Louis Auguste Blanqui
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Louis Auguste Blanqui (8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism.
Legacy
Blanqui's uncompromising radicalism, and his determination to enforce it by violence, brought him into conflict with every French government during his lifetime, and as a consequence, he spent half of his life in prison. Besides his innumerable contributions to journalism, he published a work entitled, L'Eternité par les astres (1872), where he espoused his views concerning eternal return. After his death his writings on economic and social questions were collected under the title of Critique sociale (1885).
The Italian fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia, founded and edited by Benito Mussolini, had a quotation by Blanqui on its mast: Chi ha del ferro ha del pane ("He who has iron, has bread").
Blanqui's political activism and his book L'Eternité par les astres were commented on by Walter Benjamin in his Arcades Project and are referred to in the novel The Secret Knowledge by Andrew Crumey.
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