Georges Sorel

Georges Eugène Sorel (Cherbourg, November 2, 1847-Boulogne-sur-Seine, August 29, 1922) was a French philosopher and theorist of revolutionary syndicalism. He is known for his notion of violence as a determining factor in the historical process and has been considered one of the introducers of Marxism in France.

Biography

Son of a merchant of oils and carbonated waters, whose business declined, and of a very pious mother, cousin of the historian Albert Sorel, Georges Sorel entered the Polytechnic School, graduated in 1865 and in 1869 joined the Corps of Engineers. of bridges and roads. He served in Corsica until June 1871 and then in various places in southern France, Albi, Gap and Draguignan. Between 1876 and 1879 he was in Mostaganem, Algeria, before moving to Perpignan. At the age of 45, in 1892, he resigned from his position as chief engineer and moved to Paris, then to Boulogne-sur-Seine where he lived with Marie David, a former worker, almost illiterate, whom he would never marry due, perhaps, to her mother's opposition. After her death in 1897, Sorel dedicated his Réflexions sur la violence to Marie, published in 1908, “a book entirely inspired by her spirit.”

Starting in the second half of the 1880s, he published studies in different fields (meteorology, hydrology, architecture, physics, political and religious history, philosophy) that reveal the influence of the historical studies of Hippolyte Taine and Ernest Renan. In 1893, he affirmed his socialist and Marxist commitment. His social and philosophical reflection was based on his readings of Proudhon, Karl Marx, Giambattista Vico and Henri Bergson (whose classes he took at the Collège de France); then, later, he took elements of the pragmatism of William James.

His entry into politics was accompanied by a dense correspondence with the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce and the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto. After having collaborated in the first French Marxist magazines, Sorel participated, between the 19th and 20th centuries, in the debate on the crisis of Marxism, taking the side of Eduard Bernstein against Karl Kautsky and Antonio Labriola.

In favor of the revision of the Dreyfus case, Sorel contributed, around 1905, to the theoretical emergence of revolutionary syndicalism.

Disappointed by the CGT, some authors such as Sternhell maintain that he would have affirmed his adherence to integral nationalism; They cite as testimony the publication by Sorel, in 1910, of an article dedicated to the "Mystery of Charity of Joan of Arc" by Charles Péguy that appeared in the Action française newspaper; text with which Péguy himself clearly marked his differences. This is why other authors consider that his approach to the Charles Maurras movement did not imply any sympathy for the nationalist ideologies that Sorel repeatedly denigrated. However, it became an important source of inspiration for the initiators of the «Cercle Proudhon», which brought together revolutionary and nationalist syndicalists, including Sorel's main disciple, Édouard Berth. Historians Georges Navet and Géraud Poumarède have shown that Sorel explicitly disavowed the Cercle.

Fiercely opposed to the Holy Union of 1914, Sorel condemned the Great War and welcomed the advent of the Russian Revolution, judging Lenin to be "the greatest theorist that socialism has had since Marx." In Italian newspapers he wrote numerous articles in defense of the Bolsheviks. Very hostile to Gabriele D'Annunzio, he does not show any sympathy for the rise of fascism. Although, according to Jean Variot, in the Posthumous Observations published thirteen years after his death, and therefore unverifiable, he would have placed some hopes in Mussolini.

Georges Sorel died in Boulogne-sur-Seine in 1922 and is buried in the vault of his adopted son Jean-Baptiste David in Tenay.

Politics

Sorel had been a monarchist and traditionalist before turning to orthodox Marxism in the 1890s; instead he continued to support values commonly associated with conservatism. He tried to fill the gaps he saw in Marxist theory but in the end created an extremely heterodox variant of the ideology. He criticized what he considered to be Marx's rationalism and his utopian tendencies, believing that the center of Marx's thought was closer to early Christianity than to the French Revolution. He rejected the Marxist theories of historical materialism, dialectical materialism and internationalism. He did not see Marxism as 'true' in a scientific sense, as the orthodox Marxists did. Rather, he was 'true' while he promised a redemptive role to the proletariat within a society in decline.

Sorel theoretically founded revolutionary unionism as a union current different from socialism, anarchism and communism. Like Proudhon, he saw socialism as a primarily moral issue. He was also strongly influenced by Henri Bergson, who developed the importance of myth and criticized scientific materialism; by Nietzsche's cult of greatness and hatred of mediocrity, and by the ability to recognize corruption in democracy of liberal conservatives such as Tocqueville, Taine and Renan. For these reasons Sorel is usually associated with both fascism and anarchism. Because of his reflections on violence he is often associated with terrorism. And despite his disdain for social democracy, Sorel also respected Eduard Bernstein and agreed with many of his critiques of orthodox Marxism, so he has been associated with the revisionists and also the New Left.

Philosophy

He believed that power should pass from the decadent middle class to the working class, and that this goal could only be achieved through a general strike which, to be effective, had to be violent. After 1909 he broke with unionism and briefly embraced the proto-fascist monarchism of Action Française (French Action, a group founded by Charles Maurras), later supporting the cause of the Russian Revolution. Sorel's philosophy had a considerable impact on many political theorists, such as Benito Mussolini. Despite what has been stated, its influence on Lenin is unlikely, who only cited it once and in a negative way. His most important work is Reflections on Violence (1908).

Sorel wrote on a wide range of topics, including the Bible, Aristotle, and the decline of Rome, in addition to his writings on socialism. Among his main works are L'Avenir socialiste des syndicats (1898; "The socialist future of the unionists"), Les Illusions du progrès (1908; "The Illusions of Progress") and La Révolution dreyfusienne (1909; "The Revolution of Dreyfusard").