The French Anarchist Labor Movement and “La Vie Ouvriere”, 1909–1914

About “The French Anarchist Labor Movement and “La Vie Ouvriere”, 1909–1914”

Pierre Monatte founded the bi-weekly magazine La Vie Ouvrière in 1909 at the age of 29. He gathered a group of French anarchists in a Paris apartment to publish the magazine. At the time, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement was struggling with economic reformism and political opportunism. The group aimed to promote direct action, fight militarism, nationalism, and authoritarianism, and replace capitalism with a socialist economy controlled by workers. They were guided by the slogan of the First International Workingmen's Association, established in 1864: "The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves." La Vie Ouvrière remained the voice of the French Anarchist Labor Movement until the start of the First World War.