|
|
Article: Bolsheviks of the Bastille. (comparison of French and Russian revolutions)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- July 14, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
WELL BEFORE 1917, the Russian anarchist Kropotkin said, "What we learn today from . . . the Great Revolution . . . is that it was the source and origin of all the present Communist, anarchist, and socialist conceptions . . . absolutely nothing [was added] to the ideas that were circulating among the French people between 1789 and 1794." Lenin spoke of himself and his comrades as "glorious Jacobins," Trotsky warned of "Thermidorian reaction," and Stalin wrote of "Girondist treachery." To many people for whom the French Revolution is the "Glorious Explosion which regenerated men," this comparison has always been repugnant. The Bolsheviks, however, had a point.
...