Louis Auguste Blanqui | |
|---|---|
 Portrait by his wife, Amelie Serre Blanqui, circa 1835. | |
| Born | (1805-02-08)8 February 1805 Puget-Théniers, France |
| Died | 1 January 1881(1881-01-01) (aged 75) Paris, France |
| Occupation(s) | Revolutionary,philosopher |
| Known for | Blanquism |
| Father | Jean Dominique Blanqui |
| Relatives | Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui |
Louis Auguste Blanqui (French:[lwioɡystblɑ̃ki]; 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a Frenchsocialist,political philosopher andpolitical activist, notable for his revolutionary theory ofBlanquism.
Blanqui was born inPuget-Théniers,Alpes-Maritimes, where his father,Jean Dominique Blanqui, of Italian descent,[1] was subprefect. He was the younger brother of the liberal economistJérôme-Adolphe Blanqui. He studied both law and medicine, but found his real vocation in politics, and quickly became a champion of the most advanced opinions. A member of theCarbonari society since 1824, he took an active part in mostrepublicanconspiracies during this period. In 1827, under the reign ofCharles X (1824–1830), he participated in a street fight in Rue Saint-Denis, during which he was seriously injured. In 1829, he joinedPierre Leroux'sGlobe newspaper before taking part in theJuly Revolution of 1830. He then joined theAmis du Peuple ("Friends of the People") society, where he made acquaintances withPhilippe Buonarroti,Raspail, andArmand Barbès. He was condemned to repeated terms of imprisonment for maintaining the doctrine ofrepublicanism during the reign ofLouis Philippe (1830–1848). During the 1832 trial of theAmis du People at thecour d'assis in Paris Blanqui declared, "You have confiscated the rifles of July--yes. But the bullets have been fired. Every bullet of the workers of Paris is on its way round the world."[2][3] In May 1839, a Blanquist inspired uprising took place in Paris, in which theLeague of the Just, forerunners ofKarl Marx'sCommunist League, participated.
Implicated in the armed outbreak of theSociété des Saisons, of which he was a leading member, Blanqui was condemned to death on 14 January 1840, a sentence later commuted tolife imprisonment.
He was released during therevolution of 1848, only to resume his attacks on existing institutions. The revolution had not satisfied him. The violence of theSociété républicaine centrale, which was founded by Blanqui to demand a change of government, brought him into conflict with the more moderate Republicans, and in 1849 he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. While in prison, he sent a brief address (written in the Prison of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, 10 February 1851) to a committee of social democrats in London. The text of the address was noted and introduced byKarl Marx.[4]
In 1865, while serving a further term of imprisonment under the Empire, he escaped, and continued hispropaganda campaign against the government from abroad, until the general amnesty of 1869 enabled him to return to France. Blanqui's predilection for violence was illustrated in 1870 by two unsuccessful armed demonstrations: one on 12 January at the funeral ofVictor Noir, the journalist shot byPierre Bonaparte; the other on 14 August, when he led an attempt to seize some guns from a barracks. Upon the fall of the Empire, through the revolution of 4 September, Blanqui established the club and journalLa patrie en danger.
He was one of the group that briefly seized the reins of power on 31 October and for his share in that outbreak he was again condemned to deathin absentia on 9 March of the following year. On 17 March,Adolphe Thiers, aware of the threat represented by Blanqui, took advantage of his resting at a friend physician's place, in Bretenoux inLot, and had him arrested. A few days afterwards theinsurrection which established theParis Commune broke out, and Blanqui was elected president of the insurgent commune. The Communards offered to release all of their prisoners if the Thiers government released Blanqui, but their offer was met with refusal, and Blanqui was thus prevented from taking an active part.Karl Marx would later be convinced that Blanqui was the leader that was missed by the Commune. Nevertheless, in 1872 he was condemned along with the other members of the Commune totransportation; on account of his broken health this sentence was again commuted to one of imprisonment. On 20 April 1879 he was elected a deputy forBordeaux; although the election was pronounced invalid, Blanqui was freed, and immediately resumed his work of agitation.
As a socialist, Blanqui favored what he described as a justredistribution of wealth. However, Blanquism is distinguished in various ways from other socialist currents of the day. On one side, contrary to Karl Marx, Blanqui did not believe in the preponderant role of the working class, nor in popular movements: he thought, on the contrary, that the revolution should be carried out by a small group, who would establish a temporary dictatorship by force. This period of transitional tyranny would permit the implementation of the basis of a new order, after which power would be handed to the people. In another respect, Blanqui was more concerned with the revolution itself than with the future society that would result from it: if his thought was based on precise socialist principles, it rarely goes so far as to imagine a society purely and really socialist. In this he differs from theutopian socialists. For the Blanquists, the overturning of the bourgeois social order and the revolution are ends sufficient in themselves, at least for their immediate purposes. He was one of the non-Marxist socialists of his day.
Following a speech at a political meeting in Paris, Blanqui had a stroke. He died on 1 January 1881 and was interred in thePère Lachaise Cemetery. His elaborate tomb was created byJules Dalou.
Blanqui's uncompromisingradicalism, and his determination to enforce it by violence, brought him into conflict with every French government during his lifetime, and as a consequence, he spent half of his life in prison. Besides his innumerable contributions to journalism, he published a work entitled,L'Eternité par les astres (1872), where he espoused his views concerningeternal return. After his death his writings on economic and social questions were collected under the title ofCritique sociale (1885).
The Italian fascist newspaperIl Popolo d'Italia, founded and edited byBenito Mussolini, had a quotation by Blanqui on its mast:Chi ha del ferro ha del pane ("He who has iron has bread").[5]
Blanqui's political activism and his bookL'Eternité par les astres were commented on byWalter Benjamin in hisArcades Project and are referred to in the novelThe Secret Knowledge byAndrew Crumey.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Blanqui, Louis Auguste".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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