Longuet, Charles

Born Feb. 14, 1839, in Caen; died Aug. 5, 1903, in Paris. French socialist.

In the early 1860’s, Longuet began his active participation in the republican and democratic opposition movement against the Second Empire. He was both a journalist and editor of a number of democratic newspapers. In 1865, after the newspaper La Rive gauche, which he edited, was suppressed, Longuet emigrated first to Belgium and then to Great Britain. In 1865 he joined the First International, serving as a member of its General Council (1866-68, 1871-72) and corresponding secretary for Belgium (1866). As a delegate to the Lausanne (1867) and Brussels (1868) congresses, he spoke from the position of Proudhonism on a number of issues. During the days of the siege of Paris by Prussian troops, he commanded a battalion of the National Guard (September-October 1870). He was a member of the Central Committee of the National Guard. In April 1871, Longuet was elected a member of the Paris Commune and joined the Proudhonist minority. He served on the Labor and Exchange Com-mission and was editor in chief of the official organ of the Commune, Journal officiel de la republique française. After the defeat of the Commune he emigrated to Great Britain.

At the London Conference (1871) and the Hague Congress (1872) of the First International, Longuet basically supported the line of K. Marx and F. Engels and opposed the Bakuninists. In 1872 he married Marx’ daughter Jenny. After the amnesty of 1880 he returned to France. There he worked as a journalist for G. Clemenceau’s newspaper, La Justice. In the 1880’s for a period of time he joined the reformist group of Possibilists. Longuet was a delegate to the First (1889) and Fifth (1900) Congresses of the Second International. In 1886, 1887, and 1890 he was elected a municipal councillor of Paris. He translated into French (1901) Marx’ work The Civil War in France.