User:Wiki the Octopus/Sandbox/Babouvists

The Society of the Panthéon (French: Société du Panthéon), also called the Babouvists or the Society of the Equals, was a French radical political organization that advocated for ideas such as the redistribution of wealth, universal equal income, the sharing of all wealth equally, and direct democracy. It lasted during the later revolutionary period.

Following the 9th of Thermidor coup, moderate Jacobins called the Thermidorians took over the running of the French Republic. They wrote a new constitution that created a new government, the Directory, and walked back some rights granted by the previous constitution.

More radical Jacobins opposed the constitution and the White Terror initiated by the Thermidorians, and after the 13 Vendémiaire monarchist revolt, they decided to pressure the Directory into adopting more left-wing positions. In order to advance their cause, these radicals founded the Panthéon Club on the 6 November 1795. While initially intended to reform the Directory, the club quickly attracted far-left former Montagnards and memebers of the Committee of General Security who wanted to abolish the Directory and return to the 1793 constitution.

Ultimately, the club attracted a certain François-Noël Babeuf and some of his friends (such as Augustin Darthé, Philippe Buonarroti, and radical atheist Sylvain Maréchal). Maréchal wrote the Manifesto of the Equals and the club grew rapidly. They advocated for utopian socialism and proto-communism.

Eventually, the Directory banned the club and Napoleon Bonaparte carried out their orders, but the ideas promoted by Babeuf and his supporters became more and more popular. The Equals (French: Les égaux) was founded by Babeuf on 30 March 1796. In the military, several commanders began to support Babouvist ideology.

Fearing for its existence, the Directory arrested Babeuf and other leaders on the 10 May 1796, effectively banning the organization. After his trial, Babeuf was sentenced to death in 1797.

Although the conspiracy itself failed, Babouvism would survive due to Buonarroti writing the History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality. Babouvist ideology would later inspire many socialist thinkers, including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Auguste Blanqui, and Karl Marx.