Blog 8 French Revolution

Jacob Carter

PL SC 150

Professor Hawkins

Blog 8

Violence has always manifested itself over the years, and continues to do so. These cases of violence, however, have not always been the same. In order to make better sense of these various instances of violence, social scientists created a method to categorize them. For example, according to David Samuels in his book comparative Politics, there are 5 different categories, or types of violence. The first is Interstate warfare, which is “the use of violence by states against other states to achieve political goals.” (Samuels). The second is civil war, defined as “armed combat within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority at the start of hostilities.” (Samuels). The third is revolution, which is defined as combat in a state where both groups derived from the same entity have legitimate support, fight against each other, and the insurgents win (Samuels). The fourth is terrorism (also includes suicide attacks), which is defined as “Acts of violence perpetrated against either combatants or non-combatants by people who are aware that they are unlikely to survive.” (Samuels). And finally, Genocide, which is “A deliberate and coordinated effort to eliminate all members of a particular ethnic, religious or national group through mass murder.” (Samuels).

With these definitions in mind, the real question is: do they work? They obviously seem to make sense, but can they adequately categorize violence, or do these definitions have weaknesses? In order to test this, I studied the French revolution, and then attempted to place it in one of these categories. At first glace you may say, “well duh, French revolution means it goes under the revolution category.” but as I researched, it became very apparent that it not only doesn't fit completely under revolution, but that these definitions are indeed lacking.

To begin with, let's address the revolutionary aspects of the French revolution. At the start of the revolution, there were three estates which had been summoned in order to resolve a reform about budget deficits. The first estate consisted of nobles, the second of clergy, and the third of commoners. Conflicts arouse as to how votes should be counted, which led to “rumors of an 'aristocratic conspiracy' by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate [which in turn]... led to the Parisian crowd seiz[ing] the Bastille...” (Encyclopædia Britannica). This storming of the Bastille also resulted in the peasants rising against their lords. As can be seen here, this fits a good portion of the revolution category. There is indeed armed conflict within the state, each side came from the same entity to start with, and also each side had a legitimate amount of supporters. The conflict ends with the king giving the commoners what they wanted, which was the abolishment of feudalism. Essentially this means that the insurgents won. If this was the end of the French revolution, perhaps we could feel comfortable calling it just a revolution. It fits the definition. This was not the end, however, and now is when things start to get a little tricky.

The new entity of the commoners decided to try and spread revolutionary ideals, which resulted in war with various countries, including: Prussia, Great Britain, Belgium, and several others. According to our definitions above, this would be categorized as interstate warfare. As the war continued, the Reign of Terror came about to put an end to any internal opposition to the revolution. It “entailed the arrest of at least 300,000 suspects, 17,000 of whom were sentenced to death and executed while more died in prisons or were killed without any form of trial.” (Encyclopædia Britannica). At this point, the French revolution is starting to take on characteristics of genocide. Both nobles are priests were targeted during these mass murders. Once the reign of terror had ended, another one called the white terror broke out, which was the workings of a royalist group in France trying to take over. They were soon thwarted by Napoleon, but not before causing lots of problems. This white terror fiasco basically fits the definition of a civil war, since groups within France were battling each other. To finish off the french revolution, Napoleon eventually takes over, and is later defeated by the other European powers, ending the interstate warfare as well as the French revolution.

While the definition of a revolution fits the French revolution, so do most of the other definitions. Various aspects of the French revolution were interstate warfare, nigh unto genocide, and civil war. While these definitions may work in some cases, none of them are adequate enough to completely fit the French revolution. They are too specific, and no one definition has the capacity to encompass a single event as complex and drawn out as the French revolution. These definitions are good in and of themselves, but their inability to categorize the French revolution into one type is an apparent weakness.

Citations

"French Revolution." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/219315/French-Revolution>.

Samuels, David J. Comparative Politics. New York: Cambridge Press, 2012.