César De Paepe

International Workingmen's Association (First International) Social democracy 1841–1890 ○ Natural causes

Belgian doctor and collectivist who carried the common-ownership resolution at the Brussels Congress

Born at Ostend in 1841, he qualified in medicine at the Free University of Brussels. A leading member of the International, he led the collectivists who defeated Proudhonist mutualists such as Henri Tolain over the land question at the Brussels Congress of 1868. In the split of 1872 he first sided with the anti-Marxists, but in debates with the Jura anarchists Paul Brousse and Adhémar Schwitzguébel over the "public service question" he argued that a workers' state was needed to provide services such as public health. At the end of 1877 he co-founded Le Socialisme progressif in Switzerland with Benoît Malon and others. His expectation that democracy would spread gradually into the workplace influenced syndicalism. He died in Cannes in 1890.

Also known as: Cesar De Paepe