Francois noel babeuf biography of mahatma
François Noel Babeuf
The French political revolutionist and writer François Noel Babeuf () was active during the French Revolution. He was among the first to advocate socialism as a political institution for solving the problems of society.
François Babeuf was born in Saint-Quentin on Nov.
25, Before the French Revolution he was employed as a commissaire à terrien at Roye, a position in which he was supposed to help the landed aristocracy assert their feudal rights over the peasants. His occupation made him unpopular among the lower classes, and he himself did not like the nobility. In , on the eve of the Revolution, he wrote the section of the petition from the village of Roye which requested the king to abolish all feudal rights.
In the early years of the Revolution, Babeuf held minor government posts in Somme, in Montdidier, and finally in Paris, where he settled in He is credited with having applied the word "terrorists" to the Jacobins of After the Jacobins fell on 9 Thermidor (July 27, ) Babeuf supported the men who had defeated them.
Francois noel babeuf biography of mahatma gandhi The Directory thought it time to react. Historically, his importance lies in the fact that he was the first to propound socialism as a practical policy, and the father of the movements which played so conspicuous a part in the revolutions of and On Prairial 7 26th of April Babeuf and Darthe were condemned to death; some of the prisoners, including Buonarroti, were exiled; the rest, including Vadier and his fellow-conventionals, were acquitted. Babeuf s influence was fatal in a threefold way, because he re-established the memory of Robespierre among French Republicans, connected them with the theories of Rousseau, and paved the way for that school of Socialists which left the lessons of experience and observation for Utopian dreams.In he began to publish the Journal de la liberté de la presse, later known as Le Tribun du peuple. In an article written shortly after the Thermidorian coup, Babeuf expressed radical democratic ideas. At this time he began to call himself Caius Gracchus Babeuf, after the Roman social reformer.
In October Babeuf was arrested for attacking the government's economic policies.
After his release the following year, he became one of the Directory's most violent critics. In Le Tribun du peuple he put forth his socioeconomic ideas and called for the establishment of a republic of equals. His theories, which formed the basis for 19th-century socialism and communism, were offensive to the Thermidorians.
But he soon attracted a following of former Jacobins, and they opened a club at the Panthéon. In February the government closed the club and planned to take actions against the group, which was becoming a political menace.
Meanwhile, Babeuf and his supporters were plotting an attack upon the government.
Francois noel babeuf biography of mahatma The Directory thought it time to act; the bureau central had accumulated through its agents, notably the ex-captain Georges Grisel, who had been initiated into Babeuf's society, complete evidence of a conspiracy for an armed rising fixed for Floreal 22, year IV. After the club of the Pantheon was closed by Bonaparte, on the 27th of February , his aggressive activity redoubled. Updated Aug 08 About encyclopedia. Distress among all classes continued.They wanted to implement the Constitution of , because they believed that it would place governmental power in the hands of the people. However, their plan was betrayed by the spy Georges Grisel, and on May 10 Babeuf and the other leaders of the movement were arrested. On April 26, , Babeuf was condemned to death, and he was executed the next day.
Further Reading
The two best works on Babeuf in English are Ernest B.
Bax, The Last Episode of the French Revolution: Being a History of Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy of the Equals (), and Philippe M. Buonarroti, Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality (; trans. ; repr. ).
Biography of mahatma gandhi Early life [ edit ]. He angered the authorities who were clamping down hard on their radical enemies. The latter party aimed at the re-establishment of the revolutionary government, while Babeuf and his friends wanted besides to realise their schemes for the organisation of common happiness. Anno Domini.Both books are not only biographies, but histories of the "socialist" conspiracy. Also very good on the conspiracy is David Thomson, The Babeuf Plot: The Making of a Republican Legend (). □
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