Gabriel Mollin (September 15, 1835,

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, t ...

– October 18, 1912) was a French revolutionary who successively advocated

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...

and

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

. He was by trade a metal gilder. He was a member of the

Cercle des prolétaires positivistes The Cercle des prolétaires positivistes (Circle of Positivist Proletarians) was an organisation of working class positivists who advocated revolution were affiliated to the First International, i.e. the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) ...

and served as their delegate to the Basle Congress of the

International Workingmen's Association The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...

(i.e. the First International) held in 1869. He was married in 1873 and his wife had a child. In 1875 he was detained in the Sainte-Anne Hospital Centre after being diagnosed as suffering from mental derangement brought about by alcoholism. He left the asylum on 22 January 1876, accusing his psychiatrist and fellow positivist Jean-François Eugène Robinet of having him locked up so that his wife would leave and take away his son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mollin, Gabriel 1835 births 1912 deaths Positivists Members of the International Workingmen's Association