Sorel’s Early Marxism

Abstract

In 1892 Sorel abruptly retired from his job as a government engineer and moved to Paris, choosing to live in the residential suburb of Boulogne-sur-Seine. He was now to be dependent upon a small inheritance from his mother and income earned from writing for his livelihood. In comparison to his former provincial existence he was to live a moderately public life, regularly visiting the Bibliothèque Nationale, frequenting various intellectual gatherings, and acting as a regular contributor to and sometimes editor of numerous journals. Why Sorel moved to Paris remains unclear: he was, after all, a man who out of provincial (and moral) prejudice disliked Paris and who had already devoted much of his energy to criticising its intellectual elite. Perhaps Sorel was simply to feel the persuasive reasoning that many Frenchman both before and since have felt: that if one wants to be heard it is necessary to go to Paris. Whatever the reason, the move to Paris marked the beginning of years of prodigious intellectual energy for Sorel. It was in these years that he discovered the works of Marx and began, for the first time, to define and elucidate his response to them.