Jaurès, Jean (zhäN zhōrĕs`), 1859–1914, French Socialist leader and historian. A brilliant student and teacher, he entered the chamber of deputies in 1885 and subsequently became a Socialist. In his Socialist journals, notably Humanité, he denounced nationalism and upheld socialism and world peace. Jaurès saw socialism as the economic equivalent of political democracy; he believed that economic equality would come as the result of peaceful revolution. He sought to reconcile Marxian materialism and his own idealistic beliefs and emphasized the importance of individual rights and initiative. As leader of the Socialists, he opposed Boulanger, defended Dreyfus, and worked for the separation of church and state. He was active in the formation (1905) of the unified French Socialist party, and he attempted to preserve party harmony. In 1914, Jaurès advocated arbitration instead of war and declared that capitalist nations, including France, were responsible for the war crisis. He was assassinated by a fanatical patriot in July, 1914. His Histoire socialiste de la Révolution française (new ed. by Albert Mathiez, 8 vol., 1922–24), an economic interpretation of the French Revolution, strikes a balance between the materialistic approach of Marx and the dramatic history of Michelet.

Bibliography

See biographies by J. H. Jackson (1943) and H. Goldberg (1962).

Jaurès, (Auguste-Marie-Joseph-) Jean

Jean Jaurès.

(credit: H. Roger-Viollet)

(born Sept. 3, 1859, Castres, France—died July 31, 1914, Paris) French socialist leader. He served in the Chamber of Deputies (1885–89, 1893–98, 1902–14) and at first adopted the ideas of Alexandre Millerand. After 1899 the socialists split into two groups, and Jaurès headed the French Socialist Party, advocating reconciliation with the state. In the newspaper L'Humanité, which he cofounded in 1904, he espoused democratic socialism, but when the Second International (1904) rejected his position he acquiesced. In 1905 the two French socialist parties united, and his authority continued to grow. On the eve of World War I, he espoused peace through arbitration and championed Franco-German rapprochement, which earned him the hatred of French nationalists, and he was assassinated in 1914 by a young nationalist fanatic. He wrote several books, including the influential Socialist History of the French Revolution (1901–07).