In left-wing discourse, 'Blanquism' refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui which holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators.[1] Having taken power, the revolutionaries would then use the power of the state to introduce socialism or communism. It is considered a particular sort of 'putschism' - that is, the view that political revolution should take the form of a putsch or coup d'état.[2]
It is rare for anyone to adopt 'Blanquism' as an appropriate description of their own beliefs. The term has most often been used polemically, to accuse some revolutionary of failing to sufficiently meld their praxis with the mass working class. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were keen to distinguish their conception of revolution from Blanquism. As Engels put it in a short fragment, The Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune:
Blanqui is essentially a political revolutionist. He is a socialist only through sentiment, through his sympathy with the sufferings of the people, but he has neither a socialist theory nor any definite practical suggestions for social remedies. In his political activity he was mainly a "man of action", believing that a small and well organized minority, who would attempt a political stroke of force at the opportune moment, could carry the mass of the people with them by a few successes at the start and thus make a victorious revolution.[3]
Some critics of Lenin maintain that his conception of revolution was elitist and essentially 'Blanquist'. Rosa Luxemburg, for instance, as part of a longer section on Blanquism in her "Leninism or Marxism?", writes:
For Lenin, the difference between the Social Democracy and Blanquism is reduced to the observation that in place of a handful of conspirators we have a class-conscious proletariat. He forgets that this difference implies a complete revision of our ideas on organization and, therefore, an entirely different conception of centralism and the relations existing between the party and the struggle itself. Blanquism did not count on the direct action of the working class. It, therefore, did not need to organize the people for the revolution. The people were expected to play their part only at the moment of revolution. Preparation for the revolution concerned only the little group of revolutionists armed for the coup. Indeed, to assure the success of the revolutionary conspiracy, it was considered wiser to keep the mass at some distance from the conspirators.[4]
It is worth noting that by 'social democracy' Luxemburg has in mind the original use of the term derived from Marx and synonymous with 'socialism'. The influence of revisionism notwithstanding, she conceived of the social democratic party as a mass based organisation of working class struggle. Lenin, however, dismissed as meaningless rhetoric the conflation of Blanquism with Bolshevism:
The bourgeoisie wants, by using the bogy of “Blanquism”, to belittle, discredit and slander the people’s struggle for power. The bourgeoisie stands to gain if the proletarians and peasants fight only for concessions from the old regime. The Right Social-Democrats use the word “Blanquism” merely as a rhetorical device in their polemics. The bourgeoisie converts this word into a weapon against the proletariat: “Workers, be reasonable! Fight for the extension of the powers of the Cadet Duma! Pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the bourgeoisie, but don’t dare to think of such madness, anarchism, Blanquism, as fighting for complete power for the people! [5]