"François-Noël Babeuf, the self-educated son of a gabellou and himself a man whose business it was before 1789 to show the rich how they might become richer by squeezing the peasants for feudal dues, did somehow produce the first modern and coherent communist political strategy."

“The ultimate ideal of Babeuf and his Conspiracy was absolute equality. Nature, they claimed, calls for perfect equality; all inequality is injustice: therefore community of property was to be established. ... In the ideal communist society sought by the Conspiracy, private property would be abolished, and all property would be communal and stored in communal storehouses. From these storehouses, the goods would be distributed “equitably” by the superiors — apparently, there was to be a cadre of “superiors” in this oh so “equal” world!”

“Babeuf was made a public example by being taken to Vendôme in a cage—an indignity which not long before had filled the Parisians with fury when the Austrians had inflicted it on a Frenchman. His defense, which lasted for six sittings at the court and fills more than three hundred pages, is an impressive and moving document. Babeuf knew well that he was facing death and the Revolution was doomed. .. His defense is like a summary of the unrealized ideas of the Enlightenment and a vindication of their ultimate necessity. And it has moments of grandeur which it is not absurd to compare to Socrates' Apology.”

“translated from Gracchus Babeuf, fr Wikiquote”