Auguste Blanqui and the Art of Insurrection

Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881, Paris) was a French socialist and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism. Blanqui's life spanned the period from the restoration of the Bourbons to the defeat of the Paris Commune. He was a leading activist in the revolutionary upheavals of those years in France - a profession revolutionary who earned the reputation of a master-strategist in the art of insurrection and who spent 33 of his 76 years in nearly thirty different prisons. This book relates the story of his life, of the revolutionary conspiracies he engaged in, and of his ideas on the aims and strategy of revolution. Blanqui's conviction that a revolution was inevitable that would at once establish to producers in rightful places of power and restore France to its role in the vanguard of progress, was formed early in his life and maintained by him to the end. And since open agitation was forbidden by repressive governments he saw revolutionary conspiracy as the necessary means to redeem his country from its ruling minority. He was throughout his life the most persistent and expert architect of secret societies, with a small clandestine general staff in command which would map out the course of attack and decide the time and place for insurrection. The author, Dr. Bernstein is the author of a number of works on socialist and revolutionary movements in Europe in the 19th century. Bernstein shows that while Blanqui was convinced that the future belonged to communism, he never saw the working class as the principal motor of history as Marx did and that the vital difference between Marx and Blanqui stemmed from different philosophies of history.