Francois-Noel Babeuf (23 November 1760 – 27 May 1797) was a French political agitator who is often considered to be the first communist revolutionary. Babeuf was an advocate for the abolition of private property, for the equality of results, and for democracy, and he was executed for demanding a revolution against the French Directory.
Biography[]
Francois-Noel Babeuf was born in Saint-Quentin, France on 23 November 1760, the son of a poor laborer who had deserted to the Austrian Army from the French Army in 1738. Babeuf worked as a domestic servant and a land surveyor, and he wrote his first socialist article when he demanded the abolition of the feudal system on behalf of the bailliage of Roye. In 1790, he was arrested for criticizing the gabelle tax on salt, and he was arrested several times in the 1790s for his views. Babeuf was opposed to the Reign of Terror, but he supported the Jacobin Club for seeking to achieve equality through action and not through words, and he criticized the Thermidorian Reaction leaders and the economic results of the French Revolution from a socialist perspective. He voiced opposition to the oligarchy of the French Directory, and he led the "Conspiracy of the Equals" against the Directory, attempting to convince disgruntled soldiers of the French Revolutionary Army to rise up against the Directory. However, "Gracchus Babeuf" was sentenced to death for treason and executed by guillotine on 27 May 1797.