"As revolutionaries, we don't have the right to say that we're tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We also know that when the people understand, they cannot but follow us. In any case, we, the people, have no enemies when it comes to peoples. Our only enemies are the imperialist regimes and organizations." Thomas Sankara, 1985
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Hello everybody.
I must confess it's been years since I studied the French Revolution.
One of the periods I remember is The Terror, which was reportedly led by Maximilien Robespierre.
However, I would like to know what you, know about his role during the French Revolution. Was he a brutal 'dictator'? Are stories about him accurate or exaggerated?
Kind regards
Enzo Traverso wrote on the topic, let me give you the basic idea.
Rightist French historians snuck in the idea that Robespierre = Stalin to defamate communism. The kind of people who strangely did not condemn Vichy France, yknow.
So in the end there are "good" and "bad" revolutions. Usa 1776 good cause muh freedemz, Russia 1917 bad because gulag. And the French rev sits 50-50 there.
Here is a chapter from a Soviet history book on the French Revolution.
By the time I see this, "temporarily offline."
tbf I think that's actually his current status
Oh thank you! I just tried again and can access. 🫡
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.