[49] Terrail-Mermeix, _La France Socialiste_ (Paris, 1886), p. 51. On his return to France, Jules Guesde became the spokesman and propagandist of Marxian or "scientific socialism". Fanatical, vigorous, domineering, he soon made himself the leader of the French collectivists. Towards the end of 1877, he founded a weekly, _L'Égalité_, the first number of which outlined the program which the paper intended to defend. "We believe," wrote _L'Égalité_, "with the collectivist school to which almost all serious minds of the working-class of both hemispheres now belong, that the natural and scientific evolution of mankind leads it irresistibly to the collective appropriation of the soil and of the instruments of labor." In order to achieve this end, _L'Égalité_ declared it necessary for the proletariat to constitute itself a distinct political party which should pursue the aim of conquering the political power of the State.[50] [50] _L'Égalité_, 18 Nov., 1877. The collectivists found a few adherents among the workingmen who actively propagated the new ideas. In 1878, several syndicats of Paris: those of the machinists, joiners, tailors, leather dressers and others, accepted the collectivist program. The collectivist ideas were given wider publicity and influence by the persecution of the government. In 1878, an international congress of workingmen was to be held in Paris during the International Exhibition. The Congress of Lyons (1878) had appointed a special committee to organize this international congress. Arrangements were being made for the congress, when the government prohibited it. The more moderate elements of the Committee gave way before the prohibition of the government, but Guesde and his followers accepted the challenge of the government and continued the preparations for the Congress. The government dispersed the Congress at its very first session and instituted legal proceedings against Guesde and other delegates. The trial made a sensation and widely circulated the ideas which Guesde defended before the tribunal. From the prison where they were incarcerated the collectivists launched an appeal "to the proletarians, peasant proprietors and small masters" which contained an exposition of collectivist principles and proposed the formation of a distinct political party. The appeal gained many adherents from various parts of France.[51] [51] Terrail-Mermeix, _op. cit._, p. 98.