30 10 347 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Freedom is but an empty illusion when one class of men can starve another with impunity. Equality is but an empty illusion when the rich, through monopolies, have the decision of life or death over their own kind. The Republic is but an empty illusion when the counterrevolution takes place daily because three-quarters of the citizenry cannot afford the price of basic foodstuffs and no one sheds a tear. Stopping trade which is nothing short of highway robbery must be clearly distinguished from simple commerce. It will only be by placing the cost of food within reach of the sans-culottes that you will win them over to Revolution and its constitutional laws. Sortable Date 1793-06-25 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Jacques Roux, Scripta et acta, edited by Walter M. Markov (Berlin: Akademie-Verl., 1969), 140–46. Translated by Exploring the French Revolution project staff from original documents in French found in John Hardman, French Revolution Documents 1792–95, vol. 2 (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1973), 136. Description An account of the resource Jacques Roux, a former priest turned radical revolutionary, became the leading voice for a group known as the "Enraged," because they expressed constant anger at the unfairness shown toward the ordinary, poor people who made up the bulk of the patriotic citizenry and whose plight Roux demanded the government redress by any means necessary. In this speech to the Convention on 25 June 1793, Roux laid out the basic economic demands of this group: more stringent economic measures against the rich, hoarders, speculators, and profiteers, who should be made to justify themselves to the hard–working, honest patriots for whom Roux claimed to speak. Here Roux explains his understanding of equality and trade. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 557 Title A name given to the resource Manifesto of the Enragés Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/557/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 25, 1793 Economic Conditions Popular Politics Sans-culottes Text The Terror Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Condolences from the community and congregation of Lignère la Doucelle. For a long time now, the inhabitants have been crushed beneath the excessive burden of the multiplicity of taxes that they have been obliged to pay. Their parish is large and spread out, but it is a hard land with many uncultivated areas, almost all of it divided into small parcels. There is not one single farm of appreciable size, and these small properties are occupied either by the poor or by people who are doing so poorly that they go without bread every other day. They buy bread or grain nine months of the year. No industries operate in this parish, and from the time they began complaining, no one has ever listened. The cry of anguish echoed all to the way to the ministry after having fruitlessly worn out their intendants. They have always seen their legitimate claims being continuously denied, so may the fortunate moment of equality revive them. These inhabitants request that there be only two taxes in the realm, one called the land tax, and the other designated for industry. That the fees regulating water and forests, crane's nests and Table marble be abolished, to be informed of the claims granted as leases, and that the woods and forests belonging to the crown be leased for periods of 100 years. That the finance offices, accounting houses, and welfare courts be abolished. That élections [tax collecting officials], salt granaries, milking, and other special fees be abolished. That salt be marketable. That all lords, country gentlemen, and others of the privileged class who, either directly or through their proxies, desire to make a profit on their wealth, regardless of the nature of that wealth, pay the same taxes as the common people. That the rent paid to the seigneur be depreciable to the last twentieth, or to the last thirtieth if so desired, provided that property common to the husband and wife be exempt from division or resulting sale. That the seigneur's mills not be obligatory, allowing everyone to choose where he would like to mill his grain. That all of the goods paid as tribute, either owned by the common people, or exempt from the king's francs fiefs and repurchased by the seigneurs, be finally declared taxable. That the corvées due to the seigneur be abolished, as well as the declarations or vows that are given them in cases where the seigneurial rents are being paid off. That all seigneurial fees be abolished. Or at least that several of them be grouped together, for which each seigneur, for a limited time, can appoint an officer, failing which the king will provide him one. That the children of common people living on a par with nobles be admitted for military service, as the nobility is. That the king not bestow noble titles upon someone and their family line, but that titles be bestowed only upon those deserving it. That nobility not be available for purchase or by any fashion other than by the bearing of arms or other service rendered to the State. That all seigneurs that have more than a lackey in his service or in his wife's service, even though they be widow or daughter, pay to the king the sum of sixty pounds per year for each additional lackey. That all the silk material, ribbons, chiffons, and merchandise imported from foreign countries be taxed at three times the current amount. That women wearing hats pay to the king twenty-four livres per year for each as a female head tax. That those living off their worldly goods shall pay a land tax, as do the other inhabitants for their goods. That church members be only able to take advantage of one position. That those who are enjoying more than one be made to choose within a fixed time period. That future abbeys all be placed into the hands of the king, that His Majesty benefit from their revenue as the head abbots have been able to. That in towns where there are several convents belonging to the same order, there be only one, and the goods and revenue of those that are to be abolished go to the profit of the crown. That the convents where there are not normally twelve residents be abolished. That no tenth of black wheat be paid to parish priests, priors or other beneficiaries, since this grain is only used to prepare the soil for the sowing of rye. That they also not be paid any tenths of hemp, wool, or lamb. That in the countryside they be required to conduct burials and funerals free of charge. That the ten sous for audit books, insinuations, and the 100 [sous] collected for the parish be abolished. That the businessmen and seigneur's guards, even those residing in their own homes, enjoy no exemption or privilege. Finally, the aforementioned inhabitants request that the house of Saint Ursain previously of the Order of the Cross, located in their parish. And thus the goods and income which today are tied up in litigation between Prince Louis de Rohan and the clergy of Le Mans, be accorded to them and used to set up a hospital in view of the large number of poor living in the aforementioned parish. This would be governed by two administrators who would be chosen from among the better known inhabitants. That minors making a profit from their wealth pay taxes as if they were adults. That the seigneurs enjoy no privilege of customs or tolls, nor during measuring in the grain halls, fairs, and animal markets, in view of the fact that they no longer maintain the boards and bridges over their streams and rivers, where several people have perished. That grain be taxed in the realm at a fixed price, or rather that its exportation abroad be forbidden except in the case where it would be sold at a low price. That "eau de vie" [distilled] alcohol be exportable from one province to another. That those making money from outside the parish pay taxes where their funds are located. That two free roads be opened, one from Saint Denis near Alençon to Falaise, passing through the town of Lignères, and the other from there to Préz, in Pail. It is also requested that in the realm there exist only one custom, one measurement, one system of weights, and a common order. And finally, in the case where intendances exist, that for the convenience of the remote parishes, cities, and towns, since the aforementioned parish is over thirty leagues from Tours, that the king establish a commissioner to hold court in the city of Le Mans for questions of administrative jurisdiction and to hear the parish's complaints. As decreed by the General Assembly, this sixth day of March, 1789, in the courtroom of Lignères. Sortable Date 1789-03-06 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Armand Bellée, ed., Cahiers de plaintes & doléances des paroisses de la province du Maine pour les Etats-généraux de 1789, 4 vols. (Le Mans: Monnoyer, 1881–92), 2:578–82. Description An account of the resource The petitions from rural communities focused in part on the abuse of seigneurial dues owed by peasants to lords for which, in principle, they received protection and supervision. But by 1789, these excerpts demonstrate that peasants considered their lords not as protectors but as exploiters who constantly turned the screws to extract ever more rent or other payments. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 558 Title A name given to the resource Attack on Seigneurial Dues Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/558/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 6, 1789 Economic Conditions Nobility Peasants Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Every revolution is the work of a principle which has been accepted as a basis of faith. Whether it invoke nationality, liberty, equality, or religion, it always fulfills itself in the name of a principle, that is to say, of a great truth, which being recognized and approved by the majority of the inhabitants of a country, constitutes a common belief, and sets before the masses a new aim, while authority misrepresents or rejects it. A revolution, violent or peaceful, includes a negation and an affirmation: the negation of an existing order of things, the affirmation of a new order to be substituted for it. A revolution proclaims that the state is rotten; that its machinery no longer meets the needs of the greatest number of the citizens; that its institutions are powerless to direct the general movement; that popular and social thought has passed beyond the vital principle of those institutions; that the new phase in the development of the national faculties finds neither expression nor representation in the official constitution of the country, and that it must therefore create one for itself. This revolution does create. Since its task is to increase, and not diminish the nation's patrimony, it violates neither the truths that the majority possess, nor the rights they hold sacred; but it reorganizes everything on a new basis; it gathers and harmonizes round the new principle all the elements and forces of the country; it gives a unity of direction toward the new aim, to all those tendencies which before were scattered in the pursuit of different aims. Then the revolution has done its work. We recognize no other meaning in revolution. If a revolution did not imply a general reorganization by virtue of a social principle; if it did not remove a discord in the elements of a state, and place harmony in its stead; if it did not secure a moral unity; so far from declaring ourselves revolutionists, we should believe it our duty to oppose the revolutionary movement with all our power. Without the purpose hinted at above, there may be riots, and at times victorious insurrections, but no revolutions. You will have changes of men and administration; one caste succeeding to another; one dynastic branch ousting the other. This necessitates retreat; a slow reconstruction of the past, which the insurrection had suddenly destroyed; the gradual re-establishment, under new names, of the old order of things, which the people had risen to destroy. Societies have such need of unity that if they miss it in insurrection they turn back to a restoration. Then there is a new discontent, a new struggle, a new explosion. France has proven it abundantly. In 1830 she performed miracles of daring and valor for a negation. She rose to destroy, without positive beliefs, without any definite organic purpose, and thought she had won her end when she canceled the old principle of legitimacy. She descended into that abyss which insurrection alone can never fill; and because she did not recognize how needful is some principle of reconstruction, she finds herself today, six years after the July Revolution, five years after the days of November, two years after the days of April, well on her way to a thorough restoration. We cite the case of France because she is expected to give political lessons, hopes, sympathies; and because France is the modern nation in which theories of pure reaction founded on suspicion, on individual right, on liberty alone, are most militant, therefore the practical consequences of her mistakes are shown most convincingly. But twenty other instances might be cited. For fifty years, every movement which, in its turn, was successful as an insurrection, but failed as a revolution, has proven how everything depends on the presence or absence of a principle of reconstruction. Wherever, in fact, individual rights are exercised without the influence of some great thought that is common to all; where every individual's interests harmonized by some organization that is directed by a positive ruling principle, and by the consciousness of a common aim, there must be a tendency for some to usurp others' rights. In a society like ours, where a division into classes, call them what you will, still exists in full strength, every right is bound to clash with another right, envious and mistrustful of it; every interest naturally conflicts with an opposing interest: the landlord's with the peasant's; the manufacturer's or capitalist's with the workman's. All through Europe—since equality, however accepted in theory, has been rejected in practice, and the sum of social wealth has accumulated in the hands of a small number of men, while the masses gain but a mere pittance by their relentless toil; it is a cruel irony, it gives inequality a new lease of life, if you establish unrestricted liberty, and tell men they are free, and bid them use their rights. A social sphere must have its center; a center to the individualists that jostle with each other inside it; a center to all the scattered rays that diffuse and waste their light and heat. The theory that bases the social structure on individual interests cannot supply this center. The absence of a center, or the selection among opposing interests of that which has the most vigorous life, means either anarchy or privilege—that is, either barren strife or the germ of aristocracy, under whatever name it disguises itself, this is the parting of the ways, which it is impossible to avoid. Is this what we want when we invoke a revolution, since a revolution is indispensable to reorganize our nationality? . . . We are therefore driven to the sphere of principles. We must revive belief in them, we must fulfill a work of faith. The logic of things demands it. Principles alone are constructive. Ideals are never translated into facts without the general recognition of some strong belief. Great things are never done except by the rejection of individualism and a constant sacrifice of self to the common progress. Self-sacrifice is the sense of duty in action. . . . The individual is sacred; his interests, his rights are inviolable. But to make them the only foundation of the political structure, and tell each individual to win his future with his own unaided strength, is to surrender society and progress to the accidents of chance nature, his social instinct; to plant egotism in the soul; and in the long run impose the dominion of the strong over the weak, of those who have over those who have not. The many futile attempts of the past forty years prove this. . . . If by dint of example you can root in a nation's heart the principle that the French Revolution proclaimed but never carried out, that the State owes every member the means of existence or the chance to work for it, and add a fair definition of existence, you have prepared the triumph of right over privilege; the end of the monopoly of one class over another, and the end of pauperism; for which at present there are only palliatives. . . Christian charity, or cold and brutal maxims like those of the English school of political economists. When you have raised men's minds to believe in the other principle that society is an association of laborers—and can, thanks to that belief, deduce both in theory and practice all its consequences; you will have no more castes, no more aristocracies, or civil wars, or crisis. You will have a People. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Thomas E. Hachey and Ralph E. Weber, European Ideologies since 1789: Rebels, Radicals and Political Ferment, repr. (Malabar, Fla.: Krieger, 1979), 33–36. Description An account of the resource The journalist and politician Guiseppi Mazzini (1805–72) was the apostle of nationalism during the first half of the nineteenth century. He was exiled by the Austrians from his native Italy in 1831 and spent the next two decades working unsuccessfully through Young Italy, a secret society dedicated to beginning a European–wide revolution on the Italian peninsula. In the revolutions of 1848, he returned to Italy and became president of the short–lived Roman republic before it fell to French forces protecting the papacy. Mazzini played an important role in spreading the cause of Italian nationalism and Italian unity, although his hope for a revolution proved to be greatly delayed. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 559 Title A name given to the resource Mazzini on Revolutionary Nationalism Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/559/ Europe in Revolution Popular Politics Public Opinion Text The Terror Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice anti traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises,—in drawing room as in cabarets, in the writing of philosophers as in daily conversation. Political, economic, and social institutions are crumbling; the social structure, having become uninhabitable, is hindering, even preventing the development of the seeds which are being propagated within its damaged walls and being brought forth around them. The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life, no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seemed just is now felt to be a crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames in every class of society, on in every possible environment, in the very bosom of the family. The son struggles against his father, he finds revolting what his father has all his life found natural; the daughter rebels against the principles which her mother has handed down to her as the result of long experience. Daily, the popular conscience arises up against the scandals which breed amidst the privileged and the leisured, against the crimes committed in the name of the law of the stronger, or in order to maintain these privileges. Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous, humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted; they perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath, and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism, without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration. When we study in the works of our greatest historians the genesis and development of vast revolutionary convulsions we generally find under the heading, "The Cause of the Revolution," a gripping picture of the situation on the eve of events. The misery of the people, the general insecurity, the vexatious measures of the government, the odious scandals laying bare the immense vices of society, the new ideas struggling to come to the surface and repulsed by the incapacity of the supporters of the former regime,—nothing is omitted. Examining this picture, one arrives at the conviction that the Revolution was indeed inevitable, and that there was no other way out than by the road of insurrection. Take, for example, the situation before 1789 as the historians picture it. You can almost hear the peasant complaining of the salt tax, of the tithe, of the feudal payments, and vowing in his heart an implacable hatred towards tile feudal baron, the monk, the monopolist, the bailiff. You can almost see the citizen bewailing the loss of his municipal liberties, and showering maledictions upon the king. The people censure the queen; they are revolted by the reports of ministerial action, and they cry out continually that file taxes are intolerable and revenue payments, exorbitant, that crops are bad and winters hard, that provisions are too dear and the monopolists too grasping, that the village lawyer devours the peasant's crops and the village constable tries to play the role of a petty king, that even the mail service is badly organized and the employees too lazy. In short, nothing works well, everybody complains. "It can last no longer, it will come to a bad end," they cry everywhere. But, between this pacific arguing and insurrection or revolt, there is a wide abyss,—that abyss which, for the greatest part of humanity, lies between reasoning and action, thought and will,—the urge to act. Now has this abyss been bridged? How is it that men who only yesterday were complaining quietly of their lot as they smoked their pipes, and the next moment were humbly saluting the local guard and gendarme whom they had just been abusing,—how is it that these same men a few days later were capable of seizing their scythes and their iron-shod pikes and attacking in his castle the lord who only yesterday was so formidable? By what miracle were these men, whose wives justly called them cowards, transformed in a day into heroes, marching through bullets and cannon balls to the conquest of their rights? How was it that words, so often spoken and lost in the air like the empty chiming of hells, were changed into actions? The answer is easy. Action, the continuous action, ceaselessly renewed, of minorities brings about action. Courage, devotion, the spirit of sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, submission, and panic. What forms will this action take? All forms,—indeed, the most varied forms, dictated by circumstances, temperament, and the means at disposal. Sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous, but always daring; sometimes collective, sometimes purely individual, this policy of action will neglect none of the means at hand, no event of public life, in order to keep the spirit alive, to propagate and find expression for dissatisfaction, to excite hatred against exploiters, to ridicule the government and expose its weakness, and above all and always, by actual example, to awaken courage and fan the spirit of revolt. When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit of revolt is sufficiently awakened in the masses to express itself in violent demonstrations in the streets or by rebellions and uprisings, it is through action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of independence and that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head. Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action,—men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles,—intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed,—these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the manes are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights. In the midst of discontent, talk, theoretical discussions, an individual or collective act of revolt supervenes, symbolizing the dominant aspirations. It is possible that at the beginning the masses will remain indifferent. It is possible that while admiring the courage of the individual or the group which takes the initiative, the masses will at first follow those who are prudent and cautious, who will immediately describe this act as "insanity" and say that "those madmen, those fanatics will endanger everything." They have calculated so well, those prudent and cautious men, that their party, slowly pursuing its work would, in a hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years perhaps, succeed in conquering the whole world,—and now the unexpected intrudes! The unexpected, of course, is whatever has not been expected by them,—those prudent and cautious ones! Whoever has a slight knowledge of history and a fairly clear head knows perfectly well from the beginning that theoretical propaganda for revolution will necessarily express itself in action long before the theoreticians have decided that the moment to act has come. Nevertheless the cautious theoreticians are angry at these madmen, they excommunicate them, they anathematize them. But the madmen win sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their courage, and they find imitators. In proportion as the pioneers go to fill the jails and the penal colonies, others continue their work; acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of vengeance, multiply. Indifference from this point on is impossible. Those who at the beginning never so much as asked what the "madmen" wanted, are compelled to think about them, to discuss their ideas, to take sides for or against. By actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people's minds and wins converts. One such act may, in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets. Above all, it awakens the spirit of revolt: it breeds daring. The old order, supported by the police, the magistrates, the gendarmes and the soldiers, appeared unshakable, like the old fortress of the Bastille, which also appeared impregnable to the eyes of the unarmed people gathered beneath its high walls equipped with loaded cannon. But soon it became apparent that the established order has not the force one had supposed. One courageous act has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make the colossus tremble; another revolt has stirred a whole province into turmoil, and the army, till now always so imposing, has retreated before a handful of peasants armed with sticks and stones. The people observe that the monster is not so terrible as they thought; they begin dimly to perceive that a few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to revolt, it is always hope, the hope of victory, which makes revolutions. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Philip B. Springer and Marcello Truzzi, eds., Revolutionaries on Revolution: Participants' Perspectives on the Strategies of Seizing Power (Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Publishing Company, 1973), 59–62. Description An account of the resource The Russian author Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) wrote prolifically about the French Revolution and about the ideology known as anarchism. He joined in the Russian revolutionary movement in 1872, was imprisoned by the tsarist state, and fled, escaping to Paris and then Switzerland, where he founded and edited a revolutionary newspaper. When he returned to Russia in 1917 he denounced the Bolshevik dictatorship installed during the recent revolutionary coup d’état. In this excerpt Kropotkin uses the French Revolution of 1789 as his model for revolution more generally. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 560 Title A name given to the resource Peter Kropotkin on the Need for Individual Action Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/560/ Europe in Revolution Popular Politics Public Opinion Text The Terror Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document History does not repeat itself. However much one may compare the Russian Revolution with the Great French Revolution, the former can never be transformed into a repetition of the latter. The 19th century has not passed in vain. Jacobinism is now a term of reproach on the lips of all liberal wiseacres. Bourgeois hatred of revolution, its hatred towards the masses, hatred of the force and grandeur of the history that is made in the streets, is concentrated in one cry of indignation and fear—Jacobinism! We, the world army of Communism, have long ago made our historical reckoning with Jacobinism. The whole of the present international proletarian movement was formed and grew strong in the struggle against the traditions of Jacobinism. We subjected its theories to criticism, we exposed its historical limitations, its social contradictoriness, its utopianism, we exposed its phraseology, and broke with its traditions, which for decades had been regarded as the sacred heritage of the revolution. But we defend Jacobinism against the attacks, the calumny, and the stupid vituperations of anemic, phlegmatic liberalism. The bourgeoisie has shamefully betrayed all the traditions of its historical youth, and its present hirelings dishonor the graves of its ancestors and scoff at the ashes of their ideals. The proletariat has taken the honor of the revolutionary past of the bourgeoisie under its protection. The proletariat, however radically it may have, in practice, broken with the revolutionary traditions of the bourgeoisie, nevertheless preserves them, as a sacred heritage of great passions, heroism and initiative, and its heart beats in sympathy with the speeches and acts of the Jacobin Convention. What gave liberalism its charm if not the traditions of the Great French Revolution? At what other period did bourgeois democracy rise to such a height and kindle such a great flame in the hearts of the people as during the period of the Jacobin, sans-culotte, terrorist, Robespierrian democracy of 1793? What else but Jacobinism made and still makes it possible for French bourgeois-radicalism of various shades to keep the overwhelming majority of the people and even the proletariat under its influence at a time when bourgeois radicalism in Germany and Austria has closed its brief history in deeds of pettiness and shame? What is it if not the charm of Jacobinism, with its abstract political ideology, its cult of the Sacred Republic, its triumphant declarations, that even now nourishes French radicals and radical socialists like Clemenceau, Millerand, Briand and Bourgeois, and all those politicians who know how to defend the mainstays of bourgeois society no worse than the dull-witted Junkers of Wilhelm II by the Grace of God? They are envied hopelessly by the bourgeois democrats of other countries; and yet they shower calumnies upon the source of their political advantage—heroic Jacobinism. Even after many hopes had been destroyed, Jacobinism remained in the memory of the people as a tradition. For a long time the proletariat spoke of its future in the language of the past. In 1840, almost half a century after the government of the "Mountain," eight years before the June days of 1848, Heine visited several workshops in the faubourg of Saint-Marceau and saw what the workers, "the soundest section of the lower classes," were reading. "I found there," he wrote to a German newspaper, "several new speeches by old Robespierre and also pamphlets by Marat issued in two-sous editions; Cabet's History of the Revolution; the malignant lampoons of Carmenen; the works of Buonarroti, The Teachings and Conspiracy of Babeuf, all productions reeking with blood. . . . As one of the fruits of this seed," prophesies the poet, "sooner or later a republic will threaten to spring up in France." In 1848 the bourgeoisie was already unable to play a comparable role. It did not want and was not able to undertake the revolutionary liquidation of the social system that stood in its path to power. We know now why that was so. Its aim was—and of this it was perfectly conscious—to introduce into the old system the necessary guarantees, not for its political domination, but merely for a sharing of power with the forces of the past. It was meanly wise through the experience of the French bourgeoisie, corrupted by its treachery and frightened by its failures. It not only failed to lead the masses in storming the old order, but placed its back against this order so as to repulse the masses who were pressing it forward. The French bourgeoisie succeeded in bringing off its Great Revolution. Its consciousness was the consciousness of society and nothing could become established as an institution without first passing through its consciousness as an aim, as a problem of political creation. It often resorted to theatrical poses in order to hide from itself the limitations of its own bourgeois world but it marched forward. The National Convention, as an organ of the Jacobin dictatorship, was by no means composed of Jacobins alone. More than that—the Jacobins were in a minority in it; but the influence of the sans-culottes outside the walls of the Convention, and the need for a determined policy in order to save the country, gave power into the hands of the Jacobins. Thus, while the Convention was formally a national representation, consisting of Jacobins, Girondins, and the vast wavering center known as the "marsh" [Plain], in essence it was a dictatorship of the Jacobins. When we speak of a workers' government we have in view a government in which the working-class representatives dominate and lead. The proletariat, in order to consolidate its power, cannot but widen the base of the revolution. Many sections of the working masses, particularly in the countryside, will be drawn into the revolution and become politically organized only after the advance-guard of the revolution, the urban proletariat, stands at the helm of state. Revolutionary agitation and organization will then be conducted with the help of state resources. The legislative power itself will become a powerful instrument for revolutionizing the masses. The nature of our social-historical relations, which lays the whole burden of the bourgeois revolution upon the shoulders of the proletariat, will not only create tremendous difficulties for the workers' government but, in the first period of its existence at any rate, will also give it invaluable advantages. This will affect the relations between the proletariat and the peasantry. In the revolutions of 1789–93 and 1848 power first of all passed from absolutism to the moderate elements of the bourgeoisie, and it was the latter class which emancipated the peasantry (how, is another matter) before revolutionary democracy received or was even preparing to receive power. The emancipated peasantry lost all interest in the political stunts of the "townspeople," that is, in the further progress of the revolution, and placing itself like a heavy foundation-stone at the foot of order, betrayed the revolution to the Caesarist or old-regime absolutist reaction. The Russian revolution does not, and for a long time will not, permit the establishment of any kind of bourgeois-constitutional order that might solve the most elementary problems of democracy. All the "enlightened" efforts of reformer—bureaucrats like Witte and Stolypin are nullified by their own struggle for existence. Consequently, the fate of the most elementary revolutionary interests of the peasantry—even the peasantry as a whole, as an estate, is bound up with the fate of entire revolution, that is, with the fate of the proletariat. The proletariat in power will stand before the peasants as the class which has emancipated it. The domination of the proletariat will mean not only democratic equality, free self-government, the transference of the whole burden of taxation to the rich classes, the dissolution of the standing army in the armed people and the abolition of compulsory church imposts, but also recognition of all revolutionary changes (expropriations) in land relationships carried out by the peasants. The proletariat will make these changes the starting-point for further state measures in agriculture. Sortable Date 1919-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects (New York: Merit, 1969), 52, 54–56, 70–71. Description An account of the resource Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), whose original name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein, was one of the chief figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After years spent in exile agitating in favor of Russian communism, he put his ideas into practice as one of the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution. After falling out with Stalin, he was expelled from the Russian Communist Party in 1927 and forced into exile once again. There he wrote prolifically about the meaning of the Russian—and French—revolutions. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 561 Title A name given to the resource Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/561/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1919 Economic Conditions Europe in Revolution Popular Politics Public Opinion Text The Terror Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document On the subject of Jacobinism and the Action Party, an element to be highlighted is the following: that the Jacobins won their function of "leading" [dirigente] party by a struggle to the death; they literally "imposed" themselves on the French bourgeoisie, leading it into a far more advanced position than the originally strongest bourgeois nuclei would have spontaneously wished to take up, and even far more advanced than that which the historical premises should have permitted—hence the various forms of backlash and the function of Napoleon I. This feature, characteristic of Jacobinism (but before that, also of Cromwell and the "Roundheads") and hence of the entire French Revolution, which consists in (apparently) forcing the situation, in creating irreversible faits accomplis, and in a group of extremely energetic and determined men driving the bourgeois forward with kicks in the backside, may be schematized in the following way. The Third Estate was the least homogeneous; it had a very disparate intellectual elite, and a group which was very advanced economically but politically moderate. Events developed along highly interesting lines. The representatives of the Third Estate initially only posed those questions which interested the actual physical members of the social group, their immediate "corporate" interests (corporate in the traditional sense, of the immediate and narrowly selfish interests of a particular category). The precursors of the Revolution were in fact moderate reformers, who shouted very loud but actually demanded very little. Gradually a new elite was selected out which did not concern itself solely with "corporate" reforms, but tended to conceive of the bourgeoisie as the hegemonic group of all the popular forces. This selection occurred through the action of two factors: the resistance of the old social forces, and the international threat. The old forces did not wish to concede anything, and if they did concede anything they did it with the intention of gaining time and preparing a counteroffensive. The Third Estate would have fallen into these successive "pitfalls" without the energetic action of the Jacobins, who opposed every immediate halt in the revolutionary process, and sent to the guillotine not only the elements of the old society which was hard a-dying, but also the revolutionaries of yesterday—today become reactionaries. The Jacobins, consequently, were the only party of the revolution in progress, in as much as they not only represented the immediate needs and aspirations of the actual physical individuals who constituted the French bourgeoisie, but they also represented the revolutionary movement as a whole, as an integral historical development. For they represented future needs as well, and, once again, not only the needs of those particular physical individuals, but also of all the national groups which had to be assimilated to the existing fundamental group. It is necessary to insist against a tendentious and fundamentally anti-historical school of thought, that the Jacobins were realists of the Machiavelli stamp and not abstract dreamers. They were convinced of the absolute truth of their slogans about equality, fraternity and liberty, and, what is more important, the great popular masses whom the Jacobins stirred up and drew into the struggle were also convinced of their truth. The Jacobins' language, their ideology, their methods of action reflected perfectly the exigencies of the epoch, even if "today," in a different situation and after more than a century of cultural evolution, they may appear "abstract" and "frenetic." Naturally they reflected those exigencies according to the French cultural tradition. One proof of this is the analysis of Jacobin language which is to be found in The Holy Family. Another is Hegel's admission, when he places as parallel and reciprocally translatable the juridico political language of the Jacobins and the concepts of classical German philosophy—which is recognized today to have the maximum of concreteness and which was the source of modern historicism. The first necessity was to annihilate the enemy forces, or at least to reduce them to impotence in order to make a counterrevolution impossible. The second was to enlarge the cadres of the bourgeoisie as such, and to place the latter at the head of all the national forces; this meant identifying the interests and the requirements common to all the national forces, in order to set these forces in motion and lead them into the struggle, obtaining two results: (a) that of opposing a wider target to the blows of the enemy, i.e., of creating a politico-military relation favorable to the revolution; (b) that of depriving the enemy of every zone of passivity in which it would be possible to enroll Vendée-type armies. Without the agrarian policy of the Jacobins, Paris would have had the Vendée at its very doors. The resistance of the Vendée properly speaking is linked to the national question, which had become envenomed among the peoples of Brittany and in general among those alien to the slogan of the "single and indivisible republic" and to the policy of bureaucratic-military centralization—a slogan and a policy which the Jacobins could not renounce without committing suicide. The Girondins tried to exploit federalism in order to crush Jacobin Paris, but the provincial troops brought to Paris went over to the revolutionaries. Except for certain marginal areas, where the national (and linguistic) differentiation was very great, the agrarian question proved stronger than aspirations to local autonomy. Rural France accepted the hegemony of Paris; in other words, it understood that in order definitively to destroy the old regime it had to make a bloc with the most advanced elements of the Third Estate, and not with the Girondin moderates. If it is true that the Jacobins "forced" its hand, it is also true that this always occurred in the direction of real historical development. For not only did they organize a bourgeois government, i.e., make the bourgeoisie the dominant class—they did more. They created the bourgeois State, made the bourgeoisie into the leading, hegemonic class of the nation, in other words gave the new State a permanent basis and created the compact modern French nation. That the Jacobins, despite everything, always remained bourgeois ground is demonstrated by the events which marked their end, as a party cast in too specific and inflexible a mold, and by the death of Robespierre. Maintaining the Le Chapelier law, they were not willing to concede to the workers the right of combination; as a consequence they had to pass the law of the maximum. They thus broke the Paris urban bloc: their assault forces, assembled in the Commune, dispersed in disappointment, and Thermidor gained the upper hand. The Revolution had found its widest class limits. The policy of alliances and of permanent revolution had finished by posing new questions which at that time could not be resolved; it had unleashed elemental forces which only a military dictatorship was to succeed in containing. If in Italy a Jacobin party was not formed, the reasons are to be sought in the economic field, that is to say in the relative weakness of the Italian bourgeoisie and in the different historical climate in Europe after 1815. The limit reached by the Jacobins, in their policy of forced reawakening of French popular energies to be allied with the bourgeoisie, with the Le Chapelier law and that of the maximum, appeared in 1848 as a "specter" which was already threatening—and this was skillfully exploited by Austria, by the old governments and even by Cavour (quite apart from the Pope). The bourgeoisie could not (perhaps) extend its hegemony further over the great popular strata—which it did succeed in embracing in France (could not for subjective rather than objective reasons); but action directed at the peasantry was certainly always possible. Differences between France, Germany and Italy in the process by which the bourgeoisie took power (and England). [sic] It was in France that the process was richest in developments, and in active and positive political elements. In Germany, it evolved in ways which in certain aspects resembled what happened in Italy, and in others what happened in England. In Germany, the movement of 1848 failed as a result of the scanty bourgeois concentration (the Jacobin-type slogan was furnished by the democratic Far Left: "Permanent revolution"), and because the question of renewal of the State was intertwined with the national question. The wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 resolved both the national question and, in an intermediate form, the class question: the bourgeoisie obtained economic-industrial power, but the old feudal classes remained as the government stratum of the political State, with wide corporate privileges in the army, the administration and on the land. Yet at least, if these old classes kept so much importance in Germany and enjoyed so many privileges, they exercised a national function, became the "intellectuals" of the bourgeoisie, with a particular temperament conferred by their caste origin and by tradition. In England, where the bourgeois revolution took place before that in France, we have a similar phenomenon to the German one of fusion between the old and the new—this notwithstanding the extreme energy of the English "Jacobins," i.e., Cromwell's "roundheads." The old aristocracy remained as a governing stratum, with certain privileges, and it too became the intellectual stratum of the English bourgeoisie (it should be added that the English aristocracy has an open structure, and continually renews itself with elements coming from the intellectuals and the bourgeoisie). In Germany, despite the great capitalist development, the class relations created by industrial development, with the limits of bourgeois hegemony reached and the position of the progressive classes reversed, have induced the bourgeoisie not to struggle with all its strength against the old regime, but to allow a part of the latter's facade to subsist, behind which it can disguise its own real domination. Sortable Date 1929-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Antonio Gramsci, in Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (New Yorl: International Publishers, 1971) 77–80, 82–83. Description An account of the resource Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was an Italian intellectual who joined first the Socialist and then the Communist Party. Between 1924 and 1926 Gramsci was the head of the Italian Communist Party. In 1926 he was arrested by the Mussolini fascist government and sent to prison where he remained until 1937. The excerpt that follows comes from his prison notebooks and demonstrates his fascination with the French Revolution, especially its Jacobin phase. Although Gramsci was a devoted Marxist, he helped turn Marxism toward an interest in local conditions, particularly toward the alliance between intellectuals and workers. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 562 Title A name given to the resource Antonio Gramsci: Selections from The Prison Notebooks Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/562/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1929 Europe in Revolution Popular Politics Public Opinion Text The Terror Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document It is no wonder therefore, that with these ideas of every thing in their constitution and government at home, either in church or state, as illegitimate and usurped, or at best as a vain mockery, they look abroad with an eager and passionate enthusiasm. Whilst they are possessed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a constitution, whose merits are confirmed by the solid test of long experience, and an increasing public strength and national prosperity. They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the rest, they have wrought under-ground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have "the rights of men." Against these there can be no prescription; against these no argument is binding: these admit no temperament, and no compromise: any thing withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice. Against these rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its continuance, or in the justice and lenity of its administration. The objections of these speculatists, if its forms do not quadrate with their theories, are as valid against such an old and beneficent government as against the most violent tyranny or the greenest usurpation. They are always at issue with governments, not on a question of abuse, but a question of competency and a question of title. I have nothing to say to the clumsy subtilty of their political metaphysics. . . . Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my heart from withholding in practice (if I were of power to give or to withhold) the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would totally destroy. If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an institution of beneficence; and law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to do justice, as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in public function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents, to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring, to instruction in life, and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights, but not to equal things. He that has but five shillings in the partnership has as good a right to it as he that has five hundred pounds has to his larger proportion. But he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock; and as to the share of power, authority, and direction which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society; for I have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. It is a thing to be settled by convention. If civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things; and how can any man claim under the conventions of civil society rights which do not so much as suppose its existence—rights which are absolutely repugnant to it? One of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is that no man should be judge in his own cause. By this each person has at once divested himself of the first fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defense, the first law of nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. That he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of determining what it is in points the most essential to him. That he may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of the whole of it. Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it, and exist in much greater clearness and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection; but their abstract perfection is their practical defect. By having a right to everything they want everything. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom. Among these wants is to be reckoned the want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their passions. Society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body, as well as in the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection. This can only be done by a power out of themselves, and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In this sense the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. But as the liberties and the restrictions vary with times and circumstances and admit to infinite modifications, they cannot be settled upon any abstract rule; and nothing is so foolish as to discuss them upon that principle. The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men, each to govern himself, and suffer any artificial, positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience. This it is which makes the constitution of a state and the due distribution of its powers a matter of the most delicate and complicated skill. It requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or obstruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanism of civil institutions. The state is to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its distempers. What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician rather than the professor of metaphysics. The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate . . . . The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and, therefore, no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade or totally negligent of their duty. . . . The rights of men are in a sort of middle, incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. . . . But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the super-added ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion. . . . But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish; and it will find other and worse means for its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims which form the political code of all power not standing on its own honor and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle. . . . We are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them, without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced and possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with civilization have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles and were, indeed, the result of both combined: I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the one by profession, the other by patronage, kept learning in existence, even in the midst of arms and confusions, and whilst governments were rather in their causes than formed. Learning paid back what it received to nobility and to priesthood, and paid it with usury, by enlarging their ideas and by furnishing their minds. Happy if they had all continued to know their indissoluble union and their proper place! Happy if learning, not debauched by ambition, had been satisfied to continue the instructor, and not aspired to be the master! Along with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude. See the fate of Bailly and Condorcet, supposed to be here particularly alluded to. Compare the circumstances of the trial and execution of the former with this prediction. . . . I wish you may not be going fast, and by the shortest cut, to that horrible and disgustful situation. Already there appears a poverty of conception, a coarseness, and a vulgarity in all the proceedings of the Assembly and of all their instructors. Their liberty is not liberal. Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is savage and brutal. Sortable Date 1790-11-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Edmund Burke, The Works of Edmund Burke, 3 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860), 1:481–83, 488–91. Description An account of the resource Born in Ireland, Edmund Burke (1729–97) immediately opposed the French Revolution, warning his countrymen against the dangerous abstractions of the French. He argued the case for tradition, continuity, and gradual reform based on practical experience. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 563 Title A name given to the resource Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/563/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 1790 Counterrevolution Monarchy Nobility Public Opinion Religion Text The US and Great Britain in Revolution Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document An occurrence in our own times which proves this moral tendency of the human race: The occurrence in question does not involve any of those momentous deeds or misdeeds of men which make small in their eyes what was formerly great or make great what was formerly small, and which cause ancient and illustrious states to vanish as if by magic, and others to arise in their place as if from the bowels of the earth. No, it has nothing to do with all this. We are here concerned only with the attitude of the onlookers as it reveals itself in public while the drama of great political changes is taking place: for they openly express universal yet disinterested sympathy for one set of protagonists against their adversaries, even at the risk that their partiality could be of great disadvantage to themselves. Their reaction (because of its universality) proves that mankind as a whole shares a certain character in common, and it also proves (because of its disinterestedness) that man has a moral character, or at least the makings of one. And this does not merely allow us to hope for human improvement; it is already a form of improvement in itself, in so far as its influence is, strong enough for the present. The revolution which we have seen taking place in our own times in a nation of gifted people may succeed, or it may fail. It may be so filled with misery and atrocities that no right-thinking man would ever decide to make the same experiment again at such a price, even if he could hope to carry it out successfully at the second attempt. But I maintain that this revolution has aroused in the hearts and desires of all spectators who are not themselves caught up in it a sympathy which borders almost on enthusiasm, although the very utterance of this sympathy was fraught with danger. It cannot therefore have been caused by anything other than a moral disposition within the human race. The moral cause which is at work here is composed of two elements. Firstly, there is the right of every people to give itself a civil Constitution of the kind that it sees fit, without interference from other powers. And secondly, once it is accepted that the only intrinsically rightful and morally good constitution which a people can have is by its very nature disposed to avoid wars of aggression (i.e., that the only possible constitution is a republican one, at least in its conception), there is the aim, which is also. This does not mean, however, that a people which has a monarchic constitution can thereby claim the right to alter it, or even nurse a secret desire to do so, for a people which occupies extended territories in Europe may feel that monarchy is the only kind of constitution which can enable it to preserve its own existence between powerful neighbors. And if the subjects should complain, not because of their internal government but because of their government's behavior towards the citizens of foreign states (for example, if it were to discourage republicanism abroad), this does not prove that the people are dissatisfied with their own constitution, but rather that they are profoundly attached to it; for it becomes progressively more secure from danger as more of the other nations become republics. Nevertheless, slanderous sycophants, bent on increasing their own importance, have tried to portray this innocuous political gossip as innovationism, Jacobinism and conspiracy, constituting a menace to the state. But there was never the slightest reason for such allegations, particularly in a country more than a hundred miles removed from the scene of the revolution. A duty, of submitting to those conditions by which war, the source of all evils and moral corruption, can be prevented. If this aim is recognized, the human race, for all its frailty, has a negative guarantee that it will progressively improve or at least that it will not be disturbed in its progress. All this, along with the passion or enthusiasm with which men embrace the cause of goodness (although the former cannot be entirely applauded, since all passion as such is blameworthy), gives historical support for the following assertion, which is of considerable anthropological significance: true enthusiasm is always directed exclusively towards the ideal, particularly towards that which is purely moral (such as the concept of right), and it cannot be coupled with selfish interests. No pecuniary rewards could inspire the opponents of the revolutionaries with that zeal and greatness of soul which the concept of right could alone produce in them, and even the old military aristocracy's concept of honor (which is analogous to enthusiasm) vanished before the arms of those who had fixed their gaze on the rights of the people to which they belonged, and who regarded themselves as its protectors. And then the external public of onlookers sympathized with their exaltation, without the slightest intention of actively participating in their affairs. It may be said of such enthusiasm for asserting the rights of man: postquam ad arma Vulcania ventum est,—mortalis mucro glacies ceu futilis ictu dissiluit—Why has no ruler ever dared to say openly that he does not recognize any rights of the people against himself? Or that the people owe their happiness only to the beneficence of a government which confers it upon them, and that any pretensions on the part of the subject that he has rights against the government are absurd or even punishable, since they imply that resistance to authority is permissible? The reason is that any such public declaration would rouse up all the subjects against the ruler, even although they had been like docile sheep, well fed, powerfully protected and led by a kind and understanding master, and had no lack of welfare to complain of. For beings endowed with freedom cannot be content merely to enjoy the comforts of existence, which may well be provided by others (in this case, by the government); it all depends on the principle which governs the provision of such comforts. Sortable Date 1798-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Immanuel Kant, The Contest of Faculties, in Hans Reiss, ed., Kant: Political Writings, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) (Der Streit der Fakultäten [1798]), 182–83. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press. Description An account of the resource The most influential German philosopher of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), set the foundations for much of modern philosophy. He lectured on a wide variety of topics, from astronomy to economics. In this short statement from 1798, he captures much of the significance of the French Revolution for his time. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 564 Title A name given to the resource Kant, The Contest of Faculties Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/564/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1798 Enlightenment Europe in Revolution Public Opinion Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document These infuriated men alone could have devised the means, and what is still more incredible, partly have succeeded in the execution of their project. The means were doubtless execrable, but it must be acknowledged that they were of gigantic conception. The Jacobins possessed minds rarefied by the fire of republican enthusiasm, and they may be said to have been reduced, by their purifying scrutinies . . . to the quintessence of infamy. Hence they displayed, at the same time, a degree of energy which was completely without example, and an extent of crimes, which all those of history, put together, can scarcely equal. They saw that to obtain the end which they had in view, the received systems of justice, the common axioms of humanity, and the whole range of principles, adopted by Lycurgus, would not be of use, and that they must arrive at the same object by another road. To wait till death took away the great proprietors of estates, or till they consented to their own spoliation; to wait till years rooted out fanaticism, and effected a change in customs and manners; to wait till recruits, raised in the ordinary way, could be sent to the armies: all this appeared doubtful and tedious. As if, therefore, the establishment of a republic and the defense of France, taken separately, afforded too little employment for their genius, they resolved on attempting both at the same time. Agents having been placed at their posts in every corner of the republic, and the word communicated to affiliated societies, the monsters . . . gave the fearful signal which was to recall Sparta from its ruins. It resounded though France like the trump of the exterminating angel—the monuments of the sons of men crumbled away, and the graves opened. At the same moment a thousand sanguinary guillotines were erected in all the towns and villages of France. The citizen was suddenly awoke in the night by the report of cannon and roll of the drum, to receive an order for his immediate departure to the army. He was thunderstruck, and knew not whether he was a wake. He hesitated and looked around him. There he espied the ghastly heads and hideous trunks of those unfortunate wretches, who had perhaps refused to march at the first summons, only that they might take a last farewell of their families. What could he do? Where were the leaders, under whom he could place himself in order to avoid the requisition? Every one, thus taken separately, found himself deprived of all defense. On one side he beheld certain death; on the other bands of volunteers, who, flying from the famine, persecution, and intolerance of the interior, were going to seek bread and liberty in the army. They were intoxicated, singing, full of all the ardor of youth; and the citizen, with a guillotine before his eyes, seeing no other resource but to join them, took his departure with despair in his heart. On arriving soon afterwards at the frontiers, the necessity of defending his life, the courage natural to the French, the inconstancy and the enthusiasm of which they are characteristically susceptible, considerable pay, abundant food, the tumult and dangers of a military life, the women, the wine, and his native gaiety of disposition, made him forget that he had been brought thither by force, and he became a hero. Thus persecution on the one hand, and rewards on the other, created armies by enchantment; for when once the first example had been set, and the requisition obeyed, men by a natural imitative impulse, were eager, whatever might be their opinions, to walk in the steps of others. Here then were the rudiment of a military force, but it was necessary that this force should be organized. A committee, of which it has been said that its talents could not have been surpassed except by its crimes, employed itself in connecting these disjointed corps. Let no one, however, suppose that they resorted to the ancient tactics of Caesar and Turenne, No. Everything was to be new in this newly modeled world. It was no longer an object to save the life of man; it was no longer a rule to give battle only when the loss would at least be reciprocal. The art of war was now reduced to a calculation of numbers, rapidity, and time of attack. As to numbers, two or three armies immediately followed each other, to keep up an imposing mass of strength . . . . It might cost ten thousand men to take a place; it might be necessary to attack it twenty times, and on twenty successive days—still the place was to be taken. When the blood of men is reckoned as nothing, it is easy to make conquests. Were not deserters and spies sure to be found? The engineers trolled a song while they studied the weak points of the army, and secured victory in spite of the scientific secrets appertaining to their department of service. The telegraph conveyed flying orders, the earth yielded saltpeter, and France vomited forth innumerable legions. While the armies were forming, the prisons were filled with all the wealthy persons of France. At one place they were drowned by thousands, at another the doors of the crowded dungeons were opened and the victims fired upon by cannon loaded with grapeshot. The guillotine was at work day and night. This implement of destruction was too slow for the haste of the executioner; and the artists of death invented a new kind, which cut off several heads with a single blow. The streets were so inundated with blood, as to become impassible; and it became necessary to change the place of execution. It was in vain that immense pits were opened to receive the dead bodies; they were soon filled, and new ones obliged to be dug. Grey-headed people of eighty years old and girls of sixteen, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands, wives and children died covered with the blood of each other. Thus the Jacobins attained four leading points at once, towards the establishment of their republic; they destroyed the inequality of rank, leveled the fortunes of individuals, augmented the finances by the confiscation of every person's property who was condemned, and attached the army to their interest by buoying it up with the hope that it would some day posses these estates. The people, now hearing of nothing but conspiracies, invasion, and treason, were afraid of their own friends, and fancying themselves upon a mine which was ready to burst beneath them, sunk into a state of torpid terror. This the Jacobins had foreseen. A man, if now asked for bread, gave it; if for his garment, he took it off; if for his life, he resigned it without regret. At the same time he saw all the churches shut, its ministers sacrificed, and the ancient worship of the country banished under pain of death. He was told that there is no celestial vengeance but a guillotine; while by a contradictory and inexplicable jargon, he was commanded to adore the virtues for which festivals were instituted, where girls, clothed in white, and crowned with roses, entertained idle curiosity by singing hymns in honor of the Gods. The unfortunate confounded people no longer knew where they were, nor whether they existed. They sought in vain for their ancient customs—these had vanished. They saw a foreign nation in strange attire, wandering through the public streets. If they asked which were their holidays, and which the days of their ordinary duties, new appellations struck their ears. The day of repose had disappeared. They trusted at least that the fixed return of the year would restore the natural state of affairs, and bring some consolation with it. Unfounded hope! As if condemned for ever to this new order of misery, the unknown months seemed to tell them that the revolution would extend to eternity; and in this land of prodigies, they had fears of losing themselves even in the midst of the streets, the names of which they no longer knew. . . . Thus was the unhappy nation bandied about by the hands of a powerful faction, suddenly transported into another world, stunned by the cries of victims, and the acclamations of victory resounding from all the frontiers, when God, casting a look towards France, caused these monsters to sink into nothingness. Such were the Jacobins, of whom much has been said, though few people knew them. Most persons have indulged in declamation and published their crimes, without stating the general principle on which they acted. This principle consisted in the system of perfection, towards which the first step to be made was the restoration of the Spartan laws. We have ascribed too much to passions and circumstances. A distinguishing feature of the French Revolution is, that it is necessary to admit speculative views and abstract doctrines, as infinite in their causes. It was in part effected by the men of letters, who were rather inhabitants of Rome and Athens than of their own country, and who endeavored to bring back the manners of antiquity into modern Europe. Sortable Date 1815-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived François-René Chateaubriand, Historical, Political, and Moral Essay on Revolutions, Ancient and Modern (English translation, 1815; original French Essai historique, politique et moral, sur les révolutions anciennes et modernes, considérées dans leurs rapports avec la Révolution française, 1815), 46–54. Description An account of the resource The French novelist and essayist François–René Chateaubriand (1768–1848) was a royalist who for a time admired Napoleon. Like Burke, he denounced the revolutionary reliance on reason and advocated a return to Christian principles. Although Chateaubriand detested the revolutionaries and their principles, he recognized that the French Revolution required extended commentary. Here he analyzes the Jacobins whom he clearly despises. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 565 Title A name given to the resource Historical, Political, and Moral Essay on Revolutions, Ancient and Modern Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/565/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1815 Counterrevolution Monarchy Public Opinion Religion Text Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The two following points must now occupy our attention: 1st. The course which the Revolution in France took; 2nd. How that Revolution became World-Historical. 1. Freedom presents two aspects: the one concerns its substance and purport—its objectivity—the thing itself—[that which is performed as a free act]; the other relates to the Form of Freedom, involving the consciousness of his activity on the part of the individual; for Freedom demands that the individual recognize himself in such acts, that they should be veritably his, it being his interest that the result in question should be attained. The three elements and powers of the State in actual working must be contemplated according to the above analysis, their examination in detail being referred to the Lectures on the Philosophy of Right. Laws of Rationality—of intrinsic Right—Objective or real freedom: to this category belong Freedom of Property and Freedom of Person. . . . In view then of these leading considerations we have to trace the course of the French Revolution and the remodeling of the State in accordance with the Idea of Right. In the first instance purely abstract philosophical principles were set up: Disposition and Religion were not taken into account. The first Constitutional form of Government in France was one which recognized Royalty; the monarch was to stand at the head of the State, and on him in conjunction with his Ministers was to devolve the executive power; the legislative body on the other hand were to make the laws. But this constitution involved from the very first an internal contradiction; for the legislature absorbed the whole power of the administration: the budget, affairs of war and peace, and the levying of the armed force were in the hands of the Legislative Chamber. Everything was brought under the head of Law. The budget however is in its nature something diverse from law, for it is annually renewed, and the power to which it properly belongs is that of the Government. With this moreover is connected the indirect nomination of the ministry and officers of state, etc. The government was thus transferred to the Legislative Chamber, as in England to the Parliament. This constitution was also vitiated by the existence of absolute mistrust; the dynasty lay under suspicion, because it had lost the power it formerly enjoyed, and the priests refused the oath. Neither government nor constitution could be maintained on this footing, and the ruin of both was the result. A government of some kind however is always in existence. The question presents itself then, Whence did it emanate? Theoretically, it proceeded from the people; really and truly from the National Convention and its Committees. The forces now dominant are the abstract principles—Freedom, and, as it exists within the limits of the Subjective Will—Virtue. This Virtue has now to conduct the government in opposition to the Many, whom their corruption and attachment to old interests, or a liberty that has degenerated into license, and the violence of their passions, render unfaithful to virtue. Virtue is here a simple abstract principle and distinguishes the citizens into two classes only—those who are favorably disposed and those who are not. But disposition can only be recognized and judged of by disposition. Suspicion therefore is in the ascendant; but virtue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspicion, is already condemned. Suspicion attained a terrible power and brought to the scaffold the Monarch, whose subjective will was in fact the religious conscience of a Catholic. Robespierre set up the principle of Virtue as supreme, and it may be said that with this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror are the order of the day; for Subjective Virtue, whose sway is based on disposition only, brings with it the most fearful tyranny. It exercises its power without legal formalities, and the punishment it inflicts is equally simple—Death. This tyranny could not last; for all inclinations, all interests, reason itself revolted against this terribly consistent Liberty, which in its concentrated intensity exhibited so fanatical a shape. An organized government is introduced, analogous to the one that had been displaced; only that its chief and monarch is now a mutable Directory of Five, who may form a moral, but have not an individual unity; under them also suspicion was in the ascendant, and the government was in the hands of the legislative assemblies; this constitution therefore experienced the same fate as its predecessor, for it had proved to itself the absolute necessity of a governmental power. Napoleon restored it as a military power, and followed up this step by establishing himself as an individual will at the head of the State: he knew how to rule, and soon settled the internal affairs of France. The avocats [barristers], ideologues and abstract-principle men who ventured to show themselves he sent "to the right about," and the sway of mistrust was exchanged for that of respect and fear. He then, with the vast might of his character turned his attention to foreign relations, subjected all Europe, and diffused his liberal institutions in every quarter. Greater victories were never gained, expeditions displaying greater genius were never conducted: but never was the powerlessness of Victory exhibited in a clearer light than then. The disposition of the peoples, i.e., their religious disposition and that of their nationality, ultimately precipitated this colossus; and in France constitutional monarchy, with the "Charte" as its basis, was restored. But here again the antithesis of Disposition [good feeling] and Mistrust made its appearance. The French stood in a mendacious position to each other, when they issued addresses full of devotion and love to the monarchy, and loading it with benediction. A fifteen years' farce was played. For although the Charte was the standard under which all were enrolled, and though both parties had sworn to it, yet on the one side the ruling disposition was a Catholic one, which regarded it as a matter of conscience to destroy the existing institutions. Another breach, therefore, took place, and the Government was overturned. At length, after forty years of war and confusion indescribable, a weary heart might fain congratulate itself on seeing a termination and tranquillization of all these disturbances. But although one main point is set at rest, there remains on the one hand that rupture which the Catholic principle inevitably occasions, on the other hand that which has to do with Men's subjective will. In regard to the latter, the main feature of incompatibility still presents itself, in the requirement that the ideal general will should also be the empirically generalized will, that the units of the State, in their individual capacity, should rule, or at any rate take part in the government. Not satisfied with the establishment of rational rights, with freedom of person and property, with the existence of a political organization in which are to be found various circles of civil life each having its own functions to perform, and with that influence over the people which is exercised by the intelligent members of the community, and the confidence that is felt in them, "Liberalism" sets up in opposition to all this the atomistic principle, that which insists upon the sway of individual wills; maintaining that all government should emanate from their express power, and have their express sanction. Asserting this formal side of Freedom—this abstraction—the party in question allows no political organization to be firmly established. The particular arrangements of the government are forthwith opposed by the advocates of Liberty as the mandates of a particular will, and branded as displays of arbitrary power. The will of the Many expels the Ministry from power, and those who had formed the Opposition fill the vacant places; but the latter having now become the Government, meet with hostility from the Many, and share the same fate. Thus agitation and unrest are perpetuated. This collision, this nodus, this problem is that with which history is now occupied, and whose solution it has to work out in the future. 2. We have now to consider the French Revolution in its organic connection with the History of the World; for in its substantial import that event is World-Historical, and that contest of Formalism which we discussed in the last paragraph must be properly distinguished from its wider bearings. As regards outward diffusion its principle gained access to almost all modern states, either through conquest or by express introduction into their political life. Particularly all the Romanic nations, and the Roman Catholic World in special—France, Italy, Spain—were subjected to the dominion of Liberalism. But it became bankrupt everywhere; first, the grand firm in France, then its branches in Spain and Italy; twice, in fact, in the states into which it had been introduced. This was the case in Spain, where it was first brought in by the Napoleonic Constitution, then by that which the Cortes adopted—in Piedmont, first when it was incorporated with the French Empire, and a second time as the result of internal insurrection; so in Rome and in Naples it was twice set up. Thus Liberalism as an abstraction, emanating from France, traversed the Roman World; but Religious slavery held that world in the fetters of political servitude. For it is a false principle that the fetters which bind Right and Freedom can be broken without the emancipation of conscience—that there can be a Revolution without a Reformation.—These countries, therefore, sank back into their old condition—in Italy with some modifications of the outward political condition. Venice and Genoa, those ancient aristocracies, which could at least boast of legitimacy, vanished as rotten despotisms. Material superiority in power can achieve no enduring results: Napoleon could not coerce Spain into freedom any more than Philip II could force Holland into slavery. Sortable Date 1830-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, English translation (New York: Colonial Press, 1899), 449–53. Description An account of the resource Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) was a famous philosophy professor in Berlin whose lectures attracted many students, even though the lectures were extraordinarily abstract. The Philosophy of History was a compilation of his lectures given in 1830–31 and published after his death. They give the flavor of his philosophy of history and of his preoccupation with the French Revolution. Hegel was almost obsessed with Napoleon, whom he described as "world history on horseback." Hegel argued that the French Revolution failed because it had not been preceded by a prior Protestant Reformation, as in the German states. Freedom, he insisted, depended on a mental change; it could not be enforced politically. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 566 Title A name given to the resource The Philosophy of History Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/566/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1830 Enlightenment Europe in Revolution Public Opinion Text