François-Noël Babeuf

Who was François-Noël Babeuf?

François-Noël Babeuf, known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French political agitator and journalist of the French Revolutionary period. His newspaper Le tribun du people was best known for his advocacy for the poor and calling for a popular revolt against the Directory, the government of France. He was a leading advocate for socialism, the abolition of private property and abolition of inheritance, national ownership of all large business enterprises. He believed food and clothing should be exactly the same, and that children were to be taken from parents and raised by the state to indoctrinate them in the new society. He angered the authorities who were clamping down hard on their radical enemies. In spite of the efforts of his Jacobin friends to save him, Babeuf was executed for his role in the Conspiracy of the Equals.

The "Gracchus" nickname likened him to the ancient Roman tribunes of the people. Although the words "anarchist" and "communist" did not exist in Babeuf's lifetime, they have both been used to describe his ideas, by later scholars. The word "communism" was coined by Goodwyn Barmby in a conversation with those he described as the "disciples of Babeuf".