Analysis: The French Revolution

The French Revolution, arguably the most discussed historical event to date, reaches across fields of research, theories of history, and international interpretation. By analyzing several of the methods, a display of historian's understanding and historiography of the French Revolution becomes revealed. Each of these theories highlights the debates, perceptions of the Revolutions, implications, results, and meaning in history. Establishing the fundamental paradigm is Marxism, dismantling this, the Revisionist follows, next are the critiques of the Revisionist and ended with an examination of gender and colonial perspective. Focusing on Marxism, responses to Revisionist, and gender, an outline of the historiographical shifts, trends and changes

Its writers such as Albert Mathiez and Albert Soboul, reflect their political positions within the French Communist Party, and their influence on events such as the Russian Revolution.(1) In Soboul’s writing, using a Marx’s socio-economic foundation argues that the Revolution occurrence was an essential social and economic transformation of French society. This “bourgeois” revolution reflects the middle-class formation of consciousness, and it’s uprising to overthrow the Ancien Regime, the political elite of the time. Soboul asserts that the revolutionist consisted of “capitalist,” that comprised a conscious middle class, and this was the revolutionary push from feudalism to capitalism.(2) The distinction from feudalism to capitalism demonstrates an essential element signifying the importance of the Revolution in Marxist views. Overall, Marxists liberals saw the revolution as an agent of progress, despite its flaws, such as the Terror, Marxism writing this off as the external elements of a political, social, and economic upheaval. Its use of economic theory and sources provided the fundamental underpinnings of Marxist argument. While the Marxist theory of the French Revolution was the foundation of the historiography, marking its significance, it became upended by the Revisionist approach in the 60’s. This shift to Revisionism pushed the majority of the Marxist

The Revisionist theory brought about the collapse of the Marxist interruption, creating a lasting change to the historiography. Insinuated by Alfred Cobban in 1964, Francois Furet’s 1978 publication dramatically altered the previous paradigm. Switching to political theory, Furet questions if the Revolution was necessary, due to his belief that the economic structure in France was stable. Revisionists emphasize the political as the cause of the Revolution, rather than the economics of the Marxist; this means often excluding or downplaying the social changes. Furet’s specific theory revolves around the idea of “empty space” left from the Ancien Regime that became filled with ideas of “the People.” Some Revisionist, in an anti-Marxist display, view the French economy as balanced, stagnate and traditionalist. While other Revisionists acknowledges expansion and social mobility, they conclude that there was no social antagonist to bring about such a