ABSTRACT
Like Icarianism, the Saint-Simonian movement enjoyed considerable organisational advantages. It was authoritatively and charismatically led, had numerous colleges, churches and missions throughout France and also abroad, and used propaganda with great effectiveness. It was, however, always a movement for the working class rather than one of the working class, and was thus quite different from Icarianism. There were a number of reasons for this. It was very intellectual in orientation, basing its theories on extremely sophisticated and rarified arguments which must have been difficult for some people to grasp, even though the Saint-Simonian leaders attempted to simplify the message for the uneducated and the less intelligent. The essential doctrine may have been
22 THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS known, as one commentator points out, 'to every educated person in Europe', 28 but then not every person was educated. Much of the doctrine's terminology was quite novel and therefore difficult to understand, and quite often Saint-Simonian ideas appeared extremely eccentric (Saint-Simon himself having been widely dismissed in his lifetime as a bizarre, even mad, thinker!) ..
