loading 
register   login

The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions.

by: Arno J. Mayer
en

0691048975  9780691048970  9781400812653 

 


The Furies
By Arno J. Mayer


 


Product Description:

 

The great romance and fear of bloody revolution--strange blend of idealism and terror--have been superseded by blind faith in the bloodless expansion of human rights and global capitalism. Flying in the face of history, violence is dismissed as rare, immoral, and counterproductive. Arguing against this pervasive wishful thinking, the distinguished historian Arno J. Mayer revisits the two most tumultuous and influential revolutions of modern times: the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Although these two upheavals arose in different environments, they followed similar courses. The thought and language of Enlightenment France were the glories of western civilization; those of tsarist Russia's intelligentsia were on its margins. Both revolutions began as revolts vowed to fight unreason, injustice, and inequality; both swept away old regimes and defied established religions in societies that were 85% peasant and illiterate; both entailed the terrifying return of repressed vengeance. Contrary to prevalent belief, Mayer argues, ideologies and personalities did not control events. Rather, the tide of violence overwhelmed the political actors who assumed power and were rudderless. Even the best plans could not stem the chaos that at once benefited and swallowed them. Mayer argues that we have ignored an essential part of all revolutions: the resistances to revolution, both domestic and foreign, which help fuel the spiral of terror.

In his sweeping yet close comparison of the world's two transnational revolutions, Mayer follows their unfolding--from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Bolshevik Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited Masses; the escalation of the initial violence into the reign of terror of 1793-95 and of 1918-21; the dismemberment of the hegemonic churches and religion of both societies; the "externalization" of the terror through the Napoleonic wars; and its "internalization" in Soviet Russia in the form of Stalin's "Terror in One Country." Making critical use of theory, old and new, Mayer breaks through unexamined assumptions and prevailing debates about the attributes of these particular revolutions to raise broader and more disturbing questions about the nature of revolutionary violence attending new foundations.

 



Amazon.com:

The growing frequency of peaceful expansions of human rights, private property, and market capitalism lead many to consider violent revolutions a thing of the past. In light of, for example, the dismantling of the Soviet Empire, the reunification of Germany, and the Czechoslovakian "velvet Revolution," violence as a mechanism for institutional change seems immoral and counterproductive, an anachronism in our age of global economies and shuttle diplomacy. Arno Mayer takes a contrarian position in The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions. Throughout his comparative study, he maintains that "there is no revolution without violence and terror." Contrary to popular belief, Mayer argues, ideologies and personalities did not control events. Rather, the tide of violence overwhelmed the political actors who assumed power, and even the best-laid plans could not stem the chaos.

Mayer structures his study around what he considers integral components of revolution: civil and foreign war, iconoclasm and religious conflict, and collision between city and country. The Furies begins with a theoretical examination of revolution in general, counterrevolution, violence, terror, vengeance, and religion. Its second portion offers a close comparison of the revolutions in 1789 France and 1917 Russia, following each from their outbreak to the foreign and civil wars that ensued. Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, Mayer belongs to the major league of heavy-hitting academic historians, and to a large degree, The Furies is written for his colleagues. Footnote heavy, it assumes a studied familiarity with both revolutions, and Mayer's abundant theoretical references quickly frustrate the lesser informed. However, in maintaining the integrality of violence in revolution, Mayer challenges many unexamined assumptions about the two most influential revolutions of modern times, and he forces reexamination of the nature of violence in the revolutionary process. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack



Summary: Evolution, revolution or involution ?
Rating: 5

"The revolutions - like Saturn - devour its own sons"

The violence and terror in the French and Russian revolutions are separated by a period of almost a century and a third. But the French revolution carved in relief and some how the conscious of the collective in the political decision take, as well as the introduction for the first time in the history of three concepts that sounded much more metaphorically that realistically, liberty, equality and fraternity.

The author examines zealously many conceptual signposts such as revolution, vengeance, violence and terror, from a enriched perspective where he makes a lucid revision of the implicit facts derived from these poetic ideas, that not only shocked the world but the way it was molded by this fact.

It's useless to affirm the echoes of the French revolution to the light of just two hundred years and two decades, is less than nothing in the history. The inherited paradigms, the wrong beliefs and distorted concepts have generated between other the nationalism fever that altered radically the sociopolitical geography of four continents, besides altered the cultural development all over Europe and seeded new horizons into Philosophy, art and religion; also it accelerated the process of other political movements (The boxers in China, for instance) but even its influence in the happen of both World Wars as well as the significance of liberation in the ancient colonies for better or worst, the emancipation and adhesion of Turkey into the same entrails of the Western hemisphere in the second decade of XX century, among other consequences. But there is so much conceptual material to discuss, state and argue that this little review is simply quite short to intend to expose, that it's better to take a profound reading around this invaluable essay that claimed for being exposed.

A text of maxim interest for all kind of readers.



Summary: The thesis is strong, but the argument is weak
Rating: 3

Arno Mayer's "The Furies" show the qualities that were present in his two previous works on, respectively, pre-1914 Europe and the Holocaust. They are based on secondary sources, and they clearly articulate a theme that had been percolating through the historiography of their subject. "The Furies" is a comparative history of the French and English revolutions and is divided into five parts. The first deals with "conceptual signposts" such as revolution, counterrevolution, violence, terror, vengeance and religion. The second part is an overview of the process of the terror, the third looks at "metropolitian condescension and rural distrust," the fourth looks at the revolutions' challenges to the bigotry of the established church and the fifth looks at the international context of Napoleon and Stalin.

Why did the Furies arise? Mayer emphasizes such aggravating factors as domestic and foreign counter-revolution, the collapse of the old state, and personal and popular vengenace. There was considerable ideological fanaticism, but it was as much effect as cause of the violence. On Russia he declares "Even in normal times, let alone in a time of troubles, Russia defied governance as a single unit--a single sovereignty--by virtue not only of its sheer expanse but also its bewildering diversity of cultures, its uneven levels of development, its primitive state of transport, and its encumbrance by a torpid peasant world. The rich but refractory endowment of vastness, diversity, and unsimultaneity was at least as burdensome as the enduring deficit of democratic thought and praxis." (233-34)

Although there is much to be said that for that last statment, ultimately this is a disappointing book. A synthesis is rarely more than the sum of its part and Mayer's work suffers from the fact that the literature on French and Russian terror is less sophisticated than work on, say, the Holocaust. Mayer cannot read Russian, and while he can read French he is not an expert on 18th century French history. Much of the book consists of competent, uninspired narrative detailing the course of atrocities (but oddly enough omits the Prairial executions).

There are other conceptual weaknesses. Mayer states (4) that revolutions cannot exist without religious conflict. But the Chinese civil war and revolution cannot really be considered one. His discussion of peasant rebellion in France does not emphasize that much of Peasant France either did not rebel or did support the republic (326-28). He dismisses the American revolution as insufficiently revolutionary (26) on the grounds that it was a "restoration"; but this begs the question of how the American colonies received these glorious institutions in the first place.

The comparative discussion on Napoleon and Stalin is too long (533-701) and much of it consists of padded history. Oddly enough Mayer does not mention Orlando Figes' vicious circle of conscription: the Bolsheviks needed to form an army but economic crisis made them unable to feed it. So mass desertion resulted, requiring further conscription and more strains on the economy. Nor does he mention the arguments of Lars Lih and William G. Rosenberg on the pervasiveness of the economic crisis.

More could have be done to criticize the ideological determinism of the Furet school. More use could have been made of Timothy Tackett's massively documented work on the National Assembly and about their pragmatic, non-philosophe nature. Mayer could have mentioned Barry Shapiro and the moderate attitude of the 1789-91 authorities to rumours of counter-revolutionary plots. He could have noted Emma Rothschild's portrait of a pluralist, liberal Condorcet. On the other hand Mayer does point out that Burke stated before the outbreak of the war that the revolutionaries had no right to expect civilized warfare (121). It is interesting to hear de Tocqueville complain that the philosophes are unfairly denigrated in contemporary France (46). It is important to notes that when Pope Pius VI condemned the Civil Constitution of the clergy he not only criticized its ham-handed nature but the very idea of granting non-Catholics toleration at all (427-30). Mayer does remind us that counter-revolutionaries are more than capable of terror, and one should remember the 20,000 slaughtered by the Russians in one day in Warsaw in 1794, or the 30,000 killed when Britian suppresed an Irish bid for independence in 1798. One should especially remember the 150,000 Haitians who died (30% of the total) resisting Napoleon's attempt to re-establish slavery there. In conclusion there is much to be said for the thesis, but the argument could use more work.



Summary: Fascinating study of counter-revolutionary violence
Rating: 4

In this book, Mayer studies the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. He seeks to explain why the peoples made these great revolutionary advances, and also why the nobility fought to destroy them and to restore the savage old orders. He studies the role of religion in the counter-revolutions, particularly the Papacy's bitter hostility to the Revolutions, compared to its notorious slap on the wrist for the Nazi counter-revolution. He cites Michelet's famous remark that the numbers killed by the Spanish Inquisition in just one province of Spain far exceeded the number killed by those defending France and its Revolution. The Inquisition was the crowning revelation of Christianity's ingrained violence, its hostility to people who dared to think for themselves, and to think differently from the Church: for six centuries, the leaders of the Catholic Church ordered the killing of millions of men and women for the glory of God. After the French Revolution, the British ruling class organised the foreign counter-revolutionary war. This enormously increased the economic, social and military difficulties faced by the new Government. Later in the war, Napoleon continued France's defence against the counter-revolution, upheld the Revolution's destruction of the nobility's privileges, and extended its gains abroad. After the end of World War One, the rulers of the British, US and French states united in `helping the Whites overthrow the Bolshevik regime', as Mayer writes. Their intervention prolonged the civil war, enormously increasing the suffering of the Soviet people, and adding to the huge economic, social and military difficulties faced by the new Government. Stalin played a key part in defending the Soviet Union against the Intervention; later, he expanded the Revolution's gains and, after defeating Hitler's counter-revolutionary intervention, extended these gains to the nations of Eastern Europe. However, studies that focus on the violence and terror involved in counter-revolutions, even those studies, like Mayer's, that explain why people defended their countries' Revolutions, tend to overlook those Revolutions' tremendous achievements. Of course, people fought to survive the furies of the counter-revolution, but they also fought to build better societies, and they succeeded.