What was the name of Gracchus Babeuf's failed communist conspiracy?

Gracchus Babeuf’s failed communist conspiracy was called the Conspiracy of the Equals. Organized in 1796, it sought to overthrow the Directory and establish an egalitarian republic based on communal ownership and economic equality.

Babeuf, whose full name was François-Noël Babeuf, argued that political equality was incomplete without social and economic equality. His movement opposed the restoration of private property and promoted the collective use of land and other productive resources. The group’s ideas were expressed most famously in the Manifesto of the Equals, generally attributed to journalist and playwright Sylvain Maréchal.

The conspiracy brought together Babeuf, Philippe Buonarroti, Augustin Alexandre Darthé, and other radical activists. It attempted to build a network among Parisian militants and sympathetic soldiers, but the Directory infiltrated the organization. Babeuf was arrested in May 1796, tried at Vendôme, and executed by guillotine on 27 May 1797.

The conspiracy failed politically, but later socialist and communist writers treated it as an important early example of revolutionary communism. “Conspiracy of the Babeuf” is a descriptive modern phrase sometimes encountered, but “Conspiracy of the Equals” is the established historical name.