Doug Enaa Greene, Communist Insurgent: Blanqui’s Politics of Revolution. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017. 292 pp., $19.00.
What obstacle threatens the revolution of tomorrow? It is the same obstacle that blocked the revolution of yesterday—the deplorable popularity of bourgeois disguised as tribunes.
- Louis-Auguste Blanqui
The word “socialism” is making a comeback in mainstream politics today. The younger generation is more open to socialism than their Cold War-era parents. New Deal Democrats are described as socialists. And membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has increased drastically in the last few years—two members were even elected to Congress. All these changes may seem like good news for the left, but there is a danger in watering down the meaning of socialism: when revolution is taken out of the equation, socialism falls victim to reformism or simply becomes a buzzword in electoral politics.
These realities create the need for evaluating revolution’s place within socialism. In his timely and relevant Communist Insurgent, Doug Greene explores the life of Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881), a French communist who focused on the tactics of revolution. Compared to his contemporaries, Blanqui was not concerned with the mechanics of setting up a classless society. Rather, he felt that progress is only possible when the structures of the old society were overthrown. He understood that the only way to rid society of the ills of capitalism and for the lower classes to gain power is through revolution. Despite his shortcomings, today’s left can learn from Blanqui’s life, his warnings about reformism, and his unremitting dedication to communism.
The French Revolution and Jacobinism provided the initial foundation for Blanqui’s politics. The revolution demonstrated that the people, when organized, held power over the monarchy. While he would eventually conclude that Jacobinism would not be sufficient to liberate workers from inequality, anti-royalist politics remained a key piece of his larger vision. Enlightenment thinking also fueled Blanqui’s worldview, especially in regard to religion. For Blanqui, the Church was the embodiment of “darkness and oppression,” and socialists should educate the young with progressive ideas rather than religious ones.
For the most part, Blanqui focused his efforts on the methods of revolution. He did not think socialists should obsess over constructing utopian societies, but rather, their goal should be organizing political action. A strong socialist movement should begin underground, and it should deal largely with the strategy needed to overthrow capitalism, not the rebuilding that would come afterwards. As he argued, “Let us take care of today; tomorrow does not belong to us.”
When he did approach theory, Blanqui focused on the fundamentals: industrial capitalism leads to urban overcrowding and poorly designed sanitation systems, and it transforms artisanship into factory labor. Blanqui held a broader definition of the proletariat than Marx, considering not just the industrial working class under its umbrella, but also small shop-owners and artisans as part of the larger group of “the people.” This conception aligned with the Jacobin idea that the people who were the most oppressed and virtuous would be the class to overthrow all aristocrats and oppressors. For Blanqui, inequality was tied to land ownership. Those who owned the land got it by appropriating it from the people, using capitalism to enforce conceptions about private property and perpetuate slavery. The wealth accumulated by elites was thus only possible through the exploitation of the labor force. Unfortunately, Blanqui considered the workers too degraded to fully understand their oppression enough to take action, calling them “docile instruments of the wicked passions of the privileged.” Because of their exhaustion, Blanqui determined that a disciplined elite would be required to depose those in power and rule the people.
In 1839, Blanqui saw the opportunity for an uprising against a government weakened by economic crisis. Wanting to catch the monarchy by surprise, he organized insurgents to gain control of bridges and armories. Despite careful planning, the garrison overtook the revolutionaries in the end. Even though this uprising failed, it provided an important lesson. As Greene explains, “Blanqui had expected that a single heroic strike would awaken the revolutionary élan of the workers, and this would spread the revolt across Paris. Instead, the Parisian population watched in confusion on May 12, as the Seasons launched their insurrection, and they took no part in it. This was the fatal flaw in Blanqui’s conception of revolution: the masses played no role in liberating themselves.”
Blanqui served nine years in prison for the uprising. Throughout his time there, he endured arduous conditions, harsh punishments, estrangement from his son, and his wife’s death. Despite it all, he maintained a strict regimen as to embody the “revolutionary ideal.” After his release, Blanqui did not tone down his commitment to the revolutionary cause. Instead, he remained as dedicated as ever.
During the Second Republic, Blanqui felt that the workers no longer had to remain underground, so he organized the Central Republican Club (CRC) to put pressure on the government and create a space for mass organizing. The CRC demanded freedom of speech and of the press, condemned anti-union laws, and organized workers into a national guard. Additionally, the CRC organized over 300 labor organizations for a demonstration to demand that the provisional government postpone elections that seemed bound to yield a conservative majority. In May 1848, Blanqui led over 15,000 demonstrators to the National Assembly to create a revolutionary government. Authorities arrested Blanqui eleven days later. In June, the government crushed the continued uprising, leading to thousands imprisoned and dead. Blanqui was back in prison, this time sentenced to ten years.
After these defeats, Blanqui’s ideals became more socialist and less Jacobin. He warned that the main threat to revolution is bourgeois politics, saying that “everyone claims to be a democrat, aristocrats above all others.” For Blanqui, socialists who fell victim to reformism were not real socialists: “One cannot be a revolutionary without being a socialist, and vice versa.”
Blanqui escaped to Belgium, but he did not back down from revolutionary action despite his old age. Rather, he formed the Blanquist Party, a hierarchical organization with professional revolutionaries at the top and a body made up of revolutionary sympathizers, workers, students, and intellectuals who worked in secret and were ready to take up arms. In 1868, Blanqui penned Instructions for Armed Uprising, a military text that outlined the path for organized revolutionary activity. Blanqui’s quest for hierarchy is often considered elitist, yet considering his experiences, his position is understandable: chaotic anarchy is not a substitute for an organized insurrection. However, strong leaders cannot be the sole guide of revolutionary activity—the people must organize themselves. As Greene notes, “After years of organizing and planning, Blanqui’s expected revolutionary coup ended in an utter fiasco. Despite his best efforts, a revolution could not be willed into existence nor could it be accomplished without the people.”
The term “Blanquism” is often used today by reformists as a slur against revolutionaries. But Greene has demonstrated that this reductive view is unfair to Blanqui, who was one of the most dedicated revolutionaries of the nineteenth century. Even if Blanqui came to the wrong conclusions, he asked the right questions: How should the left organize? What is a revolutionary situation? What strategies lead to victory? What classes will lead the revolution? In a time when socialism does not feel like a viable option, Blanqui’s questions provide a necessary starting point for fanning the flames of revolution. For Blanqui, theory and practice were intertwined: revolution requires the rational thinking of the Enlightenment coupled with the strength and strategy of an organized people. Greene has rescued Blanqui from obscurity and shown how his life is just as relevant today as it was over a century ago. Communist Insurgent is therefore not merely a history of a forgotten time, but a reminder to socialists today not to fall victim to reformism but rather to focus their efforts on making revolution a reality.
Shalon van Tine
Ohio University
Athens, OH
sv864216@ohio.edu
