Blanquist

Blanquism is distinguished from other socialist currents in various ways: on the one hand, Blanqui did not believe in the predominant role of the proletariat, nor did he believe in popular movements—instead he believed that revolution should be carried out by a small group of professional, dedicated revolutionaries, who would establish a temporary dictatorship by force. This dictatorship would permit the implementation of the basis of a new order, after which power would then be handed to the people. In another respect, Blanqui was more concerned with the revolution itself rather than the future society that would result from it—if his thought was based on precise socialist principles. Blanquist thought rarely goes so far as to imagine a purely socialist society. For Blanquists, the overturning of the bourgeois social order and the revolution are ends sufficient in themselves, at least for their immediate purposes.