The Myth of the Counterrevolution in 1789

One of few issues upon which orthodox and revisionist French historians of their Revolution can agree is that as a sort of dark counterforce to Revolution itself there existed a phenomenon called the counterrevolution. In only book that has claimed to survey subject, Jacques Godechot wrote in 1961 that from its origins in first months of Revolution, this counterrevolution retained its essential characteristics despite subsequent diversity of its forms and fragmentation of its leadership. In what was originally a series of lectures for beginning graduate students, Godechot divided his analysis roughly equally between and action, but fact that he began with doctrine clearly implied an ideological unity in movement throughout revolutionary period. Twenty years later, in his article in Scott and Rothaus Historical Dictionary, Godechot stated similarly, The counterrevolution began at same time as Revolution; from its origin, adversaries of revolution resolved to oppose it. Essentially, Godechot's analysis elaborated what used to be called classical interpretation of unfolding of French Revolution. For Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul as for Godechot, counterrevolution was logical continuation of aristocratic

Mythology · Political science · Classics · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

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