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The article examines the nature and implications of the radical opposition to Jaurès found in Georges Sorel’s Réflexions sur la violence. This opposition is mostly political, as Sorel detested Jaurès’ conciliatory stance towards the republican government and his policy of gradual reforms; but it takes on a deeper dimension with the theorization of the general strike mythology as an antidote to the “utopia” of the majority socialists and a source of moral regeneration. However, Sorel’s radical positions, which included the glorification of violence, irrationalism, and the rejection of the idea of historical progress, led him to the brink of breaking with the socialist tradition as a whole and account for the use that many subsequent fascist and neo-fascist authors made of some of his theses.