State of Revolution at beginning of 1792 -- Constitution lacks power -- Legislative Assembly -- Preparations of counter-revolutionists -- People recognize dangers of Revolution -- Jacobin fears -- Great republican demonstration -- Effect of demonstration--Republican leaders imprisoned -- Assembly and Revolution -- "The Lamourette kiss" -- People decide to do away with royalty -- Critical point of Revolution -- Girondins warn King -- Their fears of popular revolution -- Despair of Marat and patriots -- Royalist hopes -- Petty disputes of revolutionists We see, by what has just been said, in what a deplorable condition the Revolution was in the early months of 1792. If the middle-class revolutionists could feel satisfied with. having conquered a share in the government and laid the foundations of the fortunes they were going soon to acquire with the help of the State, the people saw that nothing had y...
In taking the State and its historic role as the subject for this study, I think I am satisfying a much felt need at the present time: that of examining in depth the very concept of the State, of studying its essence, its past role and the part it may be called upon to play in the future. It is above all over the question of the State that socialists are divided. Two main currents can be discerned in the factions that exist among us which correspond to differences in temperament as well as in ways of thinking, but above all to the extent that one believes in the coming revolution. There are those, on the one hand, who hope to achieve the social revolution through the State by preserving and even extending most of its powers to be used for the revolution. And there are those like ourselves who see the State, both in its present form, in its very essence, and in whatever guise it might appear, an obstacle to the social revolution, the greatest hindrance to t...