Importance of the French Revolution

The French Revolution is the dawn of a new era and with it a new human being.- Considered one of the most important historical events of Humanity, the Revolution French is to such an important point that it has served to differentiate two eras: the modern one from the contemporary.

With it, a period in which the great monarchies and the absolute kings had all the power to begin to an era in which Western societies began to build their future on the basis of greater democratization policy. The French Revolution was a long process that broke out on July 14 but which had its antecedents and at the same time left its consequences that can still be traced today.

The intricate causes of the French Revolution: a multi-causal revolution

The French Revolution meant the breakdown of the Old Regime, a regime in which most of the Western countries (except the Thirteen Colonies, later the United States) lived under the yoke and domination of more or less effective monarchies that gave all the power to the monarch and little or no power to the town. To this we must add the notion of

divine right which implied the belief that the supreme ruler was chosen and anointed by God to rule over the people. These political ideas slowly began to be questioned by philosophers and thinkers who posed reason as the only means of knowledge and knowledge.

Precisely, due to an endless number of causes, among which we must mention economic (such as high inflation, the increase in bread, poor harvests), political (the limited access to political participation of non-privileged groups such as the bourgeoisie and peasants), social (legal inequality and privileges) and cultural (the emergence of new philosophical ideas based on the Enlightenment), France was in 1789 the appropriate setting for the outbreak of a violent and very deep revolution that would have the objective of expanding the rights of those who were neglected by the real power.

Meanings of the French Revolution. Why can't we talk about proletarian revolution?

With the French Revolution, many changes began to take place slowly and progressively in the West. Beyond the immediate and deeply significant change in government, power also passed into the hands of different sectors of the people (Girondins or Jacobins alternately) instead of remaining in the hands of the traditional aristocracies. On the other hand, over the years the idea that it was necessary to establish the new rights for all human beings in writing began to develop more deeply. Thus, the documents prior to what we know today as the Universal Rights of the Human Being arise.

However, for many, the French Revolution did not seek profound social changes, but rather, as it was carried out by bourgeois sectors, tried to maintain a status quo of the situation of the peasantry once the main political objective had been achieved: overthrowing the monarchy.

This is how the revolts of the mid-nineteenth century took place when the popular sectors began to demand with unfulfilled promises and the bourgeois sectors tried to strengthen power recently acquired. Only at the beginning of the century with phenomena such as Russian Revolution From 1917 we will be able to talk about significant social changes for the most vulnerable sectors.

The legacy of the French Revolution is deep and very strong in terms of the modern rise of the democracy as we understand it today. And from this that a large part of the western countries, including America in this, will find in more democratic forms of government the solution to their wishes. In any case, these first democracies would not be universal but would keep the groups in power. bourgeois who, in addition, would be enriched by the establishment of great economic freedoms before the consolidation of capitalism and the disappearance of the obstacles that royal power could place on individual progress.

The French Revolution means a very profound change at a political and social level because the axes of power change. However, its consequences did not mean real advances or improvements for the whole society, for which the conflicts would continue to exist for a long time.

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