Reactionary
Encyclopedia
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state (the status quo ante
) in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical
". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by some such as H. L. Mencken
, Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie and John Lukacs
.
gave the English language two politically descriptive words denoting anti-progressive politics: reactionary and conservative. Reactionary derives from the French word réactionnaire (an early nineteenth-century coinage), and conservative
from conservateur, identifying monarchist parliamentarians opposed to the revolution. In this French usage, reactionary denotes "a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state" and a "return to a previous condition of affairs." The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first English-language usage was by John Stuart Mill
, in 1840: "The philosophers of the reactionary school—of the school to which Coleridge
belongs".
During the French Revolution, conservative forces (especially the Roman Catholic Church
) organized opposition to the progressive socio-political and economic changes brought by the revolution, and to fight to restore the temporal authority of the Church and Crown
. In nineteenth-century European politics, the reactionary class included the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy—the clergy
, the aristocracy
, royal families
, and royalists
—believing that national government is the sole domain of the Church and the state. In France, supporters of traditional rule by direct heirs of the House of Bourbon
dynasty were labeled the legitimist reaction. In the Third Republic
, the monarchists were the reactionary faction, later renamed conservative. In Protestant Christian societies, reactionary described those supporting tradition against modernity.
In the nineteenth century, reactionary denoted people who idealised feudalism
and the pre-modern era—before the Industrial Revolution
and the French Revolution—when economies were mostly agrarian
, a landed aristocracy dominated society, a hereditary king ruled and the Roman Catholic Church was society's moral center. Those labeled as reactionary favored the aristocracy
instead of the middle class
and the working class
. Reactionaries opposed democracy and parliamentarism.
was a movement within the revolution against the excesses of the Jacobins
. On July 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor year II in the French Republican Calendar
), Maximilien Robespierre
's Reign of Terror
was brought to an end. The overthrow of Robespierre signalled the reassertion of the French National Convention
over the Committee of Public Safety
. The Jacobins were suppressed, the prisons were emptied and the Committee was shorn of its powers. After the execution of some 104 Robespierre supporters, the Thermidorian Reaction stopped the use of the guillotine against alleged counterrevolutionaries, set a middle course between the monarchists and the radicals and ushered in a time of relative exuberance and its accompanying corruption.
, the monarchs of Russia
, Prussia
, and Austria
formed the Holy Alliance
, a form of collective security against revolution
and Bonapartism
inspired by Tsar Alexander I of Russia
. This instance of reaction was surpassed by a movement that developed in France when, after the second fall of Napoleon, the Restoration, or re-instatement of the Bourbon
dynasty, ensued. This time it was to be a constitutional monarchy
, with an elected
lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. The Franchise was restricted to men over the age of forty, which indicated that for the first fifteen years of their lives they had lived under the ancien régime. Nevertheless, King Louis XVIII
was worried that he would still suffer an intractable parliament. He was delighted with the ultra-royalist
s, or Ultras, whom the election returned, declaring that he had found a chambre introuvable
, literally, a "house of government for which the like cannot be found." But later he realized that they were too ultra for a royal.
It was the Declaration of Saint-Ouen
which had prepared the way for the Restoration. Before the French Revolution, which radically and bloodily overthrew most aspects of French society's organization, the only way that constitutional change could be instituted was by referring it to old legal documents that could be interpreted as agreeing with the proposal. Everything new had to be expressed as a righteous revival of something old that had lapsed and had been forgotten. This was also the means used for diminished aristocrats to get themselves a bigger piece of the pie. In the eighteenth century, those gentry whose fortunes had so diminished that they lived at the level of peasants went skulking for every ancient feudal law that would give them a little something. The "ban," for example, meant that all their peasants had to grind their grain in the lord's mill. So they came to the French States-General of 1789 fully prepared to press for the expansion of such practices in all provinces, to the legal limit. They were horrified when the French Revolution permitted common citizens to go hunting, one of the few advantages that they had always maintained everywhere.
Thus with the restoration of the Bourbons, the Chambre Introuvable set about reverting every law to return things not merely to the age of the absolute monarchy
, but before that to the age in which the aristocracy really was a socially powerful class. It is this which clearly distinguishes a "reactionary" from a "conservative." The conservative would have accepted many improvements brought about by the revolution, and simply refused a program of wholesale reversion. Hence one should be wary of the use of the word "reactionary" in later days as a political slur, since there is nothing to compare with the Chambre Introuvable in other countries. For example, Russia certainly didn't have any such aristocrats after 1989. Later French kings similarly had trouble with their parliaments.
and left-wing Revolutionaries. Herein arose the clerical philosophers—Joseph de Maistre
, Louis de Bonald, François-René de Chateaubriand
—whose answer was restoring the House of Bourbon
and reinstalling the Roman Catholic Church as the established church. Since then, France's political spectrum has featured similar divisions. (see Action Française
). The ideas of the clerical philosophers were buttressed by the teachings of the nineteenth century popes.
of the Austrian Empire
, stepped in to organize containment of revolutionary forces through international alliances meant to prevent the spread of revolutionary fervour. At the Congress of Vienna
, he was very influential in establishing the new order, the Concert of Europe
, after the overthrow of Napoleon.
After the Congress, Prince Metternich worked hard bolstering and stabilizing the conservative regime of the Restoration period. He worked furiously to prevent Russia's Tsar Alexander I
(who aided the liberal forces in Germany, Italy and France) from gaining influence in Europe. The Church was his principal ally, promoting it as a conservative principle of order while opposing democratic and liberal tendencies within the Church. His basic philosophy was based on Edmund Burke
, who championed the need for old roots and an orderly development of society. He opposed democratic and parliament
ary institutions but favoured modernizing existing structures by gradual reform
. Despite Metternich's efforts a series of revolutions rocked Europe in 1848.
In the twentieth century, reactionary denoted opponents of socialism
and communism
, such as the White Armies, who fought in the Russian Civil War
against the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution
. In Marxist
terminology, reactionary is a pejorative
adjective denoting people whose ideas might appear to be socialist, but, in essence, contain elements of feudalism
, capitalism
, nationalism
, fascism
or other characteristics of the ruling class
. Reactionary also denotes supporters of authoritarian
, anti-communist
, and régimes such as Vichy France
, Spain under Francisco Franco
, and Portugal under Antonio Salazar. Communist ideologues often label all critics of Marxism as reactionary. One example of this took place after Boris Pasternak
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel Doctor Zhivago
. On October 26, 1958, the day following the Nobel Committee
's announcement, Moscow's Literary Gazette ran a polemical article by David Zaslavski entitled, Reactionary Propaganda
Uproar over a Literary Weed.
Reactionary feelings were often coupled with a hostility to modern, industrial means of production and a nostalgia for a more rural society. The Vichy
regime in France
, Francisco Franco
's regime, the Salazar
regime in Portugal
, and Maurras's Action Française
political movements are examples of such traditional reactionary feelings, in favour of authoritarian regimes with strong unelected leaders and with Catholicism as a state religion
. The motto
of Vichy France was "travail, famille, patrie"("work, family, homeland"), and its leader, Marshal
Philippe Pétain
, declared that "la terre, elle ne ment pas" ("earth does not lie") in an indication of his belief that the truest life is rural and agrarian.
Fascism is generally considered to be reactionary, due to its glorification of ancient national history and some of the social arrangements prior to the Industrial Revolution
of the 19th century. The Italian fascists showed a desire to bring about a new social order based on the ancient feudal principle of delegation (though without serfdom) in their enthusiasm for the corporate state. Benito Mussolini
said that "fascism is reaction" and that "fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary... has not today any impediment against declaring itself illiberal and anti-liberal."
However, Gentile
and Mussolini also attacked certain reactionary policies, particularly monarchism and—more veiled—some aspects of Italian conservative Catholicism
. They wrote, "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not taken De Maistre as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry." They further elaborated in the political doctrine that fascism "is not reactionary [in the old way] but revolutionary." Conversely, they also explained that fascism was of the right, not of the left. Fascism was certainly not simply a return to tradition: it carried the centralised state beyond even what had been seen in absolute monarchies
. Fascist single-party state
s were as centralised as most communist states, and fascism's intense nationalism
was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution.
The National Socialists
did not consider themselves reactionary, and numbered the forces of reaction (Prussian monarchists, nobility, Roman Catholic) among their enemies right next to their Red Front enemies in the Nazi Party march Die Fahne hoch
. The fact that the Nazis called their 1933 rise to power the National
Revolution
, shows that they supported some form of revolution. Nevertheless, the idealization of tradition, folklore, classical thought, leadership (as exemplified by Frederick the Great), their rejection of the liberalism of the Weimar Republic, and calling the German state the Third Reich (which traces back to the medieval First Reich and the pre-Weimar Second Reich), has led many to regard the Nazis as reactionary.
Clericalist
movements sometimes labeled as Clerical fascist
by their critics, can be considered reactionaries in terms of the 19th century, since they share some elements of fascism, while at the same time promote a return to the pre-revolutionary model of social relations, with a strong role for the Church. Their utmost philosopher was Nicolás Gómez Dávila.
Status quo ante bellum
The term status quo ante bellum is Latin, meaning literally "the state in which things were before the war".The term was originally used in treaties to refer to the withdrawal of enemy troops and the restoration of prewar leadership. When used as such, it means that no side gains or loses...
) in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by some such as H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...
, Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie and John Lukacs
John Lukacs
John Adalbert Lukacs is a Hungarian-born American historian who has written more than thirty books, including Five Days in London, May 1940 and A New Republic...
.
Usage and history
The French RevolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
gave the English language two politically descriptive words denoting anti-progressive politics: reactionary and conservative. Reactionary derives from the French word réactionnaire (an early nineteenth-century coinage), and conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
from conservateur, identifying monarchist parliamentarians opposed to the revolution. In this French usage, reactionary denotes "a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state" and a "return to a previous condition of affairs." The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first English-language usage was by John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, in 1840: "The philosophers of the reactionary school—of the school to which Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
belongs".
During the French Revolution, conservative forces (especially the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
) organized opposition to the progressive socio-political and economic changes brought by the revolution, and to fight to restore the temporal authority of the Church and Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
. In nineteenth-century European politics, the reactionary class included the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy—the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, the aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
, royal families
Royal family
A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
, and royalists
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...
—believing that national government is the sole domain of the Church and the state. In France, supporters of traditional rule by direct heirs of the House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
dynasty were labeled the legitimist reaction. In the Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
, the monarchists were the reactionary faction, later renamed conservative. In Protestant Christian societies, reactionary described those supporting tradition against modernity.
In the nineteenth century, reactionary denoted people who idealised feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
and the pre-modern era—before the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
and the French Revolution—when economies were mostly agrarian
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
, a landed aristocracy dominated society, a hereditary king ruled and the Roman Catholic Church was society's moral center. Those labeled as reactionary favored the aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
instead of the middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
and the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. Reactionaries opposed democracy and parliamentarism.
Thermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian ReactionThermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror. It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Antoine Louis Léon de Saint-Just de Richebourg and several other leading members of the Terror...
was a movement within the revolution against the excesses of the Jacobins
Jacobin Club
The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution, so-named because of the Dominican convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques , Paris. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton...
. On July 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor year II in the French Republican Calendar
French Republican Calendar
The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871...
), Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...
's Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
was brought to an end. The overthrow of Robespierre signalled the reassertion of the French National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
over the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
. The Jacobins were suppressed, the prisons were emptied and the Committee was shorn of its powers. After the execution of some 104 Robespierre supporters, the Thermidorian Reaction stopped the use of the guillotine against alleged counterrevolutionaries, set a middle course between the monarchists and the radicals and ushered in a time of relative exuberance and its accompanying corruption.
The Restored French Monarchy
With the Congress of ViennaCongress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
, the monarchs of Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
, and Austria
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
formed the Holy Alliance
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of...
, a form of collective security against revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
and Bonapartism
Bonapartism
Bonapartism is often defined as a political expression in the vocabulary of Marxism and Leninism, deriving from the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Karl Marx was a student of Jacobinism and the French Revolution as well as a contemporary critic of the Second Republic and Second Empire...
inspired by Tsar Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
. This instance of reaction was surpassed by a movement that developed in France when, after the second fall of Napoleon, the Restoration, or re-instatement of the Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
dynasty, ensued. This time it was to be a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
, with an elected
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...
lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. The Franchise was restricted to men over the age of forty, which indicated that for the first fifteen years of their lives they had lived under the ancien régime. Nevertheless, King Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
was worried that he would still suffer an intractable parliament. He was delighted with the ultra-royalist
Ultra-royalist
Ultra-Royalists or simply Ultras were a reactionary faction which sat in the French parliament from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration...
s, or Ultras, whom the election returned, declaring that he had found a chambre introuvable
Chambre introuvable
La Chambre introuvable was the first Chamber of Deputies elected after the Second Bourbon Restoration in 1815. It was dominated by Ultra-royalists who completely refused to accept the results of the French Revolution...
, literally, a "house of government for which the like cannot be found." But later he realized that they were too ultra for a royal.
It was the Declaration of Saint-Ouen
Declaration of Saint-Ouen
The Declaration of Saint-Ouen is a statement made by the future Louis XVIII in 1814 which paved the way for Bourbon Restoration.Upon landing in France, the future king stated most notably that the lands of the aristocrats who fled, and which the Republic had sold at auction, were not to be...
which had prepared the way for the Restoration. Before the French Revolution, which radically and bloodily overthrew most aspects of French society's organization, the only way that constitutional change could be instituted was by referring it to old legal documents that could be interpreted as agreeing with the proposal. Everything new had to be expressed as a righteous revival of something old that had lapsed and had been forgotten. This was also the means used for diminished aristocrats to get themselves a bigger piece of the pie. In the eighteenth century, those gentry whose fortunes had so diminished that they lived at the level of peasants went skulking for every ancient feudal law that would give them a little something. The "ban," for example, meant that all their peasants had to grind their grain in the lord's mill. So they came to the French States-General of 1789 fully prepared to press for the expansion of such practices in all provinces, to the legal limit. They were horrified when the French Revolution permitted common citizens to go hunting, one of the few advantages that they had always maintained everywhere.
Thus with the restoration of the Bourbons, the Chambre Introuvable set about reverting every law to return things not merely to the age of the absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...
, but before that to the age in which the aristocracy really was a socially powerful class. It is this which clearly distinguishes a "reactionary" from a "conservative." The conservative would have accepted many improvements brought about by the revolution, and simply refused a program of wholesale reversion. Hence one should be wary of the use of the word "reactionary" in later days as a political slur, since there is nothing to compare with the Chambre Introuvable in other countries. For example, Russia certainly didn't have any such aristocrats after 1989. Later French kings similarly had trouble with their parliaments.
The clerical philosophers
In the Revolution's aftermath, France was continually wracked with the quarrels between the right-wing legitimistsLegitimists
Legitimists are royalists in France who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession of the descendants of the elder branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They reject the claim of the July Monarchy of 1830–1848, whose kings were members of the junior...
and left-wing Revolutionaries. Herein arose the clerical philosophers—Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre
Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre was a French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution...
, Louis de Bonald, François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
—whose answer was restoring the House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
and reinstalling the Roman Catholic Church as the established church. Since then, France's political spectrum has featured similar divisions. (see Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
). The ideas of the clerical philosophers were buttressed by the teachings of the nineteenth century popes.
Metternich and containment
During the period of 1815-1848, Prince Metternich, the foreign ministerForeign minister
A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...
of the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
, stepped in to organize containment of revolutionary forces through international alliances meant to prevent the spread of revolutionary fervour. At the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
, he was very influential in establishing the new order, the Concert of Europe
Concert of Europe
The Concert of Europe , also known as the Congress System after the Congress of Vienna, was the balance of power that existed in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of World War I , albeit with major alterations after the revolutions of 1848...
, after the overthrow of Napoleon.
After the Congress, Prince Metternich worked hard bolstering and stabilizing the conservative regime of the Restoration period. He worked furiously to prevent Russia's Tsar Alexander I
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
(who aided the liberal forces in Germany, Italy and France) from gaining influence in Europe. The Church was his principal ally, promoting it as a conservative principle of order while opposing democratic and liberal tendencies within the Church. His basic philosophy was based on Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, who championed the need for old roots and an orderly development of society. He opposed democratic and parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
ary institutions but favoured modernizing existing structures by gradual reform
Reform movement
A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes...
. Despite Metternich's efforts a series of revolutions rocked Europe in 1848.
20th century
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, such as the White Armies, who fought in the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
against the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. In Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
terminology, reactionary is a pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
adjective denoting people whose ideas might appear to be socialist, but, in essence, contain elements of feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
, capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
or other characteristics of the ruling class
Ruling class
The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....
. Reactionary also denotes supporters of authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
, anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, and régimes such as Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
, Spain under Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, and Portugal under Antonio Salazar. Communist ideologues often label all critics of Marxism as reactionary. One example of this took place after Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel Doctor Zhivago
Doctor Zhivago
-Original creation:*Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak, published in 1957**Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago, a fictional character and the main protagonist of the book Doctor Zhivago-Adaptations:There are several adaptations based on the Doctor Zhivago book:...
. On October 26, 1958, the day following the Nobel Committee
Nobel Committee
A Nobel Committee is the working body responsible for the most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are five Nobel Committees, one for each Nobel Prize....
's announcement, Moscow's Literary Gazette ran a polemical article by David Zaslavski entitled, Reactionary Propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
Uproar over a Literary Weed.
Reactionary feelings were often coupled with a hostility to modern, industrial means of production and a nostalgia for a more rural society. The Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
regime in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's regime, the Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
regime in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, and Maurras's Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
political movements are examples of such traditional reactionary feelings, in favour of authoritarian regimes with strong unelected leaders and with Catholicism as a state religion
State religion
A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state...
. The motto
Motto
A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...
of Vichy France was "travail, famille, patrie"("work, family, homeland"), and its leader, Marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
, declared that "la terre, elle ne ment pas" ("earth does not lie") in an indication of his belief that the truest life is rural and agrarian.
Fascism is generally considered to be reactionary, due to its glorification of ancient national history and some of the social arrangements prior to the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
of the 19th century. The Italian fascists showed a desire to bring about a new social order based on the ancient feudal principle of delegation (though without serfdom) in their enthusiasm for the corporate state. Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
said that "fascism is reaction" and that "fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary... has not today any impediment against declaring itself illiberal and anti-liberal."
However, Gentile
Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
and Mussolini also attacked certain reactionary policies, particularly monarchism and—more veiled—some aspects of Italian conservative Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. They wrote, "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not taken De Maistre as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry." They further elaborated in the political doctrine that fascism "is not reactionary [in the old way] but revolutionary." Conversely, they also explained that fascism was of the right, not of the left. Fascism was certainly not simply a return to tradition: it carried the centralised state beyond even what had been seen in absolute monarchies
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...
. Fascist single-party state
Single-party state
A single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
s were as centralised as most communist states, and fascism's intense nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution.
The National Socialists
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
did not consider themselves reactionary, and numbered the forces of reaction (Prussian monarchists, nobility, Roman Catholic) among their enemies right next to their Red Front enemies in the Nazi Party march Die Fahne hoch
Horst-Wessel-Lied
The Horst-Wessel-Lied , also known as Die Fahne hoch from its opening line, was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945...
. The fact that the Nazis called their 1933 rise to power the National
Volksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning "people's community". Originally appearing during World War I as Germans rallied behind the war, it derived its popularity as a means to break down elitism and class divides...
Revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
, shows that they supported some form of revolution. Nevertheless, the idealization of tradition, folklore, classical thought, leadership (as exemplified by Frederick the Great), their rejection of the liberalism of the Weimar Republic, and calling the German state the Third Reich (which traces back to the medieval First Reich and the pre-Weimar Second Reich), has led many to regard the Nazis as reactionary.
Clericalist
Clericalism
Clericalism is the application of the formal, church-based, leadership or opinion of ordained clergy in matters of either the church or broader political and sociocultural import...
movements sometimes labeled as Clerical fascist
Clerical fascism
Clerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition...
by their critics, can be considered reactionaries in terms of the 19th century, since they share some elements of fascism, while at the same time promote a return to the pre-revolutionary model of social relations, with a strong role for the Church. Their utmost philosopher was Nicolás Gómez Dávila.
See also
- Age of Metternich
- ConservatismConservatismConservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
- Counter-revolutionary
- French RevolutionFrench RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
- Glossary of the French RevolutionGlossary of the French RevolutionThis is a glossary of the French Revolution. It generally does not explicate names of individual people or their political associations; those can be found in List of people associated with the French Revolution....
- List of people associated with the French Revolution
- Right-wing politicsRight-wing politicsIn politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...