1848 revolutions: Difference between revisions
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Kropotkin later commented on how the revolution spread across national borders: “No sooner had it broken out in Rome than it spread to France, to Vienna, to Berlin.”<ref> Peter Kropotkin, “1848-1871” in ''Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology'', ed. Iain McKay (Oakland: AK Press, 2014), 431.</ref> The revolutions spread to parts of Latin America, with uprisings in New Granana and Brazil.<ref>''Wikipedia'', “Revolutions of 1848.”</ref> World-systems analyst Immanuel Wallerstein refers to the “world revolution” of 1848.<ref>Wallerstein, ''World-Systems Analysis'', 63-64.</ref> | Kropotkin later commented on how the revolution spread across national borders: “No sooner had it broken out in Rome than it spread to France, to Vienna, to Berlin.”<ref> Peter Kropotkin, “1848-1871” in ''Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology'', ed. Iain McKay (Oakland: AK Press, 2014), 431.</ref> The revolutions spread to parts of Latin America, with uprisings in New Granana and Brazil.<ref>''Wikipedia'', “Revolutions of 1848.”</ref> World-systems analyst Immanuel Wallerstein refers to the “world revolution” of 1848.<ref>Wallerstein, ''World-Systems Analysis'', 63-64.</ref> | ||
One lesson that many radicals learned from the revolutions was the need to organize independently from bourgeois democrats. | One lesson that many radicals learned from the revolutions was the need to organize independently from bourgeois democrats. Initially, Marx and Engels urged radicals to subordinate themselves to bourgeois parties, and they joined Germany's Democratic Association of Cologne which adopted such a strategy. However, they questioned this approach upon seeing such developments as the Frankfurt Assembly capitulating to monarchists and Prussian troops repressing workers and peasants. In April 1849, Marx resigned from the Democratic Association, and in his 1850 Address to the Commmunist League he advocated that workers organize independently toward a "[[Permanent revolution|revolution in permanence]]" that seeks full social liberation.<ref>Michael Löwy, ''The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution'' (London: Verso and NLB, 1981), 12-15. ''The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition'', ed. Robert Tucker, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978), 511.</ref> | ||
=Paris= | =Paris= | ||
Food shortages, economic crisis, soaring unemployment, and | Food shortages, economic crisis, soaring unemployment, and years of socialist agitation sparked unrest in Paris by February 1848. Workers criticized the government at public banquets and organized into reform clubs and secret societies. Rebellious members of the National Guard planned a banquet with an admission price low enough that working-class masses could attend and use the occasion to denounce the monarchy. The state intervened, installing a conservative committee to plan and co-opt the banquet. This new committee raised the admission price and rescheduled the picnic from a Sunday to a weekday. The day before the planned event, the government banned it and all public meetings in Paris.<ref>Murray Bookchin, ''The Third Revolution: Popular Movements in the Revolutionary Era, Volume 2'', 80-84.</ref> | ||
On 22 February, the day after the banquet’s cancellation, | On 22 February, the day after the banquet’s cancellation, Parisian workers went on strike and students protested. Parisians set up barricades. The following day, the president Francois Guizot stepped down. As a crowd gathered to celebrate the president’s dismissal that night, the National Guard opened fire and killed 52 people. Increasing numbers of guards discarded their posts and joined the rebels. They replaced cries of “Long live the king” with “Long live reform.” By the end of the 24th, the king Louis-Philippe fled to England.<ref>Bookchin, ‘’The Third Revolution, Vol. 2.’’, 85-92.</ref> | ||
On the 24th, the King abdicated. Rebels entered the Parliament chamber and declared a Provisional Government with two Socialist secretaries, Louis Blanc and Albert.<ref>Iain McKaye, "The 1848 Revolutions: An Anarchist Perspective," ''Anarchist Writers'', https://anarchism.pageabode.com/the-1848-revolutions-an-anarchist-perspective/.</ref> | |||
On the 25th, Alexis de Toqueville spent the day in Paris and saw no authority figures: no police, no soldiers, no Guardsmen. “Throughout the whole day in Paris I never saw one of the former agents of authority: not a soldier, not a gendarme, nor a policeman; even the National Guard had vanished. The people alone bore arms, guarded public buildings, watched, commanded and punished; it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see the whole of this huge city in the hands of those who owned nothing.”<ref>Quoted in Chris Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium’’ (London: Verso, 2008), 335.</ref> | On the 25th, Alexis de Toqueville spent the day in Paris and saw no authority figures: no police, no soldiers, no Guardsmen. “Throughout the whole day in Paris I never saw one of the former agents of authority: not a soldier, not a gendarme, nor a policeman; even the National Guard had vanished. The people alone bore arms, guarded public buildings, watched, commanded and punished; it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see the whole of this huge city in the hands of those who owned nothing.”<ref>Quoted in Chris Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium’’ (London: Verso, 2008), 335.</ref> | ||
On the 26th, the government repealed restrictions on assembly, and throughout the Paris area 100,000 people joined over 200 political clubs.<ref>McKaye, "1848 Revolutions."</ref> The provisional government reduced the work day by one and a half hours, and they implemented national workshops that gave jobs to the unemployed. However, hastily held elections in April, giving radicals scarce time to campaign, put a conservative government in charge which sacked the two socialist secretaries and put an end to various social programs. On 21 June, they got rid of the national workshops.<ref>Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 338-339.</ref> | |||
From 23 to 26 June, radical workers once again took up arms and demanded a “democratic and social republic” that would complete the revolution betrayed by the provisional government. About 40,000 insurgents took part, including women who in some cases fought along the men in the barricades. The provisional government sent out all the firepower it had to brutally crush the uprising. The moderate republicans killed an estimated 400 to 500 radical revolutionaries and arrested 12,000.<ref>Bookchin, ‘’The Third Revolution, Vol. 2’’, 144, 156. Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 339-340.</ref> | From 23 to 26 June, radical workers once again took up arms and demanded a “democratic and social republic” that would complete the revolution betrayed by the provisional government. About 40,000 insurgents took part, including women who in some cases fought along the men in the barricades. The provisional government sent out all the firepower it had to brutally crush the uprising. The moderate republicans killed an estimated 400 to 500 radical revolutionaries and arrested 12,000.<ref>Bookchin, ‘’The Third Revolution, Vol. 2’’, 144, 156. Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 339-340.</ref> | ||
Not long after the massacre, Napoleon’s nephew Louis Bonaparte ran for president of France and won. At his term’s end, in 1851, he launched a coup, and the next year he declared himself emperor, bringing an end to France’s brief period of universal manhood suffrage.<ref>Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 339.</ref> Some moderate rebels such as Victor Hugo, who had just overseen the June 1848 massacre, | Not long after the massacre, Napoleon’s nephew Louis Bonaparte ran for president of France and won. At his term’s end, in 1851, he launched a coup, and the next year he declared himself emperor, bringing an end to France’s brief period of universal manhood suffrage.<ref>Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 339.</ref> Some moderate rebels such as Victor Hugo, who had just overseen the June 1848 massacre, urged workers to rise up against Napoleon III and defend the revolution. The masses “turned him a deaf ear,” Crimethinc summarizes: “Why should they risk their lives to preserve the authority of the Republicans who had massacred them last time they rose against their oppressors?”<ref>Crimethinc, “The Democracy of the Reaction, 1848-2011,” 23 July 2016, https://crimethinc.com/2016/06/23/the-democracy-of-the-reaction-1848-2011.</ref> | ||
Anarchist economist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon fought behind the barricades, printed one of the revolution's first posters, and wrote revolutionary pamphlets. He called for "a revolution from below, from true democracy." One June 4th, he was elected to the National Assembly and in 1849 he helped establish a briefly-lived Bank of the People. In retaliation for public criticism, Bonaparte imprisoned Proudhon for three years beginning June 1849.<ref>McKaye, "1848 Revolutions."</ref> | |||
<references/> | <references/> | ||
Latest revision as of 02:06, 16 December 2024
In 1848, revolution broke out in fifty countries around the world, and although revolutionaries did not succeed in holding onto state power, their efforts transformed political common sense. Over subsequent decades, political radicalism became a widely-known force and radical policies such as universal primary education became implemented almost everywhere.[1] According to Wikipedia, “Significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of parliamentary democracy in the Netherlands.”[2]
Kropotkin later commented on how the revolution spread across national borders: “No sooner had it broken out in Rome than it spread to France, to Vienna, to Berlin.”[3] The revolutions spread to parts of Latin America, with uprisings in New Granana and Brazil.[4] World-systems analyst Immanuel Wallerstein refers to the “world revolution” of 1848.[5]
One lesson that many radicals learned from the revolutions was the need to organize independently from bourgeois democrats. Initially, Marx and Engels urged radicals to subordinate themselves to bourgeois parties, and they joined Germany's Democratic Association of Cologne which adopted such a strategy. However, they questioned this approach upon seeing such developments as the Frankfurt Assembly capitulating to monarchists and Prussian troops repressing workers and peasants. In April 1849, Marx resigned from the Democratic Association, and in his 1850 Address to the Commmunist League he advocated that workers organize independently toward a "revolution in permanence" that seeks full social liberation.[6]
Paris
Food shortages, economic crisis, soaring unemployment, and years of socialist agitation sparked unrest in Paris by February 1848. Workers criticized the government at public banquets and organized into reform clubs and secret societies. Rebellious members of the National Guard planned a banquet with an admission price low enough that working-class masses could attend and use the occasion to denounce the monarchy. The state intervened, installing a conservative committee to plan and co-opt the banquet. This new committee raised the admission price and rescheduled the picnic from a Sunday to a weekday. The day before the planned event, the government banned it and all public meetings in Paris.[7]
On 22 February, the day after the banquet’s cancellation, Parisian workers went on strike and students protested. Parisians set up barricades. The following day, the president Francois Guizot stepped down. As a crowd gathered to celebrate the president’s dismissal that night, the National Guard opened fire and killed 52 people. Increasing numbers of guards discarded their posts and joined the rebels. They replaced cries of “Long live the king” with “Long live reform.” By the end of the 24th, the king Louis-Philippe fled to England.[8]
On the 24th, the King abdicated. Rebels entered the Parliament chamber and declared a Provisional Government with two Socialist secretaries, Louis Blanc and Albert.[9]
On the 25th, Alexis de Toqueville spent the day in Paris and saw no authority figures: no police, no soldiers, no Guardsmen. “Throughout the whole day in Paris I never saw one of the former agents of authority: not a soldier, not a gendarme, nor a policeman; even the National Guard had vanished. The people alone bore arms, guarded public buildings, watched, commanded and punished; it was an extraordinary and terrible thing to see the whole of this huge city in the hands of those who owned nothing.”[10]
On the 26th, the government repealed restrictions on assembly, and throughout the Paris area 100,000 people joined over 200 political clubs.[11] The provisional government reduced the work day by one and a half hours, and they implemented national workshops that gave jobs to the unemployed. However, hastily held elections in April, giving radicals scarce time to campaign, put a conservative government in charge which sacked the two socialist secretaries and put an end to various social programs. On 21 June, they got rid of the national workshops.[12]
From 23 to 26 June, radical workers once again took up arms and demanded a “democratic and social republic” that would complete the revolution betrayed by the provisional government. About 40,000 insurgents took part, including women who in some cases fought along the men in the barricades. The provisional government sent out all the firepower it had to brutally crush the uprising. The moderate republicans killed an estimated 400 to 500 radical revolutionaries and arrested 12,000.[13]
Not long after the massacre, Napoleon’s nephew Louis Bonaparte ran for president of France and won. At his term’s end, in 1851, he launched a coup, and the next year he declared himself emperor, bringing an end to France’s brief period of universal manhood suffrage.[14] Some moderate rebels such as Victor Hugo, who had just overseen the June 1848 massacre, urged workers to rise up against Napoleon III and defend the revolution. The masses “turned him a deaf ear,” Crimethinc summarizes: “Why should they risk their lives to preserve the authority of the Republicans who had massacred them last time they rose against their oppressors?”[15]
Anarchist economist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon fought behind the barricades, printed one of the revolution's first posters, and wrote revolutionary pamphlets. He called for "a revolution from below, from true democracy." One June 4th, he was elected to the National Assembly and in 1849 he helped establish a briefly-lived Bank of the People. In retaliation for public criticism, Bonaparte imprisoned Proudhon for three years beginning June 1849.[16]
- ↑ Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004), 63-64. David Graeber, The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013), 274-275.
- ↑ Wikipedia, “Revolutions of 1848,” accessed 2 September 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848.
- ↑ Peter Kropotkin, “1848-1871” in Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology, ed. Iain McKay (Oakland: AK Press, 2014), 431.
- ↑ Wikipedia, “Revolutions of 1848.”
- ↑ Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis, 63-64.
- ↑ Michael Löwy, The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution (London: Verso and NLB, 1981), 12-15. The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition, ed. Robert Tucker, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978), 511.
- ↑ Murray Bookchin, The Third Revolution: Popular Movements in the Revolutionary Era, Volume 2, 80-84.
- ↑ Bookchin, ‘’The Third Revolution, Vol. 2.’’, 85-92.
- ↑ Iain McKaye, "The 1848 Revolutions: An Anarchist Perspective," Anarchist Writers, https://anarchism.pageabode.com/the-1848-revolutions-an-anarchist-perspective/.
- ↑ Quoted in Chris Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium’’ (London: Verso, 2008), 335.
- ↑ McKaye, "1848 Revolutions."
- ↑ Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 338-339.
- ↑ Bookchin, ‘’The Third Revolution, Vol. 2’’, 144, 156. Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 339-340.
- ↑ Harman, ‘’A People’s History of the World’’, 339.
- ↑ Crimethinc, “The Democracy of the Reaction, 1848-2011,” 23 July 2016, https://crimethinc.com/2016/06/23/the-democracy-of-the-reaction-1848-2011.
- ↑ McKaye, "1848 Revolutions."
