The Marxist Inheritance of the French Revolution

Abstract

It was Marx and, to a lesser extent, Engels, who provided the Bolsheviks with a teleology of French revolutions, in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871, in relation to which they could situate their own anticipated revolution. Marx and Engels were not consistent in their evaluation of these revolutions, stressing while they were in progress the ability of individuals to alter the course of history and perhaps even to accelerate it. Indeed, they praised the Jacobins in the French Revolution for their success, albeit limited, in advancing the revolution beyond what the haute bourgeoisie believed to be consistent with its interests. But once Marx and Engels, after the failure of revolutions in France and the rest of Europe in 1848, realized that any repetition was unlikely for the foreseeable future, their admiration of the Jacobins diminished. Chapter 3 concludes with analysis of their infatuation, in the last years of their lives, with the terrorists of Narodnaia Volia, whose audacity in killing government officials and ultimately the tsar himself caused their ‘Jacobin’ sensibilities to re-emerge.