PEASANTS INTO SOCIALISTS - FRENCH SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA AND THE COUNTRYSIDE, 1905-1920

After its political unification, achieved in 1905, the French Socialist Party created a specialist body in order to give the Party a coherent national doctrine : the permanent delegation for propaganda. Its activity is easy to follow thanks to numerous accounts published in the press and to the personal archives of the delegates themselves. This article focuses on the delegation's action toward rural provinces. The development of education in France allowed the diffusion there of an efficient text of socialism. There was local resistance, also some meandering in the Party's national line ; however the electoral rooting of the Party was accompanied by a real political informing of rural citizens. Step by step speeches and conversations were more and more followed by a growing body of pamphlets and books. Thus propaganda became a process of national political education.