TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY William Tjalsma
Foreword by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
3. The Age of Enlightenment
Throughout his adult life, Jean Meslier (1664-1729) was a priest in Champagne. His Testament became known in copies and excerpts only in 1733, after his death. Voltaire and other representatives of the Enlightenment found the book of great interest, but so dangerous that they never dared to publish its complete text. The first full edition appeared only in 1864, in Amsterdam.
The main distinguishing feature of the Testament is that its socialist conception is merely an outgrowth of the central idea of the work: the struggle with religion. Meslier saw nothing in religion other than a social role...of the furtherance of violence and social inequality by means of deceit and propagation of superstitions:
"In short, all that your theologists and priests preach to you with such eloquence and fervor. ..all this is in reality nothing but illusion, error, falsehood, fabrication and deception: these things were first invented [106] by sly and cunning politicians, repeated by impostors and charlatans, then given credence by ignorant and benighted men from the common folk, and finally supported by the power of monarchs and the mighty who connived at the deceit and error, superstitions and fraudulence, and perpetuated them by their laws so as to bridle the masses in this way and make them dance to their tune." (49: I: pp. 67-69)
These two passions--hatred for God and for any kind of inequality or hierarchy--are the driving forces of the Testament. Meslier considers religion to be responsible for the majority of human misfortunes. In particular, it sows dissent and promotes religious wars. But at the same time, he himself calls with sincere conviction for an uprising, the killing of kings, and the annihilation of all who could be considered more fortunate and prosperous.
"In this connection, I am reminded of the wish of one man who expressed the desire that 'all the mighty of this world and the noble lords be hanged and strangled with loops made of priests' bowels.' This judgment is certainly somewhat coarse and harsh, but there is some naive frankness about it. It is brief but eloquent and in a few words expresses what people of this kind really deserve." (49: I: p. 71)
To Meslier religion was an absurd superstition that cannot survive the slightest brush with reason. Of all the religions, the most absurd is the religion of the Christians, whom he calls Christ-worshipers. But it would be wrong to seek the reason for this attitude in an overly rationalistic turn of mind of the author. Refuting Christianity, Meslier is at the same time ready to believe the wildest superstitions and to repeat the most absurd rumors. For instance, it seems nonsensical to him that God could have had but a single Son, while much lesser creatures are much better endowed. Many animals bear ten or twelve offspring at once....
It is clear that Meslier's point of departure is a hatred for God and that his arguments are merely an attempt to justify this sentiment. [7]
The person of Christ is especially hateful to him, and here he literally runs out of terms of abuse. "And what of our God--and Christ--worshipers? To whom do they ascribe divinity?.... Indeed I shall: they ascribe it to the lunatic, demented, wretched bigot and ill-starred gallows-bird." (49: II: p. 25) ..."he was always poor, and was merely the son of a carpenter." (49: II: p. 26) ...
Meslier recognizes the need for "some dependence and subordination" in every society. But at present, power is based on violence, murder and crime. In his Testament there is nothing said about concrete measures for improving the position of the poor nor about the rich doing something to help. The book merely fans the hatred of the former for the latter.
"You are told, dear friends, about devils; they frighten you with the devil's name alone; you are forced to believe that devils are the most evil and repulsive of creatures, that they are the worst enemies of humankind, that they strive only to ruin people and render them unhappy in hell forever. ...But know, dear friends, that for you the most evil and true devils, those you ought to fear, are those people of whom I speak--you have no worse and no more evil enemies than the noble and the rich." (49: II: p. 166)
The essence and true cause of inequality is private property, which also is justified by religion....
Meslier's entire social program comes down to a few lines: "What a great happiness it would be for people if they used all life's blessings together." (49: II: p. 209)
In a just society, Meslier feels, production and consumption must be organized according to principles of communality. "People ought to possess all wealth and riches of the earth together and on equal terms and also use them together and equitably." (49: II: p. 198) . [Reminds me of UN vision of global solidarity]
Food, clothing, education for children, ought not to differ greatly in different families. Everyone ought to work under the guidance of wise elders... These measures would lead to miraculous results. No one would be in need; everyone would love his neighbor. Heavy work, deceit, vanity, would all disappear. Then, Meslier says, "no unhappy people would be seen on earth, whereas at present we come across them on every hand." (49: II: p. 217) [What an illusion!]
Family relations would also change, for a great evil introduced by the church would fall away--the indissolubility of marriage. "It is necessary to provide the identical freedom to men and to women to come together without hindrance, following their own inclination, and the freedom also to separate and leave one another when life together becomes intolerable or when a new attraction moves them to contracting a new union." (49: II: p. 214)...
The book opens with Meslier addressing his parishioners: "...I never was so foolish as to attach any significance to the sacraments and absurdities of religion; I have never felt bent to take part in them or even to speak of them with respect and approval." (49: II: p. 73) "With all my heart I detested the absurd duties of my profession and especially the idolatrous and superstitious masses and nonsensical and ridiculous holy communion that I was obliged to perform." (49: I: p. 77) [108-109]
The book ends with these words: "After all I have said, let people think about me, let them judge me and say of me and do whatever they please. I do not care. Let people adapt themselves and govern themselves as they please....I have given up almost any participation in the things of the world. The dead with whom I will travel the same road are troubled by nothing, they care for nothing. And with this nothing I shall end here. I myself am not more than nothing and soon will be, in the full sense of the word, nothing." (49: II: p. 377)
These were not idle words: Meslier committed suicide at the age of sixty-five.
The history of the Testament is curious. Its full text (or perhaps a series of extracts) came into the hands of Voltaire, who was greatly impressed. He wrote of the work: "This is a composition of absolute necessity for demons, an excellent catechism of Baal-zebub. Know that it is a rare book, a perfection." (49: III: p. 405) ...
"Know that God's blessing is on our nascent church: In one of the provinces, three hundred copies of Meslier have been distributed, which has produced many new converts."... [Converts to what?] [109-110]"
The Code of Nature or the True Spirit of the Law by Morelly appeared in 1755. Almost nothing is known about the author; arguments are still going on as to whether he ever existed or whether "Morelly" is simply a pseudonym.
At the root of Morelly's system is a notion about the natural state or the "code of nature" to which mankind should adhere in order to live a moral and happy life. The breaking away from the natural state was caused by private property, the cause of all human misery. Only by abolishing it will mankind return to its natural and happy state.
Part four of the work contains a system of laws which, according to Morelly, ought to serve as the foundation of an ideal society.
A central place is occupied by three "fundamental and inviolable laws." The first abolishes private property. An exception is made only for things which a person uses "for his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work." The second law proclaims all the citizens to be public persons whom the state provides with work and maintenance. The third law proclaims universal obligatory service "in conformity with the Distributive Laws."
All citizens from the age of twenty to twenty-five are obliged to be engaged in agriculture; they are then either retained in their place or made artisans. At the age of forty, everyone has the right of free choice of profession.
Everything produced is distributed through communal storehouses. Trade and barter are forbidden by the "inviolable law."
The population lives in towns broken up into equal blocks. All buildings are of the same shape. Everyone wears clothing of the same fabric.
On reaching a certain age, everyone is to marry. Children are brought up in the family until the age of five, then they are placed in institutions designated for their further upbringing. The training (as well as the food and clothing) of all children is absolutely the same. At the age of ten, children move to workshops to continue their training.
The number of persons who devote themselves to science and the arts is
strictly limited "for each type of occupation and for each town as well."
"Moral philosophy" is limited once and for all to the propositions worked out in Morelly's treatise:
"Nothing will be added beyond the limits prescribed by law." (50: p. 202)
On the other hand, unrestricted freedom of investigation is granted in the area of natural science.
The laws set forth by Morelly are to be engraved on columns or pyramids erected in the main square of each town.
Anyone attempting to change the sacred laws is to be declared mad and immured in a cave for life:
"His children and all his family will renounce his name." (50: p. 238)
We have already come across all these propositions in More and Campanella. But Morelly's system is of interest in that it contains the idea of the development of society from a primitive state to socialism.
Mankind once lived in a natural state, the Golden Age, the memory of which is preserved among all peoples. But this state was lost due to the mistaken introduction of private property by legislators. A return to a condition where no private property exists will take place thanks to progress, which Morelly considers to be the basic driving force of history.
"The phenomena that I observe demonstrate everywhere, even in a gnat's wing, the presence of a consistent development. I experience, I feel the progress of reason. I am justified, therefore, to say that by some miraculous analogy there also exist favorable transformations in the moral field, and that despite their power and pleasantness, the laws of nature do only gradually gain complete power over mankind." (50: p. 159)
Only after having experienced various forms of rule will the people understand what is truly good. The society described by Morelly will arise ultimately, as an inevitable triumph of reason, and mankind will come to the end of its journey from the unconscious Golden Age to the conscious one.
The spread of socialist ideas in the Age of Enlightenment may be judged by
the open sympathy with which they are referred to in the most influential work
of the day--the famous Encyclopédie. In an article on "The Legislator"
(IX, 1765), the author of which is apparently Diderot, the fundamental goal of
every legislator is described as the replacement of the "spirit of property" by
the "spirit of community."
"The laws of Peru strove to unite the citizens by bonds of humanity; while the legislation of other countries forbid doing harm to another, in Peru the laws prescribe tirelessly doing good. Laws establishing (to the extent possible in the limitations of a natural state) the communality of property weakened the spirit of property--the source of all evil. The most festive days in Peru were those days when the common field was being tilled, the field of an old man or an orphan. He who was punished by not being permitted to work in the common field considered himself a most unhappy man. Each citizen worked for all the citizens and brought the fruits of his labor to state granaries and received the fruit of other citizens' labor as reward." (Quoted in 51: p. 127)
Later, in 1772, Diderot returned to thoughts on the socialist form of state organization. In his work Supplement au voyage de Bougainville, he describes the life of the people of Tahiti, whose island the traveler is supposed to have visited.
The savages have everything in common. They work their fields together. Marriage does not exist and children are brought up by the community. Addressing the traveler, an old Tahitian says:
"Here, everything belongs to all, while you have preached a difference between 'mine' and 'thine.' " (52: p. 43) "Leave us our morals. They are wiser and more virtuous than yours. We do not want to exchange what you call ignorance for your useless knowledge. We have everything that we need and whatever is useful to us. Do we deserve contempt merely because we did not invent superfluous necessities? Don't inspire in us either your false necessities or your chimerical virtues." (52: p. 44)
"Our girls and women belong to all. ...A young Tahitian girl giving herself up to the delights of a young Tahitian boy's embrace would wait impatiently for her mother to undress her and bare her
* In the first chapter of the next section of this book, the reader will find information on the social and economic structure of the Inca empire, which is what is meant here by Peru.
Diderot's attitude toward socialist theories may also be judged by the fact that when Morelly's Code of Nature was included in various collections of his works, he did not protest. This testifies not only to Diderot's moral principles but to his sympathy for socialist ideas as well.
Deschamps's Truth or the True System. In conclusion, we will take note of one of the theoreticians of socialism in the eighteenth century, the Benedictine monk Deschamps. During his lifetime, he published Letters on the Spirit of the Times (1769) and The Voice of Reason Against the Voice of Nature (1770), both anonymously. But his most original ideas are contained in his Truth or the True System, which remained in manuscript and was published only in our century (and in complete form only in the last few years; see 53).
Deschamps is the author of one of the most striking and internally consistent socialist systems. He is also a philosopher of the highest order, and is sometimes referred to as a precursor of Hegel. That is unquestionably correct, but while following a path similar to the one Hegel would take later, Deschamps also developed many concepts which were to be enunciated by Hegel's disciples of the left--Feuerbach, Engels, and Marx. And in his conception of Nothingness he anticipates in many respects the contemporary existentialists.
Deschamps's outlook is very close to materialism, although it does not coincide with materialism entirely. He sees only matter in the world, but his understanding of it is unusual.
"The world has existed always and will exist eternally." (53: p. 317) In it there is an unending process going on of the appearance of certain parts out of others and their destruction. "All beings emerge one out of the other, enter one into the other, and all the various species are essentially only aspects of a universal type. ...All beings have life in them no matter how dead they seem, for death is merely a lesser manifestation of life and not its negation." (53: p. 127)
Life for Deschamps is equated to various forms of motion. He says of nature:
"Everything in it possesses a capacity for feeling, life,
This determines man's place in the universe and, in particular, his freedom of action: "If we believe that we possess a will and freedom, that results, first, from the absurdity that forces us to believe in a God and consequently to believe that we have a soul which has its merits and faults before God, and, secondly, because we cannot see the inner springs of our mechanism." (53: pp. 136-137)
Deschamps considers God to be an idea created by mankind, a product of definite social relations based on private property. Religion did not exist before these relations took shape, and it will no longer exist when they are destroyed. Religion itself is not only the result of the oppression of people but also a means facilitating this oppression. It is one of the basic obstacles to the transition of mankind to a happier social condition.
Deschamps says: "The word 'God' must be eliminated from our languages." (53: p. 133) Nevertheless, he was a passionate opponent of atheism. Of his system he has the following to say: "At first glance, it might be possible to think that it is a concise formulation of atheism, for all religion is destroyed in it. But upon consideration, it is impossible not to be convinced that it is not a formulation of atheism at all, for in place of a rational and moral God (whom I do subject to destruction, for he merely resembles a man more powerful than other men) I set being in the metaphysical sense, which is the basis of morality that is far from arbitrary." (53: p. 154)
Deschamps has in mind his understanding of the universe, to which he ascribed three specific aspects. The first is totality [le tout], that is, the universe as a unity of all its parts. This totality is the "basis whose manifestations are all visible beings," but which has another, nonphysical nature which is unlike its parts. Therefore, it cannot be seen but can be comprehended by reason. The second aspect is everything [tout], that is, the universe as a single concept.
"Totality presupposes the presence of the parts. Everything does not presuppose this.. ..I understand everything as existence in itself, existence by itself. ..in other words. ..existence through nothing but itself." (53: pp. 87-88) "Everything, not consisting of parts, exists; it is inseparable from totality, which consists of parts and of which everything is simultaneously a confirmation and a negation." (53: p. 124)
But perhaps the most striking of Deschamps's three aspects of the
Deschamps's arrogant and scornful attitude toward contemporary philosophers of the Enlightenment is connected with this view. He accuses them of creating unscientific schemes based on fantasy.
"Let our destroyer-philosophers realize how futile and worthless were their efforts directed against God and religion. The philosophers were powerless to carry out their task, until they touched upon the existence of the civil condition, which alone is the cause of the appearance of the idea of a moral and universal being and of all religions." (53: p. 107) "The condition of universal equality does not derive logically from the doctrine of atheism. It always seemed, to our atheists as well as to the majority of people, to be a product of fantasy." (54: p.41)
And fantasies of this sort are by no means harmless. There are only two ways out: the path proposed by religion and Deschamps's system. To undermine religion before the ground is prepared for the author's system is to hasten the coming of a destructive revolution. In The Voice of Reason, Deschamps says:
"This revolution will obviously have its source in the contemporary
philosophical trends, although the majority does not suspect this. It will have
much more lamentable consequences and bring much more
To the negative character of the philosophes' atheism Deschamps opposes what he sees as the positive character of his own system:
"The system I am proposing deprives us of the joys of paradise and the terrors of hell--just like atheism--but, in contrast to atheism, it leaves no doubt as to the rightness of the destruction of hell and paradise. Beyond that, it gives us the supremely important conviction, which atheism does not and can never give, that for us paradise can exist only in one place, namely, in this world." (53: p. 154)
Deschamps's social and historical doctrine is based on metaphysics. It is derived from a conception of the evolution of mankind in the direction of the greatest manifestation of the idea of oneness, of totality:
"The idea of totality is equivalent to the idea of order, harmony, unity, equality, perfection. The condition of unity or the social condition derives from the idea of totality, which is itself unity and union; for purposes of their own well-being, people must live in a social condition." (53: p. 335)
The mechanism of this evolution is the development of the social institutions which determine all other aspects of human life--Ianguage, religion, morality. ...For example:
"It would be absurd to suppose that man came from the hands of God already mature, moral and possessing the ability to speak: speech developed along with society as it became what it is today." (53: p. 102)
Deschamps considers various manifestations of evil to be the result of social conditions; he includes even homosexuality, for example.
The social institutions themselves take shape under the influence of material factors such as the necessity of hunting in groups and the guarding of herds, as well as the advantages of man's physical structure; in particular, that of his hand.
Deschamps divides the entire historical process into three stages or states through which mankind must pass:
"For man there exist only three states: the savage state or the state of the animals in the forest; the state of law,* and the state of morals. The first is a state of disunity without unity, without society; the second
* Elsewhere Deschamps calls this the civil state.
In the savage state people are much happier than in the state of law, in which contemporary civilized mankind lives:
"The state of law for us ...is undoubtedly far worse than the savage state." (53: p. 184) This is true with respect to contemporary primitive peoples: "We treat them with disdain, yet there is no doubt that their condition is far less irrational than ours." (53: p. 185) But it is impossible for us to return to the savage state, which had to collapse and give birth to the state of law by force of objective causes--first and foremost, by the appearance of inequality, authority and private property.
Private property is the basic cause of all the vices inherent in the state of law: "The notions of thine and mine in relation to earthly blessings and women exist only under cover of our morals, giving birth to all the evil that sanctions these morals." (53: p. 178)
The state of law, in Deschamps's opinion, is the state of the greatest misfortune for the greatest number of people. Evil itself is considered an outgrowth of this state: "Evil in man is present only due to the existing civil state, which endlessly contradicts man's nature. There was no such evil in man when he was in a savage state." (53: p. 166)
But those very aspects of the state of law that make it especially unbearable prepare the transition to the state of morals which seems to be that paradise on earth about which Deschamps spoke in a passage quoted earlier. His description, replete with vivid detail, contains one of the most unique and consistent of socialist utopias.
All of life in the state of morals will be completely subordinated to one goal--the maximum implementation of the idea of equality and communality. People will live without mine and thine, all specialization will disappear, as will the division of labor.
"Women would be the common property of men, as men would be the common
possession of women. ...Children would not belong to any particular man or
woman." (53: p. 206) "Women capable of giving suck and who were not pregnant
would nurse all children without distinction. ...But how is it, you will object,
that a woman is not to have her own children? No, indeed! What would she need
that property for?" (53: p. 212) The author is not alarmed by the fact that
For transition into this state, much that is now considered of value would have to be destroyed, including "everything that we call beautiful works of art. This sacrifice would undoubtedly be a great one, but it would be necessary to make." (53: p. 202) It is not only the arts--poetry, painting, architecture--that would have to disappear, but science and technology as well. People would no longer build ships or study the globe. "And why should they need the learning of a Copernicus, a Newton and a Cassini?" (53: p. 224)
Language will be simplified and much less rich, and people will begin to speak one stable and unchanging language. Writing will disappear, together with the tedious chore of learning to read and write. Children will not study at all and, instead, will learn everything they need to know by imitating their elders.
The necessity of thinking will also fall away: "In the savage state no one thought or reasoned, because no one needed to. In the state of law, one thinks and reasons because one needs to; in the state of morals, one will neither think nor reason because no one will have any need to do this any longer." (53: p. 296) One of the most vivid illustrations of this change of consciousness will be the disappearance of all books. They will find a use in the only thing that they are in reality good for--lighting stoves. All books ever written had as their goal the preparation for the book which would prove their uselessness--Deschamps's study. It will outlive the rest, but finally it, too, will be burned.
People's lives will be simplified and made easier. They will scarcely use any
metals; instead, almost everything will be made of wood. No large houses will be
built and people will live in wooden huts. "Their furniture would consist only
of benches, shelves and tables." (53: p. 217) "Fresh straw, which would later be
used as cattle litter, would serve them as a good bed on which they would all
rest together, men and women, after having put to bed the aged and the children,
who would sleep separately." (53: p. 221) Food would be primarily vegetarian
and, thus, easy to prepare. "In their modest existence they would need to know
very few things, and these would be just the things that are easy to learn."
(53: p. 225) This change of life style is connected
This new society will give rise to a new world view. "And they would not doubt--and this would not frighten them in the least--that people, too, exist only as a result of the vicissitudes of life and someday are destined to perish as a consequence of the same vicissitudes and, perhaps, to be eventually reproduced once more by means of a transformation from one aspect to another." (53: p. 225) "Because they, like us, would not take into account that they were dead earlier, that is, that their constituent parts did not exist in the past in human form; they would also, being more consistent than we, not place any significance on the termination of this existence in this form in the future." (53: p. 228) "Their burials would not be distinguishable from those of cattle." (53: p. 229) For: "their dead fellows would not mean more to them than dead cattle. ...They would not be attached to any particular person sufficiently so that they would feel his death as a personal loss and mourn it." (53: p. 230) "They would die a quiet death, a death that would resemble their lives." (53: p. 228)
4. The First Steps
We have seen how socialism was nurtured by the philosophy of the
Enlightenment. The new infant came into the world at the time of the Great
Revolution and was suckled by Mother Guillotine. But it took its first steps
down life's path after the heroic epoch of the Terror
In 1796, after Robespierre's fall and during the rule of the Directoire, a secret society was founded in Paris. It planned a political coup and worked out a program for a future socialist organization of the nation. The society was headed by the Secret Directory of Public Salvation, which relied on a network of agents. Among its leading members were Philippe Buonarroti and François Emile (who later called himself Caius Gracchus) Babeuf. A military committee was created to prepare for the uprising. The conspirators hoped for the support of the army. According to their calculations, seventeen thousand men would come to their active aid. After an informer's tip, the leaders of the conspiracy were arrested; two of them, including Babeuf, were exiled.
When he returned from exile, Buonarroti continued to propagandize his views. The majority of the socialist revolutionaries of the day were under his influence. In particular, he founded a circle in Geneva which was to exert a great influence on Weitling (whose role in the formation of Marx's views is well known).
Numerous documents in which the society set forth its views were published by the government immediately after the conspiracy was uncovered. A detailed description of the conspiracy and its plans was later given by Buonarroti in his book Conspiracy of Equals.
The central principle of this society's program was the need for equality at any cost. This was reflected in the very title of the work. The principle of equality was laid down in their "Manifesto" with invulnerable Gallic logic:
"All men are equal, are they not? This principle is irrefutable, for only a man who has lost his reason can in full earnestness call night day." (55: II: p. 134)
Having established this unshakable foundation, the "Manifesto" proceeds to draw conclusions from this axiom:
"We truly want equality--or death. This is what we want." (55: II: p. 134)
"For its sake, we are ready for anything; we are willing to sweep everything
away. Let all the arts vanish, if necessary, as long as genuine equality remains
for us." (55: II: p. 135) "Let there be an end, at last, to the outrageous
differences between the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the lords and
the servants, the governors and the governed." (55: II: p. 136)
This led directly to the communality of property:
"The agrarian law, that is, the division of arable land, was a temporary requirement of unprincipled soldiers, of certain tribes, who were prompted more by instinct than by reason. We aspire to something more lofty and just--the community of property." (55: II: p. 135)
The right of individual property was to be abolished. The country was to be turned into a single economic unit built exclusively on bureaucratic principles. Trade, except for the smallest transactions, was to be stopped and money withdrawn from circulation.
"It is necessary that everything produced on the land or in industry be kept in general storehouses for equitable distribution among citizens under the supervision of the appropriate officials." (55: II: p. 309)
Simultaneously, universal obligatory labor is introduced.
"Individuals who do nothing for the fatherland cannot enjoy political rights of any kind; they are as foreigners afforded the hospitality of the Republic." (55: II: p. 206)
"To do nothing for the fatherland means not to serve it by useful labor.. ..The law treats as useful labor the following endeavors: agriculture, stock raising, fishing, navigation, mechanical and artisan crafts, petty trade, transportation of men and goods, military arts, education and scientific activities. ...Persons engaged in teaching or science must submit certificates of loyalty. Only in this case is their labor considered useful. ...Officials supervise work and see to it that jobs are equitably distributed. ...Foreigners are forbidden to take part in public gatherings. They are under the direct supervision of the supreme administration, which can deport them to a place of corrective labor." (55: II: pp. 296-297) Under pain of death they are forbidden to possess weapons.
The creators of this plan were aware that carrying it out would entail an unprecedented growth in the number of officials. They pose this question in broad terms:
"Indeed, never before has a nation possessed them in such great numbers. Apart from the fact that in certain circumstances every citizen would be an official supervising himself and others, it is beyond doubt that public offices would be very numerous and the number of officials very great." (55: I: p. 372)
Here is how the interrelationship of individuals with the bureaucracy is conceived:
"In the public structure devised by the Committee, the fatherland takes
control of an individual from his birth till his death."
The authorities begin by educating the child:
"Protect him from dangerous false tenderness and by the hand of his mother lead him to a state institution where he will acquire the virtues and knowledge necessary for the true citizen." (55: I: p. 380)
Youths are transferred from state schools to military camps; only later, under the guidance of officials, do they undertake "useful labor."
"The municipal administration is to be kept constantly aware of the position of the working people of every class and of the assignments they are fulfilling. It is to inform the supreme administration in this regard." (55: II: p. 304) "The supreme administration will sentence to forced labor. ..persons of either sex who set society a bad example by absence of civic-mindedness, by idleness, a luxurious way of life, licentiousness." (55: II: p. 305)
This punishment is described lovingly and in great detail:
"The islands of Marguerite and Honoré, the Hyères, Oléron and Ré are to be turned into places of corrective labor, where foreigners who are suspicious and persons arrested for addressing proclamations to the French people will be sent. There will be no access to these islands. They will be administered by an organization directly subordinate to the government." (55: II: p. 299)
After these dark pictures, the section called "Freedom of the Press" is a positive joy.
"It will be necessary to devise means by which all the assistance that can be expected of the press can be extracted from it, without the risk of once again endangering the justice of equality and the rights of the people or of abandoning the Republic to interminable and fatal discussions." (55: I: p. 390)
The "means" turn out to very simple:
"No one will be allowed to utter views that are in direct contradiction to the sacred principles of equality and the sovereignty of the people.. ..The publication of any work having a psuedo-critical character is forbidden. ...All works are to be printed and disseminated only if the guardians of the will of the nation consider that its publication may benefit the Republic." (55: I: p. 391)
One cannot but admire how the creators of this system managed to Concern themselves with the slightest need of the citizen of the future Republic.
"In every commune, public meals will be taken, with compulsory attendance for
all community members. ...A member of the national
"Entertainment that is not available to everyone is to be strictly forbidden." (55: I: p. 299) This is explained in another passage: ". .. for fear lest imagination, released from the supervision of a strict judge, should engender abominable vices so contrary to the commonweal." (55: I: p. 348)
The "Equals" inform us that they are friends of all nations. But temporarily, after their victory, France is to be stringently isolated.
Until other nations would adhere to the political principles of France, no close contacts with them can be maintained. Until then, France will only see a menace for herself in their customs, institutions and, especially, their governments." (55: I: p. 357)
It appears that there was disagreement among Equals over one question. Buonarroti felt that a divine principle and immortality of the soul should be recognized, since for a society "it is essential that citizens recognize an infallible judge of their secret thoughts and acts, which cannot be persecuted by law, and that they should believe that a natural result of faithfulness to humanity and the fatherland will be eternal bliss." (55: I: p. 348) "All so-called revelation ought to be banished by law, together with maladies the germs of which ought to be gradually eradicated. Until that occurs, all were to be free to give vent to whims, so long as the social structure, universal brotherhood and the force of the law would not be disrupted." (55: I: pp. 348-349) Buonarroti believed that "the teaching of Jesus, if depicted as flowing out of the natural religion from which it does not differ, could become a support of a reform based on reason." (55: I: p. 168) But Babeuf held a more narrow view: "I attack relentlessly the main idol, until now venerated and feared by our philosophers, who dared to attack only his retinue and surroundings. ...Christ was neither a sans-culotte nor an honest Jacobin nor a wise man nor a moralist nor a philosopher nor a legislator." (55: II: p. 398)
Academician V. P. Volgin, an eminent specialist on the literature of utopian
socialism, notes the important innovation introduced by Babeuf and the Equals in
comparison with other socialist thinkers. While predecessors like More,
Campanella and Morelly focused on a picture of a fully formed socialist
community, Babeuf pondered the problems of the transitional period as well,
suggesting methods for
It goes without saying that in an already established socialist society, legislative power is to be entirely in the hands of the people. In all districts, "assemblies of popular sovereignty" are created; each is made up of all the citizens of a given district. Delegates appointed directly by the people constitute the "Central Assembly of Legislators." (The procedure for "appointment" is not further specified.) The legislative power of these assemblies is restricted, however, by certain basic principles which "the people themselves are not empowered to violate or to alter." In addition to legislative assemblies, and parallel to them, senates consisting of old men are to be instituted. Supreme power was to be given over to a corporation of "Guardians of the National Will." This was conceived as a kind of "tribunal responsible for overseeing the legislators, so that those who abuse the right of issuing decrees would not encroach upon legislative power." (55: I: p. 359)
In the period immediately following the revolution, however, a different structure of government was envisaged. "What kind of authority would this be? Such was the delicate question that the Secret Directory has subjected to thorough scrutiny." (55: I: p. 216) The answer to this "delicate question" could be summed up as follows: power would be concentrated in the hands of the conspirators or partly shared with individuals appointed by them.
"It will be proposed to the people of Paris to institute a National Assembly vested with supreme power and consisting of democrats, one from every department; meanwhile the Secret Directory will investigate thoroughly as to which of the democrats ought to be put forward after the revolution is completed. The Directory will not cease to act but will carryon supervision of the new Assembly." (55: I: p. 293) After prolonged hesitation, the conspirators almost made up their minds to "ask the people for a decree which would entrust the legislative initiative and the implementation of laws" to them alone. (55: I: p. 290)
In the section entitled "In the Initial Stage of Reform the Agencies Must Be Entrusted Only to Revolutionaries," we read:
"A true Republic should be founded only by those selfless friends of humanity
and the fatherland whose wisdom and courage exceed the wisdom and courage of
their contemporaries." (55: I: p. 375)
Therefore, a committee composed of these "selfless friends of humanity" would see to it that "public institutions consisting solely of the best revolutionaries" should have only a very gradual change of personnel. (55: I: p. 375)
In more concrete terms, sixty-eight deputies chosen from among those serving in the Convention of the day were designated by the Committee to be left in place. To these were to be added another one hundred deputies "selected by us jointly with the people."
Beginning with the first day of the revolution, economic reforms were to be undertaken, as set forth in their "economic decree." How good to learn that implementation was to be on a purely voluntary basis. All those who would renounce their property voluntarily would make up a large national community. But everyone would retain the right not to join this community. Those who did not would acquire the status of "foreigners" with all the attendant rights and duties sketched in above. The economic position of "foreigners" is defined in the "Decree on Taxation," which contains, among other points, such things as:
"1. The sole taxpayers are the individuals who do not join the community. ...
"4. The sum of tax payments in each current year is twice the amount of the preceding year. ...
"6. Persons not party to the national community may be required, in case of necessity and against payment of future taxes, to supply produce and manufactured goods to the storehouses of the national community." (55: II: pp. 312-313)
The decree "On Debts," article three, states that debts owed by "any Frenchman who has become a member of the national community to any other Frenchman are annulled." (55: II: p. 313)
Other measures designed to strengthen the newly established regime and to promote its reforms were elaborated. For instance, "distribution of the possessions of emigrants, conspirators and enemies of the people to defenders of the fatherland and to the poor." (55: II: p. 253)
It is tempting to think that it was profound knowledge of life, based on personal tragic experience, that prompted the "selfless friends of humanity" to plan instituting the following highly important reforms, on the very first day of the revolution:
"Objects belonging to the people [!] and in hock will be immediately returned
without charge. ... On completion of the uprising, indigent
Unfortunately, the disciples of the Age of Reason did not leave a more detailed account of this operation. Had the economy of the time attained so high a level that the number of indigent citizens no longer surpassed that of the "conspirators"? Or, if the lodgings of the "conspirators" would not suffice to accommodate all the indigent, in what way would the lucky new owners of apartments be chosen? The documents of the "Conspiracy of Equals" are of little help on these points,* but we learn some other interesting details.
"The furniture of the above-mentioned rich will be confiscated as necessary for the adequate furnishing of the dwellings of the sans-culottes. "(55: II: p. 282)
Finally, terror was envisaged as one of the measures of strengthening the regime. The tribunals which had acted during the Jacobin terror until the ninth of Thermidor, 1794, were to be restored. And: "On pain of being held outside the law, return to prison all persons who were held there until the ninth of Thermidor of year II, if they have not complied with the call to limit themselves to the necessities for the benefit of the people." (55: I: p. 404) "Any resistance must be immediately suppressed by force; the persons involved are to be exterminated. Also liable to capital punishment are persons sounding an alarm themselves or causing others to do so; and foreigners, no matter what their nationality, who are apprehended on the street." (55: II: p. 232) Members of the existing government--members of the two Councils and of the Executive Directorate--were to be executed. "The crime was evident and the punishment had to be death--a great example was essential." (55: I: p. 283)
"In the Insurgent Committee, views were current to the effect that the condemned were to be buried under the rubble of their palaces, whose ruins would serve to remind future generations of the just punishment meted out on. the enemies of the people." (55: I: p. 284)
In elaborating their system of reforms and practical measures, the
* Although there is the following remark: "It would be an error to confuse the systematic distribution of lodgings and clothes with pillage." (55: I: p. 282)
We note with sorrow how such a perfectly conceived system was constantly hampered in practice by a host of petty and squalid difficulties. First of all, the conspirators did not avoid what Rabelais called "the incomparable grief," that is, lack of money. In the section entitled "The Participants in the Conspiracy Despised Money," Buonarotti says:
"Certain steps were undertaken to obtain means, but the greatest sum that the Secret Directory ever had at its disposal was 240 francs in cash, contributed by the ambassador of an allied [?] republic." (55: I: 251)
We cannot help but sympathize when Buonarotti laments: "How difficult it is to do good armed only with means acknowledged by reason." (55: I: p. 251)
And a second misfortune befell our heroes--internal discord over dividing power not yet seized. The Committee was at first joined by a small group that called itself the Montagnards. But soon, "the Committee was informed that they had secretly undertaken maneuvers to get around the conditions which had been agreed upon so as to guarantee that supreme power in the Republic would be in the Montagnards' hands. The Committee was so thoroughly convinced they could do no good that it considered the slightest movement which gave them any power to be an unforgivable crime." (55: I: p. 286)
And finally, a third misfortune: The Committee turned out to be under the influence of an agent provocateur. Grisel, a member of the military committee, "hurried his trusting colleagues along, overcame obstacles, suggested new measures and never forgot to encourage those around him with exaggerated pictures of the loyalty of the Grenelle democratic camp." (55: I: p. 265) And it was this Grisel who was denouncing the Committee to the authorities!
The Insurgent Committee was already working out the details of the uprising.
One of its members was writing a proclamation called: "The Insurgent
Committee of Public Salvation. ..The people have triumphed, tyranny is no
more. ..." (55: I: p. 400)
"At this point, the writer was interrupted and seized," says Buonarotti, who seems not to have lost his French wit. The army and the people had not supported the conspirators: "The standing army, with weapons in hand, helped the campaign against democracy, while the population of Paris, persuaded that those arrested were thieves, remained a passive witness." (55: I: p. 417)
The circumstances of this astonishing episode prompted us to resort to a form of presentation that perhaps seems out of place in our narrative. But this dissonance reflects a curious objective property of the phenomenon under study. At the moment of their inception, socialist movements often strike one by their helplessness, their isolation from reality, their naIvely adventuristic character and their comic, "Gogolian" features (as Berdyaev put it). One gets the impression that these hopeless failures haven't a chance of success, and that in fact they do everything in their power to compromise the ideas they are proclaiming. However, they are merely biding their time. At some point, almost unexpectedly, these ideas find a broad popular reception, and become the forces that determine the course of history, while the leaders of these movements come to rule the destiny of nations. (In this way a frightened Müntzer climbed over the Allstedt city wall, having deceived his supporters, only to become, soon thereafter, one of the leading figures in the Peasant War which shook Germany.) It would seem that there was no contradiction when Dostoyevsky peopled his novel The Possessed with "three and a half' nihilists incapable of making a serious disturbance in a provincial town, while at the same time predicting an imminent revolution that would carry away one hundred million lives.
Summary
We shall attempt to sum up those new features of socialist ideology that we have encountered in utopian socialism and in works of the Enlightenment.
1. If in the Middle Ages and during the Reformation socialist ideas developed
within movements that were religious, at least formally, utopian socialism tends
to break with religious form and gradually acquire a character hostile to
religion. In More and Campanella we were able to point out an alienated and at
times ironic attitude toward Christianity. Winstanley is openly hostile to
contemporary religions.
2. The Socialism of this epoch borrows the idea derived from medieval mysticism (Joachim of Flore's, for instance) that history is an immanent and orderly evolutionary process. However, the goal and the driving force invested in this process by the mystics--knowledge of God and merging with Him--is eliminated. Instead, progress is recognized as the motivating force of history, and human reason is seen as its supreme product.
3. Socialist doctrines preserve the notion of the medieval mystics about the three stages in the historical process, as well as the scheme of the fall of mankind and its return to the original state in a more perfect form. The socialist doctrines contain the following components:
a. The myth of a primordial "natural state" or "golden age," which was destroyed by that bearer of evil called private property.
b. A castigation of the way things are. Contemporary society is pronounced incurably depraved, unjust and meaningless, ready only to be scrapped. Only on its ruins can a new social structure be built, a structure that would guarantee people every happiness of which they are capable.
c. The prophecy of a new society built on socialist principles, a society in which all present shortcomings would disappear. This is the only path for mankind to return to the "natural state," as Morelly put it: from the unconscious Golden Age to the conscious one.
4. The idea of "liberation," which was understood by the medieval heresies to be liberation of the spirit from the power of matter, is transformed into an appeal for liberation from the morality of contemporary society, from its social institutions and, most of all, from private property.
At first, reason is recognized to be the driving force of this liberation,
but gradually its place is taken over by the people, the poor. In the world view
of the participants in the "Conspiracy of Equals," we can see this conception in
finished form. As a result, new concrete features appear in the plan for the
establishment of the "society of the future": terror, occupation of the
apartments of the rich by the poor, confiscation of furniture, abolition of
debts, etc.