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Louis Blanc. (credit: H. Roger-Viollet)

(born Oct. 29, 1811, Madrid, Spain — died Dec. 6, 1882, Cannes, France) French utopian socialist and journalist. In 1839 he founded the socialist newspaper Revue du Progrès and serially published his The Organization of Labour, which described his theory of worker-controlled "social workshops" that would gradually take over production until a socialist society came into being. He was a member of the provisional government of the Second Republic (1848) but was forced to flee to England after workers unsuccessfully revolted. In exile (1848 – 70), he wrote a history of the French Revolution and other political works.

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