e conspirators believed to be the result of a
pre-determined plan or the emanation from their heroism.

At that point begins a new ascending line in the order of facts and
another connection of concepts and of doctrines.

The communism of conspiracy, the Blanquism of that time, carries us up
through Buonarotti and also through Bazard and the "Carbonari" to the
conspiracy of Baboeuf, a true hero of ancient tragedy who hurled himself
against fate because there was no connection between his aim and the
economic condition of the moment, and he was as yet incapable of
bringing upon the political scene a proletariat having a broad class
consciousness. From Baboeuf and certain less known elements of the
Jacobin period, past Boissel and Fauchet we ascend to the intuitive
Morelly and to the original and versatile Mably and if you please to
the chaotic _Testament_ of the _cure_ Meslier, an instinctive and
violent rebellion of "good sense" against the savage oppression endured
by the unhappy peasant.

These precursors of the socialism of violence, protest and conspiracy
were all equalitarians; as were also most of the conspirators. Thus by a
singular but inevitable error they took for a weapon of combat,
interpreting it and generalizing it, that same doctrine of equality
which developing as a _natural right_ parallel to the formation of the
economic theory, had become an instrument in the hands of the
bourgeoisie which was winning step by step its present position to
transform the society of privilege into that of liberalism, free
exchange and the civil code.[5]

Following this immediate deduction which at bottom was a simple
illusion, that all men being equal in nature should also be equal in
their enjoyments, it was thought that the appeal to reason carried with
it all the elements of propaganda and persuasion, and that the rapid,
immediate and violent taking possession of the exterior instruments of
political power was the only means to set to right those who resisted.

But whence come and how persist all these inequalities which appear so
irrational in the light of a concept of justice so simple and so
elementary? The Manifesto was the clear negation of the principle of
equality understood so naively and so clumsily. While proclaiming as
inevitable the abolition of classes in the future form of collective
production, it explains to us the necessity, the birth and the
development of these very classes as a fact which is