Emile Zola was already a successful novelist when he addressed the conflicts of industrial society. In pre-capitalist times, traditional patriarchal values demanded that employers provide for the care of their workers, sometimes at the cost of greater profits. Accordingly, there are vestiges of such practices shown in the movie: the mine company provides the workers with cheap housing, coal for heating and cooking, and occasional handouts to alleviate hardships. But industrialization brought demands for greater capital efficiency by stressing company profits. "The big companies with their machines were crushing everything," Zola wrote in Germinal, "and one no longer had against them the ancient guarantees when people of the same trade, united in a body, were able to defend themselves."

Zola's interest in writing about the coal miners crystallized in 1884. He had begun by researching newspaper reports of the miners' strikes at La Ricamarie and Aubin in 1869, reading technical manuals about the mining industry, and contemporary books about socialism and labor organizations. These sources provided documentation as he began writing the novel Germinal, which is set in Montsou in 1866. Several scenes, such as the soldiers firing spontaneously on the strikers, reflect these newspaper accounts.

The outbreak of a coal miners' strike at Anzin in northern France in February 1884 interrupted his labors. Zola contacted an elected Deputy from the area, who allowed the writer to pose as his secretary. With this disguise, Zola attended workers meetings, visited local villages and cafes, questioned the miners and their families, and interviewed the strike leader. Then, with the permission of the mine operators, Zola entered the subterranean mine and personally saw the conditions under which the miners labored. These experiences provided a realistic touch that made the story distinctive.

Besides its accurate description of the mining operations and the workers' private lives, Germinal conveyed the ideological currents that swept through the French working class during the late 19th century. Within the French Socialist party, a major split occurred in 1881 between those who advocated the Marxist idea of class revolution and more cautious workers who preferred gradual reforms within industry without altering the structure of economic power. While the Marxist wing, a minority, formed the Labor Party led by Jules Guesde, the majority organized the reform oriented Federation of Socialist Workers. The character Etienne Lantier, who becomes the strike leader, speaks for the Marxist position, organizing a union and seeking help from members of the International Workers Association in London. Rasseneur, the innkeeper, expresses the reformist, anti-strike position.

The third alternative, expressed by the character Souvarine, indicated the influence of Russian anarchism and nihilism that had led to the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881. (This position is the most anachronistic in the narrative.) Several prominent anarchists, such as Bukharin and Count Kropotkin, became political exiles in Paris. As Souvarine takes the position in the movie, capitalist society is beyond reform. He narrates the news story of two workers who win a lottery and announce they will invest the windfall in bonds and never work again, showing their corruption by bourgeois capitalist values. The only hope, for Souvarine and the anarchists, is to rebuild society from bottom to top.

Germinal's depiction of capitalism reveals its international dimensions. Not only is the working class disaffected by absentee owners who seek bottom-line profits, but even small business investors, such as Deneulin, owner of the fictional Jean-Bart mine, face unscrupulous attacks from larger corporations that attempt to devour their competitors. The character Deneulin's ability to humanize capitalism sways the worker Chaval, who has ambitions of becoming a foreman. But to workers with a clear class consciousness, such as Etienne and Maheu, the distinction between small entrepreneurs and absentee owners is a distinction without a difference. Either way, Germinal portrays individual business interests as part of an international economy affected by investments, overproduction, and changing import-export needs.

The movie's sympathy for the working class is conveyed by the moral tone of the characters. Although poverty and lack of education encourage social misbehavior, including alcoholism, violence, and sexual immorality, the affluent characters commit the same crimes and sins without the excuse of economic necessity and ignorance. The depiction of Montsou's festival day presents a warm, hearty example of working-class pleasure and amusement in contrast to the mannered behavior of the richer families.

Finally, the story's conclusion, showing the workers' defeat but also their unyielding optimism about ultimate victory, reflects the enduring socialist hope of creating a society based on principles of equality and justice. "My only desire," said Zola about Germinal, "was toÉprovoke so much pity, such a strong outcry for justice, that France will finally cease letting herself be devoured by the ambition of a handful of politicians, in order to attend to the health and material well-being of her children."

Back to top   At the Movies   Germinal