Jean-Denis Bredin Quotes
Am I allowed to suggest that we owe much to these stubborn and sectarian people, those indefatigable strikers who take over our factories and bring disorder to our streets, these obstinate creatures who ceaselessly fought for reforms while fantasizing of the Revolution, these Marxists who, marching against the current of History, disturbed the complacent sleep of capitalism? … Communism is dead. Let us rejoice.
Jean-Denis Bredin, French Attorney, Member of the Académie française, “Est-il Permis”, Le Monde, August 31, 1991
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Comintern was upset by the American Socialist Party because the party had rejected the 21 Conditions for Affiliation and withdrew their intent to join the Third International. To Comintern, the Socialist Party was a party of “bourgeois socialism.”
This was a great victory for the Victor Berger wing of the party. They purged the violence advocates and communists from the party. Despite this, a few right wingers call any socialist a communist and a revolutionary.
In the fall of 1885 twenty-two labor unions joined together in a central, militant organization.
Ironically, this view was also held by many of the capitalist “Captains of American Industry” who believed that all unions were revolutionist regardless of the views of the union’s membership or leadership. Even today, there are some who still equate trade unionism with communism and revolution. The majority of the unions and the left never believed that, but the extreme communists and extreme capitalists did than and some do today.
Jean-Denis Bredin is a French attorney and founding partner of the firm Bredin Prat. He is the twentieth, and current occupant, of seat 3 of the Académie française, elected on 15 June 1989. His daughter, Frédérique Bredin, currently serves as President of the National Center of Cinematography and the moving image.