548 Chapter XXIII
The Conspiracy of Equals has always been looked back on with respectful inter-
est by partisans of the modern Left, as the first manifestation of the revolutionary
movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How far the Conspiracy was
“communistic” remains uncertain, though Babeuf and Maréchal, as individuals,
had ideas which are accepted by modern Communists as in effect communistic.
But even the inner leadership had diverse aims, and the whole movement was so
secret and so short- lived that the secondary organizers, not to mention the ordi-
nary followers, never knew who the leaders were or what their purposes might be.
Not much was said at the trial about “communism” or the abolition of property.
The charge was subversion of the government and constitution. Babeuf, at his trial,
therefore said little of private property or its abolition, denied that there had been
any conspiracy except insofar as the whole Enlightenment had been a “conspiracy”
for human freedom, and insisted repeatedly that he had been no more than secre-
tary to a peaceable Society of Democrats.^6 At no time did Babeuf ever use the
word “communism,” which was still unknown to the French language; but he did,
both before and after his arrest, make frequent use of the words “democrat” and
“democracy.” In fact, of all groups in France during the Revolution, it was the
Babouvists, far more than Robespierre, who most often used the word “democ-
racy” to describe a desirable state of society. Much of the interest in the whole af-
fair lies in the relationship between “democracy” and “communism” in this early
stage of their history. In the case of Babeuf personally and a few others, we can also
see how “democracy” was already used as a screen behind which a “communist”
program might be advanced.
The Conspiracy of Equals was a joining together of men who genuinely believed
that they were furthering the cause of democracy or equality, though they under-
stood it in different senses. It carried on the popular revolutionism of 1792–1794,
with a touch of international revolutionism in the person of Buonarroti and possibly
the Dutch Blauw;^7 and it gathered to itself a great variety of people who, for one
reason or another, domestic or international, thought the Directory too bourgeois,
too compromising, or too timid. Anyone having any touch with the conspiracy
knew at least that insurrection was contemplated, so that all were further to the Left
than the regular democrats such as those just described at Toulouse.
The actual relationship between elements in the movement is suggested by Al-
bert Soboul, the great authority on the Paris sans- culottes, an admirer of Babeuf,
and an eminent representative of the best Marxist historiography. “In the center,”
he says, “appears the directing group, resting on a small number of tested militants;
then the fringe of sympathizers, ‘patriots’ and ‘democrats,’ kept outside the secret,
and who seem not to have shared in the new revolutionary ideal; finally the popu-
lar masses themselves who were to be led. One of the essential problems of revolu-
tionary practice posed for the Conspirators was that of their relationship to the
popular masses by way of the sympathizers, who were the framework (cadres) not
so much of the Conspiracy as of the revolutionary movement that was to follow
6 Babeuf ’s final speech was published by Advielle, Histoire, II, 1–322.
7 But for the evidence against the intriguing hypothesis of a Dutch connection, suggested by
Godechot and Saitta, see above, pp. 50–51, 237–38.