Alphonse Merrheim

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Alphonse Adolphe Merrheim (born May 7, 1871 in La Madeleine , Département Nord , † October 23, 1925 ) was a French coppersmith and functionary in the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) union . He is considered one of the reformers of revolutionary syndicalism .

Revolutionary syndicalist

From 1904 to 1909 Alphonse Merrheim was secretary of the coppersmiths union within the metalworkers union in the CGT. As an opponent of the SFIO , he worked with Victor Griffuelhes on the draft of the Amiens Charter in 1906 .

Together with Pierre Monatte , Alphonse Merrheim further developed revolutionary syndicalism. The mouthpiece in this regard was the newspaper La Nouvelle Vie ouvrière , founded by Monatte in Montreuil in October 1909 .

Radical opponent of war

After the CGT general secretary Léon Jouhaux had approved the Union sacrée on August 4, 1914 , Alphonse Merrheim was one of the first leading syndicalists to criticize this truce policy. In Zimmerwald in the late summer of 1915, together with Albert Bourderon , he appeared internationally against these standstill tactics . Georg Ledebour and Adolph Hoffmann signed the relevant bilateral declaration on the part of the German socialists . With Lenin, however - he was waiting for his big hour in Bern exile at the time - Alphonse Merrheim found no common denominator in Zimmerwald, despite an eight-hour one-to-one conversation.

Pragmatic reformer

Léon Jouhaux, who - also in view of the events in Russia - pleaded against the revolution as a fighting instrument of the French trade union in 1918, got a follower: Alphonse Merrheim accepted the results of the war and considered the revolutionary events in Germany to be a wrong path that could not be transferred to France. What is more, the French who put the word revolution in their mouths is a criminal.

Publications

  • L'affaire de l'Ouenza. A genoux devant le Comité des forges the revision de la loi de 1810 sur les mines . Ed. de la “Vie Ouvrière”, Paris 1910.
  • Conférence socialiste internationale, Zimmerwald (Suisse), September 5-8, 1915 . [L'introduction est signed: A. Bourderon, A. Merrheim.] Fédération des Métaux, Paris 1915.
  • La révolution économique . Paris 1919. Digitized Gallica
    • The economic revolution . Publishing house for society and education. Berlin-Fichtenau 1920.
  • Amsterdam eller Moskva . Övers. av Allan Vougt. Tiden, Stockholm 1921.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Trotsky, who is very present in Zimmerwald, presents himself in his memoirs as a Lenin intimate. He certainly did not like Alphonse Merrheim's open rejection of Lenin's anti-war policy at all. Fifteen years after Zimmerwald he remembers meeting the French in exile in Paris and describes him in Chapter 19 - Paris and Zimmerwald (pp. 229–226) - of his memories as a “cautious, devious, obliging… secretary of the [French] Metalworkers' Association ”.
  2. ↑ for example: On the emergence of reformism in revolutionary syndicalism.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Papayanis, Boston 1985
  2. ^ French La Nouvelle Vie ouvrière
  3. ↑ Degen, Richers
  4. ↑ Wirsching, pp. 58–60
  5. ↑ eng. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
  6. ↑ eng. Papayanis Preview (Free Preview) at springer.com
  7. ↑ French. Édouard DOLLEANS
personal data
SURNAME Merrheim, Alphonse
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Merrheim, Alphonse Adolphe (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French coppersmith and official in the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) trade union
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH La Madeleine , North Department
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1925