A Jacobin was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution (1789–1799). The club got its name from meeting at the Dominican rue Saint-Honoré Monastery of the Jacobins. The Dominicans in France were called Jacobins because their first house in Paris was the Saint Jacques Monastery.
François-Noël Babeuf, also known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French proto-communist, revolutionary, and journalist of the French Revolutionary period. His newspaper Le tribun du peuple was best known for its advocacy for the poor and calling for a popular revolt against the Directory, the government of France. He was a leading advocate for democracy and the abolition of private property. He angered the authorities who were clamping down hard on their radical enemies. In spite of the efforts of his Jacobin friends to save him, Babeuf was executed for his role in the Conspiracy of the Equals.
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French socialist and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism.
Filippo Giuseppe Maria Ludovico Buonarroti, more usually referred to under the French version Philippe Buonarroti, was an Italian utopian socialist, writer, agitator, freemason, and conspirator; he was active in Corsica, France, and Geneva. His History of Babeuf’s Conspiracy of Equals (1828) became a quintessential text for revolutionaries, inspiring such socialists as Blanqui and Marx. He proposed a mutualist strategy that would revolutionize society by stages, starting from monarchy to liberalism, then to radicalism, and finally to communism.
The Conspiracy of the Equals of May 1796 was a failed coup d'etat during the French Revolution. It was led by François-Noël Babeuf, who wanted to overthrow the Directory and replace it with an egalitarian and proto-socialist republic, inspired by Jacobin ideals.
Blanquism refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) that holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators. Having seized power, the revolutionaries would then use the power of the state to introduce socialism. It is considered a particular sort of "putschism"—that is, the view that political revolution should take the form of a putsch or coup d'état.
The Society of the Friends of Truth, also known as the Social Club, was a French revolutionary organization founded in 1790. It was "a mixture of revolutionary political club, the Masonic Lodge, and a literary salon". It also published an influential revolutionary newspaper, the Mouth of Iron.
Samuel Bernstein (1898–1987) was an American historian born in France. His field of study was history of social movements. His 1933 work The Beginnings of Marxian Socialism in France was a reworking of his thesis and has been criticized for its very narrow scope.
While Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels defined communism as a political movement, there were already similar ideas in the past which one could call communist experiments. Marx himself saw primitive communism as the original hunter-gatherer state of humankind. Marx theorized that only after humanity was capable of producing surplus did private property develop.
Jean-Jacques Pillot was a French revolutionary and republican communist. He participated in the Revolution of 1848 and in the Paris Commune of 1871.
Auguste-Richard Lahautière was a French socialist, journalist, poet and lawyer. He is commonly grouped with Théodore Dézamy, Albert Laponneraye, Jean-Jacques Pillot and others as belonging to the Neo-Babouvist tendency in French nineteenth-century socialism, which formed a link from the utopian communism of Gracchus Babeuf to Marxism. He contributed to and was the editor of several important socialist publications prior to the Revolutions of 1848.
Albert Laponneraye was a French republican socialist and journalist, popular historian, educator and an editor of Robespierre's writings. He was a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in the 1840s, along with Richard Lahautière, Jean-Jacques Pillot and others. He combined Jacobin republicanism with egalitarian communism and anti-clericalism. He was influenced by the doctrines of Philippe Buonarroti and Étienne Cabet. In the 1830s and 40s Laponneraye was one of the best known advocates of republican communism. He is viewed as a forerunner of Karl Marx.
Alexandre Théodore Dézamy was a French socialist, a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in early French communism, along with Albert Laponneraye, Richard Lahautière, Jacques Pillot and others. He was also an early associate of Louis-Auguste Blanqui. He and his colleagues formed a link between the extreme left wing of the French Revolution (Babeuf) and Marxism.
Ernest Granger was a French politician, a veteran of the Paris Commune of 1871, a Blanquist socialist and subsequently a Boulangist nationalist.
Gustave Tridon (1841–1871) was a French revolutionary socialist, member of the First International and the Paris Commune and anti-Semite.
A workers' council, or labor council, is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces. In such a system of political and economic organization, the workers themselves are able to exercise decision-making power. Furthermore, the workers within each council decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. The council communist Antonie Pannekoek describes shop-committees and sectional assemblies as the basis for workers' management of the industrial system. A variation is a soldiers' council, where soldiers direct a mutiny. Workers and soldiers have also operated councils in conjunction. Workers' councils may in turn elect delegates to central committees, such as the Congress of Soviets.
Gabriel Pierre Deville was a French socialist theoretician, politician and diplomat. He was a follower of the Guesdist movement in the 1880s, and did much to raise awareness of Karl Marx's theories of the weaknesses of capitalism through his books and articles. Later, without abandoning his beliefs, he became more pragmatic and was twice a deputy in the National Assembly. After leaving office he accepted various diplomatic positions.
Communism has been a part of French politics since the early 20th century at the latest. It has been described as "an enduring presence on the French political scene" for most of the 20th century.
The Manifesto of the Equals was a document written in 1796 and recited at a meeting of the Society of the Pantheon, a political group that sought to challenge the new repressive government of France and the Constitution of 1795. This group championed radical leftist ideals of ‘perfect equality’ and ‘communal happiness’ over everything. The authorship of the Manifesto is attributed to a radical atheist, journalist, and playwright named Sylvain Maréchal. However, it is commonly suspected that the document had multiple authors. One man that Maréchal worked closely with was the political journalist François-Noël Babeuf. Babeuf is often referred to as the leader of the Conspiracy of the Equals. The letter was a failed insurrection that attempted to combat the undemocratic policies of the new government, which included limiting voting rights, and banning the right to assembly and free expression. Despite the political failure of this coup d’état, which ended with the conviction and execution of several of its participants, including Babeuf, it did have significant ideological impact on the history of France and socialist ideals. The Manifesto in particular was very influential as the first political manifesto. It was written not just as a theory or declaration, but a relatable and public response to the perceived failure of the existing constitutions and legal documents. The Manifesto, addressed to the "PEOPLE OF FRANCE!", proclaimed the need to remove the revolution from legal procedure, establish greater communal equality, and abolish capitalist ideas like private property. Ultimately, this was intended to continue revolution and incite tremendous political change.
La Fraternité, Journal moral et politique was a socialist political journal founded in Paris in May 1841 by journalist Richard Lahautière.
