Blanquism

"Humanity ... is never stationary. Its progressive march leads it to equality. Its regressive march goes back through every stage of privilege to human slavery, the final word of the right to property."
File:Blanqui.png Louis Auguste Blanqui

Blanquism is an authoritarian, economically left ideology and revolutionary strategy based on the ideas of Louis Auguste Blanqui. It advocates for revolutionaries to take the most radical line possible, and to never accept compromises in any situation at all. It also believes in the idea that revolutions are dictated by a small minority through careful planning.

History

Comrade Plekhanov published a detailed account in Kurjer, entitled Where is the right?, in which he accuses the so-called Bolsheviks of being “Blanquist”.

Our aim is not to defend the Russian comrades, against whom Comrade Plekhanov aims the batteries of his wisdom and dialectics, as they certainly can do that themselves. But it is true that the question deserves some attention, and may also be of interest to our readers, which is why we have opened a space for it now.

In order to characterize Blanquism, comrade Plekhanov quotes Engels about Blanqui, a French revolutionary of the 1840s whose name ended up baptizing the entire movement. “In your political activity,” says Engels, “[Blanqui] was basically a ‘man of action. He believed that a well-organized minority, which, at the right moment, attempts a revolutionary sleight of hand, is already able to drag the popular mass along with the first successes and thus make a successful revolution. […] From the fact that Blanqui conceives any revolution as a coup d'état of a small revolutionary minority, the necessity of dictatorship follows after the success – of course, not of the entire revolutionary class of the proletariat, but of the small number of those who carried it out. the coup and which, beforehand, will once again be organized under the dictatorship of one or a few”.

Friedrich Engels, a collaborator of Karl Marx, is undoubtedly a great authority, but whether or not this characterization of Blanqui applies remains an open question. For in 1848 Blanqui need not necessarily assume that his club would remain a “small minority”; on the contrary, in that epoch of a great revolutionary movement he certainly counted on the whole working people – if not in France, at least in Paris – to follow his call to fight against the sneaky and shameful policy of the bourgeois ministry, which tried to “ wrest their conquests away from the people'. But this is not the case, it is the fact that Plekhanov tries to prove that Engels' characterization of Blanqui could be applied to the so-called Bolsheviks (which Comrade Plekhanov now calls a minority, because during the party's unification congress they turned out to be a minority).

Literally he puts it this way: "The whole of this characterization may be fully applied to our present minority." He then confirms his own words this way: “The relationship between Blanquists and the masses was utopian in the sense that they did not understand how important their revolutionary autonomy is. In his plans, in fact, only conspirators participated, the mass appeared only when it was dragged along by the well-organized minority”.

Therefore, Comrade Plekhanov thinks that the Russian Bolshevik comrades (let us stick to the usual expression) are hostages to this “original sin of Blanquism”. In our opinion, Comrade Plekhanov has not substantiated his accusation. Comparison with the Populists, who were actually Blanquists, proves nothing, and the malicious remark that Sheljabov, hero and leader of Narodnaya Volya, would have had a keener political instinct than Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, is too bad. I like that we dwell on it.

We believe that it is enough to put the questions in this way so that everyone who is even a little familiar with the current revolution and who has come into contact with it directly can answer in the negative. Therein lies the whole difference between conditions in the year 1848 in France and those in the Russian state today, because the proportion between the “organized minority” – that is, the party of the proletariat – and the mass has fundamentally changed. In the year 1848, self-styled socialist revolutionaries were making desperate efforts to inoculate these masses with socialist ideas, in order to draw them away from the support of empty bourgeois socialism. Socialism itself was ill-defined, utopian, petty-bourgeois. In Russia, the matter today presents itself differently: neither our putrid progressive democracy, nor the cadet society, nor the tsarist constitutionalists in Russia, nor any other bourgeois “progressive” party in other parts of the state has managed to win over the broad masses. workers. Today, these masses are uniting themselves around the banner of socialism: since the outbreak of the revolution, they have spontaneously and by their own motto followed the red flag. Our own party offers the best proof.

Alleged Connections to Lenin and Leninism

File:Orthlen.png Leninism has been accused of Blanquism, usually by left-wing critics of it. The comparison was first made by Lenin's contemporaries, for example the german revisionist marxist File:Bernstein.png Eduard Bernstein and File:Menshevik.png Mensheviks like File:Plekhanov.png Georgi Plekhanov.

File:Luxem.png Rosa Luxemburg was also initially among those who made the accusation in her 1904 work "Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy".^[1] However she went on to change her view and defended the bolsheviks from accusations of blanquism in her 1906 work "Blanquism and Social Democracy".^[2] She said:

"We would dispute comrade Plekhanov’s reproach to the Russian comrades of the current “majority” [Bolsheviks] that they have committed Blanquist errors during the revolution. It is possible that there were hints of them in the organisational draft that comrade Lenin drew up in 1902, but that belongs to the past – a distant past, since today life is proceeding at a dizzying speed."^[2]

"If today the Bolshevik comrades speak of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they have never given it the old Blanquist meaning; neither have they ever made the mistake of Narodnaya Volya, which dreamt of “taking power for itself” (zachvat vlasti). On the contrary, they have affirmed that the present revolution will succeed when the proletariat – all the revolutionary class – takes possession of the state machine."^[2]

File:Councom.png Council communists, libertarian socialists and anarcho-communists have also criticized Leninism as being similar to Blanquism.

Lenin himself rejected this comparison, and was heavily critical of Blanquism, as he said, "We have always heard a chorus of accusation that we were too inflexible and ossified, too adamant. And yet our opponents call us “Blanquists”, “anarchists” and “true socialists”. The Blanquists are conspirators (they have never been in favour of the general strike), they exaggerate the importance of revolutionary government"^[3] and "To become a power the class-conscious workers must win the majority to their side. As long as no violence is used against the people there is no other road to power. We are not Blanquists, we do not stand for the seizure of power by a minority. We are Marxists, we stand for proletarian class struggle against petty-bourgeois intoxication, against chauvinism-defencism, phrase-mongering and dependence on the bourgeoisie"^[4].

Beliefs

As a socialist, Blanqui favored what he described as a just redistribution of wealth. However, Blanquism is distinguished in various ways from other socialist currents of the day. On one side, contrary to Karl Marx, Blanqui did not believe in the preponderant role of the working class, nor in popular movements: he thought, on the contrary, that the revolution should be carried out by a small group, who would establish a temporary dictatorship by force. This period of transitional tyranny would permit the implementation of the basis of a new order, after which power would be handed to the people. In another respect, Blanqui was more concerned with the revolution itself than with the future society that would result from it: if his thought was based on precise socialist principles, it rarely goes so far as to imagine a society purely and really socialist. In this he differs from the utopian socialists. For the Blanquists, the overturning of the bourgeois social order and the revolution are ends sufficient in themselves, at least for their immediate purposes. He was one of the non-Marxist socialists of his day.

Variants

File:Cball-USSR.png Tkachevism

Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev (1844–1886) was a Russian revolutionary theorist associated with the radical intelligentsia of the 1860s and 1870s. Born into a minor noble family, he became involved in student activism and anti-Tsarist agitation at a young age. His political engagement led to repeated arrests, imprisonment, and eventual exile. Writing primarily from abroad, Tkachev developed a body of revolutionary theory that would later be described as a precursor to Bolshevik organizational doctrine.

Tkachev emerged from the intellectual environment shaped by figures such as Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He adopted key elements of File:Chernyshevsky.pngChernyshevsky’s rationalism and social critique, particularly the belief that disciplined, conscious minorities could direct historical change. At the same time, he diverged from mainstream File:Narodniks.pngNarodnichestvo (populism), which emphasized organic peasant uprising. Tkachev rejected the gradualist faith in spontaneous rural revolt, arguing instead for tightly coordinated revolutionary intervention.

Central to his thought was an early formulation of File:Vanguardism.pngvanguardism. Tkachev maintained that a small, conspiratorial revolutionary elite should seize power on behalf of the people and then reorganize society from above. This conception of political strategy anticipated later Bolshevik doctrines, leading historians to describe him as a theorist of File:Orthlen.pngproto-Bolshevism. His advocacy of a centralized revolutionary authority aligned with the concept later termed the File:ErgaDictature.pngdictatorship of the proletariat, though Tkachev envisioned this phase as a necessary transitional mechanism rather than a permanent structure.

Tkachev’s socialism has been characterized as File:Utilitarian socialism.pngutilitarian socialism, grounded in the idea that political action should be evaluated by its capacity to produce tangible collective benefit rather than moral idealism alone. He favored decisive, even coercive measures if they advanced social equality and dismantled autocracy. Unlike more libertarian strands of Russian populism, his approach prioritized efficiency, discipline, and strategic calculation over participatory deliberation.

Although he never led a mass movement, Tkachev’s writings contributed to the evolution of Russian revolutionary theory. His insistence on centralized organization, elite coordination, and preemptive seizure of power would resonate decades later in the practices of revolutionary Marxist groups. As such, Pyotr Tkachev occupies a significant place in the genealogy of Russian radical thought, bridging populist agitation and the structured revolutionary politics that culminated in the twentieth century.

How to draw

File:Blanqui flag.svg

Flag of Blanquism

Draw a ball with eyes
Fill it red
Inside it draw a white sword

Color Name		HEX	RGB
	Red	#FF0000	rgb(255, 0, 0)
	White	#FFFFFF	rgb(255, 255, 255)

Relationships

Friends

File:SyndieSam.png Syndicalism - Trade unionism can be a good fighting tactic, the CRC has supported various workers' strikes.
File:Oligarchy.png Oligarchy - Only the top few of the committee are competent enough to rally and guide the masses.
Left-Wing Nationalism - I'm a patriot!
Jacobinism - The Revolution was great!
File:NeoBabouvism.png Neo-Babouvism - I would define myself more as a follower of Hébert rather than Babeuf but we were allies during the Paris commune.
Republicanism - Down with the monarchy!
File:Enlightenment.png Enlightenment Thought - "The philosophy inaugurated in the 18th century by Diderot and Holbach, proclaimed and promulgated in the 19th century as the unanimous verdicts of science, is the only possible basis of the future. The experiment is over. All the abortions of the Revolution since 89 are due to the abandonment of this philosophy. One must choose between it or the Middle Ages. It will be our flag."
File:StateathFedora.png State Atheism - Irreligion and materialism is the only way.

Frenemies

Christian Socialism - At least the League of the Just participated in my failed Parisian uprising of 1839.
File:Utsoc.png Utopian Socialism - I am technically considered to be a form of you, but you're so out of touch with how political power or material reality works that you'll never get a chance of launching a revolution.
Fascism - Mussolini used my motto in his newspaper "il Popolo d'Italia" and initially fascism had some vague revolutionary ideals, but became decidedly conservative and counter-revolutionary over time, this story of class collaboration and corporatism is rubbish. File:SocialistFash.png This variant is the closest thing I have to a modern day praxis though.
File:Boulanger.png Boulangisme - Général Revanche caused a split in my party, with some arguing that it was a form of Jacobin nationalism that could lead to socialism.
File:Luxem.png Spartacism - Same goal but completely different means and Rosa Luxemburg has often denounced me. At least you're not a reformist.
File:Orthlen.png Leninism - Unfortunately you are a Marxist but this story of vanguardism is interesting.
File:LeftCom.png Italian Left Communism - Long live The Regime! o7 (Though you should drop the marxism and start liking me unironically)
Marxism - You are too tied to theory while I am a man of action and you tend to give too much weight to the role of the masses in the revolution. Though you later thought that I should have been the one to lead the Commune all along.

Enemies

File:Bism.png Bismarckism - Dirty Prussian reactionary who helped the bourgeois "republic" to destroy the glorious File:ParisCom.png Paris commune!
Absolute Monarchism - I participated in the July Revolution to oust Charles X, unfortunately, it led to the birth of another monarchy.
Catholic Theocracy - "Catholicism is the tomb of intelligence, of thought, of brain...
File:ProtTheo.png Protestant Theocracy - ...Protestantism, the tomb of conscience, of feeling, of heart."
File:Bonaparte.png Bonapartism - "Every edifice built by the Empire and the Restoration must be overthrown, and since not one single stone of this edifice is yet to fall, they will work indefatigably to demolish and destroy it."
Capitalism - Not much different from slavery.
File:Property.png Propertarianism - Private property is a source of exploitation and injustice.
Girondism - Unfortunately, a lot of the so-called revolutionaries of today are more of Girondists and not that of the Montagnards.
Populism - Why do you want to be helped by the stupid masses? How can you trust them to do what you want to do politically? They will ruin your plans. I do not understand you.
File:Rpop-tinfoilhat.png Right-Wing Populism - This whole communist elitist thing sounds neat, what's the problem?

Gallery

File:Blaquism.png

pl:Blankizm

[1] ttps://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/index.htm

[blanquism_and_social_democracy-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1906/06/blanquism.html

[3] ttps://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/may/26.htm

[4] ttps://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/09.htm

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Blanquism

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Contents

History

Alleged Connections to Lenin and Leninism

Beliefs

Variants

File:Cball-USSR.png Tkachevism

How to draw

Relationships

Friends

Frenemies

Enemies

Further Reading

Wikipedia

Literature

Websites

Citations

Gallery

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