CABET, ETIENNE (1788–1856)

CABET, ETIENNE (1788–1856)

Cabet was a curious mixture of a utopian and a practical reformer, an egalitarian but illiberal democrat. Through his newspaper, Le Populaire, and his Icarian movement, he became the most influential socialist in France in the mid-1840s and in 1848 headed the largest political club created after the February revolution. Yet in 1856 he died a forgotten exile in the USA and left no legacy to later socialist groups.

Cabet was the son of a master cooper in Dijon. A member of the charbonnerie while

he was a student qualifying as an avocat, he took part in the 1830 revolution and was briefly procureur-général in Corsica, before being elected to Parliament. He was prosecuted five times for his book in which he asserted that the Parisian artisans had been robbed of the revolution. In June 1833 Cabet started Le Populaire, a newspaper partly owned and written by artisans. In less than two months its circulation had reached 12,000. At 10 francs for an annual subscription it was massively cheaper than other papers. In 1834 when the Orleanists launched a consolidated attack on the opposition press, Cabet preferred exile in London to a punitive fine and jail sentence. As a consequence of his links with Owenites in 1839 he returned to Paris a socialist, dubbing himself a communist.

In 1840 he published Voyage en Icarie. It was a blueprint for an egalitarian society. All property was held in common and its proceeds shared equally. There was no money. Icarians were all provided with similar housing, furnishings, clothing and food. Icarie had

a machine-age economy, with railways and canals. It was a democracy, but no liberal republic. Cabet abhorred the individualism of the 1789 Declaration of Rights, arguing that the rights of the community were paramount and the idea of ‘liberty’ was ‘a mistake,

a sin, a grave evil’. There was one official newspaper and freedom of the press was unknown. Cabet elaborated in detail on social organization. Women were educated in mothercraft. Up to five children were reared by both parents. They went to school from 5 to 18 where they were taught the natural sciences, but not Latin or Greek. At 18 boys and girls worked a seven-hour day. Women did the housework in addition to their regular job. There was no established religion, but society was guided by basic moral principles. Cabet’s ‘Divinity’ was basically Voltairean. Icarians were taught about the various world religions and left to choose. Cabet’s utopianism was an Enlightenment-inspired confidence in the pre-eminence of reason developed by education. The rich would sympathize with his community and give up their property. He argued that most revolutions strengthened the status quo or allowed a self-interested dictator to take over,

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although he conceded that the Jacobins initiated an embryonic popular revolution. By 1848 Icarie had been reprinted five times, perhaps because its fairy tale orderliness contrasted with real life.

Le Populaire, revived in 1841, focused on the practical problems faced by working people, who provided three-quarters of its shareholders. For 3 months in 1842 it ran a detailed survey of working practices based on evidence supplied by workers. By 1846, with a circulation of 4,500, it was out-selling other radical papers. Cabet headed the first mass workers’ movement, Le Société pour fonder l’Icarie, about 100,000 strong in 1844. Paris and Lyon were the focuses, with groups in seventy-eight departments. Most Icarians were traditional artisans and their wives; only about 4 per cent were middle class. Icarianism had a particular appeal to cabinet-makers, textile workers, shoe-makers; trades in which the craftsmen felt their skills were being undermined by the development of machines and new methods of production. Such craftsmen were prominent in popular upheaval and revolutionary activity in these years. Of the twenty-two cities where there were subscribers to Le Populaire, only three were modern industrial centres. Icarianism was spread by Cabet’s publications. The Orleanist regime banned clubs and meetings.

In the mid-1840s Cabet became more assertive in proclaiming the equality of men and women, and in equating his ideal society with Christianity. He began to present Jesus as the champion of the suffering workers, the first communist. In 1846 his Le Vrai Christianisme sold 2,000 copies in 20 days. In line with his new messianic Christian message, Cabet abandoned his notion that Icarie would develop gradually and joined Owen in a project to establish a community in the USA. Icarians may have liked to read about Icarie, but few wanted to live there. By November 1847 Le Populaire had lost nearly a third of its subscribers and only sixty-nine Icarians agreed to set sail, many resenting the autocratic constitution proposed by Cabet for the community. The colonists had to supply 600 francs towards a homestead of 320 acres in the Red River area, but it emerged that the land was actually owned by the state of Texas. Cabet was waiting to answer a fraud charge in February 1848, when the settlers arrived in the USA, and France erupted again into revolution.

Cabet realized that many of his artisan supporters initially placed great hope in the revolution. His club, the Société fraternelle centrale, became the largest of the many clubs at the time, with meetings of 5,000 men and women. He urged respect for the rights of the people and campaigned for a living wage for women workers. He helped to organize the demonstration of 17 March when 150,000 people gathered to demand that elections for a Constituent Assembly be delayed while people learned what voting and the republic could mean for them.

Cabet’s communism and his popularity among Parisian workers were initially seen as

a real threat by fellow republicans. Disappointed with the republic, he set sail for Nauvoo, Illinois, ignoring attempts to found Icarian co-operatives in Lyon and elsewhere in France. He tried to rally the colonists ravaged both by cholera and personal and ideological wrangles, but his autocratic attitudes led to his exclusion from Nauvoo, which survived until the end of the century. Cabet moved to another settlement near St Louis, but died shortly afterwards. None of his major writings was translated into English.

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