The Possibilists (french: Possibilistes), also called Broussists (french: Broussistes), were a faction of the French socialist movement led by Paul 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''), a

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

-inspired organisation founded by Paul Lafargue, Jules Guesde and others, in

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

, in 1879. Brousse opposed Marxist tactics and proclaimed the reformist 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.Carl Landauer, "The Origin of Socialist Reformism in France"; ''International Review of Social History'', Volume 12 , Issue 1 , April 1967 , pp. 81 - 107. The Possibilists soon won a majority within the Federation, inducing the Marxists to split and found their new French Workers' Party (''Parti ouvrier français'', POF) in 1882. The Federation was initially renamed the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party, and then commonly the

Federation of the Socialist Workers of France The Federation of the Socialist Workers of France (french: Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France, FTSF) was France's first socialist party, being founded in 1879. The party was characterised as possibilist because it promoted gradu ...

(''Fédération des travailleurs socialistes de France''). In 1902 the small political party of the Possibilists and other groups united in the

French Socialist Party The Socialist Party (french: Parti socialiste , PS) is a French centre-left and social-democratic political party. It holds pro-European views. The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major p ...

, which three years later merged into the

French Section of the Workers' International The French Section of the Workers' International (french: Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière, SFIO) was a political party in France that was founded in 1905 and succeeded in 1969 by the modern-day Socialist Party. The SFIO was found ...

(Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière'', SFIO).

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