, the ISB stressed the close links between the ongoing war in the Balkans, the Italian-Turkish War and the Moroccan crises.1 It

1 “The capitalist system is a chain. If Morocco has made possible Tripoli and Tripoli has made possible the call to arms in the Balkans, we will experience, perhaps tomorrow, another mobilization and probably a new increase in military charges”. Die Internationale gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 15 October 1912.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9_5

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was the period of the “arms race”, of which there were many traces in the pages of the socialist newspapers. At the 1913 congress in Brest, SFIO representative Paul Mistral summed up the international situation in a few words: What determined the tension in Europe was the Moroccan adventure: France wanting to seize Morocco and coming up against the similar pretension of other powers. This Moroccan affair led France to allow Italy to seize Tripolitania at the expense of Turkey, and this war between Italy and Turkey, by highlighting the weakness of the Turks, showed the Balkan states that the time had come to fall on them. Hence the Balkan War, and it is the Balkan War that is the cause, I am convinced, of the new armament projects formed by Germany.2

In the same way, the generalized danger that derived from this situation was clear in the eyes of contemporaries. The report of the SPD leadership that opened the Jena congress in 1914 affirmed it bluntly: “In the midst of this great popular movement came the news of the outbreak of the Balkan War, which immediately took on the magnitude of a great European danger and moved the outbreak of a world war into tangible proximity”.3 This period was also characterized by the military reforms in the three countries we analyze, as well as a debate on the presumed imperialism of Germany, which was gaining momentum around the figure of Charles Andler, the origin of the polemic. It is interesting to analyze these two aspects and how they have spread in the debates of the socialists of the three countries in order to understand the framework in which the two conflicts in the Balkans have taken place. Military Reforms in the Three Countries In chronological order, the first military reform that led to an increase in the number of troops was the 1910 military reform in Italy, decreed by order of Minister Paolo Spingardi. The duration of military service was 2 SFIO, X° congrès national, 267. The strict relationship between the Balkan Wars and the arms race was also affirmed at the opening of the SPD congress in Jena: Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Parteitages des sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten in Jena vom 14. bis 20. September 1913. Berlin, 1913 (next: Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913), 6. 3 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913, 5.

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officially reduced from three to two years (which in fact regularized an existing practice, through recourse to early leave), but at the same time, the number of enlisted men and regiments was increased. In 1911, with the Tripolitan operation, the number of personnel increased again, which led to a sharp rise in government military spending. At the outbreak of the First World War, the army therefore presented itself with a considerable number of personnel, placing the Kingdom of Italy among the great European military powers. The limits of its army laid above all in its armament, which was often insufficient, a consequence of the backwardness of the Italian mechanical and steel industry.4 In Germany, the increase in military personnel dated back to June 14, 1912. However, it did not provide for an extension of the duration of military service, which remained for two years. A new law, approved on July 3, 1913, would allow a further increase in the number of soldiers, again without affecting the length of time soldiers had to spend in the armed forces. In the face of these constant increases, the proposal that the SPD defended in the Reichstag was to reduce the length of military service to one year. In France, the so-called Three-Year Law, which provided for the extension of the duration of military service from two to three years, was introduced in the Chamber in March 1913. It was hotly debated before being voted on in July and approved by the Senate in August. It was applied immediately, meaning that men who were doing their military service at the time of its approval would have to remain in the armed forces for an additional year, which immediately increased the French military strength. Over the years and the succession of military reforms, the protest against the arms race gave rise to a concerted initiative between the French socialist party and German social-democracy. Following the model of the BSI manifestos, such as the 1911 manifesto against the war in Tripolitania or those against conflicts in general, the Manifesto of the German and French socialist parties was published on 1 March 1913 in L’Humanité and in Vorwärts. It was written in both French and German in the two newspapers.5 Its content was moreover only a declaration of 4 For more details on the Italian army cf. Gianni Oliva. Soldati e ufficiali. L’esercito italiano dal Risorgimento ad oggi. Milan: Mondadori, 2009, 105–106. 5 Contre les armements. Manifeste des partis socialistes français et allemand. L’Humanité, 1 March 1913. Gegen den Rüstungswahnsinn! Manifest der französischen und

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the opposition of the two parties to the arms race in their countries and of their desire to remain united in this struggle: “The French and German socialists protest, unanimously and with one voice, against the incessant armament that exhausts the peoples”. It described the actions to be taken to guarantee peace: “To ensure the maintenance of peace, the independence of nations and progress in all areas of the democracy of the two states, the socialists demand that all conflicts between peoples be settled by arbitration treaties. […] They demand that the permanent army, which constitutes a permanent threat to the nations, be replaced by national militias, established on democratic bases and whose sole purpose is the defense of the country”. In the following paragraphs, we will remember this sentence: The socialists of Germany and France have already, by their conduct in the past, unmasked the double game, the perfidious game of the chauvinist and military suppliers of the two countries, who evoke in the eyes of the people, in France, an alleged complacency of the German socialists for militarism, and in Germany an alleged complacency of the French socialists for the same militarism.6

This manifesto was also translated into Italian and published a few days later in Avanti! followed by a commentary that underlined its importance and symbolic charge and defined it as “a solemn slap in the cheeks

deutschen Sozialdemokratie. Vorwärts, 1 March 1913. Only in French version, the manifesto can also be found in: Un manifeste des partis socialistes français et allemand pour la paix. La Revue socialiste, March 1913, 193–196. A few days later, L’Humanité published the letter that the SPD leadership had sent to the General Secretary of the SFIO, Louis Dubreuilh, to propose to the French comrades that they write this common manifesto (La lettre du “Vorstand” au Parti Socialiste. L’Humanité, 4 March 1913). The French daily published this letter following accusations by French militarists that the Germans signed the manifesto at the request of the SFIO and only “as a grace”. Jean Jaurès. Citation fausse. L’Humanité, 4 March 1913. Charles Rappoport’s ephemeral journal Contre la guerre then published the manifesto, followed by the French translation of Vorwärts’ commentary on it: Manifeste des partis socialistes allemand et français. Contre la guerre et la paix armée, 15 March 1913, 1. And then: Commentaires du Vorwärts sur le manifeste des partis socialistes allemand et français. Contre la guerre et la paix armée, 15 March 1913, 2. 6 Contre les armements. Manifeste des partis socialistes français et allemand. L’Humanité, 1 March 1913.

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of liars”,7 which “suddenly fanned the warmongers’ game”.8 Then, on April 13 and 14, Adéodat Compère-Morel was invited to Magdeburg and Braunschweig by local SPD representatives to talk about the SFIO’s battle against the nationalists. Both conferences were banned “brutally”9 by decree of the Prefect of Police. During the general assembly of the SPD that followed, it was decided to print the speech that the Frenchman should have given and to circulate it among the population in the form of a tract.10 The Franco-German interparliamentary conference held in Bern on 11 May 1913 was more successful: it was explicitly a reaction to the new military reforms in both countries. Fifteen German and 26 French socialist deputies met the day before the conference at 3 p.m. for a preparatory meeting. Eight other French socialist representatives arrived in Bern “by the evening train”, and L’Humanité reported that six independent French socialists were also present in the Swiss city.11 At the conference itself, deputies from all political fractions were present, for a total of 156 parliamentarians. Among them, 83 of those from France and six of those from Germany represented bourgeois parties.12 In total, the number of French delegates was higher than that of the Germans, “but it should be noted that according to their habits, the German deputies are really

7 The “liars” here are the chauvinists of both countries. The article affirms that the German chauvinists continued to claim that the SPD representatives were anti-patriotic and anti-militarist, unlike the French socialists, who would defend France in case of danger, and that the same thing was happening in France, but obviously the opposite: the SFIO would be anti-patriotic and anti-militarist while the SPD members would be ready to go to war against them. This naturally had propaganda purposes, capable of alerting the country to the danger posed by the neighboring nation and justifying the arms race. 8 Contro gli armamenti. Il manifesto dei partiti socialisti tedesco e francese. Avanti!, 3 March 1913. 9 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913, 47. 10 L’action socialiste en Allemagne. Compère-Morel n’a pas parlé, mais son discours a

été lu par le citoyen Steiner. L’Humanité, 14 April 1913. 11 La conférence de Berne. Les délégués allemands et français ont tenu une réunion préparatoire. L’Humanité, 11 May 1913. 12 This minimal presence of bourgeois representatives from Germany can be explained, according to the minutes of the 1913 Jena congress, by the fact that liberalism in Germany had almost entirely embraced imperialism. Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913, 7.

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there as delegates of their groups and not only in a personal way”,13 which was the case of some French people. Prior to the formulation of the conference agenda, the leadership and parliamentary groups of the SFIO and SPD drafted a joint declaration, in which they specified the main position of the international proletariat with regard to the issues of war and militarism. The declaration ended with the following words: “For this reason, French and German social-democracy warmly welcomes the meeting of the Berne conference and expresses the desire that through it, and outside the circle of workers, the conviction of the cohesion of the two great peoples of culture be promoted for the good of humanity”.14 The result of this meeting (which “it is not justified neither to overestimate nor to underestimate”)15 was the creation of a Franco-German permanent agreement committee (permanente Verständigungskommission), of which Jean Jaurès and Hugo Haase were members. In addition, the interparliamentary conference produced a resolution, voted unanimously, in which those present expressed their aversion to the rising chauvinism in both countries and called on their parliamentarians to put as much pressure as possible on their respective governments to reduce spending on the army and the fleet.16 L’Humanité welcomed the meeting as a success, a first step toward the implementation of arbitration as a solution to international disputes.17 Beyond this evidence of collaboration and these official statements of cohesion, however, it was possible to detect another attitude. In the pages of the main French, German and also Italian socialist newspapers and magazines, one perceived worries about the arms race. The German social-democrats were very concerned about the situation in France: throughout the months of the discussions on the military law, and even before that, Vorwärts regularly published articles on the neighboring country and on the way SFIO representatives reacted to events. Such articles were published almost every day from the end of February 13 La conférence de Berne. Les délégués allemands et français ont tenu une réunion préparatoire. L’Humanité, 11 May 1913. 14 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913, 7. 15 Ibid. 16 The text of the resolution can be found in French in L’Humanité: La conférence de Berne. L’Humanité, 12 May 1913. It is summarized in German in: Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913, 7. 17 La conférence de Berne. L’Humanité, 12 May 1913.

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1913, when the bill had not yet been presented to the Parliament, until it was put to the vote in July, with a peak of interest in June. At times, a certain lack of confidence in the actual ability of the French comrades to prevent the law from being passed was reflected in the German comments. The German social-democrats18 never forgot to make it clear that the French population as a whole rejected the arms race. Many articles spoke about the military reforms in France and paid much attention to what was happening there,19 but often they only gave a factual description.20 Some of them systematically, and often in the same terms, described how the protest against the new reform was organized. In most cases, the relation of the facts was followed by a description of the protest, as if to forcefully show the fundamental opposition of the French population. On June 3, for example, after indicating that the French Chamber had begun preparing the Three-Year bill,21 a brief article announced that some demonstrations were organized by the workers’ lodges in different cities.22 An article in Vorwärts on March 6 also referred to the mirror effect between France and Germany regarding the SFIO’s protests against military reform. The editor wrote that the French provincial press was also beginning a powerful protest against the war and that “the atmosphere in the country is by no means as militarized as the smear campaign represents”.23 The article went on to say: “It is very important for the destruction of slander, which in part is not ineffective, that the opposition of the German social-democratic party to the military project be made known in a demonstrative way”.24 And indeed, in France, Marcel

18 The SPD’s attitude to the discussions on French military reform has already been the subject of my analyses in an essay published in 2013. Elisa Marcobelli. La France de 1914 était-elle antimilitariste? Les socialistes et la loi de Trois ans. Paris: Fondation Jaurès, 2013, 45–51. 19 An example of this is the fact that the discussions at the SFIO congress in Brest on the Three-Year Law are quoted almost in their entirety in the pages of Vorwärts: Französischer Parteitag. Zweiter Tag. Militarfrage. Vorwärts, 28 March 1913. 20 Frankreich. Die Heeresvorlage. Vorwärts, 30 May 1913. 21 Beginn der Beratung des Gesetzes über die dreijährige Dienstzeit. Vorwärts, 3 June

1913. 22 Proteste gegen die dreijährige Dienstzeit. Vorwärts, 3 June 1913. 23 Ibid. 24 Die dreijährige Dienstzeit in Frankreich. Vorwärts, 6 March 1913.

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Cachin proposed, in L’Humanité, to organize Franco-German demonstrations against the arms race in both countries. In an article published a few days later, the situation in the two countries was once again put in relation by Vorwärts, who praised the communion between the socialists of the two countries: “The French people, like the German people, do not want war. If they were perfectly sure of each other, the activity of the militarists in both countries would soon come to an end”.25 This last sentence stated a hypothesis that could indeed be verified, but it also indicated that the social-democrats had doubts about the SFIO’s ability to take effective action to stop the enactment of this law and, more broadly, to stop the arms race in France.26 In the daily newspaper Vorwärts27 as well as in several other periodicals, there was also a lot of space for articles written by French socialists and translated into German. These articles were similar in their content: they reassured German readers that the French socialist party and people did not want war. Charles Rappoport, in Die Neue Zeit, thus launched into a demonstration of the fact that the French people did not want war and that if the opposite had been affirmed by certain German newspapers that supported the policy of armament, it was only a lie by the press correspondents in Paris. He put forward the hypothesis of a strategy put in place by French reactionaries in order to create in Germany a feeling of hostility toward France. The militarist policy would thus have created a consensus among the French, useful for the adoption of new military reforms, mainly the Three-Year Law.28 Then Rappoport gave tangible proof of this French opposition to the new reform by describing the debates at the Brest SFIO congress and translating the motion adopted at its conclusion.29 The article did not 25 Der Wahn und seine Lenker II. Vorwärts, 9 March 1913. 26 Cf. also: Die französischen Radikale und die militärische Hetze. Vorwärts, 28

February 1913. 27 Adéodat Compère-Morel. Friede und Abrüstung. Vorwärts, 5 May 1913. 28 Charles Rappoport. Der Kampf gegen den Militarismus in Frankreich und der

Kongress in Brest. Die Neue Zeit 28, 1913, 47–52. 29 The motion concerning the Three-Year Law adopted at the Brest convention was proposed by Compère-Morel. It was a clear stand against military reform and, more generally, against the arms race; it pleaded for Franco-German rapprochement. It concluded with the following words: “The congress gives a mandate to the parliamentary socialist group and the permanent administrative commission to carry out in the parliament and in the country the most energetic and resolute action for the Franco-German entente, international arbitration, national militias and against the Three-Year Law”. SFIO. X° Congrès

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question the fact that, on the side of the German social-democrats, there was the same willingness as among their French comrades to oppose the arms race of their country’s government. Albert Thomas, too, in his articles published in Germany, mentioned this opposition of the French people.30 It took stock of the actions of the armies, the socialists and the French population in general, which it placed at the center of the protest against military reform. It also affirmed his conviction that French socialism was capable of “slowly gathering around itself the entire hesitant mass of democracy and that it will once again succeed in ensuring in [the] country the republic and the freedom of the working classes”.31 On the other side of the Rhine, the SFIO socialists were closely observing what was happening in Germany, the SPD’s attitude to military reforms and the increase in military personnel. In France, too, two different tendencies were noticeable: on the one hand, the will to form a bloc with the Germans against the French chauvinists; on the other, opposite but parallel, a certain tendency at times to label the German comrades as militarists or imperialists. The polemic raised by Charles Andler was significant in this context. The French socialists therefore did not fail to affirm their solidarity with their comrades across the Rhine. The most telling examples on this issue were mainly based on a debate that was to develop at the 1913 Jena congress. When, in spite of their efforts, the new military law was passed, the German social-democrats wondered whether they should refuse to vote for the credits that should finance the increase in military personnel—reported Jaurès in L’Humanité. Another option was indeed possible, that of making the German ruling classes pay, through a heavy wealth tax, the costs of their politics. This latter tactic prevailed, and SPD members voted for the new law because they succeed in inserting the principle of tax progression. In fact, the French socialists did not criticize this decision of the German comrades and Jaurès concluded his article with a true expression of confidence: “Disdaining the fury of their newspapers and the ironies of ours, the German socialists are fighting with all their strength, which is growing, for the progress of national, tenu à Brest les 23, 24 et 25 mars 1913: compte rendu sténographique. Paris: SFIO, 1913, 239. 30 Albert Thomas. Die politische Situation in Frankreich. Die Neue Zeit 36, 1913, 329–333 and Albert Thomas. Die Krise in der innern Politik Frankreichs. Sozialistische Monatshefte 19, 1913, 960–965. 31 Thomas, Die politische Situation in Frankreich, 333.

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democracy and peace in Europe. It is with complete security of mind and in the absolute and joyful certainty of fraternal solidarity that we follow the work of their congress”.32 Another article appeared shortly afterward on the subject of “détente with Germany”, by the pen of Louis Dubreuilh, in which it was not strictly a question of socialists, but of a general détente between the two countries. Dubreuilh stated that from the Berne conference of April 1913 onwards, “there have been numerous attempts to reduce friction between the two countries and gradually move them towards a policy of friendly relations and good neighbourliness”. According to the Frenchman, “socialism is the great agent of international peace. It is also, in the same way and for the same reasons, the principal agent of the rapprochement that must take place between two of the most civilized nations of the world”.33 French socialists also liked to make it known that their German comrades were not patriots, contrary to the idea supported by French militarists and chauvinists34 : The Chamber discussed the war budget in its morning session. Mr. Driant gave an ultra-chauvinist speech in which he again uttered the well-known nonsense about the ‘patriotism’ of the German socialists. Compère-Morel and Raffin-Dugens, in a few words, re-established the truth and declared that socialists of all countries, if they are prepared to defend national independence, are opposed to any war of conquest, to colonial plunder, and fight with equal ardor for the maintenance of world peace and against militarism in all its forms.35

But did this détente really exist? As far as Franco-German socialist relations were concerned, there were still points of friction.

32 Jean Jaurès. Le congrès de Iéna. L’Humanité, 15 September 1913. 33 Louis Dubreuilh. La détente avec l’Allemagne. L’Humanité, 22 September 1913. 34 French militarists and chauvinists claimed that the German social-democrats would

approve the war if their country was in danger. Not really based on real facts, this attitude was a strategy to unite public opinion against Germany. 35 Daniel Renoult. Le budget de la guerre. L’Humanité, 19 June 1912.

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Socialist Imperialism The Franco-German attitudes described so far emerged from a backdrop that pointed in another direction. During these same months, a discussion on socialist imperialism was taking place, a debate that did not blend well with the declarations of détente that we have just highlighted and which displayed that the situation was not so unambiguous. The quarrel took on a magnitude that exceeded that of the military reforms. This time, it was the accusations made against the SPD by Charles Andler, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the origins of state socialism in Germany, that triggered the polemic.36 To sum up, Andler accused the German social-democrats of being imperialists and ready to go to war to defend their homeland. The question of imperialism had already occupied socialist minds and debates at the beginning of the twentieth century, but in the 1910s it turned into a polemic between French socialists and German socialdemocrats. It was in these circumstances that Andler published an article in the journal Action Nouvelle on November 10 and December 10, 1912, in which he denounced the adherence of certain social democrats to the imperialist and nationalist theses prevailing in Germany. To justify these assertions, he quoted writings by Gerhard Hildebrand, Max Schippel, and Karl Leuthner.37 This text was controversial in France, had echoes in Germany, and reached as far as Italy. We will briefly summarize the French criticisms. The Permanent Administrative Commission (CAP) of the SFIO wanted to protest unanimously against what Andler supported and asked Jean Longuet to write a booklet against his statements.38 La Guerre

36 On the life and philosophy of Andler cf. Christophe Prochasson. Comment être socialiste? Introduction à La Civilisation socialiste de Charles Andler. Lormont: Le Bord de l’eau, 2010, 9–63. For a more extensive study of Andler’s socialist thought see Christophe Prochasson. Sur la réception du marxisme en France: le cas Andler (1890–1920). Revue de synthèse 110, 1989, 85–108. 37 It is Andler himself who provided with this information in the article in La Revue socialiste. 38 It is about Les socialistes allemands contre la guerre et le militarisme. As Gilles Candar

pointed out, this brochure was only a propaganda work, which underlined the opposition to war and the internationalism of the SPD since its birth and stated that the French can count on the collaboration of German comrades in the fight against the war. Gilles Candar. Jean Longuet, 1876–1938. Un internationaliste à l’épreuve de l’histoire. Rennes: PUR, 2007, 98–99.

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Sociale openly criticized the Germanist’s positions39 and Jaurès responded to Andler in an article that appeared on March 4 in L’Humanité. He was very worried because Andler’s words had fed the militarists’ antiGerman propaganda.40 For Jaurès, Andler’s assertions were false because they were based on a misinterpretation of Bebel’s words: in his article, Andler asserted that Bebel pronounced the following sentence at the Jena congress: “The question of disarmament will no longer separate us. The motto is not to disarm, but to increase armaments”.41 Jaurès commented: Now, the quotation is false, it is doubly false. There is false on the meaning. There is false on the text. [...] Bebel was referring to the arms control offers made by the English liberals. The vast majority of German socialists had complained to the imperial government that it had not accepted these offers. Only a few had wondered whether they were serious, whether, in the midst of capitalist rivalry, they could be sincere and effective. And Bebel, speaking after the German coup in Agadir, after the bitter response of Mr. Lloyd George, said with dark irony and harsh pessimism: ‘We will no longer have to measure the value of the offers of partial disarmament. It is a question everywhere of increasing armaments’.42

Even linguistically, Jaurès argued that Andler purged Bebel’s assertions of fundamental words. The German actually said that the watchword “for bourgeois Europe” was not to disarm. These four words, “für das bürgerliche Europa”,43 which could be found in the report of the 1911 congress, were not taken up by Andler in his quotation of Bebel’s declarations, which completely changed their meaning. Andler’s attitude was perhaps an indication of the lack of confidence in the German comrades as to their real willingness to oppose the war. All the more so since the criticism of the French academic was not new: in a letter to his friend Lucien Herr after the Amsterdam congress, he had already accused Bebel

39 Gustave Hervé. Entre socialistes français et allemands. La Guerre sociale, 26 February 1913 and Gustave Hervé, Pour l’entente franco-allemande. La Guerre sociale, 5 and 11 March 1913. 40 Jean Jaurès. Citation fausse. L’Humanité, 4 March 1913. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1911, 171.

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of chauvinism.44 This article by Jaurès, who continued the debate in two other articles published at the end of March and the beginning of April,45 triggered the polemic between the politician and the Germanist. The latter replied to him in a private letter,46 but this arrived after Jaurès had reproached Andler for not wanting to respond to his criticisms and thus allowed the reactionary newspapers to use his words “against socialism and against peace”.47 For a more detailed analysis of the French polemic, we refer to the thesis of Marie-Louise Goergen and the article by Joseph Jurt.48 It will be more a question here of his echoes among foreign socialists. Marie-Louise Goergen noticed it: “The Andler affair shows that the vast majority of French socialists, whatever they may think, are not prepared to openly denounce nationalist tendencies in German socialism and to give credit to the germanophobic manifestations of chauvinist pressure groups in France. Historians agree that Jaurès, while he may have doubted the loyalty of the social-democrats, systematically refused to make this known in public”.49 The Andler case showed also the background of the solidarity between France and Germany and the fact that the declarations about it on the socialist press were oft propaganda. But how did the Germans react? It was the Alsatian Salomon Grumbach, whom we have already had the opportunity to meet during the Moroccan crisis of 1911 in which he affirmed the SPD’s willingness to oppose the rise in violence, who responded to Andler’s accusations. Grumbach was

44 Letter to Lucien Herr dated September 8, 1904, in: Marie-Louise Goergen. Les relations entre socialistes allemands et français à l’époque de la Deuxième Internationale (1889–1914). PhD in history (supervised by Madeleine Rebérioux), Paris: Université Paris 8, 1998, 826. 45 Jean Jaurès Mise au point. L’Humanité, 31 March 1913 and Jean Jaurès. Expliquonsnous donc. L’Humanité, 3 April 1913. 46 “Ma réponse provisoire à Jaurès”. Charles Andler. Le socialisme impérialiste dans l’Allemagne contemporaine. Dossier d’une polémique avec Jean Jaurès (1912–1913). Paris: Bossard, 1918, 143–145. 47 Jean Jaurès. Mise au point. L’Humanité, 31 March 1913. 48 Les relations 825–833. Joseph Jurt. Die Debatte zwischen Charles Andler und Jean

Jaurès über den Friedenswillen der deutschen Sozialdemokraten. In: Sandrine Mayoraz, Frithjof Benjamin Schenk, and Ueli Mäder (eds). Hundert Jahre Basler Friedenskongress (1912–2012). Die erhoffte “Verbrüderung der Völker”. Basel and Zurich: Sozialarchiv, 2015, 251–262. 49 Goergen, Les relations, 833–834.

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an important link between the French Socialist Party and the SPD, collaborating with both L’Humanité and Vorwärts, and forging ties with and between comrades in both countries. Die Neue Zeit published one of his articles entitled “Imperialist Socialism: A Discovery by Professor Charles Andler” (“Der imperialistische Sozialismus: eine Entdeckung des Herrn Professor Charles Andler”), which was openly critical of Andler and his ideas and which went so far as to say that only a person without reason could have said something of this kind (“Would it be possible that a university professor in person had lost his mind?”).50 Grumbach’s main criticism of Andler was that the Germanist made an overall criticism of the SPD, but only quoting the ideas of three of its representatives. Moreover, Hildebrand had just been expelled from the party and Schippel had already been asked to withdraw from it. As for Leuthner, he was Austrian. Grumbach then contested, almost point by point, everything Andler said, and concluded as follows: “The German social-democracy would like to make a contribution, especially when Mr. Charles Andler decides to demonstrate unequivocally (which is not difficult for him), that it has already owned the Krupp cannon factories for a long time, that Wilhelm II takes part in the organization of the Berlin [socialdemocratic] party and that its statutes contain a secret provision which obliges every member to wear a picture of Bismarck on his chest”.51 Andler first decided not to respond directly to Grumbach, but through the journal La Vie ouvrière, in which he gave a French translation of the text by Grumbach, which he accompanied with his annotations.52 He then responded with a lecture that La Revue socialiste published: “What is Imperialism in German Socialism Today”,53 in which he took up his description of “imperialist socialism”—according to him this was the correct definition of German social-democracy. Andler expanded his range 50 Salomon Grumbach. Der imperialistische Sozialismus: eine Entdeckung des Herrn Professor Charles Andler. Die Neue Zeit 20, 1913, 738. On the contrary, there is no answer to the Andlerian critics in the Sozialistische Monatshefte. 51 Ibid., 741. 52 James Guillaume. La réponse de la Neue Zeit. Texte et notes marginales (polémique

de Salomon Grumbach contre les articles de Charles Andler, sur l’impérialisme dans le mouvement socialiste allemand). La Vie ouvrière 84, 1913. 53 Charles Andler. Ce qu’il y a d’ “impérialisme” dans le socialisme allemand d’aujourd’hui. La Revue socialiste 57, 1913, 446–466. This is a lecture delivered by Andler before the plenary meeting of the socialist groups of the 4th electoral division of the district of Sceaux, convened in Montrouge on April 13, 1913.

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of examples, citing, in addition to Hildebrand, Schippel, and Leuthner, statements by Ludwig Quessel and Südekum, to show that in Germany “the working class is in solidarity with the state in which it lives and the regime that governs it”. He added: “It has more to fear from a defeat of this state and this regime than the monarch himself. It does not want this defeat. No matter how many times I look for a name for these doctrines, all I find is imperialism”.54 He went on to assert that in German socialdemocracy there were “vestiges of nationalism”.55 According to Andler, the very thought of one of its major leaders showed it: Bebel was in fact fighting current militarism “and not all militarism” and defended the idea of “defensive patriotism”, refusing to discuss disarmament.56 Still, according to Andler, Bebel was not radically anti-militarist, he merely criticized the abuses of militarism, such as the violence in the barracks. And at the end of this article, Andler expressed a doubt: if a war threatened their country, would the German social-democrats really refuse to vote for military credits? The words were somewhat different, but it was the same debate as the one raised by Rappoport in 1905. Andler’s accusation of “socialist imperialism” against the German social-democrats was basically not very different from Rappoport’s when he defined Jaures’ thinking from the pages of Die Neue Zeit as a doctrine of “socialist colonization”.57 This thought persisted in the background of the socialists’ attitude toward each other. According to Marie-Louise Goergen, this debate was not apt to serve as an example to describe the relations between French and German socialists during this period. Andler’s “fault” would be to have started this debate at the wrong time, when attempts at rapprochement followed one another, and moreover in the midst of a socialist campaign against the Three-Year Law. According to the historian, this same debate, had it developed at a different time, would have had a much greater impact

54 Ibid., 451. 55 Ibid., 453. 56 Ibid., 455. 57 Cf. Charles Rappoport. Marokko und die Kolonialpolitik Frankreichs. Die Neue Zeit

22, 1908, 756 and also the chapter of this work dedicated to the crisis in Morocco in 1905.

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among the French socialists.58 We do not completely agree with Goergen’s conclusions, on the contrary: even in a context where criticism of foreign comrades was somehow banned, there was still room for Andler’s statements. Andler’s criticism of the German social-democrats was fully in line with the logic already outlined for previous years. International socialism showed two facets: one, voluntarily quite visible, consisted of an international solidarity that was displayed and proclaimed; the other, more subtle and hidden, less displayed but no less present, revealed a major precaution in the declarations of friendship and trust between socialists of different countries. Italy and Militarism in France and Germany While the Italian socialists had more or less remained outside this debate on the alleged imperialism of the German social-democrats, they nevertheless displayed great interest in the arms race and its repercussions within the socialist parties of France and Germany. Articles dealing with the military question in both countries abounded in the pages of Avanti! which closely followed the events. It should be noted that France and Germany interested Italy more than any other country, for reasons of geography as well as alliances. Italy being linked to Germany by the Triplice, it feared any friction between its two neighbors. In the specific case of the PSI representatives, for their part, they continued, as they had always done, to observe the attitude of their transalpine comrades, probably in order to be able to calibrate and determine their own strategy. The increase in the number of military personnel in Germany was the subject of many articles in Italy, as was the Three-Year Law in France and the socialist protests it provoked. But the Italian socialists seemed to fear above all the German arms race and the military power of the Empire of William II. The press talked about it constantly, especially during the first months of 1913.59 The opinion on what was happening in Germany was clear. In an article of 21 February 1913, after briefly explaining the theses defended by Kant in his book For Perpetual Peace, 58 Goergen, Les relations, 825. 59 To quote some articles: L’antagonismo tra la Francia e la Germania. Avanti!, 21

February 1913. I nuovi aumenti militari in Germania. Ancora un miliardo! Avanti!, 4 March 1913. Le nuove leggi militari in Germania. Il miliardo di marchi! Avanti!, 6 March 1913.

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the editor resolved the question as follows: “The Germans are the first to deny the ideals of their Master. The ideal of perpetual peace did not dazzle them. Germany is today a great barracks”.60 Many articles referred to the arms race in France and Germany: the fact that what happened in one country was strictly linked to what happened in the other was perceived as a reality. In addition to this tendency to highlight the antagonisms between the two countries, there was the tendency to highlight in all circumstances the willingness of socialists on both sides of the Rhine to oppose military reforms. On this occasion, it could be found in Italy as one of the rare references to the Andlerian polemic. In the article just quoted, the editor settled the question neatly, assuring his readers that the trend represented by the French germanist did not find an echo in France among the popular masses.61 He went on to comment on the situation among the social-democrats: “As for the German socialists, we have no official statements yet, except for the articles in Vorwärts. The socialist party will certainly affirm its clear opposition to the new armaments”.62 Fully in line with this logic, the Franco-German manifesto against armaments naturally found its place in the pages of Avanti! where it was fully translated. The commentary that accompanied it in its Italian version indicated that this initiative was a sign of solidarity between French and German socialist representatives: “The French and German sections of the socialist International are completely, fully in agreement on the goal, the means, the very nuances of their rebellion against the mad increase in armaments that the governments of their countries want to wrest from parliaments”.63 The actions of the two socialist parties were entitled to a large space in the columns of the Italian daily newspaper, where the reader was informed about the actions undertaken by the comrades. Regarding the SFIO, a large number of articles related its opposition to the Three-Year Law, going as far as a detailed description of the different initiatives envisaged to deal with the situation.64 The manifesto of the 60 La gara degli armamenti. Avanti!, 21 February 1913. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Contro gli armamenti. Il manifesto dei partiti socialisti tedesco e francese. Avanti!, 3 March 1913. 64 For example: Il Gruppo parlamentare francese per la milizia nazionale e la limitazione degli armamenti. Avanti!, 8 March 1913 and La grandiosa manifestazione di Parigi contro la guerra. Avanti!, 17 March 1913.

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French socialists against armaments was fully translated.65 With regard to Germany, in the absence of articulate descriptions such as there were for France, the editors continued to affirm the firm commitment of the social-democrats in the fight against armaments—“The German socialist press is sounding the alarm against new armaments”—but without going into further detail.66 But in reality, the Italian socialists seemed to harbor a doubt, openly formulated in an article in Avanti! on 26 February 1913: describing the arms race in both countries, he described at length the various initiatives of the French socialists to oppose it and made a statement on the weight of social democracy in the German Empire: “There is another empire in the Kaiser’s empire. A new state in the old state”.67 Likewise, it could not help but formulate a question—“Will the French and German socialists succeed in avoiding or stopping the arms race? We do not know”68 —that did indeed fall at a time of great diplomatic instability and growing armament. The question mark showed a doubt: there was hope, albeit mixed, regarding the socialist capacity to oppose the arms race. On the other hand, if the attention of the Italians was constantly turned to the other side of the Alps, one cannot affirm that the opposite was true. After having drawn the attention of the international press to itself during the war against Turkey, Italy, and its socialists with it, became again an active observer, but somewhat on the sidelines. Even though military reforms were also under way in the peninsula, this did not seem to worry or even interest the French and German socialists, who did not give them any place in their debates.

65 Il manifesto dei socialisti francesi contro i nuovi armamenti. Avanti!, 21 February 1913. 66 Le gare degli armamenti. L’opposizione dei socialisti tedeschi. Avanti!, 23 February 1913. See also: La grande manifestazione dei socialisti francesi [sic] contro le spese militari. Avanti!, 6 April 1913. The title contains a mistake because the article is about what is happening in Germany and not in France. 67 Contro gli armamenti. Avanti!, 26 February 1913. 68 Ibid.

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The Balkan Wars The Conflicts It was in this context that the two Balkan Wars broke out in 1912 and 1913. The origin of these conflicts was to be found in the aspirations of the states of Southeast Europe: after obtaining independence from the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, they wanted to incorporate the pieces of territory inhabited by populations of their nationality and remaining under the control of the Ottomans. The driving force behind this desire was strong nationalism, which was widespread in the Balkan states. The models followed are Italy, with its wars of independence, and Germany, in its process toward unification.69 On 8 October 1912, the Kingdom of Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire. A few days later, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece, which were united with Montenegro in the Balkan League, also declared war on the Turkish Empire. The course of the fighting, which was sometimes very violent, was quite rapid: in a little over a month, the Ottoman Empire suffered a series of defeats. The Balkan League thus conquered a good part of the Ottoman Empire’s possessions in the peninsula. As a result of the Ottoman collapse, a group of Albanian notables, supported by Austria and Italy, declared Albania’s independence on 28 November 1912. On 3 December, the empire signed the armistice with Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, while Greek military operations continued. However, as William Mulligan observed, Britain, Germany, and France acted together to calm the situation: “Neither Britain, Germany nor France wanted war and all three shared similar interests in preserving the Ottoman Empire from total collapse”.70 Balkan delegations, representatives of the Ottoman

69 To write this part, the following publications were helpful: Richard Hall. The Balkan

Wars, 1912–1913. Prelude to the First World War. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Richard Hall. Balkan Wars 1912–1913. In: Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson (eds). 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, http://dx.doi.org/10.15463/ie1418. 10009 [15 January 2019]. Mulligan, The Origins of the First World War. Clark, The Sleepwalkers, 242–266. 70 William Mulligan. The Origins of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 81. For a more in-depth study of the relations between Great Britain and Germany during the First Balkan War, see Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich, Kein serbischer Zugang zur Adria. Britisch-deutscher Friedenskurs im Jahr 1912. In: Jost Dülffer, Martin Kröger and Rolf-Harald Wippich (eds). Vermiedene Kriege.

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Empire and ambassadors of the great European powers, who acted to protect their interests in the peninsula, met in London to decide the terms of the peace, signed on May 30, 1913. The Treaty of London redefined the borders of the empire, which now consisted only of a discontinuous line of possessions from the port of Enos on the Aegean Sea to the port of Midya on the Black Sea. However, the agreements did not satisfy all the parts in play and dissent was drawn up very quickly around the division of Makedonia. The Serbs wanted to maintain their possessions there as compensation for the loss of the Albanian coast. The Greeks, for their part, never gave their approval to any agreement concerning Macedonia, which meant that they wanted to keep the zones of the country which they occupied during the war. The Bulgarians, them, wanted to annex Macedonia. The Russian mediation was not useful for much: the hostilities intensified in spring 1913 and the situation degenerated. On the night of June 29 to 30, 1913, the Bulgarian soldiers attacked Greek and Serb positions in Macedonia: it was the beginning of the second war of the Balkans, also called inter-allied war. It was also rather short: the treaty of Bucharest, signed on August 10, marked its end. Bulgaria must yield the major part of Makedonia to Greece and Serbia. A later treaty, signed in Constantinople on September 30, 1913, forced Bulgaria to give up also the territory of Andrinople, which it occupied during the winter war of 1912. These two wars touched a territory crossed by nationalist passions. In addition, the great European powers, notably the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, had significant influence in the region and interests that they wanted to protect. The antipathy between the Habsburg Empire and the Serbs, who made no secret of their ambition to reunite the entire region under their crown, was blatant. Moreover, the birth of Albania as an independent State, wanted by the Austrians and the Italians, made fail any possibility of constituting a solid alliance between the Balkan forces, alliance whose existence was impeded also by the pressures which the Bulgarians exerted on the Greeks for the control of Makedonia. Another cause of this failure is to be found in Russia’s attitude. A treaty signed in March 1912 put this country in the position of guarantor of order in the Balkans. By the weakness of its attitude, dictated by its own interests in the peninsula, Russia failed completely in this task. The main consequence Deeskalation von Konflikten der Grossmächte zwischen Krimkrieg und Erstem Weltkrieg 1865–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1997, 641–655.

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of the two wars was therefore to make the international diplomatic situation even more unstable. We will conclude on this subject by quoting Richard Hall: “The First World War was not the Third Balkan War; rather, the Balkan Wars were the beginning of the First World War. Nationalist conflicts persisted in Southeast Europe from 1912 to 1918. The problems of nationalism persist there until the 21st century”.71 ISB’s Response The two years of fighting in the Balkans were also those in which the communion between the demonstration culture of the Second International and the protest against the war at the international level was the strongest. During these two years, the ISB had a lot to do. On the side of the International, the Basel congress took place in November 1912. The ISB’s response to the first Balkan war came quickly, unlike in previous crises. On October 15, 1912, only a few days after the fighting began, the ISB sent the socialist parties of the International an anti-war manifesto, signed by socialists from Turkey and the Balkan countries, which the Bureau itself asked them to draft. The manifesto was thus written while the war had not yet broken out: “When these lines are published, it will probably be a fait accompli”.72 In the manifesto, the socialists of Turkey and the Balkan countries reassured their comrades in other countries that they did not convert to nationalist and chauvinist passions, then at their highest level in their respective homelands because of the ongoing war. The signatories repeated that “the Balkan war carries within it an imminent danger for general peace”. The manifesto concluded with a vigorous statement: “We express our firm will to support with all our strength the struggle of the world proletariat against war, against militarism, against capitalist exploitation, for freedom, for equality, for the emancipation of classes and nationalities, in a word: for peace!”73 The ISB followed up with a commentary in which it praised the 71 Richard Hall, Balkan Wars 1912–1913. 72 Le manifeste des socialistes de Turquie et des Balkans contre la guerre. L’Humanité,

14 October 1912. Quotes from the manifesto in French, published by L’Humanité on October 14, are cited from this aricle. The manifesto was also published in German in Vorwärts: Die Internationale gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 15 October 1912. 73 Le manifeste des socialistes de Turquie et des Balkans contre la guerre. L’Humanité, 14 October 1912.

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socialists in the war-torn countries for continuing their peaceful protest as the conflict raged in their homelands, as well as their parliamentarians, who continued their opposition within the institutions: “Together with our comrades in the Balkans, we protest against armed violence and fight for disarmament and arbitration”.74 The text ended with an exhortation addressed to all the major socialist parties to “prepare for the execution of the resolutions of [their] international congresses and to consider all eventualities in order to […] emerge from the chaos”.75 While L’Humanité merely quoted the ISB communication and the manifesto in full, Vorwärts introduced them with reflections signed by the SPD steering committee that denoted the feelings prevailing in public opinion, summarized as follows: “The fear that the Balkan war could easily generate a global conflagration weighs heavily on the people of Europe”.76 The executive committee repeatedly emphasized the will for peace of the international proletariat, which “completely agrees” (“ist völlig einig”) with the total condemnation of the war. And it then urged its counterparts from the other parties: “Our comrades must be on their guard and seize every opportunity to intervene for world peace through mass demonstrations”.77 We couldn’t find any trace of these two communications from the ISB in the Italian daily Avanti!. The ISB quickly took other initiatives to give a united socialist response to the war, once it had begun. It convened a meeting where it drafts a manifesto, planned simultaneous international events in different countries, and prepared a new meeting of the International for November 23 in Basel.78 The Bureau therefore met on October 28, 1912 in Brussels, some twenty days after the beginning of the war, to examine the situation and agree on the decisions to be taken. Victor Adler, Austrian social-democrat, 74 Les socialistes de Turquie et des Balkans. Bureau socialiste international. Aux partis affiliés. L’Humanité, 14 October 1912. 75 Ibid. 76 Die Internationale gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 15 October 1912. 77 Ibid. 78 L’Internazionale contro la guerra. Il congresso di Basilea anticipato? Avanti!, 13 November 1912. Cf. as well: Georges Haupt. Le congrès manqué: l’Internationale à la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale. Étude et documents. Paris: Maspéro, 1965, 41–42 and Georges Haupt. Jaurès à la réunion du BSI des 28 et 29 octobre 1912. Bulletin de la Société d’études jaurésiennes 11, 1963, 7.

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stated at the opening of the meeting: “We have the impression that the proletariat is currently facing the most difficult situation it has ever known. We have to measure the strength of the adversary and examine what proletarian forces we can oppose him”.79 In his opinion, the most important was to prevent Austria from entering the war. The task of the socialists at the present moment was “to make a European war impossible”. Vaillant called for “an intense agitation that must make war, if not impossible, at least improbable”. Haase, for his part, also emphasized the fear of the German social-democrats that the conflict could spread to Germany and then become generalized. He showed a certain confidence in his comrades: “We have made the idea of war unpopular through our propaganda and we can assure that today it is indispensable to rely on German popular feeling for any war enterprise” and, more generally, in the international proletariat: “We must not exaggerate the strength of the international proletariat, but if we exercise this strength, it will already be sufficient to achieve the results we desire”. Such assertions indicated a sense of optimism that united socialism had the means to achieve effective action in opposition to the war. Jaurès was a little more cautious in his positions when he asserted that, certainly, in France, there was a desire for peace, but that the situation was not simple and that the war in progress complicated the task of maintaining peace. Rosa Luxemburg’s intervention extended the reflections of the comrades who had intervened before her, without altering their orientation. During the afternoon session, it was also proposed to bring earlier the date of the next congress of the International, which was supposed to take place in Vienna in 1914. Once again, the ISB demonstrated that it had learned to react quickly and unitedly to events on an international scale. This decision was of extreme importance: it was a critical diplomatic situation that pushed the Bureau to anticipate the date of a congress of the International. To put it another way, for the first time, the ISB adapted its calendar to a crisis. Adler saw the convening of a new congress as a necessary response to the circumstances.80 Finally, it was decided that “it is necessary to convene as soon as possible an extraordinary congress of the parties affiliated to the workers’ International, with the international situation and agreement for action 79 Contre la guerre. Le Bureau socialiste international convoque un congrès extraordinaire pour le 5 décembre. L’Humanité, 29 October 1912. 80 La réunion du Bureau socialiste international. La séance de l’après-midi. Discussion sur la date du prochain congrès. L’Humanité, 29 October 1912.

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against the war exclusively on its agenda”. The Vienna congress of 1914 was therefore deferred and this resolution was accepted almost unanimously.81 The ISB meeting ended with a “huge meeting”82 of protest against the war that took place in Brussels itself. A correspondent for L’Humanité reported from the Belgian city: “The meeting given tonight at the Maison du peuple by the Belgian workers’ party was an extraordinary success; despite the size of the hall, hundreds and hundreds of people were unable to enter. Vandervelde presided surrounded by all the members of the ISB, assisted in particular by Haase (Germany), Adler (Austria), Troelstra (Holland), Glasier (England)”. Roubanovitch spoke first in the name of the Russian socialist party, denouncing tsarism. Then Troelstra spoke for Holland, Glasier for England and Adler for Austria, denouncing “the piracy in Morocco, Tripolitania, Bosnia and Herzegovina” of European governments. Haase, for Germany, asserted “the community of feelings of the German socialists and other sections of the International”. Jaurès closed the session “with a speech of incomparable demonstrative force and an emotion that brought tears to the eyes of more than one listener”. The Frenchman analyzed the faults of Europe and the situation in the Balkans and stressed the urgency of a new congress of the International. The correspondent for L’Humanité concluded his article with the following words: “Frenetic applause, just as they had welcomed the speakers from other nations, greeted the French speaker’s peroration, the whole room standing, cheering, on the invitation of Vandervelde, the socialist International. It was certainly an evening that the Brussels socialists will not forget for a long time”. The manifesto adopted by the ISB meeting, proposed by Karl Kautsky, announced: “It is in order to give the protest and action against the war as much unity and effectiveness as possible that the International Socialist Bureau has decided to convene an extraordinary international congress as soon as possible”.83 The signatories agreed with the desire for independence of 81 The three votes against came from the English, who were not opposed to the idea of calling for a congress to resolve the Balkan question, but to the idea of postponing the Vienna congress to a later date. 82 Meeting monstre à Bruxelles. L’Humanité, 29 October 1912. The ISB Bulletin does not describe the meeting, but merely quotes the decisions made during it. All of the following quotes are from the article in L’Humanité. 83 Contre la guerre. Un manifeste du Bureau socialiste international. L’Humanité, 30 October 1912. The German translated manifesto can be found in Vorwärts: Die Internationale gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 30 October 1912 and the Italian translation in

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the Balkan peoples, but pointed out that there would have been other means than war to achieve this goal. At this point, their task was to ensure that the war ended as soon as possible and that it did not spread to other European countries. A few days later, the Bureau called on the socialist parties of the different countries adhering to the International to organize demonstrations against the war in the Balkans on the same day, Sunday the 17th of November. At the same time, it announced that the next congress was to be held in Basel on 24 November.84 The supplement to Number 9 of the Periodic Bulletin of the Bureau quoted one after the other all the anti-war resolutions taken by the First and Second workers’ Internationals during the years of their existence.85 And so, on November 17, anti-war demonstrations took place in several major European cities: under the aegis of the SFIO in Paris, the SPD in Berlin, the PSI in Milan and Rome.86 They had a great deal of resonance and, what is particularly significant for the present work, they took on an international character even though they were organized nationally. Vorwärts emphasized the enthusiasm they generate—in major European cities abroad as well as in Berlin: Yes, it has been a good action of the International Bureau to encourage these big events in all the European capitals. And when we see today the workers from Berlin marching en masse, when we see the jubilant welcome that is being prepared for the guests from France, England and Austria, we must think that our comrades in Paris and London and Budapest, and the

Avanti!: Il manifesto dell’Ufficio socialista internazionale contro la più grande guerra. Avanti!, 1 November 1912. Once again, Italy appeared to be the country furthest away from what was happening in terms of international socialism. In fact, the news of the manifesto arrived in the pages of the Italian daily newspaper two days later than in those of its French and German counterparts. Moreover, Avanti! merely relayed the news of the publication of the manifesto and quoted it. The discussions of the ISB meeting in Brussels are not described, whereas they are in L’Humanité and Vorwärts. 84 Louis Dubreuilh. L’Internationale contre la guerre. La résolution de la Section française. L’Humanité, 8 November 1912. The article published in Avanti! is the exact translation of Dubreuilh’s communiqué: L’Internazionale contro la guerra. Il congresso di Basilea anticipato? Avanti!, 13 November 1912. 85 First supplement to the Bulletin périodique du Bureau socialiste international 9, 1912. 86 Avanti! published a list of all the day’s demonstrations. In addition to the four cities

already mentioned, there are also London, Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam, Christiania. L’Internazionale socialista contro la guerra. I comizi nelle capitali europee. Avanti!, 15 November 1912.

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other representatives of the International in Amsterdam, Christiania, Rome and Milan are receiving the same enthusiasm.87

The internationalist effort of socialism was working at full potential. In Berlin, where the event consisted of several gatherings in various parts of the city, Jaurès gave two long speeches in German. The SFIO leader finally managed to get up on a Berlin stage (on two different stages, to be precise) to deliver words of fervent opposition to the war. He spoke alongside the German Richard Fischer, the Englishman James O’Grady, and the Austrian Karl Renner. The main of the two meetings was held in the Neue Welt hall and gathered several thousand people.88 According to Jaurès, “the union and unity of German and French workers is the noblest proof of the strength of international socialism”. In his speech, he mentioned several times the unity between the two peoples and the fact that both wanted peace, just like international socialism in general, which “is like the open sea, which speaks the same language everywhere on all shores, the high song of the waves to come”. As for the situation in the Balkans, the only solution was, according to him, “the development of political and social democracy”, because war only brought horrors: “Tomorrow, when the final calculation of the dead and wounded [after the fighting in the Balkans] is made, our comrades there will defend democratic politics with full power and great authority. And no, the question will not be resolved through the lists of diplomacy or through the rage of an even larger war. It would be madness to transpose to the whole of Europe a war caused by a port on the Adriatic Sea”. Europe could indeed, as Jaurès said, see in the fighting in the Balkans the cruelty of a contemporary war of death, injury, and disease. But should a larger war ever break out, “wir werden einig sein” (“we will be united”), Jaurès declared amidst the applause and standing ovations. Then followed a long declaration on the will for peace of international socialism and a call for revolution, interrupted from time to time by the enthusiasm of the crowd: “The international proletariat is suffering under the yoke of armed peace and when the ruling classes let general war break out, when the storm of war begins in the sea of peoples, it will evoke from deep 87 Friedensarbeit! Die internationale Demonstration gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 18 November 1912. The socialist newspapers of the three countries all give news of the demonstrations taking place abroad. 88 Gilles Candar and Vincent Duclert. Jean Jaurès, Paris: Fayard, 2014, 460.

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within it the genius of revolution!” Jaurès affirmed being sure that the Basel congress and the action of the united proletariat could have positive effects on the struggle against the current war and against wars in general.89 The French politician had failed to deliver his peace speech in Berlin during the first Morocco crisis: he succeeded in 1912, in a moment of socialist effervescence in favor of peace. The international commitment to socialism became more concrete, crystallizing in simultaneous meetings throughout Europe, and the fact that the socialist leader was finally able to travel to Berlin was symptomatic of the progress of the internationalization of socialism, the latter being strictly connected with the anti-war commitment of the international socialist movement itself. In Paris, the gathering took place at the Pré-Saint-Gervais, on the Chapeau-Rouge hill. Among the speakers were the German Scheidemann, the Austrian Pernerstorfer, and the British MacDonald.90 Vorwärts pointed out that the German representative was welcomed more warmly than the others.91 L’Humanité greeted the event with great enthusiasm and reported the presence of 100,000 participants. The public was spread out in front of nine grandstands, where French and foreign socialist representatives delivered their speeches. The most popular, the most acclaimed, was Scheidemann’s, who declared to the assembled Parisian proletariat: “[German proletarians] don’t want to shoot you. On the contrary, they want to greet you as friends and brothers in struggle”.92 Dubreuilh, in his commentary on the event, stated that it marked “a historic day”, due to the very high number of participants and their interest above all in what the foreign speakers had to say.93 Even if Italy remained a little isolated from this international event of November 17 (no Italian delegate was in Paris or Berlin and the French and German dailies gave very little information about the events 89 Friedensarbeit! Die internationale Demonstration gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 18 November 1912. 90 Cf. Candar and Duclert, Jean Jaurès, 460. 91 Die Friedensdemonstrationen im Auslande, Frankreich. Vorwärts, 18 November

1912. 92 À Paris, 100,000 manifestants contre la guerre. L’Humanité, 18 November 1912. 93 Dubreuilh continues: “More and more French workers are becoming convinced that

nation-to-nation warfare is a monstrosity without a name. […] It is this conviction that drove the gathered crowd especially towards the stands occupied by the speakers from the other side of the borders”, ibid.

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in Rome and Milan),94 the PSI sought to take the Milan demonstration out of its national framework by inviting Gustave Hervé, a representative of French socialism who enjoyed the sympathy of a large part of the members of the Italian party. However, the Italian police force had Hervé expelled and sought to prevent the two socialist meetings, which took place despite everything and “did not go unnoticed”.95 Both the tone of the speeches in Milan and the article in Avanti! describing the demonstration showed great confidence and optimism in the possibilities of success of the united international proletariat in the struggle against the war. After the opening speech of the demonstration, held in the Casa del Popolo by the trade unionist Rinaldo Rigola, a delegate from abroad, the Austrian Otto Glökel, spoke. His declarations were a firm stand against any war, more specifically against the war in progress, and called for popular action: In a period in which traditional diplomacy has failed in its task, surprised by events, which it has neither foreseen nor solved; in which the horrible danger of a possible European deflagration is eerily advancing, it is necessary that the popular masses make their voice heard; those masses who, when danger becomes imminent, cannot, like diplomats, ask for their passports and abandon the burning ground on which one fights and dies.

After the Austrian’s speech was translated into Italian for those present, the floor was given to the Frenchman Adéodat Compère-Morel, whose speech had the same contents as that of his colleague. Benito Mussolini, speaking next, was very critical of the Italian government that arrested Hervé. Regarding the war, he said he did not believe that war leads to revolution, which is only “an illusion, a sophism”, since “war does not create revolutionary feeling where it does not exist, but it depresses it and, when it is weak, it destroys it”. Rather, according to Mussolini, it is necessary to “seek the moral autonomy of the working class”, independent of the bourgeoisie. And it is the working class which, once the war is over, must take charge of the fight for peace. Mussolini’s speech was greeted by applause and standing ovations from the crowd. The speeches of the other Italians (Tucci, Zavattero, and Turati) then took up the more moderate accents of those of the two foreign delegates, promoting the 94 Italien. Vorwärts, 18 November 1912. 95 La giornata storica del movimento operaio. L’imponente comizio di ieri a Milano.

Avanti!, 18 November 1912.

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unity of international socialism in the struggle against the war. Moreover, everyone was aware that international socialism had finally asserted itself as a force in opposition to the war. Compère-Morel declared in his speech: “Today will count as one of the most beautiful day in the annals of the Workers’ International. Never before has a common action been carried out so vigorously in our old Europe by our class organizers”. And Avanti! rejoiced: “This is the first historic day of the International. The proletariat has entered the stage as an actor in the great drama whose epilogue cannot be doubted”.96 International socialism succeeded in organizing a response to a situation of ongoing danger. The reaction was ample, rapid, and simultaneous, the speeches of those present took on optimistic accents with regard to the capacity of the International to oppose moments of danger. November 17, 1912 was a key moment in the journey of international socialism in learning to react to international crises. The Basel Congress of 1912 The congress in Basel was a kind of apotheosis in terms of the staging of a congress, but also in terms of the action taken by the International to oppose the war. It was not a congress as such, but rather a socialist demonstration in opposition to the war, all the more so as it was an extraordinary one, organized specifically to deal with the troubled international situation. In Copenhagen in 1910, it was decided that the next congress of the Second International would take place in Vienna in 1914. The situation of tension in the Balkans, however, led the ISB, as we have seen, to call a new meeting as early as 1912. The Bureau expressed the will to take concrete measures to stop the war or, at least, to prevent the conflict from spreading to other countries. “The International Socialist Bureau decided to convene an extraordinary international congress as soon as possible in order to make the protest and action against the war as unified and effective as possible”, these were the words of the manifesto inviting the socialists to take part in the Basel event.97 And while waiting for this new congress, all socialist and workers’ groups must resort to

96 Ibid. 97 Bureau socialiste international (ed). Les congrès socialistes internationaux. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3. Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 20.

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“methodical and intense agitation” against the perpetrators of the conflict. In its conclusion, the manifesto even spoke of a possible future war, which the socialists must oppose by their actions. The congress in Basel was therefore a great initiative of opposition to war: to the ongoing war on the one hand—in practical terms, this congress should give an almost immediate socialist response to the situation in the Balkans—and to all wars on the other hand. This great meeting of the Second International before the outbreak of the First World War was its last, but also most decisive step in the direction it had taken, which led it to be ever more “demonstrative” and pushed it a little more in the direction of opposition to the war. During the congress in Basel, all the staging elements of the opposition to the war of unified socialism were indeed used.98 The meeting opened at 10:00 a.m. in the Burgvogtei hall, decorated with all the symbols of international socialism, which had become essential elements of these events: “At the front of the stage is a large banner bearing the motto: Proletarians of all countries, unite! And War to War! In the galleries of the hall, the red flags of the Swiss workers’ organizations. Portraits of Marx, Engels and Lassalle adorn the walls”.99 As soon as the delegates settled in, the Vorwärts Choral Circle of Basel welcomed the international congress with the performance of Uthmann’s Ode to Freedom. The only item on the agenda was “The international situation and the agreement for action against the war”. After the inaugural speeches, the opening day continued with a large demonstration in the afternoon, which, like the entire congress, was completely devoted to opposition to the war (which was not the case, for example, at the opening meeting in Søndermarken during the Copenhagen congress). The report spoke of a “huge crowd. The working class from Baden, Alsace and all parts of Switzerland flocked to Basel. Special trains had even been organized between Zurich and Bern”.100

98 For a detailed description of the congress see: Bernard Degen. Krieg dem Kriege! Der Basler Friedenskongress der sozialistischen Internationale von 1912. Basel: Z-Verlag, 1990. 99 Compte rendu analytique du congrès socialiste international extraordinaire tenu à Bâle les 24 et 25 novembre 1912. Bulletin périodique du Bureau socialiste international 10, 1912. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 22. Geneva: Minkoff, 1980, 27. 100 Ibid., 30.

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Around 2 o’clock, the procession left the barracks courtyard. It was preceded by the Union ouvrière cycliste ‘Solidarité’ and a group of children dressed in white and carrying the symbolic palms of peace. On their flags were pacifist inscriptions like ‘It is more honorable to dry tears than to shed streams of blood’. Then came the members of the International Socialist Bureau. Behind them walked the national groups who sang their party songs: the Austrians the Song of Labor, the French the International, etc. Then the political and trade union organizations marched with the working class of Basel closing the procession. The procession also included a carriage beautifully decorated with crowns, on which the Queen of Peace was enthroned among young girls dressed in white. Four comrades carried a large red book with the inscription: ‘Down with arms!’. Numerous musical corps were in the procession, animated by a multitude of red banners flapping in the wind. The parade lasted half an hour.101

The arrival point of the procession was the cathedral, where a large peace rally was to be held. The mystical dimension of this event was not limited to the choice of a church for the opening ceremony: the bells were even rung, “as for a solemn service”.102 As the demonstrators enter, the organ intoned Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, contributing to the pompous character of the ensemble. The congress report is clear on this point: “It was a striking moment that the comrades present will remember for the rest of their lives”.103 Jean Jaurès gave the most significant speech (he spoke after Hermann Blocher, Swiss social-democrat member of the Regierungsrat of Basel, Hugo Haase, Keir Hardie, Herman Greulich, Yanko Sakasoff, of the socialist party of Bulgaria, and Victor Adler). Like the entire event, his words also took on mystical connotations104 : The voice of the universal proletariat is beginning to rise above the nations shaken by the eternal rumbling of anxiety and war — but vibrant and

101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. 103 Ibid. 104 Jaurès’ speech is quoted in the summary report of the Basel congress in the ISB Bulletin of 1912. Compte rendu analytique du congrès socialiste international extraordinaire tenu à Bâle les 24 et 25 novembre 1912. Bulletin périodique du Bureau socialiste international 10, 1912. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 22, 36.

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strong though it is, it cannot repeat all of Schiller’s song of the bell.105 It may say: Vivos voco, mortuos plango, I call the living, and I cry over the dead. It cannot yet say: Fulgura frango, I break the lightning. We still have a great amount of work to do, in educating and organising. But despite everything, now we are able to hope, and act.

Jaurès insisted on the indecision of all governments, denounced the lack of unity in the fight against war in the different countries and emphasized the obligation of the International to spread its word of peace everywhere. Finally, he concluded his harangue with a true profession of faith: “We will leave this room swearing to save peace and civilization”.106 The report says that Jaurès was often interrupted by movements, noises of approval and applause from the audience, and that at the end of his speech a “storm of repeated applause”107 resounded. The next day the actual congress began in the Burgvogtei in Basel. The discussions were focused solely on the question of opposition to the war: in the first place, they were characterized by the marks of international solidarity and the guarantees of the will for peace from socialist parties from all over the world. Haase, co-president of the SPD with Friedrich Ebert, delivered a first speech with a peaceful and internationalist tone. Keir Hardie followed with the same accents, expressing his hope that the working class was not afraid to resort, if necessary, to the “revolutionary international anti-war strike”.108 Jaurès insisted on the indecision of all governments, on the opposing currents regarding peace and war in all countries, and stressed that in this situation the duty of all socialists was to “make war impossible by throwing their strength into the balance of peace”.109 More radical words were pronounced by Hugo Haase and Clara Zetkin. The former gave the longest speech of the two days, in which he presented the work of German social-democracy under the banner of the most resolute antiwar struggle: “Those of you who have been to Germany from abroad in the recent past cannot fail to recognize that the German social-democratic

105 The speaker had good reason to mention the name of Friedrich von Schiller (1759– 1805), especially highly regarded among the German social-democrats. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., 33. 109 Ibid., 35.

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party and the German trade unions have organized monster demonstrations for peace with the greatest enthusiasm. It is with deep horror that German proletarians have rejected the idea that we could be dragged into a fratricidal war”.110 Zetkin was even more radical. Speaking “on behalf of the socialist women of all countries”, she declared that for them the capitalist states were not the true fatherland and that in the war against the war socialist women were in the vanguard: Indissolubly united with the socialist International with regard to the goal to be achieved, we have always considered it our duty, and it has been our happiness and honor, to share all your work and struggles. But if ever we have participated with joy and with all our heart in your work, it is at this moment, when you want to lead the world proletariat in the holy crusade against war. We join you without reservation, with all our energies, with all our soul.111

Secondly, the ongoing war had created a feeling of certainty in the minds of the socialist representatives about the possibility of a European war breaking out. Keir Hardie, speaking on the first day of discussions, briefly considered the possibility of a generalized war breaking out. If so, he hoped it led to social revolution.112 Jaurès wondered, the day before in the cathedral, what the task of the International would be if the worst happened and confessed that it was impossible to determine in advance the means to fight the war. A few days later, the French politician formulated his thoughts more clearly in the columns of La Dépêche de Toulouse: “If tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, despite all our efforts, war broke out […], what will we do? In truth, it is not possible to give an answer of mechanical certainty to this tremendous question. It is not possible to say in advance: it is by such a determined act that in the troubled hour of the storm the proletarians will make their strength felt”.113 110 Ibid., 46. 111 Ibid., 49–50. 112 “Keir Hardie summarizes the manifesto in English and expresses the wish that the proletariat will be strong enough to prevent war, but that if war does break out, it will lead to social revolution”. Ibid., 46. 113 Quoted after Haupt, Le congrès manqué, 47. Haupt also says that identical arguments have been developed by Kautsky: Karl Kautsky. Der Basler Kongress und die Kriegshetze in Österreich. Die Neue Zeit 10, 1912, 338.

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The Basel resolution, which was adopted unanimously, condensed all the theses of the previous socialist congresses concerning the war. First of all, it reproduced the final passage of the Stuttgart resolution on the duty of the proletariat in the event of war to “precipitate the fall of capitalist domination”. It then faded away from the “universal madness of armaments” and the constant dangers of war “without being able to cover up these attacks against humanity and against the reason of the least pretext of national interest”. At the same time, it rejoiced in the “full unanimity of the socialist parties and trade unions of all countries in the war against war”. The resolution recognized two essential guarantees of peace in the “great cooperation of the workers of all countries” and in the “fear of the ruling classes of a proletarian revolution following a universal war”. The last part of the resolution set out the mission of the proletariat. It reminded governments of past examples where wars provoked revolutions and unrest; it insisted on the total repugnance of the proletariat for war and proclaimed that “the workers consider it a crime to shoot each other for the profit of the capitalists, or the pride of dynasties, or some combination of secret treaties”. Finally, it exalted in the most radical terms the duty of the proletarians of all countries to redouble their efforts to fight against war and urged them to thus oppose “to the capitalist world of exploitation and murder, the masses of the proletarian world of peace and unity of peoples”.114 Although the resolution was a declaration of international solidarity and willingness to oppose the war, there was a dissonant tone to the declarations, especially on the practical level. Not a single reference was made to the actual means of opposing a war. In the discussions of the congress, the hypothesis that a war could break out was nevertheless sometimes taken into consideration; in the resolution, there was the most total silence on the concrete means to be used in the fight against war. This analysis at the international level suggests two trends. On the one hand, in 1912–1913 the most prompt and decisive reaction of the ISB and the united International against the war can be observed. The apparatuses of the International and the ISB were set in motion consistently

114 Compte rendu analytique du congrès socialiste international extraordinaire tenu à Bâle les 24 et 25 novembre 1912. In: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 22, 43–45 and also: Carl Grünberg (ed). Die Internationale und der Krieg. Materialien. Abteilung 1: Vor dem Kriege und während der ersten Kriegswochen, Leipzig: Hirschfeld, 1916, reprinted in: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, 21–25.

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and fairly quickly at the outbreak of the First Balkan War. On the other hand, the attitude of the three national parties was somewhat softer, but not absent. And this again because, in the first place, the Balkan Wars did not directly involve any of the three countries. Their socialist representatives probably considered it sufficient to show their union at the international level to demonstrate their hostility to what was happening in the Balkans. In the second place, the relations between the parties of the three countries on questions of militarism and imperialism—thus, in a broad sense, on questions of war and peace—were linked at this time to other current themes, such as that of military reforms or Andler’s assertions, and therefore less concentrated, within national borders, on international questions. We are going to develop this tendency of national parties. French, German, and Italian Socialists and the Situation in the Balkans The reason why the socialists of the three countries remained united during the Balkan Wars is simple: none of them were directly involved in the fighting. They shared only one common fear, that the war in the Balkans became a generalized, European war. That is why the arms race frightened the socialist representatives so much and why their attention was focused on this issue above all. With regard to the war in the Balkans, the French, German, and Italian socialists continued, including in their respective countries, to repeatedly affirm their desire for peace. At the SFIO congress in Brest in 1913, the parliamentary report that the socialist deputies submitted to their comrades noted that Jaurès and Vaillant repeatedly affirmed in the sessions of the Chamber “the will of the proletariat for peace”.115 On the SPD side, the report of activities presented in Jena by the leading group described everything the party had done since the Chemnitz congress of the previous year to show its opposition to the war116 and everything the socialists had undertaken with the same goal at the international level.117 Apart from that, whether in the minutes of the Jena congress or in the comments that German and

115 SFIO, X°congrès national, tenu à Brest, 48. 116 Protokoll des Parteitages zu Jena von 1913, 227. 117 Ibid., 46–47.

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foreign newspapers devoted to it, the question of the Balkans was not the subject of any real discussion. It was only marginally discussed during the great debate on the Wehrvorlage. What emerged above all was the concern about the international situation118 : “The militarists and imperialists are using the war in the Balkans and the danger of a war in Central Europe for an increase in armaments as the history of the world has not yet known before. The catastrophic consequences of this mad arms race will only appear in the future”.119 And, in fact, it was the question of armaments that most interested the socialists and took first place in their discussions. The congress in Brest was not very different. The wars in the Balkans were the pretext to move the reflection to a broader level. In the Breton city, this task felt to the socialist Francis de Pressensé. In his speech, a certain discouragement was perceptible. The SFIO representative defined the contemporary international situation as a failure of Europe. He too pointed out the relations existing between the events in the Balkans, the Moroccan crises and the war in Tripolitania and recognized the responsibility of the European states: This failure began the day when, after having believed Turkey to be a danger because it was a threat to Europe, it was believed to be a danger because it was weak and exposed to the lusts of too many heirs disguised as doctors. In proclaiming the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, one proclaims at the same time the necessity of its organic form as a sine qua non condition. Unfortunately, the execution of these necessary reforms was totally neglected. When we denounced the crimes of Abdul-Hamid against the Armenians or Macedonia, the dogma of integrity was opposed to us: to Abdul-Hamid himself one did not know how to impose the measures of public salvation. The Balkan states noted the impotence of Europe. They waited for the right time to realize their age-old wish through war. Europe had not been able to preserve peace. It has not been able to prevent war.120

118 With the exception of Noske, who claimed that the war in the Balkans has led to a Franco-German rapprochement. Ibid., 153. 119 Ibid., 206–207. 120 SFIO, X° congrès national, tenu à Brest, 301.

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Pressensé, who so far had left little room for hope, continued his speech by affirming that the socialist party offers an alternative to this miserable policy. To do so, it must call on the most civilized nations to use probably more effective means to counter the outbreak of war, including universal arbitration and arms control.121 Pressensé’s intervention in Brest was resumed, this last passage included, in Vorwärts, which underlined the warm welcome that those present gave to the speaker and his speech.122 In all likelihood, the writer of the article shared the ideas of the Frenchman, but there is no other evidence to support this. Finally, as far as Italy is concerned, Avanti! did not reproduce the words of Pressensé in his report of the Brest congress. However, the Italian daily also praised the French socialist: “He possesses such eloquence, he can so effectively express the thought of the entire party, that as soon as he finished, under a standing ovation, all the other speakers gave up their speeches”.123

121 Ibid., 302. 122 Französischer Parteitag. Zweiter Tag. Vorwärts, 28 March 1913. 123 Dal congresso di Brest. Avanti!, 27 March 1913.

CHAPTER 6

Internationalism in Crisis?

Before the War In 1914, the International thus advanced in its learning journey on how to give a rapid and unitary response to international crises. It organized the major international peace events and the spectacular Basel congress. The contrasts that emerged in the international socialist institutions during the crisis in Morocco in 1905 and the war in Tripolitania in 1911 were erased, on the international level, by the great speeches of Basel and by the speed with which the Second International reacted to the conflicts in the Balkans. The learning curve of the International and the ISB, their journey of learning how to react to international crises, reached its peak in the last months before the war began, before being abruptly halted in August 1914. However, in spite of the close networks linking the socialist representatives of the three countries—and in spite of the fact that the institutions of international socialism had set up a system allowing cohesion between their components, a system that was gradually almost entirely devoted to the fight against the war—some disagreements between the socialist representatives of the different countries remained, as the Andler case shows.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9_6

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An “improbable War” for the Socialists? The historiography of the origins of the war is endless. In the introduction to this book, we have already had the opportunity to outline the debate on the presumed failure of the International in the face of war. Here we deal with the attitude of the socialists in the face of this umpteenth crisis immediately following the wars in the Balkans. A debate about the “inevitability of war” has occupied historiography. According to the historian Wolfgang Mommsen, the feeling of a kind of resignation in the face of a conflict that will sooner or later break out has found its way into the minds of the time, a phenomenon he calls the “Topos des unvermeidlichen Krieges” (“topos of the inevitable war”).1 After the Agadir crisis, there was a real “cult of inevitability” concerning the possibility of a conflict breaking out. Europe was preparing for war.2 More recent historiography, however, has taken a position contrary to that of Mommsen. According to the historian Holger Afflerbach, no one in 1914, not even the socialists, expected the crisis to end in war. The peaceful end of the tensions in Morocco in 1911 was seen as proof that a war cannot break out, because any crisis could therefore be resolved in the same way.3 The whole of European society—government cabinets, military elites, newspapers, political parties, and public opinion in general—was imbued with this idea.4 The historian thus aligns himself with a recent trend in the historiography on the Great War, according to which the feeling most shared among contemporary observers of the diplomatic situation was that of the improbability of the outbreak of a war. The historian Friedrich Kiessling defined this attitude by the

1 Wolfgang J. Mommsen. Der Topos vom unvermeidlichen Krieg. Aussenpolitik und öffentliche Meinung im Deutschen Reich im letzten Jahrzehnt vor 1914. In: Jost Dülffer and Karl Holl (eds). Bereit zum Krieg. Kriegsmentalität im wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890–1914. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1986, 194–224. 2 Afflerbach points out that the title Mommsen gives to his book, Ready for War,

is symptomatic of this. Holger Afflerbach. The Topos of Improbable War in Europe before 1914. In: Holger Afflerbach, and David Stevenson (eds.). An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture before 1913. New York: Berghahn, 2007, 164. 3 Ibid., 164–165. 4 Ibid., 161–182.

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expression “topos of repeatedly avoided war”5 : like all the crises at the beginning of the century, the next one, that of the summer of 1914, will end peacefully. Socialists, according to Afflerbach, were no exception in the society of the beginning of the century, they were convinced, like everyone else, that a war cannot really break out. This explains the opinion of Jaurès who, in his article of July 30, 1914, once again asserted his confidence in a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The situation seemed to be different among the German social-democrats who, by their behavior, often appeared to fear that the crisis could lead to armed conflict. However, Afflerbach added: “But here the question is whether the social-democrats really believed that the Great War was inevitable, or whether their warnings were only very effective and striking arguments against the costly arms race, used in the political struggle against the government and the bourgeois majority in the Reichstag, which they held responsible; an instrument used against the dominant power of the Kaiser and the class privileges of the army, the nobility and the Imperial Guard” and to continue the political propaganda against the army.6 Thus, according to Afflerbach, the socialists used the question of opposition to the war only in order not to lose one of the main arguments of their propaganda and political action, but in reality, they too believed that all future crises could be resolved peacefully. This thesis is in line with the one we support here regarding the development of the International toward an ever-growing opposition to the war as a means of creating community feeling. However, in our opinion, on the other hand, the effort of socialists in their responses to international crisis situations was sincere, the fruit of their willingness to face up to dangers, and their greater capacity to react, which improved over time, was indeed part of their

5 Friedrich Kiessling. Unfought Wars. The Effect of Détente before World War I. In: Afflerbach and Stevenson (eds). An Improbable War?, 189. See as well: Friedrich Kiessling. Gegen den großen Krieg? Entspannung in den internationalen Beziehungen 1911–1914. Munich: Oldenburg, 2014, 38. 6 Afflerbach, The Topos of Improbable War, 173–174.

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learning process in this sense. However, other historiographical contributions present points of view discordant with Afflerbach’s thesis.7 Friedrich Kiessling states, for example, that. in several cases, this apparent recklessness was not due to naivety, ignorance of the real situation, or the diffuse vacation atmosphere of July 1914. Quite the opposite, many people were well aware of the level of dangerousness that the international situation had reached. The fact that they did not yet believe that war would come makes the question even more enigmatic. Such feelings should prevent us from looking back at the events of 1914 with astonishment as if they had been a mere historical curiosity.8

This work has already shown that the question is not simple enough to be summarized by either of these two historiographical trends. Socialist parties in France as well as in Germany and Italy were leading important protest movements against the threat of war and were also involved at the level of international institutions in the search for a solution to safeguard peace. On July 26, 1914, once again, the main European socialist leaders met in Brussels for an extraordinary meeting called by the ISB and the Second International took a number of initiatives. The socialists seemed to be really afraid that a war might break out: at first unlikely, the event became more concrete, while still remaining hardly believable. In the face of this, international socialism continued its constructive policy of opposition to the outbreak of conflict. William Mulligan’s observation that “the history of international relations in this period is not simply an explanation of the origins of war, but also of the maintenance of peace”9 thus applied to socialists as well. However, the crisis of July 1914 overtook them, it was too big, it went too fast.

7 This clearly shows that the two editors of the book, Stevenson and Afflerbach themselves, do not present a publication unequivocally supporting the thesis of the “improbable war”, as Arndt Weinrich has pointed out. Arndt Weinrich. Grosser Krieg, grosse Ursachen? Aktuelle Forschungen zu den Ursachen des Ersten Weltkriegs. Francia. Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 40, 2013, 245. 8 Kiessling, Unfought Wars, 184. 9 William Mulligan. The Origins of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2010, 227.

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Socialism Around August 1914 In July 1914, the French socialists met in Amiens for a national congress of the SFIO, without imagining that it would be their last meeting before the war. As Jean-Jacques Becker noted, the attitude of a large part of the SFIO at this congress belonged to the realm of the unreal: the historian emphasizes that the French socialists still allowed themselves “the luxury of unrealism”10 concerning the imminent start of a conflict. They should discuss what to do at the International congress in Vienna in August. A German delegation represented social-democracy, but there was some concern about the SPD: since Bebel’s death on August 13, 1913, the French had been wondering what direction this great party had to take, crossed by many different currents, remaining united thanks to the charisma of the recently deceased leader. As Jean-Jacques Becker pointed out, “right or wrong, the idea that many French socialists had of the evolution of German social-democracy was favorable to the manifestation of more revolutionary positions since they also had a chance to succeed in front of the international congress. On many occasions, the militants based their arguments on this eventuality, even if legitimate representatives of German social-democracy immediately contested the possibility. Thus, the death of the great German socialist and its ambiguous consequences would weigh on the decisions of the French socialists”.11 In Amiens congress, concerning the opposition to the war, it was the Keir Hardie-Vaillant amendment on the general strike, the same one that the two delegates had proposed at the Copenhagen congress in 1910, which was initially the topic of the discussions: it was on the agenda of the Vienna congress. But following the debates, Jaurès proposed a new resolution. The difference between the amendment and the Jaurès resolution is fundamental. The amendment said: “Among all the means employed to prevent and avert war, the congress considers particularly effective the general workers’ strike, especially in those industries that provide the war with its instruments (weapons, munitions, transport, etc.), as well as

10 Jean-Jacques Becker. 1914. Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre. Contribution à l’étude de l’opinion publique, printemps-été 1914. Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1977, 113. 11 Ibid., 108.

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popular agitation and action in the most active forms”.12 For its part, the Jaurès motion stated: “Among all the means employed to prevent and avert war and to impose on governments the recourse to arbitration, the congress considers particularly effective the simultaneous and internationally organized general workers’ strike in the countries concerned, as well as popular agitation and action in the most active forms”.13 Here the general strike took on the character of a demonstration against the war, the Jaurès’ resolution being devoid of the more extreme tone present in the amendment, where the strike was a real weapon to be used against the war. Moreover, the text proposed by Jaurès presented a specification: the strike must take place simultaneously in the different countries. This resolution was adopted by the congress.14 The German social-democrats, for their part, had not met in congress since the Jena meeting of 1913. In the German city, as in France, discussions on the general strike had followed one another. The resolution adopted had set itself the objective of bringing together the votes for and against the general strike within the SPD, which made it very difficult to implement: “The political general strike can be put into effect only with the perfect agreement of all the organs of the workers’ movement, of the class conscious masses who are convinced of the ultimate ends of socialism and ready to make any sacrifice. That is why the party congress obliges the comrades of the party to contribute tirelessly to the development of the political and trade union organizations”.15 Beyond the great debate on the general strike, the majority of the party adopted a resolutely 12 Quoted from: Ibid., 113. 13 La question de l’impérialisme devant le Congrès socialiste. L’Humanité, 17 July

1914. 14 The Amiens congress is described to the German social-democrats by Charles Rappoport in the magazine Die Neue Zeit. However, Rappoport accords no space to the question of the general strike, focusing his article on the debates around electoral reform. Charles Rappoport. Die politische Lage in Frankreich und der Kongreß von Amiens. Die Neue Zeit 20, 1914, 733–739. 15 We read the resolution in Karl Kautsky. Der politische Massenstreik, Berlin: Buchhandlung Vorwärts Paul Singer, 1914, 292. Rosa Luxemburg quickly expressed her disappointment with such a resolution. She did not agree with the proposed temporal succession, which saw the organization of the masses as the necessary condition for the possibility of a general strike. According to her, imperfectly organized masses would succeed in accomplishing an equally effective general strike. Rosa Luxemburg. Taktische Fragen. Leipziger Volkszeitung, 27 June 1913. She repeated here her critics more systematically: Rosa Luxemburg. Das Offiziösentum der Theorie. Die Neue Zeit 49, 1913. These

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peaceful position. Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia on July 24 was harshly criticized by Vorwärts and the party leadership stigmatized it in a manifesto published on the 25th.16 The newspaper went on to criticize the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia and welcomed the British initiative to press for a resolution of the crisis through international arbitration. On 30 July, Vorwärts argued that the decision of peace or war was in Germany’s hands and protested against compatriots pushing for war. Most of the German socialist press shared Vorwärts’ ideas. But on July 31, the state of danger of war (Kriegsgefahrzustand) was proclaimed, establishing with it a stifling censorship. At the same time, several demonstrations against the war followed one another. On July 28, twenty-seven meetings took place in Berlin, all of which passed peaceful resolutions, invoking the international solidarity of the proletariat and the decisions of the congresses of the International of Stuttgart, Copenhagen, and Basel, which had pronounced themselves most categorically against the war.17 Following the declaration of a state of war danger, the party had to cancel the major demonstrations planned in Berlin for the beginning of August. However, during these few days, between August 1 and 4, 1914, the SPD’s attitude changed radically. The Russian attack on Germany played an important role in this transformation. From the external point of view, and this is extremely important here, Hermann Müller’s report undoubtedly also influenced the SPD, even if, Drachkovitch points out, the majority of the deputies had already decided to vote for the credits.18 It was at this point that Hermann Müller, representative of the SPD, was sent to France by the party to try, in a last effort, to find an agreement between the socialists and avoid what now seemed inevitable. This was not Müller’s first encounter with foreign comrades: a polyglot, he was writings were in open polemic with Kautsky, a supporter of the contents of the Jena resolution. 16 For Vorwärts’ references in the following paragraph, the series of articles that the daily newspaper published between July 25 and 31, 1914 has been used. They are collected in: Carl Grünberg (ed). Die Internationale und der Krieg. Materialien. Abteilung 1: Vor dem Kriege und während der ersten Kriegswochen, Leipzig: Hirschfeld, 1916, reprinted in: Histoire de la Deuxième Internationale 3, Geneva: Minkoff, 1976, 48–65. The events were described by: Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Les socialismes français et allemand et le problème de la guerre, 1870–1914. Geneva: Droz, 1953, 286–292. 17 Also these resolutions are collected in: Grünberg (ed). Die Internationale und der Krieg. 18 Drachkovitch, Les socialismes, 289.

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regularly appointed as the SPD delegate to the congresses of the International. Before going to Paris, where he arrived on July 31, he went to Brussels to meet Camille Huysmans and the two of them continued the journey to the French capital together. However, this attempt to set up a common socialist action to confront the current crisis was a failure. Once back home, Müller asserted that there was no doubt that the French socialists would unanimously vote for war credits. Müller’s expedition was also an example of the two attitudes of pre-1914 socialism that we have highlighted in this work. On the one hand, in the face of danger, socialists now tended to have an international reaction. They even tried, in this case, to set up a parallel diplomacy, a strictly socialist diplomacy. It was in this state of mind that the SPD representatives in the Reichstag presented themselves for the vote on war credits on 4 August. At the parliamentary group meeting the previous day, 14 of them voted for the social-democratic parliamentarians to vote against the credits; another 78 wanted their comrades to vote for the credits; 18 abstained or were not present at the meeting. The next day, Haase, although he was against it, read a statement from the SPD in the Reichstag, granting the government military credits. In the ensuing ballot, the war credits were voted unanimously. Only Karl Liebknecht openly denounced the imperialist character of the war that had just begun, but he complied with SPD discipline and did not vote against the credits. Social-democratic Deputy Fritz Kunert was voluntarily absent.19 The Italian socialist party, in July and August 1914, was in a very different situation from the comrades north of the Alps. It had already had to face a war waged by its own country and, moreover, was emerging from a very rough spring from the point of view of socialist protests, which culminated in the Red Week (Settimana rossa).20 On 2 August, Italy, even though it was linked to Germany and Austria by the Triplice (the alliance was renewed in 1912), declared its neutrality. The reason given by the government for this decision was that it had not been

19 Karl Liebknecht then voted against it on 2 December, when the war credits were put to a second vote by German parliamentarians. 20 The Red Week (7–14 June 1914) was the consequence of a popular uprising that originated in Ancona and spread to the regions of Marche, Romagna and Tuscany. It was the reaction of the proletariat to a series of reforms wanted by Giolitti. The week of demonstrations and riots, stifled in blood by the kingdom’s police, had begun with an anti-militarist comice, held on June 7 in Ancona, which had degenerated.

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informed of the decisions taken by Vienna and Berlin. Moreover, the attack on Serbia constituted an act of aggression and contradicted the strictly defensive terms of the alliance treaty. However, public opinion in Italy was very quickly divided on the question of neutrality and the debate between interventionists and neutralists was gaining ground. Among the latter were representatives of the PSI. At the heart of the party, however, the situation was not so simple. In the first place, notwithstanding the situation of generalized disintegration of international socialism, the PSI remained faithful to the ideals of internationalism and peace. Benito Mussolini, director of Avanti! and charismatic leader of the party, took an uncompromising stance. In his famous article “Abbasso la guerra!” (“Down with war!”), he not only declared the necessity of neutrality, but he threatened to push the proletariat to use violence if the government decided in favor of war: “Either the government accepts this necessity, or the proletariat will know how to impose it by all means”.21 Furthermore, on July 28, 1914, the party leadership and the socialist parliamentary group approved an agenda that warned that “no secret pact of crowned heads could drag the Italian proletariat to embrace arms in the service of the ally [Austria] to overwhelm a free people”.22 This firm stance of the socialists, shared by a large part of the Italians, contributed to preventing the warlike adventure alongside the German-Austrian allies. However, the PSI, already weakened internationally by the defection of sister parties, was seeing its influence on Italian public opinion diminish. The progressive part of the Italian bourgeoisie, which had always sympathized with the struggles of the party, struck by the German invasion of Belgium, now pleaded for the interventionist cause in order to stop German barbarism. The reformist socialists, grouped in the Partito Socialista Riformista Italiano (PSRI), which broke away from the PSI in 1912, were also in favor of Italian participation in the war, but for different reasons: they advocated a war that would take away the territories of Trento and Trieste from Austria in order to annex them to Italy. The PSI thus found itself politically isolated. And during the first months of the war, within it itself, certain leaders such as Mussolini, as well as the socialists of Trento, who

21 Abbasso la guerra. Avanti!, 26 July 1914. 22 Quoted from: Benito Mussolini, Dalla neutralità assoluta alla neutralità attiva ed

operante. Avanti!, 18 October 1914.

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adopted irredentist ideals, took positions favorable to Italian intervention in the war. But the real weakness of the PSI was a tactical error, which consisted in giving its neutrality a purely defensive value. Such an attitude, beyond the facade that showed a compact and united party, was the fruit of a compromise between the revolutionary wing (that of Serrati, Lazzari, and Mussolini in the first instance, who plead for the use of all means against the war) and the reformist wing, much more measured in its anti-war demonstrations, whose leader was Filippo Turati. This compromise paralyzed the party in all its efforts to take concrete initiatives. Moreover, the repressive attitude of the government and the police further weakened the peaceful action of the socialists: from August onwards, there were several arrests for distributing leaflets calling for peace; moreover, demonstrations by supporters of Italian intervention were allowed, while those demonstrating for neutrality suffered persecution of all kinds. The socialists could only break the impasse, therefore, by breaking the law and starting an open struggle against the power of the state. But neither the revolutionaries of Serrati,23 imbued with subversive terms but unable to act, nor the reformists of Turati, more inclined toward collaboration than toward confrontation with the bourgeoisie, could appropriate the revolutionary option. Italian socialist neutralism, unaccompanied by antibourgeois mobilization, thus remained a noble profession of faith. After May 24, 1915, the day of the Italian declaration of war against the Habsburg Empire, it was translated into the formula “né aderire, né sabotare” (“neither adhere nor sabotage”). This slogan, invented by Costantino Lazzari,24 was the logical result of a policy of negations rather than affirmations and it summarized the attitude of the majority of the party. Less than a year after their comrades north of the Alps, the Italian socialists thus also accepted the fait accompli of the war. 23 Giacinto Menotti Serrati has been a member of the PSI management since 1911. He replaced Mussolini as editor-in-chief of Avanti! in 1914. Belonging to the revolutionary wing of the party, he remained a determined internationalist throughout the war and participated in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. For biographical notes, see: Serrati, Giacinto Menotti. In: Enciclopedia Treccani, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ giacinto-menotti-serrati/ [20 September 2019]. 24 Lazzari also embraced the internationalist cause during the war, participating in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. He continued to fight for the unity of the PSI during the war, speaking out against the insurgencies of the revolutionary wing and against the patriotic thrusts of the reformists, cf. Conti, Costantino Lazzari.

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At International Level At the outbreak of the war, the International proves to be powerless. Socialism had failed in one of the major objectives of the labor movement: to preserve peace. Defeat came from afar, and new reasons were added at the last moment of the crisis. The institution appears to be fundamentally ineffective; oppositions with a national character emerge, which were wrongly believed to be partially outdated. In the name of Marxism itself, contradictory assertions about the evolution of capitalist societies are asserting themselves, and parties are largely integrated into the dominant societies. Certainly, the war will have been a carrier of revolution, and not only a cause of death: historically the revolutionary Marxists were right. But in July 1914 no one put forward this perspective: at the last meeting of the ISB on July 29, declarations oscillated between relative confidence in governments and total disarray. From theory to practice, the history of Marxism in the twentieth century, and not only that of the summer of 1914, is that of a long and difficult adjustment.25

The new congress of the Second International was supposed to take place from August 23 to 28, 1914 in Vienna. This decision was taken at the ISB meeting in London on December 13 and 14, 1913. The agenda included the examination of the question of imperialism and international arbitration, among other items (unemployment, high cost of living, alcoholism, the situation of political prisoners in Russia). In July 1914, however, the secretariat made arrangements to convene the congress, if the situation required it, before the scheduled date and in another city, in this case, Bern. However, as events were rushing, the ISB representatives decided to meet before that date: the plenary session was held in Brussels on July 29 and 30, 1914, and the decision was made that the new congress of the International had to be held on August 9 in Paris. At the top of the agenda was the discussion of the issue of “war and the proletariat”.26 The Bureau was preparing to deal with the international crisis situation. All efforts, however, were in vain, and finally, the ISB executive committee announced on August 1, 1914, the adjournment sine die of the congress.

25 Madeleine Rebérioux. Il dibattito sulla guerra. In: Storia del Marxismo 2: Il marxismo nell’età della Seconda Internazionale. Turin: Einaudi, 1979, 935. 26 Georges Haupt. La Deuxième Internationale. Étude critique des sources. Essai bibliographique. Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1967, 237.

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The ISB meeting in Brussels was therefore the last one before the outbreak of war. The issues discussed there concerned the international situation and the future congress of the International. As for the atmosphere in Brussels, Haupt emphasizes that “the tone of the meeting, the presentations made in turn by the delegates from each country, do not betray a panic or a dramatization of the situation”.27 The adopted resolution stated: The International Socialist Bureau listened today, in its session of July 29, to the delegates of all the nations threatened by the world war, explaining the political situation in their respective countries. Unanimously, it made it an obligation for the proletarians of all interested nations not only to continue but also to intensify their demonstrations against war, for peace and for the arbitrary settlement of the Austro-Serbian conflict. German and French proletarians will have to exert more energetic pressure than ever before on their governments to ensure that Germany exercises a moderating action on Austria and that France obtains from Russia that it does not engage in the conflict. The proletarians of Great Britain and Italy, for their part, will support these efforts with all their might. The urgently convened congress in Paris will be the vigorous expression of this peaceful will of the world proletariat.28

The Bureau now knew how to meet in response to a crisis situation and showed its legitimacy to convene a new international meeting, in a relatively short time. But this time the temporality of the crisis was unmanageable, the socialists were overwhelmed and their prompt reactivity was not enough. War broke out, the International did not meet in Paris on August 9 and the representatives of the socialist parties found themselves locked up in their respective countries—in countries at war, in the case of France and Germany.

27 Georges Haupt. Le congrès manqué: l’Internationale à la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale. Étude et documents. Paris: Maspéro, 1965, 111. 28 Report of the ISB meeting of July 30, 1914, in: Haupt, Le congrès manqué, 266. The resolution was proposed by Haase and read by Vandervelde. The sentence concerning Great Britain and Italy was added in a second stage on proposal of Kautsky.

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The Outbreak of the War In Italy The Italian socialists took a very particular attitude in the early days of the war and until the end of their neutrality, while both the French and German social-democrats changed their attitude in the first days of August. Even Vorwärts, who did not agree with the decision of August 4, soon saw his collaborators divided on the question of support (or not) for the war. In spite of this clear turning point among their comrades, the Italian newspapers affirmed repeatedly the conviction that the International will reunite very soon, that the socialists of France and Germany will soon protest against the current situation and organize something to deal with it. At the end of July, Avanti! reported meticulously on the socialist anti-war demonstrations in both countries. It is surprising that the main Italian socialist daily newspaper maintained this attitude after the war began. Jaurès was commemorated as a “martyr of anti-militarism”,29 while one of his writings, “Against Nationalism and Against Militarism”,30 was reprinted in Italian. A statement by Hervé, a personality who had always held a special place in the minds of PSI representatives, was quoted on the front page of Avanti! at the very beginning of the conflict: “War is disgusting”.31 The article made it clear that such a declaration came from the ranks of French socialism. On August 9, the Italian socialist newspaper was still convinced of the strength of the International. In an article entitled “The Socialist International and the War”, it was stated peremptorily that “the International has not failed”.32 Thus one noticed a positive attitude toward comrades from other countries, those who were now at war with each other, an attitude of trust that touched the irrational and blindness in its will for

29 Jaurès commemorato a Roma. Avanti!, 7 August 1914. 30 Contro il nazionalismo e contro il militarismo, advertisement in Avanti! of August 7,

1914. The text was published in Milan by Avanti! editions. It contains all the main points of Jaures’ anti-militaristic and anti-war ideas: Jean Jaurès. Contro il nazionalismo e contro il militarismo, Milan: Avanti!, 1914. Archives of the Lelio and Lisi Basso Foundation, Rome. 31 Gustave Hervé. La guerra è immonda. Avanti!, 5 August 1914. 32 L’internazionale socialista e la guerra. Avanti!, 9 August 1914.

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peace. In September, Italians still wondered whether the German socialists were unanimous in their will to continue the conflict. But wasn’t this an attitude that was peculiar to the ruling group alone?33 The debate on a possible reversal of the International did not stop, even if doubt was beginning to emerge among Italian socialists. In April 1915, Avanti! criticized those who, after the fighting started, began to accuse the International of being nothing more than a utopia.34 The International, indeed, “is not dead!” according to the Italians.35 And a few days later, an article gave the news of the commitment of the PSI direction to accomplish an action in Europe for the effective reorganization of the International. Oddino Morgari, deputy of the PSI, was in Paris with an official mission of his party in this sense and he then had to go to London and Le Havre “to make the appropriate agreements with the English, French and Belgian socialist parties, which, despite the tragic situation in their countries […] continue to live an autonomous life”,36 resisting the chauvinist pressures. At times, however, doubts about the real possibility that the international socialist network could ever be truly effective again creeped in: if the spirit of the International survived mainly thanks to the socialist parties of the neutral countries, it would be enough for their respective countries to go to war to annihilate the International once and for all.37 This did not mean, however, that PSI members became in any way critical of comrades from the two neighboring countries. A kind of willingness to justify foreign comrades was gradually being recognized in the pages of the daily newspaper. One of the reasons for this was probably the fact that some members of the PSI were changing their attitude and were beginning to see the possibility of embracing the cause of war. The most vehement statement in support of the foreign socialists’ decision to vote for the war was formulated in a

33 I socialisti tedeschi sono unanimi? Avanti!, 3 September 1914. 34 Panfilo Gentile. La pretesa utopia dell’Internazionale. Avanti!, 13 April 1915. 35 L’Internazionale non è morta. I loro e i nostri odî. Avanti!, 13 April 1915. 36 Per l’Internazionale socialista. Avanti!, 17 April 1915. 37 Oddino Morgari. Che cosa fare? Possibilità e convenienza di ripristinare il funziona-

mento dell’Internazionale. Avanti!, 20 April 1915.

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signed article of Avanti!—unlike most of its articles, which were anonymous. The author, Giovanni Zibordi,38 was in fact on the side of the interventionists following Mussolini’s change of camp and he wrote as early as September 2, 1914: All of them are a little bit assaulted and abusive. And whoever has not attacked or was not the first to attack certainly does not refrain from doing so because of the love of peace, but because of the unpreparedness for war. Socialists in every power undoubtedly deserve full faith when they say: ‘We have opposed war as long as we could. Once it is unleashed, in spite of ourselves, we are all in solidarity with our nation’.39

But beyond the isolated cases, PSI representatives continued to give importance to what was happening among the transalpine comrades. Avanti!’s interest in this issue was pursued after the end of the illusions about a possible agreement between them, which would have generated a real fight against the ongoing conflict.40 It was difficult to discern an unequivocal attitude among Italian socialists. In April 1915, once again, Avanti! announced that part of German social-democracy had remained faithful to the principles of the International. This group, composed of Liebknecht, Otto Rühle, Ledebour, Mehring, Zetkin, and Luxemburg, succeeded in circulating a manifesto both in Germany and, thanks to a Dutch comrade, abroad. It explained to the comrades that the attitude of the ruling and parliamentary group toward the war was only that of a part of the SPD and firmly stated that “German social-democracy regrets not finding any understanding for these many old friends, but it cannot allow itself to be distracted. It must follow the path that events point out to it, just as the sister parties of other countries at war have followed

38 For biographical elements of Giovanni Zibordi see: Maurizio Festanti. Il fondo degli articoli di Giovanni Zibordi. Reggio-Emilia: Biblioteca Panizzi, 2011, 4–7. Giuseppe Zaccaria. L’ideologia socialista attraverso il pensiero di Giovanni Zibordi. Ricerche storiche. Rivista di storia delle Resistenza reggiana 23–24, 1974, 3–21. 39 Giovanni Zibordi. Il Socialismo europeo e il Socialismo italiano. Avanti!, 2 September 1914. 40 The open letter to Marcel Sembat that Haase published in a German magazine (März) is quoted on September 16, 1914 in the pages of the Italian socialist daily newspaper: Una lettera aperta del deputato tedesco Haase al ministro socialista Marcel Sembat. Avanti!, 16 September 1914.

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theirs”.41 The manifesto left open the possibility of collaboration with socialists in other countries for action against the war: “The possibility of action against the war depends for us on the attitude of our socialist comrades in France, England and Belgium”. It denounced the enormous cost in human lives that the conflict has already had and emphasized that “War is no longer defensive”: “Even if at the beginning the slogan ‘national defense’ could be launched in all sincerity, the imperialists on both sides now make it clear to us what they are fighting for: they all want to bring down the rival nation”.42 A few days later, the Italian daily published the reaction of the French socialists to the German proposal, complaining that the manifesto “did not get the reception it deserved in France”, because “spirits are too inflamed by grudges and resentments”. While the non-socialists formulated a clear answer (“No truce, no peace until Germany is deprived of its military power and reduced to the impotence to harm”),43 the French socialists gave the impression of being at “a crossroads”, the Italian daily tells us. On the one hand, they were in the war for the cause of national defense; on the other hand, they should in principle be deeply affected by the German proposal. But the only French socialist response that had arrived so far, published in the pages of L’Humanité, did not seem to go in either direction: CompèreMorel answered that the war must continue, even if he felt sympathy for Liebknecht’s group. And it must continue because the German socialdemocrats had shown themselves incapable of fighting to transform the German Empire into a democracy. So the war was now the task of the Allies. The commentary of the editor of Avanti! to this statement was rather abrupt and probably wanted to save a little the image that the French socialists gave of themselves: Is it permissible to believe that the deputy Compère-Morel does not summarize the opinion of the entire french socialist party? Because, if not, one should logically conclude that the french socialist party sees the need for a war that goes to the heart of the matter, which would only be over the day the Allied armies – after how many months, after how many years?

41 Wolfgang Heine. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie in der Internationale. Sozialistische Monatshefte 1, 1915. 42 Un manifesto di Liebknecht e della minoranza del partito socialista tedesco. Avanti!, 11 April 1915. 43 I socialisti francesi al bivio. Avanti!, 19 April 1915.

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– once Berlin is conquered, will dictate to a not defeated, but crushed Germany the pacts of capitulation. This is a war program, which is not like the other program: that of national defense.44

Italians, however, also had a different attitude toward German socialdemocracy, an aspect that was highlighted by Maurizio Degl’Innocenti.45 Filippo Turati’s Critica Sociale was conducting a campaign of “rediscovery” of Marx and Engels which, according to the Italian historian, can be read as a desire to free these two leading figures of socialist ideology from their German origins. The articles of the two thinkers, or about them, were numerous during these first months of the war and a monographic issue was dedicated to Marx on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. These articles set out to recall the universal principles of socialism, freeing the two figures from the “German” component.46 In reality, in our opinion, the rediscovery of the fathers and principles of socialism probably had little to do with their nationality. Rather, in this moment of loss of reference points, of arms race and repeated diplomatic crises, it was rather a question of a desire to recall the foundations on which socialist doctrine was based. One indication, among others, that this can be affirmed is the fact that in 1914, Avanti! also reissued the Erfurt program. Correspondence between Turati and Kautsky indicates that this project was already under way in February, well before the beginning of the war.47 In addition, these same editions also published French texts, such as the 44 Ibid. In any case, this attitude of the French socialists obviously worked on the Italians, who came back to the subject several times: I socialisti francesi contro la riunione dell’Ufficio internazionale. Avanti!, 17 April 1915. Per l’Internazionale. Le dichiarazioni del Jouhaux. L’atteggiamento dei socialisti francesi. Avanti!, 21 April 1915. An article by Jean Longuet, published in May by L’Humanité and following this line of thought, can also be found in the pages of Avanti!: Jean Longuet. Contro l’Internazionale. Avanti!, 5 May 1915. 45 Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. Filippo Turati e la nobiltà della politica. Introduzione alle carte di Filippo Turati. I corrispondenti stranieri. Manduria: Lacaita, 1995, 167–168. 46 Ibid. 47 The first Italian edition of the Erfurt program was released in 1908 (Il programma socialista. Principii fondamentali del Socialismo. Milan: Critica sociale, 1908) and the second, mentioned here, in: Karl Kautsky. Il programma socialista. Principi fondamentali del Socialismo. II edizione italiana con correzioni, aggiunte e un nuovo proemio dell’Autore. Milan: Avanti!, 1914. This information can be found in: Daniela Rava (ed). Filippo Turati e i corrispondenti stranieri. Lettere 1883–1932. Manduria: Lacaita, 1995, 201n and 202n. The letter from Turati to Kautsky to which is referred here is dated February 28, 1914.

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pamphlet on anti-militarism by Jaurès. In these early times of combat, Italians remained faithful to the principles of socialism, its internationalism, its opposition to all war. For their part, the socialist newspapers in Germany and France paid no attention to the Italian comrades, except in very special circumstances, which will be discussed in the following pages. The SPD did not concern itself with the Italian comrades until a few months later, when Südekum was sent to Italy to try to understand the real attitude of the PSI toward the war. In France Contrary to what happened in Italy from the beginning of the war, there were no statements in the main socialist newspapers in France—nor in Germany—assuming that the International was not dead or that solidarity between the socialists of the two countries still existed. Quite the contrary. In L’Humanité, on August 4, the declaration of war was the headline. On the 5th, the entire first page was dedicated to the funeral of Jaurès that took place the day before. The tone of the speeches made during the ceremony displayed a certain resignation to the current situation. Jaurès was “the International’s last hope of keeping the peace”.48 And again: “He was defeated in this effort. We have been defeated with him: war is coming. We will face its hazards and perils without fear”.49 The International had failed, France was at war and the SFIO socialists were following the course of events. But the change of attitude in international relations between the socialist representatives was even more flagrant in the statements of the foreign comrades living in France. The socialists of the Parisian Deutsches Leseclub (the German Reading Club)50 addressed the following words to the representatives of the SFIO: Comrades, in this hour of sadness, we express to you the most fraternal feelings of the German socialists who prefer to remain in your country of freedom and who refuse to fight against their French comrades. All of us love our homeland, but we can no longer love a homeland that attacks a pacifist country. Our sympathies go to you, who are defending the soil 48 According to Édouard Vaillant, in: Les obsèques de Jaurès. L’Humanité, 5 August 1914. 49 This is the speech of Louis Dubreuilh. Ibid. 50 A literary circle of German socialists living in Paris.

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of freedom. Go to victory! Go and defeat the criminal government of Berlin! Down with monarchies! Long live democratic France! Long live the German Republic!51

The next day, this statement was quoted in the editorial of L’Humanité, on the front page. The editor of the article, Pierre Renaudel, who succeeded Jaurès as director of the daily, stated that such a declaration made him shudder “with joy and pride” and that if the four million socialists in Germany were to acquire the conviction that their emperor was leading them to an aggressive war against freedom, this would be “a pledge of our victory, the most certain pledge”.52 Contrary to what would have been the case before the war, by “victory” he did not mean here the victory of socialism, but that of France over the German Empire. He was sure of the French success “because there will be an incomparable difference in the moral impetus of our soldiers and that of others”.53 And the justification that Renaudel and the Leseclub socialists gave to this newfound support for the war was the fact that “victory” meant the triumph of the values of the republic over those of imperialism. Renaudel was not surprised, therefore, that the Germans, the social democrats living in Paris, wanted to support the French cause. Moreover, he continued, it had to be taken into account that there were probably a number of German soldiers who thought like the members of the Leseclub, but who were silenced by strict discipline. “The French Republic must be serene in victory, as well as in defeat, confident that it is in the affirmation and eternity of the rights. […] It is not to the German people that we wage war, but to German imperialism”.54 These same arguments can be found in a message that the Italian socialists in Paris sent “to the minister of the Interior, the Prefect of the Seine and the Prefect of Police”: “The Italian Socialist Circle of Paris, considering that the magnificent impetus of the French Republic is in conformity with the ideal of progress that animates it, offers you the assistance of more than one hundred and fifty organized workers, all conscious of their duties towards France and humanity”.55

51 Un ordre du jour des socialistes allemands à Paris. L’Humanité, 6 August 1914. 52 P. R. Socialistes. L’Humanité, 7 August 1914. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Les socialistes italiens de Paris. L’Humanité, 8 August 1914.

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The tone was therefore very different from that of Avanti! just after the fighting started. No confidence in international solidarity as a means of fighting the war was affirmed here. The only solidarity among socialists was solidarity in war. The bellicose impulse had won socialist minds and international solidarity was only defended in a neutral country like Italy. On the French side, rather a total indifference toward the German (and Italian, but for other reasons) comrades was established with the beginning of the war. The only exception was Gustave Hervé, who, using his typical strong tone, commented on the SPD’s vote for war credits with a great display of distrust toward the German comrades, a distrust that also invested their past intentions: “Never had the German socialists said that they would not fight, in case of war, never! All they have told us in our international congresses is that if a war broke out, despite their efforts to prevent it, the Kaiser might well pay dearly for it, at the end of the war”.56 The German case was a bit different. In Germany A few days before the beginning of the war, Vorwärts published several calls to protest. On July 25, the following words were written on the front page: “Comrades, we ask you to express immediately in the mass meetings the unshakeable will of the proletariat for peace. A grave hour has come […]. Danger threatens! World war threatens! […] We do not want war! Down with war! Long live the international brotherhood of peoples!”57 So far, everything was the same as in France. However, from the beginning of August, the attitude of the SPD changed and with it that of Vorwärts. On August 2, the newspaper announced the death of Jaurès and, on the same day, the German mobilization. The daily quoted passages from the speech that Jaurès would have had to give in Berlin in 1905, during the first crisis in Morocco, if Bülow had not prevented him from travelling to Germany. The short commentary that accompanied Jaurès’ words in 1914 underlined their special significance in the present moment. But, indeed, the passages chosen and quoted on this occasion by 56 Gustave Hervé. Les socialistes allemands. La Guerre sociale, 13 August 1914. 57 Aufruf! Vorwärts, 25 July 1914. This is not an isolated case. An article of July 27

is entitled: Still and always against war (Immer wieder gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 27 July 1914) and the next day another article still incites to demonstrate against the war (Friedenskundgebung. Vorwärts, 28 July 1914).

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Vorwärts were adapted to the current situation, the first one stating: “The proletariat is neither strong enough to ensure peace, nor weak enough to make war appear to it as an inevitable necessity”.58 Then another: “There must be no error concerning our opinion. We socialists are not afraid of war! If it were to break out, we would look the situation straight in the eye; we would know how to turn events around, as far as possible, for the sake of the independence of peoples, the freedom of the working class”.59 Vorwärts’ article nonetheless ended by quoting Jaurès evoking the strength of the whole International. Nevertheless, his speech, on 2 August 1914, was purged of all his peaceful declarations and his long assertions on the need to make international arbitration work. But that’s not all. Vorwärts’ attitude also reflected a mixture of disappointment and mistrust of the SPD representatives toward the French comrades. Their unanimous vote for war credits was underlined by the social-democrats,60 as was the fact that they voted in favor of national defense. The article published on the topic was a reproduction of an article published in Switzerland in Basler Vorwärts, a socialist newspaper. It cited the declarations of Dubreuilh, Vaillant, Longuet, and Sembat at the last meeting of the French socialists, which was held after the declaration of war and the assassination of Jaurès: all four had asserted that their party was henceforth charged with “the task of also fulfilling the patriotic duty and defending the fatherland”.61 The meeting also unanimously passed a resolution stating that they still planned to ask their government to do everything possible to keep the peace, but that in the case of a “Kriegskatastrophe”, the socialist party had to fight for the existence and integrality of France. An article in the Sozialistische Monathefte reported, just after the outbreak of the conflict, a large number of declarations in favor of war made by the French comrades.62 The German social-democratic press clearly used this to justify its party’s attitude. And this was not the only example of its kind in the pages of Vorwärts. A short article dated October 5, 1914, quoted two sentences

58 Jaurès über den Krieg. Vorwärts, 2 August 1914. 59 Ibid. 60 Die französische Kammer und die Kriegskredite. Vorwärts, 15 August 1914. 61 Ibid. 62 Hugo Poetzsch. Der Krieg und die sozialistische Internationale. Sozialistische Monatshefte 20, 1914, 1219–1227.

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from two French socialists. They were significant. On the one hand, Vaillant asserted that “the retreat of the Germans beyond the borders would not be enough”, before adding: “The war has the task of annihilating Prussian militarism”.63 On the other hand, Hervé declared: “We negotiate only in Berlin; until then we do not discuss”.64 The only comment on this sentence was an exclamation mark. New Ministers Sembat and Guesde: German and Italian Reactions The French socialists also took a decision that would be felt by the SPD as the ultimate step toward supporting the government that declared war: Marcel Sembat and Jules Guesde agreed to be appointed ministers in August 1914 in the Viviani government. The first became minister of Public Works, the second was minister without Portfolio. In doing so, they clearly manifested their total adherence to the Union Sacrée. The question of ministerialism remained, even after the beginning of the war, an international debate and discussions about the entry of Sembat and Guesde into parliament reached Germany and Italy. Vorwärts interpreted what was happening in France as evidence of the support of French citizens for the war—it was shifting from a war of the government to a war of the people.65 A week later, Vorwärts published a manifesto of the French socialists which explained the reason for the entry of Sembat and Guesde into the Viviani cabinet: it was necessary, they affirmed, to defend the fatherland and to be sure that by participating in this war French socialists were fighting imperialism and militarism, to finally obtain a peace that took into consideration the rights of all.66 A few days later, the daily reproduced, translated into German and in its entirety, the French government’s appeal to the population asking it to defend the nation “up to the extreme”. These writings were commented on in the Sozialistische Monatshefte. The newspaper attacked the SFIO and more generally the socialist parties of the Entente, believing that if these parties allowed themselves to place socialists in a war government and to continue a war,

63 Nationalisten gegen Sozialisten in Frankreich. Vorwärts, 5 October 1914. 64 Ibid. 65 Sozialdemokratische Minister in Frankreich. Vorwärts, 28 August 1914. 66 Ein Manifest der französischen Sozialdemokratie. Vorwärts, 5 September 1914.

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it meant that they no longer follow social-democratic and internationalist doctrines. The Monatshefte thus accused the comrades of not being socialists, of no longer being able to take advantage of socialist ideas, of having betrayed them.67 German interest in Sembat and Guesde was noticed by the Italian socialists, who announced a few days later that Vorwärts had related their entry into the Viviani government. Avanti! thus quoted passages from the articles of the German daily newspaper. However, the goal of the Italians was of a completely different nature than that of the French and German comrades: it immediately branched off toward the observation that the Germans wanted to make it known that they desired the same thing as the French socialists, namely “a peace without conquests, a peace that leads to an agreement with the French people”,68 with the ultimate goal of bringing an end, once and for all, to the tsarist regime. However, the Italian socialists believed less and less in the union of the French socialists and the German social-democrats, as they did at the outbreak of the war. These texts were in fact followed by a comment as brief as it was clear: “These are honest intentions, but we shall see whether the German socialist party, with its four million voters, will be able to maintain them”.69 The tone of this comment was not very confident in the Germans’ ability to follow through on the objectives they had set for themselves. The shift from Italian sympathies to French comrades was becoming increasingly apparent. Indeed, the article of 9 April 1915 on the French ministerial question was evidence of the growing support for Guesde and his attitude. His entry into the government was “justified” because the Frenchman “said he was certain that with this war he was fighting a battle of socialism”.70 And the daily continued: “He has always professed the opinion that the socialists must defend their country”71 and recalled that he had always opposed the adoption of the Keir HardieVaillant motion: “Never! Never will German social-democracy consent to your motion! Never! Never! Never!”72 L’Humanité was very attentive to 67 Karl Leuthner. Tripelententesozialismus. Sozialistische Monatshefte 2, 1915, 78–82. 68 Il Vorwärts e i socialisti francesi. Avanti!, 2 September 1914. 69 Ibid. 70 Alfredo Talamini. Di Jules Guesde ministro socialista. Avanti!, 9 April 1915. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid.

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the Italian reaction to the entry into the ministry of Sembat and Guesde, even if it did not quote from PSI newspapers. The only comments coming from Italy that the French daily newspaper took up were very complimentary of this action by the French government and presented its decision as the best response to the situation of national danger (Il Messaggero, Il Popolo Romano and La Vita).73 They did not emanate from the socialist milieu, but they justified the attitude of the French socialists.

The Italian Neutrality Seeking to Convince the Italian Socialists The attention with which part of the German social-democrats monitored relations between French and Italian socialists showed that they were trying to find out on which side the latter would place themselves if Italy were to enter the war. On November 29, Vorwärts published an interview with Jules Guesde by journalist Alceste De Ambris, representative of revolutionary and parliamentary syndicalism in the ranks of the PSI since 1913, which supported interventionism. Guesde explained the reasons why, according to him, “the Italian socialist party has the duty to plead for Italy’s participation in the war”.74 The first was that Italy’s entry into the war would shorten the conflict, saving many lives. Second, he believed that, in the event of a victory for the Allies, which he did not doubt, Italy’s presence at their side would strengthen the democratic forces against the imperialists.75 But just a few days later, Vorwärts quoted an article from Avanti! which gave the reasons for the Italian socialists not to vote for the war.76 Two tendencies in Vorwärts can be discerned: on the one hand, the daily observed with anxiety the maneuvers of rapprochement between 73 La presse italienne et le nouveau ministère. L’Humanité, 28 August 1914. 74 Ansichten von Jules Guesde. Vorwärts, 29 November 1914. 75 Ibid. 76 Die italienische Sozialdemokratie und der Krieg. Vorwärts, 4 December 1914. The reasons discussed here are that Italian socialists would never agree to continue a war for “patriotic reasons” (“patriotische Gründe”), that the amount of money that would have to be spent to wage war is too high and that the resulting increase in taxes would damage only the poorer classes. The party cannot trust the nations that are supposed to be its allies, after these same nations have started such a bad policy. And, lastly, the party cannot agree to engage in a war for patriotic reasons when members of the PSI are in prison because they are considered enemies of the fatherland.

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Italian and French socialists on the question of entering the war; on the other hand, the newspaper insisted on the fact that a part of the representatives of the PSI still declared themselves unconditionally opposed to the entry of their country into the conflict.77 And of course, little by little, the daily newspaper was also beginning to take an interest in what was going on in the Italian government and not just among the socialists.78 Fearing strongly that the Italians would enter the war on the side of the French, the Germans preferred that they remain neutral and continued to look for traces of their willingness to stay out of the conflict. While the PSI found itself in this condition of political isolation, opposing its neutralism to the interventionism of other political forces, another event increased its difficulties: the SPD leadership sent an emissary, Albert Südekum, to Italy. The choice of Südekum, a social-democratic journalist and deputy since 1900, for this mission was not insignificant. Having noticed his personal ambitions and nationalist tendencies, Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg had chosen him in the crucial days of late July 1914 as an intermediary to obtain the promise by the SPD leaders that they would remain loyal to the government in the event of a European conflict. Then, the same Südekum drafted the SPD’s declaration declaring its support for the vote on war credits. On this occasion, the German chancellor had preferred to meet Südekum rather than Haase, the party’s chairman openly opposed to the war credits. Südekum travelled to Italy from August 26 to September 2, staying in Milan and Rome, where he met various representatives of PSI, such as Claudio Treves, Benito Mussolini, Angelica Balabanoff, Enrico Chiesa, Leonida Bissolati, among others. His task was to take the pulse of the situation among the comrades of the peninsula and to made propaganda so that they continued to plead for the neutrality of their country. The SPD feared that Italians embrace the French cause of fighting the central empires and it believed it could count on the gratitude of the PSI, which

77 Cf. still, in January 1915, an article in which the German daily informed of a decision of the PSI section in Florence, which once again declared itself neutral and got involved in a tighter propaganda for the maintenance of this neutrality: Die Sozialisten Italiens für die Neutralität. Vorwärts, 20 January 1915. 78 Cf. for example: Zur Neutralität Italiens. Vorwärts, 3 December 1914 and Die Haltung Italiens. Vorwärts, 4 December 1914.

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the German party helped financially in the past.79 This tour was not very well received by the Italian socialist press: on the same evening of his visit to the PSI leadership, a group of Roman socialists issued a virulent statement, declaring that the SPD had now “lost the right to claim socialist internationalism”80 and that “the sending of a socialist mission from Germany to Italy at that time cannot but be suspected of being a trap”81 : this was how the Roman socialist group judged the German social-democrats after August 1914. The statement went a little further: We can no longer remain silent today in the face of the German socialdemocratic initiative, which encourages the obscure play of diplomatic intrigues of the former Triplice governments, which tends to shift Italian neutrality towards the tortuous and dangerous paths of indirect cooperation. We want to affirm that our votes are for the cessation of the war without victors or vanquished; but if this hope is now vain, we wish that the infamous war will end with the crushing of those who provoked it: the empires of Austria and Germany.82

Mussolini first denounced this statement, but in reality, it preceded his own reversal only by a few weeks. Vorwärts, of course, also detailed the main passages of the German emissary’s journey to Italy.83 The reason for this expedition lied, according to the German daily, in the willingness of the SPD leadership to explain its attitude to neutral countries. Vorwärts reported on Südekum’s meeting with the Italian socialists Lazzari, Della Seta, and Zerbini. In this article, it can be observed that, even if this was hidden under the appearance of the SPD’s demand for neutrality to the Italian socialists, the Germans didn’t believe that the future decisions of the comrades on the peninsula could be favorable to them. This was the burning reason for this visit. Südekum declared at the meeting in Rome: “My presence

79 For a more detailed background of Südekum’s visit to Italy, see: Leo Valiani. Il Partito Socialista Italiano nel periodo della neutralità, 1914–1915. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1963, 28–39. 80 The declaration is found in both daily newspapers Secolo and Lavoro of September 2, 1914. We quoted it from: Valiani, Il partito socialista italiano, 38. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., 39. 83 Die Auffassung der italienischen Sozialisten. Vorwärts, 12 September 1914.

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here proves that the German socialists are always aware of their duty towards the International”84 and added that the SPD representatives were convinced of the love for peace of the German government, dragged into the war in spite of itself. But at the same time, he asked the Italians whether their party continued to have contacts with socialists in other countries at war,85 thus showing that the German social-democrats, like their French comrades, had entered into the logic of the war alliances. A few days later, once Südekum had returned to Germany, Vorwärts published his report on his trip, which noted that most of the Italian socialist representatives were filled with hatred of Germany and feelings of sympathy for the French and their struggle.86 L’Humanité published some reflections on his visit to Italy, highlighting above all the hostile feelings the Italians expressed toward the German comrade and, in general, toward this initiative of the social-democratic party: “First of all, there is no doubt that it took place.87 Secondly, it is certain that the Italian socialists greeted it with the most frank defeat and proclaimed, while affirming their will to maintain neutrality, their ardent sympathy for France in the struggle against German imperialism”.88 The French daily thanked the Italian comrades “for the feelings they have shown to them on this occasion, and for the new homage they have just paid to [...] Jaurès”.89 The allusion to this tribute was, in all likelihood, a reference to the words Alceste Della Seta uttered at the conclusion of the meeting with Südekum: “We openly tell you that we pity and honor the destroyed Belgium, that we follow trembling the fate of France, which sacrificed the life of Jean Jaurès on the altar of the International. As regards the relations between the parties, when peace brings us closer, we will seek to quickly convene

84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 “Most of them complemented each other in a true love for the French, which in some even opened up to a strong aversion against Germany”. Albert Südekum. Aus der Partei. Die Auffassung der italienischen Sozialisten. Vorwärts, 15 September 1914. 87 L’Humanité in fact took up information published in two other French newspapers, Le Temps and L’Information, as the socialist daily did not have any directly itself. 88 Socialistes italiens et socialistes allemands. L’Humanité, 3 September 1914. 89 Ibid. A few days later, L’Humanité once again underlined Italy’s sympathy for France:

Les sympathies avouées des puissances neutres and En Italie. L’Humanité, 5 September 1914.

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an international congress”.90 The visit of Südekum thus made clear to the three powers the sympathy of the Italian socialists for their French comrades. This was nothing new: in the crises that preceded, the Italian socialists had always remained at a distance from their French and German comrades, but when the war broke out, they were closer to the French than to the Germans. By contrast, and this reveals once again where the sympathies of the Italians were heading, in November 1914, the visit to Italy of Jules Destrée, Belgian trade unionist living in France since the beginning of the war, aroused with very different feelings. Destrée held a long series of meetings with some socialists interventionists, such as Bissolati, during which he exposed the situation in his country. His goal was to convince the Italians to go to war alongside France, through the narration of Germany’s misdeeds in Belgium, thus contributing “through this mission of information to decide the Italian government, or in any case a part of public opinion, to break its alliances and leave its neutrality to join the Entente camp”.91 Later, in his memoirs, he didn’t fail to criticize the fidelity of the leaders and the majority of the PSI to the peaceful positions of the International: “A rather sketchy theory of a hollow verbalism, which might have had some meaning in the past, but which is completely powerless to provide solutions for current problems. Basically selfish and destructive theory of all solidarity, which pushes military neutrality to the point of neutrality of heart and mind”.92 However, the historian Philippe Destatte points out that Destrée’s positions became more nuanced a little after he was warmly welcomed by Turati himself, who reserved fraternal attentions for him in Milan during a subsequent visit to Italy in April 1915.93 But even if he understood the reasons of political and moral unity 90 This is an extract from the minutes of the meeting, which is to be found in its entirety in the appendix to the book of: Valiani, Il Partito Socialista Italiano, 90. 91 Philippe Destatte. Jules Destrée et l’Italie à la rencontre du national-socialisme. Conférence donnée le 25 février 1988 à l’initiative de l’Association Dante Alighieri de Charleroi. Revue historique belge 29 (3–4), 1988, 543. 92 Jules Destrée. En Italie avant la guerre, 1914–1915. Bruxelles: G. van Oest, 1915,

54. 93 Philippe Destatte, Jules Destrée et l’Italie, 571. Cf. Valiani, Il Partito Socialista Italiano, 67. The relationship of esteem and friendship between the two men is evident in their correspondence, see Jules Destrée to Filippo Turati, Rome, April 30, 1915 and Turin, May 5 and July 2, 1915. Filippo Turati to Jules Destrée, Milan, July 3, 1915, in: Rava (ed), Filippo Turati e i corrispondenti stranieri, 205–208.

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that drive the PSI leader to oppose Italy’s entry into the war, it is logical that Destree, in his attempt to convince his Italian comrades to enter the war, showed himself to be rather close to the new interventionist positions of Mussolini, whom he met on November 16, 1914 during his first tour in Italy: in his memoirs, he drew a detailed portrait of the Italian politician, affirming that “the inspirer of the politics of the newspaper Avanti! understood its ‘inadequacy and verbalism’, and proclaimed that the socialist duty of the moment was war, war with the allies, immediate war. To this end, he launched a newspaper, II Popolo d’Italia, which led to his expulsion from the PSI”.94 A few months later, in April 1915, it was a Frenchman, Marcel Cachin, who went to Italy in order to convince ruling circles of the advisability of going to war against the central empires.95 He met on April 19 the socialist leaders favorable to the intervention—the reformists, excluded from the PSI in 1912—as well as Anna Kuliscioff and, like his Belgian colleague, Mussolini (who had left in the meantime the direction of Avanti!, as we will see in the next paragraph).96 Cachin wrote a report of his visit in L’Humanité: “No one can doubt Italy’s intentions today. It is going to participate in the conflict and there is not a single inhabitant of the Peninsula who is not convinced of this at this time. It is not that there is great enthusiasm everywhere; […] To be fair, let us say that the immense majority of Italians do not want war; but everyone feels that events are stronger than their will and that they are being dragged into it in spite of themselves, without resistance being possible”. Like Destrée, Cachin was favorable to Mussolini and his interventionist ideas, to which he devoted the rest of the article (which constituted nothing less than the editorial of L’Humanité of April 27, 1915). In it, he paid tribute to “the energetic attitude of Mussolini, who has spent months and months for the cause of intervention” and “who sees things from above”. Of particular interest to us, Marcel Cachin gave in this article his point of view on the meeting between Südekum and Mussolini, with the aim of proving once again the sympathies of the Italian socialists for France rather than for 94 Philippe Destatte, Jules Destrée et l’Italie, 573. 95 Biographical note of Marcel Cachin in: Maitron. Dictionnaire biographique mouve-

ment ouvrier, mouvement social online: http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php? article18297 [26 April 2019]. 96 Denis Peschanski, Gilles Candar and Christophe Prochasson (eds). Marcel Cachin, Carnets 1906–1947 1: 1906–1916. Paris: CNRS éditions, 1993, 746.

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Germany—which also gave him the opportunity to denounce the attitude of the SPD: As he [Mussolini] led a clear-cut campaign against German aggression and the attitude of the Kaiser’s soldiers in Avanti!, of which he was then editorin-chief, he was visited one day by Südekum, introduced by the citizen Balananoff. One can easily imagine the turn the conversation took. At one point, Mussolini asked Südekum: ‘But, finally, why are you socialists uniting against Republican France?’ And Südekum replied: ‘We have no animosity against France; on the contrary, we have great affection for France. But it is necessary that we first crush it 97 and then turn against Russia’.

And, Cachin continued: “Crushing France for the benefit of German imperialism was a monstrous conception in the eyes of the socialist Mussolini. And for a revolutionary like him, who sees things from above, the duty to intervene was indispensable and urgent to prevent such a crime from being carried out”.98 For clear reasons, the news of Cachin’s visit to Italy was not reported by the German dailies, nor by Avanti!. Mussolini and the War But let’s go deeper into the case of Mussolini, which we have not had the opportunity to describe so far. The PSI, as has been said, maintained a neutral attitude on the whole, even when the government of the Kingdom of Italy finally decided to enter the war. However, representatives of the party sometimes embraced the cause of the war. A striking case was undoubtedly that of Mussolini, who in July 1914 became one of the most restless supporters of the entry into the war, after having been a fervent anti-militarist.99 Naturally, a shift of this kind did not go unnoticed by the socialists north of the Alps who attached great importance to what is happening among their Italian comrades.

97 Highlighted in the text. 98 Marcel Cachin. En Italie. L’Humanité, 27 April 1915. 99 On Mussolini’s reversal cf. Renzo De Felice. Mussolini il Rivoluzionario. Turin:

Einaudi, 2005 (1965). Gherardo Bozzetti. Mussolini direttore dell’Avanti!. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979. Brunello Vigezzi. Il PSI, le riforme e la rivoluzione (1898–1915). Florence: Sansoni editore, 1981, 125–130.

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On 21 October, L’Humanité reproduced an article that Mussolini had published on the 18th in his Avanti!100 which was the manifesto of his change of attitude toward the question of Italian neutrality.101 It was entitled “Dalla neutralità assoluta alla neutralità attiva e operante” (From absolute neutrality to active and operative neutrality). Here Mussolini supported, in summary, the ideas that he had already expressed at the meeting of the Roman socialists with Südekum, even if the tone of this article is more decided. L’Humanité felt the same about Mussolini’s declarations in this short article as it did about his statements at the beginning of September. According to Mussolini, it was necessary to distinguish between two types of war, and the war waged by Germany was certainly not of the same nature as that waged by France: “To evaluate all wars in the same way would be absurd and – if I may – silly”.102 Naturally, he continued, Italian socialists had taken sides with those under attack and with those fighting against the injustices perpetrated by the central empires. And he added: “The program of ‘absolute’ neutrality for the future is reactionary. It had meaning, now it has no meaning. Today it is a dangerous formula, which immobilizes us”.103 According to Mussolini, neutrality must therefore be abandoned: Italy must enter the war alongside France in order to help bring the war to an end as quickly as possible, becoming the “armed mediator of peace”.104 This article brought changes within the PSI. Its representative Arturo Vella demanded 100 Chez les neutres. En Italie. L’attitude des socialistes. L’Humanité, 21 October 1914. 101 Although this change had already taken place. And even though on July 31 his

newspaper again published an article suggesting that the proletariat should do everything possible to prevent the European war (Il proletariato deve impedire la conflagrazione europea. Avanti!, 31 July 1914) and another one stressing that Jaurès was still optimistic (Jaurès è ottimista. Avanti!, 31 July 1914), Mussolini wrote on 3 August, thus entering into a polemic with the few nationalists who wanted to enter the war with Austria, that if the latter invaded the Veneto region to “punish” Italy for its neutral attitude, “many of those who today were accused of […] antipatriotism would know how to do their duty”. Benito Mussolini. De profundis. Avanti!, 3 August 1914. The article he wrote on August 5 on Hervé could also have already given a glimpse of the future attitude of the Emilian socialist: Mussolini justified the action of the French comrade, his change from a fervent anti-militarist to a convinced supporter of France’s entry into the war: Benito Mussolini. Hervé. La guerra è immonda. Avanti!, 5 August 1914. 102 Benito Mussolini. Dalla neutralità assoluta alla neutralità attiva e operante. Avanti!, 18 October 1914. 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid.

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that the party draft a new manifesto on the issue of war. Mussolini’s response was peremptory: if the content of the manifesto had shown ideas opposed to those of his article, he had resigned as director of the newspaper. The French comrades appeared to support this attitude. On this very 21st of October, when L’Humanité revealed Mussolini’s reversal, the French daily wrote on its front page that the time had come for Italy “to officially join the powers that be in a league against the brutal militarism of Berlin”, adding: “And there are good reasons for such a decision to be taken”.105 These reasons were to maintain the rights of the people and safeguard the freedom and independence of small states; to obtain, at the end of the war, the emancipation of oppressed nationalities in Europe; to contribute to a quicker end to the war and to ensure Italy’s right to claim the cessions of territory to which it aspired “in all justice”.106 Naturally, but in a completely different spirit, the German socialdemocrats were still interested in what was happening in Italy. Vorwärts informed his readers of the debate that was developing in the Italian peninsula between representatives of the PSI and the PSRI, the latter supporting the need for an intervention alongside France. The German daily also reported that Avanti! had mentioned the need to organize a consultation in all sections of the PSI and in all trade unions on the issue of Italy’s neutrality in the European conflict, through which the different organizations could express their opinion on the subject. On this occasion, “several hundred sections of the party and trade unions came out in favour of neutrality”,107 the German newspaper said. This news was published the next day by L’Humanité,108 without any hint on the results of the consultation, which should however be known— its German counterpart had mentioned it the day before. The tactics of the two dailies were therefore clear: the Germans, still confident in their hope that Italy would remain neutral, openly supported the PSI, which pleaded for neutrality. On the other hand, the French, who were awaiting the country’s entry into the war, sought rather to hide the tendency of their Italian comrades in favor of maintaining neutrality. In both media,

105 L’attitude de l’Italie. L’Humanité, 21 October 1914. 106 Ibid. It is this last argument that met the most success with the Italian

interventionists, who pleaded for the territories of Trento and Trieste to become Italian. 107 Die Haltung der italienischen Sozialdemokratie. Vorwärts, 22 October 1914. 108 Les socialistes italiens et la guerre. L’Humanité, 23 October 1914.

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several articles reported the latest events concerning Mussolini’s attitude. Vorwärts announced that, according to a newspaper in Bologna, Mussolini had pronounced himself, in private and while the consultation was still underway, in favor of war. And indeed, a few days later, Mussolini made a similar statement in the Giornale d’Italia,109 before confessing, in the article on neutrality in Avanti! mentioned above, that he had never really been absolutely opposed to war. He was against a war with Austria and argued that “the party should under no circumstances take responsibility”110 for declaring war. These same passages were taken up word for word in L’Humanité, which did not hesitate to emphasize that a part of the Italian socialists wanted war: “[Mussolini declared] that he has never been an “unconditional” adversary to a war with Austria. But that the socialist party could not take it upon itself to commit the country to such an adventure”.111 Vorwärts’ article then described in detail the situation within the Avanti! management following Mussolini’s statements about the ongoing war.112 But there was no mention of the manifesto Contro la guerra that the PSI, in response to Mussolini, finally wrote on October 20. In the manifesto, published on the front page of Avanti! on 21 October, the PSI leadership reaffirmed its “neutrality, not uncertain and ambiguous like that of the government […], but pure and obstinate like that which draws its strength from the still living sources of our unshakeable socialist faith”. It made a brief and highly critical analysis of what happened among the foreign comrades: That German socialism which could boast of the primacy in Europe for the number of its adherents, for its marvelous progress, for its solid compactness; that socialism which was for us the proud example of our strength for the cause of the proletariat, it was the first to be shaken, and today one can hardly distinguish its thought and action from those of bourgeois Germany. Austrian socialism did not have a better destiny, and French socialism, which nevertheless saw Jaurès die on the field of the International, was also shaken by the war to make common cause with the bourgeoisie.

109 It was an Italian liberal daily newspaper founded in 1901. 110 Die Haltung der italienischen Sozialdemokratie. Vorwärts, 22 October 1914. 111 Les socialistes italiens et la guerre. L’Humanité, 23 October 1914. 112 Rücktritt Mussolinis. Vorwärts, 22 October 1914.

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The manifesto concluded with these words: “The socialist party is against war and for neutrality. Against war and for neutrality, because this is the will of socialism, which for us is alive and for which the International, now dead, must vigorously resurrect”.113 Immediately after the publication of this article, the neo-interventionist Mussolini left his position as editor-inchief of Avanti!. These events were verified and reported by L’Humanité, which did not go into much detail about the content of the party leadership’s manifesto114 and gave more and more space to those socialists who were beginning to turn to the cause of war: Yesterday evening in Milan, an assembly of socialists, composed mainly of friends of the former director of Avanti! Mussolini, declared their solidarity with the ideas expressed in the article incriminated by the leadership of the socialist party and which led to Mussolini’s resignation”. And again, a few lines further on: “On the other hand, last night the Roman socialist union voted on an agenda advocating energetic propaganda in favor of Italy’s national aspirations and European democracy, threatened by German imperialism.115

Even if it occupied little space in the foreign press, the case of Cesare Battisti deserves to be mentioned, mainly for one reason: L’Humanité reported on it, whereas there was no trace of it in Vorwärts. Moreover, as Leo Valiani pointed out, Battisti was “undoubtedly one of those who helped to convince Mussolini and shake up Italian public opinion”.116 Cesare Battisti was a socialist from Trento, therefore Austrian, from that part of Austria which the Italians claimed possession. He became deputy of the Reichsrat in 1911. At the outbreak of the war, he moved to Italian territory and embraced the irredentist cause: he began a strong propaganda in favor of Italy’s entry into the war against the Habsburg Empire, for the reconquest of Trento and Trieste. Once Italy entered the war, 113 Contro la guerra. Avanti!, 21 October 1914. 114 “The party leadership confirmed its previous deliberations and reasserted, in a mani-

festo addressed to the workers, its aversion to war and its determination to maintain a firm attitude of neutrality”. Mussolini quitte la direction de l’Avanti!. L’Humanité, 22 October 1914. 115 Chez les socialistes italiens. L’Humanité, 24 October 1914. Immediately afterwards, another article announced that “the Italian radical party asks to come out of neutrality”. L’Humanité, 24 October 1914. 116 Valiani, Il Partito socialista italiano, 48.

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he enlisted in the Alpini, the Italian military corps specialized in battles in mountainous areas. He was captured a year later by Austrian soldiers. Recognized, he was hanged in the castle of Buonconsiglio in Trento on July 16, 1916.117 In the light of this trajectory, one understands the interest that the French socialists had in him, even well before his tragic end. His actions fitted in perfectly with the subtle propaganda that L’Humanité had maintained since the beginning of the conflict, with the aim of showing that Italians were pushing for an entry into the war on the side of France. The newspaper insisted that it is Battisti himself who had commented in its pages the news of Mussolini’s resignation. After stating in a few words his convictions about the war, Battisti wrote: “Obviously, the mood of the socialists is quite different from what it was in the early days of the war”.118 According to him, the feeling and willingness to intervene was spreading throughout PSI. The position of Mussolini (whom Battisti called “the unquestionable leader of the socialist party in Italy”), continued the socialist from Trento, was no longer in line with the party’s anti-militarist statements, which Mussolini himself had drafted or supported in the previous months.

Italy Enters the War As Italy moved toward intervention, the number of socialists who believed that Italy was entering the war increased. Anna Kuliscioff, in her letters to Filippo Turati, from December 1914 onwards, was sure of the inevitability of Italian intervention. She wrote to her partner on December 4: Good for those who are under illusion, my dear! And you are among them. [...] I explain such optimism by the strong desire to avoid war, but I do not believe that the impressions of the neutralists correspond to the reality and spirit of the government’s declarations. For my part, I am convinced that the war is now decided: it will be a question of time, of the occasion that will trigger it, but there is no doubt that the intervention,

117 In Italy, Cesare Battisti is one of the “national heroes”. Streets, squares and schools are dedicated to him in almost every town on the peninsula. 118 Déclarations de Battisti au Giornale d’Italia. L’Humanité, 22 October 1914.

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for the government, is now out of the question [because it has already been decided].119

In February 1915, she clearly doubted the need for the PSI to persist in its position of absolute neutrality. In the pages of Critica Sociale, too, there were articles by socialist intellectuals such as Alessandro Levi, Rodolfo Mondolfo, and Giuseppe Rensi, who revealed a growing sympathy for Italy’s intervention. They were not, however, inspired by Mussolini’s extreme approach, but rather by the reformist orientation of Bissolati’s convictions. On January 8, 1915, Turati signed a manifesto with those in his wing of the PSI who were in favor of interventionism, which claimed the principle of nationality and the peaceful protection of Italian interests and which rejected the absolute nature of neutrality. However, Turati was not so resolute, and he retained his intimate aversion to the use of violence. Conversely, Anna Kuliscioff was increasingly convinced that Italy should march alongside the Entente as soon as possible. Her partner wrote to her on March 12: “Your obsession lies in this: believing that war can save or defend us. War is like disease: it can kill, it can weaken, nothing else. It will make us no richer, no wiser, no more productive, no freer, no more honest, no happier than we are. Why, then, should we apply to foreign policy criteria so different from those we have adopted for domestic policy regarding revolution and revolt?”.120 It was with this divided spirit and these very different voices that the Italian socialists arrived in May 1915. Because of all these divisions and hesitations, they did not succeed in giving life to a real movement of opposition to Italy’s entry into the war. However, during the parliamentary session of May 20,121 during which the new president of the Council, Antonio Salandra,122 declared the entry into the war, Turati announced that the socialist party was opposed to military credits, unlike 119 Letter from Anna Kuliscioff to Filippo Turati dated December 4, 1914, in: Turati and Kuliscioff, Carteggio 3, 1191. 120 Letter from Filippo Turati to Anna Kuliscioff dated March 12, 1915, in: Alessandro Schiavi and Franco Pedone (eds). Carteggio: Filippo Turati e Anna Kuliscioff 4. Turin: Einaudi, 1977, 62–63. Cf. as well: Valiani, Il Partito socialista italiano, 69. 121 General mobilization was declared in Italy on May 23, 1915. 122 Antonio Salandra succeeded Giovanni Giolitti as prime minister on March 21, 1914.

The events of January to May 1915 in Italian domestic politics were very complex. We have limited ourselves to outlining them, especially in relation to the attitude of the socialists. For a more in-depth analysis of what was happening in the Italian political class

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the French and German sister parties. And the Italian socialist parliamentarians did indeed vote against the credits. However, it must be stressed that this decision was easier for them than for their foreign comrades: when the question of voting war credits reached the Italian Parliament, it was already clear for everyone what this war looked like and that it would continue for a long time. In addition, if elsewhere the war had been perceived as a response to the threat posed by other countries,123 this could no longer be the case for Italy: In the specific case of Italy, moreover, it could be assumed that most of the population was against war or at least did not take part in the interventionist climate promoted by the political and journalistic currents that remained a minority. Finally, the Giolitti’s position against entry into the war was well known – and his views were supported by about 300 deputies, elected in 1913. In short, the choice of the Italian socialist party for absolute neutrality was more meditated and easier than that of the other European socialist parties, the context being quite different.124

with the nuances and differences of opinion that we have shown.125 Immediately after the beginning of the war, articles in France and Germany on the attitude facing the war of comrades in one or the other country became scarce, they almost disappeared from the pages of the socialist daily newspapers. However, at the end of October 1914, L’Humanité published an article written by a Belgian socialist, Auguste Dewinne, in which he recounted the visit of four German socialdemocrats, in the first months of the war, to the Maison du Peuple in Brussels. Through this article, L’Humanité wanted to mark the betrayal in relation to the war in the first half of 1915, we refer to: Valiani, Il Partito socialista italiano, 63–83. 123 Cf. Christopher Clark. The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914. London: Allen Lane, 2012. 124 Maurizio Degl’Innocenti. La patria divisa. Socialismo, nazione e guerra mondiale. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2015, 174–175. 125 To have an idea of the “numbers” of neutralism in Italy at that time, see Salvatore Botta’s brief analysis: Le cifre del neutralismo. In: Fulvio Cammarano (ed). Abbasso la guerra! Neutralisti in piazza alla vigilia della Prima guerra mondiale in Italia, Florence: Le Monnier, 2015, 601–606. Over the years, neutrality has been qualified with many different adjectives: absolute, relative, energetic, active and operative, armed, contemplative and austere, partial, which shows how many facets it has been given, cf. Giovanni Scirocco. Il neutralismo socialista. In: Cammarano (ed), Abbasso la guerra!, 41.

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of social-democracy. The first visitor, a certain Wendel, arrived dressed as a reservist and received “an icy welcome”. About the second, Dewinne related: “Then it was Karl Liebknecht’s turn. We had kept our hands in our pockets; but he told us: ‘You can give me your hand, I voted against the military credits’. With him, we were more relaxed”. Then came Noske and a deputy from Hamburg, whose name the editor of the article could no longer remember, who offered material aid to the Belgian people: they were both willing to act as mediators with the German authorities in order to facilitate the provision of supplies to the cities. In exchange, they asked that the workforce of occupied Belgium went back to work. The two socialist deputies were thus charged with an unofficial mission. But what is interesting in this article, for the purposes of our work, are Dewinne’s conclusions. The editor stated that the four Germans declared that the war was “popular in many regions” and that “the working mass considered it a defensive war”. Moreover, according to the Belgian, one of the four said during the visit: “Germany is convinced of the successful outcome of this formidable struggle. It will triumph”. L’Humanité once again fed the image it had built of the social-democrats and the German people: they were convinced of war and victory. And this to justify once again its adherence to the Union sacrée.126 This trend changed after about six months of war: on May 1, 1915, despite having been prohibited from doing so, the local SPD sections decided to hold several public meetings to protest the war. For the most part, these demonstrations were forbidden. L’Humanité announced that, in spite of these prohibitions, an anti-war placard was written and distributed. The newspaper reproduced that on the front page of the May 8 edition, in its French translation. No commentary accompanied it.127 Two days later, Eduard Bernstein’s invitation to his comrades to stick to the principles of the International was published on the front page of the French newspaper.128 The article highlighted the change that was taking place in the minds of some German comrades, including Bernstein: he voted for war credits on August 4 and, “little by little, the truth came to him”. He therefore began to criticize the “abominable” acts of his 126 Auguste Dewinne. Que pense-t-on de la guerre dans la démocratie socialiste allemande? L’Humanité, 24 October 1914. 127 Homo. Dans la social-démocratie allemande. L’Humanité, 8 May 1915. 128 Pierre Renaudel. Bernstein et les principes de l’Internationale. L’Humanité, 10 May

1915.

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country, opposing them with the “demand for the imprescriptible rights of democracy”, the “affirmation that the International would fail in its task – and therefore perish – if it did not maintain, if it did not develop that will for democracy which made the hopes of peoples and men turn to it”. According to Bernstein, social-democracy had also to show that it remained “attached to the old principles”.129 The newspaper began to take a new direction, reminding that at least part of the SPD still advocated for peace. The article on the front page of the May 9 issue, signed by the newspaper’s director himself, was clear proof of this. This same attitude of reopening was also noticeable in the pages of Vorwärts in relation to the French socialists. A manifesto calling for peace, signed by Louise Saumoneau in the name of the socialist women of France, was an opportunity for the German daily to recall that “in the ranks of the French comrades is present a current for peace and the reconstruction of the International”.130 But of course, it was not the thought of the French socialists sitting in parliament. Italy’s entry into the war was indeed greeted enthusiastically by the Viviani government. During the parliamentary session of May 25, 1915, the president of the Chamber communicated: “As fifty-six years ago, Italy is with us”. All the deputies “stood up and turned to the diplomatic lodge – prolonged applause and repeated unanimous shouts of: ‘Long live Italy!’ follow”. The speech that followed was a celebration of Italy, of its unity, and of its firmness in the decision to enter the war: At a time when Italy is contributing its share of sacrifices to the realization of its dream and to human deliverance, I salute, in the name of the Government of the Republic, the Italian nation in its unwavering steadfastness. From one end of the peninsula to the other, a whole people has risen up with the enthusiasm inherent in its noble nature and after nine months of unbendingly considering the spectacle of war.131 129 Bernstein formulated these statements in an article in the May 1 issue of Vorwärts. In the May 10 issue of L’Humanité, extracts from the article, translated into French, can be found just after Renaudel’s article: Homo. L’article de Bernstein dans le Vorwärts. L’Humanité, 10 May 1915. 130 Französische Genossinnen für den Frieden. Vorwärts, 1 May 1915. A few days later, Vorwärts evoked the various isolated socialist voices in France speaking out against the war: Friedensstimmen in Frankreich. Vorwärts, 8 May 1915. 131 Session of May 25, 1915, Chamber of Deputies. In: Journal officiel de la République, 26 May 1915, 741.

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It was the Union Sacrée, no voice raised against these assertions, no one mentioned the Italian socialist party that had remained neutral. Naturally, the Reichstag reacted in the opposite direction. As in France, the president of the Chamber, Reichskanzler Bethmann-Hollweg, announced the news: “Gentlemen, when I spoke to you eight days ago, there still seemed to be a glimmer of hope that the attack on Italy could still be avoided. […] No one was threatening Italy, neither Austria-Hungary nor Germany. If the Triple Entente left the temptations behind, history will show us afterwards”.132 L’Humanité, during the last period before Italy entered the war, observed with attention what was happening there, particularly with regard to its relations with Germany. “The German newspapers have begun, in the last few days, to talk about Austro-German-Italian relations. They are naturally trying to persuade Italy that its interest, of course, advises it to remain at the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary”.133 But it was already clear enough that Italy wanted to enter the war on the Allied side. Regarding the attitude of the Italian comrades, the editors of L’Humanité sometimes seemed somewhat perplexed. They reproached them for having taken “a decision […] which, in reality, is not a decision”.134 One can guess that the socialists of L’Humanité were pleading for the acceptance of the entry into the war by the comrades of the peninsula. The parliamentary debates on participation in the conflict were in full swing. Salandra, who was pushing for Italy to take part in the war, had already succeeded Giolitti. The end of neutrality was only a matter of days. French socialists underlined the strong divisions of the PSI: “The Italian socialist party is torn by divided influences and uncertainty reigns supreme. […] Which means, when you read between the lines of the Italian socialist newspapers: we are bowing down, because the decisive moment is not very far”.135 Just afterwards, the newspaper quoted a declaration by Turati, who called himself “an enemy of German militarism and a friend of French democracy”.136 On the very same 4th of August, Vorwärts informed its readers about what was happening among 132 Reichstagsprotokolle, 11. Sitzung, Freitag den 28. Mai 1915, 141. 133 L’Allemagne et l’Italie. L’Humanité, 1 May 1915. 134 Les socialistes italiens et la guerre. L’Humanité, 4 May 1915. 135 Ibid. 136 L’opinion de Filippo Turati. L’Humanité, 4 May 1915.

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the Italian comrades. But the attitude of the daily was of course different from that of its French counterpart. Instead, it emphasized the willingness of the Italian socialists to remain neutral, as in this article where it repeated that “the Italian party leadership in agreement with the representatives of the trade unions has adopted an agenda on the question of neutrality which has become a resolution adopted by all but one favourable vote”, a resolution in which the party once again claimed to be against the war.137 What the two dailies had in common was that almost every day they related to what was happened at the very heart of the Italian government.138 For the rest, their attitude differed: L’Humanité gave no real information about the Italian socialists until it became clear that Italy wanted to fight alongside France. Its silence on the different and important points of view of the Italian socialists on the subject of neutrality was denounced by Avanti!: L’Humanité having, at one point, refused to quote Turati’s neutralist arguments, it apologized for this by saying that it had not been able to “publish the text of these statements because no press agency sent it to us”.139 Avanti!, who preferred to “refrain from commenting”140 on such a statement, entitled this article “Turati boycotted in France”. However, the growing agitation in favor of Italian intervention was widely reported.141 For its

137 Die italienische Partei und der Krieg. Vorwärts, 4 May 1915. 138 Several articles, all entitled “Italy and the war”, follow one another in the pages of

L’Humanité (May 6, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 14, 1915). And again: En Italie, la guerre paraît inévitable et prochaine. L’Humanité, 9 May 1915. Le rôle de la diplomatie italienne touche à sa fin. L’Humanité, 10 May 1915. L’intervention italienne. L’Humanité, 11 May 1915. Les origines de la crise italienne et la solution probable. L’Humanité, 16 May 1915. L’intervention de l’Italie semble imminente. L’Humanité, 18 May 1915. La Chambre italienne se réunit aujourd’hui. L’Humanité, 20 May 1915. La Chambre italienne vote les crédits nécessaires pour une guerre éventuelle. L’Humanité, 21 May 1915. Gustave Hervé, in La Guerre sociale, declared himself as sure that Italian neutrality would not last. Concerning Vorwärts: Zur Haltung Italiens. Vorwärts, 5 May 1915. Italien vor der Entscheidung. Vorwärts, 6 May 1915 and a serie of articles entitled: Die italienische Krise that were published in the pages of Vorwärts from 7 to 20 May 1915. 139 Turati boicottato in Francia. Avanti!, 20 May 1915. 140 The article says exactly: “We note the facts and we don’t comment”. Ibid. 141 L’agitation en Italie. L’Humanité, 15 May 1915. Les manifestations en Italie pour

l’intervention. L’Humanité, 15 May 1915. Les manifestations se poursuivent en Italie. L’Humanité, 16 May 1915. In this last article is also given the list of cities in which the pro-intervention events took place: Rome and Milan, but also Bologna, Genoa, Florence and Naples—six major Italian cities, spread all over the territory, including the historically

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part, Vorwärts paid more attention to the different differences of opinion circulating among Italian comrades142 and gave news of the demonstrations for peace in Italy.143 On May 17, it published an agenda adopted on May 11 by the parliamentary group of the PSI “after a long and zealous debate”, in which it declared: “[…] in spite of the lies, distortions, and the most brazen excesses of a small interventionist minority, the socialist party, in its attitude of opposition to the war and in favor of energetic neutrality, feels more and more the voice not only of the proletariat but of the vast majority of the Italian population”.144 In addition, the German daily denounced the fact that exclusively Avanti! still provided information on these events. The rest of the press only gave space by now to interventionist expressions.145 Regarding France, only on May 20, when Italy’s participation in the war was now inevitable (on that day the military credits were voted in the Chamber and the news was transmitted the next day by the French dailies), L’Humanité offered its front page to an article by an Italian socialist, in this case, Amilcare Cipriani.146 At this point it was clear that the country was going to fight alongside France. Cipriani denounced the “rudeness” that the Germans and Austrians addressed to the Italians after they turned the ship. But what interested the French socialists was the statement Cipriani made at the end of his article, in which the French daily gave further proof that there were socialists in Italy who had accepted the war. Indeed, Cipriani assured on the front page of L’Humanité: “[…] when [the war] comes, it will find before it a whole people

“red” Romagna. And later: Rome, 200,000 hommes manifestent en faveur de la guerre. L’Humanité, 21 May 1915. 142 In the article Der erste Mai in Italien (Vorwärts, 8 May 1915), the editor described the Italian debate about the war, focusing on those Italian socialists who were against intervention. 143 Massenkundgebung italienischer Arbeiter gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 12 May 1915. Here it is about Milan and the industrial cities of northern Italy. And further: Demonstrationsstreik gegen den Krieg. Vorwärts, 19 May 1915. 144 Die Haltung der italienischen Sozialisten. Vorwärts, 17 May 1915. 145 Ibid. It repeated this a few days later: Der Avanti! gegen die Kriegshetze. Vorwärts,

18 May 1915. 146 Amilcare Cipriani. Langage de Pangermanistes. L’Humanité, 20 May 1915.

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determined not to let them do what they have done in Belgium and elsewhere”.147 The next day, the vote of the war credits by the Italian Chamber was greeted with jubilation: Édouard Vaillant, in an article that weaves praise to the new participant in the war, interpreted this as a step toward a sure victory: “This intervention by Italy is for us the intensified, rapid war, unerringly reaching its victorious end. It is the coming peace, the peace of the allies, the peace of freedom, independence, autonomy of peoples and nations. And as a result, for us socialists, precious, priceless is the action, the influence of the republican and liberal western powers grown, strengthened by the Italian participation”.148 Concerning the opinion of the Italian socialists, the French daily continued to favor the interventionists. If it quoted those who still plead for neutrality (and, let’s remember, this was the official line of the parliamentary socialists), it did so only by the effect of contrast, to show that other Italian socialists supported the war effort. A letter from Avanti! correspondent in Rom Francesco Ciccotti, addressed to the Giornale d’Italia, was quoted and translated. The Italian stated in clear terms that “while respecting the efforts made by the officially recognized socialists to maintain neutrality […], if in Austria and Germany illusions were nurtured about the attitude of the Italian socialists during the war, these illusions would, without doubt, be destroyed by complete disillusionment”. And he added: “We will do all our duty”.149 The article reported that in all Italian cities there was a significant number of socialists who were in the process of separating from the official socialist party in order to give their full support to interventionism. Vorwärts, for his part, asserted up to the declaration of war that a good part of the socialists didn’t want to do it and that the parliamentary group voted against the war credits, not betraying its neutrality: representatives of the PSI (from the workers’ groups and the party’s steering committee) meeting in Bologna declared that they have left aside the strategy of the general strike as a means of opposing the war. However, a resolution was adopted by this meeting which “confirms the unfailing aversion of the proletariat to Italy’s participation in the war” and urged

147 Ibid. 148 Édouard Vaillant. Vers la victoire, vers la paix. L’Humanité, 21 May 1915. 149 Les socialistes italiens et la guerre. L’Humanité, 21 May 1915.

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the parliamentary group to always oppose any vote on war credits.150 Two days later, the German daily newspaper, quoting an article from Popolo Romano,151 repeated that the Italian people did not want war: “This war against two countries with which Italy has lived in harmony for almost the last seven lustra seems to us a dream, a bad dream!”.152 In these first months of the war, the ISB left the action in the hands of the national parties. German and French efforts were almost nil. And when they did exist (in the case of Liebknecht’s proposal, for example), they were aborted. As for the Italian socialists and their neutrality, the attitude of the two socialist parties north of the Alps was significant: the French tended to emphasize the willingness of the Italian comrades to enter the war for the fight of democracy against the empires; the Germans put much more emphasis, in their reports of the Italian situation, on the fact that a large part of the PSI did not want war because, sensing that Italy was going to side with France, they preferred to keep it neutral.

150 Die Sozialisten für die Ablehnung der Kriegskredite. Vorwärts, 20 May 1915. 151 Il Popolo romano was a daily political newspaper founded in Rome in 1875 and

often polemical against democratic parties. It ceased publication in 1922. 152 Die Stimmung im italienischen Volke. Vorwärts, 22 May 1915.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

In 1905, the crisis of international diplomacy that developed in Morocco around the issue of French colonies shook the international order and feared the beginning of a conflict. Faced with this dangerous situation, the International had to give a socialist response. The war and the way to deal with it had become fundamental questions for the socialist organization since the 1890s. The crisis in Morocco in 1905 thus put to the test its ability to take any concrete action to signify the opposition of internationally organized socialism to the eventuality of war. However, this situation brought out at the same time the limits of the Second International. While the crisis was ongoing and its international consequences were still unpredictable, British socialist Henry Hyndman asked the ISB to call a new meeting. This request won the enthusiastic favor of Édouard Vaillant in France. Indeed, the SFIO aspired to the organization of a new international socialist meeting and Jean Jaurès himself was the first to support the need for such an initiative. But internal questions of balance within the Socialist Bureau made this attempt fail. August Bebel declared himself openly opposed to it. In his opinion the international situation was not serious enough to require a new meeting of the members of the Bureau. In reality, a Franco-German socialist protest against what was happening in Morocco took timidly form (Jaurès was invited to Berlin) and the SPD leader simply feared that, if an extraordinary meeting was held on Morocco, English influence within the ISB would increase. The © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9_7

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consequence of this opposition between Bebel and the SPD was that no new meeting of the Bureau took place before March 1906 and that the International did not meet until 1907, once the diplomatic situation had calmed down again. During the Italian-Turkish War, which broke out six years later, things unfolded in a completely different way. If the ISB had, until then, needed a lot of time to organize its action in front of an international danger, it was quite different for the war in Tripolitania. Having just met (its last meeting took place on September 24 in Zurich and Italy sent its ultimatum to Turkey only three days later), the ISB was not long in coming this time. The executive committee decided to send a confidential circular to the delegates as early as October 7, which was then circulated on October 19 to all member parties of the International. The tasks of the Bureau were, states this missive, to prevent the powers that might want to exploit the war in Tripolitania for their own purposes, to avoid that the Italian-Turkish conflict spreads to the Balkans, and to facilitate the realization of an immediate pacific solution. Shortly thereafter, in early November, the ISB drafted a manifesto calling for a major anti-war demonstration to show international socialism’s aversion to “the unspeakable act of banditry committed by Italy against Turkey". The manifesto emphasized one of the main interests of socialism, that of preventing and averting armed conflicts, those wars in which the working class provided the largest number of soldiers and beared most of the material sacrifices. The ISB therefore called for the resolution of all conflicts through international arbitration. Thus, at the beginning of November 1911, internationally organized socialism succeeded in implementing the ideas it defended against the danger of war. It succeeded in organizing a great socialist demonstration: the International appeared to be able to oppose its organized force to the danger of war, except for relations with the Italian socialists, which remained complicated. What happened between 1905 and 1911? The differences between the Moroccan crisis of 1905 and the ItaloTurkish War of 1911 are, for the questions of this work, fundamental for two reasons. One concerns the life of the International as a whole, the other the relations between the three socialist parties. In 1911, if the Second International was able to respond almost immediately and consistently to the international situation, it was because from the 1890s on it completed a learning curve, a process of learning

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about times of crisis, which led it to know how to implement an effective response to international crises in a relatively short period of time. For example, the fact that the organization of an international demonstration could be a legitimate means of opposing the war was discussed and accepted by the two congresses of the International that took place before 1911, those of Stuttgart in 1907 and Copenhagen in 1910. Subsequently, on September 23 and 24, 1911 in Zurich, ISB members stressed the need for such a possibility to become a reality in the event of war danger. Moreover, between 1905 and 1911 the second Moroccan crisis unfolded, which tested the capacity of opposing to the war of international socialism: the ISB’s response had already arrived fairly quickly and the shift in its attitude to crises had been noticeable, although it had been slowed down by the direct involvement of France and Germany in the dispute. Indeed, the other reason why international institutions were able to react to the diplomatic confusion of 1911 and not to that of 1905 was related to the countries involved in both situations. In 1911, Italy played an important role in the diplomatic turmoil and then in the war, but because the PSI did not play a central role in the institutions of international socialism, the ISB was able to put in place an international response to the ongoing conflict. The SFIO and the SPD were at the forefront of international initiatives, but there were real doubts about the PSI’s willingness to oppose the Italian government’s initiative. The leadership of the Bureau seemed to lack confidence in the ability and willingness of the Italian party to really oppose the war. Their inaction was observed, commented on, and criticized by foreign comrades. In addition, what was most criticized by members of the International was the fact that some representatives of the PSI had declared themselves in agreement with the government in its decision to undertake a colonial expedition to Tripolitania. They were criticized throughout the conflict. On the other hand, in 1905 it was France and Germany that were involved in the current crisis. With the SFIO and the SPD at the heart of the International, the latter failed to undertake any concerted initiative. In a few words, we can summarize in this way the fundamental differences between 1905 and 1911, therefore between the possibility of international socialism to organize concerted action in opposition to war or not: they lied on the one hand in the internal development of the International, which learned to react to crises, and on the other hand in the direct involvement of countries in crises. The combination of these

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two tendencies resulted in ambivalence in the behavior of socialist parties. As a general rule, when a country was involved in a crisis, socialists in other countries tended to observe with attention the actions of comrades in the country involved. Sometimes they accused these comrades of not doing enough to oppose the belligerent actions of their governments because, fundamentally, they supported these initiatives. However, a certain optimism on the part of socialism, both international and in the three countries, in its ability to oppose the war was evident throughout the period investigated here. The International thus showed a growing capacity to give itself visibility on the international scene, by organizing its struggle against war. At its birth, opposition to the war was not its goal. Moreover, its first congresses paid only limited attention to the issues of war and peace, as can be seen in contemporary reports and press articles. This changed in the 1890s, however, as the International’s interest in and opposition to war began to increase. The congresses of Zurich (1893) and London (1896) testified to the new attention given to these subjects. At the latter congress, for example, it was decided that the demonstration on May 1 would also have the purpose of publicly displaying the labor movement’s opposition to the war. Over time, the International began to develop a range of practices designed to “create” its internationalism. These included demonstrations, special rituals at congresses, meetings and a series of publications (leaflets, pamphlets, manifestos and, from 1909, the ISB Bulletins) that circulated between countries. The constitution of the “demonstration culture” of international socialism was closely linked to its opposition to war and the various public manifestations of the International gradually became the expression of the opposition to war and the opposition to war their raison d’être. As international crises unfolded, the International learned to react to situations of danger. It better managed the timing of the crisis and managed to give a response to what was happening at the international level. At the level of the socialist parties of the three nations, the representatives of the three parties were the actors of the birth of internationalist sentiment: debates, ideas, people circulated between the three countries, even independently of the International. This analysis of the two levels of internationalism is indispensable to show how this internationalism evolved afterward, when the European diplomatic situation was troubled by international crises. That leads to several observations. The International’s capacity to react to crises had a

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limit: during the 1905 Moroccan crisis, in which France and Germany were directly involved, the International’s capacity to react weakened and slowed down considerably. However, this was not the case for Italy, which did not carry the same weight within the International. It followed that the functioning of the International and its ability to organize a reaction to international tensions depended, in moments of crisis, on the degree of involvement of its member countries in the ongoing crises. Despite this limitation, the International learned over the years to react to situations of danger. In 1912, for example, the Basel congress and the various international meetings held almost at the same time in the three countries proved that the International had by now learned to give voice to its opposition to the war. This is important in that the International thus showed the governments that in the event of war they had now to take into consideration the capacity of organized socialism to react. The International thus did not fail in its opposition to the war, on the contrary, it worked very well: its involvement in the protest against the war, born in the 1890s, developed in a linear manner over the years. However, the years 1911–1914 constituted a special moment in this development, an apogee, they were the theater of its acceleration. During these years, the scene of international socialism was constantly interspersed with demonstrations of solidarity between the socialisms of the different countries, which aimed to establish a joint opposition against the danger of war. The crisis of July 1914 abruptly interrupted this path: in the last weeks before the war began, the ISB organized or attempted to organize several initiatives to confront the ongoing crisis. Its reaction was quick, it now knew how to respond to situations of danger. But the crisis of 1914 surpassed it. It was too broad, too rapid and international socialism was unable to oppose it. It should be noted, however, that Italy, even after the fighting began, continued to show some confidence in the international socialist movement. And that it was on the basis of opposition to the war that the latter, a few months later, tried to revive itself with the Kienthal and Zimmerwald conferences. Did the learning curve performed by the Second International in relation to the opposition to the war continue there?

Index

A Abdelaziz (Sultan of Morocco), 120, 121 Adler, Victor, 122, 127, 129, 157, 159, 167, 168, 176, 250–252, 259 Afflerbach, Holger, 7, 8, 268–270 Allemane, Jean, 23, 106 Andler, Charles, 190, 230, 237, 239–244, 263, 267 Arfé, Gaetano, 40, 64

B Balabanoff, Angelica, 291 Barraclough, Geoffrey, 102 Battisti, Cesare, 300, 301 Bebel, August, 27, 33, 34, 37, 63, 72, 74, 89, 110, 116, 118, 122, 123, 125, 127–129, 139–141, 143, 144, 152, 153, 156, 158–160, 175, 176, 182–188, 193, 199, 240, 243, 271, 311, 312 Beccaris, Bava, 46

Becker, Jean-Jacques, 3, 14, 19, 21, 24, 54, 59, 271 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 259 Benedetti, Andrea, 12, 104 Berger, Stefan, 29, 31, 56 Bernstein, Edouard, 33, 35, 36, 63, 98, 99, 109, 127, 138, 152, 153, 158, 172, 195, 196, 304, 305 Bethmann-Hollweg, Theobald von, 291 Bismarck, Otto von, 52, 107, 242 Bissolati, Leonida, 42, 45, 48, 49, 209, 210, 217, 219, 223–225, 291, 294, 302 Blänsdorf, Agnes, 3, 12, 13 Boll, Friedhelm, 57 Bonnafous, Max, 24 Bonomi, Ivanoe, 49, 210, 223, 224, 226 Bouneau, Christine, 19 Brandt, Peter, 140, 141, 145 Braunthal, Julius, 13 Bravo, Gian Mario, 25, 44 Brousse, Paul, 23

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74084-9

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INDEX

Brummert, Ulrike, 25, 122 Büchner, Ludwig, 180 C Cabrini, Angiolo, 49, 123, 127, 223 Cachin, Marcel, 236, 295, 296 Callahan, Kevin J., 6, 7, 13, 14, 18, 58, 69, 70, 73, 74, 81, 82, 86, 89, 104, 140 Canale Cama, Francesca, 42, 60, 149, 169, 211, 215 Candar, Gilles, 14, 19, 20, 25, 54, 103, 129, 130, 150, 239, 254, 255, 295 Ciccotti, Francesco, 217, 309 Ciotti, Pompeo, 194, 204, 205, 227 Cipriani, Amilcare, 150, 152, 154, 308 Ciuffoletti, Zeffiro, 45 Cole, George Douglas Howard, 54 Compère-Morel, Adéodat, 233, 236, 238, 256, 257, 282 Cortesi, Luigi, 42, 209–211, 213, 215, 217 Costa, Andrea, 42, 43, 46, 48, 74 Crispi, Francesco, 46, 198, 199, 211 Croce, Giuseppe, 43 D David, Eduard, 150, 189 De Ambris, Alceste, 290 De Felice, Renzo, 40, 296 Degl’Innocenti, Maurizio, 41, 42, 57, 60, 194, 202, 210, 212, 213, 215, 218, 283, 303 Delalande, Nicolas, 6 Delcassé, Théophile, 92, 120, 123, 130, 132–134, 136, 138, 139 Della Seta, Alceste, 292, 293 Dewinne, Auguste, 303, 304 Dogliani, Patrizia, 54, 56

Donald, Moira, 6, 68, 69 Drachkovitch, Milorad M., 5, 13, 20, 22–24, 59, 84, 93, 94, 142, 191, 273 Dreyfus, Alfred, 29 Droz, Jacques, 3, 20, 54, 84, 142, 191, 273 Dubreuilh, Louis, 96, 97, 119, 151, 179, 181, 182, 188, 189, 232, 238, 253, 255, 284, 287 Ducange, Jean-Numa, 27, 57, 58 Duclert, Vincent, 20, 25, 129, 130, 254, 255 Dülffer, Jost, 53, 91–93, 101, 170, 247, 268

E Ebert, Friedrich, 33, 63, 168, 260 Eisner, Kurt, 123, 140 Engels, Friedrich, 73, 74, 108, 151, 258, 283 Espagne, Michel, 57, 62

F Ferri, Enrico, 45, 48, 149, 152–154 Fischer, Richard, 124, 126–128, 254 Frank, Ludwig, 207

G George, M. Lloyd, 240 Geuna, Andrea, 39, 57–59 Ghisleri, Arcangelo, 45 Giacomini, Ruggero, 42 Giolitti, Giovanni, 40, 41, 47, 50, 198–200, 202, 203, 209, 211, 214, 217, 274, 302, 303, 306 Glökel, Otto, 256 Goergen, Marie-Louise, 5, 6, 19, 20, 57, 241, 243, 244 Graziadei, Antonio, 219

INDEX

Greulich, Hermann, 86, 122, 127, 129, 158, 259 Groh, Dieter, 30, 32, 122, 123, 140, 141, 145 Grumbach, Salomon, 180, 183, 241, 242 Guesde, Jules, 21–24, 26–28, 63, 89, 111, 116, 147, 148, 159, 288–290 H Haase, Hugo, 33, 234, 251, 252, 259, 260, 274, 278, 281, 291 Haupt, Georges, 8–10, 13, 18, 25, 40, 44, 55, 56, 58–60, 62, 63, 93, 108, 130, 134, 135, 137, 140, 141, 155, 163, 175, 194, 202, 204, 208, 250, 261, 277, 278 Herr, Lucien, 240, 241 Hervé, Gustave, 26–28, 49, 151–154, 159, 185, 192, 193, 196, 208, 220, 221, 240, 256, 279, 286, 288, 297, 307 Hildebrand, Gerhard, 239, 242, 243 Huysmans, Camille, 63, 139–141, 143, 175, 182, 183, 187, 204, 205, 207, 208, 227, 274 Hyndman, Henry, 98, 134, 139–141, 145, 158, 311 J Janz, Oliver, 61, 247 Jaurès, Jean, 9, 14, 20, 21, 23–28, 57, 58, 64, 74, 89, 94, 97, 103, 106–108, 111–114, 117, 118, 122–134, 136, 137, 139–146, 150, 157, 159, 166, 178, 179, 191, 193, 195, 196, 206, 232, 234, 237, 238, 240, 241, 251, 252, 254, 255, 259–261, 263,

319

269, 271, 272, 279, 284–287, 293, 297, 299, 311 Joll, James, 3, 13 Jousse, Emmanuel, 18, 57, 58 Jurt, Joseph, 241 K Kant, Immanuel, 244 Katayama, Tetsu, 68, 72, 105, 106, 109, 110, 146 Kautsky, Karl, 2, 3, 33–35, 57, 63, 99, 108, 109, 147, 148, 152, 154, 157, 182, 222, 226, 227, 252, 261, 272, 273, 278, 283 Keller, Katharina, 56, 142, 211 Kitchener, Horatio Herbert, 92 Kriegel, Annie, 3, 4, 20, 21, 25 Krumeich, Gerd, 20, 28 Kruse, Wolfgang, 3, 32, 59 Kuliscioff, Anna, 40, 43, 45, 63, 73, 117, 143, 218, 295, 301, 302 Kunert, Fritz, 36, 274 L Labriola, Antonio, 44 Labriola, Arturo, 48, 49 Lafargue, Paul, 22, 74, 78, 152, 153 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 33, 71 Lazzari, Costantino, 43, 48, 49, 276, 292 Ledebour, Georg, 150, 174, 181, 184, 187, 281 Lensch, Paul, 184 Lerda, Giovanni, 47, 211 Leuthner, Karl, 239, 242, 243, 289 Liebknecht, Karl, 34, 36, 37, 63, 181, 184, 274, 304 Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 33, 63, 74, 78, 83 Longuet, Jean, 76, 176, 190, 191, 239, 283, 287

320

INDEX

Luxemburg, Rosa, 34, 36, 93, 95, 157, 159, 168, 176, 182–184, 186, 187, 189, 190, 251, 272, 281 M MacDonald, James Ramsay, 157, 255 Malgeri, Francesco, 41, 200, 211 Malon, Benoît, 24, 78 Maltese, Paolo, 41, 200 Mammarella, Giuseppe, 40 Marchand, Jean-Baptiste, 92 Martov, Julij, 159 Marx, Karl, 105 Mauerbrecher, Max, 196 Mayer, Martin, 120, 123, 134, 140, 145 Meda, Filippo, 40 Mehring, Franz, 71, 148, 149, 177–179, 281 Mejri, Abdelkrim, 60, 120, 121, 161 Michels, Robert (Roberto), 129, 142 Millerand, Alexandre, 89, 93, 124 Mistral, Paul, 29, 230 Modigliani, Emanuele, 213, 217, 224 Molkenbuhr, Hermann, 174, 175, 182–184, 187 Mommsen, Wolfgang J., 268 Morgari, Oddino, 280 Morizet, André, 147 Müller, Hermann, 150, 273, 274 Mulligan, William, 4, 8, 53, 120, 122, 162, 170, 247, 270 Musatti, Alfredo, 225 Mussolini, Benito, 49, 214, 217, 256, 275, 276, 281, 291, 292, 295–302 N Neff, Bernhard, 32, 37, 59 Nicholas II, 157

Nieuwenhuis, Domela, 83, 84 Noske, Gustav, 264, 304

O Olberg, Oda, 211, 212, 221, 222, 226 Oliva, Gianni, 39, 40, 45, 47, 231

P Pedone, Franco, 60, 63, 117, 302 Pernerstorfer, Engelbert, 255 Podrecca, 49, 223 Poisson, Ernest, 191 Prampolini, Camillo, 217 Pressensé, Francis de, 11, 29, 115, 129, 130, 132, 133, 151, 179, 193, 206, 264, 265 Prezzolini, Giuseppe, 224 Prochasson, Christophe, 14, 20, 22, 39, 54, 69, 239, 295

Q Quessel, Ludwig, 243

R Rappoport, Charles, 65, 116, 136, 137, 139, 150, 232, 236, 243, 272 Rasmussen, Anne, 15, 16 Rava, Daniela, 63, 283, 294 Rebérioux, Madeleine, 6, 14, 20, 29, 40, 55, 277 Renard, Georges, 89 Renaudel, Pierre, 285, 304, 305 Rensi, Giuseppe, 302 Riosa, Alceo, 40 Ritter, Gerhard A., 29, 31, 39

INDEX

S Salandra, Antonio, 302, 306 Salisbury (Lord of), 99 Salvemini, Gaetano, 40 Saviano, Leonardo, 41, 42, 209–211, 215 Scheidemann, Philipp, 255 Schippel, Max, 138, 182, 239, 242, 243 Scirocco, Giovanni, 303 Sembat, Marcel, 28, 132, 206, 281, 287–290 Serwy, Victor, 72, 105 Singer, Paul, 33, 72–75, 89, 157, 182, 272 Sorel, Georges, 49, 50 Spingardi, Paolo, 230 Südekum, Albert, 243, 284, 291–297

T Taillandier, Saint-René de, 120, 121 Thomas, Albert, 105, 106, 109, 110, 173, 205–207, 237 Todeschini, Mario, 127 Treves, Claudio, 45–47, 49, 217, 291 Troelstra, Pieter Jelles, 157, 252 Tucovi´c, Dimitrije, 163, 167 Turati, Filippo, 40, 42, 44–49, 57, 63, 86, 116, 117, 143, 194, 197, 198, 209, 211–213, 217–219, 224, 225, 256, 276, 283, 294, 301, 302, 306, 307

321

V Vaillant, Édouard, 21, 26–29, 72, 75, 78, 79, 83, 84, 108, 111, 116, 117, 132, 134, 139, 140, 145, 146, 148, 149, 152, 157, 159, 168, 176, 204, 251, 263, 271, 284, 287, 288, 309, 311 Valiani, Leo, 40, 42, 59, 292, 294, 300, 302, 303 Vandervelde, Emile, 168, 176, 201, 206, 207, 252, 278 Vella, Arturo, 297 Vigezzi, Brunello, 40, 42, 59, 296 Viviani, René, 288, 289, 305 Volders, Jean, 82, 86, 87 Vollmar, Georg von, 63 Von Bülow, Bernhard, 123, 126–129, 136, 143–145, 149, 286 Von Schiller, Friedrich, 260 W Weinrich, Arndt, 4, 270 Werner, Michael, 61, 62 Wieland, Lothar, 32 Winkler, Heinrich August, 31 Winock, Michel, 16, 55, 80 Z Zanantoni, Maurizio, 50 Zerbini, Adolfo, 292 Zetkin, Clara, 75, 183, 184, 186, 260, 261, 281 Zibordi, Giovanni, 217, 281 Zimmermann, Bénédicte, 61