Preparation for the National Socialist Congress

(Les Cahiers includes several articles by Jaurès, Guesde, Valliant, and Lafargue about the Congress. Here is Péguy's response. The original articles can be found in the archives of Cahiers de la Quinzaine in volume 1.2, pages 13-55 .).

When I had collected all this information on the personal struggle which followed the explosion of the manifesto, I wanted to begin to seek information on the general conversation which soon accompanied this personal struggle, but I realized that I had already almost a full notebook, since I wanted to give space in this letter to the discussion of the law on the work of children, minor girls and women in industrial establishments. So I picked up all my documents, and I went to find the citizen doctor socialist revolutionary moralist internationalist. But I was a little confused about what I brought to him. Because I had in my hands almost an entire notebook full of personalities. Now I have been taught for a long time and very pertinently to neglect personalities; we must, I was told, neglect personalities; we are the soldiers of a universal army; we work and fight for a universal ideal; we are preparing the universal social revolution: we have to consider neither the specialties, nor the particularities, nor the individualities, nor even the personalities, but only the generalities and the universalities: this is how the masters I had previously taught me. . I presented my scruples to the doctor, because being a moralist he is a casuist: by this I mean that he works in cases of conscience; not that he gives orders and commands with authority, but he modestly presents consultations, he proposes solutions for the resolution of these cases which appear to him to be consistent with reason.

— Citizen doctor, I wanted to make a notebook with the documents and information that I would have on the preparation of the National Socialist Congress, very recently held in Paris, in a memorable gymnasium. But we cannot control destiny. I had decided to start by classifying all the documents and all the personal information; I artfully neglected the documents and information coming from groups and organizations: because while the individual citizens engaged in the tumultuous and increasingly general conversation of which you have in hand the first main elements, an immense movement was born in the distant and in the distant ranks of ignored soldiers. While the characters continued to speak subtle or harsh words to each other, suddenly and slowly the chorus became moved. This choir was not composed of old Theban men, but of French citizens, free men friends of righteousness. So the choir did not let out sighs, sobs and words of cowardice, but uttered harsh and free and upright words, daring and itself surprised to introduce the size of its voice into the conversation of the leaders. I therefore thought that in this notebook there would be the growing voice of the crowd and of the anonymous people invading the public audience and for the first time imposing itself on the meetings of the leaders. I would have finally put in this notebook, with the conversation of the leaders and the invasion of the people, all this organic and official work of the organizations, which from Thursday July 20 resulted in this acceptance which allowed the Little Republic to announce in a robust headline the Etats-General of the Socialist Party. These were the three parts that I thought this notebook would consist of. First part: sudden and cautiously violent attack from the main leaders to the main free men; firm response, defense and measured counterattack of free men to demonstrators; general intervention of friends and comrades; general and increasingly confusing conversation. Second part: the long silent and indefinitely patient people of simple soldiers and simple citizens were intimately shaken, stirred to unsuspected depths by the injustice of the manifesto; the people are fearfully moved; the choir is moved and from the depths of the provinces and from the depths of Paris begins to send the voice of its resolutions; gaining little by little, the formidable movement spreads immensely; the leaders and demonstrators begin to become afraid, the free men to soften; the almost entire socialist army imposes silence on the demonstrators, the socialist people imposes silence on the characters. Third part: recording a little crudely, expressing a little heavily the vast and flexible uprising of the deep masses, the nationally constituted organizations, the old organizations themselves enter into conversation, one introducing, the second welcoming, the two and a half following accepting communication proposals. My three parties would have contributed to this announcement from the States-General, where immediate preparation begins. It was well arranged. How unfortunate it is that the personalities of the first part have invaded and overflowed my entire notebook!

— Do not have any extraordinary remorse, citizen, for having allowed an entire notebook to be invaded by these personalities, because they have committed much more pernicious invasions. These notebooks seem important to you because you work on them, but they are of no interest to me unless they present me with a faithful image of reality. Far from being scandalized that these personalities have thus invaded your entire notebook, as you say a little greedily, I am happy for you, because this notebook has thus become the more faithful image of reality. Reality itself, citizen, has been dangerously invaded by these personalities. You presented to me, a little verbosely, like an author who has missed his piece, a notebook plan in three well-arranged and well-composed parts: these personalities have disrupted many action plans better composed than you will ever compose yours. notebooks. You had to postpone the end of the first part, the second and the third until the next notebooks: these personalities have postponed much more important actions than the publication of your notebooks will ever be.

— I did not know, citizen, that my missed notebook was such a faithful image of reality. You believe that by letting myself be invaded by personalities I have, without doing it on purpose, conformed to the only model that I have ever proposed to myself. But the question that I submit to you, because it gave me scruples, is precisely this: Should we always conform to reality? In particular, should we conform to reality when it presents to us the personal action of personalities?

— When the question is thus posed, it seems to me, citizen, that the answer is not in doubt.

— So that's not how the question embarrasses me. A young comrade, a most informed citizen, said one day to me: “We must never create personalities. Even if we are attacked with personalities, we must neglect this means of defense. By fighting ideas and personalities with ideas alone, we give the battle a more noble character, a dignified character: it is better that the social revolution has this character, and while waiting for the social revolution to be perfect it is better that human life has this character.” These were more or less his words. Naturally I am writing them to report them to you, but they had, very roughly, the meaning that I am giving you.

— I hear you. Continue.

— These words were spoken before me in a very lively discussion, precisely at the time of the manifesto. I had intervened in the fight and I had not deprived myself of making personalities. I heard these words as a lesson that I received. I gave them the greatest consideration, a very special, personal, deep consideration. The one who had pronounced them had some authority to pronounce them, because he had an irreproachable personal situation, unapproachable in all respects, and he thus previously defended against himself and his own friends an adversary whose personal situation was perfectly accessible. I admired his moderation, his reserve, his kindness. I seriously wondered if I hadn't been a fool in doing the personalities I had previously done.

— Continue, citizen.

— This hypothesis of remorse and this hesitation of method has followed me relentlessly since then. I tried to find out by looking at the other men: some, vulgar comedians, declared every four mornings that one should not create personalities and spent the rest of their time secretly demolishing the personalities that embarrassed them; the others, inconsistent authoritarians, made the same declarations and openly went into fierce war against anyone who bothered them; the third parties, those who resembled this young comrade, - and among these third parties I put Jaurès in the first place, - declared that one should never make personalities and simply conformed their conduct to their word: it was no use attacking them personally, no doubt they defended themselves personally, but they never counterattacked personally. When I compared myself to the latter, - how can we in fact give ourselves the moral references necessary for conduct if we do not compare ourselves? — it seemed to me that I was ugly in comparison to them; they were obviously, frankly good. But this observation was not enough for me, because I knew through painful experience that it is not enough for an action to have an appearance or even a initially beautiful evidence for it to be moral; often a beautiful action carries with it corollaries or consequences that are unnoticed, but inseparable, and immoral; conversely I had known that there are apparently ugly actions which are not only moral but which are rigorously commanded by the moral law. So I was unhappy that I seemed stupid, or rude, or impolite. But I didn't know for sure if I was wrong. My trouble has not stopped. So I ask you the question. Is it allowed to make personalities? Should we create personalities?

— This expression: making personalities has two somewhat distinct meanings depending on whether we use it in the order of action or in the order of knowledge.

The doctor began like this, without any shame, and above all without false shame; he did not think that he was pedantic or poseur, when we treat a philosophical subject or when we look philosophically at the actions, even the most familiar, of using the language of philosophy; on the contrary, he thought that it was pedantic and pompous to avoid the words of one's profession inappropriately, just as it was pedantic and pompous to use them inappropriately; therefore he thought that we must speak of induction and deduction when necessary, just as the carpenter speaks of tenons and mortises.

In the order of knowledge, continued the doctor, making personalities can only have one meaning: attributing a given action to certain personalities. I suppose that such an event occurs: we will say that we create personalities if we attribute to such a personality such and such a part in these events.

— Would you like, doctor, to choose an example? All these things confuse the field of my reasoning a little.

— You will do well, citizen, to get used to abstract reasoning a little: abstract reasoning is often convenient, provided that it is faithful, and that care is taken to ultimately relate it to concrete reality.

— Let's report, citizen doctor, shall we?

“I prefer not to have these with me,” replied the doctor. But you don't scare me by telling me that we will never have anyone with us. I don't have the pride of the herd either: I resemble the venerated dean here. I am not even frightened at the idea that I could be banned, because I have been a heretic for a long time: I was a high school student, in second grade, when I was a heretic, and still I I don't know if it was my beginning: the wireworms and the pickles, - that's what we called those of our comrades, more glorious and more courageous than us, who prepared for the entrance exams to the École Polytechnique and at the Special Military School of Saint-Cyr, - wanted to quarantine me: I had strongly rebelled against the pretension they had to rule the court of the great, where I had just arrived; I strongly protested against this bullying by which they wanted to demonstrate to us the superiority of the old over the new and of the military over the civilians; these senior students from the ruling classes almost wanted to quarantine me, and that, if I was not afraid of using a bad word, to persecute me: this was how I knew the beginning of anti-Semitism; I was fortunately defended by a good number of civilians with strong fists, who saved in me the president of a school association of physical exercises and outdoor games; the civilians beat the soldiers, as often happens when the soldiers leave their sabers at home; — I regret to admit to you that quite a large number of these good people have also since become anti-Semites; — I don't know if it was the first time that I was interdicted, but certainly it was not the last; and if ever a General Committee bans me because I have made personalities, in the order of knowledge, believe me that this time will not yet be the last; I rebelled against all the bullying and all the hoaxes and all these old institutions by which a certain contingent of authoritarians in collective name impose or want to impose on a few free individuals the mark of common superiority; There is no need to tell me about the usefulness of these institutions in softening characters and softening morals; It was in the regiment that I had to rebel the least against this bullying; I don't know if I had the good fortune to come across a company or a battalion or a better recruited regiment; otherwise I would propose this simple explanation, that the regiments are mainly supplied by the people, that the immense majority of my elders were men of the people, that the true spirit of camaraderie is more flourishing among the people, than the spirit of party and the spirit of authority is less prevalent there than in the bourgeoisie; I am not talking about discipline, most often understood as collective bullying; in my provincial town the conservatives banned me because I became a republican, the Catholics banned me because I became a free thinker, good people banned me because I was involved in politics - that's how they name the action — ; the bourgeois banned me because I was a socialist; later the anti-Semites banned me because I was a Dreyfusard; the Socialist Party may one day ban me because I am an anarchist; and I do not despair that one day later some anarchist will ban me because I am a bourgeois. This is of no consequence.

— Doctor, I beg your pardon, but it seems to me that you no longer speak like a doctor, but with a certain bitterness, a certain harshness, if you like. First of all, you told me your story at some length and with undeniable complacency. Then you have, I fear, used irony, and we must be careful not to use irony. Finally, I am afraid that you have the pride of one who is not of the herd.

—You are almost right, my friend, on the second point. But you are not right about the first and you are not right about the third: I am much too unhappy to have any pride; I am unhappy that the recently established Socialist Party inaugurated its constitution precisely by taking towards free thought, towards justice, towards truth, the old authoritarian attitude of ancient cities, of Churches, modern and bourgeois States; since then I have been deranged; I walk in my clogs, in this bitter cold, in my garden, and I say to myself like an animal: “They have suppressed freedom of the press! They removed the freedom of the platform! » - because the press is the most open platform, the platform of those who are not speakers, of those who are not deputies, of those who are not delegates, the press is the platform of all those who cannot go to the podium. those who cannot take the podium. I can't believe it, I'm heartbroken with disappointment, sick, and that's why I use irony, which is unhealthy. It is painful for me to equate the socialist attitude with previous bourgeois attitudes; I wasn't expecting these new beginnings; I really hoped that we would do something new in world history. I don't want to despair yet; I want to believe that this Congress, suddenly promoted to sovereign of one party, had its reason obscured by its greatness, its imagination disturbed by its power. We must hope that he will hear the counsel of simple wisdom; we will tell him and we will repeat to him that the sovereign people is only sovereign over what is subject to ordinary human sovereignty; we will tell him and we will repeat to him that justice and the truth are inaccessible to sovereign hands; and we will be boring; and we will be bothered, as the ancient philosophers bothered the tyrants of Syracuse; and all the same we will undoubtedly be believed: by this I mean that the people will admit our propositions as being true; because the people are fundamentally just, as long as they do not listen to the speeches of their courtiers, the demagogues. But it is also possible that the demagogues are for a time the strongest, and I am not unaware that by dint of having been banned by everyone we end up finding ourselves all alone, and that friendships are are rare, and that in the face of a party convenient to its supporters the one who is alone and unhappy always ends up being wrong.

The doctor continued slowly and basely; he looked into himself and spoke sadly; I let him continue; he had abandoned the consultation he had started for me; I knew from this that I was no longer dealing with a doctor, but with a man, and that this man was profoundly unhappy; he had left behind this mask of habitual assurance with which he protected himself against the sharp glances of men: I knew from this that I was beginning to enter into his friendship; I did nothing to push myself, because I had resolved to keep my judgment and my feelings in suspense until the end of my investigation; I let him go because his speech gave answers to several questions from my investigation, because I involuntarily sympathized with his sadness, because the revelation of his sadness did him good.

When we preached, the man continued, the necessity, the beauty, the propriety and the goodness of the social revolution, and the bourgeois laughed at us, who would have told us that the official Party of the social revolution would become bourgeois in in this regard as quickly? They suppressed freedom of the press! They suppressed freedom of conscience. When we preached the social revolution, we wanted to universalize individual freedom, all healthy individual freedoms, and in particular individual freedom to think and speak like an honest man: all freshly. We wanted to universalize emancipation, above all to give all men the means to escape bourgeois economic crushing; we did not suppose that to the first lines of the social revolution, we would add the economic crushing of the party to the economic crushing of the party's adversaries. Truly they have suppressed freedom of conscience!

And when we preached the importunate truth, the Dreyfusard truth, and the reactionaries mocked us, who would have told us that the day was so close when the party we love would cut the truth in two, admit for the outside truth unfavorable to the bourgeois, would push back from within the truth unfavorable to certain personalities.

Pronouncing this last word in the voice of his confidence, the doctor suddenly woke up, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and continued:

I beg your pardon, citizen, but I no longer know where I am with the consultation you asked me for. Believe me, I must be very deranged by disappointment to have neglected my profession in this way.

— I asked you if you didn't have the pride of someone who is not part of the herd.

—And I told you that I don't have this pride; I don't believe that the minority is necessarily more right than the majority: it depends on the species; only reason is necessarily right; sometimes it is the majority that is wrong, and sometimes it is the minority, sometimes it is unanimity; the democratic theory of unanimity is no more grounded in reason than the aristocratic theory of the minority, of the elite; but it is no less so: they are by no means both; reason remains in this country where these two theories do not reach: they are only valid, and can only engage in competition, in the region of interests. We will therefore formulate this preliminary proposition:

The number of supporters and adversaries is indifferent for or against any proposition submitted to reason.

— Doctor, it does not seem to me that this proposition is very extraordinary, and we have followed a very long path to arrive at a trivial truth.

— I hope that our proposals will never be extraordinary, because moral truth is commonly simple. However, we will also admit true propositions which would be extraordinary. I agree with you that this proposition is trivial: agree with me that we forget it and that we ignore it in most of our reasoning, so much so that it will really be a great novelty for us to always take this trivial proposition into consideration. . No doubt it is human, if not just strictly, to give audience to the propositions somewhat according to the introducers; but once the audience has been granted, the session has begun, it is appropriate to forget the introducers altogether.

The memory comes back to me, continued the doctor. You reproached me for having obligingly told you my story. I will respond to you soon. — So I return to the question of personalities, in the order of knowledge.

When you opposed universal consent, I believed that we must create personalities in this order. It seemed to me that we must create personalities as we do everything else; it is with personalities as with everything else: when their influence is real, we must note it; when their influence is zero, we must note that it is zero; when it is weak, we must see that it is weak; and when it is strong we must see that it is strong. And when it's always the same thing, we must see that it's always the same thing. We must not create personalities in the sense that we would invent, that we would imagine personalities that would not be real; but we have to make the personalities that there are; we must create, if it is permissible to speak thus, the personalities we must create. Otherwise, how can we fill this vacancy in the full complexity of events?

— That's what worried me. My comrade went so far as to say, carried away by his kindness in the heat of the discussion: “Even if I knew that it was for a personal reason that an adversary attacked me, the historian must explain everything by general considerations. . » I protested within myself against these words.

— You protested rightly. We must explain by general considerations all events and only those events which had general causes and circumstances; we must explain by particular considerations all events and only those events which had particular causes and circumstances; thus we must explain by individual considerations all events, even public or general, which had individual causes and circumstances. We must not attribute to history any new value, any artificial dignity, any foreign nobility. History is the image of events. The history of personalities is personal, as the history of generalities is general, as the history of beauties is beautiful, as the history of ugliness is ugly; the history of indignities is unworthy, the history of infamies is infamous, the history of pettiness is small. Why write fake heels into history? Generalized history, legalized history, ennobled history is all the more distorted. Let's not do universal history, let's not do philosophical history, let's not do moral history, let's not do polite history, let's not do general history, let's not do legal history, let's not do sociological history, let's not do bourgeois or reactionary history, let's not do socialist or revolutionary history; let us be socialists and revolutionaries, and make accurate history, make historical history, make history. Let's not sociologicalize history, let's not generalize it, let's not legalize it. Let's be socialists and tell the truth.

I let the doctor abound in verbose expressions, although at the first word I had grasped his thoughts, which were not new to me, and which, let it be said without offending him, was not new at all. But he obviously took great pleasure in the manifestation of this fairly common thought and I did not have the courage to refuse to give him this consolation.

“My poor friend,” continued the doctor, leading me back, “reality is the great master; and when we do history he is the only master; and when we recount an event, even if it was five minutes recent, we are making history. The truth does not age with passing generations; but neither does it get younger with and for recent minutes; she must not be of any age.

And as I approached the door the doctor finished: And when we fail in truth, my friend, we necessarily fail in justice: with incomplete truth, incomplete justice, that is to say injustice; the part of events, caused by personalities, which we refuse to attribute to these personalities, to spare them, we necessarily attribute it, to mask the vacancy, to someone or something: but someone and something thing generally relates to some personality, no longer considerable and manageable, but humble, and certainly negligible. It is still the old system of replacement: When we refuse to attribute to the notable personalities the part they have in events, we transfer this part to the small personalities of the forgotten soldiers and the miserable crowd.

As I arrived at the stone threshold, the doctor added: Let us not have material to generalize like the bourgeois have cannon fodder. You cannot imagine what injustice, what misfortune this could lead us to.

And giving me the revolutionary handshake, he concludes formulaically:

We can and we must, in the order of knowledge, note all the personalities that reality presents to us.