Was the French revolution a bourgeois revolution?

[Jacob Cliff]

And howso? Did it make bourgeois property rights? He seems to be adored by a lot of communists, so I'm not really sure why.

And what are other bourgeois revolutions in history?

[Creative Destruction]

Who seems to be adored by communists...?

[G4b3n]

When the Third Estate, composed of all non clergy and non aristocracy but intellectually dominated by the bourgeoisie, declared itself the National Assembly, bourgeois revolution had been declared. Read the declaration of the rights of man if you want to see a simple outline of bourgeois class interests in revolutionary France. I am not sure who you mean by "he" but bourgeois revolutionaries are admired by Marxists because they are historically progressive. The first half of the Manifesto is filled with praise for the historical role of bourgeois society.

[Jacob Cliff]

Robespierre, my fault. My original question was why do communists admire Robespierre, then changed it.

[G4b3n]

Robespierre, my fault. My original question was why do communists admire Robespierre, then changed it.

Because he was as radical as a bourgeois (or any) revolutionary can get. His hatred for the old social order and the ruling class was a deep one and it was very evident in his work and actions.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

The French Revolution was definitely a bourgeois revolution.

Now, that's not meant to be a slight against them. The progressive bourgeois were the primary revolutionary class at the time, and the radicals of the French Revolution were as radical as a bourgeois could get at the time. There were people even more radical than the Jacobins at the time, like Anacharsis Cloots and Francois-Noel Babeuf, who were very much proto-anarcho-communists.

Little known fact: Thomas Jefferson was a public supporter of the French Revolution, even during the infamous 'reign of terror'.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution by Eric Hobsbawm

http://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Marseillaise-Centuries-Revolution-Lecture/dp/0813515246/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425280057&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=eric+hobsbawn+french+revolution

This whole book is a justification for viewing the French Revolution as a bourgeois revolution that fundamentally altered the world system of the time. It is excellent and I highly recommend it.

[Бай Ганьо]

There were people even more radical than the Jacobins at the time, like Anacharsis Cloots and Francois-Noel Babeuf, who were very much proto-anarcho-communists.

And the Enragés.

Babeuf was not proto-anarcho-communist, but held authoritarian communist ideas.

[Gracchus R.]

Saying that Robespierre was defending the bourgeoisie is an insult to him and all of those who have died because they were defending the proletariat. There is two revolution within the French Revolution, you have the bourgeois one, from 1789 to 1792 (the Girondins period), and the second one, from 1792 to 1794 (where the Jacobins had a great part of the power).

Robespierre and all the robespierrist was rousseauist. I have long defended the fact that Rousseau defended the caryatid, the exploited. Rousseau pointed out the fact that the rich do their money on the poors backs, and Robespierre (as Rousseau) goal was to abolish this class of people that profit from this social order. However, he believe in the private property with limitation. Though there is a kind of communism through republicanism, which put everyone properties to the purpose of the general interest. Anyone using his good against the general interest is acting against the republic, and therefore can be spoil from it.

Robespierre fell due to the fact that Le Comité de Salut Public held not as much power than what les Thermidoriens has make the people believe and due to the intern political struggle. Les Thermidoriens have charged crimes of theirs Robespierre and his friends.

Babeuf was an agrarian communist and les Enragés was mainly people asking for more death.

It's true that it was a bourgeois revolution because it was them who finally win, thanks to the Thermidoriens and to Napoléon. But saying that Robespierre was part of a bourgeois revolution is as false as it can be.

[G4b3n]

Saying that Robespierre was defending the bourgeoisie is an insult to him and all of those who have died because they were defending the proletariat. There is two revolution within the French Revolution, you have the bourgeois one, from 1789 to 1792 (the Girondins period), and the second one, from 1792 to 1794 (where the Jacobins had a great part of the power).

Robespierre and all the robespierrist was rousseauist. I have long defended the fact that Rousseau defended the caryatid, the exploited. Rousseau pointed out the fact that the rich do their money on the poors backs, and Robespierre (as Rousseau) goal was to abolish this class of people that profit from this social order. However, he believe in the private property with limitation. Though there is a kind of communism through republicanism, which put everyone properties to the purpose of the general interest. Anyone using his good against the general interest is acting against the republic, and therefore can be spoil from it.

Robespierre fell due to the fact that Le Comité de Salut Public held not as much power than what les Thermidoriens has make the people believe and due to the intern political struggle. Les Thermidoriens have charged crimes of theirs Robespierre and his friends.

Babeuf was an agrarian communist and les Enragés was mainly people asking for more death.

It's true that it was a bourgeois revolution because it was them who finally win, thanks to the Thermidoriens and to Napoléon. But saying that Robespierre was part of a bourgeois revolution is as false as it can be.

The Industrial proletariat barely existed at the time. There was of course, the working poor, who were referred to at the time as the "sans-culottes". Socialism certainly did not exist in any sense of the word, even utopian socialism was about 30 years away from birth. The working poor supported the bourgeois revolution because they had no organized or conscious class interests of their own. It is true that the sans-culotte did become increasingly radical, to the point where their demands contradicted bourgeois class interests. And it was at this point that Robespierre had many of them executed and kicked out the National Convention. Yes, Robespierre wanted to extend voting rights to the working poor and he opposed their explicit subjugation in other forms but that did not make him a socialist or representative of the working poor in any way. Just because the working poor made radical demands does not mean that socialism existed or that any of the bourgeois revolutionaries represented their interests, because they did not.

[Gracchus R.]

There was social struggle, even if it was not socialism. Give another name to it if you want, but there was a lower class fighting to be the only class, even back then. If les Sans-Culottes would have won this social struggle, what could have been, they would have skip what you may concidered as an necessary step in history. And yes, the bourgeoisie standing in their own interest was aware of their class interest. Just look at all the voltairians there was, or at Antoine Barnave who said that ''a new distribution of the wealth calls for a new distribution of the power''. Lafayette have give the name Sans-Culottes to the poor, and Honnêtes gens for the bourgeois. The way they create the nationals gards, where only the rich could afford to enter it, or when only those paying a certain amount of taxes had the right to vote. The bourgeoisie knew about the aristocraty AND THE PROLETARIAT. They defeat the firsts with the help of the second and than restrain the poor from taking any more political power. Proletariat didn't exist as you mean it: industrial proletariat. Still there was people who didn't possess their own means of production, nor did they have political or economical power. Those there were could have done a republican republic, and that was not out of reach.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The proletariat did exist during the French Revolution, although it was small numerically and, most importantly, was not a political force independent of the bourgeoisie. Of the bourgeois parties, the Jacobins were squarely in the centre, although they did at one point ally with the left (only to turn on them later). Hell, the Thermidorean Reaction was helped by the extreme left of the Convention, and one of Robespierre's last recorded statements was a plea to the right to save him from the left.

The man became a communist symbol because no one who is not extremely boring knows who Hébert was, and for all their faults, Robespierre, Saint-Just and so on did preserve the bourgeois revolution in France.

[Gracchus R.]

You are saying that without Robespierre and St-Just to kill Hébert, there could have been a true popular revolution ?

Robespierre was himself in the left, only there was some leftist that ask for blood (something imputed to Robespierre), like Hébert, and he try to condamn them and their foolish statement.

I clearly doubt that Robespierre have ever ask for mercy at this point, knowing that he was sick and that he know he would be facing opposition.

And you may have misread his last speech, he tried to convince those he was facing him, not joining them. He condamn those who was ploting in politics, put their interest before the concepts of the republic and he was condamning the calumniators.

[Rafiq]

The French revolution, as well as the French state during the reign of terror, were undoubtedly bourgeois in nature, though how this is grounds for revoking the status of heroism from the likes of Robespierre is utterly beyond me. Previously, I had called Stalinism a prolonged Jacobin phrase for precisely this reason: The French revolution, occurred ripe in the midst of a plethora of social antagonisms cannot necessarily be traceable to a singular class interest based on demographics alone. Unlike as in England, the remnants of the feudal order in France took a continually perpetuated parasitic character devoid of any real affirmative social qualification. The "aristocracy" was hardly the same feudal aristocracy as a thousand years before, but a privileged, parasitic political entity thriving under the backdrop of capitalist relations which had already subsumed France. They were essentially a political category only, whose existence was purely irrational as far as French capitalism went.

Because classes do not learn from history as such, in either direction, the bourgeoisie had acted against its own real interests by preferring immediate comfort over the stormy implications of social revolution and the unrest it would cause. This was precisely why absolutism was able to persist for so long. In order to wipe clean France of the aristocracy for the bourgeoisie to exponentially grow in power, this had to be done against their immediate interests by a group which was overwhelmingly supported by the urban poor. Much like how Stalinism did away with the old feudal relations which further allowed capitalist relations to develop, Jacobinism can be understood precisely as an insistence upon the necessity of destroying old social bonds without compromise and without hesitance. The meekness and general cowardice of the French bourgeoisie proved them too impotent in even facilitating their own interests, which is why they for the most part were identified with the Girondins. What people are apparently incapable of fathoming is that - in the absence of a real French proletariat, retrospectively the interests of the proletariat were literally vested in that of the bourgeoisie, they were identical and one and the same. That was the whole of the enlightenment - the egalitarianism, which we could call "communistic" of Rousseau precisely contains this potential element of Communism which is already enshrined within the edifice of capitalist social relations. Robespierre became, and should remain a hero of Communists precisely because he is a reminder of the uncompromising necessity of revolutionary justice, that being a moderate two hundred years ago by our standards meant being a Jacobin extremist. Robespierre is the specter which haunts the very edifice of the bourgeois social order, the original sin that we will never let them take away from us, with all of the casual talk of democracy and freedom today we remember that the origins of which the spirit of Communism was already enshrined. We will not let them divorce from it this revolutionary element.


Of the bourgeois parties, the Jacobins were squarely in the centre, although they did at one point ally with the left (only to turn on them later). Hell, the Thermidorean Reaction was helped by the extreme left of the Convention, and one of Robespierre's last recorded statements was a plea to the right to save him from the left.

The man became a communist symbol because no one who is not extremely boring knows who Hébert was, and for all their faults, Robespierre, Saint-Just and so on did preserve the bourgeois revolution in France.

This is utterly nonsensical. The fact of the matter is that Robespierre's enduring legacy as a hero for the exploited did not began after his image had been faded from memory. Hebert, among the other so-called members of the "Left" may have been well ahead of their time in retrospect, but they were surely not grounded in any social forces in France. Following your logic, that Robespierre's heroism is recognized by Communists by sheer ignorance of fringe details (Hebert and the so-called farther "left" factions were not fringe details, in France or otherwise), he would not have been retrospectively lauded and praised by the conspiracy of equals and Gracchus Babeuf:


is first legitimate glory, and all his disciples would arise anew and soon would triumph. Robespierrism overthrows anew all the factions; Robespierrism does not resemble any of them, it is neither artificial nor limited. Hébertism exists only in Paris and among a small section of men, and can only sustain itself with difficult. Robespierrism exists throughout the Republic in the whole class of the judicial and clear-sighted and, of course, among all the people. The reason is simple: it is that Robespierrism is Democracy and that the two words are identical. Hence in resuscitating Robespierrism you are sure to resuscitate democracy.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1911/babeuf/ch10.htm


And you, Lycurguses of the French
O Marat! Saint-Just! Robespierre!
Of your sage projects
We were already feeling the salutary effects.
Already, the rich and his altars were
Plunged in the darkest night,
Mortals repeated:
The sun shines for all.
https://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/conspiracy-equals/1796/song.htm

Robespierre would go on to become a heroic symbol of revolutionary fervor among the worker's movement of the early 20th century and by the Bolsheviks in the October revolution, who saw themselves as the spiritual continuation of his project. The so-called "left" of Robespierre were in context certainly not representative of any popular, or proletarian will, they were declassed at best and 'aristocratic' (as he himself put it) at worst. Had such members of the Left been genuine, they would have at the least had the decency to abstain from the reaction, which was spearheaded, if not completely dominated by the right-wing and the corrupt. We can either attribute this mistake to sheer political stupidity (as they would be brutally repressed afterwards) or pure contempt for the plebian democracy, through which their "left" sentiments were merely a facade for. We might never truly know. It goes without saying that Hebertism in France was certainly not proletarian in nature, it was an intellectual elaboration of bourgeois ideology. Though you are right at the very least in one regard - Robespierre was the perfect embodiment of the interests of the bourgeoisie as such, and that is precisely why he would have been supported.

[Rafiq]

To be clear, what designates something as bourgeois is not necessarily the demographic composition, but the very nature of something - either ideologically or politically. We don't measure how "proletarian" something is by the numbers of proletarians backing people - we ought to remember Fascism and working-class participation in reaction. It is vulgar and ridiculous to assume that classes are implicitly conscious of their existence and somehow facilitate their emergence through conspiracy.

[Gracchus R.]

To be clear, what designates something as bourgeois is not necessarily the demographic composition, but the very nature of something - either ideologically or politically. We don't measure how "proletarian" something is by the numbers of proletarians backing people - we ought to remember Fascism and working-class participation in reaction. It is vulgar and ridiculous to assume that classes are implicitly conscious of their existence and somehow facilitate their emergence through conspiracy.

It is some form of consciousness, or what is it when they apply policies that act in their favor while being disadvantageous for the others. It is a form of conspiracy, a form of conspiracy Robespierre did mention numerous time. The rich using the poor for his advantage. If we maintain the idea that the emergence come from superstructure and the means of production, you have it right, it cannot be the class that make itself emerge. So I have to reformulate: there is people with a background who make them act in a certain way, which they believe is rightfull and still justify themselves even if their actions harm other human being.

[mushroompizza]

I am currently reading the Manifesto and marx says that the French Revolution was to remove feudal property rights and give free bourgeois property.

[Illegalitarian]

The French Revolution was definitely a bourgeois revolution.

Now, that's not meant to be a slight against them. The progressive bourgeois were the primary revolutionary class at the time, and the radicals of the French Revolution were as radical as a bourgeois could get at the time. There were people even more radical than the Jacobins at the time, like Anacharsis Cloots and Francois-Noel Babeuf, who were very much proto-anarcho-communists.

Little known fact: Thomas Jefferson was a public supporter of the French Revolution, even during the infamous 'reign of terror'.

As Jefferson said about the execution of the monarchy and would later reiterate about the reign of terror, "If only a single adam and eve were left in each country, it wouldn't matter so long as they were free"

[Illegalitarian]

People for whatever reason get too caught up in this idealistic notion of what Robespierre *believed* or what Herbert *believed* in relation to what class interests they represented, which is an extremely anti-materialist way of looking at class struggle, and its history.

The Jacobins should be the go-to example of how ideas are derived from material conditions, from class interests, rather than existing as abstractions that exist in a vacuum. In hindsight they existed to the right of the Herbertists, and to the left of the Girondins and indulgent Dantonists, but what does this mean in relation to the interests they represented? Nothing, really.

Realistically, the Jacobins were a visage of class dictatorship. They protected and furthered the interests of the bourgeois, and the moment they became an obstacle for the bourgeois (through insisting upon continuing the terror and suppressing the "indulgents"), they found themselves destroyed. Regardless of trying to exist as the perfect Rousseauite model, they still furthered the class interests of the bourgeois, their own class interests, when the time of reckoning came.


Just as the USSR was the visage of bourgeois dictatorship despite clinging to the abstraction of communism, until finally, its usefulness had come to an end, and the international bourgeois decided that it had become too much of an obstacle to tolerate.