by Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1866)
Written in 1866, this is Blanqui's military treatise on urban insurrection — a systematic analysis of why the popular uprisings of 1830 and 1848 failed despite the workers' superior courage and numbers. The answer: lack of organization. Blanqui dissects the tactics of the June Days in forensic detail — the isolated barricades, the fighters smoking their pipes while neighbors were slaughtered, the philosophical resignation of each group waiting its turn to be crushed. He argues that organization alone can overcome the army's advantages in discipline and technology, and that "the very sight of a Parisian army in good order operating according to tactical regulations would strike the soldiers dumb." The treatise also contains a famous critique of revolutionary intellectuals: "These heroes of the inkstand profess the same scorn for the sword as officers for their slices of bread and butter."
Translated by Andy Blunden for marxists.org. Source: Auguste Blanqui, Instruction pour une prise d'armes, Editions de la Tete de Feuilles, 1972. Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike).
I. Preliminary
This program is purely military and leaves entirely to the side the political and social question, which this isn't the place for: besides, it goes without saying, that the revolution must reconstitute society on the basis of justice.
A Parisian insurrection which repeats the old mistakes no longer has any chance of success today. In 1830, popular fervor alone was enough to bring down a power surprised and terrified by an armed insurrection, an extraordinary event, which had one chance in a thousand. That was good once. The lesson was learnt by the government, which remained monarchical and counter-revolutionary, although it was the result of a revolution. They began to study street warfare, and the natural superiority of art and discipline over inexperience and confusion was soon re-established.
The uprising breaks out. At once, in the workers' districts, the barricades go up here and there, aimlessly, at a multitude of points. Five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty men, brought together by chance, the majority without weapons, they start to overturn carriages, dig up paving stones and pile them up to block the roads. Many of these barriers would present hardly any obstacle to the cavalry.
Neither direction nor general command, not even coordination between the combatants. Each barricade has its particular group, more or less numerous, but always isolated. Whether it numbers ten or one hundred men, it does not maintain any communication with the other positions. Often there is not even a leader to direct the defence.
"Let each defend his post, and all will be well," say the strongest. This singular reasoning is the death of the insurrection.
Organisation is victory; dispersion is death.
The popular fighters have both the head and the heart. No troop in the world is the equal of these elite men. So what do they lack in order to vanquish? They lack the unity and coherence which, by having them all contribute to the same goal, fosters all those qualities which isolation renders impotent. They lack organisation.
Without it, they haven't got a chance.
The duty of a revolutionist is the fight, the fight come what may, the fight until death.
No more of these tumultuous risings, with ten thousand isolated heads, acting at random, in disorder, without any overall design! No more of these ill-conceived and badly made barricades, which waste time, encumber the streets, and block circulation!
Above all, do not hole up in our own district as the insurrectionists have never failed to do, to their great harm. This mania, after having caused the defeat, facilitates proscriptions. We must cure ourselves of this under penalty of catastrophe.
Colophon
Manual for an Armed Insurrection (Instruction pour une prise d'armes), by Louis-Auguste Blanqui, 1866.
Note: This is an abridged archival edition preserving the key analytical sections. The full text, including detailed tactical recommendations on weapons, strategic thoroughfares, and officer formation, is available at marxists.org.
Translated from French by Andy Blunden for the Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org). Source: Auguste Blanqui, Instruction pour une prise d'armes, L'Eternite par les astres, Editions de la Tete de Feuilles, 1972. Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike).
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲