Thoughts on Robespierre?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I wanted to ask the history buffs amongst us:

What is your take on the (in)famous french revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre?

I would like to consider myself a student of history, but Robespierre absolutely confuses me. The way he is viewed by whichever historian and author in question is so radically different. To some, he was a brutal tyrant who coldly sent thousands to their death by guillotine. To others he was the greatest revolutionary of his time, who to this day should be considered a true guardian of the people. Still others claim that he in reality had little actual power and that he is often used as a scapegoat to characterize the 'brutality' of the Reign of Terror. And just about every other opinion in between.

Being a Marxist, I of course recognize that the French Revolution, no matter how progressive it was at the time, was still a Bourgeois revolution in nature. Still, Robespierre and the Jacobins fascinate me to no end. And whenever I read about them, I always get this nagging feeling that I'm just not getting the whole story.

[G4b3n]

You ought to indeed note that the revolution was bourgeois in nature. But it could have been nothing else. The proletariat was politically nonexistent outside of the realm of bourgeois struggles against feudal norms. Meaning it did not exist independently in any notable form yet. So, a proper materialist analysis, leads one to the conclusion that this revolution was extremely progressive and made great strides in establishing the new bourgeois social order throughout the west. A social order which must necessarily exist for a proletarian movement to exist, which is of course the only sort of movement that could possibly bring about socialism. Not that all Marxists have to idealize bourgeois revolutionaries, but I certainly admire a great deal of them. But it is undoubtedly paradoxical to hold grudges against the historically progressive bourgeoisie.

As for Robespierre, bourgeois historians typically refer to his rule as the "radical" phase of the revolution. He was one of the most progressive among the bourgeois revolutionaries in terms of voting rights and the other classical liberal values. Does that mean he was a socialist or anything like that? Of course not, he simply wanted a more inclusive bourgeois state. But the radical nature of the committees actions against counter-revolutionaries tends to be off-putting for bourgeois historians.

[Rafiq]

Robespierre, a romantic bourgeois revolutionary, represents the internal possibility of Communist politics vested in the antagonistic politics of the French revolution - in it vested all the contradictions of modernity, communism and liberalism included.

Robespierre was righteous, politically principled and expressed dedication to the protection of the revolution in an absolute and uncompromising sense. Robespierre will remain an eternal hero of our cause and the day we renounce the Jacobins marks the death of any possibility for Communism.

[OnFire]

Robespierre was a true progressive revolutionary, a vanguard of the proletariat. Shame how the bourgeosie ousted him from power. IMHO he was not radical enough in some regards, so the DOTP lasted only short time.

[PhoenixAsh]

The Jacobin were economic liberals favoring free trade and favoring a strong centralized authoritarian and intervening state to favor internal trade and protectionism. Their focus was on what could be generalised as a middle class with some measures to lessen the ails of the poor and workers. Jacobinism is still used as a term to reflect this.

Historically there was no other choice. From a more modern radical left wIng position we can learn from the French Revolution but to hold Robespierre and the Jacobins as hero's of the left is kind of nonsensical.

[Rafiq]

The connotations of the Jacobins after their defeat were inherited by the radical left. The conspiracy of the equals sang of Robespierre and forever after his name was dragged in the mud and spat upon by all political currents save for the radical Left.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think the worst of Marx's liberal baggage (particularly notions of "progressive") are really apparent in this thread.

To imagine the proletariat as the sole carriers of a communist possibility, which emerges exclusively out of the peculiar development of liberal capitalism in Europe is conceited at best (and is typically Eurocentric nonsense that leads to the glorification of the-workers-within-capitalism and dead-end social-democratic/Leninist politics).

I think to take a more balanced view of Robspierre, we need to jettison the notion that the French Revolution was "progressive" in the sense of being an inevitable step down a road which eventually leads to communism. That's not to say there isn't much to be celebrated in the end of the feudal order - but that's in-and-of-itself. The fact is, liberalism is liberalism is liberalism: communism is always and everywhere possible materially not on the basis of "the proletariat" or mass industrial production. The failure of various pre-capitalist communist projects no more disproves this than the failure of communist projects since the advent of capitalism (esp. since we can point to "primitive" communist societies without, one would hope, Marx's Euro-liberal prejudice).

[G4b3n]

I think the worst of Marx's liberal baggage (particularly notions of "progressive") are really apparent in this thread.

To imagine the proletariat as the sole carriers of a communist possibility, which emerges exclusively out of the peculiar development of liberal capitalism in Europe is conceited at best (and is typically Eurocentric nonsense that leads to the glorification of the-workers-within-capitalism and dead-end social-democratic/Leninist politics).

I think to take a more balanced view of Robspierre, we need to jettison the notion that the French Revolution was "progressive" in the sense of being an inevitable step down a road which eventually leads to communism. That's not to say there isn't much to be celebrated in the end of the feudal order - but that's in-and-of-itself. The fact is, liberalism is liberalism is liberalism: communism is always and everywhere possible materially not on the basis of "the proletariat" or mass industrial production. The failure of various pre-capitalist communist projects no more disproves this than the failure of communist projects since the advent of capitalism (esp. since we can point to "primitive" communist societies without, one would hope, Marx's Euro-liberal prejudice).

So are you saying Hegel was complete shit and his notions of historical progress hold no wight idealist or not?

Even if historical materialism bears birthmarks of classical liberalism, what is inherently wrong with this? I would argue any ideology worth anything ought to bear coherence to such a historically significant stage. The basic notions are only as Eurocentric as you make them. Was Marx Eurocentric? Absolutely he was, but this isn't the 1850s, you can apply historical materialism to contemporary understanding without thinking the progress of history revolves around western Europe. A Marxist living off of purely what Marx wrote is a sad sight.

[Aurorus Ruber]

Robespierre, a romantic bourgeois revolutionary, represents the internal possibility of Communist politics vested in the antagonistic politics of the French revolution - in it vested all the contradictions of modernity, communism and liberalism included.

What makes you say that Robespierre was part of the Romantic movement? I thought the Jacobins were an outgrowth of Enlightenment thought and Romanticism emerged after the French Revolution as a response to the Enlightenment.

[Antiochus]

I think he meant romantic in the literal sense and not the philosophical/literary movement.

[Fakeblock]

I think the worst of Marx's liberal baggage (particularly notions of "progressive") are really apparent in this thread.

To imagine the proletariat as the sole carriers of a communist possibility, which emerges exclusively out of the peculiar development of liberal capitalism in Europe is conceited at best (and is typically Eurocentric nonsense that leads to the glorification of the-workers-within-capitalism and dead-end social-democratic/Leninist politics).

I think to take a more balanced view of Robspierre, we need to jettison the notion that the French Revolution was "progressive" in the sense of being an inevitable step down a road which eventually leads to communism. That's not to say there isn't much to be celebrated in the end of the feudal order - but that's in-and-of-itself. The fact is, liberalism is liberalism is liberalism: communism is always and everywhere possible materially not on the basis of "the proletariat" or mass industrial production. The failure of various pre-capitalist communist projects no more disproves this than the failure of communist projects since the advent of capitalism (esp. since we can point to "primitive" communist societies without, one would hope, Marx's Euro-liberal prejudice).

But 'primitive communism' is only communism by analogy and if we mistake it for an actual form of appearance of communism, we are led into a view that is as reductionist as the teleological-economist view of history as the progressive development of the productive forces - i.e. a religious myth of history as a continuous battle between good and evil, commencing at the fall from Paradise and ending with the ultimate rupture, the triumph of good over evil, of autonomy over alienation.

Doubtless, the solution isn't to then present historical progress as a function of some underlying principle, which is its essence, whether 'civilisation' or the 'productive forces'. Certain notions must be rejected, e.g. the idea of modes of production becoming barriers to the development of the productive forces. But the two above conceptions share the same ideology of history and class struggle as either progression towards or regression from the same, final goal, a goal which is inscribed in the very origins of history itself (primitive communism). Only the classes that embody this couple progression/reaction are changed.

Now, I do not sguggest we do away with the idea of progression/reaction itself (which is implicit in every Communist ideology). I still believe we should celebrate the accomplishments of Robespierre and the great bourgeois revolutions. However, these revolutions are only progressive insofar as the historical encounter between the (proto-)proletariat and the (proto-)bourgeoisie has already taken hold. These are the revolutions that removed the political fetters on the development of capitalism and, consequently, on the development of the proletariat, the only class capable of producing a world-historical revolutionary rupture with capitalism. With a certain conception of communism this view is still teleological and hence idealist, I admit. But I believe this problem is solved once we conceive of communism not as an End present in its Origin ('modern communism emerges from primitive communism by way of slavery feudalism and capitalism' or 'modern communism is the restoration of primitive communism'), but as an ideological heirloom from various class struggles under capitalism. Strictly speaking, our only knowledge of communism, as a mode of production, are the hints that have emerged from the historical mass organisations of the proletariat. That is to say, the idea of communism presupposes that history has taken a certain course, which happened to lead to the appearance of a capitalist mode of production. History could very well have gone in many different directions, but it happened to lead to capitalism, to the emergence of a class struggle between a bourgeoisie and a proletariat and thus to the emergence of a communist revolutionary ideology.

By this I do not mean to deny that communism as a mode of production could have emerged from other conditions than those of modern-day capitalism. However, this can only be judged retrospectively, once communism exists and we can scientifically ascertain its precise features and 'laws of motion'. Only then can we judge whether the historical elements that precondition a communist mode of production existed in a certain historical period.

[Rafiq]

To imagine the proletariat as the sole carriers of a communist possibility, which emerges exclusively out of the peculiar development of liberal capitalism in Europe is conceited at best (and is typically Eurocentric nonsense that leads to the glorification of the-workers-within-capitalism and dead-end social-democratic/Leninist politics).

The only thing which could be construed as not only Eurocentric, but plainly wrong, is the projection of specific political and ideological developments indeed particular to Europe (initially at least) - to carelessly assume that societies within totalities that are absolutely outside of the totality which Communism was born, real Communism (what could only be historically self-conscious Communism), somehow follow a course of historic development that is similar to Europe. To speak of the nativity of Young Marx, there is quite simply nothing more naive than the notion that Communism, our Communism has existed before the historic advent of generalized commodity production and wage labor relations - it is no less a form of reification that the notion that liberal capitalism is trans-historic, because markets that somehow resemble capitalist markets have existed in Greece or Ancient China, whatever you will. The reason this notion of Euro-centiricsim is fundamentally degenerate is because it is, in its own perverse kind of way, already built upon a series of passively accepted ideological networks and political constellations that absolutely pre-suppose the foundations of liberal capitalism. When intellectuals speak of "Euro-centricism" in the 20th century, the utterly reactionary connotations are very clear: One cannot be outside the totality of liberal capitalism, so there are definite characteristics of it that are - so to speak - singled out and done away with. The most disgusting development within postmodernism has been precisely this - because it is the language of capital which seeks to do away with the achievements of liberalism, it is only after globalizaiton that this idea of "eurocentricism" has gained so much merit. Not only as intellectuals, but as Communists we should firmly repeat Hegel's words: Europe is absolutely the end of history. Not because Europe is some how biologically superior to the rest of the world, or even superior at all, but because particular developments in Europe have absolutely rendered obsolete all previous modes of production and has given rise to a universality that has made the end of history possible - and it is the universality of capital and wage-labor relations. If the revolution primarily occurs in India or Brazil, for example, it would be all the same "Europe" the end of history, because only through particular developments that had occurred in Europe were they possible. What can a worker in China say to a government official prattling of "western" influences? What would he, or she think of this? Because capital is universal, and as are wage labor relations - especially in this age of our globalized totality - then universal political standards must be defended compelled without regard of the particularities of "this or that" culture - which is nothing short of a fraud, a means by which capital has absorbed and integrated various indigenous "cultures" not in-themselves, crystallizing them into a mere political mechanisms to precisely forestall the same chaotic class, and social antagonisms of European history - "cultures" that must be smashed with the hammer of Communism by their respective organized working class.

In this context, to speak of "Liberalism" negatively can only ever be in approximation to what? To pre-modernity and nothing more. It is precisely this "liberal baggage" that we ought to defend, precisely this liberal baggage that has made not only Communism but all its particularities, including anarchism a real possibility, precisely this "liberal baggage" which the bloody hellhounds of capital seek to destroy. I challenge you to name me one manifestation of Communism historically - and I do not mean movements which resembled Communism, but actual Communism - a historically self-conscious Communism, that proceeded wage labor relations. There is nothing! You talk of "pre-capitalist" Communist projects - but the problem wasn't their mere failure, it was the fact that they were thoroughly not projects at all. Of course if we can call Spartacus a proto-Communist, then in the history of various different non-European cultures one can also project the political coordinates of today upon them just as much - what is crucial however is that this view of history is completely dependent on existing conditions. What a man claims of Spartacus reveals more about the conditions of oppression and barbarity in the 21st century than it does about Spartacus.

So, the idea that Communist possibility "emerges exclusively out of the peculiar development of liberal capitalism" could only ever be true: and what is really conceited is to elevate the idea of Communism into some kind of trans-historical moral category that isn't given its due outside of Europe, i.e. what is REALLY conceited is to assume that anyone would ever give a damn about Communism as a force if not for European developments. The worst crime of Euro-centriicsm was not outwardly claiming Europe's superiority - a quick look at Europe's interaction with Asia and so on reveals the profound respect they had for Chinese, Japanese and Indian civilizations at least in word. The real Euro-centrism was ignorantly applying categories that were unique to Europe to the historic circumstances of other civilizations, unable to reconcile the fact that history had developed in a different way there, and finally when the conditions were there, it was maintaining a respectful distance - it is preicesly European values that spear-headed all successful anti-colonial movements.


I think to take a more balanced view of Robspierre, we need to jettison the notion that the French Revolution was "progressive" in the sense of being an inevitable step down a road which eventually leads to communism. That's not to say there isn't much to be celebrated in the end of the feudal order - but that's in-and-of-itself. The fact is, liberalism is liberalism is liberalism: communism is always and everywhere possible materially not on the basis of "the proletariat" or mass industrial production.


But what this fails to understand is that Communists never looked at the French revolution as some kind of means to an ends to the bright future - Communism was arguably born out of the politics of the French revolution! The point being simple: For Communists, the French revolution was sufficient unto itself as a real revolution which we uphold, a real historic event which whose legacy we will always defend, and it was only through the French revolution that the IDEA of Communism emerged - NOT the other way around! The fact was that Communism was an elaboration of the failure of the French revolutionary project, it was an insistence that the ideas of Liberalism and the enlightenment are taken to their end. The moment we take a "balanced view" of this legacy is the moment we sell our souls to the Liberalism of the 21st century. How can one take a balanced view of a hero like Robespierre? In this postmodern age wherein other "creative" forms of capitalism emerge, where the legacy of modernity is disregarded, then to be "Euro-centric" in the manner you describe is nothing short of revolutionary. Not that it clings to the old, but maintains the insistence of re-inventing itself - because the conditions of the possibility of putting all the old ghosts of all previous failed revolutionary projects are more than ever present today. Liberalism is indeed Liberalism, but it can only ever rear its head against the will of the revolutionary proletariat when it is juxtaposed with Communism, not "non-European" social formations.

The relevancy of the proletariat is not that it is a vehicle through which Communism emerges, but that its class-conscious existence IS the force of Communism! One cannot even approach the category of the proletariat without articulating the ideas of Communism one way or another, approvingly or otherwise. You claim that Communism is everywhere possible independently of the proletariat - very well, where has any meaningful Communist movement, or force, existed independently of the working class? We can speak of various peasant movements, but these are either muddied in, in the process of being proletarianized (as it was with Muntzer's rebellion), or they are romantic petite-bourgeois movements (Maoism) whose only possible end result is modernization and paving way for proletarianization in a way more efficient than that would otherwise be done by capital. In the process of speaking of a "Communism" outside of "mass industrial production", you abstract a real historic force whose conditions of existence was bound with mass industrial production. Therefore, the Communism you speak of here is nothing more than an abstraction.


The failure of various pre-capitalist communist projects no more disproves this than the failure of communist projects since the advent of capitalism (esp. since we can point to "primitive" communist societies without, one would hope, Marx's Euro-liberal prejudice).

But this wasn't even a failure because there was no attempt in "primitive Communist societies" to affirmatively realize a "Communist project"! THAT's the point! I mean, to speak of the fact that they no longer exist is one thing - but their "failures" are incomparable. The difference between "pre-capitalist" Communist projects failing was that they lacked the self-consciousness to defend themselves (take the Innuits) from historic development, while the failure of Communist projects was conscious - the proletarian dictatorship could not be defended in the conditions of its emergence (in Russia). And to further speak of "euro-centricism" negatively because it "disregards" other cultures, tell me - what universalizing aspect can be found in any meaningful sense in "primitive communists societies"? There is none. So what are the qualifications for pointing to "primitive" communist societies without Euro-liberal prejudice? There are none. Why? Because unless you're a hunter-gatherer yourself confusingly describing your experiences passively, the prejudice IS THERE, unless you would abstract yourself from the historically particularities of your intellectual existence. So it then devolves into a game of picking-and-choosing, and the only thread in common is a rabid, and reactionary desire to do away with the achievements of liberalism and the chaos of Europe, a process not simply spearheaded in postmodern academia but by global capital itself.

Culture, in the anthropological sense, has been universalized already by capital. There is already a global culture. What remains is strictly political. The "cultural" variations between South Korea and the United States are no more "cultural" than the variations between Italy and the United Kingdom.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Rafiq, I'll just say this - I think you have articulated relatively well the fundamental incompatibility of our conceptions of communism. Rather than offer a tedious point-by-point response (which would likely be of little interest to anyone but you), I'll simply say that, on a large number of points, I agree with you. I imagine a plurality of communisms that are not necessarily mutually intelligible. I can only name them "communism" because of the peculiarity of my own position within a European liberal society and its communist tradition (with its attendant liberal baggage, and universalizing impulse).

None the less, I insist on the necessity of a fundamental ethical break with liberalism and its (false, everywhere failing to be realized) universalism. This is not a moral impulse; I don't think communism implies any particular morality. It refers only to a) that "real movement" (which, contra dogma, is always "muddied" peasant movements, "petite bourgeois romanticism", voluntarist adventurism, or whatever other pejorative suits a particular body of toilers in motion) which realizes or begins to realize b) a stateless, classless society of from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

Rather than with hot air (mine included), I expect this debate to be settled as it always is - in the conflict between the communist strivings that are everywhere possible and erupt violently into history, and the special bodies of armed men who uphold civilization as we know it.

An aside: The post-modern boogeyman is a funny thing. It's everything from "End of History" neo-liberal triumphalism to the amoral cultural Marxism which drives angry young people to turn queer and lob bricks at cops. ΤΗΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗΙ, I suppose.

[Rafiq]

What precisely, however, constitutes this break with liberalism and its (particular) universalism? This is the question. The complication arises out the fact that while liberalism is indeed universal, it is only universal insofar as the social relations which sustain it are universal. What, essentially predisposes Communism to be exceptional in this regard?

Communism, as the real movement in the context of Marx never simply means that which (consciously) seeks to establish this or that - Marx worded this very carefully - Communism is the movement which abolishes the present state of things (aufheben for abolish - which means supersede). This very firmly places its conditions of existence within capitalism - as one cannot be outside of capitalism to constitute its aufheben. The class basis of course is not some kind of magical predisposition the proletariat has to Communism, but the fact that it is truly only the proletariat which has nothing to lose but its chains, only the proletariat as a social force capable of OPPOSING the existing order in an insistence to transform it. If historic experience gives us anything, it is precisely that alone the peasantry are incapable of realizing the task of abolishing capitalism - this is the lesson, the ONLY lesson we can draw from, for example Mao. China today is arguably the most successful capitalist-political formation that exists.

The point of Communism is that while "statelessness' and "classlessness" might be inherent to its existence, the specific connotations of these demands in approximation to the social order that can make them a reality rather than a romantic abstraction is firmly grounded in the proletariat, only in the specific opposition to things as they exist.

[Ocean Seal]

I wanted to ask the history buffs amongst us:

What is your take on the (in)famous french revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre?

I would like to consider myself a student of history, but Robespierre absolutely confuses me. The way he is viewed by whichever historian and author in question is so radically different. To some, he was a brutal tyrant who coldly sent thousands to their death by guillotine. To others he was the greatest revolutionary of his time, who to this day should be considered a true guardian of the people. Still others claim that he in reality had little actual power and that he is often used as a scapegoat to characterize the 'brutality' of the Reign of Terror. And just about every other opinion in between.

Do not shy away from the brutality of the reign of terror. It was not excessive random violence, it was coordinated against the most reactionary elements still around, and it frankly held more due process than any equivalent court at the time.



Being a Marxist, I of course recognize that the French Revolution, no matter how progressive it was at the time, was still a Bourgeois revolution in nature. Still, Robespierre and the Jacobins fascinate me to no end. And whenever I read about them, I always get this nagging feeling that I'm just not getting the whole story.
The Jacobins had their place in history, there can be no socialism without capitalism. Socialism offers more than the Jacobins ever could.

[Colonel]

To some, he was a brutal tyrant who coldly sent thousands to their death by guillotine. To others he was the greatest revolutionary of his time

My opinion is that he was both. Feels absurd, yes, because(contradictory to Camus' Absurd) it seems that this is logically impossible, however, humanly possible. I do not revere Robespierre as some do. I feel a certain sympathy, and even fascination towards him as a revolutionary leader, however, his inhuman methods and signs of sociopathy alienates me from him, and jacobins in general. I have more respect for people in the earlier days of the revolution, such as La Fayette, and Sieyès.

[reviscom1]

I find Robespierre an absolutely fascinating figure but as a person it cannot be denied that he was a bit of a pratt - insecure, lacking in self knowledge, hysterical, intolerant, self-righteous and murderous.

What I find particularly vexing about him is his inability to distinguish between what he, personally, wanted and revolutionary purity, even if what he wanted was completely reversed over time.

We see this in regard to atheism (which he somehow convinced himself was counter-revolutionary), press freedom, the death penalty, arbitrary government power, the monarchy and so on.

In essence (stripped of all his sophistry) when he saw himself as an outsider he was in favour of a small state, when he saw himself as part of the establishment he was in favour of a powerful state.

What he did do, however, was provide clarity, firmness and a sense of direction to a revolution which no one knew what to do with and which was careering out of control. He had a keener awareness than most of his colleagues of the absurdity of ideological moderation in a revolutionary situation ("do you want a revolution without a revolution?") This clarity, and hatred of inconsistency, were why he was able to dominate the revolutionary scene for so long.

His final breakdown and fall is instructive for all of us. I think a lot of successful men have some sort of embarrassingly public career breakdown in their mid to late 30s (I know I did). Sadly in his case, it lost him his head.

The question of how much power he actually had is a fascinating one. Formally, of course, he wasn't even first among equals. Anyone know any good articles about this?