Who first coined “communism.”
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Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806) is known for advocating communism and for being the first to use the term in a modern context. He used the word in 1785 in a book review of Project for a Philosophical Community by Joseph-Alexandre-Victor Hupay de Fuveau.
Thanks. I think “communisme” was the term for socialism preferred in France. Socialism was an English term.
Nicolas Restif was from a peasant family. His adult life was spent among the poorest of the Parisian proletariat, although he would have been a comfortably well-off rich peasant had he stayed with his family in Burgundy.
The proletariat of Paris grew familiar with him as their chronicler and knew him as “the owl” because of his nocturnal wanderings. I believe some of his graffiti still survives, although most will have perished during Hausmann’s overhaul of the city in the 19th century.
https://www.capuseen.com/films/7779-les-nuits-revolutionnaires-episode-1
A comrade who is reviewing Nick Heath’s book The Idea: Anarchist Communism, Past, Present and Future points out that it is says this about “The emergence of the conception of Communism”:
“It should be remembered that neither Babeuf nor Maréchal had invented the term “communism”. The idea of a free and equal society brought about through the sharing of the fruits of the earth goes back to a multitude of religious and philosophical writings.
A first written mention of the word “communist” itself was found in the book of condolences of the parish of Guillestre (Hautes Alpes) in France in 1789. Babeuf, of course, never used the word himself, calling himself a communalist, believing that a community of goods would result from a community of work.
With the fall of Robespierre there is a mention of the word communism when Restif de la Bretonne talks about a general assembly of the Club du Pantheon, which was one of the most democratic in Paris. ‘A citizen demands the rejection of the Constitution and the establishment of communism. This eye-witness report was published in Paris in 1797’. (Marius Berou in an article in Le Peuple no 1537 20th November 2002 p 8-9)”.From the A-Z of Marxism:
The word ‘communism’ originated in Victor d’Hupay’s book Projet de communauté philosophe ( Project for a Philosophical Community ) in 1777, which advocated communes and sharing.
The American natives lived under primitive communism
And the primitive christians lived under a form of socialism
Yes. But the word as used in our modern sense had to wait until Restif.
————————————————-I know that, I am just mentioning that particular historical events before the emerge of scientific socialism
Karl Marx also took from the Utopian socialists the labor vouchers, and several of them were christians too, and he was also influenced by Theodore Dezamy
Reading a book I bought the other week in a secondhand bookshop — Industrialization and the Working Class by John Belchem — the author says that John Goodwin Barmby was “the first person in England to call himself a communist”.
According to his entry in Wikipedia:
“Barmby also authored the first attested writing (1841) of communist in English; having translated it from communiste in French while claiming he first spoke the word in 1840 in Paris, France, the same year he went there to meet the advocates of le communisme as had been written in at least a French article and pamphlet by then, the former by Étienne Cabet and latter by both Théodore Dézamy and Jean-Jacques Pillot. By his claim, he first discussed “communism” with some followers of François-Noël Babeuf, describing them as “some of the most advanced minds of the French metropolis”. He introduced Engels to the French communiste movement. They founded the London Communist Propaganda Society in 1841 and in the same year the Universal Communitarian Association. Barmby founded the Communist Chronicle, a monthly newspaper later published by Thomas Frost.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goodwyn_Barmby
The claim is not that he first coined the word in English but that he was the first to call himself a communist. Not necessarily the same of course.
I’d never heard of him before.
And now (sigh!), in the 21st century, we have many, many more flat earthers than we have socialists (communists)
Actually I had heard of him but forgot as he’s mentioned in the section on “Communism” in Raymond Williams’s Key Words.
More on him here:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/goodwyn-barmby-first-communist
Re: #257052, in which:
‘A comrade who is reviewing Nick Heath’s book ‘The Idea: Anarchist Communism, Past, Present and Future’ points out […].’
Someone is finally going to review it? The last time there was mention of this book:
ALB on July 13, 2023
‘[ …] I thought we had reviewed that book by Nick Heath, but apparently not. But I remember now. We were going to but the reviewer said it was boring, a real trudge to get through, and had no index, and didn’t submit a review because he didn’t want to have to offend the author.’DJP on July 13, 2023:
‘[..] Incidentally, I’ve been told a second edition of this book has already been printed and there will be an index available online.’What has happened since then? This must be the printing containing an index — https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/product/the-idea/ — but has it become un-‘boring’ as well?
(No online index so far as I can find. I can’t even find a webpage for the publisher Just Books.)
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