The French Revolution is considered the most monumental upheaval of the whole revolutionary age, it has been and is at the centre of several debates between the orthodoxy historical perspective and the revisionist one.
The historic Georges Lefebvre is a Marxist orthodox historian who interpreted the French Revolution as a bourgeois-capitalist revolution that led to a socio-economic transformation. It is a revolution that is still going on since following Marx’s theory, the transition from feudal society to capitalist society is one of the steps that lead to the communism. At odds, in her work Who intervened in 1788?, Elizabeth Eisenstein, having a revisionist interpretation of the French Revolution, presents many critiques on Lefebvre’s …show more content…
Both Eisenstein and Cobban offer a revisionist interpretation of the French Revolution and both of them criticize the Marxist orthodoxy . They do not see the French Revolution as a class struggle between nobility and bourgeoisie to overthrow the feudal system in favour to capitalism. As Cobban affirms, the Revolution was not made by the capitalist bourgeoisie since the vast majority of the revolutionaries were rentiers, lawyers, officials and landowners. They were not at all the rising capitalist bourgeoisie, but a declining class allied with the noble - shaping the ‘elite’ - to stop monarchical reform. They read the French Revolution as a political revolution, a struggle for the possession of power, that could lead to a new political system. Although their focus is different, - Eisenstein’s critique is more concerned with the role of the classes, while the one of Cobban regarded the social aspect - both of them criticize Lefebvre’s depiction of the term ‘bourgeoisie’ as confusing and misunderstanding . Moreover, Cobban as well as Eisenstein affirms the insistence of a closed and unified Third Estate. There was no peasant-bourgeoisie alliance because even thought the bourgeoisie class was a part of the Third Estate, it was in another economic and social level. In addition, Cobban suggests the Marxist historians have put their ideological and historical ideas about history in the French Revolution. “The historical thought of the school of historians of the French Revolution represented by M.Godechot (Marxist) is conditioned by its primary concern with the political struggle for power” (Cobban 1964, p.
The historic Georges Lefebvre is a Marxist orthodox historian who interpreted the French Revolution as a bourgeois-capitalist revolution that led to a socio-economic transformation. It is a revolution that is still going on since following Marx’s theory, the transition from feudal society to capitalist society is one of the steps that lead to the communism. At odds, in her work Who intervened in 1788?, Elizabeth Eisenstein, having a revisionist interpretation of the French Revolution, presents many critiques on Lefebvre’s …show more content…
Both Eisenstein and Cobban offer a revisionist interpretation of the French Revolution and both of them criticize the Marxist orthodoxy . They do not see the French Revolution as a class struggle between nobility and bourgeoisie to overthrow the feudal system in favour to capitalism. As Cobban affirms, the Revolution was not made by the capitalist bourgeoisie since the vast majority of the revolutionaries were rentiers, lawyers, officials and landowners. They were not at all the rising capitalist bourgeoisie, but a declining class allied with the noble - shaping the ‘elite’ - to stop monarchical reform. They read the French Revolution as a political revolution, a struggle for the possession of power, that could lead to a new political system. Although their focus is different, - Eisenstein’s critique is more concerned with the role of the classes, while the one of Cobban regarded the social aspect - both of them criticize Lefebvre’s depiction of the term ‘bourgeoisie’ as confusing and misunderstanding . Moreover, Cobban as well as Eisenstein affirms the insistence of a closed and unified Third Estate. There was no peasant-bourgeoisie alliance because even thought the bourgeoisie class was a part of the Third Estate, it was in another economic and social level. In addition, Cobban suggests the Marxist historians have put their ideological and historical ideas about history in the French Revolution. “The historical thought of the school of historians of the French Revolution represented by M.Godechot (Marxist) is conditioned by its primary concern with the political struggle for power” (Cobban 1964, p.