Moscow, Nauka Publ. 1983. 431 p.

In the rich scientific heritage of the great Soviet historian A. Z. Manfred (1907-1976), an important place belongs to the works devoted to the Great French bourgeois Revolution of the late XVIII century. Although the beginning of his scientific activity was connected with other problems, his interest in this topic was aroused, according to him, even in his youth1 . A. Z. Manfred's work as a historian of the Great French Revolution is reflected in the book under review, which is published under the editorship and with a brief preface by V. M. Dalin. Its content is dictated by the author's own plan - among his papers, a plan for a collection of articles about the French Revolution dating back to the mid-70s was found. The editors added the last two articles by A. Z. Manfred, which were published after his death, to the six works of the 1950s and 1960s identified in this plan.

The collection opens with a general outline of the history of the revolution (the first edition was published in 1950; the second, revised, in 1956). The book was a great success with readers, and was translated into a number of foreign languages. For many years, it has served as a guide for students, teachers, and anyone interested in the history of the French bourgeois Revolution. In his essay, A. Z. Manfred consistently develops the Marxist-Leninist concept of this revolution, examines its history in the context of the main process that determined the historical development of France and Europe at that time - "the replacement of one socio-economic formation by another - feudalism by capitalism" (p.14). In this respect, his book confronts the attempts of modern bourgeois historians to refute the formative interpretation of the French Revolution as a bourgeois social revolution, the most important milestone in the process of establishing the capitalist social system.З. Manfred emphasizes the maturity of the capitalist system in France at the end of the eighteenth century, the strength of the rising bourgeoisie; he also draws attention to the prominent role of the liberal nobility in the initial period of the revolution (pp. 26, 71-72). Recent studies have fully confirmed this observation of the author. The idea of the democratic, popular character of the French bourgeois Revolution runs through the whole work as a red thread. As far as the level of knowledge accumulated in the literature at that time allowed, the author included material on the role of the lower classes of the people in the development of the revolution in an ascending line.

The essay on the history of the revolution is accompanied by the article "On the Nature of Jacobin Power" (1969); the author developed his understanding of the Jacobin period of the revolution in a number of other works included in this book (see especially pp. 322-356). When deciding on the place of this period in the overall development of the revolution, A. Z. Manfred argues with researchers who divide the French Revolution into a number of autonomous" revolutions " (aristocratic, bourgeois, peasant, etc.). This division was also found in the works of a number of progressive scientists. This controversy (to which the author returned in one of his last articles, see p.406) remains fully relevant. The division of the French Revolution into a series of separate revolutions in different directions, adopted by bourgeois historians of the "revisionist" direction, 3 is used by them in the struggle against progressive, primarily Marxist, historiography. Insisting on the unity of the revolutionary process, A. 3. Manfred considers the Jacobin period of the revolution as the highest stage of its upward development. The author focuses mainly on the socio-political nature of Jacobin power, i.e., the problem on which there are different points of view in Marxist, including Soviet historiography.-

1 See Manfred A. Z. Three portraits of the era of the Great French Revolution, Moscow, 1978, p. 19.

2 См. Furet F. Penser la Revolution francaise. P. 1978; Schmitt E. War die Franzosische Revolution eine burgerliche Revolution?- Politische Bildung, 1977, N 3.

3 About him. see: Sobul A. Classical historiography of the French Revolution. In: French Yearbook 1976, Moscow, 1978; Adam A.V. Bourgeois revision of the history of the French Revolution of the XVIII century. In: Social movements and the Struggle of Ideas, Moscow, 1982:

4 See: Problems of the Jacobin dictatorship. Symposium in the French History sector of the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. May 20-21, 1970 In: French Yearbook 1970, Moscow, 1972; Revunenko V. G. Essays on the history of the French Revolution. The Jacobin Republic and its Collapse, L. 1983..

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Fred does not share the view that Jacobin power is uniformly bourgeois (or petty-bourgeois). In its assessment, he proceeds from the fact that in the struggle against the Gironde, a "bloc of certain class forces" has historically developed... democratic (middle and lower) the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and the urban plebeians" (p. 220). These forces, which formed the majority of the French people, were supported by the Jacobins (A. Z. Manfred considers the Jacobin "party" itself to represent the interests of this bloc of social forces). Accordingly, the Jacobin dictatorship is regarded as a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, the social support of which was the union of the democratic bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the plebeians. A. Z. Manfred does not agree with the approach to it in the works of some modern Marxist historians (in particular, A. Sobul, whose works he highly appreciated). He considers their miscalculation to be "the juxtaposition of dictatorship and democracy, of a revolutionary government and a popular movement" (p. 223). In the political system of Jacobin power, A. Z Manfred sees a combination of activity and political initiative of the people and the centralization of power caused by the revolutionary need, its concentration in the hands of the revolutionary government.

A. Z. Manfred connects the crisis and fall of the Jacobin dictatorship with the deep internal contradictions inherent in it. Relying on popular support, the Jacobins achieved the solution of the anti-feudal and national (expulsion of interventionists) tasks of the bourgeois revolution. But by doing so they inevitably cleared the way for the triumph of bourgeois society. The ideal republic of liberty and equality for which the Jacobins had fought and promised the people remained unattainable. At the same time, the strict restrictions on freedom of trade and other government regulations imposed by the Jacobins caused growing discontent among those in power. All this led to the intensification of the struggle within the Jacobin bloc, its disintegration and the fall of the Jacobin power. At the same time, A. Z. Manfred believes that the turn against the Jacobin government, the bourgeoisie and the proprietary peasantry was" decisive for its fate " (p.229).

A. Z. Manfred was a recognized master of historical portraitis5 . In the preface to the last book, he wrote about his desire to " reveal the inner content of large social processes, including revolutions, through the image of their individual figures." Four articles of the reviewed collection are devoted to prominent figures of the French Revolution. The first of them is "Jean Paul Marat and his works" (1956). At one time, our literature about Marat expressed opinions about him as a figure who began to " rise to consciousness and consciously defend proletarian interests "7 , a defender of the" fourth estate", whose views were "typical of the pre-proletariat, for the proletariat". the working class of France in the 18th century " 8 . A. Z. Manfred does not agree with these assessments, but shows Marat as a fearless revolutionary-democrat, a denouncer of political despotism, a critic of social inequality and the "omnipotence of the rich". At the same time, he also notes his narrowness in social issues, emphasizing "all the groundlessness of attempts to assign Marat to social groups to the left of the camp of the revolutionary democratic bourgeoisie" (p.256). Maximilian Robespierre occupied a special place in A. Z. Manfred's work for many years - his first work on "Incorruptible" was published in 1956, the last-in the book "Three Portraits..." - appeared posthumously, in 1978. The collection includes three articles about Robespierre: a biographical sketch "Maximilian Robespierre "(1965), "Disputes about Robespierre", " Robespierre in Russian and Soviet Historiography "(1965)9. In these works, A. Z. Manfred gives a critical analysis of the literature about Robespierre, including Russian and Soviet, the main thing is - he justifies in them his vision of the historical image of Robespierre as the great bourgeois revue.-

5 See In memory of A. Z. Manfred. In: French Yearbook 1976, pp. 11, 13, 15, 16.

6 Manfred A. Z. Three portraits, p. 19.

7 See Stepanov I. Jean-Paul Marat and his Struggle with Counterrevolution, Moscow, 1924, pp. 2-3; Herzenzon A. Criminal Law theory of Jean-Paul Marat, Moscow, 1956, pp. 80-81.

8 Friedland Ts. Jean-Paul Marat and the Civil War of the XVIII century, ed. 2-E. M. 1959, p. 320; ed. 1-E. M. 1934, p. 29-30, 304.

9 This article is based on a report delivered by A. Z. Manfred in September 1965 at the XII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Vienna.

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a revolutionary, a "Jacobin with the people" 10 who "was a sincere and most convinced revolutionary democrat" (p. 388). Attention is drawn to the pages (334 pages) that reveal the theme of the historical tragedy of Robespierre and the Robespierreists-convinced that they were fighting for "universal happiness", they actually brought the bourgeois revolution to an end, but "the revolution turned out to be not the one in which he (Robespierre - A. A.) believed" (p. 347). In essence, it shows how the political and personal fate of the Incorruptible was transformed by the regularity inherent in the bourgeois revolution that raised the broad masses - the discrepancy between the inspiring ideal goal and the only possible real result. The theme of the tragic conflict between the humanistic ideals of the common good and the harsh reality of the bourgeois revolution was continued by A. Z. Manfred in his last book ("Three Portraits").

The collection concludes with two articles published in 1976: "On some controversial and unresolved issues in the historiography of the Great French Revolution" (a report delivered at the Soviet - French Conference of Historians in May 1976) and "Some Trends in Foreign Historiography" (Kommunist, 1977, No. 10). In the first of them, A. Z. Manfred puts forward a number of problems in the history of the French Revolution that require further development, both articles criticize the latest bourgeois concepts sharpened against Marxism, contain reflections of the scientist on the modern development of historical science, on the importance of historical synthesis, "which still remains our high duty" (p. 411).

The works of A. Z. Manfred, included in the reviewed book and published for the first time in the 50s, and partly in the 60s, were created when the main works of A. Sobul, J. Rude and some other scientists who brought a lot of new things to the history of France at the end of the XVIII century did not appear or were not yet widely included in science. It is also natural that in a work devoted to such a complex and controversial phenomenon as the French Revolution, some judgments and assessments may seem controversial. Thus, in particular, it is hardly legitimate to speak of France on the eve of the Great Bourgeois Revolution as a "ruined and impoverished country" (p. 280), whose agriculture "was still dominated by the old, medieval" relations "in their roughest and wildest form" (p. 17); it is difficult to apply to the French nobles- to the lords of that time and the term "landlords-serfs" (p. 18). Such judgments have their own tradition in the specialized literature, but the current level of knowledge suggests more balanced and accurate estimates.

Again and again, the problems of the history of the Jacobin period of the revolution, and the assessments of its leaders, especially Robespierre, encourage reflection. It is difficult not to agree with A. Z. Manfred that there is no need "to look for an exact social equivalent and a rigid label for Robespierre, classifying him as one or another category of the middle or lower bourgeoisie." However, is it sufficient to say: "Robespierre represented and defended the interests of the French people in the revolution "(p. 221), acted as the leader of the poor people (p. 347)? After all, Robespierre defended the interests of the people, understanding them through the prism of a petty-bourgeois, socially rather moderate worldview. It seems that N. M. Lukin's reference to petty - bourgeois - in the broad sense of the word-features in the social thinking and socio-political position of Robespierre and the Robespierreists has not lost its force. In this connection, it is also difficult to agree that the term "petty bourgeoisie" as applied to the eighteenth-century era "seems extremely unfortunate" (p. 219, note 17). It seems to us that for the analysis of the social, ideological, and political realities of the revolutionary era, and in particular for the analysis of the social and class structure of the masses of the people, the concepts of "petty bourgeoisie" and "petty bourgeois" retain all their scientific and cognitive significance.

In France at the end of the eighteenth century, at the end of the manufacturing stage of capitalism, the role of small-scale production and the broad strata of the population associated with it, who lived in conditions of a petty-bourgeois existence, was still very great .11 Peasants, artisans, and small merchants played an active role in the revolution; their social aspirations were reflected in the development of the state.

10 See Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 32, p. 216.

11 "A small producer who manages under the system of commodity economy-these are the two characteristics that make up the concept of a "small bourgeois" (Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 1, p. 413).

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egalitarian ideas, 12 had an impact on the politics of the revolution, especially at its highest stage, when the Jacobins were in power. "In 1789," wrote Lenin, "the petty bourgeoisie could still be great revolutionaries." 13
As for the political system of the Jacobin dictatorship, A. Z. Manfred's idea that "broad democracy from below was combined with strong centralized power from above" seems to be justified (p. 226). We think, however, that this combination was much more complex and contradictory than the materials of the book under review suggest, especially since the spring of 1794, when centralization steadily increased to the detriment of the political initiative of the "lower classes". The same applies to the practice of using terrorist measures by the Jacobins. In his later Three Portraits, A. Z. Manfred deepens the analysis, noting that terror has gone from being a means of fighting the enemies of the revolution to a tool for resolving disagreements within the Jacobin bloc, and raises the question of "the limits of the permissibility of revolutionary terror." 14
In general, the works of A. Z. Manfred collected in the book retain their interest and significance to this day. First of all, the significance is scientific and historiographical: they mark a whole stage in understanding and highlighting the Great French Revolution in our historiography. But they are also important for their specific content - a vivid, talented description of the events of the revolution, relief-shaped portraits of its leaders, analysis of literature dedicated to it.

12 See: Zastenker N. E. Ocherki istorii sotsialisticheskoi mysli [Essays on the history of Socialist Thought], Moscow, 1985, pp. 187-189.

13 Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 43, p. 238.

14 Manfred A. Z. Three portraits, pp. 378, 381.

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