French revolution. Thunder of the revolution
"States General"
The masses began to rise, excited by open war between the monarchy and parliament. There were riots in Bordeaux, Dijon, Paris and Toulouse and more serious uprisings in Brittany and Dauphin.
Faced with the prospect of a nationwide uprising, the king retreated. The "Assembly of the Nobility" was convened in an unsuccessful attempt to convince the nobles to accept the taxes, but this simply prompted the latter to demand further concessions in the form of the convening of the "States General" (a body representing the nobility, clergy, and "third estate"), which had not gathered since 1614.
These vacillations and divisions exposed the weakness of the monarchy, which ultimately agreed to convene the States General on May 1, 1789. The collapse of power undermined censorship. Paris was inundated with many brochures. Suddenly the whole society was engulfed in a fever of political fermentation.
This, in turn, reflected growing discontent in the deepest parts of French society. The first months of 1789 were characterized by a wave of peasant unrest against taxes and feudal levies. Two crop failures led to a sharp rise in the price of bread, provoking riots and attacks on grain convoys. The unrest spread to the cities. In April, a mob attacked a manufacturer's factory, accused of starving the poor. This was not the only case of its kind. Food riots began in Paris in March.
In this context, the "States General" were convened, which immediately showed themselves as an act of a kind of fraud. There was not a single peasant among the delegates. Even worse, the non-aristocratic component, the "educated classes" - lawyers, industrialists and teachers representing the "people" - were placed in unequal conditions in relation to the nobility and clergy.
These sectors of society were asked to present their complaints in writing through the “cahiers de plaintes et doleances” (complaint notebooks). The representatives of the "third estate", if all their complaints and suggestions were brought together, represented a complete program for the transformation of society.
Under the pressure of the popular masses, the bourgeois representatives of the "third estate" mustered up enough courage to demand additional representation, to negate the advantages of the nobility and clergy, as well as the right to vote for each individual delegate.
Counter-revolution - the whip of the revolution
While there were heated debates at the meeting of the "States General", King Louis, realizing too late the danger to his supremacy, was preparing an armed coup to disperse these very states. But...
The dismissal of Necker, considered by many to be a reform minister, brought the masses of Paris onto the streets on 12 July. The workers of Paris began to arm themselves. Workshops in Paris made 50 copies in 000 hours.
Thus, as Marx explained, the counter-revolution acted as a whip for the revolution itself.
When the king demanded that the army "calm down" the Parisians, the troops did not obey the order and refused to shoot at the people.
In the end, determined to find weapon Parisians raided the House of Invalids, which surrendered without a fight, handing over 28 muskets to the insurgent Parisians.
This situation was absolutely characteristic of the French revolution at all its decisive stages: "representatives of the people's parliament" speak, argue, adopt resolutions, while real issues are decided by the direct revolutionary action of the popular masses themselves.
The thunder of the revolution rang out
The role of the masses was decisive at the beginning of the revolution.
A spontaneous mass uprising in Paris thwarted Louis' coup d'état attempt.
Workers, artisans and apprentices joined forces with the bourgeois militia to storm the Bastille, held by hired Swiss guards on 14 July. This action dealt a mortal blow to Louis' plans and served as the signal for a nationwide uprising. Nevertheless, the official version, which tries to reduce the French Revolution to this one event, is very far from the truth.
July 14, 1789 was not the end, but only the beginning of the revolution.
This distortion is by no means accidental.
The first stage of the revolution transferred power into the hands of the most conservative wing of the big bourgeoisie in alliance with the so-called reformist wing of the nobility, in much the same way as the February 1917 revolution in Russia initially transferred power into the hands of the Cadets and Milyukov.
Fight of revolutionaries against revolution
In the summer of 1789, castles blazed from one end of France to the other.
Nevertheless, the National Assembly (the successor to the "States General") was playing for time on various taxes by arguing which payments were truly feudal and which were not. This distinction, in fact, was not accepted by the peasants, who cared little about the legal intricacies when it came to life and death.
The bourgeois in the Assembly clung to the landowners, who had no difficulty in convincing them that the peasant movement was a challenge to property and order. Armand duc d'Aiguillon, a major landowner, argued that
"The rights in question are a form of property, and all property is sacred."
However, the very scale of the peasant uprising did not allow it to be suppressed by force, especially given the precarious state of the troops.
Thus, feudal rights were abolished from below by massive actions and in spite of the bourgeoisie.
However, as soon as possible, the Assembly re-introduced them in disguised form. A law of May 3, 1790, established that the peasant would have to pay for the abolition of the privilege by setting redemption rates at a very high amount (20 times the annual fee for fees in money and 25 times for fees in kind), which imposed a devastating a burden on most of the peasants.
This "sale" of the aristocracy was, in Lefebvre's words, a "bitter deception" and led to the continuation of the civil war in the countryside.
Declaration of human rights
On 27 August, the Assembly adopted the "Declaration of Human Rights", which is today hailed as a great achievement.
But for the mass of people deprived of bread and land, such declarations of abstract freedom were, in fact, useless.
The new constitution established only a limited privilege based on property and a distinction between so-called “active” and “passive” citizens. The latter, representatives of the poorest strata of the population, were denied voting.
In reality, the "freedom" of the bourgeois consisted mainly in the freedom to do their own business, not constrained by feudal restrictions or the actions of the workers. The guilds were abolished. And at the same time, both strikes and trade unions were banned.
The confiscation of church property, which was allegedly "placed at the disposal of the nation," was also a measure in the interests of the bourgeois, who bought up the lion's share of church land.
The peasants gained nothing from this measure.
There was not even an attempt to create a republic. The monarchy, now supposedly reconciled with the changed order, remained.
Reaction and reaction times
However, despite all the ingratiating flattery, the king remained irreconcilably hostile to the new order. The court circle has become a hotbed of reaction and conspiracies. Part of the nobility has already gone on a trip abroad to organize counter-revolutionary forces. The rest bided their time.
If everything remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the plans of the reactionaries could be crowned with success. But the masses intervened again.
The lack of bread caused growing discontent, which resonated with the many "clubs" that sprouted like mushrooms after the rain and became the equivalent of modern political parties. There were strikes, petitions and protests.
The point of discontent was the presence of a royal veto and a well-founded fear that the king and queen might leave the country and join the counter-revolutionaries who had accumulated on the borders of France.
On October 5, an uprising took place.
The women of Paris, who bore the brunt of rising inflation and food shortages and awakened to political life, led the march to Versailles, shaming their men into following them. This dealt a decisive blow to the counter-revolution. The king and queen were "invited" to Paris, where the people could look after them.
For the second time, the masses saved the revolution.
The girondins
The growing polarization in society was reflected in the National Assembly, which was divided into "left" and "right", these terms originally described the disposition of revolutionary and reactionary parties. On the right were the members of the Feillian club, a gathering of the reactionary nobility, clergy, and monarchists. On the left were members of the Jacobin Club and, in particular, the radical Parisian Cordelier Club, dominated by the figure of Danton.
But the main party in the Assembly at this stage was the central party, popularly known as the Girondins. The Girondins' deputies were recruited from the wealthy classes and professional people: teachers, doctors, but, above all, lawyers. Brilliant orators, they represented provinces that always tended to lag behind revolutionary Paris. They stood primarily for the interests of the big commercial bourgeoisie in cities such as Bordeaux.
They sided with the revolution, but they feared an independent movement of the masses. They were the party of order, property, the restoration of currency, and the rights of the provinces.
They were also the party of war.
Revolutionary war
The war was quickly becoming a central issue at this point.
Austria and Prussia, incited by the royalist exiles, in conspiracy with Louis and Marie Antoinette, were clearly looking for a pretext for an invasion.
On April 20, 1792, the Assembly declared war on Austria.
A series of catastrophic defeats of the revolutionary armies followed. The army, which had been "inherited" virtually unchanged from the old regime and thrown into battle without training under the leadership of corrupt officers, many of whom were only looking for a suitable opportunity to desert, was soon defeated.
By the summer of 1792, the fall of Paris seemed inevitable. The darkest hour for the revolution was the surrender of Verdun, which General Dumouriez betrayed the enemy.
The leaders of the Girondins, desperate for victory, entered into secret negotiations with Louis.
If the position of France depended on the Assembly and the Girondins, everything would be lost. But, fortunately, the Parisian masses took matters into their own hands again.
On August 10, about a week before the fall of Verdun, the masses of Paris, together with the revolutionary volunteers (or federals) from Marseille and Brittany, raised an uprising that effectively overthrew the monarchy.
- Vladimir Zyryanov
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