O Jacobinism it is the term linked to a political practice initially carried out in the revolutionary decade of France at the end of the 18th century, between 1789 and 1799. This term refers to the Jacobins, the members of a club formed in 1789 that acted as a political party during the revolutionary process.
The Jacobins got their name from the fact that their club, the Breton Club and later the Society of Friends of the Constitution, gathered in the convent of the Dominicans, or jacobins, on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. Formed by men from the urban petty bourgeoisie, the Jacobins were recognized in history mainly for its radical republicanism and also for the centralizing role played by the State in the process. revolutionary.
Supported by the sans-culottes, the members of the Parisian popular classes, the Jacobins, were at the head of the establishment of the Republic in 1792, being still those responsible for the extreme measures against the upper classes of French society during the period known as the Great Terror, between 1793 and 1794. A possible political definition of Jacobinism can be attempted by stating that it is a practice of centralization of state power by a political group or party. Centralization would also consist in the elimination of political and social oppositions that existed in relation to Jacobinism.
Jacobinism was also one of the first forms of party organization of the contemporary era. Revolutionary radicalism supported by popular social groups, such as the sans-culottes, acting through a dictatorial form of exercising power to achieve goals, was also used to characterize the Jacobinism.
Within the revolutionary processes, Jacobinism would constitute a leap in quality to reach the goals, a practice of radicalization and use of all available means for this. In this sense, the assimilation between Jacobinism and revolutionary dictatorships can be understood, as well as the processes of political centralization in the State apparatus resulting from them.
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These general characteristics – and presented in this text without further elaboration – were used by various political groups in different parts of the world. In Brazil, we can cite both the Revolta dos Tailors, in Bahia, in 1798, and the action of republican soldiers during the first years of the Brazilian Republic.
But the main approximation made between Jacobinism and other non-French revolutionary processes of 1789-1799 occurred with the Russian Revolution. The action of the Bolsheviks in taking power and in establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in 1917 is generally referred to as an extreme and radical takeover action similar to that carried out by the Jacobins.
In addition to the political issue, Jacobinism was also characterized by creating an ideology based on rationality that, paradoxically, resembled a religion. The cult of Reason, Virtue and Regeneration came close to religious practices, the most notorious case of which was the Feast of the goddess Reason, held on November 10, 1793, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
Examples like these show that Jacobinism ended up surpassing its period of historical dominance, between 1793 and 1794, amplifying its consequences.
By Tales Pinto
Master in History
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PINTO, Tales of the Saints. "Jacobinism and Political Action"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/jacobinismo-acao-politica.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.