Opinion of the French Revolution

[Cassius]

Burke had it about right.

FR until the Mountain seized power, HR afterwards

That's when it became a Freedom Revolution.

Because nothing says freedom like mass executions of political opponents.

As opposed to allowing them to organize and come back into power? The Jacobins did only what was necessary. "Political opponents" is too kind a word for the people who literally enslaved the French people for centuries and ruled without their consent.

You do realise that the Jacobins didn't just kill the hardcore royalist leaders. They literally would try and kill anybody who put forward a view that wasn't 100 percent supportive of whatever their latest faddish idea was. Another, interesting, point is that about 70 percent of the executions that were carried out under the terror were of peasants, often for such ill defined crimes as hording food.

Also, the revolutionary government, at least in its early stages, was probably more oppressive to the lower classes than the Ancien Regime.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some of the arguments - often from people who should know better! - in both this and the Luther thread make me sad.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I see everyone has already successfully ignored my point.

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

I see everyone has already successfully ignored my point.

Well it does go against the Conventional Wisdom, don't it?

[Cassius]

I see everyone has already successfully ignored my point.

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Which point?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I see everyone has already successfully ignored my point.

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It wouldn't be surprising that a newly-empowered ruling class with absolutely no governing experience and nothing to guide them except beautiful but extremely abstract ideals would screw up big time. Considering that, the few things they did get more or less right (raising one of the first modern army and leading it to modest but significant success, reforming the administrative system and setting up a series of rules that would endure for a while) are what is most striking.

But again, the "quality of governance" (so to speak) is not really what matters about the Revolution. What matters is the broad principles it inspired and the effects these principles had over the 19th century, bringing about a paradigmatic change of unequaled proportions.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I see everyone has already successfully ignored my point.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It wouldn't be surprising that a ruling clase with absolutely no governing experience and nothing to guide them except beautiful but extremely abstract ideals would screw up big time. Considering that, the few things they did get more or less right (raising one of the first modern army and leading it to modest but significant success, reforming the administrative system and setting up a series of rules that would endure for a while) are what is most striking.

But again, the "quality of governance" (so to speak) is not really what matters about the Revolution. What matters is the broad principles it inspired and the effects these principles had over the 19th century, bringing about a paradigmatic change of unequaled proportions.

The gif is there is because what Cassius said is blatantly and obviously false. Perhaps the least historically accurate said in Atlas History that wasn't in a "Hitler was a leftist" thread.

[windjammer]

Horrible Revolution

Counter-revolution sucks. But this of course was first and foremost a bourgeois affair, so it's unsurprising that they'd do their best to take out the guilds and the proto-unions of the time. Either way, the revolution itself was a massive step forward. Louis XIV and his awful wife got what was coming to them, as did the rest of the French aristocracy. The only regrettable thing about the Revolution was that it eventually fell to reaction (and that it left too much of the aristocracy alive and able to come back into power, of course)

Workers had better working conditions before revolution. It's the Revolution which has destroyed "unions", not counter revolution.

And lol Mountain, just highly corrupt people.

Horrible Revolution

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oops, sorry Gully. I thought you were quoting yourself. Looking back at the first page, your point was excellent and needed to be made indeed.

Windjammer, you do realize that citing a minor labor law among the countless legislative acts of the Revolution as a reason to dislike it is a bit of a stretch, right?

[windjammer]

Oops, sorry Gully. I thought you were quoting yourself. Looking back at the first page, your point was excellent and needed to be made indeed.

Windjammer, you do realize that citing a minor labor law among the countless legislative acts of the Revolution as a reason to dislike it is a bit of a stretch, right?

Yes you're completely right, it's not just this law.

I would have probably supported this revolution at the beginning. But, when you see what they did: they attacked other countries, civil war in "Vendée", "terror", horrible labor laws,... I can't support this revolution. Too radical. Human societies evolve, it's normal, but this evolution was brutal. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oops, sorry Gully. I thought you were quoting yourself. Looking back at the first page, your point was excellent and needed to be made indeed.

Windjammer, you do realize that citing a minor labor law among the countless legislative acts of the Revolution as a reason to dislike it is a bit of a stretch, right?

Yes you're completely right, it's not just this law.

I would have probably supported this revolution at the beginning. But, when you see what they did: they attacked other countries, civil war in "Vendée", "terror", horrible labor laws,... I can't support this revolution. Too radical. Human societies evolve, it's normal, but this evolution was brutal.

Both the international war and internal repressions were pretty much self-defense (or at the very least "preventive wars"). Which is not to say that the atrocities were justified, but again, these means of action were fit to their times and they were applied even more strongly when the Revolution's opponents took over. And revolutions are always "too radical". Spirits need to cool down afterwards, and I guess in hindsight it might be a good thing that we subsequently had Thermidor and Napoleon (I wouldn't go as far as to say that the Restoration was a good thing, though). But once again, what really matters is the infinite and invaluable opportunities that it opened up.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Burke had it about right.

'Swinish multitude'?

An unfortunate metaphor, but the point he was making about the effects of revolutionary violence on learning was basically correct.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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This is another myth.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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This is another myth.

Mind to elaborate? I have the memory that the European powers were scared sh*tless about what was going on in France and more or less ready to come over to "fix things up".

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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This is another myth.

Mind to elaborate? I have the memory that the European powers were scared sh*tless about what was going on in France and more or less ready to come over to "fix things up".

No. That's the myth. Rather the European powers stood on the sidelines unsure what to make of the situation (but were somewhat glad that France was self-destructing as it was clearly a threat to all of them; remember this was during a period of nearly endless European war). The war was caused by the Girondin government's paranoia that the European powers - especially Austria - were out to destroy the revolution (thus the myth). Danton was, ironically given what happened later, particularly prominent in whipping up both the sans cullotes and the General Assembly on this iirc.

[Cassius]

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This is another myth.

Mind to elaborate? I have the memory that the European powers were scared sh*tless about what was going on in France and more or less ready to come over to "fix things up".

Your quite right that they were scared, and in the cases of the Austrians, angry (Marie Antoinette was a Habsburg after all). But, most unfortunately, the major European powers, espeically Britain, waited far too long to put the boot in, leaving it too late to stop the revolutionaries establishing an effective military machine. The revolutionary government behaved in a far more belligerent fashion than did the other powers, since most of the wars that it fought (such as in Italy) were basically glorified raiding expeditions designed to seize booty to fill the bare coffers of the Frebch state.

I'm also surprised that you have a positive view of Bonaparte, since he was the man who 'perverted' the ideals of the revolution to an even greater degree than before.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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This is another myth.

Mind to elaborate? I have the memory that the European powers were scared sh*tless about what was going on in France and more or less ready to come over to "fix things up".

No. That's the myth. Rather the European powers stood on the sidelines unsure what to make of the situation (but were somewhat glad that France was self-destructing as it was clearly a threat to all of them; remember this was during a period of nearly endless European war). The war was caused by the Girondin government's paranoia that the European powers - especially Austria - were out to destroy the revolution (thus the myth). Danton was, ironically given what happened later, particularly prominent in whipping up both the sans cullotes and the General Assembly on this iirc.

It is true that the Girondins' promptness played a key role in causing the war, but I would still think that the tangible possibility of an invasion to restore the monarchy existed at the time. There was Brunswick's ultimatum, which, as symbolic as it was, clearly that Europe wasn't willing to sit and watch while monarchy was being overthrown. And while these countries were traditional enemies of France, the familial connections between the French and other monarchs could certainly raise some reasonable suspicions of where their sympathies were.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is another myth.

Mind to elaborate? I have the memory that the European powers were scared sh*tless about what was going on in France and more or less ready to come over to "fix things up".

No. That's the myth. Rather the European powers stood on the sidelines unsure what to make of the situation (but were somewhat glad that France was self-destructing as it was clearly a threat to all of them; remember this was during a period of nearly endless European war). The war was caused by the Girondin government's paranoia that the European powers - especially Austria - were out to destroy the revolution (thus the myth). Danton was, ironically given what happened later, particularly prominent in whipping up both the sans cullotes and the General Assembly on this iirc.

It is true that the Girondins' promptness played a key role in causing the war, but I would still think that the tangible possibility of an invasion to restore the monarchy existed at the time. There was Brunswick's ultimatum, which, as symbolic as it was, clearly that Europe wasn't willing to sit and watch while monarchy was being overthrown. And while these countries were traditional enemies of France, the familial connections between the French and other monarchs could certainly raise some reasonable suspicions of where their sympathies were.

Quite a lot of states were alarmed by what was happening to the Monarchs but not enough to launch a military campaign against Europe's most developed large state and the states were wrapped up in their own affairs anyway. Besides the Monarchs weren't fully overthrown until months after France had declared war and what worried those involved was partly that Marie Antoinette was an Austrian spy....

[Antonio the Sixth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is another myth.

Mind to elaborate? I have the memory that the European powers were scared sh*tless about what was going on in France and more or less ready to come over to "fix things up".

No. That's the myth. Rather the European powers stood on the sidelines unsure what to make of the situation (but were somewhat glad that France was self-destructing as it was clearly a threat to all of them; remember this was during a period of nearly endless European war). The war was caused by the Girondin government's paranoia that the European powers - especially Austria - were out to destroy the revolution (thus the myth). Danton was, ironically given what happened later, particularly prominent in whipping up both the sans cullotes and the General Assembly on this iirc.

It is true that the Girondins' promptness played a key role in causing the war, but I would still think that the tangible possibility of an invasion to restore the monarchy existed at the time. There was Brunswick's ultimatum, which, as symbolic as it was, clearly that Europe wasn't willing to sit and watch while monarchy was being overthrown. And while these countries were traditional enemies of France, the familial connections between the French and other monarchs could certainly raise some reasonable suspicions of where their sympathies were.

Quite a lot of states were alarmed by what was happening to the Monarchs but not enough to launch a military campaign against Europe's most developed large state and the states were wrapped up in their own affairs anyway. Besides the Monarchs weren't fully overthrown until months after France had declared war and what worried those involved was partly that Marie Antoinette was an Austrian spy....

You're probably right. I guess there is no way to know what would have happened in the long run (and I still would tend to think that such a fundamental challenge on the principles on which the entire European political stage was set would eventually have led to some powerful effort to restore the monarchy, but obviously History isn't made of ifs).

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

One of those horrible historical events that happened and isn't going to be changed. I don't dwell on the actions taken by the King or the revolutionaries, but it definitely shaped our world, and shouldn't be forgotten.