Auguste Blanqui
Blanqui is reputed for being an unwavering activist: he participated in three revolutions, in 1830, 1848 and 1871, several failed insurrections (1839 in particular), and a considerable part of his life was spent in prison.
However, placing excessive focus on this reputation would be to over-simplify his contribution as Blanqui bears witness to the diversity of socialist ideas and the existence of a variety of persuasions. Blanqui (1805-81 [1993]) believed in upholding socialism without accepting any reference to progress while remaining perpetually in doubt as to whether socialism can blossom under the Republic. First, he rejected any positivist law of progress, which according to him paves the way for a fatalistic view of history. He argued that there can be no laws when it comes to social issues as action breaks the law. History is thus an open book that remains uncertain by nature with critical points in time which can alter its course. Socialist positivism produced “admirers of the accomplished fact” (1869 [1993]: 22) but there is nothing fatalistic about the advance of socialism. The characteristic traits of Blanquism are that history can be written on a daily basis through rupture, violent uprisings and the use of weapons and via class war or what Blanqui referred to as regular anarchy. Political concerns thus take the upper hand over economic policies.Despite a critical or ironical analysis (Blanqui 1885 [2012]) of certain concepts (usury, capital) and of various political economists (Frederic Bastiat, Auguste Walras and Henri Baudrillart), Blanqui placed little emphasis on utopian programmes or transitional strategies, apart from some general thoughts regarding substitution of the association for individual ownership of land and other means of production and arguments in favour of the necessity of universal education. According to Blanqui, these issues could only be addressed once the initial hurdle had been overcome, contrary to the practice of communists and Proudhonists. A focus on the exploitive nature of the state and a call for a temporary dictatorship in order to trigger the free development of socialism echoed the 1796 “Conspiration des Egaux” (“conspiracy of equals”), and placed more emphasis on insurrectional creativity than on examining socialist republicanism in greater depth (Vigier 1986).