Edouard Marie Vaillant

Born Jan. 29, 1840, in Vierzon; died Dec. 18, 1915, in Paris. Active in the French socialist movement. Follower of L. A. Blanqui. A doctor and engineer by education.

While a student at the University of Heidelberg (1866-67), Vaillant became a member of the First International and attended the Lausanne Congress in 1867. Vaillant was a member of the Paris Commune of 1871. He was a member of its first and second executive commissions, and head of the Commission on Education. After the suppression of the Commune he emigrated to London, where he was elected a member of the General Council of the First International. He was sentenced to death in absentia. Vaillant played a leading role among the Blanquist émigrés in London.

Having returned to France after an amnesty in 1880, Vaillant became head of the Central Revolutionary Committee of Blanquists in 1881. During the Boulanger and Dreyfus affairs he adopted a sectarian position of noninvolvement. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1893. In the struggle against supporters of Millerand, Vaillant came close to the Guèsdists and was an initiator of their unification with the Blanquists in the Socialist Party of France (1901). From 1905 to 1915 he was a leader of the French Socialist Party (founded in 1905). During World War I Vaillant supported the policy of defending the nation.