| Proudhon Circle | |
| Native Name: | Cercle Proudhon |
| Colorcode: | black |
| Leader: | Georges Valois |
| Founder: | Georges Valois Édouard Berth |
| Dissolved: | 1925 |
| Successor: | Faisceau[1] |
| Headquarters: | Paris, France |
| Newspaper: | Cahiers du cercle Proudhon |
| Ideology: | National syndicalism Integral nationalism Proto-fascism Sorelianism |
| Position: | Far-right |
| Country: | France |
Cercle Proudhon (in French pronounced as /sɛʁklə pʁudɔ̃/; French for Proudhon Circle) was a national syndicalist political group in France. The group was inspired by Georges Sorel, Charles Maurras and a selective reading of anarchist theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
Founded on December 16, 1911, by national syndicalist disciples of Georges Sorel, Georges Valois and Édouard Berth, the group was described as "founded by nationalists, and initially addressed only to them".[2] The organisation began as informal meetings consisting of about twenty people on average, mainly monarchists and syndicalists who were associated with the right-wing monarchist group Action Française. The main speakers at these meetings were Valois, Berth, monarchist militant Henri Lagrange and nationalist philosopher Gilbert Mayor. French historian Géraud Poumarède describes the Circle's ambition as to "convert trade unionists to the monarchy".[2]
Despite the group's close association to Sorel he was initially hostile to the group stating that he feared the Circle would make "young people less able to understand Proudhon".[2] Charles Maurras was also wary of the group describing them in his book, L’Action française et la religion catholique (1913): "The French who met to found the Circle Proudhon are all nationalists. The boss they chose for their assembly made them meet other French, who are not nationalists, who are not royalists, and who join them to participate in the life of the Circle and the writing of Cahiers. The initial group includes men of different origins, different conditions, who have no political aspirations in common, and who will freely expose their views in the Cahiers."
The Circle published a bulletin entitled Cahiers du Cercle Proudhon, and operated a bookstore owned by Valois named the La Nouvelle Librairie which is still open to this day.[3]
The first issue of Cahiers du cercle Proudhon appeared in January - February 1912 and included a Déclaration:
Berth and Valois had been brought together by Georges Sorel when he was planning a Nationalist and socialist-leaning journal La Cité française in 1910. This journal never appeared, except as heralded in a flyer entitled Déclaration de la Cité francaise signed by Sorel, Valois, Berth, Jean Variot, and Pierre Gilbert. However Variot quarrelled with Valois and went on to publish material with Sorel's support in L'Indépendence.
A controversial but influential book by Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France, points to the Cercle Proudhon as a pre-existing laboratory for fascist ideas that would provide a bulwark for Nazi collaboration in Vichy.[4]
Many anarchists rejected the Cercle Proudhon interpretation of Proudhon's works. In the October 1st, 1913 issue of The New Freewoman, American Individualist Anarchist Benjamin Tucker argued that Cercle Proudhon purposely misrepresented Proudhon's views: