MICHAEL BAKOUNINE.
Babeuf—“Gracchus” Babeuf, as he called himself—after serving part of a term in prison for forgery, escaped, went to Paris in the heat of the Revolution, and started The Tribune of the People, the first Socialistic paper ever published. He was too incendiary even for Robespierre, and was imprisoned in 1795. In prison he formed the famous “Conspiracy of Babeuf,” which was to establish the Communistic republic. For this conspiracy he and Darthé were beheaded May 24, 1797.
Etienne Cabet was a Socialist before the term was invented, but he was a peaceful and honest one. He published, in 1842, his “Travels in Icaria,” describing an ideal state. Like most political reformers, he chose the United States as the best place to try his experiment upon. It is a curious fact that there is not a nation in Europe, however much of a failure it may have made of all those things that go to make up rational liberty, which does not feel itself competent to tell us just what we ought to do, instead of what we are doing. Cabet secured a grant of land on the Red River in Texas just after the Mexican War, and a colony of Icarians came out. They took the yellow fever and were dispersed before Cabet came with the second part of the colony. About this time the Mormons left Nauvoo in Illinois, and the Icarians came to take their places. The colony has since established itself at Grinnell, Iowa, and a branch is at San Bernardino, California. The Nauvoo settlement has, I believe, been abandoned.
Babeuf and Cabet prepared the way for Saint Simon. He was a count, and a lineal descendant of Charlemagne. He fought in our War of the Revolution under Washington, and passed its concluding years in a British prison. He preached nearly the modern Socialism,—the revolt of the proletariat against property,—and his work has indelibly impressed itself upon the whole movement in France.
Charles Fourier, born in 1772, was the son of a grocer in Besançon, and he was a man who exercised great influence upon the movement among the French. He was rather a dreamer than a man of action, and, although attempts have been made to carry his familistère into practice, there is no conspicuous success to record, save, perhaps, that of the familistère at Guise, in France, which has been conducted for a long time on the principles laid down by Fourier.
PIERRE JOSEPH PROUDHON.
All these men had before them concrete schemes for a new society in which the evils of the present system would be avoided by what they considered a more equable division of wealth, and each made the effort to carry his scheme from theory into practice, so that the world might see the success and imitate it. Following them came the men who held that, before the new society can be formed, the old society must be got rid of—the men who see but one way towards Socialism, and that through Anarchy.
Louis Blanc was the first of these, although he would not have described himself as an Anarchist, nor would it be fair to call him one. He represented the transition stage. He attempted political reforms of a most sweeping character during the revolution of 1848. The government of the day established “national work-shops” as a concession to him. Of these more is said hereafter.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon, born in Besançon July 15, 1809, is really the father of French Anarchy. His great work, “What Is Property?” was published in 1840, and he declared that property was theft and property-holders thieves. It is to this epoch-making work that the whole school of modern Anarchy, in any of its departments, may be traced. Proudhon was fired by an actual hatred of the rich. He describes a proprietor as “essentially a libidinous animal, without virtue and without shame.” The importance of his work is shown by the effect it has had even upon orthodox political economy, while on the other side it has been the inspiration of Karl Marx. Proudhon died in Passy in 1865.