The New French Revolution II: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 149-154

One of the goals of this project is to take away the “punch” of conspiracy theory books. They generally look impressive and are full of information that the author has tied together into a grand conspiracy. For the most part these books do a good job in convincing because people tend to skip over the parts they don’t care about. An actual historian would be more interested in the narrative that Webster is pushing now, but the audience that is going to scoop up this book is skipping it. This is my seventh book for this blog and I can say this: she needs to remind the reader what the point is once in a while.

On the plus side, she hasn’t mentioned “the Jews” in about thirty pages.

We are at the beginning of the Bourgeousie revolution and so far, Webster really has nothing to go on. So far she’s told us that the protestors/revolutionaries had legitimate complaints, those in power were offering some concessions, and negotiations were happening. The problem, that we know from history, is that those in power don’t surrender power. Their concessions are usually the things that they know they can live without which are supposed to pacify the people.

During the Russian Revolutions, one thing the people demanded was some kind of representation in the Tsar’s court. Democracy was sweeping through Europe and despite Peter the Great’s attempts at modernization, this was not one of those modernizations. The Tsar would give the people the Duma, a parliamentary style house of government, but he would then dissolve it because it wasn’t voting the way he wanted.

Webster, as I have said repeatedly, is a fascist. She has repeatedly told us throughout the book that the people are better off when they are told what to do and they should just be grateful to live under absolute rule of elites. A peasant revolt doesn’t mean that the aristocracy is oppressive or that the system is unequal; it means that the “They” have been spreading their influence.

Her explanation of the revolution is that the people, with legitimate grievance, began to form parties and marches. On the 23rd of February, they massed at on the Boulevard des Capucines, where there was some confusion and the French army opened fire. Really, no one’s fault if you think about it.

In reality, much the same, except that the soldiers were ordered to fix bayonets and they became startled and opened fire on the crowd. This event, became the start of the revolution. Or as Webster put it, “gave the signal for revolution.”

She follows up by telling us that during the night of 23-24 “the Secret Societies were at work issuing their orders; meanwhile Proudhon busied himself drawing up a plan of attack.”

This would mean that before the fighting at the Boulevard des Capucines which signaled the start of the revolution the “Secret Societies” were issuing their orders? Did they order the French army to shoot the protestors? If not, then the orders could have been nothing more than “march on the government.”

There’s a footnote at the end of the sentence and for once, credit where its due, it’s an accurate footnote. To be perfectly honest I expected it to merely explain that Proudhon began writing anarchist works. Instead, he and his fellow revolutionaries began issuing orders to erect barricades in the streets and revolt.

Alright, so what? We’ve had a summary of the 1848 French Revolution; however, I don’t know what we are supposed to do with that information. The revolutionaries she says seized arms, took over the streets, fired at troops, and shot randomly into the window of the princes. To which I reply, yes, it was a revolution it’s to be expected. The King abdicates and then the people take over. Now the work of creating a brand new society begins.

This is the important part of any Revolution—the after period. This is the difficult thing: tearing down something is easy but building something is much more difficult and Webster seems to take this difficulty as proof of…something. We are told the story that after the revolution some workmen barged into the new government’s chamber and demanded that they hurry up and give the people the right to work back. It had been a day since the king abdicated. One member of the new government, Alphonse de Lamartine, asked for patience because of the difficulty of the creating a new government. The plea wins over the gunman who says, according a citation to Daniel Stern, “We will have confidence in our government. The people will wait; they place three months of misery at the service of the Republic.”

Webster says that these words were pathetic and represented a betrayal because the revolutionaries promised them salvation. Webster likes to frame this as an indication that any political project she disagrees with must either be 100% successful, efficient, and quick; or it is an abject failure. I look at this story as one of success, or people willing to wait for the promise.

They waited for two days when the national workshops opened. Two days, not three months. Webster is unhappy. Because “the mere fact that a man has no longer to depend on his own efforts to seek and find employment must inevitably lead to lack of enterprise and to idleness on the part of those who do not want to work; moreover, if payment is to be received whether a man is in or out of employment it will be obviously a matter of indifference to the slacker whether he keeps his job or loses it.”

I’ve heard this sentiment my entire life, except that here, Webster observes that there will be people who will be unwilling to work, e.g. the slacker. This is interesting for two reasons: the first is that I had no idea the word went back that far. The second is that she’s identifying an exception. In her view, most people will be grateful for the assistance in finding work (the workhouses of 1848 France) and for having employment; however, because a very small minority will leech off the system the entire project should be abandoned. This is an absolutely crazy position to take, but that’s not a position we should argue about in this blog.

Instead, we should point out that this has nothing to do with any kind of plot against civilization. It represents a government trying to guarantee employment for its citizens or, failing that, guarantee that they will not starve. As one writer puts it, “That in a civilized state no man should be allowed to starve because he cannot find work is clearly evident,…”

That writer? Nesta Webster in the next paragraph.