Paul Lafargue - Early Life and First French Period

Early Life and First French Period

Lafargue was born in Santiago de Cuba. His father was the owner of coffee plantations in Cuba, and the family's wealth allowed Lafargue to study in Santiago and then in France. In 1851, the Lafargue family moved back to its hometown of Bordeaux, where Paul attended secundary school. Later he studied medicine in Paris.

It was there that Lafargue started his intellectual and political career, adhering to the Positivist philosophy, and contacting the Republican groups that opposed Napoleon III. The work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon seem to have particularly influenced him in this phase. As a Proudhonian anarchist, Lafargue joined the French section of the International Workingmen's Association (the First International). Nevertheless, he soon contacted two of the most prominent figures of revolutionary thought and action: Marx and Auguste Blanqui, whose influence largely eclipsed the first anarchist tendencies of the young Lafargue.

In 1865, after participating in the International Students' Congress in Liege, Lafargue was banned from all French universities, and had to leave for London in order to start a career. It was there that he became a frequent visitor to Marx's house, meeting his second daughter Laura, whom he married in 1868. His political activity took a new course, and he was chosen as a member of the General Council of the First International, then appointed corresponding secretary for Spain. However, he does not seem to have succeeded in establishing any serious contact with workers' groups in that country - Spain joined the international movement only after the Cantonalist Revolution of 1868, while events such as the arrival of the Italian anarchist Giuseppe Fanelli made it a strong bastion of Anarchism (and not of the Marxist current that Lafargue chose to represent).

Lafargue's opposition to Anarchism became notorious when, after his return to France, he wrote several articles attacking the Bakuninist tendencies that were very influential in some French workers' groups; this series of articles marked the start of a long career as a political journalist.