The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793

by Peter Kropotkin, David Berry (Introduction)

Overview

The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 is Peter Kropotkin’s most substantial historical work. In it he presents a people’s history of the world-shaking events of the Revolution and shows the key role the working men and women of the towns and countryside played in it. Without the constant pressure of popular organisations and activity, the politicians would never have created a Republic, nor been able to survive the counterrevolutionary forces internally or externally.

Focusing on such mass movements—and especially the peasant majority—rather than on the few great men beloved of bourgeois accounts, this is a groundbreaking account of the period and a seminal work of “history from below.” Later research may have corrected some factual details and opened new avenues of scholarship, but Kropotkin’s text remains an exemplar of anarchist history-writing, challenging both bourgeois republican and Marxist interpretations of the Revolution.

Yet it is more than a history: Kropotkin uses the experience of the French Revolution to aid us in our current struggles and to learn its lessons in order to ensure the success of future revolutions. This book raises issues which have resurfaced time and again, as well as offering solutions based on the self-activity of the masses, the new, decentralised, directly democratic social organisations they forged during the Revolution, and the need to transform a political revolt into a social revolution which seeks to secure the well-being of all by transforming the economy from the start.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629638768
Publisher:	PM Press
Publication date:	12/28/2021
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) was the foremost theorist of the anarchist movement. Born a Russian Prince, he rejected his title to become a revolutionary, seeking a society based on freedom, equality, and solidarity. Imprisoned for his activism in Russia and France, his writings include The Conquest of Bread; Fields, Factories, and Workshops; Anarchism, Anarchist-Communism, and the State; Memoirs of a Revolutionist; and Modern Science and Anarchism. New editions of his classic works Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution; Words of a Rebel; and The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 will be published by PM Press to commemorate his life and work on the centennial of his death.

Dave Berry was a lecturer in French politics and history at Loughborough Universityfor over 30 years and was a cofounder of Loughborough’s Anarchism Research Group and of the Anarchist Studies Network. His doctoral thesis led to A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917–1945. Besides a number of chapters and articles on various aspects of the life and politics of Daniel Guérin, other publications include New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism: The Individual, the National and the Transnational, coedited with Constance Bantman; Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red, coedited with Alex Prichard, Ruth Kinna, and Saku Pinta; “Anarchism in 1968,” in Carl Levy and Matt Adams (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism; and “An Anarchist History of ‘Our Common Mother,’” an introduction to a new edition of Peter Kropotkin’s The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793. He also edited and introduced a selection of Guérin’s articles, translated for the first time: For a Libertarian Communism. His biography of Guérin, A Life in the Service of Revolution: Daniel Guérin, 1904–1988 is nearing completion.

Table of Contents

Introduction David Berry vii

Editor's Note Iain McKay xxx

Preface xxxi

Chapter I The Two Great Currents of the Revolution 1

Chapter II The Idea 5

Chapter III Action 10

Chapter IV The People before the Revolution 14

Chapter V The Spirit of Revolt: The Riots 17

Chapter VI The Convocation of the States-General Becomes Necessary 26

Chapter VII The Rising of the Country Districts During the Opening Months of 1789 30

Chapter VIII Riots in Paris and Its Environs 38

Chapter IX The States-General 41

Chapter X Preparations for the Coup d'État 47

Chapter XI Paris on the Eve of the Fourteenth 55

Chapter XII The Taking of the Bastille 64

Chapter XIII The Consequences of July 14 at Versailles 72

Chapter XIV The Popular Risings 77

Chapter XV The Towns 81

Chapter XVI The Peasant Rising 90

Chapter XVII August 4 and Its Consequences 97

Chapter XVIII The Feudal Rights Remain 106

Chapter XIX Declaration of the Rights of Man 116

Chapter XX The Fifth and Sixth of October 1789 120

Chapter XXI Fears of the Middle Classes-The New Municipal Organisation 130

Chapter XXII Financial Difficulties-Sale of Church Property 138

Chapter XXIII The Fête of the Federation 143

Chapter XXIV The "Districts" and the "Sections" of Paris 148

Chapter XXV The Sections of Paris under the New Municipal Law 155

Chapter XXVI Delays in the Abolition of the Feudal Rights 160

Chapter XXVII Feudal Legislation in 1790 169

Chapter XXVIII Arrest of the Revolution in 1790 176

Chapter XXIX The Flight of the King-Reaction-End of the Constituent Assembly 186

Chapter XXX The Legislative Assembly-Reaction in 1791-1792 195

Chapter XXXI The Counter-revolution in the South of France 203

Chapter XXXII The Twentieth of June 1792 209

Chapter XXXIII The Tenth of August: Its Immediate Consequences 220

Chapter XXXIV The Interregnum-The Betrayals 231

Chapter XXXV The September Days 243

Chapter XXXVI The Convention-The Commune-The Jacobins 251

Chapter XXXVII The Government-Conflicts with the Convention-The War 258

Chapter XXXVIII The Trial of the King 268

Chapter XXXIX The "Mountain" and the Gironde 276

Chapter XL Attempts of the Girondins to Stop the Revolution 283

Chapter XLI The "Anarchists" 287

Chapter XLII Causes of the Rising on May 31 294

Chapter XLIII Social Demands-State of Feeling in Paris-Lyons 301

Chapter XLIV The War-The Rising in La Vendée-Treachery of Dumouriez 308

Chapter XLV A New Rising Rendered Inevitable 318

Chapter XLVI The Insurrection of May 31 and June 2 325

Chapter XLVII The Popular Revolution-Arbitrary Taxation 332

Chapter XLVIII The Legislative Assembly and the Communal Lands 337

Chapter XLIX The Lands Restored to the Communes 344

Chapter L Final Abolition of the Feudal Rights 348

Chapter LI The National Estates 352

Chapter LII The Struggle against Famine-The Maximum-Paper-Money 357

Chapter LIII Counter-revolution in Brittany-Assassination of Marat 364

Chapter LIV The Vendee-Lyons-The Risings in Southern France 370

Chapter LV The War-The Invasion Beaten Back 378

Chapter LVI The Constitution-The Revolutionary Movement 385

Chapter LVII The Exhaustion of the Revolutionary Spirit 391

Chapter LVIII The Communist Movement 396

Chapter LIX Schemes for the Socialisation of Land, Industries, Means of Subsistence and Exchange 402

Chapter LX The End of the Communist Movement 408

Chapter LXI The Constitution of the Central Government-Reprisals 414

Chapter LXII Education-The Metric System-The New Calendar-Anti-Religious Movement 422

Chapter LXIII The Suppression of the Sections 430

Chapter LXIII Struggle against the Hébertists 434

Chapter LXV Fall of the Hebertists-Danton Executed 441

Chapter LXVI Robespierre and His Group 447

Chapter LXVII The Terror 451

Chapter LXVIII The 9th Thermidor-Triumph of Reaction 456

Conclusion 465

Supplementary Material

The Great French Revolution and Its Lesson 476

Notes 491

Index 532

About the Authors 545

Editorial Reviews

The French Revolution erupted out of the remnants of the old world and set a dynamic precedent for new centuries of resistance. Multifaceted, contradictory, and compelling, the French Revolution cast an enormous shadow that influenced every radical faction of 19th century politics. Peter Kropotkin was perhaps the preeminent anarchist intellect of his generation, and so his book The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 provides us with a fascinating exploration into the late 19th century anarchist vision of historical transformation. This saga of popular upheaval from below provides a fascinating mirror image of how Kropotkin and many of his comrades envisioned the coming revolution.”
—Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and co-editor of Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader

“In this classic text, Kropotkin demonstrates how even struggles that falter can lay the groundwork for subsequent upheavals. The French Revolution may have succumbed to reaction, but it also gave birth to ideas that would define revolutions to come. A must-read for anyone struggling to put insurgency on the agenda once again.”
—AK Thompson, author of Black Bloc, White Riot

“The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 constitutes a monumental achievement and is the best-known of all anarchist historical works. In it, Kropotkin perceptively analyzes the roots in the revolution of the fateful struggle between centralized authority and popular power that was to pervade modern political history. He argues that the prospects of the revolution depended on the achievement of communal self-determination and communalization of the land. His communist anarchist analysis of the revolution becomes increasingly relevant today, as attention turns to the history and politics of the commons.”
—John P. Clark, author of The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism and Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community

“Kropotkin’s The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 is an essential work of history from below, giving a nuanced account of one of the most important upheavals from the perspective of the masses of ordinary people who made it happen. It’s great to see it back in print.”
—Working Class History

“One hundred years ago, Peter Kropotkin’s death occasioned the last public gathering of anarchists in Russia for over six decades. Today his revolutionary yet commonsense ethics have come to life again, resurrected by the widespread embrace of mutual aid during the pandemic. But Kropotkin also still has much to say, always with gentle care and strong principles, about the twin disasters of capitalism and the state, and in contrast, the promise of liberatory transformation via confederal forms of self-organization. So don’t just mourn this dead anarchist; use the words of a rebel as inspiration to fight like hell for the living!”
—Cindy Milstein, author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations

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