The Meanings of “Bourgeois Revolution”: Conceptualizing the French Revolution

Abstract

Through an analysis of Marx's writings on the French Revolution of 1789, the revolution concept can be shown to contain a much richer potential than the simplistic and widely rejected orthodox notion of a capitalist bourgeoisie as a social agent with a fully developed class consciousness and revo- lutionary intentions. On the basis of a methodologically ambi- tious view of concepts in general, Marx starts from a general conception of the state as alienated human potentials and pro- ceeds through multiple periodizations towards more particular determinations. The question of the bourgeois character of the Revolution is thus posed with regard to its international relations and processual aspects, rather than to any nationally framed confrontation of capitalist and feudal classes. This non-reductive concept of revolution, describing an important as- pect of the French Revolution rather than the particulars of this historic event, contains a challenge unmet by most contempo- rary historiography.