Revolutions of 1848

Revolutions of 1848

Common conditions go to common outcomes

  • Poor economic conditions

  • Slow pace of political reform

    • Constitutional monarchies

    • Greater representation/suffrage 

  • Unfulfilled nationalist aspirations

  • End to serfdom/manorial obligations where they still existed

  • England and Russia only two to avoid it

  • Outcomes

    • They all lacked political and social strength

The Spark- France

  • Radicals

    • Universal male suffrage

  • Liberals

    • Broaden voting rights within existing constitutional monarchy

  • King Louis Philippe repressed all

    • Should have sided with the Liberals

“February” Revolution

  • Feb 21

    • Barricades go up

    • 2 people killed

  • Feb 24

    • Louis Philippe abdicated and fled to England

  • 10 man provisional government

    • Oversee elections of a Constituent Assembly in April that would create a new constitution

      • Universal suffrage

      • A 2nd french republic

    • Abolished slavery in the colonies

    • Created National Workshops

      • Work projects for the unemployed

      • Became a breeding ground of discontent, agitation and organization

      • Families were broken up

Constituent Assembly

  • Socialist element no represented

    • Interests of the working class

      • Hours longer, wages lower than in England, and no faith in capitalist system

    • More support in Paris that elsewhere in France

  • CA dominated by Political Republicans

    • Supported merchant capitalism

      • Hence, anti-worker

  • Hence, Paris more revolutionary (repressive) than in the rest of France

Bloody June Days

  • May

    • Men of the workshops attacked and dissolved the Con. Assembly

      • Declared that a social revolution must follow the political revolution of February

  • National Guard turned on the workers and restored the Assembly

  • Assembly closed the National Workshops and offered three things

    • Enlistment in the army

    • Transfer to local workshops

    • Expulsion from Paris

  • June 24-26

    • 20,000 Workshop men joined joined by thousands of working class men and women

    • 10,000 casualties

    • 11,000 prisoners 

      • Immediate deportation to the colonies

Class War

  • Militant workers vs. bourgeoisie

  • Belief

    • Capitalism survived by shooting working class men and women in the streets

  • Those above the working class in a panic

  • Fertile ground for Marx and Engels