The Red Republican Interlude, 1849–51

Abstract

The insurrectionary pressure to transform the moderate republic founded on a laissez-faire economy into a radical republic that would respond to the popular needs for work, welfare, credit and education revived briefly in the form of two abortive rebellions in June 1849. The urban industrial economy had begun to improve but radical republican leaders had reason to be concerned at the growth of political reaction that seemed to threaten the democratic values of the Second Republic, and adopted a posture of guardians of these values. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, elected President of the Republic in December 1848 with the assistance of experienced conservative politicians, rewarded them by selecting a first cabinet dominated by royalists, with the Orleanist Odilon Barrot as premier. This government launched a campaign of legal administrative repression against the activities of the radical left, whose forces had to a degree sunk their differences in November 1848 and allied in a political coalition of radical republicans and socialists. Members of the coalition were known as the Démocrates-Socialistes or Montagnards and supported a common programme of reform that included the right to work, freedom of workers to form trade associations, a system of state primary education, agricultural credit banks, and nationalization of railways and insurance companies.