French Workers' Party (original) (raw)

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French evolutionary Marxist party (1880–1902)

French Workers' Party Parti Ouvrier Français
Founders Jules GuesdePaul Lafargue
Founded 1880; 144 years ago (1880)
Dissolved 1902; 122 years ago (1902)
Split from Federation of the Socialist Workers of France
Merged into Socialist Party of France
Ideology SocialismMarxism
Political position Left-wing
Colours Red
Politics of FrancePolitical partiesElections

The French Workers' Party (French: Parti Ouvrier Français, POF) was the French socialist party created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law (famous for having written The Right to Be Lazy, which criticized work as such, criticizing heavily liberal moral frameworks of "Right to Work"). A revolutionary party, it had as aim to abolish capitalism and replace it with a communist society.

The party originated with a secession from Federation of the Socialist Workers' Party of France, which was founded in 1879, after a split with Paul Brousse's possibilists. The party's programme, written by Guesde with input from Marx, Lafargue and Friedrich Engels, was approved at the opening congress.[1] The party officially became the POF in 1893.

In 1902, the party merged with the Blanquist Central Revolutionary Committee to form the Socialist Party of France and finally merged in 1905 with Jean Jaurès' French Socialist Party to form the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Marcel Cachin, who would lead the split in 1920 which led to the creation of the French Communist Party and edited L'Humanité newspaper, became a member of the POF in 1891.

The Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Loire and Allier were the principal bastions of POF electoral strength.

  1. ^ Moss, Bernard H. (1976). The Origins of the French Labor movement 1830-1914: the socialism of skilled workers. London: University of California press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-520-02982-8.