A totalitarian system employs levels of violence unprecedented in human history to exert total control over all aspects of society. Marx termed the violence inherent in communist totalitarianism as “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” However, violence must be implemented by individuals. A regime as exhaustive in its control as totalitarianism, which detrimentally impacts nearly everyone – including those who execute the purges – cannot sustain itself on violence alone. An underlying ideology is essential. Thus, totalitarian ideology forms the system’s crux. It is this pivotal element that breeds, expands, and sustains totalitarianism.
The first fully realized totalitarian system in the world – the Bolshevik system – was built upon the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism. From the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 through the 1970s, this ideology spread globally and with it, the principles of totalitarianism.1 The communist movement gained significant traction, especially in developing countries, leading to the emergence of China as the world’s largest communist nation. Despite years of reform and opening-up, the communist totalitarian regime remains deeply rooted there. Even in modern developed and democratic societies, elements of communist thought continue to appeal strongly to certain segments of the population, including intellectuals. But where did communist thought originate and how did it form the basis for totalitarian regimes? Why has this ideology demonstrated such resilience? This chapter will explore the institutional genes that gave rise to communist ideology.
Communism, as a concept, belief, or ideology, originates from Christianity, or even Judaism. Early communist ideas are methodically presented in the Bible (both the Old and New Testaments), the most influential tome of its kind in the history of civilization. The entire New Testament, for example, recounts how Jesus and the Apostles advocated and practiced equality of all before God (including equality of income and wealth). By voluntarily renouncing their property in favor of communal ownership (referring to the community of the faithful), they effectively made themselves proletarians. They demanded that all who spread the faith do the same, creating a form of proletarian equality within the early Christian community. This example was emulated by missionaries and followers throughout much of the religion’s ensuing history.
Egalitarianism has remained the primary source of the enduring appeal of communist ideas over the centuries. However, communism, both as a term and as it was understood, was first created in the late eighteenth century during the French Revolution for the movement led by François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797).2 It was not until 1842 that Engels learned about the term and concept of communism from John Goodwin Barmby (1820–1881), a British Utopian minister. It was only then that Engels discovered the communist movement that had been flourishing in France for decades.3 Engels and Barmby jointly established the London Communist Propaganda Society (Busky, D.F., Reference Busky2002). Several years later, Karl Marx learned about communism and the communist movement through Engels.
The Bolshevik system, while based on the ideology of communism, has pushed its principles of organization, mobilization, and centralization to their limits. The development was exceedingly rapid. It took just 120 years from the birth of Marxism to sweep the globe and rule a third of the world’s population. Or rather, it took only half a century from the creation of the Bolshevik totalitarian regime for such a system to dominate a third of the world’s population. In contrast, Christianity, the most influential religion in human history, took over a thousand years to grow to encompass a third of humanity. Some attribute the enormous systemic changes brought about by totalitarianism to Marx, the founder of the modern communist ideology and the spiritual leader of the communist movement. Others attribute it to Lenin, who created the totalitarian regime, because without him, the communist movement would have remained an ideology and not become a governing system. Some credit it to Stalin, who turned the newly born, precarious totalitarian regime ruling Russia into a powerful international bloc that, at its peak, covered a third of the world’s population. Others emphasize Mao Zedong’s contribution, as he not only established a totalitarian regime in China, the most populous country in the world, but also his totalitarian regime continues to evolve even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. Although none of these different opinions is entirely without merit, each is far from the whole truth. Moreover, even if all of these views were combined, they still would not explain why these few individuals were able to create history.
Totalitarian ideology bears many similarities to religion in various aspects. Many scholars refer to this type of ideology as a political or secular religion or political messianism (e.g., Maier, Reference Maier2004, vols. 1–3; Talmon, Reference Talmon1952). This quasi-religious nature endows totalitarianism with a strong capability to incite fanaticism and appeal. Meanwhile, similar to the development of all religions, the ideology and system of totalitarianism were not created ex nihilo by its founders Marx and Lenin. The institutional genes that spawned the communist ideology and totalitarianism existed hundreds of years before Marx and Lenin. It was through harnessing and mobilizing the institutional genes rooted in Christianity and the Christian Church as well as autocratic systems that the totalitarian ideology and system of Marxism-Leninism achieved such power.
At the heart of communist totalitarian ideology is absolute egalitarianism and the abolition of private property. And the system upon which the complete achievement of these highly inflammatory ideological goals rested is a totalitarian one. As this chapter explains, the ideology of Marxism directly originates from the thought of Rousseau on the eve of the French Revolution and the thought of Babeuf during the French Revolution. The logic of Rousseau–Babeuf–Marxist ideology is that inequality arises from private property (Rousseau); to achieve permanent and complete equality, private property must be abolished (Babeuf); the society established after the abolition of private property can only be ruled through a dictatorship (Babeuf).4 The dictatorship of the proletariat, as proposed by Marx eighty years after Babeuf, is a totalitarian system aimed at achieving total equality in theory (but in reality has never been implemented by any totalitarian regime). This system is designed around a party-state with a core communist ideology (which was developed and actualized by Lenin three decades after Marx’s proposal). Within this system, the party-state monopolizes all aspects of power and property rights in society.
It is worth mentioning that in the socialist movement of the nineteenth century, Fabianism and other socialist movements disagreed significantly with the communist movement led by Marx and Engels. One of these disagreements revolved around the issue of private property. In contrast to the communist movement, socialist movements did not oppose the existence of private property rights.
Eliminating private property rights was the goal of communist movements and the ideological and social basis of totalitarianism. However, throughout world history from the Middle Ages to the present, in any society where everyone has lost property rights, people have not only failed to achieve economic equality but have instead become what Hayek refers to as serfs in all respects. Locke made it clear in the seventeenth century that human rights and property rights are inseparable. Any infringement on an individual’s property rights inevitably violates their human rights. In a society where the general public is aware of these rights as articulated by Locke and Hayek, movements advocating the abolition of private property would lack appeal, and the establishment of a totalitarian system would be much more difficult.
The desire for equality is a fundamental part of benevolent human nature. Traces of egalitarianism or communism can be found in almost all ancient civilizations, including ancient China, demonstrating the universal allure of the communist ideology. Egalitarianism is not only attractive to those in extreme poverty but it also holds a strong appeal for many conscientious individuals, including the affluent and the educated. The appeal of egalitarianism to the masses often transcends any other reasoning. The Christianity of those intentional proletarians had enormous power to inspire the struggle for equality. Over hundreds of years, its reach transcended cultures and regions, making it the religion with the most followers in human history. Given that Christian communism and Christian socialism have long been a part of the Christian tradition, it is not difficult for a communist totalitarian movement to arise under the guise of these long-standing ideologies. This makes it easy for innocent individuals to be incited and drawn into supporting these movements, unaware of the potential danger of totalitarianism.
6.1 Christian Origins: The Münster Totalitarian Regime
Both proponents and opponents of communism, among scholars and well-informed revolutionaries, are in agreement that action-oriented communist thought has its roots in Christianity. However, when considering the pure intellectual underpinnings of communism though devoid of action, one can trace its origins back to Plato. In his later years, Engels wrote “A Contribution to the History of Primitive Christianity,” discussing the Christian origins of communism. Critics of socialism/communism like Ludwig von Mises, along with many others who worked on the history of thought and Christianity, also discussed the Christian roots of communism (Mises, Reference von Mises1981, p. 424; “Early Christian Communism,” in Guthrie, Reference Guthrie1992, p. 46; Ellicott and Plumptre, Reference Ellicott and Plumptre1910). Kautsky, Engels’ successor and a leader of the international communist movement at the end of the nineteenth century, wrote Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation (Kautsky, Reference Kautsky1897), which records the communist creed in the Bible and the Acts of the Apostles and explains how these formed the source of communist thought. Indeed, the New Testament Book of Acts records the following:
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common…. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
The communist philosophies of “from each according to his ability” and “to each according to his needs” are presented in Acts 11:29 (“The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea”) and Acts 4:35 (“and it was distributed to each as any had need”), respectively. Much archaeological evidence proves that the content mentioned above indeed reflected the practices of early Christian communities, despite being regarded as missionary propaganda later. These practices, based on Jewish and Christian theology, were widespread in different Christian communities in the Roman world, persisting until at least the second century (Montero, Reference Montero2017, p. 5).
Communist ideology has a powerful appeal to many people who believe that equality is the best and ultimate purpose of humanity. The initial establishment of compulsory communist systems in a city-state can be traced back to the Reformation period in medieval Europe. However, communism that is entirely aligned with the Christian spirit can only be established voluntarily. This voluntary principle dictates that this type of communism can only exist within a relatively small community.
As chronicled in the New Testament, early Christians, in the nascent stages of the faith, emulated Jesus and the apostles by relinquishing property rights and willingly embracing a life without private possessions. They contributed to the community in accordance with their ability, trusting people within the community could take according to their needs. This spirit was extended in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia in the early sixteenth century, inheriting the essence of Christianity and Platonic idealism. In this fictional utopia, More systematically described his envisioned communist system, where private ownership was abolished, property was collectively owned, citizens were equal, and everyone worked.
The later experiments of Saint-Simon in France and Owen’s cooperative farm-factory communities in Britain and America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries represent influential utopian experiments based on voluntarism. But all of those experiments are limited to a small scale and lasted for a relatively short period. Arguably, the most prolonged experiment in voluntary socialism has been the Israeli kibbutz, or collective farm. Since the early twentieth century, the kibbutz movement, influenced heavily by Jewish tradition and imbued with strong utopian overtones, has represented a large-scale experiment in this kind of communal living and shared resources. However, despite their decades-long success, a century later, they have been transitioning towards privatization.
It is noteworthy that throughout history all voluntary forms of communism, whether successful or not, have been confined to isolated farms, factories, or communities because of the voluntary principle. Voluntarily established communist communities are commonly limited in size and run autonomously by those within them. As such communities are formed out of individual choice, they are often harmonious and pleasant environments, at least when they are successful.
In contrast, all compulsorily established communist city-states or states, without exception, were established and ruled by violence and were totalitarian in nature. It is implausible to expect all residents of an entire city or nation to voluntarily relinquish their property. Therefore, any historical attempt to establish large-scale communism throughout a city or country invariably resorts to the use of violence of a totalitarian nature, regardless of how the rulers depict their regime. Above all, overcoming the resistance of property owners requires agitation and violence. More importantly, totalitarianism is the inevitable consequence when complete, centralized control of property rights is enforced coercively across society.
All the coercive communist regimes that have emerged in human history from the Reformation to the present have used violence to maintain total control over society and embody totalitarianism. To be precise, the history of the establishment of communist systems from the sixteenth century to the present represents the evolution of totalitarian regimes from their infancy to their maturity. In the following chapters of this book, all discussions of communism refer to coercive communism unless otherwise noted.
The first communist regime in history was established during the Reformation by the Anabaptists. Anabaptism demanded its followers to adopt the most devout and earnest attitudes towards the original doctrines of Jesus and the apostles as recorded in the Bible. They advocated for re-baptism for adults and believed that only true believers were Christians and that only adults could determine their own faith. Absolute equality among all believers was part of their belief. To a significant extent, Marxism as a secular communist movement has inherited the revolutionary spirit of Christian communism from the era of the Reformation.
Kautsky, a leader of the communist movement, contended that original Christianity encapsulated the spirit of communism. However, since Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Church underwent a transformation. It morphed into a supreme power entity, intertwining itself with the establishment and becoming a fundamental part of authority (Kautsky, Reference Kautsky1897). The Church, representing the wealthy and powerful, manipulated the communal principles of early Christianity for its own advantage and the benefit of the secular power class. It often labeled the egalitarian tenets of Christianity as paganistic. During the Reformation, radical revolutionaries among the Anabaptists utilized the spirit of early Christianity as a tool in their efforts to strip the Church of its wealth. They aimed to control communities and society by bringing the Church under their dominance. These revolutionaries sought to return to the roots of the faith, with its emphasis on communal living and equality, as a means of challenging the established order (Kautsky, Reference Kautsky1897, pp. 13–15).
The first violent communist revolution in human history was part of the German Peasants’ War (1524–1525) during the period of the Reformation (1517–1648). This uprising was planned and initiated by Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525), a co-founder of the radical Anabaptist sect and a figure on the extreme end of the Lutheran spectrum. His significant role has been discussed by Marx, Engels, and Kautsky.5 This war was the most extensive popular uprising in Europe before the French Revolution. The revolt was characterized by bloodshed and violence towards those of differing ideologies. It ended in the brutal suppression by the Catholic and Lutheran Churches.
Thomas Müntzer was an exceptionally charismatic agitator and revolutionary leader. He asserted that he had received divine revelation, prophesying that the Apocalypse was imminent and that the old world, which oppressed the poor, would be replaced by a new one. Presenting himself as the Messiah, Müntzer condemned wealth as sinful and rallied the impoverished peasants (the proletariat) to join in the fight to obliterate the old world, follow the Messiah, and establish a new one. According to his rebellion plan, “church property was to be confiscated and made public. The unified Holy Roman Empire was to be transformed into a unified, indivisible republic.”6
In 1525, Müntzer led the rebel army to seize control of Mühlhausen, where he established a communist city-state. Implementing a regime of compulsory communal ownership, he instated a totalitarian communist theocracy, having forcibly expropriated private property. In Mühlhausen, people invoked Christ’s name to demand food or clothing from the affluent. If these were not given willingly, they were seized by force. This institutionalized expropriation was justified by Christ’s commandment that everything should be shared with the less fortunate (Shafarevich, Reference Shafarevich1980, p. 57). This theocratic government lasted for over a year (the literature varies on this) before being suppressed, with Müntzer being executed (Johann Becherer [1601], Newe Thuringische Chronica, cited in Kautsky, [Reference Kautsky1897, p. 183]).
After the suppression of the Müntzer-led revolt, the communist theocratic ideals of the Radical Anabaptists were not extinguished. On the contrary, these ideals manifested in the establishment of a caesaropapist communist theocratic city-state in the German city of Münster during 1534–1535. If Mühlhausen is considered the first temporary communist base, then Münster represents the establishment of the first fully fledged totalitarian regime.
During the sixteenth century, the western part of the Holy Roman Empire, which was predominantly Germanic, was divided into several ecclesiastical principalities, also known as dioceses. The local aristocrat-ecclesiasts elected a prince-bishop from among themselves to represent and rule over them. These prince-bishops were usually secular dukes. The capitals of each diocese, often controlled by local oligarchic guilds, enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. Münster was the capital of the largest Catholic bishopric in north-western Germany.
During the period of the Peasants’ War, Anabaptist uprisings were commonplace in these ecclesiastical kingdoms, with Münster being one of them. In 1532, with the support of the citizenry, the primarily Lutheran guild pressured the bishop into recognizing Münster as a Lutheran city. Subsequently, a significant number of Anabaptist believers surged into Münster. Some Lutherans, even those in leadership roles, converted to Anabaptism.
The Anabaptist movement in Münster propagated a return to the original communism of the early Christian Church. In this society, the properties of all clergy and the wealthy were to be confiscated. Each person would receive what they needed from society. Under the allure of this communism, thousands poured into Münster, comprised not only of devout Anabaptists but also of many who were materially motivated, destitute, and hopeless debtors. Incomers to the city included many from the Netherlands and others from various far-flung places.
The Anabaptists further proclaimed the imminent end of an unequal world, predicting that the world would be destroyed within a month or two and that only the communist Münster would be preserved, becoming the new Jerusalem. Violent Anabaptists soon seized complete control of Münster, launching a large-scale experiment in communism.
The first step of this experiment was the confiscation of the property of those who were expelled. The impoverished were encouraged to take the confiscated wealth. Those who resisted the plunder were labeled as non-believers and publicly executed. The public was told that these executions were for their own benefit, and they were encouraged to sing hymns praising their own slaughter.
Their next propaganda campaign declared private ownership as anti-Christian, insisting that all wealth should be communal. Thus, all money had to be handed over to the ruling group. Those attempting to conceal wealth were arrested and punished. After two months of Christian propaganda advocating the abolition of private property, combined with threats and intimidation, Münster abolished private property altogether. All money was confiscated by the government, which it used to buy goods and services from other cities.
The theocratic government became the sole employer of all people in Münster, paying wages in kind. A rationing system was implemented citywide. People dined in public dining halls while reading passages from the Old Testament. It was a communal society without private households and where the closing of doors was illegal. Any outsider could take up residence in Münster and all private homes were opened to accommodate an influx of immigrants. This coercive communism was realized under a rule of terror, all in the name of the community and Christian “love.”
The Münster Rebellion was ultimately suppressed in 1535 and its leader, Jan van Leiden, was tortured to death in the following year. With the collapse of the first communist-totalitarian regime, the Radical Anabaptists were significantly weakened and they never regained substantial influence. The decline of Christian communism in German land demonstrated that the institutional genes there were not conducive to the survival of this ideology, let alone to its expansion. However, secular communist totalitarianism, cloaked in the mantle of equality, emerged systematically two centuries later in regions where the institutional genes were more receptive to it.
6.2 The Birth of Secular Communist Totalitarianism
Contrasting with the theocratic communist totalitarian regimes established by the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, modern communist totalitarianism presents as a secular ideology-movement regime. Its foundational legacies can be traced back to the Jacobin Reign of Terror (1794–1795) during the French Revolution, Babeuf’s Conspiracy of the Equals (1796) in its aftermath, as well as the influence of Blanquism in the Paris Commune (1871).
6.2.1 Jacobin Dictatorship and Bauerian Communism
Marxist communism was constructed directly on the foundations laid by Babeuf, who invented it during the period of the Jacobin dictatorship (Israel, Reference Israel2015, p. 678). If one were to judge Marx’s writings on communism/socialism using academic norms, they might find that Marx’s ideas closely resemble those of Babeuf, bordering on plagiarism. Guided by Babeuf’s ideologies, his followers conspired to seize power by armed force, abolish private property, and establish communism. After the plot failed, they persevered with his ideas and inaugurated the world’s first authentic “communist” movement in France. Auguste Blanqui, a contemporary of Marx and subsequent leader of the communist movement, explicitly stated that the communist movement represented a war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie (Spitzer, Reference Spitzer1957, p. 6, 101). Many historians agree that the concept of class consciousness among the proletariat originated during the French Revolution and was specifically attributable to Babeuf’s “Conspiracy of Equals” (Rose, Reference Rose1978, p. 341).
Babeuf can indeed be considered the true progenitor of communist totalitarianism. He originated the concept of communism and advocated for the use of violent class struggle to dismantle the existing world and realize communism.7 Marxism, as a systematic theory, was developed from Babeuf’s communist ideologies. Marx’s major contribution was to “scientifically” substantiate Babeuf’s postulation that the downfall of the old capitalist world and the ascendancy of the new communist world were inevitable.
Moreover, Marx’s theory of proletarian dictatorship was also constructed on Babeuf’s ideas of seizing power and property rights through force and maintaining the communist regime via coercive governance. However, Marx was arguably shrewder than Babeuf, as Marxism is a messianic faith deliberately modeled after Christianity. As Engels, the co-founder of Marxism, articulated, Marx’s doctrines serve as the Bible of the proletarian communist revolution.
The contributions of the French pioneers of communist totalitarianism extend beyond theory. They provided practical models for organizing totalitarian movements and implementing totalitarian governance. Lenin’s models for the formation of the Bolsheviks were inspired by the Jacobin Club and its leader, Robespierre, as well as by Blanqui, who carried forward Babeuf’s legacy.
Indeed, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao all referenced the French Revolution extensively, especially the Paris Commune, as a precursor to violent communism. In China, the People’s Communes were established in the 1950s and 1960s and the revolutionary committees of the Cultural Revolution were direct imitations of the Paris Commune. These examples illustrate how ideas from the French Revolution influenced and shaped modern communist movements and regimes.
Well-informed readers might notice that my discussion about the origins of Marxism omits many well-known figures and their theories, such as Hegel, Feuerbach, Smith, and Ricardo, among others. This is deliberate. My intention is to understand communist totalitarianism as a social phenomenon, focusing on those who had significant direct social impacts rather than mere philosophies or pure theories.
The history of civilization has produced a plethora of ideas, spanning from the extreme left to the extreme right. However, the vast majority of these ideas, often encapsulated within philosophies and pure theories, self-perpetuate with minimal societal impact. Only a few ideas are embraced by society, evolving into societal ideologies and even forming part of the institutional genes, exerting a lasting and significant influence on society. The ideas that have the most substantial impact are often those in high demand at a particular historical moment. Which idea will become prevalent in society? Will the prevalent ideology change the society? And if it changes, how does it do so? To a large extent, the existing institutional genes of a society are one of the key determinants in answering these questions.
The French Revolution serves as an illustrative example. Medieval France and England were very similar and closely related (including warfare). However, at the end of the eighteenth century, attempts to promote constitutional reform in France faced enormous challenges. These efforts sparked a “revolution” that drove the movement in the opposite direction and ultimately led to the restoration of an absolute monarchy. The immediate outcome of the failure of the constitutional movement was the Jacobin dictatorship and Babeuf’s communist movement. Over the following century, communist totalitarian ideologies and organizations such as the Jacobins, Robespierre, Babeuf, Blanqui, and so on, proliferated. Why was this the case? What were the institutional genes in that society that gave rise to communist totalitarianism? Alternatively, why did France give rise to modern communist totalitarian ideology and initial regimes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? These are intriguing questions worth exploring further.
A detailed analysis of France’s institutional genes is beyond the scope of this work. However, we will summarize the institutional evolutions in France in the two centuries or so between the Reformation and the end of the eighteenth century, which laid the foundations for the emergence of early communist totalitarianism. First, one of the most prominent features of totalitarianism is highly centralized power that is omnipresent and entirely unchecked. Thus, one of the most significant factors in the evolution of the old regime in pre-Revolutionary France was the formation of an absolute monarchy, the control of society by a central bureaucracy, and the prevalence of the doctrine of sovereignty supremacism (which was clearly opposed to the separation of powers). These factors laid the foundations for the development of totalitarianism in terms of power structure and ideology.
Second, any society capable of producing totalitarianism must eradicate all social forces capable of limiting the power of government. In medieval France, there were originally checks and balances between the monarch, the Church, and the nobility. However, as France transitioned into an absolute monarchy, the French aristocracy was hollowed out by the bureaucracy and their power was greatly diminished. All efforts by the aristocracy to maintain and regain power were suppressed and undermined by the monarchy (Tocqueville, Reference de Tocqueville1856). By the time of the Revolution, the French aristocracy had lost its ability to constrain royal power. In an era when the bourgeoisie was not strong enough, the decline of the aristocracy meant that efforts to promote a constitutional monarchy remained at the level of discourse and text, with no substantial backing. In a society where all social forces other than the monarchy were weak, the failure of constitutional reform was inevitable. The more serious problem, however, was that overthrowing the old system without establishing constitutionalism created a power vacuum, thus setting the stage for the emergence of nascent totalitarianism.
Third, compared to the decline of the nobility, the disintegration of ecclesiastical authority not only undermined the balance of power but also facilitated the emergence of a communist totalitarian ideology. With the establishment of an absolute monarchy, ecclesiastical power was increasingly weakened and controlled by the monarchy. Before the Revolution, the Church was the largest landowner and the wealthiest institution in France. On the surface, its power seemed much stronger than that of the nobility. However, the bloody Wars of Religion that came with the Reformation and the Enlightenment’s fierce attack on ecclesiastical power meant that, by the time of the Revolution, the Church’s reputation had greatly declined and it was even loathed by many. During the Revolution, priests were massacred en masse. But the centuries-old Christian faith of the French people would not automatically disappear due to their hatred of the Church. This specific social condition created an opportunity for the emergence of secular messianism and for it to replace Christianity as the popular belief. Consequently, Christian communism transformed into secular communism. Revolutionary leaders replaced Jesus Christ, and the revolutionary party replaced the Church, instructing the revolutionary masses (believers) that the sinful old world was doomed and a beautiful new communist world was destined to be born. Their violence was necessary to realize all of this.
Fourth, the emergence of totalitarianism cannot be separated from the fervent belief and action of the masses. Establishing a totalitarian regime is a violent process while violence cannot take place without a “revolutionary mass” seduced by a totalitarian ideology. The emergence of a totalitarian ideology in a society is one thing, it is quite another for large numbers of people to embrace it and actively contribute to its violent manifestation. The French Revolution gave birth to both.
More accurately, Babeuvism was not solely the product of Babeuf’s imagination or that of a few thinkers. It was also borne out of the fanatical and radical mass violence of the Revolution, coupled with the social conditions and certain ideologies that took root before the Revolution. In Marxist terms, Babeuvism represents the theory of the proletariat. Without the “proletariat” or the presence of mass violence, Babeufism would not exist. The emergence of the proletariat or fervent masses forms the social basis for the creation of Babeuvism.
Under the medieval feudal system, each nobleman was responsible for his own domain and administered the people within it, including providing assistance and relief for the poor within it. But the absolute monarchy changed all that. The nobility lost its rights and duties within its territory and the monarchy and bureaucracy had neither the interest nor the ability to help and relieve the poor. The growing awareness of their position and the demand for direct access to power by those at the bottom of society formed the basis for the transformation of popular sovereignty into social consciousness during the Revolution. At the same time, this metamorphosis created the social conditions necessary for the lower classes to engage in widespread violence in the name of popular sovereignty.
6.2.2 Absolute Monarchy and Supreme Sovereignty
The doctrine of sovereign supremacy has played a uniquely significant role in the development of totalitarianism. This ideology originated in medieval France, which gave rise to a powerful absolute monarchy. Unlike England or France in the past, royal power in France since Louis XIV exerted a high degree of control over society, with the aristocracy losing much of its ability to check royal power.
Since ancient times, monarchs worldwide have striven to centralize power for their own interests. However, the extent to which a monarch can centralize power depends on the forces that inhibit such centralization. Under the feudal system, the greatest force restraining the monarch was typically the nobility.
Since the Middle Ages, the evolution of French institutions resulted in a powerful absolute monarchy where the king’s power was highly concentrated in society and the nobility gradually lost its ability to check the royal power. The power of the French crown became increasingly centralized from the fourteenth century onwards. The territorial expansion following France’s victory over England in the Hundred Years’ War in the late fifteenth century provided further opportunities for centralizing power and the absolute monarchy was established from the sixteenth century onwards (Baumgartner, Reference Baumgartner1995). From then on, the institutional genes of the absolute monarchy, from ideology to governance structures and social foundation, developed greatly in France.
In stark contrast, the thirteenth-century Magna Carta movement, launched by the English nobility, charted a distinct course for England. The Magna Carta was a collective action by the nobility aiming to limit royal power. Over the subsequent centuries of this royal power limitation movement, the real power of the nobility within the Parliament became increasingly entrenched. This not only prevented the English monarchy from becoming an absolute monarchy but also gradually weakened it. After a long period of development, full of twists and turns, the monarch became increasingly restricted by the collective nobility. By the end of the seventeenth century, this ultimately transformed England’s monarchy into a constitutional one. This divergence had substantial impacts and played a crucial role in sparking the French Revolution.
In the sixteenth century, when the absolute monarchy was established in France, Jean Bodin (1530–1596) developed the concept of monarchical sovereignty. By his definition, sovereignty is an absolute right, which is exclusive, indivisible, and not subject to legal arbitration. In his theory, sovereignty is supreme and the state is the entity of sovereignty; the owner of the sovereignty of the state is called the “sovereign” and the sovereign is the king, who derives his power from God. The basic characteristic of sovereignty is that the sovereign legislates by his own will. Bodin’s concept of sovereignty, on the grounds that sovereignty is indivisible, explicitly opposes the separation of powers. At a time when religious wars had just ended, Bodin put forward his absolute monarchy and sovereignty theory and explicitly opposed democracy. The rationale was that democracy undermines social stability and leads to rule by the ignorant (Durant and Durant, Reference Durant and Durant1961, pp. 630–632).
For Bodin, the ultimate aim was social stability. However, the reality starkly contradicted Bodin’s contention. Over time, it was absolute power – supported and further reinforced by the theory of sovereignty – and the ideas and institutional arrangements antagonistic to democracy that obstructed the constitutional development of France and undermined its social stability. France’s social instability persisted until constitutionalism took the place of sovereign supremacy and autocracy was supplanted by democracy.
It is noteworthy that Bodin’s concept of sovereignty includes legislative power but not property rights. This implies that a monarch with exclusive legislative power cannot infringe upon property rights. Such an inference is grounded in the sixteenth-century reality when the absolute monarchy was formed; the nobility still retained significant power. Therefore, abolishing the property rights of the nobility would undermine the foundations of the feudal monarchy and thus obstruct the establishment of sovereignty. However, in an absolute monarchy where sovereignty took precedence over human rights, the monarch ultimately obtained the ability to use sovereignty to limit property rights, including those of the nobility.
The principle of the supremacy of sovereignty was further reinforced during the Enlightenment era with an important twist. The intellectual greats of the French Enlightenment, notably Rousseau, were more concerned with who should hold sovereignty rather than the relationship between sovereignty and human rights. Inheriting Bodin’s idea of supreme sovereignty, Rousseau redirected the locus of sovereignty from the monarch towards the “people.” In his work, The Social Contract, Rousseau emphasized that popular sovereignty supersedes all else. Moreover, he argued that popular sovereignty gives rise to the right to demand individual compliance in the name of the so-called general will. This means that supreme popular sovereignty can infringe upon human rights.
Rousseau’s concept of popular sovereignty gradually pervaded French society, obstructing constitutional reform. Moreover, it created fertile ground for the establishment of totalitarian practices. This shift in ideology was a crucial turning point in the subsequent emergence of totalitarianism. Figures such as Robespierre and Babeuf, both self-proclaimed disciples of Rousseau, adopted the doctrine of supreme sovereignty during the French Revolution. The Jacobin regime, although characterized by violence, referred to its leading figures as representatives of the people and Babeuf proposed the abolition of private ownership, asserting the principle that sovereignty determined property rights, thus laying the groundwork for a nascent form of totalitarianism. During the Revolution, the Jacobin dictatorship was the first regime to systematically violate human rights under the guise of popular sovereignty.
6.2.3 Decline of the Aristocracy and the Rise of the Absolute Monarchy
The ideology of absolute monarchical sovereignty alone was not enough to completely suppress the resistance of the nobility, as they still held significant land and power. In order to consolidate their authority, absolute monarchies implemented administrative reforms that marginalized the nobility. A top-down bureaucracy was established to centralize power and reduce the influence of the aristocracy. This dismantling of the nobility’s power structures further strengthened the authority of the monarchy.
In the two centuries preceding the Revolution, the aristocracy was weakened to a nominal position with no real power (Tocqueville, Reference de Tocqueville1856, pp. 51–54). The French nobility had fewer powers compared to their counterparts in England since the early Middle Ages. They lacked a parliament of their own and had no legislative authority. In the Estates-General, the national assembly of that time, the nobility held the second rank among the three estates. The first estate consisted of clerics and the third estate encompassed commoners, including representatives of the bourgeoisie, peasantry, and lower classes. Each estate held one vote in the assembly, enabling any proposal from one estate to be vetoed by the other two.
Furthermore, the Estates-General was limited to an advisory role in its communication with the sovereign and did not function as an independent legislative body. The summoning of the Estates-General was solely at the discretion of the king, as there were no established rules or regular intervals for its convening. In fact, the Estates-General did not meet from 1614 until the brink of the Revolution. The weakened status of the French aristocracy within the Estates-General, coupled with its lack of legislative power, contributed to its nominal role and diminishing influence.
Another significant development was the increasing number of nobles selling their land to peasants. By the eighteenth century, on the eve of the French Revolution, over half of France’s land had been transferred from the nobility to the peasantry, leading to the erosion of the former’s power base. Although the nobles were initially content with maintaining their power, their attempts to regain power were suppressed by the monarchy. As a result of these developments, France diverged significantly from the pattern of institutional evolution seen in Britain before the Glorious Revolution (Tocqueville, Reference de Tocqueville1856).
As the power of the nobility weakened, they sought to assert their interests and regain their lost influence in the face of an increasingly absolutist monarchy. The Fronde rebellion in the mid-seventeenth century marked the last major effort of the French nobility to challenge the monarchy before the Revolution. However, its failure dealt a significant blow to the nobility and effectively prevented them from collectively limiting the power of the monarch.
The Fronde rebellion (1648–1653) originated from the endeavors of reformist nobles in the Parlement,8 who wanted to establish a constitutional government with the objective of limiting monarchical power. The rebellion took place when the Thirty Years War between Protestants and Catholics came to an end and the nobility was overburdened with heavy taxes.
Inspired by the successful armed resistance of the English nobility against King Charles I, the French nobility were keen to emulate them. In 1648, the nobles of the Parlement of Paris opposed the tax plan of the then prime minister and demanded systematic reforms. They proposed twenty-seven reforms, including the abolition of governors appointed by the central government to restore the power of the nobility in the provinces, the requirement that all new taxes be approved by the Parlement, and the prohibition of arbitrary arrests by the monarch.
As tensions escalated and a peaceful resolution became unattainable, an armed rebellion erupted in Paris, causing the young King Louis XIV to flee the city. The rebellion earned its name, the Fronde, from the rebels’ frequent use of slingshots, or “frondes.”
Subsequently, Louis XIV mobilized the military to suppress the rebellion and later used the army once more to quell a resurgence of the uprising in Paris. Given the significant decline in the French nobility’s independence by the seventeenth century, the king managed to divide them, securing sufficient aristocratic support to extinguish the rebellion on both occasions. This contrasted sharply with the unity of English nobility against the royal family.
After the rebellion, Louis XIV consolidated his rule by shifting his base away from Paris, the stronghold of aristocratic power, and by building the Palace of Versailles, which became his new residence. He took steps to further divide and weaken the aristocracy by enticing prominent nobles to live in his newly built palace, while simultaneously outlawing their private armies.
As a result, the traditionally militant nobility, which had previously wielded great power, transformed into a class of powerless courtiers: opulent, yet devoid of any real power. The French nobility ceased resorting to armed resistance to defend their rights. The practical operational power, which was once held by the nobility, gradually shifted to the bureaucracy. Additionally, the now powerless nobility, stripped of their lands, increasingly moved to Paris to enjoy tax exemptions and seek the favor of the king.
6.2.4 Replacing the Church by Secular Messianism
The joint rule of divine authority, represented by the Catholic Church, and monarchical authority was the system of the medieval European nations. The two powers were both aligned and conflicting. This determined their mutually restraining relationship. France was one of the countries where the Catholic Church wielded great power. The Crusades were largely drawn from France and for a large part of the fourteenth century, the Pope lived in Avignon, a situation which led to a schism in the Church.
Nevertheless, the Catholic Church experienced a decline in authority in France after the Reformation. The threat of Protestantism and the ensuing protracted religious wars fractured spiritual and emotional loyalties, while discontent brewed among the clergy. In addition, with the establishment of an absolute monarchy, the king’s control over the Church gradually increased. One mechanism of royal control was to secure the support of the Church through tax exemptions. As a result, the Church progressively facilitated the dictatorial rule of the monarch, thus becoming the richest institution and largest landowner in France.9
The Church’s divine authority was weakened as it colluded with the monarchy and amassed wealth as a major landlord, provoking resentment among the French populace. This resentment was echoed and amplified during the Enlightenment in France, with eminent intellectuals like Voltaire and Rousseau leveling harsh criticism against Christianity and the Catholic Church, leading to its profound discrediting.
For the impoverished, perhaps the most anger-inducing, even revolting, aspects were the close ties between the Catholic Church and the monarch, coupled with the tax exemptions and substantial wealth enjoyed by the clergy. The anger boiled over during the Revolution, when churches were looted and demolished and clergymen were slaughtered en masse.
As the Church’s image as a theocratic agent collapsed, the traditions of Christianity, entrenched in the minds of the French people for over a millennium, nonetheless persisted. The institutional legacy of Christianity suggested that the people needed a form of religion that did not involve Jesus Christ or the Pope. Deism, which emerged during the early Enlightenment, served as a substitute for Christianity among the intellectual elite.
However, Father Jean Meslier secretly formulated and advocated for atheistic communism (a topic to be explored later in this chapter), and under his influence, Rousseau promoted what is now known as “civil religion.” These ideologies were ambitious attempts to establish alternatives to Christianity, aimed at dismantling the established order and creating an egalitarian paradise for the broader populace. Historically, this form of communist belief, which eventually supplanted Christianity and garnered mass support in some countries, essentially constituted a messianic secular religion bearing significant resemblances to Christianity in key aspects.
Christian believers anticipate the return of their savior, Jesus Christ, whom they believe will deliver them from a world full of tribulations. Upon his return, it is believed that he will destroy the old world of suffering and create a new world where all individuals are equal, similar to a heavenly paradise.
In secular messianism, which lacks a figure like Jesus Christ, revolutionary theory replaces Christian doctrine and revolutionary leaders stand in for the role of Christ. The scientific revolutionary theory prophesies that the masses, under the leadership of revolutionary figures, will inevitably overthrow the old world of inequality using their own strength, replacing it with an equal, communist new world.
In this worldview, secular faith and the revolutionary party substitute for Christian faith and the Church, allowing religion’s traditional strengths to manifest in a secular movement. This provides immense power to beguile, enthrall, incite, organize, and dismantle. The theory and movement of communist totalitarianism were, in fact, created jointly by Meslier, Rousseau, Robespierre, Babeuf, radical intellectuals, and the proletariat of France during the French Enlightenment and Revolution era. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Deng, and Xi are their followers.
6.2.5 Failure of Constitutional Reform
The French Revolution is, in fact, a term encompassing a series of significant historical events that unfolded in the wake of failed constitutional reform efforts in France at the end of the eighteenth century. While some historians argue that this failure led to the Revolution, others contend the opposite. While this debate over causality is important, the crucial point of this book is that the failure of constitutional reform set the stage for the birth of totalitarianism. This pattern echoed in the historical narratives of Russia and China, where similar failures of reform paved the way for totalitarian regimes.
The first important point to clarify is that the constitutional reform in France during that period was initiated in response to a financial crisis, rather than as a result of a premeditated, organized effort. France’s continued involvement in foreign warfare, especially the Anglo-French War of 1778–1783 (including the support for the American War of Independence of 1775–1783), had led to a severe financial crisis in the country and made it impossible for France to meet its obligations.
The fiscal difficulties facing France were largely a reflection of the inherent weaknesses of the absolute monarchy, which permitted the monarch to declare war and incur expenditures without checks or balances. Furthermore, the absolute monarchy compromised the legitimacy and credibility of the French government, preventing it from borrowing its way out of trouble and necessitating heavy reliance on taxation.
To address the financial crisis, Jacques Necker, who was appointed Controller-General of Finances in 1777, proposed a tax reform plan. This included the abolition of tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy, along with an increase in borrowing. However, this proposal faced opposition from ministers and provincial nobility.
Caught in a dilemma, Louis XVI convened the Assembly of Notables in 1787. The participants called for a session of the Estates-General, hoping to initiate constitutional reforms akin to those of England’s Glorious Revolution, with the aim of establishing a constitutional monarchy (Tocqueville, Reference de Tocqueville, Furet and Mélonio2001).
In 1789, nationwide general elections produced representatives for the Estates-General. It was the first meeting of the Estates in over a century.10 Due to conflicts between the Third Estate and the other Estates, a separate National Assembly, claiming to represent the people, was formed a month later. Representatives from the other two Estates were also invited to join. The Assembly later changed its name to the National Constituent Assembly.
Confronted with the National Constituent Assembly’s push for a constitutional monarchy, Louis XVI wavered between making concessions, resisting the push, or preparing for repression. His dismissal of the reformist Controller-General Necker for the second time triggered a massive revolt among Parisians, with the support of portions of the French Guard.
On July 14, the rebels seized the Bastille, looted weapons and ammunition, and carried out brutal massacres of high-ranking officials, including those who had voluntarily cooperated. They established the Paris Commune, which became the governing body of Paris, marking a turning point in which the peaceful reform effort devolved into an uncontrollable violent revolution.
The Paris Commune became the dominant authority during the French Revolution, adopting increasingly radical revolutionary goals and brutal methods. It was from this tumultuous process that the embryonic communist movement emerged. However, the turbulence was eventually brought to an end by Napoleon’s armed coup, leading to the restoration of the absolute monarchy.
Faced with the imminent threat of more riots, the king relented. Necker was reinstated and the Marquis de Lafayette, a renowned aristocratic general with a track record of victories during the American War of Independence and a supporter of the Third Estate, was appointed Commander of the French National Guard.
On August 26, 1789, the National Constituent Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. This seminal document, jointly drafted by Lafayette and Sieyès, a representative of the Third Estate, asserted liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression as inalienable human rights. Furthermore, it articulated the principle of the separation of powers between the judiciary, executive, and legislature, and affirmed the equality of all before the law.
The declaration drew on a range of influences, including the different ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau, as well as the United States Declaration of Independence and the individual state Bill of Rights. Notably, it also benefited significantly from the input of Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as the United States Ambassador to France at the time.
In 1791, France enacted its first constitution, effectively establishing the country as a constitutional monarchy. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was integral to this constitution, which aimed to safeguard human rights and balance the power of the monarch with that of an elected assembly. If this constitutional arrangement had been successful, France might have evolved into a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain. However, the constitution faced opposition not only from the monarch but also, more significantly, from radical factions and the inflamed, violent masses. Frequent violations of the constitution reduced the constitutional monarchy to a largely nominal status.
With the encouragement of the Jacobins and the Paris Commune, the populace grew increasingly radicalized. Riots and armed uprisings were common, with widespread resentment targeted towards the monarchy, clergy, and nobility. Thousands of clergy members and nobles were slaughtered (Shusterman, Reference Shusterman2013). As a result, not only was the constitutional monarchy effectively non-existent in practice but the physical safety of the monarch himself was also at risk. In June 1791, Louis XVI was arrested following a failed escape attempt. In 1792, the National Convention, elected via universal suffrage, declared the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic. This power shift put the primary advocates for the republic, the Girondins, into power.
6.2.6 The Jacobin Dictatorship: A Prototype of Totalitarianism
The Girondins held a stance far more radical than that of those advocating for a constitutional monarchy. They abolished the constitutional monarchy and established a republic. However, the impoverished masses, who frequently resorted to street violence, were significantly more radical. In September 1792, under the banner of “Justice,” radical factions among the poor slaughtered about 2,700 individuals, including priests and nuns, who had been imprisoned since the Revolution began. The Girondin-led National Convention tried to halt these acts of violence by centralizing judicial power in the hands of the government. This move, however, incited the anger of the impoverished masses who, in 1793, staged an armed uprising that overthrew the Girondin regime. This rebellion paved the way for the establishment of a Jacobin dictatorship under Robespierre, which then took control of the French Republic (Linton, Reference Linton2006, p. 23).
The Jacobin dictatorship was the first prototype of modern totalitarianism, which emerged largely due to the dominance of the impoverished population during the Revolution coupled with a strategic alliance between the Jacobin elite and these masses. On one side, the Jacobin elites found themselves having to pander to the radical demands of the masses, resulting in a significant influence exerted by the latter. Without their staunch support and active involvement, the Jacobins may not have gained control, and their radical rhetoric could have remained just words. Conversely, without the Jacobin dictatorship, the poor rebels would have been a disorganized mob and there would have been no systematic and institutionalized reign of terror, and the French Revolution as we know it would not have happened.
As an early prototype of a totalitarian regime, the Jacobin government established the Reign of Terror, the core of which was the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal. Terroristic violence was an official policy of the Jacobin regime and was executed efficiently from the top down (Linton, Reference Linton2006, p. 23). Following this precedent, all modern totalitarian regimes, including those of the Bolsheviks and Chinese communists, systematically emulated this approach. They saw the use of violence as an essential means to eliminate political opposition and to establish and uphold their own regimes. As Robespierre said, “The springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror…. Terror is nothing other than justice” (Halsall, Reference Halsall1997). The Girondins, with their dissenting political views, were the primary targets of the Jacobins’ terror. Most Girondin representatives in the National Convention, including revolutionary aristocrat Louis Philippe d’Orléans, the leading advocate for the French Republican Revolution, Madame Roland, and Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, were all guillotined. Marquis de Condorcet,11 one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, a political scientist, mathematician, and leading author of the Girondin constitution, was imprisoned on charges of conspiracy and subsequently persecuted to death. Even Jacobin leaders who disagreed with Robespierre were imprisoned and executed.
During the Reign of Terror, 25,000 individuals were executed nationwide (Greer, Reference Greer1935); 16,594 of them were guillotined, 2,639 in Paris alone (Linton, Reference Linton2004). The Jacobin dictatorship, under the guise of pursuing equality and revolution, surpassed even the darkest periods of the absolute monarchy in terms of its comprehensive and ruthless infringement on human rights. The impact of the Jacobin dictatorship extended far beyond France. In addition to becoming the origin of totalitarianism, it also shook the confidence of other countries in republicanism. For instance, terrified by the horrors of the Jacobin type of rule, the Dutch rejected the draft of the republican constitution in their referendum of 1797 (Israel, Reference Israel2015, p. 675).
Since the storming of the Bastille, the primary participants in the riots and atrocities of the Revolution were the sans-culottes – the social underclass of the poor. They were impoverished workers and urban poor, the majority of the initiators and executors of the street violence and the mainstay of the revolutionary military forces. Politically, they advocated direct elections. They also embraced the use of violence to eliminate those who stood in the way of their goals, including the moderate reformists.
Given the significant role of the lower classes in the French Revolution, the literature often refers to them by a specific term, sans-culottes, meaning “men without knee-breeches.” As the French Revolution is not the main focus of this book, I will use the term “the poor” to denote the sans-culottes of the Revolution in an effort to minimize the use of specialized terminology. In the works of Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and some authoritative historians of the French Revolution, the sans-culottes are referred to as the proletariat and their acts of violence are seen as an embryonic form of proletarian revolution.12
Although labeling them as the proletariat may not be entirely accurate in terms of conceptual definition, it is an undeniable historical fact that there was a significant concentration of poor and disgruntled individuals in France, particularly in Paris, both before and during the Revolution. Lacking assets, these individuals served as the kindling and explosive force of the Revolution. The self-proclaimed revolutionary consciousness, resentment, and propensity for violence of the poor Parisian rebels are well-documented.13
The rise of the disgruntled poor masses was a product of the social evolution that had taken place under the old regime prior to the French Revolution. While stark social inequality was a significant factor, even more impactful were the transformations brought about by the absolute monarchy.
Under the medieval feudal order, the poor were governed by local nobles. These nobles had a duty to assist the poor in their domains, a responsibility they accepted as part of the price for power and support within their territories. The nobles’ efforts to maintain their power often made it difficult for the poor in their respective jurisdictions to develop what is known as “class consciousness.”
However, the advent of the absolute monarchy disrupted the medieval feudal order. Nobles, stripped of their lands, rights, and obligations, abandoned their territories and moved to Paris, thereby ending their aid to the poor.14 The centralized bureaucracy that ruled the entire country had neither the capacity nor the motivation to assist or alleviate the condition of the poor.
Furthermore, heavy taxes were imposed on the vast numbers of the poor, while the wealthy Church and aristocracy were exempt from taxation. This disparity exacerbated the resentment of the poor towards the monarchy, the Church, and the aristocracy.
Through multiple riots, the impoverished masses became the de facto primary force of the Revolution. Their violence was aimed not only at the nobility but also at any moderate revolutionaries who hindered their establishment of an “egalitarian republic” (Soboul, Reference Soboul1972, p. 158). They sought to curtail private property rights, directly challenging the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Under their violent onslaught throughout society, the human rights declarations and constitutions promulgated on several occasions during the Revolution were reduced to mere words (Soboul, Reference Soboul1975, pp. 332–334).
Their leading theorist, Babeuf, explicitly advocated for the abolition of private property and the establishment of communism. Before Napoleon’s coup, the sheer numbers, fanaticism, and violence of these impoverished masses had, to a considerable extent, shaped the trajectory of the Revolution.
But one key distinction between the Jacobins during the French Revolution and the Bolsheviks lies in the way they engaged with the poor. The acts of violence and riots perpetrated by the poor during the French Revolution were neither orchestrated nor led by the Jacobins. Instead, Robespierre found it necessary to actively appeal to the poor, meet their demands, and draw their support.
In contrast, having learned from the French Revolution, subsequent totalitarian parties such as the Bolsheviks and the Chinese Communist Party deliberately incited, nurtured, and organized the poor, transforming them into mobs. Both the Bolsheviks and the Chinese Communist Party heavily relied on inciting violence and atrocities to mobilize the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers in their armed seizures of power and in their “continued revolutions” to consolidate power, which are detailed in Chapters 8 and 10–12.
6.2.7 Babeuvian Communism
The trajectories leading from the Jacobin dictatorship to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and then to the Communist Revolution in China all followed a similar pattern. Each of these movements originated from a revolution aimed at establishing constitutionalism. However, in each case, while the old order was dismantled, the revolutionaries ended up establishing a totalitarian regime that was even more dictatorial than the one it overthrew.
Babeuf is considered the prophet of communist totalitarian movements. During the time of the Jacobin dictatorship, Babeuf developed his vision of communism and pioneered the idea of using a violent conspiracy to seize power and implement communism. After the Jacobin dictatorship was overthrown, Babeuf and his revolutionary comrades became extremely dissatisfied with the direction the Revolution was taking. They were particularly resentful of the Directory (governing body), which had staged a coup to overthrow the Jacobins. In response, they conspired to create a new society characterized by complete equality, one that would eliminate private property rights and all forms of privilege, including those enjoyed by the revolutionary government.
After his unsuccessful attempt to stage an armed coup in 1796, Babeuf was executed the following year. Subsequently, his followers disseminated his ideas throughout France, giving rise to the earliest communist movement. John Goodwin Barmby (1820–1881), a British utopian missionary, learned about the communist movement from one of Babeuf’s disciples during a visit to Paris in 1840. From the French word communisme, he created the English term “communism.” Barmby later introduced Engels, who had recently arrived in England, to communism both as an ideology and as a movement. Marx learned about the communist movement through Engels. Thus, Babeuf is rightfully considered the first communist revolutionary (Rose, Reference Rose1978).
If we use Christianity and the Church as metaphors for communism and the communist church,15 then Babeuf, as the founder and martyr, resembles Jesus Christ, while Barmby, Engels, and Marx, as disseminators and perfectors of doctrine and founders of the Church, can be likened to Saint John, Saint Paul, and Saint Peter, respectively. Lenin, as the architect and founder of the totalitarian system, transcended all in the history of Christianity and the Church, even though the basic elements of communist totalitarianism were already present in the theories of Marx and Engels.
Babeuf was a theorist for the revolutionary poor. Drawing from Rousseau, he emphasized that a legitimate government must express the general will. The “general will” he advocated for was the elimination of private property, which he believed would result in happiness for all and the eradication of crime. He and his comrades (who were tried and executed with him) contended that not only was the equality outlined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen necessary but also was absolute equality, for which all other rights could be sacrificed (Israel, Reference Israel2015, pp. 676–677). As such, they planned to seize political power through secretive armed plots in order to realize communism.
The overly violent Babeuvism made him unacceptable even to the Jacobins. Therefore, Babeuf was never a key member of the Jacobin Club (Phillips, Reference Phillips1911, pp. 93–94). To a large extent, the violent proletarian revolution promoted under Marxist ideology later sought to actualize Babeuf’s ideals from theory to practice but on a larger and more systematic scale. The secret proletarian Bolshevik Party founded by Lenin was directly modeled on the Conspiracy of the Equals organized by Babeuf. However, by inheriting the institutional genes of Russian secret terrorist organizations, the Bolsheviks were more meticulously planned and more rigidly organized.
The Reign of Terror under the Jacobins saw not only the mass execution of priests, nobles, and anyone accused of treason across society but also the imprisonment and execution of dissenters among the revolutionaries themselves. In the summer of 1794, moderate revolutionaries, seeking to escape the pervasive fear they were subjected to, overthrew the Jacobin regime and executed the Jacobin leaders, including Robespierre, in a coup d’état. In 1795, they established the Directory. More radical than most Jacobins, Babeuf and his comrades viewed the Directory as exploiting the revolution for its own privileges and argued that the revolution was not complete enough. They advocated for the total abolition of private property in order to achieve absolute equality.
The Conspiracy of the Equals (Conjuration des Égaux) was subsequently established to violently overthrow the Directory and implement the first constitution of the French Republic, enacted in 1793 but never put into effect. Babeuf proclaimed the aim of the revolution was to “abolish private ownership” and “establish public administration to oversee the distribution of these products, while strictly observing the principle of equality.” Because private ownership inevitably resulted in inequality, its abolition was the only way to achieve “true equality” (Babeuf cited in Soboul, Reference Soboul1983). The plot intended to confiscate private land and the means of production after seizing political power, aiming to attain “complete equality” and “common happiness.”
The Manifesto of Equals, issued by the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796, declared:
We need not only that equality of rights written into the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen; we want it in our midst, under the roofs of our houses. […] Let it at last end, this great scandal that our descendants will never believe existed! Disappear at last, revolting distinctions between rich and poor, great and small, masters and servants, rulers and ruled. […] The moment has come to found the REPUBLIC OF EQUALS, the great home open to all men. […] The organization of real equality, the only one that responds to all needs, without causing any victims, without costing any sacrifice, will not at first please everyone. The selfish, the ambitious, will tremble with rage.
The total forced elimination of private property rights, the annihilation of the old world, and the violent establishment of a new communist world are the fundamental characteristics of communist totalitarianism, a theory and a movement pioneered by Babeuf. In his 1795 Le manifeste des plébéiens (Manifesto of the Common People), Babeuf issued a revolutionary call for secular salvation, advocating for the replacement of the dying old world with an egalitarian new one. His eloquent call to create chaos in the world, to destroy the old world and create a new one, made even Mao seem to pale in comparison 200 years later (see Chapter 12 for details). Babeuf said,
People! Awaken to hope! … Rejoice in the coming of a happy future! … all calamities have come to a head; they can no longer get worse. They can only be destroyed by a complete overhaul! Let everything be destroyed! Scramble all spontaneous forces together, let them mix and clash! Let there be chaos, and from chaos a new and rebuilt world!
Babeuf’s attempt to implement a communist totalitarian system in practice laid the groundwork for the Blanquists of the Second Paris Commune and the Bolsheviks in the early twentieth century. Babeuf established a top-down conspiratorial organization with a “strong leadership.” At the core of this conspiracy was a leadership group led by Babeuf, known as the Secret Directory. This leadership relied on a small number of “revolutionary representatives,” who had been tested and who operated underground. These representatives served as liaisons between the revolutionaries and the patriots, conducting propaganda, organizing activities, and attracting the masses. However, the patriots and democrats were not privy to the secrets and “specific objectives” of the Conspiracy. Babeuf’s revolutionary comrade, Philippe Buonarroti, described the Conspiracy’s plan as follows, “After an armed insurrection to overthrow the old state, the Secret Directory was to establish a revolutionary regime, with itself at the core, in order to transform society and establish a new system. The Secret Directory was also to keep watch on the Assembly.”16
Marx inherited and expanded upon Babeuf’s communist theory and tactics, opposing constitutionalism and advocating for dictatorship from an early stage.17 Later in his life, he explicitly stated that his greatest contribution was the invention of the concept of proletarian dictatorship. He argued that establishing a proletarian dictatorship was a prerequisite for abolishing private property and establishing public ownership. He clearly stated:
In destroying the existing conditions of oppression by transferring all the means of labor to the productive laborers, and thereby compelling every able-bodied individual to work for a living, the only base for class rule and oppression would be removed. But before such a change could be effected a proletarian dictature would become necessary, and the first condition of that was a proletarian army. The working classes would have to conquer the right to emancipate themselves on the battlefield.
6.3 Origins of Babeuf’s Communism: The French Enlightenment
Babeuf’s communist theory drew heavily from the French Enlightenment, including the communist ideas of Abbé de Mably and Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, who advocated for the abolition of private property, and Rousseau’s concepts of general will and popular sovereignty (Talmon, Reference Talmon1952). The Conspiracy of the Equals, whose participants were members of the Jacobin Club, emerged as a more radical movement under Jacobin rule. The ideas of the Jacobin Club, Robespierre, and Babeuf originated from the French Enlightenment and further developed during the Revolution.
The Enlightenment since the seventeenth century, as a prelude to the French Revolution, had produced a variety of ideas, many of which were mutually contradictory. Among the most famous of these thinkers were Locke and Montesquieu, who advocated for constitutional democracy with an emphasis on human rights and property rights. Others, such as Meslier, Mably, and Morelly, championed the elimination of private property and the establishment of communism (Mably explicitly opposed Montesquieu); Rousseau stressed mandatory popular sovereignty; and Meslier and Voltaire were fierce critics of religious authority. Both the English Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution were deeply influenced by the Enlightenment. The French Revolution initially sought to establish a constitutional monarchy, mirroring the English Glorious Revolution. However, the question arises: Why were constitutionalist ideas abandoned by the French radical revolutionaries during the Revolution? Why did they gravitate towards authoritarianism and, in the case of the most radical, even spawn a communist totalitarian movement?
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, issued at the outset of the Revolution, contained fundamental principles of inviolable rights and the separation of powers, influenced by Locke and Montesquieu. However, within months of its proclamation, these principles were completely eclipsed by the bloody tide of the Revolution. The ensuing years were characterized by terror, carnage, and systematic human rights violations, leading to a drastic surge in the violation of human rights in France compared to the pre-revolutionary era.
Montesquieu’s theories, based on a century of British constitutional practice, had a considerable impact on the American Constitution. And, in turn, the early constitutionalism of the French Revolution drew explicitly from the American experience. However, rather than Montesquieu’s principles, it was Rousseau’s autocratic principle of the indivisibility of sovereignty – which stands in direct opposition to constitutional principles – that prevailed in the regime established by the Revolution. The principle of the separation of powers was, at best, nothing more than empty rhetoric in the constitution.
The notion of equality, rather than constitutionalism, appears to be most prevalent during the French Revolution. Almost all French Enlightenment thinkers, including Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, advocated for equality. However, their conceptions of equality not only significantly differed from one another but were even in conflict. Social reform or revolution based on different principles of equality led to completely opposite outcomes. Montesquieu emphasized the equality of basic rights, particularly in terms of human rights and property rights. In contrast, Meslier, Mably, and Morelly championed absolute equality to the point of completely abolishing private property and even the family. Rousseau also emphasized absolute equality and asserted that private property is the source of inequality, which later influenced Marx. However, he stopped short of explicitly calling for the abolition of private property. During the French Revolution, the most radical revolutionaries, particularly the impoverished rebels, viewed absolute equality as their overriding demand or creed. For the most radical among them, everything could be sacrificed for such a sacred goal, including the physical elimination of anyone who stood in their way (Soboul, Reference Soboul1972, pp. 158–161).
The ideas that revolutionaries and rioters accept and resist are their own choices, determined by their self-interests and the ideologies they espouse, that is, the existing institutional genes. Rousseau’s concept of popular sovereignty was prevalent and further developed during the Revolution because the supremacy of sovereignty and its indivisibility were both an old tradition of French absolute monarchy and directly beneficial to any political group eager to seize power, whether they called themselves revolutionaries or royalists. Indeed, Rousseau’s doctrine of popular sovereignty and the principle of the “indivisibility of sovereignty” were taken as the theoretical basis for the Jacobin dictatorship during the Revolution (Talmon, Reference Talmon1952). In the name of popular sovereignty, the Jacobin regime arrested and executed thousands of people, including their revolutionary comrades. Its despotism and brutality were a continuation but it far surpassed the system overthrown by the French Revolution. The mechanism behind this irony is the evolution of the same kind of institutional genes under different names.
In contrast, many great ideas originating from the French Enlightenment had no influence during the Revolution or were selectively discarded. For instance, while Voltaire was sharply critical of the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the Church, he also emphasized tolerance. Radical revolutionaries adored his criticism of the old regime, which they amplified to the point that Voltaire’s voice on tolerance was completely drowned out. The violent revolution conducted by means of terror not only contradicted Voltaire’s call for tolerance in practice but some radical revolutionaries even claimed that executing all dissidents was a condition for the success of the revolution (Soboul, Reference Soboul1972, pp. 158–161).
The brutal persecution of the Marquis de Condorcet exemplifies how the radical revolutionaries in the name of justice and equality abandoned all ideas of democratic constitutionalism during the Revolution. As a leading figure of the French Enlightenment, Condorcet and his theory of democracy remain influential today. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded twice to theoretical studies that were developed based on Condorcet’s work. Besides his theoretical contributions, Condorcet had an active role in the French Revolution and was a key architect of the Girondin Constitution project of 1793. Nevertheless, his theories were disregarded and the constitution he drafted was scorned by the Jacobins who usurped power in that same year. Condorcet was subsequently arrested, imprisoned, and persecuted to death, becoming one of the pioneering revolutionaries to die in that way under the first totalitarian regime. Over a century later, similar tragedies unfolded in Russia, China, and other places under totalitarian rule.
6.3.1 From Christian Communism/Messianism to Secular Communism/Messianism
The element of a communist utopia is inherently embedded in the Christian spirit, as previously discussed.18 According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ and his followers practiced the principles of communism from the inception of their faith, emphasizing voluntariness and self-sacrifice. The Reformation revitalized this early Christian ethos but it also gave rise to the first instance of coercive communism, although the latter was ignored by most scholars as it was small in scale and did not last long. The Anabaptists, a radical group, established short-lived communist city-states in the sixteenth century, which represented the first generation of enforced communist regimes and nascent totalitarian regimes in human history.
During the Enlightenment movement, which sought to replace religion with secular reasoning, several utopianists, such as Gabriel Bonnot de Mably and Étienne-Gabriel Morelly, explored and designed their ideal communist societies from theoretical and institutional perspectives. However, the one who had the most profound influence was Father Jean Meslier, who clandestinely transformed Christian communism into a comprehensive philosophy of atheist communism, laying the theoretical groundwork for transforming the Christian communist ideal into a secular communist movement in the future.19
On the one hand, any form of communism that aims to eradicate private ownership inherently necessitates widespread violence. Any discourse about such communism becomes hollow without substantial popular support. Conversely, the ideas that gain influence are invariably those that large numbers of people need and are willing to adopt. In a society marked by acute inequality, there is a pervasive demand for greater equality. Thus, with a radical call for absolute equality, communism becomes appealing to both elites and radicals from the lower classes.
The upheaval during the Reformation period underscored the potential of Christian messianism as a catalyst for violent popular revolution. Therefore, proponents of secular communism were always mindful of retaining this messianic element as communism transitioned from a Christian to a secular ideal.
As a revolutionary theorist who advocated for the poor during the French Revolution, Babeuf was among the pioneers in transforming communism from its Christian origins towards the secular realm through agitation and action. Secular messianism, a derivative of Christian messianism, believed that the old, unequal world was on the verge of perishing and being replaced by a new world of equality (Babeuf’s Le Manifeste des Plébéiens, 1795).20 The immediate impact of secular messianism during the French Revolution can be largely attributed to its underlying ideals, which were drawn directly from Christianity by “communist clergy,” ensuring its compatibility with the deep-rooted tradition – referred to here as the “institutional gene” – of Christian messianism in France. An additional factor was the repeated implementation of violent revolution during the early stages of the French Revolution. Even before the establishment of the Jacobin dictatorship, the revolutionary fervor had already dismantled the monarchy and the Church of the old regime. Subsequently, France’s first republic was overthrown by the poor through violence, enabling the Jacobins to form a nascent totalitarian regime under the banner of popular sovereignty. Each revolution drew its justification from the enduring messianic spirit: the old world was coming to an end and a new one was about to be born.
The Revolution began by violently abolishing the old system of monarchy and theocracy. Then the Jacobins used violence to dismantle the newly established “old system” known as the French Republic. Ultimately, according to Babeuf, what had to be destroyed was private ownership, which has existed since the dawn of human civilization. This captivating messianic ideology sounded the call to mobilize the population for a revolutionary purge. However, in the transformation of Christian messianism into a secular belief, Christianity itself became the target of a “violent revolution.”
The Catholic Church had been a cornerstone of French society since the early Middle Ages and its demise destabilized society. Faith in Christianity began to waver amidst the interdenominational rivalries and the brutal religious wars that followed in the wake of the Reformation. In the seventeenth century, Christianity was further weakened by the breakthroughs of empirical science and the emergence of a growing spirit of rational inquiry. Deism,21 which developed under the influence of empirical science, directly challenged the inerrancy of Christian doctrine. Among some intellectuals, deism replaced Christianity as the dominant faith. During the Enlightenment, it greatly influenced philosophy and science, with early proponents including Descartes, Locke, Newton, and Adam Smith. Many prominent figures of the French Enlightenment, including Descartes, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and the Jacobin leader Robespierre, followed deism. In contrast, Babeuf rejected all forms of religion. If Meslier was the first to theorize secular communism, albeit secretly, then Babeuf was the first to attempt a secular communist revolution. However, the followers of Babeuf’s movement in France never amassed sufficient numbers to launch a significant, violent revolution.
The intellectual elites who played a leading role in both the Glorious Revolution in Britain and the French Revolution shared a common belief in deism and largely held skeptical attitudes towards Christianity. However, their attitudes towards religion and the Church were markedly different. The British elite tended to be more tolerant towards the Church.22 After the signing of the Bill of Rights, there was never any large-scale violence against the Church in Britain and religious freedom and tolerance were largely exercised. In contrast, Voltaire assailed Christianity and the Church with violent language and the revolutionary poor and the Jacobin government directly targeted the Church and clergy with brutal violence during the French Revolution.
One of the relatively straightforward reasons for the differences between the two revolutions is that the Glorious Revolution emerged in the late Reformation, while the French Revolution started when the Enlightenment, which had already proceeded for a century, challenged the monarchy and the Church, promoted human rights, democracy, constitutionalism, questioned religious dogmatism and control, and advocated tolerance. However, when it came to societal transformation and the creation of new philosophical ideas, the French Enlightenment tended to be overly radical, even exhibiting an autocratic tendency (Berlin, Reference Berlin2013).
At the time of the Glorious Revolution in Britain, the Enlightenment was just beginning and had not yet posed a severe challenge to Christianity. The main religious issue facing English society was the dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism. The unique historical circumstances of England at the time of the Reformation meant that revolutionaries and reformers, from radical to moderate, generally advocated religious tolerance. By the time the Enlightenment posed a radical challenge to Christianity, the English constitutional system had already been consolidated and stabilized. In contrast, the French Revolution broke out a century after the Glorious Revolution, when the Enlightenment’s critique of Christianity, the Church, and theocracy had disseminated from the leading intellectuals to the French masses.
Voltaire played a pivotal role in criticizing Christianity and the Catholic Church and in mobilizing French intellectuals against the theocracy. Because of his attacks on the theocracy and the aristocracy, he was forced into exile in England. During his nearly three years in exile, he became greatly interested in Locke’s political ideas, Newtonian physics, and deism. He went on to become a strong advocate of deism during the French Enlightenment.
Unlike his English “teachers” Locke and Newton, who approached Christianity with reason and tolerance, Voltaire harbored a deep animosity towards Christianity and the Church. His criticism of Christianity was so sharp that it bordered on denunciation and even incited hatred. In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia in 1767, Voltaire wrote:
[Christianity] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think.
Jean Meslier, the Catholic priest who influenced both Voltaire and Rousseau, systematically discussed his lifelong concealed atheist, materialist, and communist beliefs and theories in his magnum opus Testament (Meslier, Reference Meslier2009). He loathed monarchs. A contemporary of Louis XIV, he criticized the king as a thief, murderer, and exploiter, responsible for massacres, wars, and famine (Onfray, Reference Onfray2006). Meslier did not believe in the existence of God and he vehemently opposed everything about Christianity and the Church, including the Bible. He put forth a vision of a communist society in which private property and the family had been eradicated. Meslier prophesied that a violent revolution would be necessary to achieve communism and he even claimed that it would be worth killing a few kings to reach this goal (Durant and Durant, Reference Durant and Durant1967, p. 80).
Voltaire published an abridged version of Meslier’s manuscript, which was widely disseminated. However, he altered Meslier’s atheism into deism and misrepresented his theory of communism (Wade, Reference Wade1933, pp. 381–398).
In the end, through the communist movements led by Babeuf, Marx, and Engels, Meslier was recognized as a precursor of modern communist thought. Indeed, the Bolsheviks praised Meslier as having a significance in the revolutionary communist enlightenment akin to the role Descartes played in the development of the Western Enlightenment and modernity (Onfray, Reference Onfray2006).
Voltaire’s hatred for Christianity and the Church was initially limited to antagonism against papalism and theocracy. Influenced by Meslier, this later transformed into an attack on the Bible, Church dogmas, and eventually even Jesus Christ, whom he portrayed as a fallen man (Daniel-Rops, 1964, p. 47). In La Bible enfin expliquée (The Bible Finally Explained), Voltaire wrote:
It is characteristic of fanatics who read the holy scriptures to tell themselves: God killed, so I must kill; Abraham lied, Jacob deceived, Rachel stole: so I must steal, deceive, lie. But, wretch, you are neither Rachel, nor Jacob, nor Abraham, nor God; you are just a mad fool, and the popes who forbade the reading of the Bible were extremely wise.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), famous for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution, pointed out that Voltaire was more inclined to attack and destroy the old regime than to build a new one. He wrote:
The old edifice of government had long been insecure; it shook, though no man struck it. Voltaire was hardly thinking of it. Three years’ residence in England had enabled him to understand that country without falling in love with it…. He was not struck with their political laws, which he rather criticized than praised. His letters on England … hardly contain any allusion to Parliament: he envies the English their literary liberty, but cares little for their political liberty, as though the one could exist for any length of time without the other.23
In contrast, Montesquieu clearly pointed out the systemic problems in France. For example, he wrote that the reason for low output from the land in France compared with that in England was that, “The yield of land depends less on its fertility than on the freedom of its occupants” (quoted in Tocqueville, Reference de Tocqueville1856, chapter 12).
As our purpose is to analyze social phenomena rather than merely discuss theory, it is important to note that in any society, the emergence of thought or theory is one thing, while the acceptance or rejection by the populace is entirely another. The former is the creation of thinkers within the society in which they live, reflecting both the conditions of that society and personal factors. The latter depends on the demands by different interest groups within that society.
Voltaire’s opposition to the theocracy resonated strongly with the French populace because such a voice was needed in French society. Given the high level of discontent with the Church, particularly among the lower classes, the incitement of hatred against Christianity and the Church by intellectual leaders like Voltaire had a substantial impact. On the other hand, the theories of Montesquieu were not received by radical revolutionaries and the poor as they were considered too moderate. In fact, Voltaire had foreseen the Revolution before it happened. In a letter from 1764, he predicted that the revolution in France would be as powerful as a landslide (Durant, Reference Durant1933, p. 187). After being imprisoned by the mob, Louis XVI lamented that Rousseau and Voltaire had destroyed France (Durant, Reference Durant1933, p. 261). Sadly, he not only discovered the influence of Rousseau and Voltaire too late but probably never realized that, in his great-grandfather’s time, Meslier had already sown the seeds of undermining the theocracy, the pillar of the French Empire.
6.3.2 General Will, Popular Sovereignty, and Absolute Equality
The French Enlightenment movement encompassed a variety of ideas, with some advocating for constitutionalism while others opposed it. What then, determined the direction of social change? Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of political powers stood in clear contradiction to Rousseau’s notion of absolute rule by the general will and the absolute nature of sovereignty. It is worth noting that Rousseau was not the one who invented this term. For example, long before him, Spinoza discussed this concept with a viewpoint opposite to Rousseau’s (Israel, Reference Israel2020). This book only focuses on Rousseau’s notion of general will. However, revolutionary leaders like Robespierre and revolutionary groups like the Jacobins abandoned Montesquieu in favor of Rousseau. They pushed Rousseau’s discourse towards outright autocracy, violence, and terror. A question arises, why, in an era when constitutionalism was clearly disseminated and demonstrable models such as Britain and America existed, did the French populace choose to follow extreme autocracy, masked under the guise of attractive reasoning? To a large extent, this can be explained by the institutional genes left by the old regime and the revolutionaries who were shaped by these genes.
One of the foundational theories supporting the Jacobin dictatorship established during the French Revolution was Rousseau’s concept of popular sovereignty. As expounded in The Social Contract, this theory opposes the constitutional principle of the separation of powers. Although certain aspects of Rousseau’s social contract and popular sovereignty were influenced by Locke, the essence of his concepts stands in opposition to those of Locke. The decision of the revolutionary poor and the Jacobin elite in France to embrace Rousseau’s ideas over those of Montesquieu reflects the needs of French society during the French Revolution. Ultimately, these societal needs determined the role of different thinkers during the Revolution.
The primary distinction between the philosophical positions of Locke and Montesquieu, as opposed to those of Rousseau, pertains to human rights and property rights. In Locke’s view, human rights and property rights are inextricably linked; human rights are superior to sovereignty and sovereignty exists to protect human rights. Under no circumstances should sovereignty be allowed to infringe upon human rights. Locke argued that the government’s sole purpose is to safeguard human rights and, to achieve this objective, it must abide by the principles of constitutionalism, which involve the separation of powers and thereby ensure the restriction of governmental power.
Conversely, Rousseau believed that popular sovereignty, as a manifestation of the general will, held precedence over all individuals and entities, and could exert coercive power over the populace. He emphasized the indivisibility of sovereignty and stood against the separation of powers (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923), rejecting the principles of constitutionalism. Notably, in Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men, Rousseau asserted that private property rights were the root cause of inequality, fundamentally contradicting Locke’s thought (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1997). Moreover, in The Social Contract, he advocated absolute equality, although he did not employ this exact phrase.
While the concepts of equality and wealth distribution are ingrained in Christianity, they are framed as matters of faith. In Christian belief, there is no inherent conflict between equality and private property, nor is there any suggestion of coercion. In fact, the Bible has always upheld the principle of protecting private property rights, dating back to the Old Testament. However, in times of severe societal inequality, radical revolutionaries exploited the profound antipathy towards inequality felt by the poor. Drawing on Rousseau’s theory, they incited the masses to dismantle the social order that protected private property rights, all in the pursuit of absolute egalitarianism.
In a revolution characterized by a hatred of inequality and a desire for absolute equality, the disdain for private property evolved and transformed into a revolution committed to the complete abolition of private property rights. This constituted the foundational logic of Babeuvian communism that emerged during the Jacobin dictatorship, with Babeuf drawing his theory from the works of Rousseau and Meslier. Marxism, which emerged several decades later, and Leninism are both continuations and evolutions of Babeuvian communism.
Rousseau’s concepts of the general will, the social contract, sovereignty, and freedom encapsulate the conflict between the tradition of absolute monarchy in mid-to-late-eighteenth-century France and the Enlightenment spirit of liberty. In his formulation, the social contract forms a “moral community” in which each individual places his individuality and powers under the supreme leadership of the “general will.” The collective expression of this general will becomes a “public figure” into which each individual is incorporated. Rousseau referred to this “public figure” in different contexts as the republic, the state, the sovereign, the people, and the citizen. He asserted that each individual, guided by the general will, should be compelled to accept the general will and become part of the public figure. Furthermore, sovereignty is the expression of the general will. The social contract grants the “body politic” absolute power over its members, and it is this power to express the general will that bestows the name of sovereignty. To ensure expression of the general will, there must be no “partial society” within the state. In Rousseau’s ideal world, there would be a “real democracy” never seen before, “equality would be everywhere, … as in rules and wealth” (The Social Contract, Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923, Book IV, chapter 3).
Central to Rousseau’s philosophy is the concept of the general will.24 In The Social Contract, he argued, the general will is the will of the sovereign. “Sovereignty … is the exercise of the general will” (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923, Book II, chapter 1), and the sovereign must oversee and control the government because the general will expressed and implemented by the government is a particular will, relative to the sovereign. Under this conception, he delineated two types of liberty: natural liberty and civil liberty, asserting that natural liberty is “bounded only by the strength of the individual,” while civil liberty is “limited by the general will” (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923, Book I, chapter 8). He underscored that these limitations encompass coercion, positing:
In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.
In his argument against the separation of powers on the grounds of the indivisibility of sovereignty, Rousseau echoed the same reasoning Jean Bodin utilized in his defense of absolute monarchy as part of his doctrine of sovereignty. Rousseau also resisted indirect democracy, a stance that would later be used to justify many of the atrocities perpetrated by revolutionary groups of the poor. He wrote:
Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility.
Rousseau’s views on English democracy starkly contrasted with those of Montesquieu and Voltaire, as he contemptuously asserted:
The people of England … is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing. The use it makes of the short moments of liberty it enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them.
Rousseau consistently underscored the notion that the general will and sovereignty necessitated coercive power over citizens. He wrote:
It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able to express itself, that there should be no partial society within the State, and that each citizen should think only his own thoughts.
As nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic absolute power over all its members also; and it is this power which, under the direction of the general will, bears … the name of Sovereignty.
The Sovereign can only be considered collectively and as a body; but each member, as being a subject, is regarded as an individual…. the larger the State, the less the liberty.
Rousseau’s series of concepts regarding the general will, sovereignty, coercion, and citizen freedom have drawn criticism from numerous scholars. Hegel opined that Rousseau’s general will would lead to a reign of terror (Hegel, Reference Hegel1991), while Russell deemed it to be anti-democratic (Russell, [Reference Russell1946] 1957). Talmon contended that Rousseau’s argument for the general will was a crucial precipitant towards totalitarian democracy (Talmon, Reference Talmon1952).
However, Rousseau’s more direct contribution to the emergence of communist totalitarianism lies in his opposition to the principles of constitutionalism and the separation of powers, his endorsement of caesaropapist rule, and his advocacy for sovereign control over property rights and opposition to private property. In the second volume of The Social Contract, Rousseau devoted a chapter to The Indivisibility of Sovereignty, presenting arguments that are in direct conflict with constitutionalist theory. Engels highly praised Rousseau, considering the conflict between Rousseau and Montesquieu as important as Luther–Calvin’s Protestantism against Catholicism (Marx and Engels, Reference Marx and Engels2012, vol. 4, p. 643). Going further than the doctrine of indivisible sovereignty, Rousseau explicitly advocated secular, caesaropapist rule, considering the government and the Church as manifestations of secular and divine sovereignty, thus they cannot be separated. He argued that secular and divine power should be directed into “political unity, without which no State or government will ever be rightly constituted” (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923, Book IV, chapter 8). He advocated for the establishment of a theocratic secular regime and civil religion “of which the Sovereign should fix the articles…. While it [the sovereign] can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them” (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923, Book IV, chapter 8).
Rousseau advocated for absolute equality, asserting that, “In a real democracy, equality would be everywhere, in morals and talents as in rules and wealth” (Rousseau, Reference Rousseau1923, Book IV, chapter 3). He believed that private property was the root of inequality. Thus, Rousseau argued for sovereign control over property rights as a means of achieving such absolute equality.
But even under European absolute monarchy, sovereignty did not have full power to control the property rights of the nobility and the power of the Church. The key step towards communist totalitarianism is to break the boundary between sovereignty and property rights, allowing sovereignty to legally control property rights. Rousseau made a significant contribution in promoting this change. In Rousseau’s conception, sovereignty represents the general will and is superior to the individual. So there is no clear boundary between sovereignty and property rights. He said that, for the sake of equality,
Each member of the community gives himself to it, at the moment of its foundation, just as he is, with all the resources at his command, including the goods he possesses…. The State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods.
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty …; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses.
6.4 Marxist Communist Totalitarianism
It took only a century from the advent of Marxism for communist totalitarianism to sweep the globe and rule one-third of the world population. For comparison, Christianity took over a millennium to become the world’s largest religion, covering a quarter of the world’s population and Islam took thirteen centuries to become the second largest, covering a fifth. The swift expansion of communist totalitarianism in the modern era is inextricably linked to large-scale violent revolutions. Yet, violence itself is an insufficient explanation as it would not have been possible without the allure and incitement of revolutionary ideologies among the masses. An ideology that can incite millions to sacrifice their lives for revolution must have a potent appeal, rooted in elements already deeply ingrained in people’s minds. Therefore, the decisive factor in creating an unprecedented scale of a communist totalitarian movement within a century must involve more than just theories invented by geniuses or methods of incitement and organization created by revolutionary leaders. This chapter illustrates the institutional genes of the communist totalitarian ideology – institutional elements long-existing within Christianity and deeply rooted in people’s minds. These institutional genes persisted when the ideology transitioned from Christianity to secularity. The novelty of communist totalitarianism was primarily centered on the communist messianism labeled as “science.” This ideology made the construction and realization of a system of total dictatorship and absolute violence possible.
The central ideas of the communist totalitarian ideology, as established by Marx, are as follows: (1) A proletarian revolution should be initiated to abolish private property and establish a society of absolute equality. (2) The establishment of a proletarian dictatorship should be prioritized. (3) Capitalism, due to its inherent self-destructive forces – including its creation of the proletariat – will inevitably perish. (4) The global proletarian revolution will invariably lead to the establishment of worldwide communism.
The first component above is the primary factor that attracts intellectuals and the general public to embrace communist totalitarianism. It relies on the proletarian violent revolution to thoroughly eliminate private property and establish an absolutely equal society in which everyone equally loses property rights (The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels, [Reference Marx and Engels1848] 1998). The pursuit of absolute equality and the necessity of using violence to achieve it have existed throughout history. When Meslier and Babeuf transformed Christian communism into secular communism, the principles they espoused were essentially aligned with this goal. However, from Meslier to Babeuf, the role of violence became increasingly significant. Marx’s contribution was the theorization of violence, rendering the violence of the proletarian revolution as an indispensable “science” that is more systematic, concrete, and essential for the revolution.
The concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a theoretical blueprint designed for modern totalitarianism, was the invention that Marx considered to be the greatest contribution of his life. He asserted that to enter communism, as the first step an entirely new state, which will be a system of violence under the dictatorship of the proletariat, must be created. This state rules over everything and controls all property in society. It is a system in which sovereignty and property are united and politics and religion are united. In this state, political power decides everything (Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx, Reference Marx1938). As a concept, the dictatorship of the proletariat was actually not so much Marx’s invention as it was in fact his summary of coercive communism encompassing the Reformation, the French Revolution, and his contemporary event, the second Paris Commune. All previous experiments in coercive communism exhibited highly autocratic systems where sovereignty and property were unified, as were politics and religion. Each had the essential characteristics of a totalitarian system.
However, a “scientific theory” of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat alone were not sufficient to persuade, tempt, and incite social elites and the masses to participate fanatically in the communist revolution at the cost of their own lives and those of others. In addition to “science,” communist totalitarian ideological agitation relied on communist messianism. In fact, in the unprecedented rapid development of communist totalitarianism, communist messianism is indispensable. The core of communist messianism is the so-called “inexorable law” of social development (Marxism), similar to Christian messianism in spirit. Christianity claims that the Savior is about to arrive, that the catastrophic old world will perish, and a beautiful new world is about to be born. Marxism asserts that the old world of inequality based on private property will inevitably collapse and that proletarian revolutions throughout the world will inevitably break out in full force, burying the old world of human exploitation and eventually engendering the wonderful world of communism.25
In Marx’s era, the communist revolution had not yet occurred. Theoretically, the savior is the proletariat itself, as stated in the Communist Manifesto and the Internationale (the song of the international communist movement). It is the theoretical sublimation of the Jacobin-Babeuf revolution. But in practice, in all communist revolutions and under all communist totalitarian regimes, their Great Leaders were sanctified as saviors. In the official language of the CCP, Mao was the “Great Savior” who liberated the Chinese people and guided the people of the world.
The ideology of communist totalitarianism serves as an essential foundation for constructing a totalitarian system. However, the regions where this ideology exerts the most influence are not necessarily its places of origin, and this influence relies on various conditions. This ideology indeed first emerged in Germany, France, and Britain, but despite this, it did not gain widespread acceptance or prevalence in these countries from the late nineteenth century onwards. In stark contrast, the Russians and the Chinese, especially the latter, enthusiastically embraced it. Notably, most Chinese, including their leaders, did not have a thorough understanding of the theory and origins of this ideology. Yet, they emerged as the world’s leading proponents of communist totalitarianism. The acceptance of an ideology within a society is heavily influenced by the society’s institutional genes. Chapters 7 and 8 that follow elucidate why the first modern communist totalitarian system sprang up in Russia, considering the perspective of institutional genes. The subsequent chapters delve into why the communist totalitarian system, freshly established in Soviet Russia, was swiftly accepted in China and deeply ingrained itself there.
