THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: THE MARXİST INTERPRETATION AND THE REVISIONIST CRITIC

Abstract

In the 18th century France, the peasants are for the third quarters landless. The peasantry, furthermore, could not get its share from the improvement in the agricultural productivity. This fact is not sufficient for explaining the unfolding of the French Revolution. The liberal, Marxist and Revisionist historians attempted to give a satisfactory explanation for the French Revolution. In this study, the Marxist, called also the Orthodox view and the Revisionist view shall be compared. It shall be made use of categorical systematic content analysis through qualitative research method. The French Revolution is in the study the unique case that occurred in a certain period in the history. The Marxist approach argues that the French Revolution is a bourgeois revolution. Furthermore, the bourgeois revolution is one of the main arguments of the Marxist tradition. Authors such as Draper have the conviction that Marx’s thought was considerably shaped by the French Revolution. French Marxist historians, in particular Jaures tried to find the roots of socialism in the French Revolution. This brought them to find the economic basis and dynamics of the revolution. In this dynamic, the bourgeoisie was the dominant class. The Revisionist starting from the 1950’s contested this approach. Cobban argued that the Third Estate which is qualified to represent the bourgeoisie in the General Assembly does not have a bourgeois character for the majority. For Furet, another revisionist, the French Revolution is not just an economic phenomenon it is also a cultural one. However, Furet insists on the fact that the feudal rights were not synonymous of land rent. So, even if the most important revenue for the French aristocracy in the 18th century is land rent that does not mean that the feudal rights were of dramatic quantity. Furet believes that the feudal system, contrarily to what the Marxists asserted was already politically destroyed by the monarchy. The economic mechanism of the feudal land was not sustainable anyway even before the Revolution. The Revolution wiped away the last remains of it.