The National Convention in Paris Is a Great Place to Organize and Organize

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In 1793, France is in crisis. It's fighting wars on every front; Catholics don't want themselves or their sons to be drafted into an army for a republic they don't accept. The whole nation is flying apart. And you've got these Saint-Culat crowd in Paris agitating and making demands of the convention. So what happens in the fall of 1793 is that the convention makes a number of concessions to the Saint- Culat. Concessions about gathering food from the countryside and pursuing people who are defined as counter-revolutionaries.

Featuring Laura Mason on her book The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals. Mason discusses Babeuf's call to abolish property, his radically egalitarian conspiracy against the Directory government, and the end of the French Revolution. How a centrist government turned its back on popular democracy, presided over growing inequality and working-class poverty, and abetted the rise of the reactionary right that would ultimately overthrow it. Check out the newsletter and our vast archives at thedigradio.com Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig