February Revolution, in French history

February Revolution, 1848, French revolution that overthrew the monarchy of Louis Philippe Louis Philippe (lwē fēlēp`)
..... Click the link for more information. and established the Second Republic. General dissatisfaction resulted partly from the king's increasingly reactionary policy, carried out after 1840 by François Guizot Guizot, François (fräNswä` gēzō`), 1787–1874, French statesman and historian.
..... Click the link for more information. , and partly from the poor conditions of the working class, which were intensified by the economic crisis of 1846–47. A banquet campaign, organized to promote political opposition to the regime, led directly to the revolution when a huge banquet scheduled for Feb. 22, 1848, in Paris was forbidden by the government. On Feb. 22 street fighting began in Paris; on Feb. 23, in an incident that set off the revolution, government troops fired on the demonstrators. Louis Philippe abdicated the following day. The discrepancy of aims between bourgeois revolutionaries such as Alphonse de Lamartine Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de (älfôNs` märē` lwē də lämärtēn`)
..... Click the link for more information. and A. T. Marie Marie, Alexandre Thomas (älĕksäN`drə tômä` märē`), 1795–1870, French minister of public works.
..... Click the link for more information. and the radicals, led by Louis Blanc Blanc, Louis (lwē bläN), 1811–82, French socialist politician and journalist and historian.
..... Click the link for more information. , contributed to the eventual failure of the revolution. The chamber of deputies appointed a provisional government, including Lamartine, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste (älĕksäN`drə ôgüst` lədrü`-rôlăN`)
..... Click the link for more information. , and L. A. Garnier-Pagès Garnier-Pagès, Louis Antoine (lwē äNtwän` gärnyā`-päzhĕs`), 1803–78, French politician.
..... Click the link for more information. , and, under popular pressure, proclaimed a republic. To appease the workers, the government guaranteed the right to work and established the national workshops. The workshops took their name from Louis Blanc's social workshops. The plan was mishandled, however, and amounted to little more than a dole. Radical demonstrations erupted (March), but these were turned into peaceful channels by Blanc himself. Many conservatives feared the "specter of communism." Elections in April gave a majority to the moderates, whose strength was greater in the provinces than in Paris. The provisional government was replaced by an executive commission (again including Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin). In the middle of May the workers attempted to overthrow the newly elected national assembly, but the revolt was quickly put down. The assembly determined to dissolve the national workshops. The resulting workers' rebellion, known as the June Days June Days, in French history, name usually given to the insurrection of workers in June, 1848. The working classes had played an important role in the February Revolution of 1848, but their hopes for economic and social reform were disappointed.
..... Click the link for more information. , was crushed. After the completion of a republican constitution Prince Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte), 1808–73, emperor of the French (1852–70), son of Louis Bonaparte (see under Bonaparte , family), king of Holland.
..... Click the link for more information. ) was elected president. The February revolution set off revolutions in most European nations, but, as in France, the movement failed virtually everywhere (see revolutions of 1848 revolutions of 1848, in European history. The February Revolution in France gave impetus to a series of revolutionary explosions in Western and Central Europe. However the new French Republic did not support these movements.
..... Click the link for more information. ).

Bibliography

See A. de Tocqueville, Recollections (new tr. 1970); studies by D. C. McKay (1933, repr. 1965) and G. Duveau (1965, tr. 1968).

February Revolution, in Russian history

February Revolution, 1917, in Russian history: see The February Revolution under Russian Revolution Russian Revolution, violent upheaval in Russia in 1917 that overthrew the czarist government.

Causes

The revolution was the culmination of a long period of repression and unrest.
..... Click the link for more information. .

February Revolution

(1848) Rioting in France that led to the overthrow of the July Monarchy and precipitated the Revolutions of 1848. In 1840–49 there was a flowering of socialist thought begun by Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and others that fueled urban workers' discontent. A major recession in 1846–47 added to popular unrest, as did the increasing arbitrariness of King Louis-Philippe. An opposition campaign brought police action, and crowds of students and workers gathered in the streets and clashed with police. The king tried to appease the demonstrators, but, when an army unit killed 40 of them, he abdicated rather than face civil war.