Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror: A Perversion of the Revolutionary Ideal or 
A Continuation of the Revolutionary Zeal?

Related image

Due December 18, 2017
With foreign armies  from Austria, Prussia and England threatening the borders of France (and Paris) and with civil war erupting in the Vendee, the Great Committee of Public Safety needed to take drastic and immediate action. The question is were the twelve men on the infamous committee continuing the work of the French Revolution or were they drifting of into an oligarchy or dictatorship?

In this week’s blog, you must defend or reject the goal(s) of the Great Committee of Public Safety as either a continuation of the philosophy of the French Revolution or just a blatant attempt at consolidating power in the committee.

The following links may prove to be beneficial in your post:

Justification for the Use of Terror
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-terror.html

For the Defense of the Committee of Public Safety
http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history//france/revolution/robespierre/1793/defense-committee.htm

The History Guide
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture13a.html

Historywiz: The Reign of Terror
http://www.historywiz.com/terror.htm

Maximilien Robespierre
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/historical/biography/maximilien_robespierre.html

Robespierre
http://www.nndb.com/people/832/000092556/

Robespeirre speech on the Festival of the Supreme Being
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/robespierre.htm

Twelve Who Ruled by R.R. Palmer in the French Revolution iBook (thumbnail biographies of the twelve members of the Great Committee of Public Safety)

As always, remember to utilize different information than your fellow bloggers in your initial post.

13 comments:

  1. I believe the Committee of Public Safety’s goal was a continuation of the revolutionary spirit of the time rather than an attempted government takeover. During the French Revolution, the French had to worry not about the civil insurgents, but foreign powers trying to undermine the new French Government. Strong leadership was needed and thus, the Committee of Public Safety was created, a subset of the National Convention. The Committee was in control of France’s defenses and foreign policy, as well as the supervision of ministers (Lecture 13). The means by which the Committee used to achieve this ends was terror, often through the use of the guillotine. This practice has been decried and used as an example of how the Committee abused their power. However, as Robespierre explained, “We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror” (“Justification of the Use of Terror”). This showcases that the Committee truly believed that terror was the best method to protect the Revolution from those who wished to crush it. Furthermore, the members of the Committee never seemed to revel in their power and treated it more as a necessary burden. Robespierre addresses this attitude when the Committee came under attack: “Can it then be that the Citizens you have charged with the most difficult functions have lost the title of imperturbable defenders of freedom because they've accepted this burden?” (“For the Defense of the Committee of Public Safety”).

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    1. Isabelle, your post is great and very well detailed and for the most part I agree with your statement. However perhaps a concession of the other side could make your argument stronger. Sam and I wrote post with a similar view and you wrote one of the opposite opinion. To really sink the nail in the coffin I think giving an idea of what the other side thinks could further support why your idea is better. Anyway, good work I thought you post helped me understand the other side a lot better.

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    2. Isabelle, I agree with you entirely, however I would also like to mention that another justification of the Reign of Terror would be the adherence to Roseau’s belief that the general will was a primary concern. Prominent figures In the Revolution such as Robespierre “considered the general will an absolute necessity” (The History Guide). Emphasizing this ideal as a core belief during the Revolution shows that the reason behind the abundance of killings was that it was for the good of the whole, and those sacrifices needed to be made for the benefit of the general will.

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  2. I believe that the Great Committee of Public Safety was trying to gain power through the revolution because it used terror and tyranny to kill people who said anything against them. It's first leader was George Danton, but it was later taken over by Maximilien Robespierre. “It's mission becomes to purge France of elements in society that are contrary to the revolutionary zeal by the committee.” (Mr. L’Heureux’s PowerPoint). This eventually led to the reign of terror. In one of Robespierre’s speeches he gave a figure of how many were killed in this five month span, “ the revolutionary tribunal in Paris convicted and executed 238 men and 31 women and acquitted 190 persons.” (Sourcebook) The whole idea of the revolution was to get rid of the tyranny of a ruler, and with this group the people who use tyranny and terror to get what they want. Eventually their leader Maximilien Robespierre threatened the National Convention on the progress of the revolution and was arrested in 1794. “He tried to shoot himself but missed…He then was guillotined, as a victim of the terror, on July 28, 1794.”(sourcebook)

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    1. Sam, while I concede to your point over the excess of executions —there being 2,400 ordered executions by 1794–that were ordered during the French Revolution (HistoryWiz). But considering that the Committee of Public Safety underwent a monthly renewal during the year in which they were in power, their actions were obviously in line with what the National Convention wished, and not a power grab. Furthermore, the Committee had a very Machiavellian i.e “the end justifies the means” attitude when it came to the use of terror. As Robespierre claimed, “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs (“Justification of the Use of Terror”). As I mentioned in my own post, the Committee truly believed terror was the best route in order to perverse the ideals of the French Revolution.

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    3. Sam, though I agree with your argument I feel that perhaps there could be a little more detail about the Committee of Public Safety itself. For instance what where the goals of the Committee of Public Safety, why was this group created. A little more detail would definitely make this post a bit better.

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    4. Sam, I have to disagree with your claim that the purpose behind the killings during the Reign of Terror was to silence opposition of the Committee of Public Safety. As I had mentioned in my previously, the deaths of these people was due to the fact that their ideals strayed from those of the Revolution. Robespierre himself was an advocate for the Reign of Terror, and was sentenced to death. This would be counterproductive if your claim that they were attempting to establish tyranny and obtain more power were accurate. Eliminating their own members would weaken their stronghold as opposed to strengthening it.

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  3. Although the intent behind the actions of the Committee of Public Safety could be perceived as being in their own person interest in gaining power, I believe that their true allegiances resided with keeping the spirit of the French Revolution alive. The execution of many people, such as Georges Jacques Danton and Jacques René Hébert was done for the sake of the revolution. It was believed during this time that the use of terror was necessary to continue on with the revolution. When Danton “call[ed] for an end to the Terror,” this showed that his ideals no longer were aligned with those of the revolution (historywiz.com). This commingled with the fact that Danton was suspected of corruption labeled him as a threat to the Revolution. Hébert and his followers “preferred policies were inconsistent with the pure Rousseauism” of the revolution (age-of-the-sage.org). These men were like “so many ambitious or greedy men who since the point of departure have abandoned [the Revolution] along the way because they did not begin the journey with the same destination in view” (Justification of the Use of Terror).

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    2. ReAnna, I completely agree with your argument. However, I think bringing up the fact that Georges Danton was first president of the Committee of Public Safety would aid in your argument that no one was safe from execution if they were not in line with the revolutionary spirit. If the Committee was truly trying to consolidate power they would not have gone after their own members.

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    3. ReAnn, well done, I never thought of it that way before. Though perhaps your post could do with a few more details about the Committee of Public Safety, such as what were the ideals of the French Revolution that they were trying to keep alive.

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  4. The Committee was created to replace the monarchy and to govern the general populace through popular sovereignty, but to many historians the Committee became corrupt and no longer worked for the General Will. The Committee of Public Safety was undoubtedly a major contributor to the bloodshed of the French Revolution, but with so much chaos in Paris and just out side of France’s boarders it’s no surprise the Committee lost sight of its original goal and got swept up with the rest of the panic.Though the goals of the Committee were to continue using the ideas of the French Revolution in the end they drifted off and became something akin to a dictatorship. A dictatorship that killed of hundreds of people in fear that they might revolt against them or simply because they spoke ill of the Committee. Robespierre defended himself and his fellow Public Safety members saying “Eleven armies to direct, the weight of all of Europe to bear; everywhere there are traitors to unmask, emissaries bribed by the gold of foreign powers to foil, unfaithful administrators to watch over, to pursue; everywhere we must level the obstacles and hindrances to the execution of the wisest measures; all the tyrants to combat, all the conspirators to intimidate, those who can almost always be found in a caste once so powerful because of its riches, and even more by its intrigues, these are our functions.“( For the Defense of the Committee of Public Safety) This is a lot of pressure for the Committee, but is it really an excuse for the many unnecessary deaths? Part of the original goal of the Committee of Public Safety was to abolish the aristocracy and the monarchy, but with all of the executions they really don’t seem to be so different from a king who kills simply because someone says something uncouth towards his majesty. The committee “convicted and executed 238 men and 31 women and acquitted 190 persons, and on February 5 there were 5,434 individuals in the prisons in Paris awaiting trial.” (Justification for the Use of Terror) Furthermore though the committee was guided under Robespierre’s vision "to detest bad faith and despotism, to punish tyrants and traitors, to assist the unfortunate and respect the weak, to defend the oppressed, to do all the good one can to one's neighbor, and to behave with justice towards all men." (The History Guide) It becomes obvious through the many executions that even though the committee had honorable goals they become lost in bloodshed in an attempt to rid France of traitors and to protect the General Will. In conclusion I feel that the Committee of Public Safety wasn’t intentionally meant to be a dictatorship, but because of France’s influence on Europe the responsibilities became to much with war, and uprisings and discontent citizens it became to much and the group of twelve ended up getting swept up in the chaos too.

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