Chapter XII: Revolution and the Reimposition of Order, 1848-1870

#58: Paris: The Specter of Social Revolution in the West

--July Monarchy = superimposed over an increasingly socialistic, republican populace, could never last long.

--Politics of July Monarchy = increasingly unreal. Strong movement to give people more votes, or even universal suffrage. But Louis Phillipe and Guizot strongly opposed any such move.

--Its beginning: Reformers had planned a great banquet in Paris for February, 1848, but government expressly forbade any such meetings the day before it was to happen. That night, barricades = erected in working-class quarters. Louis tried to appease insurgents with promises of reform, but to no avail. By 2/24, Louis abdicated and fled to England.

--Republican leaders forced the proclamation of the Republic, set up a provisional government of ten men, pending an election of a Constituent Assembly. 7 of 10 = "political" republicans (Lamartine), and 3 = "social" (Louis Blanc).

--Blanc urged the government to push bold economic and social reform without delay. But since held a minority, his programs = much watered down. Could only get a Labor Commission and a system of National Workshops. Workshops = widely acknowledged as a mere political concession to Blanc, and were designed to discredit socialism. Workshops just became an extensive unemployment relief program, and = soon flooded, for 1847 was a depression year.

--Constituent Assmebly = elected in May, and showed France = not socialist in the least. No "socials" = in the new temporary executive board. Thus, socialists = thrown out. But French workingmen = very socialist, and discontented with their present wo rking conditions.

The June Days of 1848

--National Workshops had concentrated such malcontents, and when they felt that social republic = slipping away from them after the new elections, they revolted. Soon after the elections, they threw out the Constituent Assembly, announced that a socia l revolution must followed the earlier political revolution. But National Guard restored Constituent Assembly, and Assembly, to get rid of socialism, got rid of Workshops. Whole laboring class of Paris rose in protest. Assembly proclaimed martial law, and all power = given to General Cavignac and his army.

--Then in late June, terrible class war raged in Paris, sending shudders throughout Europe. It = widely understood that class war had broken out. Convinced many revolutionaries that capitalism can exist in the last analysis only by the shooting of men . Huge fear of socialism in Second Republic of France and rest of European governments.

The Emergence of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte

--Under Cavignac, Assembly decided to create a strong executive elected by universal male suffrage. Napoleon, with some revolutionary experience with the Carbonari of Italy, = handily elected.

--Constituent Assembly = dissovled, replaced with a Legislative Assembly provided for in the constitution. The voted Assembly = again royalist: only 1/3 = republican.

--Napoleon and Assembly set out to destroy socialism, with which republicanism = inextricably associated. In 1850, revoked universal suffrage from the lowest, and hence, most socialistic third of the electorate. Falloux Law of 1850 placed education un der the Catholic Church, for lay teachers in villages = often socialists. Protected pope in Rome.

--Napoleon = indispensable to conservatives: they = split in two camps, Legitimists, and Orleanists, and Napoleon = acceptable compromise between the two. Now, he needed support of liberals. This he did by urgin the restoration of universal male suffr age. Discredited the Assembly by blaming it with taking away the suffrage in the first place.

--Thus, in December, 51, he sprung his coup d'etat. Declared the Assembly dissolved, and universal male suffrage restored. After some fighting, he = elected president for 10 years. Next year, he proclaimed the empire and himself emperor.

--Republic = dead, killed by reputation for radicalism. Liberalism and constitutionalism = dead too. Monarchists = pushed aside. All = replaced by a hollow, calculating dictatorship.

#59: Vienna: The Nationalist Revolution in Central Europe and Italy

The Austrian Empire in 1848

--Austria = ethnically very diverse, with Germans the leading people. Included all of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, parts of Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Italy. Great political authority outside its own borders.

--People = feeling yearning for a German state. Volksgeist, other nationalist sentiments = brewing. But Metternich opposed any such manifestations, since it needs tear apart the Austrian Empire, which existed only by the coexistence of diverse ethnic groups. Thus, evaded the entire nationality question. But his model of a reigning house ruling benevolently over peoples otherwise disparate belonged to the 17c.

The March Days

--In March, diet of Hungary had been sitting for several months, when news arrived of the February revolution in Paris. Radical Party = aroused. An impassioned speech on virtues of liberty = made by diet's leader, immediately translated and printed in Vienna. Soon after, workingmen and students rose up. Government panicked, and Metternich fled to England. Revolution swept through all of Germany and Italy.

--Lesser German governments collapsed, Hungary proclaimed constitutional independence while acknowledging the Habsburgs in the March Laws, various Italian territories proclaimed independence. Sardinia, hoping to get Lombardy and Venetia, declared war on Austria and invaded the territories.

--Thus, Austrian empire = broken into its component pieces, Prussia yielded to its revolutionaries, Germany = preparing for unification, and war = raging in Italy. Everywhere, constitutions = demanded, and desperate governments granted them. Serfdom = abolished in many places.

The Turning of the Tide after June

--After June, revolution began to ebb: old governments had only been stunned, not broken. Revolutionary leadres = not strong enough to sustain their efforts. Middle class and bourgeois = not developed enough. Workers = not well-organized, literate, po litically conscious, irritated enough. Middle and lower class revolutionaries began to disagree. Peasants, once they = freed from serfdom, = content, since they = not yet nationalistic. And since armies = led by old-minded aristocracy and manned by peasan ts, armies = anational.

--First turn of tide = in Prague. All-German nation assembly met in Frankfurt in May. Bohemia = invited. But Czechs in Bohemia did not like the idea of being in an all-German state. Instead, they called an all-Slav congress in Prague. Spirit of assemb ly = of slavic revival, profoundly anti-German. Thus, already a conflict among the revolutionaries.

Victories of Counterrevolution, June-December

--Emperor Ferdinand of Austria would have nothing to do with nationalism, since they = also liberal and bristling with restrictions on power of state. When a Czech insurrection broke out in Prague, Ferdinand bombarded it, dispersed the Slav congress. Habsburg army = in control.

--In Italy, it = feared that France might try to help the nationalist movements brewing there. But it did not. Instead, Austria wrenched back Lombardy and Venetia.

--It soon appeared to the Hungarians that the Hungarian radical party = a Magyar nationalist party above all else. (Magyars = ruling minority of Hungary.) Thus, all other ethnic groups resisted violently. Croats, under Count Jellachich, took the lead, raised a civil war. Ferdinand made Jellachich his military commander against the Magyars. Vienna = soon recaptured as well.

--With restoration order, Ferdinand's previous guarantees on independence to Hungary and Bohemia = considered. To make it easier to repudiate these promises, Ferdinand abdicated and was succeeded by Francis Joseph, 1848.

Final Outburst and Repression, 1849

--Pope feld from Rome, and Roman Republic = declared. Sardninia again invaded Lombardy. Magyars = reasserting their independence. Austria easily suppressed the first two, but could not defeat the Magyars. For this, Nicholas of Russia sent in his troop s, no strings attached. Easily suppressed. Pope = reinstated, vehemently anti-liberal, anti-revolutionary, thus widening breach between the two camps: in 1864, Pope Pius IX published the Syllabus of Errors warning against everything that went under names of liberal, progressive, and civilized.

--In Austria, main policy = to oppose all forms of popular self-expression. Empire = now candidly dependent on military force. Constitutionalism, nationalism rooted out. New regime = called the Bach system: ideal = to create a perfectly solid and unit ary political system, make the people forget liberty and nationalism in an overwhelming demonstration of administrative efficiency.

#60: Frankfurt and Berlin: The Question of a Liberal Germany

The German States

--In Germany, there was the long German "dualism," or power play between Prussia and Austria. Somewhat abated during common menace of Napoleon. Whole quesiton of united Germany stayed dormant, since would have to obliterate one of two great powers. Al so, there was whole mess of smaller German states.

--In Prussia, Junkers wanted no unified Germany. They = Prussian, not German, and could only stand to lose from the unification, since west of Elbe, there was no other class corresponding to their own, and thus, their poltical power would = diluted.

Berlin: Failure of the Revolution in Prussia

--Prussia = illiberal, but not backward. William III would not grant a constitution. William IV = somewhere in the clouds, but his government = efficient, progressive, and fair. Very high literacy. Economy = mercantilist. Extended its tariff union, or Zollverien, to include almost all of Germany.

--In March of 1848, street fighting broke out. But although his armies could have easily suppressed the violence, Frederick let them be. They elected an all-Prussian assembly, surprisingly radical and anti-Junker.

--Berlin Assembly supported Polish revolutionaries in hopes of precipitating an all-German or all-European war, thus smashing the Holy Alliance. Then the Prussian Junkers, who they thought depended on Russian military to stay in power, could = depose d. Berlin gave Poland local self-government. But Germans in the area refused to = under their jurisdiction. Prussian army thus crushed the new Polish institutions, and the revolution = over.

The Frankfurt Assembly

--Disabling of old government left a power vacuum in Germany. Voters throughout Germany sought to establish an all-German assembly, send delegates to Frankfurt to form an all-German superstate. Thus, the Assembly represented the moral and national wil l of the German people. But politically, it = nothing. Delegates had no power to issue orders or expect compliance. Assembly had no sub-structure as its foundations. Thus, it adopted the German states, the very institutions it was to replace, as its power base.

--Members of Assembly = overwhelmingly nonrevolutionary. Instead, mostly professionals wanting a liberal, self-governing, federally unified, and "democratic," though not egalitarian Germany. Wanted to effect this peaceably; revolution = rejected. To a n extent, Assembly, made of bourgeoisie, = afraid of common man. Thus, when popular riots broke out, it often called for their forcible suppression: asked for military support from the Prussian and Austrian armies.

--Question of where Germany begins and ends. German nationalism threatened to include many non-German peoples living in any lands where Germans lived, thus violating their nationalism as well. "Great" Germans at Frankfurt wanted to create a real Germa ny, including all German peoples, with Habsburgs as king. "Little" Germans, though, thought Austria should = excluded, with Hohenzollerns as king.

The Failure of the Frankfurt Assembly

--Nationalists seemed to have checkmated each other. Each national group wanted to extend its boundaries at the cost of other national groups. Counterrevolution = already gearing up. Debacle = approaching.

--Frankfurt finished the constitution, but it = clear that Austria = against any Germanism. Thus, Little Germans won out, asked William IV of Prussia if he would head the new German empire.

--Frederick = tempted. But army officers and Junkers = not: did not want to lose Prussia, and thus, their status in it, in a larger Germany. Thus, if Frederick accepted, he would lose the Prussian army and Junkers. And he would be just a figurehead wi th the new title, since Assembly never represented the smaller states. And could also expect trouble from Austria, which would fear Prussia = getting too strong. William did not want war. Also, new position = bristling with constitutional limitations. Fre derick, saying he could not pick up a crown from the gutter, refused. Thus, entire Assembly went for naught.

--Liberal nationalism failed, and a much less gentle kind replaced it. Thousands emigrated to the USA.

The Prussian Constitution of 1850

--Frederick undertook to write a particularly Prussian constitution to please everyone. Stayed in effect until WWI.

--Established a 2-chamber parliament. Lower chamber = elected by universal male suffrage, but weighted according to amount to taxes paid: taxed body = divided into 3: wealthy, less wealthy, and rest. Each got 1/3 of representation in house.

--Although progressive for the time, it = illiberal and reactionary by late 19c.

#61: The New Toughness of Mind: Realism, Positivism, Marxism

--Many people = disappointed with failure of nationalism and liberalism. Thus, many turned to a new toughness of mind. This = the most far-reaching consequence of the revolutions. Idealism = discredited.

Materialism, Positivism, Realism

--Materialsim, or belief that everything mental, spiritual, or ideal = outgrowth of physical, = basic to new mental toughness. Trust of science for insight into all things. In literature and arts, called realism.

--Skepticism in religion: unscientific, and thus, not serious; just another historical stage no longer pertinent to our times; religion = just another social tool to control the masses

--Positivism: an insistence on verifiable facts, an avoidance of wishful thinking, a questioning of all assumptions, and a dislike of unproveable generalizations. In its aspiration to be useful to humanity, it fostered sociology.

--Realpolitik: new toughness of mind in politics. Domestically, meant that people should give up utopian dreams, such as had caused 1848, and content themselves to = orderly, honest, and hard-working. For radicals, meant that people must stop imaginin g that reform will come from goodness or love of justice. Instead, will come only from power and calculation. Internationally, meant that governments should not = bound to any ideology, but meet facts and problems as they arise. Disregard tastes and scrup les. Widely practiced.

Early Marxism

--Some of Marx' and Engles' life histories. In 1847, formed the Communist League, for which they wrote the Communist Manifesto, in 1848. But League = crushed in counterrevolution that soon followed.

Sources and Content of Marxism

--3 sources: French revolutionism, the British Industrial Revolution, and German philosophy.

--French revolution showed that massive revolution = possible. Marxism also saw in French Revolution an unredeemed promise that social and economic equality should follow the civil and legal equality already won.

--Marx took much of his economic thought from the British. He adopted the Iron Law, or subsistence theory of wages, which most of his English contemporaries actually discarded, since wages began to rise. Thus, he thought also that proletariat has no future under the capitalist system. Marx also took the labor theory of value, and elaborated on it. In his theory of surplus value, he states that workers = systematically robbed; they = given but a fraction of the value of the products they help produce. Thus, workers cannot buy many products, and capitalism = constantly threatened with overproduction and business crashes. To survive, it must always seek out new markets, of which it will eventually run out.

--From Hegel, Marx took the idea of the dialectic, or that history = process of development through time, necessary, logical, deterministic; every event must happen in due sequence. But while Hegel emphasized primacy of ideas, Marx emphasized primacy of material. This, according to Marx, = Hegel's mistake: he found Hegel standing on his head, and put him on his feet again.

--The dialectic materialism: material conditions, or relations of production, give rise to economic classes. Agrarian conditions bring a feudal class, mercantile conditions bring a bourgeois class. Each creates an ideology suited to its needs, and p revailing government, laws, religion, and morals reflect their outlook and needs. Feudal and bourgeois clash, and as bourgeois develops, its produces its antithesis, the proletariat, which develops alongside it. Eventually, these two clash to create a cla ssless society. State and religion, which = bourgeois, disappear. But until all bourgeois = rooted out, and danger of counterrevolution = past, there must be a dictatorship of the proletariat. Meanwhile, the call = to war, an all-out uncompromising war ag ainst the bourgeois. It = betrayal of class to rise above the proletariat, or to better oneself, for then one becomes bourgeois. Do not accept pay raises, for then the war may = forgotten.

The Appeal of Marxism: Its Strength and Weaknesses

--A hard doctrine, but claimed to be scientific, a virtue in a tough-minded time. Dismissed all past and rival forms of socialism as utopian.

--Marxism = strong compound of scientific, historical, and apocalyptic.

--Weaknesses: Workers of Europe really = not in the frame of minf of people in battle. Not exclusively class-people. Still believed in Christianity, old natural-law ideas, to inhibit belief that morality = just a class weapon. Nationalist loyalties to their countries. Wages rose after 1850, and workers eventually got the vote. As they made progress through the state, they = less willing to destroy it.

#62: Bonapartism: The Second French Empire, 1852-1870

Political Institutions of the Second Empire

--Napoleon = a politician. Made himself dictator in time of peace by playing on social fears. Political rostrum = his natural habitat: recognized importance of and manipulated public opinion. Napoleon offered himself as a solution to the problem of ma ss democracy: he held that parliaments, through special interests of its members, usu. rich, only accentuated class divisions. But he, above all class interest, would govern fairly for all.

--Thus, political institutions tended to = authoritarian. All institutions besides himself tended to wither away in importance or function.

--Set up a sumptuous court at Tuileries, assigned an architect to beautify and modernize Paris. Also, widened and straightened roads for easier military operations against insurrectionists, if nec.

Economic Developments under the Empire

--Napoleon liked to think of himself as great social engineer.

--Some of Napoleon's greatest backers = the former St.-Simonians, who wanted a centrally-planned industrial economy. They called him their socialist emperor. Simonians invented investment banking. Credit Mobilier raised funds by selling shares to publ ic and investing in industrial stock as it chose. Credit Foncier did the same with landowners to help them improve agriculture.

--Times = good for expansion. New gold discoveries introduced a mild inflation that made companies invest their capital rather than let it sit. Corporations = granted limited liability, which allowed people of small means to invest. Stock Marcket boom ed, and financiers assumed new eminence.

--Napoleon wanted to help the average Joe. Land bank helped richer peasants. Jobs = plentiful and wages good, at least until 1857. Humanitarian relief = started: hospitals, asylums, free medicines, start of social-service state. Unions legalized, buil t up. Napoleon believed in liberal doctrine of free trade, tried to lower tariffs all around in France. Free trade treaty with GBr.

Internal Difficulties and War

--But by 1860, empire = in trouble. Just out of depression. With free trade, emperor made a few enemies in industry. Catholics did not like his policy in Italy. He granted more power to Legislative Assembly. 1860s = called the decade of the Liberal Em pire.

--Louis ruined himself by war.