The Bourgeois Revolution/Introduction
Introduction.
This little brochure was originally printed in Die Neue Zeit, (a Socialist weekly published at Stuttgart, Germany, under the editorship of Karl Kautsky), numbers 4 and 5, Vol. IX, 1890–91. Originally it bore the title: "Wie die Bourgeoisie ihrer Revolution gedenkt," and was reprinted in the WEEKLY PEOPLE, issues of July 31 and August 7, 1926, under the title "How the Bourgeoisie Remembers Its Own Revolution."[1]
It is an excellent sketch of the French Revolution from the viewpoint of the material and economic conflicts between the contending classes. With justifiable scorn George Plechanov holds the great revolution as a mirror before the gaze of the present day bourgeoisie, and riddles the latter's pretences of "respectability" and "law and order," He makes clear that revolutions establish their own law and order, recognizing no code of jurisprudence but that which reflects the needs and purpose of the revolution. Incidentally, it reveals the modern proletariat in embryo as a factor in the bourgeois revolution, a factor, however, that served chiefly as a broom in the hands of the bourgeoisie with which to sweep out thoroughly the rubbish left by the collapsed feudal system.
To the reader not familiar with the various political factions a few words as to these may be in order. The Girondists, the Jacobins and the Montagnards reflected certain social and economic layers in society at that time. The Girondists represented the upper (though not uppermost) layers of the bourgeoisie—the well-to-do middle class. The Jacobins represented the petty bourgeoisie and that portion of the as yet unformed proletariat which was not absolutely on "the ragged edge." The Montagnards ("The Mountain") represented that vast number of propertiless proletarians which, however vaguely, sensed the fact that they had little or nothing in common with the other groups. Each group played its part on the "stage" until, following chaos and threatening social disintegration, there appeared the "man on horseback," Napoleon Bonaparte, who at the psychologically right moment consolidated the revolution, definitely establishing the capitalist Political State which was to prevail henceforth, all surface changes notwithstanding.
For further reading the following books are recommended:
"The French Revolution," by Bax.
“"Crises in European History," by Bang.
"The Sword of Honor," by Sue.
Few other books on the French Revolution are worth the attention of the busy working class reader, though the more studious will find Carlyle’s dithyrambic work interesting and stimulating, and Krapotkin’s "The Great Revolution" profitable despite its somewhat anarchistic bias.
August 26, 1926.
- ↑ Copyright, 1926, National Executive Committee, Socialist Labor Party of America.