Revolutions of 1848

1848, in the context of the unceasingly volatile history of Modern Europe, stands significant not only as a tumultuous year in the History of the continent, but also as a remarkable date in the history of World revolutions. Examining the background to the events of this year had, at first, seemed appealing to this writer. Rather than intensively focussing on circumscribed areas of study like the origins of the revolutions, its nature, consequences or legacy, this writer thought that ‘background’ would make for a far more general and even desultory study of the richly diverse areas related to the decades preceding the revolutions of 1848. But as this study gathered momentum it was realised that the questions thrown up became increasingly complex. Examining ‘background’ compels one to undertake a thorough understanding of the preceding decades; it demands us to carefully discern the nature of the latent forces embedded in the preceding period that exploded in course of 1848; to further understand why and how these forces emerged; to search answers to the occurrence of these revolutions as a nearly pan European phenomena; to explore how this preceding period determined the nature of the revolutions, and its revolutionaries; to examine the extent to which these periods had a bearing on the revolution, or, on the other hand, probe into whether the revolutions had any grounding in its ‘background’ at all; whether it was by any means abstract? It then forces us to address the character of the revolution; on how qualified it is to term it ‘revolution’ in the first place; and to finally, though more problematically, locate these revolutions in the broader history of European revolutions.

And in that manner, it dawned upon the writer, that the presumed simplicity of the study was only specious. The existing historiography on the revolutions of 1848 is – as is for other periods in Modern European History- exceptionally rich. Detailed studies have been carried out on the numerous questions related to 1848. A striking aspect of these studies, and reflective of the maturity of these studies, is the unanimity among historians on the fact that the revolutions were borne from a conjunction of crucial economic, political and socio-cultural alterations in the first half of the nineteenth century. Differences on the relative importance of the concerned factors exist; Marxist historians, for instance, often make the economic processes of the preceding period the crux of their explanations for the revolution.

A reasonable entry point into this discussion could be the Vienna Congress of 1815 that had de-Napoleonized the states of Europe and marked the eventual triumph of Restoration. But it is certain that neither the statesman involved in the Congress and nor the Kings and princes restored to their positions of rule assumed or attached any sense of stability to the approaching period. The new order in Europe provided for restoration that would be dual in focus: it would ensure restoration externally and internally. The former implied the preservation of the European states system where the interests of the great powers would be balanced and maintained. The latter meant the protection of the ruling regimes from revolutionism. While the former was relatively easy – the only condition being cooperation among the great powers- the latter made for a far more difficult task and remained a cause for acute anxiety. The French revolution of 1789, removed only by a few decades from these times, had spilled into circulation many revolutionary ideas- of constitutionalism, Democracy, Nationalism and the propriety of armed action to achieve them; and it had to be asked if a generation imbued in these ideas could be indoctrinated with anti revolutionary principles to align with the interests of the new order. Conservatives in this period knew that there were not many alternatives, and that rigid enforcement was critical to the survival of this order of restoration. Repression seemed inevitable; armies, from combating foreign enemies, assumed the new role of a domestic police to clamp down on insurgency and unrest. They became prerequisites to the maintenance of order; policing seemed to be the raison de etre of the restored regimes. 

The ‘philosophy of restoration’, as Droz put it, entailed a movement towards conservatism. Assaults were launched not only against enlightenment but also at individualism. These reactions possessed a remarkably diverse quality; they were principally anti- enlightenment and anti- individualism but often tended to be anti- French, anti- Protestant, and -more obviously- anti revolution in character. Reactions against enlightenment were seen in the work of Maistre, Edmund Burke and Novalis, while the most trenchant theoreticians of Ultramontanism were Maistre and Bonald who ridiculed rationalist pretensions, attacked written constitutions, and asserted the superiority of empiricism over rational thinking. A perceptible antipathy towards the French was exhibited by the German romantics who reacted against the universalism of French institutions. Attacks were also made on the concept of the Natural law by Ludwig Von Haller in Switzerland and Savigny in Germany.

Romanticism developed deep allegiances with Catholicism; with the latter providing the theological justifications to ideas of legitimacy, hierarchy and obedience. Romantics came to believe that the values of the old society could be preserved only by the church, and argued therefore for their increased freedoms and powers. Their opprobrium against the values of the Eighteenth century was by no means mild. Lamenias, for instance, powerfully demanded that temporal authority be subordinated to the absolute authority of the Church.

This conservatism that mingled intensely with religious feelings and popular Ultramontane Catholicism admired the middle ages, condemned free enquiry and rehabilitated the principle of authority. In that manner, it acquired an atavistic, retrogressive and reactionary character. The renewed emphasis on the state over the individual was brought out by Hegel, Ranke and Neibuhr who justified the policy of ‘right is might’. But in Eighteenth century Europe, the most indomitable symbol of Reaction was Metternich, the Chancellor of Austria. Droz points out that he was, ironically, more of a rationalist than a romantic, and thus cautions one from understanding him solely within the context of the romantic reaction. Metternich possessed a deep understanding of Conservatism. Namier points at Metternich’s abhorrence towards the idea of popular sovereignty, and at his ‘belief in states and not nations’. Metternich was aware of the dangers posed by nationalism and democracy to the very existence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; an empire that stood on the crushed aspirations of nationality and popular sovereignty. He was a master diplomat who believed in the equilibrium of power within and among states, and in the preservation of monarchies and aristocratic hierarchies. To ensure the preservation of the order Metternich had given an anti revolutionary and anti liberal character to the Holy Alliance.

The first half of the Nineteenth century was marked by massive upheavals. This was particularly the case for the nature of economic changes that had emerged in Western Europe. What was interesting about these changes was the manner in which they were entwined with important developments in demographical patterns and technological innovations. David Ward, in his study of what he terms ‘the Economic Revolution’, explains the dramatic economic change in this period by revealing the starkly different results of an exponential population growth in England and Ireland. The population in England that had risen from seven million in 1750 to sixteen million in 1840 continued to burgeon, while the population growth of a similar nature in Ireland had destabilised the balance between resources and population; and this imbalance, following the potato famine of 1845-46, caused a precipitate fall in demographic figures in Ireland. The reason for the contrast was the unprecedented change in the ordering of the English society and economy that came about with its emergence as the first industrial economy. The breakdown of the traditional economy and its increasingly urban character, the impact of new land and water based transportation driven by steam, the absence of a multiplicity of customs dues, commercialised agriculture, expanding railway networks and the availability of coal and other resources had made possible the growth and sustenance of such massive populations. Hobsbawm points out that the intercommunicating area of the world was larger than ever before. Communications had become incredibly fast, the world population had grown as never before, industrial production reached staggering figures, and international commerce had multiplied fourfold since 1780. Human innovations and technology complemented this process. The printing press developed; inventions like the Argand lamp, gasworks, electric telegraphs, steamships and many others had revolutionised life in parts of Europe. 

But the staggering nature of these changes must not obscure the fact that the extent of their impact on Europe was limited. Such spectacular growth was witnessed in Britain and Belgium, but in many other countries, despite these technological developments, economies remained predominantly rural and traditional; there continued the superiority of agricultural over industrial production. In France for instance, the small workshop predominated, and the pattern of land distribution revealed no significant change as she remained as a country of small peasant landowners. The system of tariff protection, the weakness of banking and credit houses, and the slow growth of communications and railways frustrated French industrial development. The German (admittedly, the term is a misnomer; since in this period ‘Germany’ essentially refers to the numerous states including Prussia that constituted her) economy too was essentially agrarian in character. The shortage of capital and the absence of joint stock companies had ill served industrial progress. But Germany suffered immensely on account of her political structure. Thirty nine fragmented entities translated in economic terms to an unbearable number of customs dues and tariffs that went a long way in discouraging commercial and industrial development. Instrumental in disturbing the inertia of the German economy was the expansion of the railways that shattered the provincial tepidity of Germany, and brought about industrial growth and increasing regional specialization by connecting main towns. Industrial development based on the rationalisation of production was enormously hampered in the politically fragmented Italy which in any case suffered from poor soil fertility that affected agriculture, and an undeveloped credit system. It is not surprising therefore, that elements of the middle class in both Italy and Germany were in favour of some form of unification. This economic motive behind the call for unification was later weakened in Germany where the customs union or Zollverein provided benefits before actual political unification was carried out.

The movement away from Western Europe would reveal the increasingly feudal character of economy in the East. Russia, the primary constituent of Eastern Europe, was steeped in a medieval economic milieu. Agriculture was the basis of the Russian economy and despite reforms the peasant’s emancipation from the bonds of serfdom had not been experienced. The complete absence of banking systems, capital and the dependence on high protective tariffs crippled all possibilities of industrial growth in Russia.

The economic changes of the first half of the nineteenth century had important social implications, perhaps the most important being the rise of a new middle class who were symptomatic of, and propelled, economic growth. Ward Stresses the ‘impatience of this class’ on the slow pace of economic advance, their desire- in Germany and Italy- to unify states, and their belief in the notion that the government must facilitate development, as crucial in understanding the events that led to 1848. The fact that in many countries this desired tempo was not achieved, and that there existed rulers- Pope Gregory XVI or Emperor Francis- who did not share their aspirations, made them demand a share in the power of the government; thereby laying the ground for a conflict.

Any discussion on the social implications of the extraordinary economic growth in Europe, as explained before, cannot dare to overlook the massive distortions it created in human material and social life. Men and women were uprooted from the normalcy of their previous settings and placed in sordid environments that the world had hitherto never seen. An examination of the social and political structure of Europe in the 1840’s would reveal the dominance of the peasantry though that was not the case in Britain and Belgium. Serfdom had largely ended in Europe, though it persisted in the East, particularly in Russia. But serf labour was on the decline; because of its economic disadvantages, and also due to increasingly vociferous peasant resistance, the most prominent being that in Austria Galicia in 1846. Hobsbawm states that the position of the landed aristocrat changed little, except that now noble incomes were drawn from industry, stocks and shares. The ‘middle class’ also developed rapidly, though they were not overwhelming. Hobsbawm emphasises on the Working class that ‘naturally grew at the fastest rate of all’. Though constituting a negligible part of the total population, this class, Hobsbawm adds, was of immense political importance.

On this basic knowledge of the society of the 1840’s we may proceed with a study of the ideas, political predilections and psychological preferences that sprouted from these social groupings. The early nineteenth century was marked by the emergence of the bourgeoisie who was important in his relation to money. This Bourgeoisie or middle class emerged in France- where it converged at Paris-, in England, Germany and to a lesser extent in Russia. The bourgeoisie as we interpret it today was not how it was in the 1840’s: a homogenised, clear cut social class. Studies into the bourgeoisie have revealed their multi layered, complicated and somewhat amorphous nature. In France, for instance, the Bourgeoisie comprised of the Haute, Bonne, Moyenne bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie populaire. The distinctions were essentially economic; and many at times, one constituent overlapped with the other. The replacement of the landed aristocracy with the Grande bourgeoisie was perhaps the most far reaching impact of the revolution of 1830. The Industrial revolution had contributed to the immediate enrichment of this class that over time came to wield a remarkable degree of political and economic power.

Jacques Droz implicates the rising bourgeoisie for the rise of liberalism that was an ‘expression of the bourgeoisie political and economic interests.’ With the economy the bourgeoisie felt satisfied, and had no objections with the operation of the forces of demand and supply. The bourgeoisie perceived the state as an upholder of freedom; as a protector of individualism, and asserted that it not interference in matters of social or economic policy. This bourgeoisie, Droz points out, was indifferent to the masses sufferings and was encouraged solely by its prospects of wealth and enrichment.

 The doctrine of liberalism had its numerous variations. There were lassiez faire advocates for positivists and negativists. While the former believed in the ‘kindness, providence and free play of industrial liberty’, negativists like Malthus and Ricardo identified disturbing economic trends but considered them as ineluctable and as products of ‘ the common people’s misfortune’, and in strange fashion opposed state interference of any kind.

 The classical French school advocated state abstention in economic affairs out of the idealistic belief that ‘everything was for the best’. J.B Say exalted the mechanism of the market, arguing that the fear of markets was unfounded as “goods are exchanged for goods”. Far more radical was Frederic Bastiat who discerned a pre established harmony in the world economy. Bastiat’s writings, according to the economist Detmar Doering, contained some of the strongest arguments for a minimalist government. Bastiat strongly opposed socialist doctrines, protectionism and state secured jobs. Doering brings out the caustic debates between Bastiat and socialists like Proudhon, Blanc and Saint Simone. In fact Marx went to the extent of calling him a ‘vulgar liberal’. Though Bastiat’s writings were influenced mainly by events in England, his philosophy and ideas were rooted in the French philosophical tradition. Bastiat adopted many elements of physiocratic philosophy, and supported the enlightenment rationalism of the Eighteenth century. Bastiat’s philosophy was that all life- physical, intellectual and moral-was a gift of god. Since individuality, liberty and property were gifts of god, they are, therefore, above all human legislation. Law, which Bastiat used as a synonym for ‘state’, represented the collective organisation of individuals’ right of lawful defence; of defence of individual rights. To him, a government that would remain limited to its legitimate role would endure, while ‘men’ would pursue the satisfaction of their wants. Bastiat was among the most popular liberal writer of the early nineteenth century, but his writings against state intervention in the economy failed to win broad support.

The advocacy of economic liberalism led, in course of time, to political liberalism. In France, political liberalism became‘doctrinnaire liberalism of the happy mean’ and reconciled order with liberty. To Benjamin Constant, an ardent admirer of bourgeoisie, liberalism lay between the ideas of ancient regime and that of democracy. Constant distrusted the state and perceived state interference as a set back for the individual. The supreme political guarantee, he argued, was property qualification for franchise. This was driven by the idea that property alone gave a citizen sufficient interest to share effectively in governance. Paradoxically, this advocacy of individualism supported a mechanism whereby the individual had to arrive at a level from where he was allowed to participate in the operation of a larger entity. In that manner, the emphasis on the importance of the individual was contradicted by the implicit assumption that the state was greater than the individual, and that the individual had to elevate himself to be in a position to control the workings of the state.

 To Royer Collard, law was sovereign, and franchise was ‘not a right inherited in human dignity but a duty and function that needed a level of understanding and experience’. Guizot, the French minister from 1840 to 48, endorsed bourgeoisie power and considered it to be the only class with sufficient education and wealth to be genuinely interested in the governance of the country. But the collapse of the bourgeois monarchies in 1848, as Droz points out, reflected Guizot’s miscalculation for he had ignored the strong egalitarian feelings that continued to permeate and influence the French people since 1789. The prevalence of such powerful feelings of egalitarianism was understood by de Tocqueville who pointed out that liberalism could not confine itself to bourgeoisie individualism.

 But it would be erroneous to assume that the entire governing class subscribed to liberalism. Sismondi, an aristocrat and romantic, questioned the abuses of the system. Sismondi inveighed against the evils of mechanization, defined property as a social right, and strongly advocated state intervention. This concern was echoed by Freidrich List who stated that the mistake of the classical economists was their failure to take into account the concept of nationalism. In England there emerged a ‘literature of social remorse’. Ruskin, overwhelmed with the disgust for conurbations that had spawned from the midst of the industrial civilization, yearned for the beauty of the middle ages. Many others- from Disraeli to Mill, Carlyle and Comte- expressed their dissatisfactions with the liberal philosophy practised in their period.

Of equal import was the rise of the working classes and the accompanying doctrine of socialism. Socialist ideas had their roots in the thoughts of Rousseau and from extreme Jacobinism during the French revolution. The profusion of socialist doctrines in this period was primarily a response to the shocking contradiction of an increasingly poor majority in an increasingly wealthy society. It was more than apparent that capital was being concentrated in the hands of an elite minority. Three aspects of this poverty may be brought out- the breadth of its occurrence in Europe, its extreme and frightening character, and its distinctness from the poverty of preceding periods. Important to note is that these traits of the mass poverty Europe confronted were apparent and known to the people then, and were discussed more often from the 1830’s onwards. Socialist voices rejected economic freedoms and called for a rational organisation of society in the form of an intellectual movement. Close links emerged between socialism and romanticism. Of great importance was the role played by St Simonians, Lamennias and Pierre Leroux. Saint Simonians, named after their founder Comte de saint Simone, were not essentially socialists owing to notions of authoritarian, state exalting technocracy. But it was their critique of industrial anarchy that provided important arguments for those advocating the reorganisation of society and economy. Another solution for such reorganisation was provided by the Fouriest society that founded ‘phalansteries’– a cooperative system which made possible the suppression of the state. In the case of both these societies we find interesting departures being made by their successors: Enfantin, for instance, founded ‘practical Saint Simonism’ that dealt with the problems of the industrial proletariat, while following the death of Fourier, Victor Considerant, his successor, transformed the Fourierist society into consumer cooperatives. These changes can be understood as attempts by Enfantin and Considerant to shift socialism away from the utopianism of their founders to address the realities of the working classes.

Then there were socialists like Proudhon -who was more individualist that Fourier- and others like Pierre Leroux, Dr Buchez and Constantine Pecquer who had religious tendencies and emphasised the teachings of the church. Droz points out that none of these socialists conceived the state as a body that could be constructive in the emancipation of society. Interestingly, the first to advocate state role were bourgeoisie thinkers like Bargemont, Buret and Lois Blanc. Blanc put forward the idea of authoritarian socialism where the emancipation of the proletariat would be achieved by the ‘omnipotence of the state’. Authoritarian Socialism, the progenitor of communism, was also advocated by Cabet. Socialism had inspired the activities of the famous revolutionary- Blanqui, while the writings of Lamennias had a profound impact on the working classes. A humanist version of socialism called ‘true socialism’ was explicated by Ludwig Feuerbach who believed that by creating God man had externalised his loftiest of qualities and had become a selfish creature.

 The movement of the working classes was found in its most organised and coherent form in England where the chartist movement had emerged powerful from the 1830’s onwards. This was a workers movement sui generis; and what made it remarkable was the espousal of what was a truly revolutionary agenda through parliamentary and overwhelmingly institutional means. Chartism stands out, besides it coherent character, for its leaders like Feargus O Conner, John Frost among others, who experimented with different means to achieve their goals. While the former eschewed violence, adopted institutional means of protest like issuing supplications, and later had even attempted to salvage the movement by establishing a Chartist land company to bring English lands under Chartist control, the latter emerged prominent for leading the only major violent rebellion of the Chartists. 

What was also remarkable about this mass workers movement was the manner in which it emerged and eventually dissipated without violent upheavals, thereby fitting perfectly into the peaceful and smooth trajectory of English political development.

Besides discussing the socialist ideas in the pre 1848 period, one has to question the currency these ideas had among the people who eventually participated in the revolutions. In the case of Germany, Droz points out that on the eve of 1848 socialist writings were influencing a growing section of the German intellectual elite. Socialist ideas further penetrated the working classes through the influence of utopian writings of French and English writers. Socialists like Ludwig Gall and Lorenz Stein played important roles in the diffusion of socialist literature.

While socialism in its different approaches emerged in many parts of Europe, it was only in Germany that scientific socialism emerged under Marx and Engel before 1848. The plenitude of socialist doctrines written in Europe reflected the prodromes of a concrete workers ideology. These socialist writings had a major bearing on Marx’s own understanding of Socialism. Marx in fact borrowed terms like the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ from Blanqui, the notion of ‘to each according to his ability, to each according to his work’ from the Saint Simonians, and was deeply influenced by Chartists like Louis Blanc and Ian Harney.

The political landscape of Europe had also experienced major transformations from 1840. Monarchy remained the dominant mode of governance, except in the Unites States. The 1830’s brought with it convulsions that had a significant impact on Western European polities. In France the revolution of 1830 was, as Fisher puts it, ‘the act of a single city’’; Paris alone had decided the fate of France. From Paris, the energies of revolution dispersed and stoked the uprisings of the Belgians against the Dutch, the Poles against Russians and the Carbonari against the priestly governance of the Papal States. The revolution of 1830 had introduced moderate liberal middle class constitutions in the states of Western Europe. Their constitutions were both anti democratic and anti aristocratic in nature. The phobia of mass revolutions had compelled compromises following the revolution. But these were compromises which titled the balance of power towards the middle classes. In fact, from 1832, British industrialists had acquired significant powers. Hobsbawm points out that the European middle class liberalism was on the rise. Further, Radical democracy had also registered success in the USA where President Andrew Jackson was forced to introduce it a time when Europe experienced the resuscitation of revolutionary power, and in Switzerland in 1847 after a civil war between the radicals and Catholics. 

Clearly, the convulsions from 1800 had thrown existing socio- economic and political structures into disarray. Contradictions swelled; a stage had come where the possibilities for reconciliation had become impossible; and a polar choice was forced on the people of these countries: that of preserving Status Quo or Revolution.

We finally arrive at addressing difficult, though key issues: what was the nature of the revolutions? How revolutionary were the revolutions of 1848? And where can we situate them in the history of European revolutions? 

While examining the nature of the revolutions we could refer to Charles Tilly who, in his sagacious study of European revolutions, points at the two constituents of revolutions: a revolutionary situation, and a revolutionary outcome. The former emerges in the context of multiple sovereignties that make incompatible claims to control the state, or be the state. The course of struggle and the change from the opening to the termination of multiple sovereignties constitutes the revolutionary process. The crucial causal mechanism that thrust a challenge to the existing order in 1848 was the coalescence and mobilization of non ruling contenders like intellectuals, bourgeois and skilled workers into a bloc that succeeded in exerting control over some portion of the state.

Revolutionary situations emerge not only from political crisis’s at the end of war and from the breakdown of coalitions but also from cycles of protests in polities that survive them without fundamental changes. Demands put forward in such cycles of protest achieve two things: first, by demonstrating the vulnerability of authorities to such demands they signal to other contenders the possibility for them to put forward their demands. Secondly, they inevitably challenge the interests of other contenders. Tilly identifies the revolutions and ‘near revolutions’ of 1848 as such cycles of protests. In the case of 1848, the demonstration that one important state (France in the month of February, in this case) was vulnerable to revolutionary demands had propelled similar demonstrations of demands elsewhere in Europe. This also made possible the transfer of revolutionary expertise and doctrine, and reduced the likelihood of a state embroiled in revolution intervening to support neighbouring old regimes.

Reference to Tilly for an answer to the second question posed may again be useful. Tilly observes that only a few revolutions have truly revolutionary outcomes. In many cases old holders of power regroup and re capture their challengers; and some times threatened power holders co-opt members of the new claimants and comfortable check the rest. It would not be wholly incorrect to view the revolutions of 1848 in this category. For, in many ways, the revolutions-though audacious and revolutionary in demands and actions- ended with the triumph of reaction.

For all the intellectual and ideological efflorescence of the preceding periods and popular mobilisations in course of the challenge, the revolution in most of the countries ended with restorations of one kind or the other. The Revolutions in France ended with elections where it was not general Cavaignac, Raspail or Lamartine, but the nephew of Napoleon who assumed power through an elections marked by a remarkable surge of monarchism among the deputies. Similarly, the rise of Shwarzenberg, the abdication of Ferdinand and installation of Francis Joseph as the new ruler and the dissolution of the parliament had marked the triumph of reaction in Austria. The consolidation of Austrian power had instant repercussions for Prussia who had only one logical path to follow- the creation of a German state with the King of Prussia as its executive head. In Hungary, Kossuth’s power was brought to an end by Austrian forces with the support of massive Russian troops that Czar Nicholas only happily sent to avoid any sight of revolutionism in Russia’s vicinity. The Sicilian revolt, the first to break out in Europe in 1848, was crushed by English and French intervention. In almost similar fashion, Mazzini’s Roman republic and his three months of sublime- though ephemeral- hold to power, ended with the intervention of republican France.

Even though reaction triumphed, it cannot obscure the revolutionary character of these movements in their aims and actions. There is not much doubt that the revolutions of 1848 occupy a position of their own importance in the sequence of European revolutions, and that their legacy resounded well into the following centuries. To situate these revolutions in the history of European revolutions, however, makes for a very objective task, for which perhaps greater enquiry and study is warranted.

Studying the background to the revolutions of 1848 reveals the complexity inherent in studying decades of developments that caprificate into one year of intense revolutionary activity. Such study often throws up more areas for study- such as why these revolutions happen where they happened? Why did they fail to take place in Britain or Russia? The pursuit of these questions can take us deep into regional and country specific histories that make for detailed and interesting explorations. Such explorations will have to be undertaken, not only for our own benefit, but also for a more informed scholarship that would understand the processes and linkages between the periods punctuated by the event of great revolutions in 1848.

Deepak Nair

III History

 St Stephen’s College

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