From Robespierre to Napoleon: A Mythology of Enlightenment and Bourgeois Utopia

摘要

The transformations in the French revolution left numerous topics and historical materials for the research about political philosophy, especially for the research about the association between enlightenment and the political ideals in the revolution. The institutional design in the French revolution based on the concepts of democracy and liberty, though underwent the process of populist practice guided by M.Robespierre, still was concluded by Napoleon's dictatorship and legal order. The petit-bourgeois or sans-culottes once expected the egalitarian democracy adopted by the Jacobins and the Committee of Public Safety, finally still were limited by the sever social and economic crisis. While Napoleon's autocracy not only realized the vision of a legal order of rights, but also was taken by the bourgeois as the regime for modern civilization. Napoleon's empire centralized the political power for an effective state machine that can guarantee the safety of private property and capital, which also means the oppression upon the working class inevitably was intensified simultaneously. The triumph of Napoleon and the capitalist supported him, not only ended the political practice of enlightenment concepts, but also ended the radical punishment on corruption. The thesis of rescuing the revolution by moralizing the whole society finally became a petit-bourgeois utopia that never has been accomplished in the capitalist political practice.