Blanc, (Jean Joseph Charles) Louis

Blanc, (Jean Joseph Charles) Louis (1811-1882), French socialist leader and historian, born in Madrid, and educated in Paris. He contributed to various political periodicals, and in 1839 he established the magazine Revue du Progrès as an organ for his socialist doctrines. In general, Blanc's concept of the social order anticipated later theorists in declaring that the workers could solve their problems only by revolutionary action; and in formulating the social principle, later adopted by Karl Marx, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. Blanc believed that this principle could be realized through the creation of “social workshops”, associations of workers financed by the state and controlled by the workers.

In the revolution of 1848 Blanc became a leader of the provisional Republican government that came into power following the abdication of King Louis Philippe. After the bloody suppression of the workers' uprising in Paris in June 1848, however, he was forced to flee for his life, and he lived in exile in England for 22 years. During this time he wrote the 12-volume History of the French Revolution (1847-1862). Following the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, Blanc returned to France and was elected a member of the National Assembly in February 1871, but opposed the more extreme measures adopted by the Paris Commune. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies under the constitution of 1875 from 1876 until his death.