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Did The French Revolution Or Revisionist?

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Did The French Revolution Or Revisionist?
France during the reign of King Louis XVI was suffering from immense debt due to the expensive wars and to maintain the lavish lifestyle of the monarchy. Whilst in contrast the commoners were gripped by starvation on a daily bases and were taxed heavily in order to compromise for these economic failures. Superficially it appears that this alone was enough to instigate the Revolution, which was a crucial factor. However The French Revolution of 1789 when the Storming of Bastille took place is one of the most debated and controversial subjects, which has been dominated by two school of thoughts: the Marxist and the Revisionist. Both school of thoughts present compelling arguments as to whether the French Revolution may have been a Bourgeois Revolution …show more content…
One of the key historians who has focused on the idea of a Peasantry Revolution is Lefebvre who argued that the Peasantry Revolution had an self-sufficient nature “in terms of its origins, its proceedings, its crises, and its tendencies” and this peasant revolution which existed alongside the bourgeois revolution, with the motive to destroy the Old Regime. Therefore revisionist would say that after 1791 it was the Peasantry Revolution, yet Lefebvre believed that the peasant and bourgeois had their own revolutions, and agreed on the abolition of feudalism, but what is evident is that once this was achieved, the peasantry withdrew from revolutionary action, because the common peasant were anti-capitalist in their attitude and hence, in conflict with the liberal-minded bourgeois revolutionaries. Although to begin with these two factions did share a common goal, nevertheless their interest seem to polarize each other as the Revolution continued, but Lefebvre acknowledges that to a significant extent the Revolution understandable would be a Bourgeoisie Revolution, as the bourgeois were …show more content…
This prediction of Marxism is evident when on August 4, 1789 the National Constituent Assembly formally declared the abolishment of Feudalism, which Lefebvre called it the "death certificate of the Old Order" . This abolishment of Feudalism allows the birth of capitalism to come about which, in turn would lead to exploitation and the proletariat suffering as Fig.1 shows the before and after results of the Revolution and how the worker is still the one to endure. However Marx explains this as inevitable if Communism is to be born. Thus the Revolution to Marxism is that of a bourgeoisies because capitalism and the means of exploitation of the proletariat would naturally be in their favour and is a stage which society must go through. In addition Cobban who try to explain that "non noble traders had tax exemption larger than those most titled aristocrats" as a attack against Marxist/Classical interpretation, although the flaw seems obvious in his argument, as surely this would only give that of the nobility and the bourgeoisies more reasons to revolt against the Old Order in order to create better financial opportunities themselves. Tocqueville recognises the anti government confrontations of 1787-1789 was due to hatred of " the members of the upper class” and agrees that they “... had more means to resist the

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