Gracchus Babeuf (1760–1797)

Representative of French utopian communism in 18th century; revolutionist during the French Revolution; leader of the movement of the “Equals”.

Babeuf was born on November 23, 1760, in Picardy, France, into a poor peasant family. Although he did not receive a systematic school education, he diligently studied philosophy, history, literature and other works on his own, especially Morelly’s The Code of Nature which had a great impact on Babeuf’s thoughts. In the early days of the French Revolution, Babeuf actively participated in the struggle against feudalism and the Ancien Régime in Picardy, and assisted the assembly of the Estates General in drafting petitions, demanding the abolition of the feudal system of privileges of estate. 1790–1791, he founded Le Correspondant Picard, which actively proclaimed revolutionary ideas and called on the masses to rise up and engage in armed struggle. In September 1792, he was elected a council-general of the département of the Somme. In 1794, the Thermidorian Convention repealed the maximum on prices, speculators became rampant, and people’s lives became very difficult, and Babeuf founded the Le tribun du people (Tribune of the People), which fiercely attacked the policy of the Thermidorians and called on the masses to rise up to abolish private property and to establish a republic of equals centered on agriculture, in which all men are equal and for universal well-being. In February 1797, the Directory closed down his newspaper and the Panthéon Club, his main place of activity, and Babeuf’s revolutionary activities went underground. In March 1797, he and his comrades-in-arms organized a secret directory committee of the Equals and decided to revolt on 10 May. As the secret leaked out on the eve of the uprising, Babeuf was arrested and executed.

Combining the theory of utopian socialism with the actual struggle for the people’s “right to exist”, the violent means of armed uprising to overthrow the reactionary rule of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the working people, and put forward the important idea of the transition stage. He held that the French bourgeois revolution was only a “revolution of the rich”, and that the bourgeois revolution must be followed by a “revolution of the people”, which was not a simple change of cabinet and officials, but a new type of revolutionary regime, with a new social system of equality for all.” In order to achieve this aim, a series of transitional measures must be taken in the post-revolutionary period. During the transition period, private property will be gradually abolished through the dictatorship of the working people, and a “Republic of Equals” will be established, with community of property, common labor, and equal distribution. Although Babeuf’s communist thought was rather crude and superficial, his vision of the ideal future society was densely tinged with egalitarianism and asceticism, and his communist “national commune” was nothing more than a communism of consumption, his thoughts on violent revolution and transitional stage had an important impact on Marx and Engels’ theory of scientific socialism, and Marx called him the founder of “the first truly active Communist party”.