Bourgeois revolution

Bourgeois revolution is a term used in Marxist theory to refer to a social revolution that aims to destroy a feudal system or its vestiges, establish the rule of the bourgeoisie, and create a capitalist state.^[1][2] In colonised or subjugated countries, bourgeois revolutions often take the form of a war of national independence. The Dutch, English, American, and French revolutions are considered the archetypal bourgeois revolutions,^[3][4] in that they attempted to clear away the remnants of the medieval feudal system, so as to pave the way for the rise of capitalism.^[1] The term is usually used in contrast to "proletarian revolution", and is also sometimes called a "bourgeois-democratic revolution".^[5][6]

Theories of bourgeois revolution

Starting in the late 18th century, the Bildungsbürger ("educated bourgeoise") class defined itself more on the basis of education than material possessions and thus great emphasis was laid upon the education of children.

According to one version of the two-stage theory, bourgeois revolution was asserted to be a necessary step in the move toward socialism, as codified by Georgi Plekhanov.^[7][8] In this view, countries like the Russian Empire that had preserved their feudal structure would have to establish capitalism via a bourgeois revolution before being able to wage a proletarian revolution.^[9][10] At the time of the Russian Revolution, the Mensheviks asserted this theory, arguing that a revolution led by the bourgeoisie was necessary to modernise society, establish basic freedoms, and overcome feudalism, which would establish the conditions necessary for socialism.^[9] This view is prominent in Marxist–Leninist analysis.^[11][12]

Political sociologist Barrington Moore Jr. identified the bourgeois revolution as one of three routes from pre-industrial society to the modern world, in which a capitalist mode of production is combined with liberal democracy. Moore identified the English, French, and American revolutions as examples of this route.^[13]

Historian Neil Davidson believes that neither the establishment of democracy or the end of feudal relations are defining characteristics of bourgeois revolutions but instead supports Alex Callinicos' definition of bourgeois revolution as being those that establish "an independent center of capital accumulation".^[6][14][15] Charles Post labels this analysis as consequentialism, where there is no requirement of the prior development of capitalism or bourgeois class agency for bourgeois revolutions, and that they are only defined by the effects of the revolutions to promote the development of capital accumulation.^[16]

Other theories describe the evolution of the bourgeoisie as not needing a revolution.^[17] The German bourgeoisie during the 1848 revolution did not strive to take command of the political effort and instead sided with the crown.^[18][19] Davidson attributes their behaviour to the late development of capitalist relations and uses this as the model for the evolution of the bourgeoisie.^[20]

Left communists often view the revolutions leading to Communist states in the 20th century as "bourgeois revolutions".^[21][22]

Goals of the bourgeois revolution

According to the Marxist view, the tasks of the bourgeois revolution include:

• The creation of the nation state, which can be constituted differently in different peoples.^[23][24]
• The constitution of the state on the basis of popular sovereignty; the rule of law is based on a constitution,^[25] which is adopted by the people.
• Bourgeois rule,^[26] if possible in the form of a democratic republic,^[27][28] which already found its complement in tyranny in antiquity.^[29]
• The abolition of serfdom and the formation of free wage workers instead.^[30][31]
• The separation of producers from the means of production in primitive accumulation.^[32]
• The abolition of the guilds and freedom of investment.^[30]
• The free development of the productive forces until they are ripe for social revolution.

Bourgeois revolutions in history

Bourgeois revolutions in the Middle Ages

Although with much less diffusion, some social movements of the European Late Middle Ages received the name of bourgeois revolution, in which the bourgeoisie begins to define itself in the nascent cities as a social class. Examples include the Ciompi Revolt in the Republic of Florence, Jacquerie revolts during the Hundred Years' War in France,^[33] and Bourgeois revolts of Sahagún [es] in Spain.^[34][35]

Bourgeois revolutions in the early modern period

The first wave of bourgeois revolutions are those that occurred within the early modern period and were typically marked by being driven from below by the petty bourgeoisie against absolutist governments.^[6]

A Loyalist customs official tarred and feathered by the Sons of Liberty during the American Revolutionary War

• German Peasants' War (1524–1525); also labelled by later historians as an early attempt at a bourgeois revolution^[36]
• Eighty Years' War (1566–1648); also known as the Dutch revolution^[3][37]
• English Revolution (1640–1660)^[3][4][6]
• American Revolution (1765–1783)^[3][6]
• French Revolution (1789–1799)^[38][3]
• Irish Rebellion of 1798^[39]

Bourgeois revolutions in the late modern period

1911 battle at Ta-ping gate, Nanking, during the Chinese Revolution in a painting by T. Miyano

The second wave of bourgeois revolutions are those that occurred within the late modern period and were typically marked by being led from above by the haute bourgeoisie.^[6]

• Greek Revolution (1821–1829)^[40]
• July Revolution (1830)^[41]
• February Revolution (1848)^[42][43]
• German revolutions of 1848–1849^[44]
• Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states^[45][43]
• Hungarian Revolution of 1848^[45][46]
• Risorgimento (1848–1871)^[47]
• Unification of Germany (1866–1871)^[47]
• American Civil War (1861–1865)^[48]
• Japanese Revolution (1868–1869)^[49][47]
• Philippine Revolution (1896–1898)^[50]
• 1905 Russian Revolution (1905–1907)^[51][6]
• Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911)^[52]
• Young Turk Revolution (1908)^[53]
• Chinese revolution of 1911 (1911–1912)^[54][6]
• Mexican Revolution (1910–1917)^[55]
• February Revolution (1917); also called a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" in Soviet historiography^[56][57]
• / Chinese revolution (1925–1953)^[58][21]
• Iranian Revolution (1978–1979); according to Enver Hoxha^[59]

References

1. "Bourgeois Revolution". TheFreeDictionary.com. Archived from the original on 21 September 2022. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
2. Johnson, Walker & Gray (2014), p. 118; Calvert (1990), pp. 9–10; Hobsbawm (1989), pp. 11–12
3. Eisenstein (2010), p. 64, quoted in Davidson, Neil (2012). "From Society to Politics; From Event to Process". How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions?. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. pp. 381–382. ISBN 978-1-60846-067-0.
4. Callinicos 1989, pp. 113–171.
5. Wilczynski, Jozef, ed. (1981). "Bourgeois Revolution". An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marxism, Socialism and Communism. London: Macmillan Press. p. 48. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-05806-8. ISBN 978-1-349-05806-8.
6. Davidson, Neil (May 2012). "Bourgeois Revolution and the US Civil War". International Socialist Review. No. 83. Center For Economic Research and Social Change. Archived from the original on 27 December 2021.
7. Post 2019, pp. 157–158.
8. Plekhanov, Georgi (1949) [1895]. The Bourgeois Revolution: The Political Birth of Capitalism. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018 – via Marxists Internet Archive.
9. "Stagism". Encyclopedia of Marxism. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 6 November 2018 – via Marxists Internet Archive.
10. Lane, David (22 April 2020). "Revisiting Lenin's theory of socialist revolution on the 150th anniversary of his birth". European Politics and Policy. London School of Economics. Archived from the original on 3 May 2020.
11. Caputo, Renato. "Grandezza e limiti della rivoluzione borghese in Marx" [Magnitude and limits of the bourgeois revolution in Marx]. La Città Futura (in Italian). Archived from the original on 6 March 2023. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
12. Cervelli, Innocenzo (1976). "Sul concetto di rivoluzione borghese" [On the concept of bourgeois revolution]. Studi Storici (in Italian). 17 (1): 147–155. JSTOR 20564411. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
13. Calvert 1990, pp. 53–55.
14. Gluckstein, Donny (7 October 2013). "Comment on bourgeois revolutions". International Socialism (140). Archived from the original on 18 May 2017.
15. Post 2019, pp. 160–161, 166–167.
16. Post 2019, pp. 160–161.
17. Blackbourn, David. Economy and Society: A Silent Bourgeois Revolution. pp. 176–205. Archived from the original on 21 February 2023. in Blackbourn & Eley (1984)
18. Hallas (1988), pp. 17–20; Klíma (1986), pp. 93–94; Calvert (1990), pp. 53–55
19. Blackbourn, David. Economy and Society: The shadow side. pp. 206–237. Archived from the original on 21 February 2023. in Blackbourn & Eley (1984)
20. Davidson, Neil (2012). "Marx and Engels (2) 1847–52". How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions?. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-60846-067-0. In a world where most states have not yet experienced bourgeois revolutions, where most are even more economically underdeveloped than Germany, they too will give rise to "belated" bourgeoisies, the implication being that it is Germany rather than France that represents the likely pattern of bourgeois development.
21. "China: The bourgeois Revolution has been accomplished, the proletarian Revolution remains to be made". Communist Program (3). May 1977. Archived from the original on 10 October 2023 – via International Library of the Communist Left.
22. Post 2019, pp. 164–165.
23. Marx & Engels 1956, 8, p. 197.
24. Marx & Engels 1956, 16, p. 157.
25. Marx & Engels 1956, 37, p. 463.
26. Marx & Engels 1956, 8, p. 196.
27. Marx & Engels 1956, 22, pp. 235–236.
28. Elsenhans, Hartmut (2012). "Democratic revolution, bourgeois revolution, Arab revolution: The political economy of a possible success". NAQD. 29 (1): 51–60. doi:10.3917/naqd.029.0051. Archived from the original on 13 April 2023.
29. Marx & Engels 1956, 17, p. 337.
30. Marx & Engels 1956, 17, p. 592.
31. Heller 2006, Introduction pp. 2–4.
32. Marx & Engels 1956, 23, pp. 741–761.
33. Mollat, Michel [in French]; Wolff, Philippe [in French] (1970). Ongles bleus, jacques et ciompi - les révolutions populaires en Europe aux XIVe et XVe siècles [Ongles bleus, Jacquerie and Ciompi - popular revolutions in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries] (in French). Calmann-Lévy.
34. Pastor de Togneri, Reyna [in Spanish] (1973). Conflictos sociales y estancamiento económico en la España medieval [Social conflicts and economic stagnation in medieval Spain] (in Spanish). Editorial Ariel.
35. Martín, José Luis. Historia de España [History of Spain (A society at war)]. Historia 16 (in Spanish). Vol. 4 - Una sociedad en guerra.
36. Bak, Janos (2022) [1976]. "'The Peasant War in Germany' by Friedrich Engels – 125 years later". In Bak, Janos (ed.). The German Peasant War of 1525. Routledge. pp. 93–99. doi:10.4324/9781003190950. ISBN 978-1-00-319095-0. S2CID 241881702.
37. Hallas 1988, pp. 17–20.
38. Heller (2006), Preface p. ix; Callinicos (1989), pp. 113–171; Sewell (1994), Introduction pp. 22–23
39. Faulkner, Neil (24 October 2011). "A Marxist History of the World part 49: The French Revolution – Themidor, Directory and Napoleon". Counterfire. Archived from the original on 21 December 2023.
40. Lutsky, Vladimir (1969). "VII The Conquest of the East Sudan by Mohammed Ali. The Expedition to Morea". Modern History of the Arab Countries – via Marxists Internet Archive.
41. Modern World History Writing Group 1973a, p. 172.
42. Modern World History Writing Group 1973a, p. 233.
43. Klíma 1986, pp. 74–75.
44. Modern World History Writing Group (1973a), p. 255; Callinicos (1989), pp. 113–171; Hallas (1988), pp. 17–20; Klíma (1986), pp. 74–75
45. Modern World History Writing Group 1973a.
46. Klíma 1986, p. 77.
47. Post 2019, pp. 165–166.
48. Faulkner, Neil (8 January 2012). "A Marxist History of the World part 57: The American Civil War". Counterfire. Archived from the original on 21 December 2023.
49. Faulkner, Neil (18 January 2012). "A Marxist History of the World part 58: The Meiji Restoration". Counterfire. Archived from the original on 21 December 2023.
50. Modern World History Writing Group 1973b, p. 150.
51. Modern World History Writing Group 1973b, p. 130.
52. Modern World History Writing Group 1973b, p. 152.
53. Modern World History Writing Group 1973b, p. 160.
54. Zhang, Yuchun; Ma, Zhenwen (1976). 简明中国近代史 [A Concise Modern History of China] (in Chinese). Liaoning People's Publishing House. p. 301.
55. Modern World History Writing Group 1973b, p. 224.
56. Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), ed. (1938). "Istoriya Vsesoyuznoy kommunisticheskoy partii (bol'shevikov). Kratkiy kurs" История Всесоюзной коммунистической партии (большевиков). Краткий курс [History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Short course] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 12 April 2023.
57. Genkina, Esfir Borisovna [in Russian] (1927). Pokrovsky, Mikhail Nikolaevich [in Russian] (ed.). Fevral'skiy perevorot // Ocherki po istorii Oktyabr'skoy revolyutsii Февральский переворот // Очерки по истории Октябрьской революции [The February coup // Essays on the history of the October Revolution] (in Russian). Vol. 2.
58. Post 2019, pp. 160–163.
59. Hoxha, Enver (1984). Reflections on the Middle East (PDF). pp. 254, 265–266 – via Marxists Internet Archive. (254) From information we receive and the reports of news agencies which I read regularly, it is clear that regardless of the Islamic slogans which are used to show that the religious spirit is allegedly predominant in it, the Iranian revolution is an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist popular revolution. ... (265–266) The control of the situation has not slipped out of Khomeini's hands, but with the overthrow of the monarchy of the Pahlavis, with the liquidation of this mediaeval monarchy, the evolution in Iran has brought to the fore elements more organized, more radical, more progressive than Khomeini, elements who are operating for a democratic, bourgeois Iran with considerable rights. But we shall see to what extent they will achieve this aim.

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