French revolution. Jacobins
Another threat to the revolution
From the very beginning, the French bourgeoisie and its political representatives sought to make a deal with the opposition. They feared that the masses would not stop at abolishing the feudal privileges of the aristocracy, but would launch an attack on property itself.
Brissot, the leader of the Girondins, opposed the "disorganizers" who would "equalize everything - property, wealth, prices for stables, various services due to society." He ward off the panic of his wealthy patrons. However, at the moment of the greatest danger, the salvation of the revolution depended on the mobilization of the most oppressed masses of society.
The Jacobins and the Girondins originally belonged to the same party. But, while the latter recoiled, stirring up the "lower strata" of society, the Jacobins saw that this was the only alternative if the revolution were to be defended.
While political issues in the government dragged on, the threat of counterrevolution again pushed the masses into action. The Duke of Brunswick, who led the invading armies, issued a manifesto threatening revenge if any harm was done to the king and queen.
This was not an empty threat.
Throughout France, royalist groups, well-financed and weapons, were waiting for the signal to strike at the revolution in its rear. Already in 1791 and 1792, royalist uprisings took place in Perpignan, Arles, Lozère, Vivaria, Issingo and Vendée.
Confident of his success, the king finally staged what was tantamount to a parliamentary coup, dismissing the Girondins' ministry on June 13, 1792. All conditions were prepared for a monarchist coup.
Undoubtedly, the entry of the Austrian and Prussian armies into Paris, accompanied by royalist émigrés, would herald a massacre on such a scale that the subsequent revolutionary terror would look like a tea party.
However, the position of the revolution was soon saved again.
Danton, Marat, Chaumette, and Hébert formed a new revolutionary commune, providing organized expression for the masses who elected delegates from their "sections." In addition, a major uprising took place on August 10, 1792. The Tuileries Palace was taken by storm, and Louis was forced to flee for protection to the very government against which he plotted.
Under pressure from the masses, the government removed the king and passed a number of progressive laws. Universal suffrage for men was finally won. Emigrants' lands were confiscated for sale in small batches, although in practice most of them were sold to the rich.
Nevertheless, the August uprising marked an important turning point.
By their actions the masses have shown that they will tolerate nothing more than a radical and sectoral transformation of society. The old basis for compromise was destroyed. The moderate Girondins were forced to break off secret negotiations with the king. All forms of government, parties and institutions were thrown into the melting pot.
The rise of the Jacobins
The political center of gravity shifted within the Assembly with the rise of the Left Jacobins at the expense of the Girondins. More importantly, the axis of power has shifted from the debating chamber to the "street", from the National Assembly to the revolutionary local authorities and clubs that inspired and armed them with ideas and slogans.
Revolutionary communes began to take center stage, especially the Paris Commune, dominated by the "men of August 10": Danton, Marat, Hébert and Chaumette.
The Jacobins, the radical wing of the petty-bourgeois democracy, were successful because, unlike the Girondins, they were ready to rely on the masses to cope with the reaction. They did not raise their hands in horror at the "September massacre" when the Parisians broke into prisons to arrange plebeian settling of scores with the aristocratic counter-revolution.
As grim as these events may be, they can only be understood in the light of the terrible danger hanging over revolutionary Paris. The later experiences of the counter-revolutionary Thermidor in 1794 and the White Terror that followed the defeated revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871 show what a bloody massacre could be expected if reaction had triumphed.
Unlike the countless victims of the Thermidorian terror who were killed without trial, at least the Jacobins improvised tribunals before which imprisoned aristocrats were given a chance to defend themselves. And this was not a complete formality, as claimed. While 1 prisoners were killed, 465 were acquitted - a fact that is hardly mentioned by authors seeking to portray Parisians as bloodthirsty monsters.
The September massacres were a desperate act of self-defense in revolutionary Paris, a spontaneous action designed to strike terror into the hearts of enemies.
The execution of the king and the confrontation between the Jacobins and the Girondins
On September 20, 1792, the newly elected Convention, which replaced the Assembly, met at the Tuileries. The Girondins now represented the right wing. The left, who sat on the highest benches, was known as "The Mountain."
Influenced by the August uprising and the September massacres, the Girondins, who were formal republicans anyway, voted along with the Jacobins to abolish the monarchy.
From that moment on, the revolution was characterized by a struggle between the "Mountain" and the Girondins within the Convention and the growing hostility of the Paris Commune towards the Convention as a whole.
The trial of the king exposed tensions between those who wanted to stop the revolution and those who were under the pressure of the masses, who were ready to go to the end. It was impossible to seriously fight the reaction without having dealt with the "first link in the chain of counter-revolution." But the Girondins refused to execute Louis, which, as they correctly understood, would mean a point of no return for the revolution.
Rejecting the tactics of delaying the Girondins, the Convention voted by a small majority in favor of execution. The revolution burned all the bridges.
In Danton's words:
The united kings threaten us; therefore we throw the King's head at their feet, as the yardstick of battle.
The defeat of the aristocracy and the overthrow of the monarchy in the August uprising of 1792 crystallized class contradictions within the revolutionary camp. As the revolution advanced, the most vacillating elements of the Convention shifted sharply to the right, while the Jacobins, under pressure from the masses, shifted to the left. An open split became inevitable.
This reflected the intensification of the class war.
The big bourgeoisie made their fortunes from military contracts, financial speculation and the purchase of church lands. The mass of people suffered from deficits, soaring prices and rapid currency depreciation. Parisian laundresses held a demonstration under the slogan: "Du pain et du savon" (bread and soap). Grocery stores were looted during the food riots.
The terrified Girondins denounced the rioters as "agents of Pitt" - the British prime minister. Under the guise of federalism, the Girondins reflected the panic of the wealthy merchants of Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon and Toulon at events in Paris. In response, the semi-proletarian masses demanded more centralism, an increase in the powers of the Convention, and revolutionary terror to suppress reaction.
The movement peaked from May 31 to June 2, 1793.
A mass of people invaded the debate room of the Convention, demanding the expulsion of the Girondins. This uprising marked the decisive victory of the revolution: the triumph of the most revolutionary wing, based on the plebeian masses in Paris, against the reactionary bourgeoisie and its Girondist agents.
Final victory of the revolution and terror
The appearance of the masses on the scene was caused by a desperate situation for the revolution, which can only be compared with the darkest years of the Civil War in Russia after 1917, when the Soviet government was attacked by 21 foreign armies and when at one stage the Bolsheviks controlled only the territory around Petrograd and Moscow ...
The Spanish army crossed the Pyrenees. The Prussians invaded from the east. Toulon was treacherously surrendered to the British. A bloody rebellion began in the Vendee region, threatening Nantes. The Girondins organized provincial uprisings on the side of the counter-revolution. Marseille and Lyon also surrendered to the enemy.
The French Revolution, especially at its climax of 1793-1794, was a great war of social liberation waged by the French people in spite of incredible circumstances. They confronted powerful and numerous enemies, both inside and outside. The great powers of Europe were put up against them. And yet, in spite of everything, they managed to defend the revolution.
Such a victory would have been unthinkable had it not been for the concentration of power in the hands of the most resolute and daring elements of revolutionary democracy. The Public Safety Committee established by the Convention acted as the front line of the war against internal reaction.
As long as terror was directed against the agents of the old regime and the enemies of the revolution, it played a necessary and progressive role in the context of an extremely dangerous situation on the home front.
No doubt there were excesses, for example, in Nantes and Lyon, under the infamous Joseph Fouche, who later became an agent of Thermidorian, Bonapartist and even royalist reaction and a millionaire with the title of Duke of Otranto.
In any case, terror was only one of the features of the irreconcilable war unleashed by the revolution. Much more important was the incredible and unprecedented mobilization of the entire nation, which was the secret of success that seemed impossible.
To convince the people to fight, the Jacobins made concessions to the demands of the masses. The Constitution of 1793 was the first truly democratic constitution - a direct conquest of the masses in struggle. It doesn't matter that this constitution, under the prevailing conditions, was never actually put into effect. In practice, the masses have already imposed their own direct revolutionary democracy.
Party of the Jacobins at the summit
However, the general tendency to characterize the Jacobins as a kind of "socialist" party is completely inappropriate. Despite the continuous rise and fall of parties and programs that invariably brought to the fore the radical tendency, the class content of the French Revolution never ceased to be bourgeois in nature. The Robespierre faction was simply the most consistently revolutionary of the petty bourgeois currents that dominated the Convention.
Under pressure from the masses, the Jacobins brought the bourgeois revolution to its limits and to some extent even for them, invading private property. This was by no means a socialist tendency in Jacobinism, which stood firmly on the basis of bourgeois property, but only a desire to reconcile the semi-proletarian strata, some of which undoubtedly wanted to go further.
In September 1793, new mass demonstrations forced the Jacobin-dominated Convention to pass a "general maximum" or price cap law. New military actions required strict control over the economy, which placed restrictions on capitalism. The Public Security Committee has fought a relentless war against speculation. The property of the exiles and rebels was confiscated. There was even an element of nationalization, for example, the arms industry and army supplies. Limits were placed on wealth and inheritance. The confiscated wealth of aristocrats and counter-revolutionaries financed aid to the elderly, the sick, widows and orphans.
The pinnacle of the revolution and its decline
These measures received enthusiastic approval from the masses and became the key to military victory.
And what kind of victory was it?
The world has never before seen the spectacle of a people rising up in arms. Apprentices, ploughmen, blacksmiths, workers rushed to respond to the call, and amazed Europe watched as this ragged army of untrained volunteers continued to defeat the well-trained regiments of England, Prussia, Austria and Spain.
What turned the balance, besides the skillful command, was, above all, the morale of the revolutionary soldier.
By the end of 1793, the enemy was practically driven out of French territory. The revolution triumphed on all fronts. Feudal duties were finally abolished without any compensation. In June 1793, the Convention passed a vital law that brought about a veritable agrarian revolution, returning to the peasants all the land taken from the rural communities. The peasant's triumph was complete. The power of the aristocracy was broken.
But just at the moment when the revolution reached its peak, it began to recede.
With the revolutionary dictatorship of the Jacobins, the bourgeois revolution reached its peak and went beyond its limits. To go further would be to threaten bourgeois property. This was not part of the plans of Robespierre and other Jacobin leaders.
The bourgeois revolution differs from the socialist revolution in the same way as the capitalist system differs from socialism. The laws of motion that govern capitalism are independent of the conscious will of the ruling class. Capitalism, as it were, regulates itself through the blind play of the market. Consequently, its implementation does not require a conscious and scientific program.
On the contrary, the violent passions and revolutionary energies needed to overthrow the old regime could never be triggered by an appeal to the values of the market, the morality of money robbers, and the abhorrent reality of wage slavery for many.
The socialist revolution can be carried out only by the conscious activity of the masses fighting for their self-liberation. On the contrary, a bourgeois revolution, in fact, the transfer of power from one privileged minority to another, must always be based on illusions. The English bourgeoisie of the 150th century considered themselves the chosen of God, fighting to establish the rule of the saints on earth. Their French equivalents, almost XNUMX years later, appealed to reason and spoke of freedom, equality and fraternity. But with the concrete development of the productive forces, these ideal forms could ultimately be filled only with capitalist content.
The victory of Jacobinism, the most consistent and revolutionary wing of the petty bourgeoisie, confronted the leaders of the revolution with the contradictions between the aspirations of the awakened urban masses and the objective limits of the bourgeois revolution. Jacobism itself was destroyed by this contradiction.
Collapse of the Jacobins
Some of the Jacobins who were around Danton and Desmoulin wanted to stop, focusing their fire on the ongoing terror.
Another faction, grouped around Ebert and Roux, represented the extreme plebeian left wing of Jacobinism, based on the Paris Commune. This wing gained the upper hand and supported terror and requisitions, which they saw as weapons against the rich. The growing force of rage after the fall of the Girondins began to frighten the leaders of the Jacobins, pushing Robespierre and Danton into a temporary and unstable alliance.
On the other hand, when the threat of counter-revolution was removed, the possessing classes, including now a significant part of the peasantry, reacted to the years of storms. The rich demanded order and protection from the Parisians. The middle strata craved peace and quiet in order to continue to work to enrich themselves. Within the Convention, the former supporters of the Girondins, the vacillating center, intimidated and silent in the previous period, became restless.
Robespierre tried to balance between factions and groups. But inevitably he came out in favor of the possessing classes.
By early 1794, the masses were exhausted by four long years of fighting. The ongoing collapse of fiat currency, long queues, lack of bread and general poverty contrasted sharply with corruption in the upper echelons of power. True, Robespierre still lived in the carpentry house on the rue Saint-Honoré, and Saint-Just dined on a piece of bread and a few slices of sausages, still sitting at his table.
Discontent was widespread among the Parisian poor and the rank and file Jacobins. They controlled the Cordelier Club and Danton's old base, and spoke openly about the right to rebel. But the class balance of power had already drastically changed against them.
The Jacobins relied on the masses to strike at the Girondins. Once they were eliminated, Robespierre's first priority was to redirect his fire against the left.
Since power was concentrated in the hands of the Public Security Committee, independently functioning sections posed a potential threat to Jacobin power. Therefore, they took steps to subordinate 40 revolutionary sections to the Public Security Committee, which launched a purge against the left, thereby undermining the mass support base.
In March 1794, Hebert and 19 of his followers were suddenly arrested and executed. The masses, exhausted and disoriented, were unable to react this time.
This event was generally seen as the end of the revolution.
Although Robespierre tried to counterbalance this with a blow to the right-wing Jacobins, executing Danton and his supporters, the pendulum began to swing irreversibly to the right.
Once the fear of the Parisians was eliminated, the balance of power within the Convention quickly changed. Some of the Jacobins stopped supporting Robespierre, thereby leaving him isolated. The split has also affected the Public Safety Committee itself.
The coup d'état of the 9th Thermidor (27 July) 1794 was the inevitable result. Feeling a wave of discontent now engulfing all classes, a faction of dissatisfied Jacobins rebelled against Robespierre.
However, on the night of 10th Thermidor, Robespierre was rescued and taken to the Paris Commune. But this step only delayed the inevitable. This time the masses did not react to anything, and the relatively small forces commanded by the Convention were able to capture Robespierre and his supporters again and immediately execute them without trial.
Subtotal
For several years, France has gone from an absolute monarchy through a constitutional monarchy to a bourgeois republic.
After July 1794, she returned to the Directory, Bonapartism, and finally, after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, to absolute monarchy.
The French Revolution marked a decisive social and political transformation: the crushing of the power of the aristocracy, the radical cleansing of the Augean stables of feudalism, and the distribution of land to millions of small peasant owners. Despite all the vicissitudes of the political superstructure, the main social gains of the revolution remained.
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