A tomada da Bastilha foi o ato inicial de uma convulsão que durou um século, rompeu com o mundo pré-moderno e, finalmente, colocou as pessoas comuns no comando do destino de sua nação. Esse é o legado da Revolução Francesa.
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| H. P. Perrault, Prise de la Bastille, 1928. |
Entrevista por
Melissa Naschek
Melissa Naschek
Melissa Naschek
Melissa Naschek
Em 14 de julho de 1789, a tomada da Bastilha em Paris marcou a transição da Revolução Francesa de uma negociação de elite para um evento verdadeiramente de massas. Mas o que deu início a esta insurgência e o que isso tem a ver com a política de esquerda?
No último episódio do podcast da Rádio Jacobina, Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber e Melissa Naschek discutem as origens radicais do Dia da Bastilha, examinam a política de classe dos revolucionários franceses e desafiam a velha noção marxista de uma revolução burguesa.
Confrontando o Capitalismo com Vivek Chibber é produzido pela Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy e publicado pela Jacobin. Você pode ouvir o episódio completo aqui.
Melissa Naschek
A maior parte do nosso público americano provavelmente já ouviu falar do Dia da Bastilha e sabe que está ligado à Revolução Francesa, mas talvez não saiba muito mais além disso. Você pode explicar o que é o Dia da Bastilha?
Vivek Chibber
O Dia da Bastilha é a comemoração da tomada da Bastilha, ocorrida em Paris em julho de 1789, quando as massas parisienses se reuniram e atacaram aquela que era, naquela época, uma prisão e fortaleza muito conhecida. A Bastilha era uma espécie de emblema da monarquia francesa e do seu poder despótico.
Por que eles atacaram? Porque se levantavam para defender um processo revolucionário que se desenrolava em Versalhes, a cerca de quinze milhas de distância. E durante a sua defesa, eles invadiram a Bastilha.
Portanto, há duas perguntas para nós: O que estava acontecendo em Versalhes naquela época? E porque é que as massas parisienses sentiram que tinham de defendê-lo?
Melissa Naschek
Então, o que estava acontecendo em Versalhes?
Vivek Chibber
Naquele momento, Versalhes realizava uma reunião dos chamados Estados Gerais. E esta foi essencialmente uma reunião gigantesca da elite francesa convocada por Luís XVI.
Esta reunião foi considerada essencial porque, nos anos anteriores, o Estado francês se viu numa crise fiscal. O que isso significa é que acumulou montanhas e montanhas de dívidas e já não era capaz de pagar essa dívida. E isto foi um problema porque, obviamente, se não conseguirmos pagar a nossa dívida, o Estado irá entrar em insolvência. E, em particular, significou que Luís XVI já não podia continuar as suas guerras, que eram consideradas essenciais para que a França se tornasse uma grande potência.
Portanto, o Estado francês estava numa enorme crise. Por que estava em crise? Porque durante os setenta anos anteriores, o país esteve numa série incessante de guerras, principalmente com a Inglaterra.
E embora a França fosse um país maior, com uma população maior, a Inglaterra tinha a economia mais dinâmica porque a Inglaterra tinha, de facto, uma economia totalmente capitalista no início do século XVIII. A França não. O resultado: a base económica francesa era muito menos produtiva e tinha um crescimento muito lento. Houve crescimento, mas não o nível de crescimento que teria financiado com sucesso década após década de guerras com a Inglaterra. E a França perdeu todas as guerras do século XVIII com a Inglaterra.
Portanto, esta guerra criou dívidas, porque a única forma de o Estado francês conseguir acompanhar a luta contra a Inglaterra era contraindo cada vez mais empréstimos. Como eles poderiam pagar esses empréstimos?
Eles poderiam fazer isso aumentando os impostos. Mas o problema com o aumento dos impostos era duplo. Um problema é que as pessoas que precisavam de tributar agora eram, em grande parte, pessoas com muito poder, que eram a nobreza francesa e os grandes proprietários de terras. E muitos outros franceses sentiram que já estavam a pagar demasiados impostos. E isso não é realmente falso. A população francesa era, na verdade, bastante tributada.
O que Luís XVI precisava fazer era obter a anuência da população francesa que pagava impostos, para que pudesse legitimamente solicitar-lhe mais dinheiro.
A posição da nobreza francesa era: "Se você quer isso, terá de convocar algo como uma assembleia nacional ou um órgão constitucional onde possamos nos reunir e debater o que receberemos em troca de concordar em permitir que você nos tribute mais."
Melissa Naschek
Então, em troca de dinheiro, eles querem mais acesso ao poder.
Vivek Chibber
Literalmente: nada de tributação sem representação. Agora, é claro, a concepção deles de representação é o ponto-chave aqui.
Melissa Naschek
Exato. Estamos falando da elite. Não estamos falando das massas.
Vivek Chibber
Exatamente. As massas francesas são mantidas à margem disso. Então, Luís XVI e Jacques Necker, seu ministro das Finanças, lançaram em 1788 um chamado para a convocação do chamado Estados Gerais — um órgão formado no início do século XVII, mas que, literalmente, jamais havia se reunido. Era algo como uma assembleia nacional das elites francesas, e aquela seria a primeira reunião dos Estados Gerais em 175 anos.
Como preparação para isso, eles fizeram algo bastante marcante: pediram a localidades de toda a França que se reunissem e elaborassem uma lista de reivindicações e queixas. E essa lista seria, supostamente, o que seria anunciado e debatido na reunião dos Estados Gerais.
Melissa Naschek
Quem foi convocado para essas reuniões a fim de elaborar as listas de reivindicações?
Vivek Chibber
Qualquer pessoa que constasse nos registros fiscais. Isso deixava de fora uma grande parcela da população, mas o processo alcançava as camadas mais profundas do corpo político francês. Assim, nas cidades, não eram apenas nobres, prefeitos e aristocratas, mas também advogados, artesãos e proprietários de pequenas terras. E, nas aldeias, até mesmo os camponeses participavam, embora, oficialmente, não tivessem lugar nesse processo.
Basicamente, temos um discurso e um debate político de âmbito nacional que se desenrolam ao longo de muitos meses. As pessoas eleitas localmente para representar suas comunidades nos Estados Gerais pertenciam, de fato, às elites; no entanto, elas chegavam munidas das listas de reivindicações e, além disso, todos acompanhavam atentamente o que acontecia em Versalhes durante as reuniões dos Estados Gerais.
Os Estados Gerais reuniam os três estados: o clero, a nobreza e o chamado Terceiro Estado. O Terceiro Estado era composto majoritariamente por profissionais liberais, notáveis urbanos, advogados, comerciantes, industriais e até camponeses — enfim, qualquer pessoa que não fosse membro do clero nem da nobreza.
Em suas reuniões, os três estados apresentavam demandas que desejavam impor ao rei em troca de um novo contrato social, o qual incluía o aumento de impostos. Nesse debate, surge um confronto entre a monarquia e esses grupos, pois a coroa não queria conceder as reformas exigidas pelos Estados Gerais.
Será que todos os diferentes segmentos dos Estados Gerais convergiam para um conjunto de reivindicações, ou eles tinham interesses distintos?
Vivek Chibber
Eles convergiram para um conjunto de reivindicações bastante restrito, o que foi suficiente para irritar Luís XVI. E isso se resumia, essencialmente, a: "Queremos uma monarquia constitucional". E, nesse ponto, havia algumas questões específicas, como: "Queremos igualdade perante a lei" e "Queremos vias mais amplas de ascensão social dentro do Estado".
Melissa Naschek
E em que uma monarquia constitucional diferia do sistema vigente na época?
Vivek Chibber
Naquela época, havia um Estado absolutista, o que significa, basicamente, que — em teoria — o rei é quem manda. O rei era o Estado. Essa é uma definição técnica. Na prática, havia muita negociação envolvida, mas nada disso estava formalizado em lei. E era justamente isso que eles queriam garantir para si mesmos.
Embora houvesse uma aparência superficial de consenso em torno de alguma forma de monarquia constitucional, para além disso, o Terceiro Estado e a nobreza realmente não concordavam, pois buscavam coisas diferentes.
O que a nobreza queria era preservar seus direitos e privilégios locais frente à monarquia. O que o Terceiro Estado queria era acabar com alguns desses privilégios, visto que parte deles consistia no monopólio dos cargos estatais e do poder público.
Assim, essas pessoas — advogados, comerciantes, industriais — que integravam o Terceiro Estado diziam: "Vejam, o Estado vem se expandindo há cem anos. Cada vez mais cargos são criados, mas todos eles vão parar nas mãos dos muito ricos e dos nobres. E, embora trabalhemos incansavelmente, não temos muitas oportunidades de ascensão". Tratava-se, essencialmente, de um "teto de vidro". O que eles queriam eram mais oportunidades para carreiras baseadas no mérito, em vez de carreiras baseadas em status e posição social.
Melissa Naschek
Parece familiar.
Vivek Chibber
Portanto, este era um conflito que estava se formando. Mas antes que este conflito dentro dos Estados Gerais possa realmente explodir, o que acontece é que Luís XVI diz: “Já estou farto”. E começa a fechar as portas, literalmente, ao funcionamento e à institucionalização dos Estados Gerais.
As massas do povo francês olhavam para os Estados Gerais, e mais tarde para a Assembleia Nacional, como uma instituição onde finalmente conseguiriam uma voz para si próprias.
On June 20, when the members showed up to convene in the morning, they found that the doors to the assembly were locked. And upon this, the Third Estate and some part of the nobles gathered in an indoor tennis court in Versailles. And they declared that they would now be a National Assembly, and they constituted the authentic representatives of the French nation.
Very quickly, Louis XVI agreed. He said, “Fine, you are the representatives of the French nation.” And he seemed to gesture toward the institutionalization of a constitutional monarchy. The model for all this was England, because England had a king, but Parliament really had all the power. This is what the French elite were trying to go for.
So look what’s happening: this was a negotiation for a redistribution of power somewhat downward from the king into a newly emerging political elite, right? No mention of the masses, no mention of democracy, no mention of popular suffrage, nothing. That’s what the fight and the debate was over.
But while Louis XVI appeared to give in, something else happened. Fifteen miles away in Paris, people noticed that there was a mass of mercenaries and royal militia gathering outside the city. And all the indications are that Louis was moving to militarily oust the self-proclaimed National Assembly and take over the cities of Paris and Versailles. Another indication is that he fired his finance minister, Jacques Necker, who was very popular because he’s the one who called for the Estates General.
So two things were happening. These militia — many of whom were foreign, German-speaking — were gathering. And Louis XVI fired the guy who’s actually responsible for expanding the role of the Third Estate in the Estates General. So all the indications were that he was looking to roll back whatever small gains were made. The Parisian masses, therefore, saw this as an attack upon the National Assembly and themselves.
Now, this is where it’s important to remember that, in the lead-up to the Estates General, the entire French nation had been involved in airing their grievances. So in the villages and in the big cities, the masses of French people looked at the Estates General, and later the National Assembly, as an institution where they would finally get a voice for themselves. So they saw a personal stake in it. And here comes Louis XVI apparently about to stage a military takeover.
This is the backdrop to Bastille Day. So on July 14, the Parisian masses essentially get riled up and overtake the local authorities in Paris. In the course of that, they capture around twenty thousand guns, but the guns have no powder. All the powder is stored in the Bastille. And this then is why they stormed the Bastille. They wanted to arm themselves to fight off the militia, to save Paris as a hotbed of anti-monarchical dissent and to carry forward the process of negotiation. That’s Bastille Day.
But once they did that, it completely changed the nature of the French Revolution. Up until that point, it was an elite negotiation between these two Estates, the clergy and the monarchy, around a very narrow set of demands to basically renegotiate the power constellation at the top of society. Once the masses in Paris stormed the Bastille, it turned from an elite negotiation into a mass event. And at this point, it became a revolution, because the moment they intervened, what’s being demanded completely changed.
A French Social Revolution
Melissa Naschek
So is Bastille Day when the French Revolution also becomes a democratic revolution?
Vivek Chibber
It’s the first step. There are no legal legislative or constitutional changes that come right on the heels of Bastille Day. What comes on the heels of Bastille Day is Louis XVI immediately drawing back. And he says, “Okay, there will be no military takeover.” He called Necker back and reinstituted him. And it was a sign from him of contrition.
But something else happened in the very final week of July. The urban revolt started in Paris, but there were municipal rebellions all over France because they heard about what happened in Paris. They also heard that Louis XVI might be trying to institute a military takeover. So there were Paris-like events in smaller towns all over the country. There’s what one would call a municipal or urban revolution.
By the end of July, that is now joined by a massive rural revolution as well. Why? Well, one thing the cities and the countryside had in common was that the winter of 1788 had had a brutal harvest, enormous crop failures. And so prices of essential goods had gone up. So there was a lot of simmering anger about the economic situation at a time when Louis XVI was spending money like it was going out of fashion. Another thing is that, just like the urban masses, the peasants also felt they had something at stake in the survival of the Estates General and the National Assembly.
So what happened by late July were two things. There were rumors flying around that the French nobility and the landlords were conspiring to clamp down on the villages and to brutalize the peasantry. The second thing was that there was this fear that whatever opening there was about their grievances was being shut down by Louis XVI. So this causes what’s called the Great Fear, where French peasants started attacking their local landlords, emptying the granaries, and freeing up the wheat and the crops they had. And that now brings the second element into the mass uprising: first the cities, now the countryside.
And the single biggest demand that’s coming out of the countryside is what’s called the abolition of feudalism.
Now what was the “feudalism” at the time? What they called feudalism was the naked power of landlords in the villages over the persons of the peasantry. They not only took rent from the peasants, which was very high, but they also had all kinds of arbitrary powers over them for free labor, for exactions, that is monetary payments over and above the rent, the tax that the monarchy took on top of all these things. Peasants felt like they were hanging on by a thread.
Melissa Naschek
Was there a restriction of movement as well?
Vivek Chibber
No, by this time serfdom was gone, but you had all kinds of other exactions. What the peasants wanted was their rights to the land recognized, and the landlords’ powers over them to be dissolved. That was called the abolition of feudalism.
Very quickly, Louis XVI agreed. He said, “Fine, you are the representatives of the French nation.” And he seemed to gesture toward the institutionalization of a constitutional monarchy. The model for all this was England, because England had a king, but Parliament really had all the power. This is what the French elite were trying to go for.
So look what’s happening: this was a negotiation for a redistribution of power somewhat downward from the king into a newly emerging political elite, right? No mention of the masses, no mention of democracy, no mention of popular suffrage, nothing. That’s what the fight and the debate was over.
But while Louis XVI appeared to give in, something else happened. Fifteen miles away in Paris, people noticed that there was a mass of mercenaries and royal militia gathering outside the city. And all the indications are that Louis was moving to militarily oust the self-proclaimed National Assembly and take over the cities of Paris and Versailles. Another indication is that he fired his finance minister, Jacques Necker, who was very popular because he’s the one who called for the Estates General.
So two things were happening. These militia — many of whom were foreign, German-speaking — were gathering. And Louis XVI fired the guy who’s actually responsible for expanding the role of the Third Estate in the Estates General. So all the indications were that he was looking to roll back whatever small gains were made. The Parisian masses, therefore, saw this as an attack upon the National Assembly and themselves.
Now, this is where it’s important to remember that, in the lead-up to the Estates General, the entire French nation had been involved in airing their grievances. So in the villages and in the big cities, the masses of French people looked at the Estates General, and later the National Assembly, as an institution where they would finally get a voice for themselves. So they saw a personal stake in it. And here comes Louis XVI apparently about to stage a military takeover.
This is the backdrop to Bastille Day. So on July 14, the Parisian masses essentially get riled up and overtake the local authorities in Paris. In the course of that, they capture around twenty thousand guns, but the guns have no powder. All the powder is stored in the Bastille. And this then is why they stormed the Bastille. They wanted to arm themselves to fight off the militia, to save Paris as a hotbed of anti-monarchical dissent and to carry forward the process of negotiation. That’s Bastille Day.
But once they did that, it completely changed the nature of the French Revolution. Up until that point, it was an elite negotiation between these two Estates, the clergy and the monarchy, around a very narrow set of demands to basically renegotiate the power constellation at the top of society. Once the masses in Paris stormed the Bastille, it turned from an elite negotiation into a mass event. And at this point, it became a revolution, because the moment they intervened, what’s being demanded completely changed.
A French Social Revolution
Melissa Naschek
So is Bastille Day when the French Revolution also becomes a democratic revolution?
Vivek Chibber
It’s the first step. There are no legal legislative or constitutional changes that come right on the heels of Bastille Day. What comes on the heels of Bastille Day is Louis XVI immediately drawing back. And he says, “Okay, there will be no military takeover.” He called Necker back and reinstituted him. And it was a sign from him of contrition.
But something else happened in the very final week of July. The urban revolt started in Paris, but there were municipal rebellions all over France because they heard about what happened in Paris. They also heard that Louis XVI might be trying to institute a military takeover. So there were Paris-like events in smaller towns all over the country. There’s what one would call a municipal or urban revolution.
By the end of July, that is now joined by a massive rural revolution as well. Why? Well, one thing the cities and the countryside had in common was that the winter of 1788 had had a brutal harvest, enormous crop failures. And so prices of essential goods had gone up. So there was a lot of simmering anger about the economic situation at a time when Louis XVI was spending money like it was going out of fashion. Another thing is that, just like the urban masses, the peasants also felt they had something at stake in the survival of the Estates General and the National Assembly.
So what happened by late July were two things. There were rumors flying around that the French nobility and the landlords were conspiring to clamp down on the villages and to brutalize the peasantry. The second thing was that there was this fear that whatever opening there was about their grievances was being shut down by Louis XVI. So this causes what’s called the Great Fear, where French peasants started attacking their local landlords, emptying the granaries, and freeing up the wheat and the crops they had. And that now brings the second element into the mass uprising: first the cities, now the countryside.
And the single biggest demand that’s coming out of the countryside is what’s called the abolition of feudalism.
Now what was the “feudalism” at the time? What they called feudalism was the naked power of landlords in the villages over the persons of the peasantry. They not only took rent from the peasants, which was very high, but they also had all kinds of arbitrary powers over them for free labor, for exactions, that is monetary payments over and above the rent, the tax that the monarchy took on top of all these things. Peasants felt like they were hanging on by a thread.
Melissa Naschek
Was there a restriction of movement as well?
Vivek Chibber
No, by this time serfdom was gone, but you had all kinds of other exactions. What the peasants wanted was their rights to the land recognized, and the landlords’ powers over them to be dissolved. That was called the abolition of feudalism.
Eles queriam armar-se para combater a milícia, para salvar Paris como um foco de dissidência antimonárquica e para dar continuidade ao processo de negociação. É disso que trata o Dia da Bastilha.
This now became the first truly mass demand in the French Revolution. And as the rural uprisings unfolded at the end of July and in early August, and specifically on August 4, in the legislature, under duress and under the pressures of the movement, the National Assembly finally declared that all of those extra exactions, demands, and monetary payments that French peasants had to make would now be abolished, and that property rights would be installed. At this point, it was not yet actually enacted. It was simply announced.
Melissa Naschek
Were the urban centers and the countryside working together or in parallel?
Vivek Chibber
There was not yet coordination between the countryside and the city at this point, but they were all converging around a similar set of demands. A few days after that, on August 26, you get what’s called “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” And this was finally the French elite saying there’s going to be equality before the law, and there will be the end of arbitrary seizures and power on the part of the French state.
These two demands — the abolition of feudalism and The Declaration of the Rights of Man — put the French state firmly on the path of being a bourgeois democracy, a bourgeois republic, which now brings together the Third Estate’s demand for doing away with the sanctity of office, noble purchase of office, and status-based movement upward, with the rest of the masses demands for the dissolution of what’s called feudal power and for some degree of political equality. That is what turns this elite negotiation into an actual social revolution. And by the end of August, you actually have a social revolution.
But it doesn’t end there because, while they announced it, Louis XVI was still in power. And every time a new measure was announced to deepen the revolution, more and more members of the National Assembly defected, because they never wanted this. They didn’t want the abolition of feudalism. They didn’t want equality before the law. The nobility just wanted their power recognized by the monarchy. And they wanted the absolutist character of the state to be reformed so that the king didn’t have all the power vested in him. He had to share the power with the nobles.
The Third Estate, for its part, wanted to have equal access to state offices, but they weren’t very crazy about the abolition of feudalism because a lot of them had their wealth in land, even though they were urban officers. Nor did they want this stuff about equality before the law; only a small section of them did.
Every time a new set of demands came up in the French Revolution, the elite sections who were supporting it got smaller and smaller. And this is what unfolded over the next three years or so. And what came to be known as the Jacobins were that section of the Third Estate that stuck with the urban masses and, to a smaller but still substantial degree, the rural masses.
This means that there was an interactive process with the French masses pushing the process forward, and a chunk of the political elite dwindling over time with every wave of radicalization, taking cues from the social revolution and trying to give it a legislative, constitutional form to embed it within the state.
This really peaked in 1793 because for the first time anywhere, any time, you get the declaration of universal suffrage. For the first time, every male can vote regardless of property, regardless of wealth. That was rolled back immediately thereafter, but it is the first time we’ve ever seen it. And that only happened because the section of the French political class that was in Versailles, that was being radicalized, responded to the demands coming from below.
Those demands coming from below turned the elite pact into a social revolution and pushed more and more and more of the erstwhile reformist elite back into the arms of the monarchy.
So there are two sides by 1793. There are the Jacobins and the radicalized masses on one side and, on the other, the forces of reaction, part of whom were in the Estates General as a reformist elite but coming over to the forces of reaction, because what they were seeing unfolding on the street and in the countryside absolutely terrified them.
Melissa Naschek
When did some of these measures start getting rolled back?
Vivek Chibber
The real rollback starts in 1794, in what is called Thermidor, which was the month of July in the Revolutionary calendar. And that’s the point at which universal suffrage is reversed, the property franchise is brought back, and it is decided that the land that had been taken away from the nobles would not be given back to them. But above and beyond that, peasants would have to pay their way out of feudalism. So you would say 1794 is the beginning of the end of the French Revolution.
Melissa Naschek
What’s the legacy of the French Revolution and why should leftists today still care about it?
Vivek Chibber
You should care because this revolution was one of the truly epochal breaks from a premodern political and economic era, where your birth, your rank, your status was what determined your fate; where it was understood that the poor have absolutely no right to demand inclusion in the political order; where it was understood that the king is literally connected to God and you can’t question his authority in any way. This was one of those pivotal events that not only questioned these nostrums, but blew them apart once and for all.
Melissa Naschek
Were the urban centers and the countryside working together or in parallel?
Vivek Chibber
There was not yet coordination between the countryside and the city at this point, but they were all converging around a similar set of demands. A few days after that, on August 26, you get what’s called “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” And this was finally the French elite saying there’s going to be equality before the law, and there will be the end of arbitrary seizures and power on the part of the French state.
These two demands — the abolition of feudalism and The Declaration of the Rights of Man — put the French state firmly on the path of being a bourgeois democracy, a bourgeois republic, which now brings together the Third Estate’s demand for doing away with the sanctity of office, noble purchase of office, and status-based movement upward, with the rest of the masses demands for the dissolution of what’s called feudal power and for some degree of political equality. That is what turns this elite negotiation into an actual social revolution. And by the end of August, you actually have a social revolution.
But it doesn’t end there because, while they announced it, Louis XVI was still in power. And every time a new measure was announced to deepen the revolution, more and more members of the National Assembly defected, because they never wanted this. They didn’t want the abolition of feudalism. They didn’t want equality before the law. The nobility just wanted their power recognized by the monarchy. And they wanted the absolutist character of the state to be reformed so that the king didn’t have all the power vested in him. He had to share the power with the nobles.
The Third Estate, for its part, wanted to have equal access to state offices, but they weren’t very crazy about the abolition of feudalism because a lot of them had their wealth in land, even though they were urban officers. Nor did they want this stuff about equality before the law; only a small section of them did.
Every time a new set of demands came up in the French Revolution, the elite sections who were supporting it got smaller and smaller. And this is what unfolded over the next three years or so. And what came to be known as the Jacobins were that section of the Third Estate that stuck with the urban masses and, to a smaller but still substantial degree, the rural masses.
This means that there was an interactive process with the French masses pushing the process forward, and a chunk of the political elite dwindling over time with every wave of radicalization, taking cues from the social revolution and trying to give it a legislative, constitutional form to embed it within the state.
This really peaked in 1793 because for the first time anywhere, any time, you get the declaration of universal suffrage. For the first time, every male can vote regardless of property, regardless of wealth. That was rolled back immediately thereafter, but it is the first time we’ve ever seen it. And that only happened because the section of the French political class that was in Versailles, that was being radicalized, responded to the demands coming from below.
Those demands coming from below turned the elite pact into a social revolution and pushed more and more and more of the erstwhile reformist elite back into the arms of the monarchy.
So there are two sides by 1793. There are the Jacobins and the radicalized masses on one side and, on the other, the forces of reaction, part of whom were in the Estates General as a reformist elite but coming over to the forces of reaction, because what they were seeing unfolding on the street and in the countryside absolutely terrified them.
Melissa Naschek
When did some of these measures start getting rolled back?
Vivek Chibber
The real rollback starts in 1794, in what is called Thermidor, which was the month of July in the Revolutionary calendar. And that’s the point at which universal suffrage is reversed, the property franchise is brought back, and it is decided that the land that had been taken away from the nobles would not be given back to them. But above and beyond that, peasants would have to pay their way out of feudalism. So you would say 1794 is the beginning of the end of the French Revolution.
Melissa Naschek
What’s the legacy of the French Revolution and why should leftists today still care about it?
Vivek Chibber
You should care because this revolution was one of the truly epochal breaks from a premodern political and economic era, where your birth, your rank, your status was what determined your fate; where it was understood that the poor have absolutely no right to demand inclusion in the political order; where it was understood that the king is literally connected to God and you can’t question his authority in any way. This was one of those pivotal events that not only questioned these nostrums, but blew them apart once and for all.
Cada vez que surgia um novo conjunto de demandas na Revolução Francesa, os segmentos da elite que a apoiavam tornavam-se cada vez menores.
The American Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789. Just think about this: within a thirteen-year period, you have these two massive social upheavals, and both of them institutionalized an entirely new order. Whatever its flaws — and the flaws were many — the key thing is not that the flaws existed but what the achievements were in spite of those flaws.
The French Revolution is, along with the American Revolution, the opening act in enfranchising and empowering ordinary people to participate in public affairs, even though it was partial, even though its full completion took years to actually bring about. Nevertheless, most of what we today take for granted in a democratic order was raised in that revolution, momentarily institutionalized, and rolled back. But the dream that they fought for, and which they successfully institutionalized, became the dream of revolutionaries, of democrats, of anti-colonial fighters, of national liberation movements across the world for another two hundred years.
The Bourgeois Revolution, Challenged
Melissa Naschek
The French Revolution is commonly referred to as “a bourgeois revolution.” Does it make sense to call the French Revolution a bourgeois revolution?
Vivek Chibber
For the longest time, this was the approved interpretation of the revolution by the French state itself. And it’s really a term that starts up in the early nineteenth century, in the 1830s and ’40s, by the historians and the politicians of the time. And it gathers steam throughout the nineteenth century.
The French Revolution is, along with the American Revolution, the opening act in enfranchising and empowering ordinary people to participate in public affairs, even though it was partial, even though its full completion took years to actually bring about. Nevertheless, most of what we today take for granted in a democratic order was raised in that revolution, momentarily institutionalized, and rolled back. But the dream that they fought for, and which they successfully institutionalized, became the dream of revolutionaries, of democrats, of anti-colonial fighters, of national liberation movements across the world for another two hundred years.
The Bourgeois Revolution, Challenged
Melissa Naschek
The French Revolution is commonly referred to as “a bourgeois revolution.” Does it make sense to call the French Revolution a bourgeois revolution?
Vivek Chibber
For the longest time, this was the approved interpretation of the revolution by the French state itself. And it’s really a term that starts up in the early nineteenth century, in the 1830s and ’40s, by the historians and the politicians of the time. And it gathers steam throughout the nineteenth century.
Essa revolução representou uma das rupturas verdadeiramente marcantes em relação a uma era política e econômica pré-moderna, na qual o nascimento, a posição e o status determinavam o destino de alguém.
Marxists have always referred to it as a bourgeois revolution. And then in the twentieth century, after the Russian Revolution, that generation of Marxists — Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin — all of them think of it as a bourgeois revolution. And then this was enshrined in the global left through the Third International as being the appropriate way to understand it.
And across the twentieth century, the most prestigious chairs in French history, that is to say in the discipline of history, starting with Georges Lefebvre all the way down to Albert Soboul, all of them refer to it as a bourgeois revolution.
Now the question is: What does that mean?
The literal meaning that was given to it, starting in the early nineteenth century, and especially in the twentieth century — and in particular among Marxists — was that it was a bourgeois revolution in the sense that the people coming to the National Assembly in the Third Estate were the bourgeoisie. It was the bourgeoisie who fought against the monarchy, and it was the bourgeoisie who established a new liberal order in France.
And this liberal order had two components to it. It had a democratic liberal component to it as embodied in The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and it had an economic liberalism.
Why did they fight for both of those things? Because this bourgeoisie had grown within the interstices of French feudalism in the cities, primarily as merchants, as industrialists. And they found that the absolutist state and the power of the nobility was holding them back. They couldn’t expand economically. And as part of their cosmopolitan and expansive political and cultural outlook, they wanted to fight for an equality before the law, which is the essence of what political liberalism is.
So they were fighting for both economic liberalism and political liberalism. And this revolution was their revolution, insofar as they were the protagonists who were pushing it forward. And so this is a revolutionary act through which a new mode of production and a new state form is institutionalized that replaces the decaying feudal order.
Melissa Naschek
When these historians say that this was a bourgeois revolution, do they mean a capitalist revolution?
Vivek Chibber
In the interpretation as I’ve laid it out, yes, it is a capitalist revolution in two senses. It is a revolution led by the capitalist class, and it further expands and institutionalizes the capitalist order. So it’s a capitalist revolution both in terms of what causes it, what drives it forward, and in terms of the consequences.
It’s a rising bourgeoisie that is waging revolution because it sees the French state, the absolutist state, as a constraint on its further expansion. And in order to then win that revolution and bring the masses to its side, it is willing to give them liberal democracy. And that liberal democracy is part of its own worldview anyway. It’s capitalist in that sense.
The problem with this interpretation is factual. Starting in the 1950s, but really by the 1960s and ’70s, among historians of France of that period in France and in the English-speaking world, it’s found that this interpretation really can’t stand up to scrutiny.
Melissa Naschek
What were the issues that they were finding with it?
Vivek Chibber
Every component of it. And I should say, there has been a very, very serious and vigorous debate about this among historians. And — except for a few pockets of resistance here and there — among left-wing historians, mainstream ones, and even right-wing ones, the basic facts are no longer in dispute.
And the basic facts are the following: If we go back to that interpretation in which I said capitalism both causes the revolution and also is the effect of the revolution, on both sides of it, it’s very hard to sustain the argument.
Let’s start with the causes of the revolution. Is it the case that the people leading the revolution, the people in the Third Estate, are in fact a bourgeoisie?
Semantically, there seems to be lots of evidence for this, because in France, at the time and later, you see the term “bourgeois” being used to describe them. The question is, does the word latch on to what people think it’s referring to, which is what we call the bourgeoisie — capitalists who employ labor, who are trying to maximize profits and doing it through reinvesting their surplus in a productive way?
Well, there’s been a study of what the Third Estate was inside the Estates General, these six hundred people who come as a Third Estate. And what the numbers show is that the overwhelming majority of them were what we today would call urban professionals, not capitalists — basically lawyers, civil servants, things like that. Of the six hundred that came in, less than twenty are merchants or involved in industry at all.
So if by “the bourgeoisie” we’re referring to people who today we would call bourgeois, and if you’re saying that is the class of people who are now fighting in the revolution, it’s just not true. They’re not there at all. Everybody who’s there in the Estates General is linked to a precapitalist economy in some way.
Now you might say, “Well, lawyers and professionals are not feudal.” But that’s just not true. It’s an uninformed understanding of the feudal state. Feudal states had plenty of room for what we would call clerks, professionals; and cities had plenty of room for lawyers within feudalism. It doesn’t betoken capitalism at all. So in terms of the people leading the revolution, there’s no bourgeoisie that’s doing it, if by bourgeoisie we mean what today we call the bourgeoisie.
So what’s propelling the revolution forward? As I said, it wasn’t them at all. It was the French masses. It was the peasants and it was the urban artisans who were doing it.
Melissa Naschek
And like you said, they’re dragging people along with them who are gradually defecting, as they don’t like what the masses are increasingly demanding.
Vivek Chibber
That’s exactly right. Even if you think that the Third Estate inside the Estates General is bourgeois in the modern sense of the term, you just can’t say they were leading the revolution. What they were doing was responding to the revolution.
Melissa Naschek
What about the other component you mentioned? We’ve addressed the question of the causes. What about the effects?
Vivek Chibber
There is something of a case to be made that the effects are connected to the rise of capitalism, but it’s a very, very weak case. What does the revolution do? Well, it certainly sweeps away noble power and a lot of the arbitrary demands that were being made on peasants by landlords. And that looks like feudalism. And of course, if you sweep away the hallmarks of feudalism, you’ve laid the foundation for something else, which is called capitalism.
Seriam necessários mais setenta anos até que as mesmas forças sociais que impulsionavam essa revolução conseguissem acumular poder suficiente para, de fato, democratizar o país.
And across the twentieth century, the most prestigious chairs in French history, that is to say in the discipline of history, starting with Georges Lefebvre all the way down to Albert Soboul, all of them refer to it as a bourgeois revolution.
Now the question is: What does that mean?
The literal meaning that was given to it, starting in the early nineteenth century, and especially in the twentieth century — and in particular among Marxists — was that it was a bourgeois revolution in the sense that the people coming to the National Assembly in the Third Estate were the bourgeoisie. It was the bourgeoisie who fought against the monarchy, and it was the bourgeoisie who established a new liberal order in France.
And this liberal order had two components to it. It had a democratic liberal component to it as embodied in The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and it had an economic liberalism.
Why did they fight for both of those things? Because this bourgeoisie had grown within the interstices of French feudalism in the cities, primarily as merchants, as industrialists. And they found that the absolutist state and the power of the nobility was holding them back. They couldn’t expand economically. And as part of their cosmopolitan and expansive political and cultural outlook, they wanted to fight for an equality before the law, which is the essence of what political liberalism is.
So they were fighting for both economic liberalism and political liberalism. And this revolution was their revolution, insofar as they were the protagonists who were pushing it forward. And so this is a revolutionary act through which a new mode of production and a new state form is institutionalized that replaces the decaying feudal order.
Melissa Naschek
When these historians say that this was a bourgeois revolution, do they mean a capitalist revolution?
Vivek Chibber
In the interpretation as I’ve laid it out, yes, it is a capitalist revolution in two senses. It is a revolution led by the capitalist class, and it further expands and institutionalizes the capitalist order. So it’s a capitalist revolution both in terms of what causes it, what drives it forward, and in terms of the consequences.
It’s a rising bourgeoisie that is waging revolution because it sees the French state, the absolutist state, as a constraint on its further expansion. And in order to then win that revolution and bring the masses to its side, it is willing to give them liberal democracy. And that liberal democracy is part of its own worldview anyway. It’s capitalist in that sense.
The problem with this interpretation is factual. Starting in the 1950s, but really by the 1960s and ’70s, among historians of France of that period in France and in the English-speaking world, it’s found that this interpretation really can’t stand up to scrutiny.
Melissa Naschek
What were the issues that they were finding with it?
Vivek Chibber
Every component of it. And I should say, there has been a very, very serious and vigorous debate about this among historians. And — except for a few pockets of resistance here and there — among left-wing historians, mainstream ones, and even right-wing ones, the basic facts are no longer in dispute.
And the basic facts are the following: If we go back to that interpretation in which I said capitalism both causes the revolution and also is the effect of the revolution, on both sides of it, it’s very hard to sustain the argument.
Let’s start with the causes of the revolution. Is it the case that the people leading the revolution, the people in the Third Estate, are in fact a bourgeoisie?
Semantically, there seems to be lots of evidence for this, because in France, at the time and later, you see the term “bourgeois” being used to describe them. The question is, does the word latch on to what people think it’s referring to, which is what we call the bourgeoisie — capitalists who employ labor, who are trying to maximize profits and doing it through reinvesting their surplus in a productive way?
Well, there’s been a study of what the Third Estate was inside the Estates General, these six hundred people who come as a Third Estate. And what the numbers show is that the overwhelming majority of them were what we today would call urban professionals, not capitalists — basically lawyers, civil servants, things like that. Of the six hundred that came in, less than twenty are merchants or involved in industry at all.
So if by “the bourgeoisie” we’re referring to people who today we would call bourgeois, and if you’re saying that is the class of people who are now fighting in the revolution, it’s just not true. They’re not there at all. Everybody who’s there in the Estates General is linked to a precapitalist economy in some way.
Now you might say, “Well, lawyers and professionals are not feudal.” But that’s just not true. It’s an uninformed understanding of the feudal state. Feudal states had plenty of room for what we would call clerks, professionals; and cities had plenty of room for lawyers within feudalism. It doesn’t betoken capitalism at all. So in terms of the people leading the revolution, there’s no bourgeoisie that’s doing it, if by bourgeoisie we mean what today we call the bourgeoisie.
So what’s propelling the revolution forward? As I said, it wasn’t them at all. It was the French masses. It was the peasants and it was the urban artisans who were doing it.
Melissa Naschek
And like you said, they’re dragging people along with them who are gradually defecting, as they don’t like what the masses are increasingly demanding.
Vivek Chibber
That’s exactly right. Even if you think that the Third Estate inside the Estates General is bourgeois in the modern sense of the term, you just can’t say they were leading the revolution. What they were doing was responding to the revolution.
Melissa Naschek
What about the other component you mentioned? We’ve addressed the question of the causes. What about the effects?
Vivek Chibber
There is something of a case to be made that the effects are connected to the rise of capitalism, but it’s a very, very weak case. What does the revolution do? Well, it certainly sweeps away noble power and a lot of the arbitrary demands that were being made on peasants by landlords. And that looks like feudalism. And of course, if you sweep away the hallmarks of feudalism, you’ve laid the foundation for something else, which is called capitalism.
Seriam necessários mais setenta anos até que as mesmas forças sociais que impulsionavam essa revolução conseguissem acumular poder suficiente para, de fato, democratizar o país.
But the catch is the following: French agriculture didn’t really become what you would call capitalist agriculture, by which we mean either rural farms owned by landlords that they lease out to capitalist farmers, who in turn hire in wage labor, or middle farmers, middle peasants, or medium-sized farmers competing with each other on the market — and through that, accumulating land for themselves because some farmers are driven out of the market.
Melissa Naschek
Like the yeoman in English agriculture?
Vivek Chibber
Neither of those things happens. What happens, in fact, is that the revolution strengthens the property rights of French peasants, which is what the peasants wanted. But in so doing, it actually hinders the rise of a market in land.
Melissa Naschek
Interesting. Why?
Vivek Chibber
Because peasants do everything they can to hold onto their land. They’re not being consolidated. They’re not turning into large farmers through a process of competing dissolution of their farms. Nor do you get anything like a capitalist farmer class that is deploying the land to the use of wage labor.
What you get is what you might call petty commodity production that takes over French agriculture. And the result is, instead of having a dynamic growing agriculture the way you had in England, you have a fairly slow growing agriculture, which not only limits the growth of capitalism in the countryside but also puts very severe constraints on the growth of urban capitalism.
These small peasants who are hanging onto their land, who are not plowing back whatever surplus they have in a productive fashion, constrain the size of the domestic economic market. They constrain the size of the home market, which means that French manufacturers don’t really have a domestic market to sell to. And this is also very different from England, in which growth between 1600 and, say, the mid-1700s, up to the Industrial Revolution, is overwhelmingly driven by the domestic market.
So what you get in France after the revolution is, in some ways, a foundation for the ultimate rise of capitalism. But French agriculture and French manufacturing really don’t become identifiably capitalist and dynamic until the final quarter of the nineteenth century — that is after, say, 1870.
Now, if you’re going to say that an event in 1789 caused what happens in 1870, that’s a very large gap.
The other problem with that is, for that capitalism in the 1860s and ’70s to come about, it required a host of other measures on top of what had happened from 1790 to 1793. If nothing happened in between, maybe you could make the case that it was a lagged effect. That is, an effect which took a long time to play itself out. But in fact, the French state had to take all kinds of additional measures in the mid-century and later for capitalism to emerge.
So while there is some foundation for saying that the consequences of the revolution were that it unleashed capitalism, “unleashed” is the wrong word. You can just say that it took away some of the barriers to capitalism, but it still left intact and even strengthened other barriers to capitalism. So the revolution itself, I think both in terms of its causation and in terms of its consequences, cannot be characterized as a bourgeois revolution in the strict sense of the term.
Melissa Naschek
Why didn’t the peasantry reform the base of their economy so that it could be more efficient and more profitable?
Vivek Chibber
Peasants don’t care about that. They wanted to have security against the vagaries of the market. There’s not a country in the world where peasants willingly said, “Yeah, let’s have capitalism.” Because what capitalism is in its essence is people having to depend on the market for their survival. Nobody wants that. Everywhere where you’ve seen capitalism sweep through the countryside, it’s been against the resistance of the peasantry.
So the French peasants are no different from any other peasants. What they wanted was security. And what they wanted was freedom from illegitimate authority, which is what for a thousand years their landlords had been. They got that. They got their security and they got freedom from the landed classes, from the arbitrary exactions of the landed classes.
Regarding the macroeconomic consequences of that, no peasant thinks about that. They think about their family, their own future, their village, and how they’re going to live. So they were acting according to their material interests. It just had the consequence of leaving the French economy mired in a slow-growth regime for the next three generations.
So the idea of a bourgeois revolution doesn’t hold water. And this is not exclusively my view. This is where the consensus is among historians of the French Revolution and nineteenth-century French history, both to the left and the right, except as I said, for a few pockets of people who continue to hold onto it, but they haven’t met with a lot of success within the wider discipline.
The Revolution From Below
Melissa Naschek
Karl Marx was one of the thinkers who called the French Revolution a bourgeois revolution. If we’re saying that that’s not correct, can we still have a Marxist account of the French Revolution?
Vivek Chibber
I think so. You may not have a defensible description of the revolution as “bourgeois” in the sense that I’ve just said. But the essence of a Marxian account of history and politics is class analysis.
What you can legitimately say about the revolution — and again, here, everybody agrees — is that the revolution was propelled by a forcible intervention of the exploited classes into the whole process, primarily the peasantry but also the lower ranks of the artisans.
Some of these artisans are just owner operators; they’re not exploited. But there is a chunk of the French urban population that was in the ranks of the exploited workers: not strictly speaking proletarians, but smaller artisans who are forced to produce at suppressed prices so that some of their labor is being appropriated in the form of surplus.
If that’s the case, then what you have is not any longer a revolution that is a conflict between a rising bourgeoisie and a nobility, but a revolution that started out as an elite renegotiation and turned into a mass revolution because of exploited classes — or people in danger of being exploited, like the artisans — propelling it and forcing their demands on the agenda.
In many ways, this is a more firmly Marxian account than the classical one, because the most recognizably Marxist account of large historical events is through the prism of class struggle.
A fight between the bourgeoisie and the nobility isn’t class struggle. It’s an intra–exploiting classes or intra-elite conflict, not a conflict between exploiters and exploited. If you conceptualize the French Revolution as essentially being driven by the lower orders, then it becomes an event explained through class struggle. And what’s more Marxist than that?
Essentially, I think the verdict is that, while the word of Marx may have been mistaken in characterizing this aspect of the French Revolution, you can use his framework to correct his errors. And ultimately what you want is not to be a little religious sect that hangs onto every word of your founder — although a lot of Marxists see themselves doing exactly that. What you want is to see him as a brilliant person who launched a research program, and that research program actually can be used to correct some of the mistakes that he as a social scientist made in his own pronouncements.
Liberalism and Left Politics
Melissa Naschek
So now that we’ve talked about the economic dimension of the French Revolution, why don’t we come back to the other part that you raised about the French Revolution also being the onset of liberal democracy?
Vivek Chibber
Clearly it was not. What it did have were some elements of what we call republicanism: equality before the law, a restricted franchise, and a rolling back of arbitrary power on the part of the state and the nobility. It did have that.
But it also restricted democratic participation in myriad ways. Two important ones: After 1794, you got a return to the restricted franchise, which meant only people who held property or wealth above a certain threshold were allowed to vote, which meant that the vast majority of the French masses were now again pushed out of the political system.
And secondly, it instituted economic liberalism in such a way that it restricted people’s political freedoms as well. In particular, it outlawed economic associations like guilds.
Now, in some ways, that’s great. Guilds were an anti-capitalist, feudal institution. So it’s progressive banning them, but it also banned associations of workers. In France, unions were illegal throughout the nineteenth century.
So the French political economy is one in which the poor do not have any entrée into the state, nor are they allowed to organize themselves as workers. That’s not a liberal political order.
Melissa Naschek
It’s just more liberal than it was before.
Vivek Chibber
Let’s just say it’s less authoritarian than it was before. But the way I would describe it is that it’s no longer a feudal oligarchy. It’s a bourgeois oligarchy.
“Bourgeois” in the sense that the state is increasingly looking like a state that is now overseeing a liberal economy. The problem is that the liberal economy is constrained by French agriculture, which is still very backward, petty production. It’s constrained by a very small home market that can’t sustain manufacturing. And so urban manufacturing is also constrained.
Legally, you’ve got a defensive property, but economically, the property isn’t generating anything like a modern surplus economy. So economically, it’s a bourgeois state. It’s preserving rights. Politically, it is very much an oligarchy. That’s why I call it a bourgeois oligarchy.
And it’s not until later in the nineteenth century that you finally get trade unions legalized. And it’s not until the turn of the century that you get actual democratic rights across the board for French people.
Therefore, the idea that the French Revolution put a liberal bourgeois democratic order into place is really quite mistaken.
Melissa Naschek
Paralleling the idea that you talked about, that the French Revolution “unleashed” the capitalist economic order, can we instead argue for this idea that the French Revolution unleashed or sowed the seeds of liberal democracy?
Vivek Chibber
It legitimizes and institutionalizes, in a very narrow sense, the idea that there has to be equality before the law, and that offices in the state — public offices, political offices — should not be distributed on the basis of rank or birth or nobility. That’s a big step. That’s not trivial at all.
But there are two things you have to remember about this. That is only institutionalized through mass pressure. So it’s class struggle that puts it in place. And the reason it remains partial is that the class struggle failed at that time.
And it takes another seventy, even a hundred years before those same social forces that were propelling this revolution — urban and rural social forces — are able to gather enough power and enough leverage for themselves to actually democratize the country. So, in my view, you should see the French Revolution as a very important break from the premodern economic and political order. But it should be seen as the opening act in a longer saga of democratization and the enfranchisement of the masses of people into the state, which took decades of further struggle to actually bring to fruition.
It was the event that inspired people, that motivated them, that gave them a picture of something new. The very fact that you had universal suffrage, even if only for a year, inside the French Republic; the very fact that you had The Declaration of the Rights of Man. These became absolutely crucial cultural and political anchors for struggles that came down the line. And that’s why it remains an absolutely pivotal event in the modern era.
Melissa Naschek
Acho, na verdade, até animador que não se trate de uma revolução burguesa, mas sim de uma revolução liderada pelas massas.
Vivek Chibber
E isso não deveria causar surpresa. Como eu disse, essa é também outra maneira de utilizarmos a estrutura teórica de Marx para corrigir afirmações que ele próprio possa ter feito.
Devemos desconfiar um pouco da ideia de que uma classe de proprietários mobiliza grandes massas de pessoas sob seu comando para destruir outra forma de propriedade — no caso, a propriedade feudal. Nunca vimos isso acontecer. Não conheço nenhum caso em que isso tenha realmente ocorrido.
É menos surpreendente quando vemos a destruição da propriedade vindo de baixo, realizada por pessoas que exigem essa destruição porque são elas as prejudicadas por ela.
Então, o que é a política socialista hoje? A política socialista consiste em tentar organizar os trabalhadores explorados para acabar com as formas de propriedade que os exploram.
A interpretação tradicional marxista — e a da Terceira Internacional — sobre a revolução burguesa era peculiar, pois colocava no centro da ação pessoas das camadas médias ou superiores, que era como eles concebiam a burguesia. A burguesia é uma classe exploradora — mesmo nessa estrutura teórica marxista distorcida — que, neste caso, busca derrubar outra facção das classes exploradoras mobilizando pessoas das camadas populares.
Se essa é a sua visão de política, ela é extremamente paternalista. Basicamente, ela sugere que as massas foram enganadas para agir dessa forma. E, depois de cumprirem seu papel, são forçadas pela burguesia a retornar à submissão.
Essa visão não é apenas factualmente incorreta; é também uma compreensão bastante deprimente da forma como se pretende fazer política.
Por outro lado, se encararmos a Revolução Francesa como um evento em que camponeses e trabalhadores assumem o protagonismo — algo que não estava previsto para eles — e se tornam o motor do processo, isso nos oferece um paralelo com o que tentamos fazer hoje. O Estado burguês também é constituído, primordialmente, por disputas internas entre as elites políticas e econômicas sobre a maneira como exercerão o poder. E coisas como a social-democracia e reformas progressistas só surgiram no século XX quando os trabalhadores intervieram de forma contundente para levar a agenda política além do que as elites pretendiam.
Nesse sentido, a Revolução Francesa oferece lições reais sobre como fazer política hoje, pois trata-se do mesmo tipo de política, ainda que as épocas sejam diferentes.
Colaboradores
Vivek Chibber é professor de sociologia na Universidade de Nova York. Ele é editor da Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy.
Melissa Naschek é membro da organização Democratic Socialists of America (Socialistas Democráticos da América).
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