The "Reign of Terror" which never took place and other misconceptions about the French Revolution

[loup99]

I would argue, that the Reign of Terror is a historical fact.

You would be wrong to argue that, given that the expression was coined by opponents of Robespierre who themselves had been active protagonists at the heart of the Convention and its committees already before his death. If you can't have a minimal critical distance towards the sources, who says what or not, then you will have a hard time establishing any "historical facts", you will establish the Thermidorians version of the events. Which is naturally interesting on its own, and one interpretation which was used with a clear political aim.

What did Robespierre say in February 1794 about Terror?

„La terreur n’est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible ; elle est donc une émanation de la vertu ; elle est moins un principe particulier, qu’une conséquence du principe général de la démocratie, appliqué aux plus pressants besoins de la patrie“

(“Terror is nothing but swift, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is less a particular principle, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the homeland ")

Are you seriously requoting what I already commented in the opening post?

As for the word "terror" having been employed by the actors of the time, a few words as well to give more details. The revolutionaries refused to instate "terror on the order of the day", but in the rhetoric spoke about "inspiring terror" upon the "ennemies to justice". As shown by French historian Jean-Clément Martin, the belief that you should inspire "terror" is rooted in Antiquity, and that was the sense used by Robespierre when he spoke about inspiring terror to the ennemies of the Republic. Ultimately, "The Terror" with a capital "t", as forged by Thermidorians to attack and blame Robespierre for responsibilities he did not have, is not the same thing as using the word "terror". The invention of this term gave a name to a period which did not have any. There had been acts of considerable violence, like the Massacres of September or the war in Vendée, but up until the death of Robespierre he himself and the National Convention explicitly refused to say France had entered a "regime of terror".

Once more "Terror" with a capital t as coined by Thermidorians, is confused with "terror" with a small "t" as used by Robespierre in the antique sense. Unless you also accuse antique authors of having instituted a "Reign of Terror"? Employing the word "terror" at one point does not constitute proof of also instituting it as a system of government.

If Terror is nothing but swift, severe and inflexible justice, then the Law of the 22nd Prairial is the embodiment of Terror. The Law targeted the "Enemy of the People". And since even a flimsy accusation of "impairing the purity of the revolutionary principles" or "depraving morals" could lead to a Trial, the only sentence if found guilty was death and the right to a defense attorney was annulled, basically anyone could fall as of now. The results were predictable: Increase of executions, decrease of acquittals. Robespierre (together with Couthon) crafted that Law while the Thermidorians put it out of effect.

The law of Prairial passed before Robespierre died, and then remained in effect for two days afterwards. Chronologically, the 22 Prairial is the 10th June 1794 in the Gregorian calendar, Robespierre dies on the 28th of July 1794, while the law was repealed on the 1st of August. With this in mind, Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just and the 107 others were executed after having been proclaimed hors-la-loi (outside the law) by the Revolutionary Tribunal while the law of Prairial was still in effect. The increase of executions in Paris in particular is due to the centralisation of trials in the capital, the executions decreased elsewhere. The height of repression during Robespierre's life isn't even in Paris in July 1794, it is in Lyon, Toulon or Nantes in the winter of 1793-1794, as Hervé Leuwers points out. The decrease of executions across the country outside the capital is an important fact you omit to mention, creating a certain bias.

While the law of Prairial was repealed on the 1st of August by the Thermidorians, the law on suspects wasn't, the revolutionnary government was maintained and the Revolutionary Tribunal was still active. It is in September 1794 that things start changing in terms of convictions, even if a trend was already ongoing during the Summer. The problem with your argument is that you make it seem that a "system of terror" had been instituted when the law of Prairial was enacted. Yet no legislator at the time had the aim of instituting any "reign" or "system", Robespierre himself explicitly refused to do so on the 5th of September 1793 and then several times until his death. On top of that, if Robespierre's explicit rejection isn't enough, it goes without saying that you can't base your affirmation solely upon a general discourse of Robespierre about "terror" and "virtue" that predates the law of Prairial, and you are just copying accusations from 1794-1795 against Robespierre without the critical distance necessary.

In short: The Terror was real. Denying that is just whitewashing Robespierre for probably ideological reasons.

No one denied that Robespierre in his discourses used the word "terror" with a minor t. Nor did anyone deny the revolutionnary government instituted a series a exceptional measures. Neither did anyone here deny the nature of the law of Prairial, the law of suspects or the Revolutionary Tribunal. What was pointed out is that the Thermidorians coined the "Reign of Terror" or "Terror" with a capital t in French, therefore it can not be used as if it were just "historical fact" without presenting the associated context.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

So let me get this straight, please:

Terror isn't 'Terror' if it is 'terror' because 'Terror' is a false accusation by the political opponents of 'terror' who use the name 'Terror' to miscategorize the reign of a misunderstood ideological hero of a certain faction, Robespierre. And Robespierre believed in 'terror' not 'Terror' so he wasn't nearly as bad as people make him out to be. This is true, therefore I am.

Allow me to fine tune that lens and just trade out a word for your to ponder. And if the word choice annoys you, please consider it compensation with my compliments as payback for the verbal gymnastics you display above where you list an extensive bibliography but show little aptitude taking White and Black to create shades of grey:

There was no 'Holocaust' because Adolf Hitler never said the word 'Holocaust'. Sure, there was a 'holocaust' because some over-zealous junior Nazis maybe killed a Jew here or there. Or Major Rudolf Lange of Heydrich's SD Einsatzgruppen stood by and allowed hordes of Latvians rip the Jews apart with their bare hands in Riga but the Nazis didn't kill them. In fact, Hitler publicly and privately declared to many people in Germany that such a thing as killing all the Jews could never happen. Hitler never visited a work camp, he had no idea what was going on there. Sure, some Jews were Emigrated to the East and then Evacuated, but they were never killed because the word 'killed' was expressly forbidden to be uttered. The Endlosung's reality has nothing to do with the 'Holocaust' as a marketing term falsely used by the enemies of Hitler to accuse him of crimes he did not commit. And Hitler especially didn't kill Gelli Rabaul with a handgun in his Munich apartment. The enemies of the Nazis dubbed this the Holocaust, the 'wholly burnt offering', as a false political attack against Adolf Hitler - a true misunderstood genius who just wanted to build roads and fill museums with art. So 'holocaust' yes; 'Holocaust' no. Heil. My ideology tells me it is true, and my ideology does not lie.

That is the argument you are making, splitting hairs to the nth degree to prove a point you yourself want to make, and it rings hollow with others.

The 'Terror' is a marketing term BRANDED into the image of the lines of 'Citizens' lined up to await the kiss of 'Madame Guillotine'. Call it what you want, a pile of dead bodies is a pile of dead bodies. It will remain 'The Terror'. Robespierre will continue to be reviled by everyone not drinking from your cup of kool-aid.

Perhaps your goal is the rehabilitation of Robespierre for reasons known only to you, and I think this is the case based on previous comments, and your first step is to remove the 'terror' from 'Terror'. What did Stucki say, you are ideologically driven to make the argument? Whatever, he seems to have your number and is correct on all counts. Then there are those who rise up against Holocaust denial, and Terror by any other name smells just as foul - then and now. One might expect the same results.

(BTW, full disclosure before the sarcasm is lost in translation >yes, I can state factually this has happened before with unfortunate results<. Hitler gave a verbal order, Fat Hermann gave a written order vaguely giving authority to Heydrich, Heydrich built the gun and pulled the trigger, Gestapo Mueller and Eichmann sped the trains along. )

 

[loup99]

It is absolutely inacceptable that you compare historical research on the French Revolution with Holocaust denial. There is absolutely no sarcasm in the Holocaust or people denying it and no jokes to be had out of it. I ask you to retract the comparison immediately, which is purely insulting. Your level of disrespect, now for victims of the Holocaust, after having been targeted to the topic at hand and the posters involved, reaches new heights. You already made it clear the French Revolution didn't interest you a few pages ago, mocking the bibliography and major historians because they wrote in French. Now you made it clear you think the lives of millions of people ruthlessly eliminated by Hitler are somehow worthy of sarcasm. Mediate on what your "sarcasm" means for the victims before coming with any other disgraceful jokes.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

It is absolutely inacceptable that you compare historical research on the French Revolution with Holocaust denial. There is absolutely no sarcasm in the Holocaust and no jokes to be had out of it. I ask you to retract the comparison immediately, which is purely insulting. Your level of disrespect, both for the topic at hand, for victims of the Holocaust, and for the posters involved, reaches new heights. You already made it clear the French Revolution didn't interest you a few pages ago, mocking the bibliography and major historians because they wrote in French. Now you made it clear you think the lives of millions of people ruthlessly eliminated by Hitler are somehow worthy of sarcasm. Mediate on what your "sarcasm" means for the victims before coming with any other disgraceful jokes.

We are discussing the verbal gymnastics between 'T'error and 't'error as a compare and contrast using 'H'olocaust and 'h'olocaust. It is a literary argument, not a comparison of bloodflow. It is your inability to bend an argument that is getting you in trouble again.

If you don't like it, I might remind you that it is your argument handed back to you.

The French Revolution is not a Jewish Pogrom, but the denial incorporated into their respective rhetorical devices mirror one another nicely. As to my diminishment of the Jews slaughtered by the Shoah, nice try but a hollow comment if ever there was one.

 

[loup99]

verbal gymnastics between 'T'error and 't'error

Do you seriously call Jean-Clément Martin's work on the concept of "terror" verbal gymnastics? When Stucki literally made an out of context quote from Robespierre in February 1794, at a time when, as Martin points out, Robespierre explicitly rejects entering a system of terror? There is a big difference between using the word terror in a given context, to refer to inspiring it upon so-called "ennemies of the Republic", and proclaim terror as a system of government. The latter, in the eyes of Robespierre and the Thermidorians, would have been an act of despotism, reflecting Robespierre as a dictator. That is why the Thermidorians made that association, to give credibility to the claim of Robespierre alone having been a despotic monster. In the discussion it was already explained that Robespierre didn't have the power of a despot in the antique sense (one of several in the Committee, long absences, monthly accountability). It was a parliamentary system with no checks on Parliament (régime d'assemblée in French) and a constant state of emergency, not a personal dictatorship. Where there can be an ambiguity in Robespierre's discourse is when he refers to using methods of despotism against the ennemies of liberty, but he also insists it should remain limited use. The problem with singling out Robespierre on that is that many Thermidorians approved this rhetoric, and several of them went further than Robespierre as representatives on mission. That is a part of the nuance which gets lost when you take one quote without contextualising.

We are discussing [...] as a compare and contrast using 'H'olocaust and 'h'olocaust.

No, there is no "we", I never did sarcasm on Holocaust denial. Don't drag me into your sarcasm which amounts to disrespect for the victims of the Holocaust, that is just you.

It is a literary argument, not a comparison of bloodflow. It is your inability to bend an argument that is getting you in trouble again.

You can't excuse your abusive comparison with sarcasm. You don't do sarcasm on genocides and their apologist, no matter the literary context. This isn't about me, I'm fortunate enough to not have been alive at the time, it is about all of those who were directly affected, had families and friends who were. Consider them next time before making such shortcuts.

If you don't like it, I might remind you that it is your argument handed back to you.

No it is not at all, I never made any such comparison and never will in the future either.

The French Revolution is not a Jewish Pogrom, but the denial incorporated into their respective rhetorical devices mirror one another nicely.

What? This implies I deny the French Revolution... Naturally I don't, and even less the violent events which took place during it. In fact I'm the one in the thread who has detailed the most of the events, several others skipped the September massacres or Vendée because it didn't fit in with the dates of their chronology. I went back as early as 1788 in terms of violence, and underlined that the worst violence took place outside Paris, in cities like Lyon or Nantes in the winter of 1793-1794 (let alone the civil war in Vendée of course). What I'm doing is pointing out that we should always be critical towards terms and periods forged afterwards, just like we should be critical when someone calls Stalin "Father of Nations", because it is a part of a public discourse to influence public opinion and the sources reflect that. That is why the idea of a "reign of Terror" should be deconstructed and the periodisation questioned. The Holocaust was not forged afterwards, it was consciously crafted as a system during, and it thankfully ended after WW2, even though pogroms sadly did not end there.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Do you seriously call Jean-Clément Martin's work on the concept of "terror" verbal gymnastics?

I cannot speak for this author, but I can claim to have seen you do a few loup d'loup's of verbal alacrity to arrive at a destination you desire.

I learned this pattern watching 'Christians' cite chapter and verse of the Bible to justify whatever they wanted to justify. Your methods are similar.

The key is to break an argument into tiny pieces that can be defeated in detail, which is the exercise you are engaged in here, and cite authority of textual proof of your point. Deconstruct 'Terror' to deconstruct the myth you want deconstructed and rebuild it in an image of your choosing because you are ideologically inclined to do so. Some people want to reconstruct Stalin, some want to glorify Hitler, some people want to rehabilitate Robespierre. It is usually driven by ideology, and ideologies are driven by intelligent men with personal agendas.

When you are dealing with someone else's ideology, it is wise to be distrustful of words because they will be bent to serve a purpose. When you see the spoon bend, look for the shift in gravity that caused it. What drives the change?

 

[loup99]

I cannot speak for this author, but I can claim to have seen you do a few loup d'loup's of verbal alacrity to arrive at a destination you desire.

I learned this pattern watching 'Christians' cite chapter and verse of the Bible to justify whatever they wanted to justify. Your methods are similar.

You claim the analysis of "Terror" is verbal gymnastics to "rehabilitate Robespierre". Yet no one has been able to contest the analysis itself. Adress that point if you find it so questionable and think one single quote, outside context, like Stucki cited, is much more pertinent. The claim that I quote Jean-Clément Martin as if his works were the Bible makes me smile, but clearly that is not the case and I quote several other authors. My arguments are based upon a multitude of authors, and I don't use them as an appeal to authority.

The key is to break an argument into tiny pieces that can be defeated in detail, which is the exercise you are engaged in here, and cite authority of textual proof of your point. Deconstruct 'Terror' to deconstruct the myth you want deconstructed and rebuild it in an image of your choosing because you are ideologically inclined to do so.

So you admit there is a forged narrative around a "Reign of Terror"? A narrative constructed afterwards to discredit Robespierre and turn him into a monster? The problem here is that you pretend I'm reconstructing a new myth, yet I explicitly pointed out Robespierre is neither an angel or a monster. Compared to the Thermidorians I might "rehabilitate" Robespierre, but I'm not glorifying him either, I criticised several of his policies, highlighted his part of responsibility, and minimised his importance when it was overstated. Note how I did the same thing with regards to the notion of "White Terror", I think you will have a hard time pretending I'm both "rehabilitating" Robespierre and "White Terror" at the same time. With this in mind the new "ideological image" is missing.

Some people want to reconstruct Stalin, some want to glorify Hitler, some people want to rehabilitate Robespierre. It is usually driven by ideology, and ideologies are driven by intelligent men with personal agendas.

So after addressing your argument about Robespierre, on ideology and the historiography. In France Marxism and structuralism were very influential during the Annales school dominance. Many historians were members of the French Communist Party, even if quite a few broke up with it while remaining communist in spirit. On the French Revolution, the Jacobin school with Albert Mathiez, Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul tried to understand the violence by stressing the behaviour of working classes, studying, hunger, fear and revenge amongst other themes. They stressed the circumstances obliging revolutionnary leaders to take exceptional measures putting aside the new rights against the threat of chaos, counter-revolution and foreign invasion. On the other hand the revisionist school of François Furet (himself a former Communist who went more liberal after breaking up with the party in 1956) inspired themselves of the themes of earlier conservative historians (Burke, Taine etc) to underline the fact that the support of patriots for the philosophy of the Enlightenment would have been a major cause for a culture of violence and terror, since they had no prior experience of government. Especially the concept of a single "general interest" as Rousseau envisionned leading them to reject political pluralism and opposition. Both schools tend to consider the Revolution as a single bloc, in 1789 you already have the basis for 1794. More recently, these interpretations have been challenged, amongst others by Timothy Tackett with his biographical studies of revolutionaries, especially since it has been highlighted that many revolutionaries actually had experience in local government and weren't necessarily familiar with Rousseau's Enlightenment philosophy, but had a more general culture in law, geography, classical literature etc. Jean-Clément Martin is from the university of Paris 1 and a former director of its Institut d'histoire de la Révolution française [Institute of history of the French Revolution].

When you are dealing with someone else's ideology, it is wise to be distrustful of words because they will be bent to serve a purpose. When you see the spoon bend, look for the shift in gravity that caused it. What drives the change?

Well, the Thermidorian narrative about "Terror" isn't an ideology, but it is indeed wise to be distrustful of their words, and that is what I have been trying to highlight throughout.

 

[FondMemberofSociety]

If anything, this thread is living proof of how impressions established from first contact stay within the mind. The folks that don't want to budge make it blatantly clear, and though anecdotal, I think a couple of my acquaintances who got into Hitler fanboyism while younger snapped out of it because they were told, at a very young age, "Hitler bad".

"Robespierre Terrible" is playing a similar effect here, I observe. Don't dictators usually lose power if they go on vacation, like Gorbachev? How is Robespierre supposed to be a dictator if he is out of the loop for months? It took Gorbachev like one week (can't recall exactly) out of Moscow to have the situation blow up in his face. Even if Robespierre is some sort of grey eminence that could pull the strings behind the scenes... let's just snap out of it because the ongoing French Revolution plainly does not allow this sort of manipulation. You're on stage or you're in the shouting crowd, no one in leadership that matters is doing backstage work in a revolution.

 

[cpreston5]

I think people fundamentally struggle with scale. Plus there is an inherent bias towards the status quo which I think is very hard to shake-off.

People first underestimate the amount of suffering which happens everyday if there are not explicit battles, massacres and such taking place. Tens of millions of people being slowly worked to death for centuries without any rights or opportunities does not really hit us as a problem. But thousands being guillotined across a period of years attracts a lot of attention.

And people are also quick to dismiss movements which do not fulfil their goals, or do not create immediate material change. France did not achieve true democracy, and most Frenchmen were poor and uneducated before the revolution, and most were the same after. So some people would say that it was all for nothing. Of course, that logically leads to the absurdity of saying the French Revolution had no historical effect.

An even more grotesque example can also be seen with Haiti. Most of the slaves remained in an extremely poverished state of overwork and underdevelopment once they freed themselves, Haiti remains desperately poor today, and so some people essentially end up arguing that they were wrong or naive to rebel against slavery.

 

[loup99]

An even more grotesque example can also be seen with Haiti. Most of the slaves remained in an extremely poverished state of overwork and underdevelopment once they freed themselves, Haiti remains desperately poor today, and so some people essentially end up arguing that they were wrong or naive to rebel against slavery.

It should be noted that the developments in Haiti can largely be blamed upon France, both the shortcomings of the French Revolution with regards to Saint-Domingue (as it was called before independence) that applied to the colonies in general but was especially critical there due to the large population and then afterwards how the Empire and then the Restauration treated the independent country.

 

[Had a dad]

I am closing this thread for the time being, while I contemplate several things.

There has always been one rule here, and that is in no way shape or form is Holocaust denial allowed, not even in sarcasm. That is stepping way out of bounds.