or
socialism. In 1879 the general trade-union congress at Marseilles took
the desired step, but in the congress of the following year at Havre
there arose a schism between the "collectivists" and the
"co-operatives" which in reality has never been healed. During the
eighties and nineties the process of disintegration continued, and
there came to be a half-dozen socialist parties, besides numerous
local groups of independents. During the years 1898-1901 continued
effort was made to bring the various socialist elements into some sort
of union, and in 1900 a national congress of all French socialist
parties and organizations was held at Paris. An incident of the (p. 334)
Dreyfus controversy was the elevation of an independent socialist,
Etienne Millerand, to a portfolio in the ministry of Waldeck-Rousseau,
and this event became the occasion of a new socialist breach. The
Parti Socialiste Francais, led by the eloquent Jaures, approved
Millerand's opportunism; the Parti Socialist de France opposed. In
1905, however, these two bodies were amalgamated in the Parti
Socialist of the present day, with a programme which calls for the
socializing of the means of production and exchange, i.e., the
transforming of the capitalistic organization of society into a
collectivist or communistic organization. The means by which the party
proposes to bring about the transformation is the industrial and
political organization of the working classes. In respect to its aim,
its ideals, and its means, the French Socialist party, while ready to
support the immediate reforms demanded by laboring people, is to a
greater degree than the German Social Democracy a party of class
struggle and revolution. In 1885, when the French socialists waged
their first campaign in a parliamentary election, the aggregate number
of socialist votes was but 30,000. By 1889 the number had been
increased to 120,000; by 1898 to 700,000; and by 1906 to 1,000,000. At
the election of 1910 the popular vote was increased by 200,000, and
the number of socialist deputies was raised to a total of 105. Within
recent years socialism, formerly confined almost wholly to the towns
and cities, has begun to take hold among the wage-earners, and even
the small proprietors, in the rural portions of the country.[496]

[Footnote 496: The best accounts in English of the
French parties and party system are Lowell,
Governments and P