A physician driven into exile by the repression of the Commune, he coined among the anarchists in 1877 the expression “propaganda by the deed”, before changing method: winning town halls and having them vote for public baths, canteens and dispensaries. His opponents christened him a “possibilist”.
The story
Born at Montpellier in 1844, Paul Brousse was a doctor when the repression of the Commune threw him onto the roads of exile. He made for Spain, then Switzerland, where he joined the Jura Federation and became one of the most active propagandists of European anarchism.
It was he who coined in 1877 the phrase “propagande par le fait” — propaganda by the deed — which would soon come to mean the individual attack. Expelled from Switzerland, sentenced in France, he returned after the amnesty of 1880 and changed his method: the revolution could wait, concrete victories came first.
In 1882 the split at Saint-Étienne set his followers against the Guesdists. Brousse argued for a municipal strategy: take the town halls, and vote through public baths, canteens and dispensaries. His opponents named him a “possibilist” in derision; the name stuck.
A municipal councillor of Paris for twenty-five years, he presided over the council in 1905. He died in 1912 and lies in Division 76, a few metres from the Communards' Wall.
On site, do not miss
The location, deliberately chosen: a man who had renounced revolution rests facing the wall that commemorates its crushing.
Visitors' questions
Where is Paul Brousse buried?
In Division 76 of Père-Lachaise, facing the Communards' Wall. This Division gathers the graves of Communards and labour leaders: Jean-Baptiste Clément, who wrote Le Temps des cerises, lies there too.
Jean-Baptiste ClémentWhat is possibilism?
A socialist strategy Paul Brousse argued for from 1882: take at once whatever can be had — town halls, schools, dispensaries — rather than wait for the great day of revolution. The word began as a jibe from his Guesdist opponents.
Political figures at Père-LachaiseWas Paul Brousse an anarchist?
He was, during the years of exile. A refugee in Switzerland after the Commune, he was active in the Jura Federation and coined, in 1877, the phrase “propaganda by the deed”. He broke with that road after the amnesty of 1880.
Paul Lafargue and Laura MarxWhat is the Communards' Wall?
The wall against which the last hundred and forty-seven fighters of the Commune were shot, on 28 May 1871, at the south-eastern corner of the cemetery. It has become the rallying place of the French labour movement, which gathers there every May.
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