Monthly Discussion Point: Maximilien Robespierre

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

This month's discussion point is Maximilien Robespierre.

Because it's his birthday in a few days. Discuss any and all aspects of his life, his work, his views, his reputation, and anything else you think of!

Comments

Your Three Paragraphs Explained In Three Points - Part 1

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

1. Yeah, I read that sort of argument often. One compares Louis XVI to the Jews. I profoundly disagree, on an emotional, rational and ideological level. For one thing, the reason Jews might have been seen as political enemies before ethnical enemies (I'm not convinced; also the two merged) was because they were likened to communists. Domenico Losurdo explains how the nazis saw communism as an "oriental ideology", like the Jews were "oriental". Russians, Jews, communism (read, pretty much anything on the left though) -- all the same.

The reason I disagree is that D. Losurdo traces back that sort of "application of ethnical characteristics to the leftist enemy" back in the 19th century and up to the Counter-Revolution itself and the Royalist writers. The poor were seen as another race in the 19th century. Would the systematic murderous onslaught on the poor working class by savage capitalism through the 19th century be ever called an "ethnic cleansing"? Of course not. Think why. We all know why. Moreover, the way the Jacobins were described in the 19th century is in direct filiation with how the Communists were by the nazis/various right wing movevements. The only characteristics that comes to my mind is the whole "they think ABSTRACT": accusation sent to philosophers, Jacobins, marxists/communists and Jews. Add in there freemasons, various left movements, feminists and lgbt advocates or else, and you've got everything that stirs up la bête immonde.

So all of this sums up to a "who started it all?" debate, and the only reason anyone generally pursues to bring an answer to this debate isn't to enlighten the process, but to take an ideological side. Also, the whole "The Jacobins All Started It; It's All Their Fault" is more and more sounding to my ears as a "The Victim Started It All; It's All The Victim's Fault" sort of reasoning that never takes into consideration the real causes that made fascism/nazism possible in the 1930s, in a country like Germany for example where the left was developed and active and where women and homosexuals rights were very advanced and organized (http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/prideseries0701.php).

Which wasn't the case for the Terror. Context =/= not the same at all.

However, if anyone really wants to see embryonic fascism in the French Revolution, without any ethnical motivation, one should rather look for the horrors that happened during the Thermidorian Reaction and especially the White Terror. Unsurprisingly, nobody cares about it, or thinks the Jacobins just asked for it.

To conclude this point, because I disgress, those who link it all back to the French Revolution -- or worse, some blame the whole Enlightenment!! -- and see obviously only the radical currents to be blamed is an ideological diversion to maintain conservatism. Moreover, saying radical social changes lead to nazism!! is precisely the reaction that lead to it in the first place. >:( It's like that idiotic loser here who says Hitler and the Nazis were gay and that's Really The Cause To Everything (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/afas-fischer-outdoes-himself), or masculinists who use "feminazi" to call feminists.


2. "cleansing the body politic" =/= "purity of the nation". I'm pretty sure no one ever equals Catherine de Médicis or Isabella of Castile to "Nazi concepts". (Odd though, because they're women and rulers, so you'd think there'd be some huge bashing taking place. Alas, I don't see it explained quite this way. Though there is bashing.)

The Nazis were the response to the French Revolution (they opposed themselves specifically to it and to erase what it had accomplished); the French Revolution was the response to the Religion Wars. Atrocities are often answered with atrocities. And more. And then more again. Because in History, people always resist, while others always crush them. It's sad, depressing, horrible, etc.

Re: Your Three Paragraphs Explained In Three Points - Part 1

[awils1.livejournal.com]

Would the systematic murderous onslaught on the poor working class by savage capitalism through the 19th century be ever called an "ethnic cleansing"? Of course not. Think why. We all know why.

Well, even though the same thing is still occurring both inside and outside the rich-world, I'd call it something, as an anarcho-communist who advocates capitalism's end.

Anyway.

I think we are talking over each other, in that I meant only to offer slowdeath an alternative term to 'murder'. Though the original author used it in terms of tracing the history of anti-Leftism in the context of the Nazi regime, I felt that it was fitting enough to refer to the actions of the politically motivated Jacobins acting on their fears of liberty's end. It did not refer to them as proto-fascists, only to their actions in specifically attacking people as enemies of the proto-state. Perhaps co-opting the term from scholars of WW2 may bring with it that idea, but that's a linguistic debate.

The idea that the Jacobins were not responsible for their actions of (the first) Terror is patronising, and leaves the Left open to an assault on our morals -- how are our ideas better when our methods are just as violent? There is a definite difference in blaming a person for sequential actions and taking responsibility for actions which were not in the best interest or even the best moments of people.