Alexandre Théodore Dézamy (4 March 1808 – 24 July 1850) was a French socialist, a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in early French communism, along with

Albert Laponneraye Albert Laponneraye (8 May 1808 – 1 September 1849) was a French republican socialist and a journalist, popular historian, educator and editor of Robespierre's writings. He was a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in the 1840s, alo ...

Richard Lahautière Auguste-Richard Lahautière (May 21, 1813–June 27, 1882) (also known as Richard de la Hautière) was a French socialist, journalist, poet and lawyer. He is commonly grouped with Théodore Dézamy, Albert Laponneraye, Jean-Jacques Pillot and othe ...

, Jacques Pillot and others. He was also an early associate of Louis-Auguste Blanqui. He and his colleagues formed a link between the extreme left wing of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

( Babeuf) and

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

Life

Alexandre Théodore Dézamy was born in Luçon (Vendée). He worked as a schoolteacher in Luçon before moving to Paris in the 1830s, where he became superintendent of a rooming house. Dézamy had already been developing ideas for a reorganisation of society on republican, communalistic and collectivist principles. He admired Gracchus Babeuf and

Philippe Buonarroti :''See also Filippo Buonarroti (1661–1733).'' Filippo Giuseppe Maria Ludovico Buonarroti, more usually referred to under the French version Philippe Buonarroti (11 November 1761 – 16 September 1837), was an Italian utopian socialist, wri ...

and was influenced by the writing of the utopian communist

Étienne Cabet Étienne Cabet (; January 1, 1788 – November 9, 1856) was a French philosophy, French philosopher and utopian socialist who founded the Icarians, Icarian movement. Cabet became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appe ...

. In Paris he joined Cabet's association and for a time worked as his secretary. He also contributed to Cabet's journal ''Le Populaire''. Dézamy also made contact with several revolutionary secret societies. In particular, he joined the 'Society of the Season' of

Auguste Blanqui Louis Auguste Blanqui (; 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism. Biography Early life, political activity and first imprisonment (1805–1848) Bla ...

and

Armand Barbès Armand Barbès (18 September 1809 – 26 June 1870) was a French Republican revolutionary and an opponent of the July monarchy (1830–1848). He is remembered as a man whose life centers on two days: * ''12 May 1839'', the day of the uprising ...

, which carried out an unsuccessful insurrection in 1839. Blanqui and Barbès went to prison, where they became enemies. Dézamy was arrested but in 1840, he was free and collaborated with Jacques Pillot and others in organising the first communist banquet at Belleville. (Banquets were a common way of circumventing prohibitions against political demonstrations, with oppositional speeches disguised as toasts; in the 1840s, republican opponents of the Orléanist monarchy organised a nationwide campaign of banquets, but most were liberal in orientation.) Dézamy subsequently broke with Cabet, whom he considered too opportunistic and reformist; instead of appealing to the ''bourgeoisie'' for sympathy with the proletariat, as Cabet was doing, Dézamy thought the workers should organise themselves and achieve their own liberation. Instead of hoping for reforms from a benevolent monarch, workers should support a revolution and the establishment of a unitary, centralised, egalitarian republic. Dézamy also deplored Cabet's religiosity, seeing the Church as an enemy of the people. He envisaged a republic of federated communes, each comprising about 10,000 people and combining industrial, agricultural and cultural work. Private property was to be abolished; work was to be assigned on the basis of ability; goods were to be distributed on the basis of need. Dézamy combined this social system with militant anti-clericalism, atheism and a materialist metaphysics derived from

d'Holbach Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (; 8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789), was a French-German philosopher, encyclopedist, writer, and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Lan ...

. Dézamy called his system 'unitary communism' and propagated it in his own journal, ''L'Égalitaire''. In 1842 he published his best-known book, ''Code de la Communauté.'' In ''The Holy Family'' (1844),

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Lamennais. When the

Revolution of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...

occurred, Dézamy joined the newly liberated Blanqui in founding the 'Central Republican Society', one of the most radical republican socialist clubs of the period. Dézamy also launched a new journal, ''Les Droits de l'Homme'', with the slogan: 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Association, Alliance of Peoples'. He also stood for elections to the National Assembly.

Louis Bonaparte Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French cl ...

became President in 1849 and the Second Republic took an increasingly conservative turn, with the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

looming on the horizon. Dézamy returned to Luçon, where he died, aged 42. Besides Babeuf and Cabet, his ideas were also influenced by the eighteenth-century utopians Morelly and Mably and by

Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in ...

Works

Dézamy's works are not generally available in English. His French works include: ''Question proposée par l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques : les nations avancent plus en connaissances, en lumières qu'en morale pratique...'' Paris, L.-E. Herhan et Bimont, 1839. ''Conséquences de l'embastillement et de la paix à tout prix, dépopulation de la capitale, trahison du pouvoir.'' Paris, 1840. ''M. Lamennais réfuté par lui-même, ou Examen critique du livre intitulé "Du passé et de l'avenir du peuple".'' Paris, 1841. ''Code de la communauté.'' Paris, Prévost, Rouannet, 1842. ''Calomnies et politique de M. Cabet. Réfutation par des faits et par sa biographie.'' Paris, Prévost, 1842. ''Dialogue sur la réforme électorale entre un communiste, un réformiste, un doctrinaire, un légitimiste.'' Paris, Prévot, 1842. ''Le Jésuitisme vaincu et anéanti par le socialisme, ou les Constitutions des Jésuites et leurs instructions secrètes en parallèle avec un projet d'organisation du travail.'' Paris, 1845. ''Examen critique des huit discours sur le catholicisme et la philosophie, prononcés à Notre-Dame, en décembre 1844 et en janvier 1845, par M. l'abbé Lacordaire ; précédé d'une notice historique sur l'ordre des Dominicains et de la biographie de M. l'abbé Lacordaire, Paris, les libraires, 1845, 35 pages Organisation de la liberté et du bien-être universel...'' Paris, Guarin, 1846.

Sources

Billington, J.H., ''Fire in the minds of men: origins of the revolutionary faith.'' New Jersey, 2009. ''The great Soviet Encyclopedia.'' Moscow, 1979. Bravo, G.M., ''Les Socialistes avant Marx.'' Paris, Éditions Maspero, Petite collection Maspero, 1979. Tumminelli, R., ''Dézamy e l'utopia sociale.'' Milan, A. Giuffrè, 1984. Maillard, A., ''La communauté des Égaux. Le communisme néo-babouviste dans la France des années 1840.'' Paris, Kimé, 1999. Angenot, C., ''Les Grands récits militants du XIXe et XXe siècles. Religions de l'humanité et sciences de l'histoire.'' Paris, L'Harmattan, 2000. Garaudy, R., ''Les Sources françaises du Socialisme scientifique.'' Paris, 1948.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dezamy, Theodore 1808 births 1850 deaths French socialists French communists Neo-Babouvism 19th-century French journalists French male journalists 19th-century male writers