THE ANARCHISM OF JEAN GRAVE: EARLY LIFE, 1854-69
Jean Grave was born on October 16, 1854, in the village of Breuil-sur-Couze in the arrondissement of Issoire in the Puy-de-Dôme Department, which, with that of Cantal, comprises most of the old province of Auvergne, named after the Arvennis, an old Gallic with a flourishing civilisation before being subdued by Julius Caesar. Very hilly, straddled by the Auvergne Mountains, a series of extinct volcanoes that runs from north to south, Auvergne is largely agricultural: Wheat and cattle are in abundance, good wine is made from its grapes, and, of course, it is justly renowned for its cheese. There is some industry, especially in Clermont-Ferrand.
Grave was born two generations after the French Revolution of 1789, a scant six years after the 1848 Revolution, and on the eve of accelerating industrialisation under Napoleon III. As this historical progression unfolded, the socialist tradition was in the process of leaving its utopian phase for its two main currents of anarchism and Marxism: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, one of the founders of modern anarchism, had already written What is Property? (1840) with its answer of "theft," while the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, soon followed with The Communist Manifesto (1848).
Grave's ancestors were from the peasantry. His father, also named Jean (1822-1875), was a miller when his son was born, but soon afterward moved to the nearby town of Saint-Germain-Lembron to farm near his parents' village after his business failed. Grave's paternal grandparents were small independent farmers who supplemented their income as part-time self-employed workers making such things as wooden shoes. His mother Elizabeth, née Crégut (1831-1874), came from the nearby town of Ardres-sur-Couze; both of her parents died from tuberculosis when she was young according to Grave. Apparently her family was one of some means since her father was a court process-server.
As for the literacy of Grave's parents and grandparents (literacy became more prevalent in later generations of the nineteenth century), both his parents had a primary-school education, while his paternal grandparents were illiterate and, although there is no information on his maternal grandparents in this respect, his maternal grandfather may have been literate because of his occupation.
When Grave vividly recounted in his memoirs, Quarante ans de propagande anarchiste, the precious memories of early childhood, an especially touching one revealed Grave's love of nature, described the beauty of fields full of yellow flowers. Years later, when Grave was enclosed in a Paris attic as a newspaper editor, he always had a vase of fresh flowers near him.1
With the acceleration of the industrial revolution in France during the 1850s, the exodus of the peasantry to the cities also increased. Obviously those involved in this, like Grave's parents, were anxious to escape an endemic rural poverty. Grave's family, as many others before and after, migrated to the urban areas in stages: In 1857 his father arrived in Paris as an unskilled worker; then his mother in 1858, after giving birth to a daughter, Anne, in March of that year; and the children, who had been entrusted to the paternal grandparents and an aunt, last, in 1860.
It is an historical truism that Napoleon III's Second Empire (1852-70) is Saint-Simonian: industrial expansion and the rebuilding of Paris were expressions of economic dynamism and Napoleon had genuine interest in the social problem. In this vein, Napoleon III wrote L'extinction du paupérisme, which advocated that the unemployed work in agricultural colonies in a democratic setting electing their junior officers. The plan itself never materialised, but he introduced such reforms as universal primary education to age twelve, credit unions for workers, the subsidisation of workers' co-operatives, the establishment of honest government pawnshops, and, ultimately, the toleration of labour unions (article 1781 of the Civil Code allowed only employers to fix wages until 1868). If Saint-Simonianism, however, were equated with a higher standard of life for the proletariat, he could not qualify as its disciple.2
What kind of Paris greeted the young Grave and his family? To begin with, it was the revolutionary capital of the world (the centre of the 1789-94 French Revolution, the revolutions of 1830 and 1848) and was soon to be the scene of the greatest proletarian revolution of the nineteenth century<197>the Paris Commune of 1871.3
Economically, it was a Paris of small industry: approximately 31,500 manufacturing enterprises employed from two to nine workers, while only 7,500 employed ten or more. Of about 100,000 employers and 400,000 employees, two-thirds were in industry. (Inexorably, however, competition reduced the number of industrial enterprises from about 65,000 in 1847 to 39,000 in 1872.)4 Small-industry was characteristic of France in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; for instance, toward the end of the nineteenth century, out of 575,000 industrial enterprises, 534,000 employed less than ten workers, while only 151 employed more than a thousand.5 This pattern, reflecting the importance of small entrepreneurship, allowed workers a degree of social mobility in Paris, which coupled to an old revolutionary tradition, strengthened the bonds between the proletariat and the lower-middle class. There were certain tendencies, of course, that divided the working class, mainly provincialism and self-interest, but were largely counterbalanced by much mutual aid and a revolutionary spirit.6
When Grave arrived in Paris in 1860, its population of more than one million had more than doubled since 1800. Of its 400,000 workers, 350,000 lived on the right bank, between Père Lachaise Cemetery and the rue de la Paix. Grave's family at first lived on the left bank (not far, however, from the main concentration) on rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, now rue Tournefort in the fifth ward.7 This section, dominated by the University of Paris, housed many students and workers. After a stay of about two-and-a-half years, Grave recalled that his family moved to an apartment at 140 rue Mouffetard (still in the fifth ward); later the building's attic served as his newspaper office. This was near the Jardin des Plantes and not far from the bustling Place d'Italie. Then, for a brief period of time, his family lived at the rue de l'Ecole Polytechnique and at the suburbs of Choisy-le-Roi and Vaugirard (the latter two locations were related to his father's unsuccessful attempts to become a small businessman) before returning to 138 rue Mouffetard, next door to his former address.8
The Paris of Grave's early life was pervaded by a strong sense of la misère, which was even much worse in the first half of the nineteenth century. For instance, from 1840 to 1851, indigence plagued between a fourth and a third of the population. Conditions undoubtedly improved during the Second Empire, but not significantly. Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series accurately depicted the horror and misery of proletarian life during this period; L'Assommoir is the best example.
Grave's memoirs vividly recounted the normal difficulties of a working-class life in the second half of the century: that his family lived in a one-room apartment, which was common for workers in this period, that such a basic amenity as running water was scarcely available on rue Mouffetard, which had only a few water fountains.9 and that crime, alcoholism, suicide, and violence were rife. Many anarchists whom he knew were criminals; Thirion, whom he was apprenticed to committed suicide;10 a neighbour, invariably drunk would indiscriminately strike family members; and Grave himself was constantly abused by a brutal father.11
That the French proletariat had scant political influence in the councils of government during Grave's youth may readily be seen by the fact that there were only two laws concerning its protection: The first, of March 22, 1841, was on child labour in manufacturing establishments of more than twenty workers. To work, a child had to be eight years old, and to age twelve could toil no more than eight hours a day, while from age twelve to sixteen the limit was twelve hours. For night work (two hours equivalent to three in the day), one had to be thirteen years old. The second, of February 22, 1851, on apprentices. It stipulated a few hours of release time to attend school and no more than a ten-hour day to age fourteen. Yet, even these laws were scarcely observed.
A look at wages and prices during the Second Empire to ascertain whether the proletariat's living standards rose. Wages increased between a sixth and three-tenths, but the cost of living rose by half, food alone more than half and rents doubled. The steep increase in rents was linked to the rebuilding of Paris, which demolished much of the old housing; this began the exodus of workers to the suburbs that later formed the Red or Communist Belt around Paris in the twentieth century. Prior to this, workers and bourgeoisie often lived in the same buildings, the former occupying the higher floors, the latter the lower; this before the introduction of elevators.
What was the family income of the Graves? Grave himself did not present any information on this. With the birth of Jeanne in 1869, the younger of the two daughters, there were five family members. Grave's father, a shoemaker from the late 1860s to his death, was obviously the main breadwinner. Weill in Histoire du mouvement social presented a typical yearly budget of 1875 francs for a proletarian family of four in the 1860s: 1100 francs for food, 300 for rent, 100 for laundry, 75 for heat and light, and 300 for miscellaneous expenses. As for wages, he stated that an average shoemaker during this period earned about a thousand francs a year. Thus, in order to supplement the family's income, the young Grave had to work at various jobs, while his mother and older sister toiled in the garment trades.12 Indeed, not only were wages inadequate, but the hours of work were many: a twelve-hour day, six-day week the norm.13 Not surprisingly, an important battle cry of labour in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was for an eight-hour day.
Although from a traditional Catholic peasant background, Grave's parents were not religious in the accepted sense of the term. His father was a free thinker, while his mother believed that undoubtedly there was "something out there above us." Despite doubts, Grave's parents baptised their children, had them attend religious classes to receive confirmation, and sent the young Grave to Catholic school. The sceptical religious views of his parents prevailed, however, over the traditional practices. Even as a youngster, Grave was a rabid anticlerical and a convinced atheist. His religious views were tested just before the death of his sister Anne in early November 1874 when a nun from the Saint-Vincent de Paul Order wished to see her. When Grave engaged the nun in a philosophical debate, he shocked her by stating that he did not believe in God who, if He existed, was responsible for the evil in the world, something that He could prevent. Because Grave's sister evidently shared his views, having no wish for the church's consolations, the nun seldom returned.14
Although Grave's formal education was unquestionably scanty by twentieth-century French standards, it was above average by those of the Second Empire. Of 2.5 million male children in primary schools, most were enrolled in public schools. About twenty percent, however, attended schools run by two Catholic Orders (the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine that played a major role in the industrial areas, and the Brothers of Mary). Although children of poorer workers did not receive much education, if any, by now two-thirds of the workers were literate, most semi-literate.
Despite the fact that most children in Paris attended public school, Grave received his education from 1860-65 at the religious school run by the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine in the rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, as his parents believed that a Catholic school would better aid him to procure work. Grave endured a narrow and restrictive working-class education, featuring the lives of saints and the Catechism to make him a good Catholic and, at the same time, allow for the difficulties and sorrows of a proletarian existence to be stoically borne for the promise of heavenly bliss. To confirm the hardships of this world, Grave's school days were characterised by a strong sense of discipline, obedience, and punishment; recalcitrant students were punished by having their outstretched hands struck with leather thongs. In this harsh milieu, he enjoyed one activity, singing. In 1865, he graduated with a certificat d'études, thus completing his primary schooling.15
Reading and other recreation relieved the dreary round of proletarian life. After the age of ten, Grave became an omnivorous reader of fiction, history, and science; he particularly first as his family had quite a few books, including the novels of Alexandre Dumas (the elder), the Comtesse Dash, James Fenimore Cooper, and Mayne Reid (an English author). In addition, the family possessed Augustin Thierry's Histoire de France and the Dictionnaire of Décembre and Allonier, an illustrated encyclopaedia.16 Family activities consisted of walks in the nearby Jardin des Plantes, eating at the well-liked Richefeu restaurant while being entertained by magicians, and in attending popular plays.17 The reading undoubtedly aided Grave's becoming an outstanding intellectual.18
Grave's memoirs are a rich source for understanding the various forces which molded him; his relations with his parents are fundamental in this respect. To be sure, Grave's family was patriarchal, but his mother enjoyed considerable authority for she shared in making decisions (her earning to supplement the family's income played a role in this) over the children who were expected to obey their parents promptly. Parental control was often enforced by corporal punishment, Grave beaten by both parents, often and severely by his father, seldom and lightly by his mother.
In the interplay between Grave and his parents, his mother, whom he dearly loved, was pictured as tender-hearted and understanding, often intervening to protect him from an authoritarian and abusive father who, for no apparent reason, would beat him, even as a teenager. This harsh treatment led to Grave's severe stuttering in public which further humiliated him and eroded his self-confidence. Grave's intense hatred and guilt toward his father led to his contemplating suicide when his father died. This emotional instability continued in his later life in the form of a quarrelsome nature and certainty of always being right, justly called the "Pope of Mouffetard Street." Grave's stuttering forced him to conduct his revolutionary activity exclusively through writing work alone or with comrades in informal egalitarian settings, formally organised groups being too stressful and painful.
As an adult, Grave recalled that he fought against the authoritarian environment of his childhood. What he recounted may not be exactly true since adults often have a distorted picture of their early years. He saw himself as quiet and reasonable, only complying to rational demands of parents and adults, an opponent of authority and injustice: "All injustice, even if it did not personally affect me, irked me. I could not suffer authority." At bottom, Grave had an ambivalent attitude toward his father: On the one hand, he feared and hated him; on the other, he sympathised with his difficult lot in life and even admired his advanced socialist views.
A brief commentary is needed on Grave's psychological state and its bearing on class and class struggle. That Grave was quite severely marked psychologically, and had authoritarian features of a social-psychological nature as enunciated by T. W. Adorno et al. in The Authoritarian Personality, is obvious. Of interest is that in making a comparison between the revolutionary Grave and revolutionary Luther of Erik Erikson's Young Man Luther, which amply reveals Luther's psychological disturbances, one is left with the distinct impression that both largely fulfilled their fathers' ambitions. Luther's successful entrepreneur father desired that his son become a prosperous lawyer and was angered when he became a Catholic monk from fear. At the end, however, Luther's religious revolution transformed him into a successful bourgeois in every sense of the term. Grave's father, a politicised worker who failed in business, was a bona fide revolutionary socialist. Grave's rebellion against him led him to extend his father's socialism to anarcho-communism. Certainly, Grave is the antithesis of Erich Fromm's lower-middle class authoritarian in Escape from Freedom, who embraced Nazism<197>who admired the superior bourgeoisie and nobility, but despised the inferior workers.19
The economic environment of small business in Paris with its corollary qualities of "initiative" and "enterprise" clearly influenced Grave's father. When he first came to Paris, he was an unskilled worker in a company of used rags, packing rags into balls for transport. But he became self-employed in this business, for he borrowed money from a friend to establish himself at Choisy-le-Roi. The venture failed. Undaunted, he opened a second-hand store at Vaugirard, but it also foundered. Apparently, sometime near 1866, when the family lived at 138 rue Mouffetard, his father turned to shoemaking with a neighbour whose shop was nearby.
Soon after graduating from primary school, Grave began a series of apprenticeships with master workmen in their home workshops who were often subcontractors of more successful entrepreneurs. Thus, exploited artisans would in turn use apprentices. Despite this harsh condition, which could not but exacerbate social relations between masters and apprentices, Grave had generally good relations with them. His first apprenticeship, however, to a mechanic, Delompré, was the exception as it was characterised by acrimonious arguments. Indeed, one became so heated that Grave attempted to strike Delompré with a hammer, who deflected the blow. Grave understood his violent temper, stating that he was as "timid as a young bird, but when necessary, I know how to overcome my diffidence, and like all shy people I easily resort to extremes."20 Grave's parents soon removed him from this unpleasant tutelage. The next apprenticeship to Thirion, a shoemaker from Lorraine, proved to be pleasant as he would entertain Grave while working with stories and songs. Grave described him as an exceedingly gentle and charming individual "who would not even hurt a fly." At times, ever generous, Thirion would take him to see popular plays. There was, however, a tragic side to Thirion's life because he was alcoholic and suicide-prone; he would disappear for days at a time while drunk and attempt suicide. Finally, Grave's parents had him leave this gentle but troubled man because of his long drinking bouts<197>he committed suicide.
Grave continued his shoemaker's apprenticeship, principally with Vergnolles, a competent teacher whom he respected. Grave's father, however forced Grave to leave Vergnolles in order to work with him. The two worked "independently" for other shoemaker-entrepreneurs who contracted work with them. Not unexpectedly, relations between Grave and his father were in a constant state of turmoil because his father blamed him for all faulty workmanship. Grave did remember, however, one redeeming paternal quality, singing in the native patois of Auvergne. (Grave, incidentally, was well aware of the regional differences among workers; he invariably mentioned, in describing his employers, their native provinces<197>a large part of the Parisian proletariat was from the provinces.) The "partnership" of father and son soon foundered economically. His father briefly became a railroad worker, while Grave returned to Vergnolles. Soon, however, father and son were again working together as shoemakers.21
Sometime before 1868, Grave recalled going with Vergnolles to the Préfecture de Police to procure his livret, a "notebook" that workers were forced to carry, which indicated their work record, including remarks by employers concerning behaviour and performance --an unsatisfactory livret would invariably lead to unemployment. The livret was introduced in the middle of the eighteenth century, abolished in 1792, reintroduced by Napoleon in 1803, abrogated by Louis Napoleon in 1868, reinstated after the Paris Commune of 1871, and, finally, terminated by the Third Republic in 1890. For Grave, the livret, which he compared to the official card carried by prostitutes, clearly indicated the lowly position of the proletariat. He was, thus, well aware of what R.H. Tawney, the well-known British historian and socialist, called the "moral humiliation" experienced by workers in their dealings with the bourgeoisie.22
In delving into Grave's background, mention has been made of his father's socialism. Although Grave's paternal grandfather supported Louis Napoleon, as did most of the peasantry, his father, even at Breuil-sur-Couze, was a republican and an anticlerical, and once in Paris became associated with the left current of French socialism as a member of a Blanquist group.23
The Blanquists were led by Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), the foremost French revolutionary of the nineteenth century. Born into an upper-middle-class family (his father was a high government official under Napoleon I), he not only received an excellent lycée education, but university training in law and medicine. As a teenager he joined the Charbonnerie (a secret revolutionary society whose aim was to destroy the monarchy), and then participated in the July 1830 Revolution in Paris. Later, he was one of the principal founders of The Society of the Seasons formed in Paris in 1837, that tried an unsuccessful uprising there in 1839. He then took part in the 1848 Revolution in Paris, and in the 1870-71 events by leading an unsuccessful revolt in Paris on October 31, 1870. He paid a steep price for his activities since more than half of his adult life was spent in prison. His grand design envisaged a small and tightly knit revolutionary socialist group overthrowing the bourgeoisie in order to install a proletarian dictatorship organizing work along co-operative lines.24
That Grave's highly politicised family was cognisant of international developments was indicated by the young Grave's daydreams to liberate oppressed people at the head of an army. Indeed, while still a youngster, Grave wrote a play, never finished, of a Polish hero fighting to overthrow the Russian yoke. Polish uprisings against the Russians, as is well known, were sympathetically greeted in France.
Notes
1. Jean Grave's birth certificate is deposited at Breuil-sur-Couze in the Puy-de-Dôme Department. On Grave's family and early life, see Jean Grave, Quarante ans de propagande anarchiste, préface de Jean Maitron, présenté et annoté par Mireille Delfau (Paris: Flammarion, 1973), pp 36ff. To be cited as Quarante ans. This work represents Grave's unabridged memoirs. The preface by Dr. Maitron is excellent. The abridged version of the preceding work is Le Mouvement libertaire sous le 3e République (Paris: Les Oeuvres Répresentatives, 1930). To be cited as Mouvement libertaire.
2. On Saint-Simon, see Frank E. Manuel, The New World of Henri Saint-Simon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956). See, for example, Alfred Cobban, A History of Modern France, Vol. II: From First Empire to the Fourth Republic (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961), pp 152-63. Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times; 1760 to the Present, (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1960), pp 219-21, saw Napoleon III as Saint-Simonian but acknowledged that it was moot whether the proletariat received higher living standards during his reign. Favorable to Napoleon III: Albert Guérard, Napoleon III (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943). Critical toward Napoleon III: J. M. Thompson, Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 1954). Also see Marcel Blanchard, Le Second Empire (Paris: Collin, 1950), which is an excellent synthesis.
3. For an excellent account of the early French revolutionary movement, see C. E. Labrousse, Le mouvement ouvrier et les théories sociales en France de 1815 à 1848 (Paris: C.D.U., 1954).
4. Georges Weill, Histoire du mouvement social en France, 1852-1902 (Paris: Félix Arcan, 1904), p 15. Georges Duveau, La Vie ouvrière en France sous le Second Empire (Paris: Gallimard, 1946), pp 321-27. Of the 400,000 workers, 300,000 were men, and 100,000 were women. A. Audiganne, Mémoires d'un ouvrier de Paris, 1871-72 (Paris: Charpentier, 1873), p 109, stated that by 1870, there were about 600,000 workers in the Paris area. On the fact of less employers in Paris between 1847 and 1862, see Jean Bruhat, Jean Dautry, Emile Tersen, et al, La Commune de 1871 (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1970), p 26.
5. John H. Clapham, The Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815-1914, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), p 258.
6. A. Audiganne, Les populations ouvriers et les industries de la France (Paris: Capelle, 1860), I, 283.
7. Duveau, La vie ouvrière, pp 321ff and pp 345-47. Quarante ans, p 49.
8. Ibid., pp 49ff.
9. Ibid., p 85 on housing; p 84 on running water.
10. Ibid., p 72.
11. On Parisian working-class life in the first half of the nineteenth century, see Louis Chevalier, Laboring Classes and Dangerous Classes; In Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Howard Fertig, 1973).
12. In Grave's largely autobiographical novel -- he is Caragut -- La Grande famille roman militaire (Paris: P. V. Stock, 1907), p 103.
13. On socioeconomic conditions in the Second Empire, see Bruhaut, La Commune de 1871, pp 27-37; and Duveau, La Vie ouvrière, pp 233-35, who saw the average working day of the period at almost twelve hours; in pp 321-22, he stated that the higher-paid workers in the eighteen-sixties earned between 1,100 to 1,500 francs per year (women's wages were about one-half those of the men). Weill, Histoire du mouvement social, pp 116-7.
14. On Grave, his Family and religion, see Quarante ans, pp 46ff and 127-8.
15. On Grave and education, see some statistics in Duveau, La vie ouvrière, pp 449-50. Quarante ans, p 45, p55.
16. Quarante ans, pp 65-6, and p 126.
17. Ibid., pp 47-9, 70. Grave writes much about the plays that he saw as a teenager; they include Eugene Sue's Le Juif Errant (the play was adapted from the book) and Dumanoir's and Dennery's Don César de Bazan.
18. Most of the socialist leaders came from bourgeois backgrounds: Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchian Tendencies of Modern Democracy (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp 107ff. This work was first published in 1911.
19. On Grave's relations with his parents see his La Grande famille, pp 84-5; the quote is from p 84; also, see Quarante ans, pp 55-8, p 74; and p 241 on his not being able to talk in public due to a severe stutter. The psychological appraisal of Grave has been influenced by these works: Erik. H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), pp48-108, for example. Erik H. Erikson, Youth and Crisis (New York, W. W. Norton, 1968), pp 91ff. Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther: A Study of Psychoanalysis and History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962), pp13-97. E. Victor Wolfenstein, The Revolutionary Personality: Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1971), pp 3-32 and pp 292ff. Barrington Moore Jr., Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (White Plains, N. Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1978), pp 89-109. Also see T. W. Adorno, Else Frankel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Brothers, and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), p228 on the nine criteria and pp 759ff on "The Authoritarian Personality." Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Rinehart, 1941), pp 141-206.
20. Quarante ans, p 63.
21. Ibid., pp 62-8.
22. On the livret and other social matters, see Duveau, La Vie ouvrière, pp 233-5; and Weill, Histoire du mouvement sociale, pp 5ff. Quarante ans, p 81. R. H. Tawney, Equality (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1931), p 37.
23. Quarante ans, p 87.
24. On Blanqui, see Alan B. Spitzer, The Revolutionary Theories of Louis-Auguste Blanqui (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957).
25. Quarante ans, p 56.