It was 1789 and the citizens of France were fed up. They had had excessively many old ages of covering with a monarchial authorities, one ruled entirely by a male monarch. Where had this gotten them? No where good they were insolvents and the greatest per centum of the citizens was considered in the lower category. This was non a successful state; they were in a atrocious economic and societal province. What to make? Have a revolution!
So in comes Robespierre, making a kind of socialist absolutism. Many believed that this was no better option to the monarchy until they were to the full able to recognize the extent to which Robespierre s control helped their state and ended up salvaging their democracy and paving the manner for a greater hereafter for France. Though they may non hold realized it until after his regulation reaped the benefits that it set out to, it was Robespierre s policies that saved France, and the apparently unpleasant ways that he achieved this were simply a necessary tradeoff for what was to come.
Robespierre s reign of panic can barely be called a panic, given the result of what he set out to make. The means were frequently times unpleasant, but they were more than justified by the terminals. In order to salvage the Gallic democracy, his citizens had to be healthy and strong. Healthy and strong citizens must eat. So he created a policy where bakers were merely permitted to do “staff of life of equality,” bread that was made of available flour, cheaply and without blowing good flour on such luxuries as pastries and white staff of life ( McKay, 711 ) . This wasn T merriment at the clip, evidently, but look at the terminals that it achieved: all of the citizens of France Ate, no one went hungry, and the lone negative facet was the inability to do pastries.
In order to accomplish a incorporate and successful state, all citizens had to garner under one political orientation and work to back up it. Otherwise the state will be dissentious and continually in convulsion. Robespierre realized this and created a system where those who were “enemies of the state” were purely punished ( McKay, 711 ) . This couldn T have been pleasant at the clip, nevertheless it is to the full justified in the terminals that he achieved: a incorporate state able to fall in toge
ther to salvage the state. By doing it clear that they had to band together if this were to work, Robespierre created a sense of patriotism and pride. This so provided united citizens willing to contend and endure in order to supply for an boundlessly better democracy in the hereafter. Robespierre s rigorous penalty of those decreeing disloyalty to the state can barely be considered eventful when you consider what would hold happened had he non done this France would now still be a state full of differing and continually differing and contending political groups instead than the successful democracy that it presently is.
The concluding end that Robespierre had to accomplish in order to eventually salvage the democracy was to hold a strong and ready to contend ground forces. He created a system in which every individual single adult male in France was capable to the bill of exchange. Though this likely wasn t a welcome policy to those individual immature work forces, the eventual creative activity of a force consisting of one million work forces and the subsequent triumphs over all opposing forces greatly outweighs the fleeting sadness of those work forces who were capable to the bill of exchange ( McKay, 713 ) .
In the terminal, France was winning on all foreparts they achieved a democracy, which was what they set out to make. No more monarchy, no more continual societal, political and economic sadness. However, none of this would hold been achieved had Robespierre non instituted his alleged “reign of terror.” Given, his policies at the clip were likely non popular, who truly wants to hold to do merely disgusting brown staff of life as opposed to pastries, and who wants to be capable to the bill of exchange merely because of who they were? But this sadness that merely lasted for a short clip is minuscule when compared to the terminals that these unpleasant means achieved. Without rigorous ways to supply nutrient for all of his citizens, policies to unify his state, and measures taken to organize a strong ground forces, Robespierre would hold ne’er succeeded. But since he DID recognize that he must utilize these agencies, and he DID stop up utilizing them, he achieved the all important terminal that was the end of everyone in France. The terminals justified the agencies.
Beginning:
- McKay, John P. A History of Western Society, 5th Edition. Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
