Abstract

Through an analysis of Marx's writings on the French Revolution of 1789, the "bourgeois revolution" concept can be shown to contain a much richer potential than the simplistic and widely rejected "orthodox" notion of a capitalist bourgeoisie as a social agent with a fully developed class consciousness and revolutionary intentions. On the basis of a methodologically ambitious view of concepts in general, Marx starts from a general conception of the state as alienated human potentials and proceeds through multiple periodizations towards more particular determinations. The question of the "bourgeois" character of the Revolution is thus posed with regard to its international relations and processual aspects, rather than to any nationally framed confrontation of capitalist and feudal classes. This non-reductive concept of "bourgeois revolution," describing an important aspect of the French Revolution rather than the particulars of this historic event, contains a challenge unmet by most contemporary historiography