Babeuf’s conspiracy pioneered cadre organization but never resolved links to the masses

Evidence

The political organization of the Conspiracy marked a break with the methods used till that time by the popular movement. At the centre of the organization stood the leading group, backed by a small number of hardened militants; then there came the fringe of sympathizers, comprising patriots and democrats (in the Year II sense of the word), who were not involved in the secrecy, and who seem not to have shared the new revolutionary ideal; finally, there were the masses themselves, who were to be coaxed into participation. In sum, Babeurs was an organizational conspiracy par excellence, but one in which the problem of the necessary links with the masses seems to have been largely unresolved. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1633

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Pattern of elite cadre versus masses recurs throughout the book’s critique of what Robinson calls the ‘theology’ of vanguard socialism.

Related

• Babeuf’s conspiracy structurally separated vanguard, sympathizers, and masses without resolving their links. (similarity 0.93)