The Reference Shelf Shuffle

Abstract

ning of everything. She is the mother of all revolutionary ideas. For example: everybody has studied it; that's important. In so short a time, with such incredible concentration, a condensation of hopes was created that expressed and expresses all the dreams of mankind, all the situations that continue to repeat themselves for hundreds of years. It is a phenomenal source of inspiration and information. With all the negative phenomena it engendered? Yes. The French Revolution found itself confronted by a dilemma: to fight in the name of the majority meant to subdue a minority. That was Robespierre's hope and impasse: he hoped that this Revolution, by maintaining and perpetuating itself, would cause the masses to become autonomous, conscious and politically mature. That it would help the masses, as it were, to jump a stage, the stage of the bourgeois class. But the French Revolution in the end represents the victory of the bourgeoisie, which managed to get itself established later thanks to the Revolution. Sometimes, studying the French Revolution, one gets the impression that there was a chance there for it to go further, but this further stage in reality was impossible since no workers' class existed, which, in orthodox Marxist interpretation, is essential for revolution. This class, or a class, with the necessary consciousness, was lacking, and thus the Revolution could go no further. But the French Revolution, like all popular movements, created a situation of no return, a d that is what's important. That early freshness of spirit, that virginity of events. Those are the things I care for and those are the things I want to show.