GUESDE, JULES [Mathieu Basile] French socialist, was born in Paris on Nov. 11, 1845. He had begun his career as a clerk in the French home office, but at the outbreak of the Franco-German War he was editing Les Droits de l'hornme at Montpellier, and had to take refuge at Geneva in 1871 from a prosecution instituted on account of articles which had appeared in his paper in defence of the Commune. In 1876 he returned to France to become one of the chief French apostles of Marxian collectivism, and was imprisoned 'f or six months in 1878 for taking part in the first Parisian International Congress. After the amnesty of 1878 he edited at different times Les Droits de l'homyne, Le Cri du peuple, Le Socialiste, but his best-known organ was the weekly Egalite. He had been in close association with Paul Lafargue, and through him with Karl Marx, whose daughter he married. With Marx and Lafargue he drew up the collectivist and revolutionary programme accepted by the national congress of the Labour party at Havre in 188o, which laid stress on the formation of an international labour party working by revolution ary methods. Next year at the Reims congress the orthodox Marxian programme of Guesde was opposed by the "possibilists," who rejected the intransigeant attitude of Guesde for the "re formist" policy of Benoit Malon. At the congress of St.Etienne the difference developed into separation, those who refused all compromise with a capitalist government following Guesde, while the "reformists" formed several groups. Guesde took his full share in the consequent discussion between the Guesdists, the Blanquists, the possibilists, etc. In 1893 he was returned to the Chamber of Deputies for Lille (7th circonscription) with a large majority over the Christian Socialist and Radical candidates. He brought forward various proposals in social legislation forming the pro gramme of the Labour party, without reference to the divisions among the Socialists, and on Nov. 2o, 1894 succeeded in raising a two-days' discussion on the collectivist principle in the Chamber of Deputies.
In 190o he fiercely opposed Jaures, who advocated the partici pation of Socialists in the Government. In 1902 he was not re-elected, but resumed his seat in 1906. In 1903 there was a formal reconciliation at the Reims congress of the sections of the party, which then took the name of the Socialist party of France. Guesde, nevertheless, continued to oppose the opportunist policy of Jaures, whom he denounced for supporting one bourgeois party against another. But he gradually lost ground, and many of his adherents joined the "reformist" section under Jaures. His defence of the principle of freedom of association led him, incongruously enough, to support the religious Congregations against Emile Combes. During the World War he was minister without portfolio from August 1914 to October 1915. Besides the numerous political and socialist pamphlets written by Guesde, he also published during 1901 two volumes of his various speeches in the Chamber of Deputies entitled Quatre ens de lutte de classes He died on July 28, 1922, at Saint Naudi (Charente Inferieure).
Guesde's works were Essai de Catechisme socialiste (1878) ; Col lectivisme et Socialisme (1879) ; Services publics et Socialisme (1884) ; Le Socialisme au jour le jour (1899) ; and, with Sangnier, Christianisme et Socialisme (1905) .
See Zevaes, Les Guesdistes (1911), and references under SOCIALISM.