The Spectre of Babeuf

by Ian H. Birchall

This study of Babeuf as a political thinker, based on an analysis of his extensive writings, and on scholarship unavailable in English, shows him to be a major precursor of the modern revolutionary socialist tradition. The first part traces Babeuf's political evolution in the context of the French Revolution; the second examines his changing reputation among subsequent historians. The final section assesses the originality of his thought, showing him to be neither a Jacobin nor a Utopian.

Genres: History, Politics, France, Nonfiction, French Revolution

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Milan Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

De meest vergeten figuur in de Franse Revolutie is jammer genoeg één van de meest boeiende figuren uit de periode.

Als de Haïtiaanse revolutie de contradicties van de Franse van buitenaf blootlegde, dan deed Babeuf dit ook al van binnenuit - en daarvoor betaalde hij met zijn leven.

Babeuf wordt vaak gezien als de schakel tussen Jean-Jacques Rousseau en Marx maar moet vooral vanuit zijn eigen tijd bekeken worden om een idee te krijgen van zijn unieke denken

[Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s probably testament to the sheer number of pamphlets, newspapers, and errata that some important figures yet remain unrepresented in English among these are: Robespierre, Jean-Paul Marat, and Gracchus Babeuf.
The first two have some slim collections available in English. Verso recently published a slice of Robespierre’s works that is still in print with a very fine introductory essay by Slavoj Zizek. Jean-Paul Marat remains a bit of a challenge but Gracchus Babeuf has very little available.
The estimable Marxists.org has a collection of Babeuf’s writings online (also represented are Marat and Robespierre) that I include below.

https://www.marxists.org/history/fran...

Affordable biographies on Gracchus Babeuf are equally hard to find but, yet, again Haymarket books delivers with this volume. This book represents a good, sympathetic portrait of Babeuf, his reputation, and his continuing legacy. I generally do not care for biographies and so I was glad not to be subjected to the obligatory, and tiresome, portraits from childhood or saccharine discussion from armchair psychologists on the subject’s mental struggle. Instead much of the biography is focused on how he developed his philosophy, where it was developed, and how it impacted the environment where he operated.
A discussion of Babeuf’s immediate influence separates Babeuf from the utopian socialists and indeed draws a better comparison with subsequent Marxian socialism.
As referenced earlier this book engages an audience who, very likely, has no knowledge of Babeuf’s works at all. The author’s summaries are helpful, as is the appendix which contains a very small sample of Babeuf’s work but otherwise the reader is left with a picture frame without the portrait. I myself have no familiarity with Babeuf’s works but this book has encouraged me to keep digging at the very least.

[Joe Xtarr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect from this, and I ended up being suitably satisfied at its conclusion. This is not an extensive biography of Babeuf, but rather a collection and analysis of historical interpretations of his revolutionary contributions. It works out the lines between fact and fiction, as well as between rhetoric and useful knowledge. The last part, of only about 30 pages, is what makes this worth reading. It offers a clean and clear synopsis of Babeuf's ideology and how it can be used in modern times.

I would recommend this book as a light read, with the plan to dig deeper from cited sources.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Widely viewed as the forerunner of modern communism, Babeuf has been the subject of numerous and often contradictory books for more than two centuries. In this book Birchdall gives the most prominent of them a critical sketch, also tracing a path through each to draw out his own interpretation.

The book itself is fairly short, only 200 pages, and since it covers a lot of ground one wishes there was more to it. But as one of the only English language sources on Babeuf, with Birchdall's well documented point of view it's plain to see us Anglophones have made out pretty well.

Also, it's easy to see Birchdall's case has weight. Babeuf learned enough from participating in the French Revolution for eight years that he discerned weaknesses in representative democracy—quite distinct from the Jacobins—which are depicted as simple givens today:

if a class were formed in society which was exclusively acquainted with the art of running society, with laws and administration, it would rapidly discover in the superiority of its intelligence, and above all in the ignorance of its compatriots, the secret of how to create distinctions and privileges for itself; exaggerating the importance of its services, it would easily succeed in getting itself considered as the necessary protector of the fatherland; and disguising its impudent undertakings with the pretext of the public good, it would continue to speak of liberty and equality to its unperceptive fellow-citizens, already victims of a servitude which would be all the harsher for seeming to be legal and voluntary.

[Arjuna Rubbo-Ferraro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good, extensive, study on Gracchus Babeuf's ideology, as one of the most interesting (if not the single most interesting) theorists of pre-Marxist communism. There are an amazing amount of citations the author provides, and heaps of background on what was occurring within the more radical factions of the French revolution, who wanted to abolish the monarchy and private property, to replace it with the beauty of a classless, stateless paradise.

Babeuf was something else, just not your ordinary communist. Someone who was willing to die for his cause, receiving the miserable steel of execution at his end. But, his memory will live on. The fact that he, and his fellow conspirators, were brave enough to face off against the monarchical state, to abolish capitalism and markets, having realised the fatal consequences beforehand, displays true heroism on his part. Hopefully, some day, a new conspiracy will emerge, one based off of Babeuf's ideas, that'll overthrow the corrupt governments we have in place today.

A book every devout communist should read. Babeuf was a revolutionary hero everyone should knowledge and admire.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. I especially liked the three part division of the book, but wished the first part, the biography, had been a written a bit livelier. Also would've preferred if the author, who was clearly aching to get to parts 2 and 3, dealing with the history of Babeuf's treatment by the academic press in part 2 and with the author's own interpretation in part 3, had edited out of the biography his habitual references to later, yet-to-be-introduced events and figures.

Would recommend this book to those who have the sort of interests that would encourage them to be in any way aware of Babeuf's existence in the first place

[Andrew Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This political biography and evaluation is a convincing corrective to histories that neglect or patronise Babuef as a hopeless utopian or secretive plotter. Instead Birchall relates how Babuef tried to relate to the rapidly shifting sands of the French Revolution to promote 'the common happiness' (what we would call 'revolutionary socialism' today). Ultimately the Directory's prosecution of his Conspiracy of the Equals was a sign that they did fear its potential influence, spread through journals, petitions, posters and personal persuasion. The inclusion of some of the key texts discussed in the appendix also helps to support the analysis.