Author: Jack Meyer

In The French Revolution Revisited, Furet draws a parallel between the Jacobin led French Revolution and the Bolshevik led Russian Revolution over 200 years later. He quotes historian Albert Mathiez in saying, “Jacobinism and Bolshevism are two dictatorships born of civil war and of war, two class dictatorships operating through the same means: terror, requisitioning and taxes; and having, in the last resort, the same goal: the transformation of society and not only of the Russian or French society, but of the universal society,” (269). If Mathiez’ assessment is to be taken as correct, where do we see the echoes of the French Revolution in the Russian Revolution? Where might we find ideas that contradict the French Revolution that may disprove his statement?