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A 'counter-revolutionary' is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part.

Contents

France

Other counterrevolutionaries

Usage of the term

Quotes

Footnotes and references

See also

Further readings

External Link

France

The word "counterrevolutionary" originally refers to thinkers who opposed themselves to the 1789 French Revolution, such as Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald or, later, Charles Maurras, the founder of the ''Action française'' monarchist movement. Henceforth, it is used in France to qualify political movements that refuse the legacy of the 1789 Revolution, which historian René Rémond has referred to as ''légitimistes''. Thus, monarchists supporters of the ''Ancien Régime'' following the French Revolution were counterrevolutionaries, and so were the monarchies that put down the various Revolutions of 1848. The royalist legitimist counterrevolutionary French movement survives to this day, albeit marginally. It was active during the purported "''Révolution nationale''" enacted by Vichy France, though, which has been considered by René Rémond not as a fascist regime but as a counterrevolutionary regime, whose motto was ''Travail, Famille, Patrie'' ("Work, Family, Fatherland"), which replaced the Republican motto ''Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité''.

Other counterrevolutionaries

The White Army and its supporters who tried to defeat the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, as well as the German politicians, police, soldiers and Freikorps who crushed the German revolution of 1919, were also counterrevolutionaries. General Victoriano Huerta, and later the Felicistas, attempted to thwart the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s.
More recently, the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion into Cuba was conducted by counterrevolutionaries who hoped to overthrow the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. In the 1980s, the United States sponsored ''Contra-Revolución'' rebels fighting to overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua. In fact, the Contras received their name precisely because they were counterrevolutionaries.
Some counterrevolutionaries are former revolutionaries who supported the initial overthrow of the previous regime, but came to differ with those who ultimately came to power after the revolution. For example, some of the Contras originally fought with the Sandinistas to overthrow Anastasio Somoza, and some of those who oppose Castro also opposed Batista.
Plinio Correa de Oliveira has by far expanded on the idea of Revolution and Counter-Revolution.

Usage of the term

The word ''counterrevolutionary'' is often used interchangeably with ''reactionary''; however, some people considered reactionary (like the Nazis and Italian fascists) used the term ''counterrevolutionary'' to describe their opponents - even if those opponents were advocates of a Marxist revolution. In general, the word "reactionary" is used to describe those who oppose a more long-term trend of social change, while "counterrevolutionaries" are those who oppose a very recent and sudden change.
The clerics who took power following the Islamic Revolution became ''counterrevolutionaries''; after the revolution the Marxists were driven out of power by the mullahs. Thousand of political prisoners who opposed the Islamist regime were killed especially during the 1988 Massacre of Iranian Prisoners.
Sometimes it is unclear who represents the revolution and who represents the counterrevolution. In Hungary, the 1956 uprising was condemned as a ''counterrevolution'' by the ruling Communist authorities (who claimed to be revolutionary themselves). However, thirty years later, the events of 1956 were more widely known as a ''revolution''.

Quotes

★ "The Counter-Revolution will not be a reverse revolution, but the reverse of a Revolution." (''La Contre-Révolution ne sera pas une révolution contraire, mais le contraire de la Révolution.''), Joseph de Maistre ^[1]

Footnotes and references

1. Alain-Gérard Slama, p.11, article published in ''L'Histoire'', 2002

See also

★ Anti-Soviet agitation and Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)

★ Recontra, the Contras who did not accept the new government after the ejection of revolutionary Sandinists.

★ Mohammad Khatami's reforms

Further readings

★ ''Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France (1815-1870)'', Prof. J. Salwyn Schapiro, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., NY, l949, pg 364.

★ ''The Counter-Revolution'', Thomas Molnar, Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1969, ISBN 030870424X

External Link

★ alt.revolution.counter resource list