Jean Jaurès: Vocational Politics Confronts Sorelian Mythology
The career of Jean Jaurès, a French politician at the turn of the twentieth century, occurred at a transformative time in the history of socialist politics. His signature style was characterised by pragmatism and non-violent promotion of socialist ideas through parliamentary work and participatory democracy (Harmel). Through persistent and patient efforts, his pacifist approach eventually won over the French Socialist Party despite considerable opposition from leading socialist thinkers and politicians.
One such thinker was Georges Sorel who saw cooperation with bourgeois government as anathema to the socialist cause. To Sorel, Jaurès’s parliamentarianism was undermining the prospects of revolution by forging compromises with capitalism and extracting concessions favoring labour. By so doing, Sorel saw Jaurès as a ‘bourgeois corrupter’ taming the capitalist beast and reigning in its ferocity. If the system was being nudged steadily towards more favorable work conditions and employment terms, then a major source of antagonism for the proletarian working class was being removed. The revolutionary socialist project aiming for the hegemony of labour over other societal classes was thus being derailed and the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ would be unachievable.
On the other hand Max Weber, the German sociologist and political thinker, would look on Jaurès’s example favorably. To Weber, politics is a vocation and the politician is seen as an agent of change who seeks to gently shift society towards his vision of a better future. Patience and prudence are necessary qualities: “Politics means slow, strong drilling through hard boards, with a combination of passion and a sense of judgement (Weber 369).” While Sorel made valid points about the detrimental effects Jaurès’s maneuvering was having on the revolutionary socialist project, Weber would argue that Jaurès’s approach ultimately was more beneficial to the socialist movement and society as a whole.
Two types of politicians exist in Weber’s universe: those who follow an ethic of principled conviction and those who follow an ethic of responsibility. Conviction-based politics is built on strict adherence to methods that are deemed pure in pursuit of a certain goal. ‘Purity of means’ (Koestler 232) is the governing ethos while the ultimate outcome of one’s actions is deemed to be beyond his control. Putting it in religious terms: “the Christian does what is right and leaves the outcome in God’s hands” (Weber 359). This seems like an apt description of Sorel’s ideas. In arguing for syndicalist violence and inflammatory policies designed to provoke capitalists into the most ferocious backlash possible, Sorel completely ignores the inevitable tragic consequences. In fact he willfully calls for a “complete catastrophe”! (Sorel 126). These are the politics of a pure convictionist. While he understands that the proletarian workers he is goading on towards the myth of the general strike are no “canon fodder” (Sorel 161) but real human beings with lives, families, and children; he does not hesitate to put them in harm’s way. He is ready to sacrifice large numbers at the altar of history by following a hardline policy of non-engagement for the sake of of bringing about the general strike.
Responsibility-based politics however is more flexible in its means and less dogmatic in its choices. As the name implies, its practitioners bear responsibility for the ultimate outcome of their actions. Jaurès would be a good model for a politician following the ethic of responsibility. By accepting to participate in parliament and the democratic process, he went against his socialist peers and tried to reform the system from within thus minimizing losses, saving lives, and avoiding societal disruption. The very fact that a genuine parliamentary democratic system that allows for plurality of thought and multiple veins of discussion was available justifies Jaurès’s approach. If a peaceful channel for change is at hand, why advocate for violent confrontation as Sorel did? His seems to be an extremist and untenable position.
Weber is critical of Sorel’s absolutist self-righteous syndicalist ethic in no uncertain terms. The level of nonchalance that syndicalists show astonishes him:
“A syndicalist who is committed to the ethics of conviction might be fully aware that the likely consequences of his actions will be, say, increased chances for the forces of reaction, increased oppression of his own class, a brake on the rise of his class. But none of this will make the slightest impression on him. If evil consequences flow from an action done out of pure conviction, this type of person holds the world, not the doer, responsible, or the stupidity of others, or the will of God who made them thus (Weber 360).”
A further troubling aspect of Sorel’s writings is the lack of detail about what the post apocalyptic world will look like. For Sorel, the myth of the general strike is all. Once achieved, everything else will work itself out of its own accord later. He rejects democracy and all known forms of government:
“It may be said, too, that the greatest danger which threatens syndicalism would be an attempt to imitate democracy; it would be better for it to remain content for a time with weak and chaotic organizations rather than that it should fall beneath the sway of syndicats that would occupy the political forms of the bourgeoisie (Sorel 173).”
This is a very dubious position. An allegory would be to push society off a cliff overhanging a raging sea without making sure that it can swim or arranging for a rescue boat to be on stand by. Weber recognizes this fatal quality in Sorelian thought: “The person who subscribes to the ethic of conviction feels ‘responsible’ only for ensuring that the flame of pure conviction is never extinguished. To kindle that flame again and again is the purpose of his actions, actions which, judged from the point of view of their possible successes, are utterly irrational… (Weber 360).”
Weber however was no naïve idealist. He recognized that violence was a defining feature of politics but urged practitioners to beware: “anyone who makes a pact with the means of violence, for whatever purpose – and every politician does this – is at the mercy of its specific consequences” (Weber 364). Torn between conviction and responsibility, a politician “…has to be conscious of these ethical paradoxes and of his responsibility for what may become of himself under pressure from them. He is becoming involved, I repeat, with the diabolical powers that lurk in all violence” (Weber 365).
Jean Jaurès managed to navigate his way through this foreboding and miserable landscape. He stood firmly against the extremism of the syndicalists keeping the underlying diabolical powers of violence safely pent up and preventing chaos from breaking out. Ironically, it was only when he called for a general strike in France and Germany to check the rising tide of European militarism (in an effort to prevent the outbreak of world war) that he succumbed to the dark forces of politics. On the 31st of July in 1914, He was assassinated with two bullets to the back of the head as he was sitting with friends in a Parisian café (Tharoor).
Works Cited
Harmel, Claude. “Jean Jaurès | French Politician.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Jaures. Accessed 7 Mar. 2020.
Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon. Scribner, 2019.
Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
“Syndicalism | Political Economics.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/syndicalism. Accessed 7 Mar. 2020.
Tharoor, Ishaan. “The Other Assassination That Led up to World War I.” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/31/the-other-assassination-that-led-up-to-world-war-i/. Accessed 7 Mar. 2020.
Weber, Max. Political Writings. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
