Class struggle in the first French republic: Bourgeois and bras nus 1793-1795

by Daniel Guérin

English, French (translation)

Genres: History, French Revolution, Politics

295 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Daniel Guérin was a French anarcho-communist author, best known for his work Anarchism: From Theory to Practice , as well as his collection No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism in which he collected writings on the idea and movement it inspired, from the first writings of Max Stirner in the mid-19th century through the first half of the 20th century.

He is also known for his opposition to Nazism, fascism, Stalinism and colonialism, in addition to his support for the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) during the Spanish Civil War, and his revolutionary defence of free love and homosexuality.

Reviews

[Tim Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating description of the first three years of the First Republic (the era of Robespierre), seen from the perspective of the bras nus, the "bare arms", the urban working class.


By the end of the eighteenth century, the bourgeoisie had long prepared for the revolution, and they had some clear ideas about what they wanted to achieve (an Enlightenment representative republic in the mould of the United States) and what they wanted to avoid (a Cromwellian dictatorship). They knew their history and had talked about it for years. Their ideal was free market capitalism, respecting property and human rights, without the dead weight of the crown, the nobility and the church. It was to be a middle class paradise.


On the other hand, no one had prepared the workers for revolution. They wanted cheap bread and a decent wage, but beyond that they had no idea of how to organise the state. As a result, they were easily tricked into doing the bourgeois dirty work and got nothing lasting in return. Throughout the many convulsions of nineteenth century, the workers were always used and discarded in this way. Later theorists and especially Lenin saw that the working class must be educated and enrolled in a definite program before the revolution broke out. The workers must be made to see that the bourgeoisie was always their enemy, and would always betray them. When the revolution came, it would not be enough to abolish monarchy, aristocracy and the church. They must demand the abolition of parliaments and property as well. These institutions would serve only the bourgeoisie and would always be used against the workers.


But all that was in the future. Revolutionary theory was still very new, and in Robespierre's day, no one had seriously considered it from the point of view of the workers. And indeed, urban industrial proletariat that Lenin mobilised to such effect scarcely even existed. Instead, Paris was filled with self-employed artisans who did not yet know that they had nothing to lose but their chains.


So what did the workers do? They organised into "sections", where they practised direct democracy and raised their own militias. When the bourgeois National Convention neglected their interests, they marched in and demanded action. They were fumbling towards the later Marxist orthodoxy that representative government would never meet their needs, because the representatives were always bourgeois and always put their own class interests before those of their voters. So instead the bras nus wanted a federation of sections and a federal parliament not of representatives but of delegates, who could be recalled if they failed to follow the instruction of their sections. The workers never quite managed to spell this out, because they had no political education. Nevertheless, they probably wanted legislation to be debated first in the sections, then delegates would be sent to the parliament to thrash out a national program, and finally (and this is the vital point) the legislation would be sent back to the sections for ratification. Parliament would not be sovereign. Sovereignty would lie with the sections.


The bourgeois revolution had told the people that they were sovereign and granted them universal suffrage. So they saw themselves entirely within their rights in marching on the Convention, which they did at least half a dozen times. And the Convention had made an awful mess and it had neglected the needs of the workers. But the workers seldom demanded anything beyond wage increases and price restrictions on bread. So the Convention gave them empty promises and tied them up in legalisms, diverted their energy against the nobility and the church, and in the end suppressed the sections and the militias and abolished universal suffrage. Soon after Robespierre's death, government of the people by the bourgeoisie for the bourgeoisie was securely established in the land. And then came Napoleon.

[Fernando Pachón Cárdeno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parte de un enfoque muy interesante, analizar el periodo entre 1792 y 1795 desde el materialismo histórico pero con un cambio sustancial en cómo se ordenan las cosas: volcando los intereses populares, plebeyos, protoobreros no en los jacobinos si no en las masas populares no organizadas dentro del paradigma clásico de la historia de la Revolución. Se centra en los clubs, en las secciones de París, en los comités y milicias como agentes políticos en sí mismos y no como meros caladeros de la Convención y sus partidos. Así, los jacobinos son puestos en el centro ideológico de la Revolución como una organización que solo asumirá las últimas consecuencias de la revolución en lo retórico.

El autor simpatiza claramente con los descamisados y sans-culottes como agentes de su propio destinos, aunque en muchos momentos fracturados, desorientados y engañados. Sin que le reste rigor, a veces uno se pregunta si esta simpatía, que claramente proyecta en su contemporaneidad, le encierra en una perspectiva demasiado cínica sobre otras fuerzas cercanas a los sans-culottes, a las que confiere un gran cinismo en su hacer político (aunque uno tiende a justificar la posición del autor cuando se va enterando de las perrerías).

Desde el punto de vista académico, es un libro poco ortodoxo (¡tanto como el autor!). Al menos en esta edición, que es un resumen, no aparece por ningún lado el aparato bibliográfico y durante lo que dura el texto no las hace explícita. Siendo un poco optimista, creo que nos podemos fiar pero nunca se podrá borrar el ápice de frustración y sospecha en un libro en el que no se pueden rastrear las fuentes. También es poco ortodoxo en su narración: el ritmo, el lenguaje, son cosas vivas y tenaces de una época trágica y trepidante. Este libro bien puede tratarse como novela coral e impersonal con un narrador omnisciente.