VI. The Alliance in France

• • Introduction
  • II. The secret Alliance
  • III. The Alliance in Switzerland
  • IV. The Alliance in Spain
  • V. The Alliance in Italy
  • VI. The Alliance in France
  • VII. The Alliance after the Hague Congress
  • VIII. The Alliance in Russia
  • IX. Conclusion
  • X. Appendix
  • XI. Documents

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The French members were not very numerous but they were more keen. At Lyons, the Alliance was led by Albert Richard and Gaspard Blanc, and at Marseilles by Bastelica—all three of whom were active contributors to the newspapers run by Guillaume. It is thanks to them that the Alliance succeeded in disorganising the movement at Lyons in September 1870. This movement, for them,

Here is what Garibaldi himself says about this: “My dear Crescio — hearty thanks for sending to me your Avvenire Sociale which I shall read with interest. You intend, in your paper, to make war upon untruth and slavery. That is a very fine programme, but I believe that the International, in fighting against the principle of authority, makes a mistake and obstructs its own progress. The Paris Commune fell because there was in Paris no authority but only anarchy, Spain and France are suffering from the same evil. I wish success to the Avvenire, and, remain yours, G. Garibaldi.»

was only important in that it allowed Bakunin to launch his unforgettable decree on the abolition of the State.—The activities of the Alliance after the failure of the Lyons insurrection are neatly summed up in the following passage from a letter by Bastelica (Marseilles, December 13, 1870):

“Our real power among the workers is enormous; but our section has not been reorganised since the last persecutions. We dare not do this for fear that in the absence of the leaders, the elements may disintegrate. We are biding our time.”

That Bastelica, then in a foot regiment, could at any moment be sent away from Marseilles, was sufficient reason for him to hinder the reorganisation of the International section, so essential to its autonomy did he consider the presence of Alliance leaders.—The most evident result of the Alliance’s activities was to discredit in the eyes of the workers of Lyons and Marseilles the International, which, as always and everywhere, it claimed to represent.

The end of Richard and Blanc is known. In the autumn of 1871, they turned up in London and attempted to recruit from among the French refugees auxiliaries for a Bonapartist restoration. In January 1872, they published a brochure: L’EMPIRE ET LA FRANCE NOUVELLE. Appel du peuple et de la jeunesse a la conscience française, by Albert Richard and Gaspard Blanc, Brussels, 1872.

With the usual modesty of the Alliance’s quacks, they trotted out their patter as follows:

“We, who have formed the great army of the French proletariat ... we, the most influential leaders of the International in France ... happily, we have not been shot, and we are here to raise before them (ambitious parliamentarians, bloated republicans, self-styled democrats of all kinds) the standard under which we fight, and to fling forth to an astounded Europe—despite the calumnies, despite the threats, despite the attacks of every kind in store for us—this cry which issues from the depths of our conscience and which shall resound ere long in the hearts of all the French: —

LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR!”

We shall refrain from investigating whether these two members of the Alliance who had become imperialists owing to the “normal progression of their ideas”, were mere “riff-raff”, as they were called by their old friend Guillaume at The Hague, or whether the pope of the Alliance had given them the special mission of joining the ranks of the Bonapartist agents. The documents of the Russian Alliance which, according to the secret statutes, will unveil the mystery of mysteries of this mysterious society and from which we shall be citing extracts further on, state expressly that the international brethren must infiltrate everywhere and may even receive orders to enrol in the police force. Incidentally, the veneration of these two brethren for their emperor of the peasants does not exceed that in which Bakunin held his own tsar of the peasants in 1862.

After the fall of the Commune, the International grew rapidly in all the French cities which had not been infiltrated by the Alliance. At the Hague Congress, the Secretary for France was able to announce that the International had its organisations in over thirty departments. The two principal Alliance correspondents for France, Benoît Malon and Jules Guesde (the latter was a signatory of the Sonvillier circular) who knew about this rapid development of our Association, tried to disorganise it in the Alliance’s favour. When their letters failed to have the desired effect, emissaries were sent, including a Russian named Mechnikov; but their efforts came to nothing. These same individuals who impudently accused the General Council of preventing the workers from

“organising themselves in each country freely, spontaneously, and according to their own spirit, and particular customs” (letter from Guesde, September 22, 1872)

told the workers—as soon as they began to organise themselves freely, spontaneously, etc., but in complete harmony with the General Council—that the Germans in the Council were oppressing them and that there was no salvation outside their orthodox anti-authoritarian church. The French workers, who were aware only of the oppression from the Versailles, sent these letters to the General Council and asked them what it all signified.

This move by the Alliance in France is the best proof that, as soon as it began to lose hope of dominating the International, it began to fight it. Every section which was not brought under its domination was regarded as an enemy more hostile even than the bourgeoisie. He who is not for us, is against us is the rule which it openly avowed in its Russian manifestos. For the Alliance, the success of the general movement was a misfortune if that movement did not bow under the yoke of its sectarianism. And at the very time when the French working class needed above all some kind of organisation, the Alliance went to the aid of Thiers and the Rurals by declaring war on the International.

Now let us see who were the Alliance’s agents during its campaign in favour of the Versailles.

At Montpellier, M. Guesde had for confidant a man named Paul Brousse, a medical student, who was attempting to carry out Alliance propaganda through the whole department of Hérault, where Guesde had formerly been editor of the Droits de l’Homme. Shortly before the Hague Congress, when members of the International for the South of France met to subscribe for a common delegate to the Congress, Brousse tried to persuade the Montpellier section not to pay its share and not to say anything until the Congress had settled matters under discussion. The Committee for the South—the Montpellier section, decided to ask the Congress to exclude Brousse from the International for having “acted disloyally in provoking a split in the heart of the section.” His friend Guesde, in a communication sent in October from Rome to the Liberté of Brussels, denounced this authoritarian move against Brousse and cited Calas of Montpellier as the instigator, writing out his name in full, whereas he referred to Brousse by his initials. Alerted by this denunciation, the police kept watch on Calas, and immediately afterwards confiscated a letter in the post from Serraillier to Calas in which much was said about Dentraygues of Toulouse. On December 24, Dentraygues was arrested.

The Alliance’s most active helpers at Narbonne were: Gondres, unmasked as a police informer; Bacave who, at Narbonne and Perpignan, was carrying out the duties of police agent; and de Saint-Martin, a lawyer and a correspondent of Malon’s. In 1866, M. de Saint-Martin had applied for a post in the Ministry of the Imperial Court and the Fine Arts. When he was sentenced in 1869 to pay fine of 800 frs. for a press offence, republicans collected money to pay his fine; but Saint-Martin, instead of using the funds for this purpose, went on a little trip to Paris at the expense of the workers who, to avoid a scandal, had to contribute all over again. Shortly after the May days in 1871, the same SaintMartin applied to the Versailles government for the post of subprefect.

Here is another Alliance agent: in November 1871, Calas wrote to Serraillier:

“You may count on Citizen Abel Bousquet’s absolute devotion to the social cause, he is ... chairman of the Socialist Committee of Béziers.”

Two days later, on November 13, Serraillier received the following statement:

“Convinced that our mutual friend, Citizen Calas, has been badly let down in that this citizen relied on M. Bousquet, Chairman of the Electoral Committee of Béziers, and the latter is most unworthy of this, since he is secretary to the Central Police Commissioner for Béziers ... in agreement with Citizen Calas, who has recognised the mistake of which he was the victim, we shall ask Citizen Serraillier to regard as cancelled the last letter sent to him by Citizen Calas and, moreover, we shall ask him, if it can be done, to have M. Bousquet expelled from the International. By authority of the socialist democracy of Béziers and Pézénas” (here follow the signatures).

Serraillier profited by this statement to denounce, in L’Emancipation of Toulouse (December 19, 1871), this M. Bousquet as a police agent.—A letter dated Narbonne, July 24, 1872, says that M. Bousquet

“is combining the functions of brigadier chief of police with those of travelling agent for the Genevan dissidents”.

It is therefore only natural that the Bulletin jurassien of November 10, 1872 should have come out in his defence.