The Gary Null Blog

Robert Freeman:  2011 is 1848 Redux, But Worse

“Gentlemen, I warn you.  Though the violence is not yet upon us, we are sleeping on a volcano.”

~ Alexis de Tocqueville, addressing the French parliament, January, 1848

In 1848, a series of revolutions convulsed Europe.  From Berlin to Budapest, Venice to Vienna, Paris to Prague, people rose up and overthrew the authoritarian monarchies that Metternich had installed in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.  It was these revolutions that prompted Karl Marx’s opening words of The Communist Manifesto:  “A specter is haunting Europe.  It is the specter of communism.”

Of course, Marx was wrong.  The specter of rebellion was more one of nationalism, and to a lesser extent, liberalism.  More importantly, all the revolutions ultimately failed.  They were all defeated by monarchical forces which mounted counter-revolutions and routed the insurrectionists.  Though many governments made token concessions to the rebels, all maintained, and in some cases strengthened, their authoritarian rule until finally, decades later, they could no longer suppress the impetus for change.