The French Revolution

  1. The Enlightenment

  2. Jacobinism and the Enragés

  3. Babeuf

 

Issues for Discussion
  1. How  did Enlightenment  thinking contribute to subsequent left-wing ideology? (see Denis Diderot, The Encyclopaedia)
  2. To what extent were the sans culottes socialistic?  In what ways, do their composition and programme distinguish them from the socialist  movement of the next century  ? (Read The Sans Culotte Programme and What  Is A Sans Culotte?  and Lindemann's analysis)
  3. What did Rousseau and Babeuf contribute to subsequent left-wing thinking?

 

Reading:

Secondary -

Albert Lindemann, A History of European Socialism, pp1-25

Information page on the course of the French Revolution

Professor Gwynne Lewis, "The 'People' and the French Revolution" (a detailed analysis of the personnel and ideals of the lower class participation in the Revolution) 

Excellent website on the Enlightenment

Primary -       

Denis Diderot, The Encyclopaedia (1772).  Entries for Government, Humanity, and Political Authority

The Sans Culotte Programme, Section de Sans Culotte, 2 September 1793

What  Is A Sans Culotte? (A contemporary view from a Sans Culotte)

Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders (eds), Socialist Thought. A Documentary History:

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin of the Inequality of Man”, p33

  • “Gracchus” Babeuf, Letter to Dubois de Fosseux, July 8, 1787, pp46-51

  •  Sylvain Marechal, “Manifesto of the Equals”, pp51-55

  •   Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf by the Babouvists, pp55-56

Gracchus Babeuf,  The Manifesto of the Equals,  1796

Return to Home Page