![]() ![]() “If I recollect rightly, Aristotle observes that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with a tyranny. Yet, he immediately goes on to say that democracy is emerging in France, and it is quickly on its way to degenerating into a tyrannical government of the masses. “I do not know under what description to class the present ruling authority in France… It affects to be a pure democracy, though I think it is in a direct train of becoming shortly a mischievous and ignoble oligarchy.”(109) Burke here seems to suggest that democracy is a cover for an oligarchic class rule in France. Why, then, did Burke identify the French Revolution as a democratic revolution? At first, Burke seems to claim that the revolutionary government is democratic only in facade. They did not call themselves “democrats,” using instead other terms such as “patriots,” “nationals,” and “republicans.” It was not until Robespierre’s speech in 1794 that the Revolutionary government declared itself to be a “republican or democratic government” in some official form, but even in this case Robespierre used democracy not to refer to people’s direct involvement in self-government but to the election of representatives. By the time the Reflections was published, Revolutionaries had abolished aristocratic privileges, but constitutional monarchy was still a likely option. ![]() Historians of the French Revolution and democracy might object to Burke’s portrayal of the Revolution as a democratic revolution. ![]()
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