Jean Jaures
2014 2014-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 2014 5 UN occupation force known as MINUSTAH.
terms.
for pursuing the same policy. continues to this day, with Brazil now the largest force.
among NGOs to obtain funds from well-heeled donors. (continued from page 4: “Dominican discrimination against Haitians protested”)
Assassinated July 31, 1914 Jean Jaures, a popular and charismatic leader of the French Socialist Party, was a fervent be liever in the working class and its ability to change history. He was a radical reformer and an active champion of the labor movement al though he never fully accepted Marxist perspec tives.
Above all, Jaures was a strong anti-imperialist and was killed for his beliefs. He tried to stop the First World War.
The Socialist Party grew under his leadership but eventually split on the issue of the war. He struggled within the Second International (an association of Socialist and Labor Parties), be lieving that the working class of France and the working class of Germany had no reason to kill each other for the benefit of the imperialist powers.
A supporter of international working-class solidarity, he advocated that French and Ger man workers both engage in general strikes to oppose a war in which they would be forced to shoot at each other. However, especially because of conservatism and “social-patriotism” among union and Second International leaders in both countries, no practical moves were taken to ward such antiwar action.
On July 31, 1914, Jaures was assassinated in a Parisian cafe, Le Croissant, 146 rue Montmartre, who wanted France to go to war with Germany. After the war, Villain was tried and acquitted; he was killed in 1936 by Spanish Republicans.
Many people have conjectured about how different history might have been if Jaures’ vi sion of international working-class solidarity had come to fruition. But none have expressed it as poignantly as Belgian Jacques Brel in his most popular song, “Jaures.” The song contains the plaintive cry, “Pourquoi ont-ils tué Jaures? Pourquoi ont-ils tué Jaures?” “Why did they kill Jaures? Why did they kill Jaures?”
— ANN MONTAGUE
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July 1934 Photos from Minnesota Historical Society