ROBERTO TUMMINELLI

Etienne Cabet e le colonie icariane negli Stati Uniti 

N. 1/1985

Summary — Persecuted by the Government of Luigi Filippo, hardly criticised both by the moderates and the "left", E. Cabet, leader of the most important French communist movement from the 40s of the ninth century, decides to abandon the political struggle in Europe and to emigrate to North America together with his followers with a view to setting up an experimental community. In the face of the revolution as the only political prospect, Cabet prefers to try and build a new society, to realize utopia.

But Cabet is not only a utopian, he is also the upholder of the need for a tactical coalition between the proletariat and the progressive bourgeoisie as a premise to the construction of an equalitarian society; moreover, he understands that " communism " and " democracy " cannot be separated.

The colonies (alternating among Texas, Illinois, Iowa and California) are going through very hard times both on account of economic difficulties (they are not self-sufficient) and of political division. Cabet himself is voted against at Nauvoo in 1856 and has to take refuge, with his faithful followers, at Saint-Luis where he dies struck down by a cerebral haemorrhage on 8 November 1856.

The search for a social and institutional relation with the United States is unsuccessful: American society is substantially indifferent to the Cabetian dream of communism.

As a matter of fact, the colonies are populated almost only by European immigrants, by the defeated of the first workers and social struggles. Thus, once again, any design to realize utopia proves to be failure.