The Role of the Blanquist Party in Left-Wing Politics in France, 1879-90

Abstract

Every student of the French Left is familiar with the career of Auguste Blanqui, the uncompromising hero of the revolutionary movement in France in the nineteenth century. Far less is known of the party which he inspired, the small circle of militants for whom he remained a living legend. The Blanquists are today remembered as a conspiratorial elite of professional revolutionaries, whose role of leadership in the Paris Commune of 1871 was momentarily inspiring, but whose subsequent activities were without practical consequence. From this perspective, Blanquism was a style of political protest with little relevance for the political realities of the Third Republic. But in the decade which separates the amnesty of the Communards (1880) from the Boulangist crisis (1889), the Blanquists enjoyed a stature, exerted a moral influence, and played a role in left-wing politics which far surpassed their numerical importance. Their prestige was dependent, not only upon their identification with the values and experience of the Commune, but also upon their experimentation -with political tactics designed to adapt the revolutionary movement to changing political conditions. For the political process itself was becoming democratized, a phenomenon with which the revolutionary parties were obliged to come to terms. The significance' of the Blanquists in left-wing politics in this era of transition is derived from their decision to abandon plans for a coup d'etat by a revolutionary elite in favor of efforts to catalyze a popular upheaval through broad-based agitation. By exploring new possibilities of revolutionary action in the dawning age of mass politics, they hoped to revitalize the Jacobin values of popular vigilance and direct political action identified with the revolutionary movement in the nineteenth century. Some historians minimize the role of the Blanquists in left-wing politics in the 1880s because they did not appear to contribute to the