Michels and French Socialists and Syndicalists

Abstract Michels’ contacts with socialist and syndicalist currents in France are less well-known than his involvement with the German Social Democrat Party, but they have received some attention in Zeev Sternhell’s work on the supposed left-wing origins of fascist ideology in France and Italy. From 1904 to 1908, Michels was associated with the journal Le Mouvement Socialiste, and corresponded with the radical syndicalists Hubert Lagardelle and Victor Griffuelhes, as well as Georges Sorel. Michels also had contacts with Gustave Hervé, and sympathized with Hervé’s radical anti-militarism in this period. An examination of Michels’ contacts reveals his sympathy for the revolutionary spirit of the French revolutionary syndicalists, but it also shows that he did not fully identify with syndicalist theory. The examination of the group around Le Mouvement Socialiste also shows that it occupied an increasingly marginal position in the French labour history, lacking a mass working-class base.