Home > Georges Sorel

Sorel had been a Marxist in the 1890s. He tried to fill in what he saw as gaps in Marxist theory but ended up doing a thoroughgoing revision (some would say rejection) of the ideology. He rejected Marxist theories of historical materialism and dialectical materialism and also rejected Marxism's internationalism. Sorel came to favour the anarcho-communism of Proudhon and Bakunin. He was heavily influenced by Henri Bergson who developed the importance of myth and demolished scientific materialism.

Sorel rejected those Marxists who believed in inevitable and evolutionary change preferring a more "direct action" approach including general strikes, boycotts, and sabotage and constant disruption of capitalism in order to achieve worker control of the means of production. Sorel's belief in the need for a deliberately-conceived "myth" to sway crowds into concerted action was put into practice by mass fascist movements in the 1920s.

He echoed the Jacobin tradition in French society that held that the only way for change to occur was through the application of force. Sorel praised Charles Maurras, Action Française and Lenin for attacking bourgeois democracyA democracy is a form of government under which the power to alter the laws and structures of government lies with the voting citizenry (referred to as "the people", because in modern times it usually consists of all people over 18 years of age), and all.

Sorel had ties of friendship to Antonio Labriola and wrote a preface to the French translation of Labriola's Essays on the Materialist Conception of History.

Writings of Sorel

• D'Aristotle à Marx (L'Ancienne et la Nouvelle Metaphysique). Paris: Marcel Rivière, l935.
• La Décomposition du marxisme. An anthology edited by Th. Paquot. Paris: PUF, l982.
• La Dècomposition du marxisme. Paris: Marcel Rivière, l908.
• Les illusions du progrès. Paris: Marcel Rivière, l947.
• Insegnamenti sociali dell'economia contemporanea-Degenerazione capitalista e degenerazione socialista. Milan: Sandron, 1907.
• Introduction à l'économie moderne. 2d ed. Paris: Marcel Rivière, l922.
• Lettere a un amico d'Italia. Bologna: Capelli, l963.
• Lettres à Paul Delesalle, 1914-1921. Paris: Grasset, 1947.
• Le Procès de Socrate, Examen critique des thèses socratiques. Paris: Alcan, 1889.
• Réflexions sul la violence. 11th ed. Paris: Marcel Rivière, l950.
• La Révolution dreyfusienne. Paris: Marcel Rivière, l921.
• La Ruine du Monde antique, Conception matérialiste de l'Histoire. 3d ed. Paris, Marcel Rivière, 1933.
• Le Système historique de Renan. Paris: G. Jacques, 1905-1906.
• Syndicalisme et Socialisme: Disours prononcès au Colloque tenu à Paris le 3 avril. Paris, Marcel Rivière, l908.