Jean Jaurès

“ Thus, a little bit of the communist soul penetrates into the peasant labour and into the peasant conscience, and this lasts until the threshing-machine has done away with the last stack of the row into which the groups have spontaneously formed themselves.
The Socialists indeed have never expected to force peasant property into communistic form. Our predecessors and our leaders have always said that the example of agricultural production on a great scale would suffice to make the peasant proprietors abandon small field cultivation and divided properties. ”

“ They will choose their employers; they will take part in the management of undertakings; they will have a definite right by reason of the contracts; they will be protected by the higher forms of the contracts which in the Communist society will guarantee all individual rights, even against arbitrary action of the association of which they will form a part. They will then be attached to the great vineyards cultivated by their hands, by a bond more living and strong, by a sensation more joyous and more full than the wage earner of to-day enjoys. ”

“ Let our conscious effort direct more and more the vast social movement towards the Communism to which it already so strongly inclines, but once started in this direction the varied forces of life will themselves freely and finally determine their own advance and equilibrium. ”

“ It will be necessary to observe constantly the trend of affairs, to grasp the points at which the society of to-day touches the new idea. Our effort would be sterile and our action would hinder the march of events instead of aiding it, if we did not determine the direction which facts, minds, inclinations, and customs are taking. ”

“ Between the métayers and the small peasant proprietors, the same exchange of service takes place, and there is not merely a mutual lending of manual labour but of work animals also.
When the harvesting machine has cut down the grain, it is necessary, for fear of storms, to tie it up quickly and to heap it in stacks. In order to hasten this urgent work the peasants lend each other carts and oxen, and, I repeat it, there is no account kept. It would be impossible to value the services of one as against those of another. ”

“ It is not merely that, by no stroke of authority, nor even by attraction, the peasant property will enter into the communistic movement. It will do this, in part at least, by its own internal evolution. *⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠* One of the essential tasks of Socialism will be to give to the peasant proprietors a lively sense and a true understanding of the change that is obscurely taking place among them. When one makes them notice it they are astonished for a moment, then they recognise the extent of the change that is coming about little by little in their habits and thoughts. ”

“ The proletariat has reached the point where it knows exactly what road it should follow in the immense social transformation that is coming. It recognises now distinctly enough the chief aspects of the new régime that it wishes and ought to institute. ”

“ It is evident that they will be in a much happier situation than that in which they find themselves to-day. Whatever part of the product is retained by the commune and by the nation for the benefit of large undertakings of use to society as a whole, the remuneration of the associated workers will be larger than now, as it will no longer be subject to the deductions of the proprietor. ”

“ It is in prolonging and systematising these new tendencies that Socialism will come into contact with life and will borrow its strength. This co-operation, still superficial and limited, will have to be extended and organised and made adaptable. It would be necessary in many regions to inaugurate great works for the perfecting of agricultural processes: ditches must be dug, marshes drained, hills flattened, fertiliser carted, earth must be added and irrigation managed. ”

“ It is possible that the nation will be called upon to encourage and subsidise these works, for it is irrational that there should be public works of communication and not public works of production. However, it is very clear that the active and intelligent collaboration of the producers themselves will be necessary. Moreover, this collaboration is beginning to seem possible since communistic habits have got a foothold in the peasant labour. ”

“ And nevertheless it is extremely probable that they would feel a vital loss if they should no longer find, in seeing the grapes grow golden on certain vines which were theirs, no one's but theirs, that keen joy which has more intimacy than egotism in it. ”

“ It is certain that the direction of economic evolution will itself determine the infinitely complex relations according to which the new society will be organised. A few general formulæ will not suffice to transform society. ”

“ I suppose that the workers who yesterday were the paid labourers of the noble or bourgeois proprietors will be formed into an association and will receive from the commune the large estates to exploit. ”

“ There, for several years, since the simple agricultural wage earners have regained the hope of acquiring some small share of the reconstituted vineyards, they have little by little established a curious custom. The working day, which commences it is true at a very early hour, almost at daybreak, ends at four o'clock in the afternoon. ”