The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton Classic Editions)
by Georges Lefebvre
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Book Summary Information
Author: Georges LefebvreIntroduction: Timothy Tackett
Translator: R. R. Palmer
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-07-18
ISBN: 0691121885
Number of pages: 280
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Book Reviews of The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton Classic Editions)
Book Review: THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Summary: 4 Stars
In my study of revolutions I have always been interested in two basic questions- what were the ideas swirling around prior to the revolution that influenced people to see the need for revolution and the related question of how those ideas played out in the struggle for power. The study of the French Revolution most clearly presents those two phenomena in all their manifestations. Professor Lefebvre was a well-known and in his time a pre-eminent, if not the pre-eminent bourgeois historian of the French Revolution. I have reviewed his major general work on the French revolution elsewhere. Here, in this shorter work, he presents the events of 1789 as they unfolded and an analysis of what they meant in the period immediately before the revolution when all hell was breaking loose in French society.
If one can talk legitimately about a sociology of revolutions then Professor LeFebvre has dramatically vindicated such sociology by presenting all of the factors that goes toward such a study in the early period of the French revolutionary experience. Clearly the Old Regime, represented in the person of King Louis XI, was no longer capable of ruling in the old way and the `people' were no longer satisfied, for a myriad of reasons, with being governed under the premise of the divine right of kings. The struggle to turn from subjects of a monarch to citizens of a republic, a question of capital historic importance in human experience, finds its most dramatic expression in this revolution. Furthermore, vast segments of society from the liberal nobility and clergy to the nascent bourgeoisie to the working classes (the so-called sans culottes and other plebian urban elements) to the various layers of the peasantry each in their turn were willing to unite around that premise. As clearly, once each class (or part of a class) gained its ends it turned against further extension of the revolution and in the case of the nobility and clergy very shortly turned toward counterrevolution. Professor LeFebvre documents this trend very well, especially in the case of the peasantry which he had special knowledge of and charted throughout his academic career.
This writer has set himself the task of trying to analyze and review each book of revolutionary experiences he considers on the basis of what lessons militant leftists can learn from the study of the old historical experiences. With that task in mind I was once again reminded by reading this book that the notion of the Popular Front as a political strategy has a lot longer history than in the France of the 1920's and 1930's when it was first formally introduced through by the French Socialist Party in an electoral alliance with the Left Radical bourgeois party.
What do I mean by Popular Front? The theory of the popular front has been presented by forces such as the Socialist parties and later the Communist parties as a step in the direction of revolution. The premise of the popular front revolves around a belief that various classes, capitalist, urban and rural middle class and working class can come together around a minimum social program that will somehow make the plight of the oppressed classes involved less oppressive. Generally, in such political blocs the oppressed classes do the donkey work and the other classes reap whatever benefits accrue from the taking of power. This, moreover, is basically a concept of a parliamentary path to socialism.
The long sordid history of this political device as an attempted sop by political leaderships to the working masses on one hand and a betrayal of their class interests on the other are still with us today. Even in the United States this strategy is used by what passes for the left, on its own hook mind you, when it blocs with the left-wing of the capitalist Democratic Party. Under the best of circumstances a popular front weakens and undermines the independence of the working classes. However, also remember that the Popular Front, as France and Spain in the 1930's, Chile in the 1970's and many other example show, can lead to bloody repression and destruction of the working masses for a long time. In modern times militant leftists say no to popular front ideology.
Well, that said, what does all this have to do with the French Revolution. The French Revolution of 1789 represents in almost pure form the concept of the popular front. As mentioned above several different classes were ready to take down the absolute monarchy and furthermore were generally ready to subordinate, at least for a time, their own interests to do this. This begs the question of what the attitude of militants should be toward that phenomenon in 1789. Today we say no to the popular front concept but then we would have supported such a concept with both hands. Why? At that time the nature of French society, the tasks that needed to be accomplished around the creation of a nation-state and given the immaturity of the working classes both socially and politically a socialist solution to the problems of the day was precluded. While our sympathies historically go to the sans culottes who then and later were the vanguard that pushed the revolution to the left and we honor Robespierre and after him Babeuf and the Conspiracy of Equals in 1789 militants then could have politically supported the popular front against the absolute monarchy. Later, of course, as the revolution pushed leftward under Robespierre we would have united with him and the left elements of the bourgeoisie but we would nevertheless still have fought under the sign of the popular front then as well. Popular Front, 1789- Yes. Today- No. Read on.
Summary of The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton Classic Editions)
This classic work details what happened in France during the year 1789, the first year of the French Revolution. First published in 1939 for the sesquicentennial of the Revolution, the book was suppressed by the Vichy government after the outbreak of the Second World War and the subsequent collapse of the Third Republic. Since most copies of the original French edition were destroyed, the work remained virtually unknown until Princeton University Press published R. R. Palmer's English translation in 1947. This new edition includes an introduction by Timothy Tackett that provides a short intellectual biography of Georges Lefebvre and a critical appraisal of the book after the research and reassessment of three generations of historians.
In 1939, in observation of the 150th anniversary of the French Revolution, and on the eve of the Second World War, the great French historian Georges Lefebvre published this classic study of the beginnings of the French Revolution, from the summer of 1788 to October 1789. Lefebvre's signature contribution was writing history "from below"--a Marxist approach--and his particular specialty was the French Revolution as viewed from the experiences of the peasantry. Placing the "common people" at the center of his analysis, Lefebvre emphasized the class struggles within France and the significant role they played in the coming of the Revolution. With the beginning of World War II and the rise of the Vichy government in France, however, Lefebvre's book was suppressed and burned as a piece of blasphemous and revolutionary literature.
R. R. Palmer, himself a distinguished historian of the French Revolution, translated the book into English, earning it widespread readership and recognition in the Anglo-American world. Although recent historians have reinterpreted the Revolution and disputed Lefebvre's conclusions, The Coming of the French Revolution remains essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of this great turning point in the formation of the modern world. More important, as Palmer pointed out, studying the origins of the French Revolution broadens contemporary understanding of democracy, dictatorship, and revolution.
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