In order to be objective and scientific, history must be understood from below, from the vantage point of the oppressed.  As I have expressed in earlier posts, understanding an issue requires asking relevant questions, which are discovered through encounter with persons of different horizons and cultures.  This process of cross-horizon encounter receives its most advanced expression in the form of encounter with the social movements that have been formed by the oppressed, the exploited, and the marginalized (see “What is Personal Encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; and “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013 in the section on Knowledge).

       The possibilities for insight from below were first demonstrated by Marx, who arrived at his insights through encounter with the working-class movements of France and Western Europe during the 1840s.  He subsequently developed his understanding further through reflection on the Paris commune of 1871 and on the first signs of the Russian Revolution in 1870-71.  Thus, Marx’s understanding was intimately tied to working-class movements.  This connection enabled him to develop an understanding more advanced than that of German philosophy, which could not escape idealism; French socialism, which was utopian; and British political economy, whose development in insight was rooted in and limited by a parallel development in the emerging bourgeoisie, thus implicitly reflecting a bourgeois point of view (McKelvey 1991).

     Inasmuch as the democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century triumphed as bourgeois revolutions, the forms of knowledge of Western Europe and the United States have been constrained by bourgeois interests, and they thus have nullified the implications of Marx’s more advanced analysis.  The mechanisms for doing so were (1) the fragmentation of the social sciences and history into distinct disciplines, and (2) the formulation of a false understanding of scientific objectivity (see “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013).  Both strategies were effective in blocking relevant questions from being investigated.  Thus mainstream history and social science were being formulated de facto from above, not taking into account the relevant questions that emerge from below.

      The French Revolution was forged by actors of different classes, including artisans, peasants, merchants, financiers, factory owners, and workers (see “Class and the French Revolution” 11/27/2013).  They for the most part had a common interest in the abolition of feudalism, but their different interests led to different conceptions of the form of democracy that ought to emerge.  Thus, to understand the French Revolution, we have to maintain consciousness of the class interests that are at stake as the process unfolds.  The vantage point from below enables us to do this, because the lower classes understand that the form of democracy being pushed by the bourgeoisie is not their own, and it reflects the particular interests of the bourgeoisie.

     The important study of the French Revolution by the French historian Albert Soboul (1975) is sometimes obscure on this point.  He is aware of the class differences of the actors, but he often refers to them as the “middle class,” combining in this vague term actors as different as shopkeepers and artisans, on the one hand, and large merchants and factory owners, on the other.  The Argentinian historian Valeria Ianni (2011), on the other hand, maintains consistency in describing the actors as pertaining to distinct classes and thus as having a vision that reflects class interests.  Ianni’s analysis enables us to have a more advanced understanding of the French Revolution and of its gains and limitations.

     On the other hand, Ianni’s analysis reflects to a certain degree what we might call classical Marxism, which described the emergence of new classes and new forms of class exploitation.  But the capitalist world-economy and the modern world-system forged not only new classes and new forms of class exploitation.  They also developed new forms of domination by some nations over others, pushing the historic process of empire formation to a more advanced stage.  Indeed we have seen that European colonial domination of vast regions of America, Africa, and Asia established the foundation for the modern world-system and the capitalist world-economy (see various posts in the section on the World-System).

      Thus our analysis today cannot be confined to analyzing the world-system from a vantage point rooted in the European proletarian movements, which was the vantage point of classical Marxism.  We today must seek to understand the double axis of class domination and global imperial domination, and it must be based on relevant questions that emerge from movements formed both by exploited classes and by colonized peoples.  In effect, what is needed is a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism, rooted in European proletarian and peasant movements, and the Third World national liberation perspective, rooted in the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements of the Third World.  Such a synthetic understanding has been formulated by those Third World national liberation movements that have most fully appropriated the insights of Marxism-Leninism, with the Vietnamese Revolution and the Cuban Revolution being the most advanced manifestations.

      From this synthetic Marxist-Leninist-Third World vantage point, four observations can be made concerning the French Revolution.  (1) The Revolution was a process of fundamental change that was pushed forward by classes that had been formed by the historic human tendencies toward conquest and centralization, tendencies that took a significant step forward with the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of America.  (2) The Revolution culminated in the triumph of bourgeois interests at the expense of the interests of the poplar classes, but the popular sectors would later invoke its values to attain some degree of protection of social and economic rights.  (3) The Revolution formulated values of universal validity, such that the colonized and neocolonized peoples of the world would come to embrace them, ultimately deepening their meaning to include the rights of nations and peoples to sovereignty and self-determination.  (4) The French Revolution is being brought to fruition today through the global movement for a just and democratic world, which seeks human liberation from all forms of domination.


Reference

McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press. 


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution      

     We have seen that the French Revolution included the formulation of a new concept of society, based on the rights of the individual, fundamentally distinct from the feudal concept of society as a social organism with a hierarchy of strata, each with its rights and privileges (“Bourgeois revolution in France, 1787-1799” 11/25/2013).  The Roman Catholic Church in France was an integral part of the Old Regime, and it allied itself with the aristocracy in opposition to the French Revolution.  As a result, the Revolution could not avoid conflict with the Church.

     The French Revolution launched a campaign against the Church, known as dechristianization, and it included a number of specific measures.  Religious orders devoted to teaching and assistance were suppressed.  Church hospitals, universities, and colleges were appropriated and put up for sale.  Religious ceremonies outside of church buildings were prohibited, as was the wearing of religious garb, except in religious ceremonies.  Priests were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution, and those who refused to do so were imprisoned and/or deported.  And although freedom of religion formally was declared, in practice most churches were closed (Soboul 1975:198-201, 266, 344-50, 581-83).

     Robespierre considered the dechristianization campaign to be a political error.  He maintained that the Revolution had sufficient internal and external enemies without stirring up opposition by abolishing religion.  And he was right: many peasants were opposed to the Revolution because of religious questions (Soboul 1975:349; Ianni 2011:52, 111).

      The Revolution attempted to develop a revolutionary civil religion, and here it was on solid ground.  A revolution ought to have public acts that recall and celebrate martyrs and heroes of the revolution and that commemorate important dates and events in the history of the struggle.  Such rituals pertain to all of the people of the nation regardless of their religious beliefs.  They function to establish and maintain national identity, national solidarity, and revolutionary consciousness.  The Cuban Revolution, for example, has developed public acts that fulfill these functions.  And in the United States, there has emerged in a similar form an American Civil Religion, which has been described by the sociologist Robert Bellah.  

     But the French Revolution went too far in its efforts to establish a national civil religion.  It sought to eliminate and replace the Catholic religion, instead of accepting traditional religious beliefs and practices as private customs that would exist alongside national celebration of the Revolution.  In its efforts to eliminate and replace the Catholic Church, the French Revolution decreed the existence of a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul, thus erroneously moving into a terrain that pertains to personal beliefs (Soboul 1975:377-79).

      Marx considered religious conceptions to be a consequence of human alienation and to be functional in the legitimation of the established order.  Marx’s view was typical among radical European intellectuals of the nineteenth century, and it made a great deal of sense, given the actual role of the Church in legitimating the feudal social order.  But it was an understanding that reflects a particular social context.  Marx did not know of popular expressions of religiosity that do not involve a legitimating function and that even would legitimate popular rebellion against the established order.  With advances in the scientific study of religion since Marx’s time, we today can appreciate the diverse forms of popular religiosity as well as the role that religion can play as a liberating force.

     We now are able to see, therefore, that religion is adaptable.  It can legitimate social stratification or it can point the way to human liberation.  The religion of ancient Judaism was formulated by a band of escaped slaves who wondered for forty years in the desert and who understood God as the one who acts in history to defend the oppressed and the marginal.  The religion of Moses subsequently was modified to adapt to the Kingdom of Israel in the time of David.  Jesus later gave renewed emphasis to the God who was with the poor, and the Church established by his followers subsequently became an integral part of the Roman Empire and later the feudal order, functioning to legitimate social stratification.  In our time, the liberating components of the Judeo-Christian tradition have been appropriated by Third World movements in opposition to the global system of social stratification.  Third World liberation theology affirms that, in the global struggle between the rich and the poor, God is on the side of the poor.

      The extensiveness of religious expressions in human societies perhaps suggests that spirituality is a fundamental human need.  Even in Cuba, where the people have a relatively advanced revolutionary consciousness, the importance of spirituality among the people can be observed.  But expressions of spirituality include a tremendous variety of religious beliefs and practices, and they can include what we generally categorize as art or culture.  God can be found in a church or temple, in a poem, or in the dignified struggle of the poor and the oppressed for a more just world.

       Taking into account the extensiveness and variety of religious expressions among the people, the correct revolutionary strategy is the separation of religion from the state.  Religion ought to be understood as a private matter that should not in any way affect one’s participation in the construction of a just and democratic society.  This implies an attitude of religious tolerance, where religious beliefs of all kinds, from religious fundamentalism to liberation theology to atheism, are socially acceptable.  Meanwhile, revolutionary consciousness among the people can be developed in national celebrations, in schools and universities, in art and literature, and in the mass media.  It is an error for popular revolutions to wage war on religion.  If the people want to light a candle or leave a glass of water to obtain the support of the saints or to protect themselves from harm, let it be.


References

Ianni, Valera.  2011.  La Revolución Francesa.  México: Ocean Sur.

Soboul, Albert.  1975.  The French Revolution 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution, religion

      The French Revolution included waves of violence and punishment that came to be known as the Terror.  It began during the first week of September of 1792, when approximately 1,400 prisoners were executed by angry crowds who had descended upon the prisons.  Driven by fear provoked by the advancing Prussian army and the mobilization of domestic counterrevolutionary forces, the targets of popular wrath were counterrevolutionary political prisoners, but three-quarters of the victims were actually common-law prisoners.  The revolutionary government took no steps to protect the prisons and allowed the horror to occur (Soboul 1975:262-65; Ianni 2011:74).

      Terror subsequently became institutionalized.  A Revolutionary Tribunal was established in March 1793 in order to prevent further massacres, but the tribunal itself became an instrument for killing.  It has been calculated that there were 16,594 executions between March 1793 and August 1794.  The victims were priests who refused to accept the republican constitution, aristocrats who engaged in counterrevolutionary activities, merchants who were hoarding food in order to profit from a higher price, and revolutionaries who were too moderate in their views or who were opposed to the dechristianization campaign or to the Terror itself.  They were executed without regard for rights of due process (Soboul 1975:384-88; Ianni 2011:105-7).

      The French historian Albert Soboul implies that the Terror was functional.  He maintains that it provided the revolutionary government with the coercive power to impose rules, thus restoring the authority of the State, and that it contributed to the formation of national solidarity by silencing for a time the selfish voices that represented particular interests (1975:388-89).  In a similar vein, the Argentinian historian Valeria Ianni writes that "there is no doubt that the Terror saved the Revolution” (2011:107). 

      In my view, the Terror was not functional, especially if we analyze it from the perspective of the long-term struggle of popular revolutions in the world.  Revolutionary processes are above all battles of ideas, and a long-standing claim of counterrevolutionaries has been that a structure that gives real power to the people will degenerate into mob violence.  Popular revolutions must demonstrate in practice that this charge is not true.  The revolutionary vanguard has the duty to constrain the normal tendency of the people toward vengeance and to lead the people in conduct that is guided by ethical values and respect for rights of due process (see “Popular assemblies” 11/28/2013).  During the French Revolution, the leaders of the French Revolution capitulated to popular instincts; they did not fulfill their duty.

     Ianni suggests that the Terror was justifiable, taking into account the social context: the people were demanding the Terror, and the revolution was threatened by foreign armies and the mobilization of counterrevolutionary forces within the nation (2011:74, 102-7).  But there were those at the time who understood that it was wrong.  Among them was Camille Desmoulins, an outstanding journalist who had written a passionate pamphlet in defense of popular revolution in 1789 and who had called the people to arms two days before the taking of the Bastille.  By 1793, he was speaking out not only against the Terror but also against religious persecution and the expansionist intentions of the French Republic.  Desmoulins was sent to the Guillotine on April 5, 1794 (Soboul 1975:123-24, 138, 165-66, 287, 364-68, 376-77, & 571; Ianni 2011:35).

     The Terror contributed to the emergence of the commonly-accepted erroneous concept that violence and revolution are intertwined and that revolution is the violent displacement of the ruling class.  This confusion on the meaning of revolution is shared by counterrevolutionaries and pretended revolutionaries alike.  As we have seen (“Popular militias” 11/30/2013), revolutions and revolutionary governments must develop structures for the use of force in their defense, but in this respect they are no different from human societies since the agricultural revolution.  Legitimate self-defense is an unavoidable component of popular revolution, but popular revolution is in essence and by definition the taking of political power from the elite and governing in accordance with the interests of the popular sectors (see “What is Revolution?” 11/14/2013).  There are various social and political contexts in which revolutions emerge, and as a result, there are various ways for the political representatives of the popular sectors to take power.  The taking of power does not always require the use of force, even though it always will require the organization of legitimate self-defense.  At the same time, the violent overthrow of a government is often not a revolution, but simply the expression of political conflicts within the ruling class.  Violent political acts are not necessarily revolutionary; revolutionary action is not necessarily violent.  And illegitimate violence can never serve revolutionary aims.

      Those of us who seek a just, democratic and sustainable world have the duty to study the revolutionary processes and to learn from their insights, and also to identify and learn from their errors.  The Revolutionary Terror of the French Revolution was an historic error and historic crime.  Revolutionary processes must always conduct themselves in accordance with the values of that more just and democratic world that they seek to create. 


References

Ianni, Valera.  2011.  La Revolución Francesa.  México: Ocean Sur.

Soboul, Albert.  1975.  The French Revolution 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution, violence, terror

     The two principal popular actions of the French Revolution were the taking of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 and the taking of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792.  In both cases, the people were armed (Ianni 2011:37-38, 67-71; Soboul 1975:139, 250-51). 

     The formation of popular militias has been a continuing dimension of revolutionary processes.  Following the February Revolution, marchers in mass demonstrations were armed in order to protect themselves from possible violence from the troops of the Provisional Government.  During the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks were able to take power as a result of the organization of worker’s militias and the placing of army battalions under the authority of the popular councils.  Following the October Revolution, the Red Army was formed for defense against foreign armies and foreign-supported armed forces.  In Vietnam, nationalist forces used both guerrilla strategies and regular army troops in its long struggles against French colonialism and US neocolonial intentions.  In Cuba, the revolutionary movement took power using a guerrilla strategy in the countryside combined with urban sabotage.  After the triumph of the revolution, popular militias were formed that successfully defended the nation against a US-backed invasion.  In Venezuela, after the taking of power through non-violent electoral means, the government of Hugo Chávez, himself a former career military officer, was able to effectively place the armed forces under the authority of the civil government.

      Force has been a central component of human economic and social development for 10,000 years.  We have seen that conquest has been central to the formation of empires and civilizations, and that the existing world-system has been established on a foundation of the conquest of vast regions of the world (see various posts in the section on world history and the section on the world-system.  And we have seen that the neocolonial world-system is maintained through the application of military force in those situations that require it (see “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013). 

      Since a popular revolution involves the taking of power by the political representatives of the popular sectors, its triumph generates a counterrevolution led by the deposed elite, which uses any and all means, including the organization of violence and force.  In such a situation, it would be idealist and irresponsible for a revolutionary project to not have a program for the organization of force to protect the people and defend the revolution.

      Therefore, revolutionary governments have the right and the duty to development a plan for the responsible use of force.  But a revolutionary government should not violate the rights of due process in order to attain political objectives, nor should it use force in order to terrorize the people into compliance with the revolutionary project.  In accordance with this understanding, my view is that the revolutionary terror of the French Revolution was a great historic error and historic crime, the consequences of which are present in our time.  This will be the subject of the next post.

     The social movements of the United States could learn some lessons from revolutionary processes in other lands.  The social movements of the United States have an honorable tradition of protest against violence and war.  However, they have not developed an alternative program for the responsible organization of force, either with respect to the military forces of the nation or the domestic criminal justice system.  The movements protest illegitimate violence; they “speak truth to power.”  At most, they hope to obtain concessions from those in power.  But they have not sought to take power with the intention of exercising power in a responsible way.  This limited approach undermines the influence of the progressive social movements among the people.  With their idealist discourse, progressive social movements are not taken seriously by the people as a political force that could govern the nation in a responsible and practical manner.  The governing of the nation thus is left to those who govern in defense of particular interests, a project that necessarily requires the illegitimate use of violence and force, both at home and abroad.


References

Ianni, Valera.  2011.  La Revolución Francesa.  México: Ocean Sur.

Soboul, Albert.  1975.  The French Revolution 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution, popular militias, violence

      During the breakout of French Revolution in 1789, the 407 Parisian eligible voters in the elections for the General Estates met in a public plaza and formed an alternative municipal government.  It consisted of a committee, composed of municipal officials and elected representatives to the General Estates, which was given the charge of leading the popular insurrection.  And a mayor was elected.  The alternative government was called the Paris Commune, a name that would be given to various subsequent similar efforts (Ianni 2011:35; Soboul 1975:135-36, 140).

      With the radicalization of the revolution, the Paris Commune was replaced by the Insurrectionary Commune in 1792.  Under the leadership of artisans, shopkeepers, small merchants, and workers who comprised the so-called sans-culottes, a central committee was established and a new mayor was elected, replacing the mayor elected in 1789, who had since his election authorized a violent repression of a popular protest.  The central committee of the reconstituted Paris Commune coordinated 48 sections.  The most radical sections admitted men who did not qualify to vote under the established income and residence restrictions.  The most active sections met every day at the end of the workday (Ianni 2011:68-69; Soboul 1975:250, 309-11, 407, 411-12, 470).

     The formation of popular assemblies as an alternative to representative democracy has a sustained history in revolutionary processes: the Paris Commune of 1871; the soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers of the Russian Revolution of 1917; the worker’s councils of the Vietnamese Revolution; and the popular power and mass organizations of the Cuban Revolution.  They reflect direct democracy by the people, a more advanced form of political participation than is possible under the structures of representative democracy developed by the bourgeoisie.

      But in the seeing the possibilities of “power to the people,” the people should not be idealized.  The majority of people tend to think in concrete and particular terms, not understanding problems in their larger historical and social context.  Most tend to be orientated to the protection of particular interests rather than the good of the society as a whole in the long run.  And the majority is prone to vengeance and violence, which in their most extreme manifestations include executions with minimal regard for the right of due process.

      The correction to these popular tendencies is found through the vanguard.  The members of the vanguard are of the people and come from the people.  The have the best qualities of the people.  They are disciplined and committed to the values of the revolution and to universal human values.  As a result, they have become theoretically, politically, and historically informed.  Their role is to educate the people, and they play this role through discourses in the popular assemblies and informal discussions among the people.  Their challenge is to persuade the people of the best courses of action for the good of the revolution and the good of society in the long term.

      Although the vanguard educates, the people decide.  Decisions are made through consensus among the people.  If the vanguard fails to persuade, the people may take courses of action that could undermine the revolutionary process and its quest to create a more just and democratic society.  It therefore is necessary for the sustainability of the revolutionary project that the vanguard maintains the confidence and trust of the people.

     The vanguard is not infallible, and it particularly may be vulnerable to limitations in understanding that are established by social and historical context (see “What is personal encounter?” 7-25-2013).  But due to the personal characteristics of the members of the vanguard, it is in the best position to understand the best courses of action.  

      The relation between the vanguard and the people plays out in the popular assemblies.  And in the assemblies, elections to government offices are held.  In these elections, the people are choosing from among nominated candidates whose qualities they have come to know in the popular assemblies.  This is a process different from and superior to representative democracy, where the people do not assemble, and they chose from competing images, and not from among persons that they have come to know and respect.  Choosing from among images, the people under structures of representative democracy are subject to manipulation by the wealthy, which control the media of communication.

 
References

Ianni, Valera.  2011.  La Revolución Francesa.  México: Ocean Sur.

Soboul, Albert.  1975.  The French Revolution 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution, popular assemblies, popular councils      

     The principal actors in the French Revolution were the bourgeoisie, the King, the nobility, and the people.

      As we have seen (“The French Revolution in Global Context” 11/26/2013), the bourgeoisie consisted of the great merchants, the financiers, the owners of the industrial factories, and professionals tied to the state bureaucracy.  They had emerged from an incipient merchant class that had been taking shape since the tenth century, as a result of the expansion of commerce.  They had an interest in pushing the process of modernization that had emerged as a consequence of historic human tendencies toward conquest and centralization of political structures.  Of particular relevance here were: the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula; the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of America; and the formation of nation-states in Spain, England, and France.  In its pursuit of modernization, the French bourgeoisie abolished the feudal privileges of the nobility and the Church and established, as the hegemonic world view, the concept of a society composed of free and equal individuals with natural rights.

     The monarchy emerged as a political force as a consequence of dynamics that had been emerging since the tenth century.  From the fifth to the tenth centuries, following the invasions by Germanic tribes and the collapse of the Roman Empire, political fragmentation and particularism reigned, since the conquering tribes did not have the capacity to impose a centralized order.  Feudal monarchs were weak, exercising little control over the nobility; most state functions were carried out in the local manor.  But from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, re-urbanization occurred, made possible by greater political stability and a growth in commerce.  In three zones (that would become England, France and Spain), the monarchs in alliance with the rising merchant class took decisive political action that led to the formation of modern nation-states.  They used taxes to raise a professional army that imposed monarchial political will on neighboring territories, forging centralized political structures that overcame the local power of the nobility.  This process was tied to nationality formation, which had been continually evolving as a consequence of invasions and conquests.  With the centralization of power attained by the three monarchs, and aided by wars with other states (between England and France and between Spain and the Islamic Empires), a degree of national identity emerged that coincided with the political territories controlled by the centralized state, giving rise to the modern nation-state.  By the fifteenth century, England, France, and Spain had become modern nation-states (Cristóbal 2008).

     In France during the second half of the eighteenth century, noble reaction to monarchical centralization reversed the earlier centralization of power, such that by the time of Luis XVI, little remained of absolute power.  This made the King dependent on the bourgeoisie, which also had an interest in centralization, but it also had an interest in political power in the centralized state.  The constitutional monarchy of 1791 was the practical consequence of this common interest and political alliance (Ianni 2011:11, 18, 20).

     Although they comprised less than 2% of the French population, the nobility owned 20% of the land.  It had regained power that had been lost in the prior centralization of power.  Since the decisions of the Crown had to be registered by the nobles, they exercised a de facto veto.  They had monopoly rights on the production of wheat, bread, wine, and oil.  They controlled the criminal justice system in the rural towns.  They exploited the peasantry through rents and taxes (Ianni 2011:10-12).  They had an interest in the preservation of the old order in opposition to the tendencies of centralization, modernization, and secularization (see “The French Revolution in Global Context” 11/26/2013).  They were allied with the Church, which also enjoyed feudal privileges, although there was a distinction between the higher and lower clergy, the former pertaining to the nobility (Ianni 2011:12-13).

     The people included peasants, workers, craftsmen, and lower members of the professional class.  Peasants comprised 80% of the French population.  The majority of peasants were sharecroppers, obligated to surrender half of their crop in exchange for land, tools, and livestock.  One-quarter to one-third of peasants were proprietors, but their situation was difficult as a result of high payments for taxes and services.  The best-off peasants were tenants, who paid rent for land, but they were able to exploit the day-laborers, who were the worst-off among the peasantry.  The class structure of the peasantry shows how much the countryside had been transformed by modernization; peasants were no longer serfs.  Those peasants who participated in revolutionary action were driven by high taxes and the high cost of bread and other necessary items, which sometimes were hoarded by merchants for purposes of financial speculation (Ianni 2011:13-15).

    Since the modernization of agriculture had occurred earlier, there were no longer significant numbers of serfs.  But the modernization of industry, involving the transformation of craftsmen into salaried workers, was still in process, so there were significant numbers of guild craftsmen.  The guild system was characterized by high-quality production of luxury items.  With its unchanging rules of production, its prohibitions on innovation, and its long years of training to master the craft, the guild system was an obstacle to the advancement of the industrial factory.  Threatened by the force of modernization, the craftsmen envisioned a return to the past rather than an alternative future.  Craftsmen were active participants in the revolution, driven by hatred of the aristocracy, a sentiment shared by other popular sectors (Ianni 2011:15-16).

     The most politically active of the popular sectors were the “sans-culottes,” so named because of their style of dress.  They consisted of shopkeepers, small property owners, workers, and craftsmen.  They had an interest in pushing the bourgeois proclamation of democratic rights to its fullest realization.  They were the most radical element of the revolution, demanding universal male suffrage, the dethronement of the King, and wage and price controls.  The popular movement was ultimately contained by the bourgeois revolution, which replaced a society jointly ruled by nobles and kings with a society ruled by the bourgeoisie, characterized by the formalities and the appearance of democracy, but not the substance.

      The differing class interests created various possibilities for political alliances.  The nobility and the craftsmen were in the weakest position, since the social order from which they emerged was being swept away by the forces of centralization, modernization, and secularization.  In this dynamic situation, there was the possibility of a bourgeois-popular alliance in opposition to the nobility and the monarchy.  But this was undermined by tendencies toward a bourgeois alliance with the monarch vis-à-vis centralization and with the nobility in relation to property rights.  Ultimately what occurred was a bourgeois alliance with first the Napoleonic Empire and later with the restored and reconstituted monarchy.  During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, concessions would be made to popular movements and demands, but the people would not rule.  The struggle for popular democratic nation-states would be renewed during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and it would the neocolonized peoples of the Third World who would take the lead in the struggle.


References

Cristóbal Pérez, Armando.  2008.  El Estado-Nación: Su Origen y Construcción.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ianni, Valera.  2011.  La Revolución Francesa.  México: Ocean Sur.

Soboul, Albert.  1975.  The French Revolution 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution

      Anatomically modern humans evolved from earlier species of the genus Homo roughly 130,000 years ago in Africa.  During the period of 130,000-10,000 B.P., human societies were characterized by continuous economic and cultural development in the context of a foraging (hunting and gathering) economic foundation.  The period was characterized by continuous migration and settlement in new areas as a result of population growth, such that by 10,000 B.P. humans had settled on all of the continents.

       As human migrations reached the geographic limits of the earth, migration as a solution to population growth was no longer possible.  Thus in seven different regions of the world, human societies independently utilized the accumulated knowledge to develop food production (the cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals).  This agricultural revolution established both conquest and political centralization as tendencies integrally tied to economic and cultural development.  Societies that turned to food production had the capacity to sustain specialists, including soldiers and state administrators, who were not directly involved in food production.  This capacity enabled them to conquer neighboring societies and incorporate the conquered peoples and lands into a single political territory, providing a foundation for empire and advanced civilization, characterized by specialists who forged significant achievements in technology, science, the arts and literature.  The empires were ruled by a political-religious elite, and they were systems of social stratification that legitimated inequality with religious concepts.

       In North Africa, the human tendency toward development through domination led to the formation of Islamic Empires and to the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.  Spanish and Portuguese resistance to the conquest accelerated their tendencies toward centralization.  As a result, Spain and Portugal emerged from the reconquest as centralized states with advanced military capacities, establishing the basis for the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of America.

      The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of vast regions of America in the sixteenth century established the foundation for the modern world-system.  The precious metals obtained (through forced labor imposed on the indigenous populations) stimulated the further economic and commercial development of Western Europe, most notably England and France, which also had formed modern nation-states.  The force of the expansion was so great that the traditional forms of production constituted a fetter, leading to the modernization of production.  Modernization first occurred in agriculture, with the enclosure of common lands, the transformation of feudal obligations into rent, and the centralization of land ownership.  Thus serfs were converted into tenants, sharecroppers, and day laborers.  Subsequently, modernization occurred in manufacturing, with the transformation of the craft workshop into the industrial factory, creating the highly specialized form of labor that destroyed work as a craft and that Marx would famously describe as alienation. 

     The bourgeois class in France in the second half of the eighteenth century was formed by these dynamics.  The bourgeoisie consisted of the owners of the emerging industrial factories, the big merchants who profited from the expanding commerce in goods, the financiers who profited from loans to factories owners and merchants, and the professionals who were tied to the expanding state bureaucracy that was necessary for the efficient regulation and administration of the expanding commerce and manufacturing.  The bourgeoisie emerged in the context of a feudal society ruled jointly: by nobles, who had an interest in preserving decentralization and traditional forms of production; and by the monarch, who had an interest in centralization and in breaking the power of the nobility, even though the monarchy itself evolved from feudal structures and dynamics.  The bourgeoisie had an interest in taking power away from the nobility and in establishing an alliance with a state that would adopt measures designed to accelerate the modernization of production.  Thus the bourgeoisie formed a revolution that abolished feudalism and that established a constitutional monarchy, a monarchy recast in accordance with modern institutions.

     Because of the integral relation of the Church with feudal institutions and its intimate ties with the nobility, the further modernization of the society required a reduction of the Church’s power.  Thus the French Revolution was characterized by an attack on the Church, not only with respect to its property and its feudal privileges, but also by the formulation of an alternative to its hierarchical theocentric vision of society.   The bourgeois revolution formulated an alternative vision of society based on free and equal individuals who have natural rights, including the rights of suffrage and property, important components of the struggle with the nobility.  Under bourgeois class rule, legitimation of inequality would be attained not through religious concepts but through democratic values, interpreted in a limited way in accordance with bourgeois interests.  With the power of the Church reduced, the separation of Church and state and religious tolerance emerged as integral components of the new bourgeois-ruled democratic society.

     But the bourgeoisie would not have been victorious had it not been for the direct action of the popular sectors, which themselves for the most part were formed by the process of modernization.  The popular sectors included peasants, who were no longer a class as such, divided as they were among tenants, sharecroppers, and day laborers.  And they included craftsmen, shopkeepers, small property owners, and workers, who had their own organizations and leaders.  These popular sectors embraced the modern concept of democracy, interpreting it in a more radical form than the bourgeoisie, seeing in it the possibilities for not only political participation but also for social liberation.  Thus they pushed the revolution to take more drastic and deeply democratic measures.  Many of the leaders of the radical and populist wing of the revolution were members of the emerging professional class, which was both a lower part of the bourgeoisie as well as a relatively privileged part of the popular sectors.  Radical leaders from the professional ranks interpreted the destiny of their class as tied to the fate of the popular sectors. 

        Thus the French Revolution, seen in a panoramic context, was established by historic human tendencies toward conquest and centralization and by the more recent tendency toward modernization.  In its drive to complete the process of modernization, the revolution stimulated another tendency, namely, secularization.  At the same time, the French Revolution provided a foundation for popular movements throughout the world that would embrace its democratic world view and the implications of secularization in order to proclaim the universal human values that ought to guide humanity, such as protection of the social and economic rights of all persons and respect for the self-determination and sovereignty of nations.  The world-wide popular movements also would come to recognize that the historic human pattern of development through conquest and domination is no longer sustainable, inasmuch as the world-system has reached the geographical and ecological limits of the earth.  Just as humans invented food production when foraging societies reached their geographical limits, humans today must embrace a fundamental change from development through domination to development through cooperation and international solidarity.  The French Revolution did not challenge the historic human pattern of domination, seeking only to exchange domination by the nobility with an alternative form of domination by the bourgeoisie.  The global popular movements today seek to complete the French Revolution, carrying out the democratic revolution in a manner that ends domination in all of its forms.  The movement today proclaims that a just, democratic and sustainable world is necessary and possible.

       The French Revolution stimulates questions that must be addressed by the popular movements today.  These issues for our reflection include:  class structures and dynamics in revolutionary processes; the role of popular assemblies and popular militias; and the issues of violence and of religion and spirituality.  We will be discussing these themes in subsequent posts.


     The reader is invited to take a look at previous posts that have explored themes relevant to today’s post: “The origin of the modern world-economy,” 8/6/2013; “Conquest, gold, and Western development,” 8/8/2013; “What enables conquest?” 8/9/2013; “Food production and conquest,” 8/12/2013; “European feudalism,” 8/13/2013; “The modern nation-state,” 8/14/2013; “Dialectic of domination and development,” 10/30/2013; “Bourgeois revolution in France, 1787-1799,” 11/25/2013.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution

     Like the American Revolution of 1763-1789, the French Revolution of 1787-1799 was a bourgeois revolution that was made possible by the political action of the masses.  In both cases, the popular sectors challenged the bourgeoisie and for a time took partial control of the revolution, but the revolution ultimately was contained by the scope of bourgeois interests, thus postponing to another day the democratic revolutions of the popular sectors. 

     The French Revolution was based on and succeeded in establishing a new concept of society, according to which society consists fundamentally of individuals, each of whom have natural rights.  According to this view, the organization of society should be based on voluntary contract among legally and politically equal individuals; any inequality that emerges should be based on differences in capacities, talents, initiative, or work.  This bourgeois concept of society was fundamentally different from the feudal, which assumed that society is divided into different ranks and statuses, each with its own rights, privileges, and duties (Ianni 2011:32-33).

     The bourgeois concept of society was expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, adopted on August 26, 1789.  It proclaimed that “men are born and remain free and equal in their rights,” and these include the rights to liberty, property, personal safety, and resistance to oppression (Soboul 1975:176-82). 

     The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen also expressed fear of mobilization from below; it sought to end domination by the nobility, but not domination of one class by another.  This perspective can be seen in its proclamation of the right of property, without placing limits to this right on the basis of the needs of society as a whole.  In effect, the Declaration promoted the transformation of feudal property into bourgeois property (Ianni 2011:48-50; Soboul 1975:332).

     The bourgeois character of the revolution is reflected in the Constitution of 1791.  In opposition to the interests of the nobility, it abolished feudal rights and privileges and established a constitutional monarchy.  In opposition to the interests of the popular classes, it restricted the right to vote on the basis of income and permanency of residence (Ianni 2011: 53-54).

     The bourgeois program was characterized by economic liberalism.  It sought to remove taxes and other obstacles to the free circulation of merchandize.  These measures, however, had negative consequences for the people, the protection of whose interests would have required government intervention in the economy with the intention of controlling prices and wages (Ianni 2011:81-82).

      Thus, in spite of the active participation of the popular sectors, the revolution had not established a government that protected popular interests.  This contradiction led to a radicalization of the revolution.  By 1792, the popular sectors had taken control of the revolutionary process, leading to the adoption of more radical measures, including universal male suffrage.  The new Constitution of 1793 proclaimed certain social and economic rights, such as the rights to work, public assistance, and education.  But even the new Constitution did not subordinate property rights to human rights and to the needs of the society as a whole, and it implicitly sanctioned the exploitation of labor (Ianni 2011:71, 87, 94-98; Soboul 1975:315-16).

     By 1794, popular control of the revolutionary process had come to end, and by 1796 the popular movement dissipated, a victim of the powerful forces operating against it as well as its own internal contradictions and errors, a theme that we will be discussing in subsequent posts.  For its part, the bourgeoisie would find its interests consolidated in the Napoleonic Empire (Ianni 2011:119-47).

       All revolutionary processes should be understood in global and historical context, and this theme will be the subject of the next post.


References

Ianni, Valera.  2011.  La Revolución Francesa.  Ocean Sur: México.

Soboul, Albert.  1975.  The French Revolution 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, French Revolution