Robespierre's historical reputation if 20th century Totalitarianism Never Rises

Robespierre's historical reputation if 20th century Totalitarianism Never Rises

  • More positive than OTL

    Votes: 15 27.8%
  • More negative than OTL

    Votes: 8 14.8%
  • Evenly split depending on ideology and country

    Votes: 9 16.7%
  • Same as OTL

    Votes: 11 20.4%
  • Depends on the scale of atrocities of any government replacing 20th century totalitarianism

    Votes: 9 16.7%
  • Unknown

    Votes: 2 3.7%

  • Total voters
    54
So I've been studying the French Revolution and how various groups, nations and political identities view it's legacy and what I found interesting was that while he is traditionally associated as the forerunner of 20th century totalitarianism, French academia actually had a positive, borderline apologetic, image of Robespierre from the work of Jean Jaurès up to the late 20th century due to a strong Marxist base in academia, this base shifted when the Revisionist school analysis of the French Revolution came to be combined with expanding knowledge of the atrocities of the Communist bloc and the collapse of the USSR.

But what would be Robespierre's reputation if 20th century totalitarian ideologies never came to be? Let's say the October Revolution was averted because Kerensky withdrew from WWI or the Romanovs reformed Russia in time. This of course takes Fascism and Nazism down with Communism. So any totalitarian ideology as we would associate with Bolshevism, Stalinism, Fascism and Maoism would only exist in the mind and on the drawing board. Would it be the same as today, even more negatively than it is today, evenly split on the basis of political ideology, even more positive than what it is OTL with a lack of a figure "reminding" us of "the horror", or dependent on the conduct, ideology or the scale of any atrocities committed by any autocratic government that could be a replacement for what we consider totalitarianism.
 
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So I've been studying the French Revolution and how various groups, nations and political identities view it's legacy and what I found interesting was that while he is traditionally associated as the forerunner of 20th century totalitarianism, French academia actually had a positive, borderline apologetic, image of Robespierre from the work of Jean Jaurès up to the late 20th century due to a strong Marxist base in academia, when the Revisionist school analysis of the French Revolution came to be combined with expanding knowledge of the atrocities of the Communist bloc and the collapse of the USSR.

But what would be Robespierre's reputation if 20th century totalitarian ideologies never came to be? Let's say the October Revolution was averted because Kerensky withdrew from WWI or the Romanovs reformed Russia in time. This of course takes Fascism and Nazism down with Communism. So any totalitarian ideology as we would associate with Bolshevism, Stalinism, Fascism and Maoism would only exist in the mind and on the drawing board. Would it be the same as today, even more negatively than it is today, evenly split on the basis of political ideology, even more positive than what it is OTL with a lack of a figure "reminding" us of "the horror", or dependent on the conduct, ideology or the scale of any atrocities committed by any autocratic government that could be a replacement for what we consider totalitarianism.

That doesn't take out Nazism or Fascism. Those were self-generated.
 
That doesn't take out Nazism or Fascism. Those were self-generated.

Part of the reason that Fascism rose is because of animosity against Communism. Take out Communism and I feel Mussolini might not have a strong base.

Personally I think it would be dependant on the ideology of what replaces 20th century totalitarianism as well as any of their atrocities and if this could be linked to the terror.
 
Have to say that the totalitarian regimes,especially the Communist ones, ran a PR campaign for Robespierre and tried to improve his image.
 
Part of the reason that Fascism rose is because of animosity against Communism. Take out Communism and I feel Mussolini might not have a strong base.

Personally I think it would be dependant on the ideology of what replaces 20th century totalitarianism as well as any of their atrocities and if this could be linked to the terror.

But that doesn't take away communism. Communism was an economic system that had been theorized about way before the Russians fell to it. Economic inequality had already led to socialism, and there was no reason why another country can't fall to communism. This isn't mutually exclusive.

Meanwhile, the fascists prided themselves on opposing left-wing movements, which included socialist movements. Having proponents of socialism is inevitable (Labour party), so according to your idea of how fascism got started, it'll still be around this time.
 
Part of the reason that Fascism rose is because of animosity against Communism. Take out Communism and I feel Mussolini might not have a strong base.

Personally I think it would be dependant on the ideology of what replaces 20th century totalitarianism as well as any of their atrocities and if this could be linked to the terror.

I agree. Traditional conservatives largely regarded fascists with a major degree of disdainful class snobbery, but were willing to back them to hold back the red menace.

On topic, I don't think it makes any difference. France my apologise for him, but everyone abroad was horrified by the French Revolution's violence and will continue to do so.
 
IMO a more interesting question is his reputation is France stabilized into some form of democratic or even liberal government. Would he be seen as a necessary evil?
 
Robespierre's reputation directly comes from the Revolutionary Wars, even without movement comparable to Marxism, you'd still have a huge villification because of the geopolitical context : he's the ennemy and a political threat, so he's the devil (see Napoleonic reputation until the XXth or even now in some circles).

French academia actually had a positive, borderline apologetic, image of Robespierre

You'd find the French academia much more divided on this issue, even historically, than you make it.
Roughly, you have a left-wing (even outside France, see Chartist's view on him) that due to the Neo-Jacobin influence on republicanism considers him as a particularily positive figure; a right-wing that sees him as a bloodthirsty monster (and with the more and more radicalized royalist stance in the XIXth and that practically blamed everything on him, as the execution of Louis XVI on which he had eventually little to none responsability) and a nuanced viewpoint which partially comes from the "ideological compromise" that was attempted by Bourbon-Orléans and critically Napoléon III.

See Balzac view on Robespierre as a good approximaton of this "centrist" view : a morally rigid and cold-blooded person who's ready to send many to death and a moral regression (critically with Auguste Comte, and giving the importance of positivism on neo-republicanism...), but doing so for the sake of the state and revolution with a strong popular support.

You mentioned Jaures, but his view on Robespierre was at this point quite isolated in left-wing republicanism : since the Commune most of the far-left (especially Marxist one), Robespierre became a more negative figure (it's not the place to describe the opposition of Neo-Jacobin and Socialist stances during the Commune, but let's say the first wanted a reedition of 1793, the other thinking it was outright fetichism).
See, Jaures was as marxist than Donald Trump is your average Republican : his political role was more to join neo-jacobin influences to marxist ones when forging the SFIO and partially explains why French Revolution became a focus point of french socialist then communist historiography.

Note that since the 60's, most of the academic search is more about studying Robespierre within its context and among the other political groups of the time, and calling some schools as Francois Furet's as apologetic is downright laughable and uninformed.

Long story short, Robespierre and more generally Jacobin historiography is particularilu proteiform in France, and taking Jaures as an exemple on how it looks like seems weird from a modern point of view.

On topic, I don't think it makes any difference. France my apologise for him, but everyone abroad was horrified by the French Revolution's violence and will continue to do so.
WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT DEATH! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(I'm sure you have considered that a good deal of horror was caused by war propaganda, and that even if the French Revolution was indeed bloody, it went nowhere close to the fantasma it caused in historiography.)

IMO a more interesting question is his reputation is France stabilized into some form of democratic or even liberal government. Would he be seen as a necessary evil?
It's (very) roughly the IOTL main popular view in France. Sure he was a jerk, but he was kinda needed at some time and it ceased to be eventually. (After this, opinion may diverse onto that he still wanted to continue the same policy, or if he wanted to slow down)
 
Robespierre's reputation directly comes from the Revolutionary Wars, even without movement comparable to Marxism, you'd still have a huge villification because of the geopolitical context : he's the ennemy and a political threat, so he's the devil (see Napoleonic reputation until the XXth or even now in some circles).



You'd find the French academia much more divided on this issue, even historically, than you make it.
Roughly, you have a left-wing (even outside France, see Chartist's view on him) that due to the Neo-Jacobin influence on republicanism considers him as a particularily positive figure; a right-wing that sees him as a bloodthirsty monster (and with the more and more radicalized royalist stance in the XIXth and that practically blamed everything on him, as the execution of Louis XVI on which he had eventually little to none responsability) and a nuanced viewpoint which partially comes from the "ideological compromise" that was attempted by Bourbon-Orléans and critically Napoléon III.

See Balzac view on Robespierre as a good approximaton of this "centrist" view : a morally rigid and cold-blooded person who's ready to send many to death and a moral regression (critically with Auguste Comte, and giving the importance of positivism on neo-republicanism...), but doing so for the sake of the state and revolution with a strong popular support.

You mentioned Jaures, but his view on Robespierre was at this point quite isolated in left-wing republicanism : since the Commune most of the far-left (especially Marxist one), Robespierre became a more negative figure (it's not the place to describe the opposition of Neo-Jacobin and Socialist stances during the Commune, but let's say the first wanted a reedition of 1793, the other thinking it was outright fetichism).
See, Jaures was as marxist than Donald Trump is your average Republican : his political role was more to join neo-jacobin influences to marxist ones when forging the SFIO and partially explains why French Revolution became a focus point of french socialist then communist historiography.

Note that since the 60's, most of the academic search is more about studying Robespierre within its context and among the other political groups of the time, and calling some schools as Francois Furet's as apologetic is downright laughable and uninformed.

Long story short, Robespierre and more generally Jacobin historiography is particularilu proteiform in France, and taking Jaures as an exemple on how it looks like seems weird from a modern point of view.


WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT DEATH! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(I'm sure you have considered that a good deal of horror was caused by war propaganda, and that even if the French Revolution was indeed bloody, it went nowhere close to the fantasma it caused in historiography.)


It's (very) roughly the IOTL main popular view in France. Sure he was a jerk, but he was kinda needed at some time and it ceased to be eventually. (After this, opinion may diverse onto that he still wanted to continue the same policy, or if he wanted to slow down)

I didn't mention Furet as apologetic of Robespierre. I mentioned that the Revisionist school displaced the Marxist one and Furet helped to started revisionist histography.
 
I didn't mention Furet as apologetic of Robespierre. I mentioned that the Revisionist school displaced the Marxist one and Furet helped to started revisionist histography.

You qualified "French academia" as having a positive image, if not apologetic up to the late XXth and the collapse of USSR (with neo-liberal view on Revolution began to blossom in the 60's)

Which is wrong on several matters, as the liberal school not only appeared in mid-century but was importantly coming from the right-wing stance on Revolution since the XIXth.
Not even for the period where neo-Jacobin classical view prevailed, qualifying french academia as such can't really stand (especially taking Jaures as an exemple, that while influential on the left-wing historiography, was relatively innovational and not recieved on a good part of academia).

The main difference is more the dynamism of the different academic stances : neo-jacobine/marxist in the first half of XXth indeed beneficied from political dynamism, while the right-wing view was more conservative until the 60's, but the first one clearly wasn't dominant at the point you can consider it as the whole of academic studies.

Doing so, you undermine the importance of politicization in Revolution's studies in France, while you understood and asserted its presence in your OP.
 
I voted for UNKNOWN because, really, I think this is the only realistic assessment. What you are talking about is an enormous shift in the currents of 20th century intellectual thought stemming from no totalitarianism.

All historians, even those aiming for complete objectivity, are influenced by the milieu in which they are writing.

LS Catalina raises important points about the currents of French scholarship OTL, but that is, crucially, OTL.

Without a scheme of how 20th century society might develop without totalitarianism it is impossible to know who would be the historians and what they would be writing.

If you butterfly the October Revolution, for instance, then the history of the French Revolution will be very different. Its too simplistic to say that right-wing historians attack Robespierre whist left-wing ones defend him. Many soviet historians were deeply critical of Robespierre's excesses, his weird quasi-religious Cult of the Supreme Being, but also his uncertain attitude to what they saw as the truly proletarian elements of the revolution.

Without 20th century totalitarianism you make the 'terrible but necessary' argument very different - it changes who can make that argument and why if, for instance, you have no Lenin or Mussolini.
 
I'm not claiming he was as bad as the biggest exaggerations but thats a strawman. Ultimately 40,000 people were executed in a 10 month period on very weak grounds all over France, including many leading revolutionaries who were just seen as not being as hardline enough. I don't think anyone like that will be seen positively outside ideological sympathisers or strands of nationalism that overlook crimes of their historical national leaders.
 
Don't forget that Robespierre was far from having the sole authority, even in Paris. Heck, even the Convention had trouble asserting its authority in province (see repression in Lyon). One can't simply depict this period as a full dicatorship of Robespierre because, really, it wasn't.

It's why, for exemple, the provincial popular juries were disbanded in April 1794, and the revolutionary comission in Paris being virtually the only one remaining.
Really, a good deal of Convention and Comité de Salut Public work in 1794 was to take control of what happened in province, including in regions that were acknowledging their authority.

As for former revolutionaries being killed, you're again forgetting something important : this was a period of civil war. It's not that they took people out of their beds and killed them for shit and giggles, but for what they saw as an existential threat (and giving how much Girondin and Royalist interests began to merge, as in Toulon, that's not really a fantasy of them).
The same can be said about Vendée : eventually you had as much republican than royalists deaths.

(A bit, if you will, like Commonwealth of England had a very important death tool relative to its population, because it was a fucking mess of a civil war and revolution in the same time. And frankly there is more ground for calling on planned actions than in France at the same time. Still, situations are comparable.)

And "not hardline enough" were executed? You seem to ignore completly the actions taken against groups as Enragés, Exagérés, Herbertistes or a good deal of Cordeliers, which were much more hardline than most of Jacobins in 93/94, but still crushed because seen as a disruptive groups (and let's be honest, while they were so, especially Enragés, not at the point they were that of a threat)

It doesn't excuse anything, but it does explain better than "They were monsters MONSTERS and we were horrified because we were obviously morally superior"

. I don't think anyone like that will be seen positively outside ideological sympathisers or strands of nationalism that overlook crimes of their historical national leaders.
Wait a minute, are you calling me a crime denialist and a nationalist? That's a new low.

If you want my take on this, would it be only to make more personal attacks, I don't take Jacobin history as perfect and free from crimes, far from it.
But there's a difference acknowledging this, and make a comfy and caricatural statement ignoring most of the facts of the situation then : there was obviously an existential threat on several fronts (not in small parts due to the war provoked by Girondins), a Convention inheriting a state in poor condition and becoming largely chaotic.

Anyhow, yes, Convention beneficied from a real and large public support then. Doesn't make it more right, mind you, but it breaks a bit the caricature that can be pulled out of it : control over prices, popular intervention in politics, etc.
1794 went trough a general crisis : economical (with harvest being low and assignat value falling), political (tentatives of Convention to centralize the country were largely ill-recieved* and consequences of the Terror while most of the existential threat was gone or seemed so with the temptatives to pull a civic/theistic religion).

The same people that supported the Terror eventually blamed it all on Robespierre, partially to save their skins,

Neo-Jacobin clubs, as Panthéon, became really threatening for the Directoire and explain not only 1796 events, but 1799 as well when Bonaparte was called off to deal with the very real possibility of a Néo-Jacobin power.
At some point, one should acknowledge the very real popular support (mix of lower classes and mid-classes) that Jacobin enjoyed even after Robespierre (partially, admittedly, because they had a necessary critic view on the Terror, while not condemning it) : how events followed with a massive political reaction didn't really pleased most.

End line (because I don't want to derail the thread more than that for what matters to me) is that any serious historical analysis shouldn't be looking as this caricatural (heck, even Furet was much more moderate, analysing it as the result of a general mindset in the 1780's).

*Not from popular classes only, tough. I went trough a series of letter sent by the Commune of Montauban during the Revolution and Empire and the very same elites that ruled the town continuously changed side as the winds blew differently, greeting however was strong enough as long it let them enjoying their local power.
 
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