ThePossibilists (French:Possibilistes), also calledBroussists (French:Broussistes), were a faction of the French socialist movement led byPaul Brousse.Benoît Malon and others supported the faction although they did not always fully share its inspiring principles. It originated within the "Federation of the Socialist Workers' Party of France" (Fédération du parti des travailleurs socialistes de France), aMarxist-inspired organisation founded byPaul Lafargue,Jules Guesde and others, inMarseille, in 1879.
Brousse opposed Marxist tactics and proclaimed thereformist principle of directing everyday political activity towards achieving the goals that were concretely 'possible' time by time, while maintaining that socialists should keep always ready to jump at future revolutionary opportunities.[1] Brousse wrote[when?] that “realistic politics requires the formation of a broad class party, acting by all means, weapons and votes; grouping all workers around their class interests, their little daily instincts, and leading them as quickly as possible to the ideal which is anarchist communism, that is to say a society in which public service will be generalized and the government abolished.”[2]
The Possibilists soon won a majority within the Federation, inducing the Marxists to split and found their newFrench Workers' Party (Parti ouvrier français, POF) in 1882. The Federation was initially renamed the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party, and then commonly theFederation of the Socialist Workers of France (Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France).
In 1902 the small political party of the Possibilists and other groups united in theFrench Socialist Party, which three years later merged into theFrench Section of the Workers' International (Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière, SFIO).
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