Sébastien Faure

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This article is about the anarchist. For the footballer, see Sébastien Faure (footballer).

Sébastien Faure
School
  • Anarcho-communism
  • Socialism
  • Synthesis anarchism

Sébastien Faure (French:

synthesis anarchism.[4][5]

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    Police photograph of Faure taken before 1918

    Biography

    Before becoming a

    free-thinker, Faure was a seminarist. He engaged in politics as a socialist before turning to anarchism in 1888.[citation needed
    ]

    In 1894, he was prosecuted in "The

    synthesis anarchism which was an influential form of conceiving anarchist federations.[4][5]

    Faure edited the Encyclopédie anarchiste (Anarchist Encyclopedia), a dictionary of the philosophy and beliefs of anarchism, including its principles and tendencies, with contributions from about 100 others. Compiled between 1925 and 1934, the dictionary was published in installments for distribution by subscription. The final volume was 2,893 pages across four volumes. It was envisioned as the first part of a five-part encyclopedia project covering the biographies, historical events, and bibliography of anarchism, but this went unpublished. Contributors included Émile Armand, Luigi Bertoni, Pierre Besnard, Han Ryner, Augustin Souchy, Max Nettlau, Aristide Lapeyre, and Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers.[6][7]

    Pedophilia

    On 9 September 1903 Faure was caught molesting three young girls, but released as the parents did not press charges. On 19 November 1907 he was identified as the client of a 14-year old prostitute, but no action was taken.[3]

    He was again caught on 28 September 1916 while molesting two young girls, but the police commissioner opted to use the case as blackmail to curb his pacifist activism amidst the First World War. It is also likely that he used his school La Ruche for his sexual predation, where he had taken in 20 to 30 orphaned children throughout its 13 years of operation. During the 1917 case the anarchist Second Casteu wrote a letter reporting the testimony of his daughter-in-law Marguerite, who had lived at La Ruche, accusing Faure of molesting the children there. After 1921 there are no further documented cases of sexual predation by Faure.[3]

    On 23 September 1917 he was caught sexually assaulting young girls in a Parisian flea market. Accused by multiple witnesses in the crowd, he evaded the police and was sentenced to two years of prison time for public indecency. Discovered and arrested in Marseille in January 1918, his sentence was reduced to six months following a retrial. Though he would claim to have been falsely persecuted, he was viewed with suspicion in anarchist circles and avoided political activity until December 1919. The case files for this conviction were not released to the public until 2018, which led to a comprehensive compilation of documents and testimonies published in 2021. This evidence disproved allegations of police manipulation and also revealed previously unknown earlier cases.[3]

    On 15 March 1921 he was again arrested along with two accomplices, accused of sexually abusing two girls aged 11 and 12. Through the investigation it was revealed that he was known to local children as "Monsieur Fontaine", and had abused five more victims. He was again convicted of public indecency and sentenced to eight months in prison. He again claimed to have been falsely accused and was able to convince his contemporaries, and subsequent analyses of his life tended to dismiss the charges.[3]

    Bibliography

    He is recognized for his pedagogy and his qualities as a speaker, and is the author of several books:

    • The universal pain (1895)
    • My Communism (1921)
    • The Forces Of The Revolution (1921)
    • Religious imposture (1923)
    • Subversive remarks
    • Twelve Proofs of God's Inexistence (1908)

    He was also the founder of the

    Sébastien Faure Century, the French-speaking contingent of the Durruti Column during the civil war in Spain.[citation needed
    ]

    Synthesis anarchism

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    The discussion about the Anarchist Synthesis arises in the context of the discussion on the

    Dielo Truda group of Russian exiles in 1926.[4]

    Two texts made as responses to the Platform, each proposing a different organizational model, became the basis for what is known as the organisation of synthesis, or simply "synthesism".[4]

    communist anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualist anarchism[9] and so such an organization could contain anarchists of these three tendencies very well.[citation needed
    ]

    The platformists wanted to push their ideas forward through organizing an international anarchist congress on 12 February 1927.

    anarcho-individualism as a negation of oppression and affirming the individual right to development of the individual, seeking to please them in every way."[4] Sebastian Faure had strong contacts in Spain and so his proposal had more impact with Spanish anarchists than the Dielo Truda platform even though individualist anarchist influence in Spain was less strong than it was in France. The main goal there was reconciling anarcho-communism with anarcho-syndicalism.[11]

    Selected works

    See also

    References

    1. ^ Davranche, Jean Maitron, Guillaume (10 August 2021), "FAURE Sébastien, Auguste, Louis", Dictionnaire des anarchistes (in French), Paris: Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier, retrieved 19 August 2022{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
    2. ISBN 0-87436-982-7
      .
    3. ^
      Alternative Libertaire
      . 28 February 2023. Retrieved 27 April 2023 – via The Anarchist Library.
    4. ^ a b c d e "Especifismo and Synthesis/ Synthesism - Anarkismo". www.anarkismo.net.
    5. ^ a b c "Jason Garner. "La búsqueda de la unidad anarquista: la Federación Anarquista Ibérica antes de la II República."". Archived from the original on 31 October 2012.
    6. ^ Bianco, René (1988). "L'Encyclopédie anarchiste". Un siècle de presse anarchiste d'expression française, 1880–1983: avant propos et sources. Vol. 3. Atelier national de reproduction des thèses. p. 883. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
    7. ^ "FAURE Sébastien, Auguste, Louis [Dictionnaire des anarchistes]". Le Maitron (in French). Retrieved 13 June 2025.
    8. ^ Rodriguez, Cecilia (19 September 2018). "Landmark Auction In Paris: Treasures From The Homes Of Yves Saint Laurent And Pierre Bergé". Forbes. Retrieved 11 July 2022. as well as Sebastian Faure's mythical 'Anarchist Encyclopedia.'
    9. ^ a b "J.3.2 What are "synthesis" federations?" in An Anarchist FAQ Archived 2010-10-07 at the Wayback Machine
    10. ^ "Tras la victoria de los plataformistas en el Congreso de París de 1929, una sección de los que consideraron que las ideas tradicionales del anarquismo estaban siendo atacadas se separó de la UACR para formar la Asociación de los Federalistas Anarquistas a comienzos de 192821. La principal figura de la AFA fue Sébastien Faure que, como respuesta a la Plataforma, expuso sus propuestas para un movimiento anarquista unificado en La síntesis anarquista, que apareció primero como un suplemento del informe de la AFA de febrero de 1928 titulado Le Trait d’Union Libertaire"Jason Garner. "La búsqueda de la unidad anarquista: la Federación Anarquista Ibérica antes de la II República." Archived 2012-10-31 at the Wayback Machine
    11. ^ "Debido a sus contactos e influencia con el movimiento del exilio español, la propuesta de Faure arraigó más en los círculos españoles que la Plataforma, y fue publicada en las prensas libertarias tanto en España como en Bélgica25. En esencia, Faure intentaba reunir a la familia anarquista sin imponer la rígida estructura que proponía la Plataforma, y en España se aceptó así. Opuesta a la situación de Francia, en España la influencia del anarquismo individualista no fue un motivo serio de ruptura. Aunque las ideas de ciertos individualistas como Han Ryner y Émile Armand tuvieron cierto impacto sobre el anarquismo español, afectaron sólo a aspectos como el sexo y el amor libre."Jason Garner. "La búsqueda de la unidad anarquista: la Federación Anarquista Ibérica antes de la II República." Archived 2012-10-31 at the Wayback Machine
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