In our first introductory article, Countdown to Revolution , we examined the short term factors leading us towards revolution. Things that, by and large, are already happening and a regular feature of the evening news. In this second article I want to examine revolution, socialism, capitalism and liberal democracy in a wider historical context - an examination of the long term factors behind that revolution if you will.

The article will necessarily draw heavily on Marx because, let’s face it, his analysis of the grand sweep of history was the correct one and so there is no point proposing an alternative one. Nevertheless, Marx died 130 years ago and rather a lot has happened since then so there is plenty that we can add to the picture.

As a political animal, of course, Marx was not keen on Capitalism. As an historian, however, he viewed it more dispassionately. He saw it as a necessary stage of human development. A stage that humanity would have to go through on the way to realising its full potential. A stage that had some good points, particularly when compared with what went before, as well as the bad ones that, as a campaigner, he was trying to destroy.

Marx divided human political development into a series of epochs, each of which inevitably led to the next. The ancient world had an economy based on slavery, empire and conquest, the medieval world had an economy based on feudalism, his epoch was that of capitalism and that would lead on ultimately to Communism.

In terms of who managed and controlled these societies, the Ancient world was controlled by various forms of Kings, the feudal world was run by Kings and Nobility in partnership, his own era was controlled by the wealthier sections of the middle class - the Capitalists. Communism was to be the era of the Worker.

During each era, the class that was to dominate the next era grew in power, prior to taking over. So, throughout the middle ages and renaissance the middle class grew in size, wealth, self awareness and education until it was ready to overthrow the moribund feudal class. In his own day, Marx saw a parallel growth in the size, education and organisational power of the working class and hypothesized that it was about to rise up and overthrow the Capitalists in turn. Necessarily, the resultant society could not have corporations that were organised on hierarchical lines, because that would just be Capitalism again, which is why he came up with idea of the “Common Ownership of the means of Production”

Of course, up to the point where the Feudal Class was overthrown, Marx’s analysis was spot on - but then it had better be, because the events he was describing had already happened. Where he has taken flak in recent decades has been for his predictions as to what would come next. Right wing and liberal commentators gleefully point out that:

(a) His predictions of a new, Socialist order have failed to come to pass.

(b) Where such an order has been attempted it has been either humiliatingly defeated or has degenerated into tyranny, atrocity, bloodshed and corruption.

And surely they have a point, don't they? I would respond, only in the very short term.

Let's take a closer look at what happened with regard to the French Revolution, which signalled the end of the Feudal era and the start of the Capitalist one. The French revolution was a three tiered revolution ushering in three separate but linked transformations.

1) In the social sphere it replaced the dominance of the Aristocratic class with the dominance of the middle class.

2) In the economic sphere it replaced Feudalism with Capitalism.

3) In the political sphere it replaced Monarchy with Liberal Democracy.

Obviously these transformations did not happen all at once. There had been some Capitalist and middle class elements in the Ancienne Regime, and the form of liberal democracy produced by the Revolution was rather basic and somewhat flawed. Nevertheless the revolution marks a convenient cut off point at which we can generally say that the one system lost its position of dominance and the other gained it.

And what happened in France in the years immediately following the French Revolution?

Administrative chaos

Bloody factional infighting

A Revolutionary Tribunal

A Revolutionary Terror in Paris

Bloody supression of dissent in the provinces

The dictatorship of Napoleon, who then made even more of a travesty of the ideals of the revolution by declaring himself Emperor

A series of disastrous foreign wars culminating in total and humiliating defeat for France

The triumphant return of the Bourbon Monarchy and its system of government.

Reactionaries witnessing the final defeat of Napoleon and enthronement of Louis XVI's brother triumphantly declared the ideals of the French Revolution to be a miserable failure. They pointed out that the results of trying to replace aristocratic rule were firstly bloody mayhem and secondly abject national failure. The majority of listeners, understandably, could not help but concur.