#saw there was some discussion going on about whether the frev was bourgeois or not
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sparvverius · 8 months ago
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"The French Revolution, therefore, assumes a unique place in the history of the contemporary world. As the classic bourgeois revolution, abolishing feudalism and the seigneurial system, it forms the point of departure for capitalist society and liberal democracy in the history of France. As a revolution of the peasants and the masses, and therefore uncompromisingly antifeudal, it twice transcended its bourgeois limits: first during Year II, an experiment which, though necessarily doomed to fail, long retained its power as a prophetic example; then with the Conspiracy of the Equals, an episode that marks the birth of present-day revolutionary thought and action. These essential characteristics probably explain the vain efforts that have been made to deny the true historical nature and the specific social and national character of the French Revolution, for it is a fertile and dangerous precedent. Hence also the shudder that the French Revolution sent throughout the world, and the continued reverberation that it arouses in men's minds even today. The very memory of it is revolutionary, and stirs us still."
-Albert Soboul, A Short History of the French Revolution, 1789-1799
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