Hubert Lagardelle (8 July 1874 – 20 September 1958) was a pioneer of French revolutionary

syndicalism Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of prod ...

. He regularly authored reviews for the Plans magazine, was co-founder of the journal Prélude, and

Minister of Labour Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...

in the

Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

Revolutionary syndicalism

Finishing his studies in

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

with a thesis on trade unions, Hubert Lagardelle began his career in journalism by founding the Toulouse Marxist journal Socialist Youth (1895). In 1896 he became a member of the

French Workers' Party 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 ...

(

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

) of

Jules Guesde Jules Bazile, known as Jules Guesde (; 11 November 1845 – 28 July 1922) was a French socialist journalist and politician. Guesde was the inspiration for a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter ...

. In 1899 he founded the Le Mouvement socialiste, a theoretical journal of

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...

and syndicalism which remains a benchmark in the history of

French socialism The Left in France (french: gauche française) was represented at the beginning of the 20th century by two main political parties, namely the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International ...

. Lagardelle took influence from the theories of

Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Soci ...

Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Georges Sorel Georges Eugène Sorel (; ; 2 November 1847 – 29 August 1922) was a French social thinker, political theorist, historian, and later journalist. He has inspired theories and movements grouped under the name of Sorelianism. His social and ...

. As a socialist activist, he attended meetings of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) and was a contributor to the development of the revolutionary syndicalist movement in the years 1904–1908.

Fascism and national syndicalism

In 1910, disappointed with the evolution of the CGT, Lagardelle retired to

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

where he became responsible for the local chamber of commerce. Like many other contemporary French revolutionary unionists, such as Gustave Hervé and Georges Valois, he left the labour movement and developed a tendency towards

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and t ...

. In 1926, he joined the Toulouse section of the Faisceau, the first French fascist party. Benito Mussolini attributed the genesis of Fascism in part to Lagardelle, writing in his "Doctrine of Fascism" (1932): "In the great river of fascism, you will find that the veins run back to Sorel, Peguy, to the Lagardelle Socialist Movement and the Italian trade unionists, who from 1904 to 1914, carried a new note in socialist circles with Pagine libere Olivetti, La Lupa of Orano He Divenire Social E. Leone."

Vichy government and later life

Fascinated by Italian fascism, Lagardelle assisted the Ambassador of France to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Henry de Jouvenel, from 1932 to 1937 in an attempt to establish a Franco-Italian alliance to prevent further German expansionism. Lagardelle became

for the Vichy government of

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...

(April 1942 – November 1943). In 1943, he was forced to resign from the government and became editor of the Socialist France newspaper. In 1946, he was sentenced to life imprisonment but released because of his age in 1949. He died on 20 September 1958.

Works

* The Agrarian Question and Socialism (1899) * The Evolution of Labour Unions in France (1900) * Intellectuals to Socialism (1901) * The Confederation of Labour and Socialism (1907) * Unionism and Socialism (1908) * The Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour, Paris, River, 1908. * Bakunin and Marx, 1909, published in the International. * Text and Comment letters of Georges Sorel Hubert Lagardelle, 1933, Rome. * The Italian Fascist Regime, 1935 in the French Encyclopedia. * Twenty years of history of Italy, 1937. * The French Socialism. * Rome Mission Mussolini, 1955.

Sources

* Christine Bouneau, Hubert Lagardelle: un bourgeois révolutionnaire et son époque, 1996 * Zeev Sternhell, La droite révolutionnaire, 1885–1914, Seuil, 1978. * Bernard-Henri Lévy, L'Idéologie française, Grasset, 1981. * Simon Epstein, Les Dreyfusards sous l'Occupation, éd. Albin Michel, 2001. * Lettres d'Hubert Lagardelle à Robert Michels (1903-1936), with introduction by Willy Gianinazzi {{DEFAULTSORT:Lagardelle, Hubert 1874 births 1958 deaths People from Haute-Garonne French fascists French collaborators with Nazi Germany French socialists National syndicalists Former Marxists French politicians convicted of crimes