One thing you might wonder about is the modern day political setup, and where it comes from. Many have heard about the history of the French parliament, and how the common estate sat on the left wing, and the clergy and noble estates sat on the right wing, etc.
This is technically true, but is often misunderstood. Because when we think “commoner” in modern times, we think of common people. Ordinary salt of the earth working people. But not everyone was a sans-culotte in this class. Rather, the left wing was a coalition. Because to be a commoner simply meant you did not have a title of nobility.
That’s why there is no contradiction between leftism and Robespierre. Because Robespierre was an aristocrat. Aristocrats are different from nobles, because they have no title or birthright, instead they owe their status to hard cash. They are “new money.” If you will. They do not come from dynasties, but they will gladly build one. It’s like Texas rich vs. New England rich.
So aristocrats are obviously not very happy with how nobles have all these advantages being tied to the royal court. Aristocrats have a natural disposition toward republicanism.
So banning women from politics, guillotining poor and working class people, etc, these qualified as left wing ideas. These were the ideas of the rich people of the left wing, who ultimately had more political power than the poor. Moreover you have the Montagnards, which were the guardian readers of the French revolution.
This was a left wing faction too, the well to do middle class, who, like all middle class people, have a secret contempt for the poor. With one hand they buy The Big Issue, with the other hand they vote for Tony Blair.
In the west like birdbaths, hostile architecture, coldplay vinyls and electric cars.
In the east they like tea rooms, antisemitism, chansons and Mercedes Benz.
(Although to be fair, chansons are great.)
So it is no wonder that, when the lower segments of the working classes ally themselves with these montagnards, the montagnards will inevitably win.
And by win I mean screw them over at every possible opportunity.
And this isn’t just arbitrary prejudice, it has to do with how home ownership works. Because real estate speculation is… I mean to be fair, real estate speculation is arbitrary prejudice. It’s the idea that your house gets more valuable when your neighbors all have money. You profit from a hegemonic and gentrified community. You profit from working class people and poor people and homeless people all living in the bad side of town.
Social mobility is therefore the solution. You move the worthy plebs out of the Suburas, and into one of the walled in plazas with the equines.
And then when it’s time for the tribunal elections, suddenly we’re all friends again. A bit of bread, a bit of circus, sorry about the slum lords and the great fires, etc.
A tale as old as time.
(Seriously, this is a Roman problem. We are having problems Romans had.)
So this is why Marxists developed the idea of left-deviationism and right-deviationism. Because you don’t want to serve the interests of montagnards, you want to serve the interests of sans-culotte.
This is why parliamentarianism have parties, it’s to placate to all these factions. So you debate among lib-dems, new labour, old labour, UKIP, Tories, etc.
And the Americans pulled off a wonderful scam here, because they came up with “The Squad”, which was just a reintroduction of the montangnard faction, which seems very radical compared to an aristocratic faction.
But you still don’t have anyone speaking on behalf of the sans-cullottes, and that’s when they become enragés.
Okay that’s enough out of that. Hope this clears things up. If you pay rent and work for a wage, then read Lenin, because in the harsh realities of politics, the only thing that will protect you is that when they build guillotines, you assemble a firing squad.
