On this day in 1848, the French February Revolution began when thousands of Parisians took to the streets to protest political suppression, leading to the founding of the Second Republic and establishment of labor reforms. Among the reforms the Second Republic passed were universal male suffrage and a guaranteed "right to work", provided by National Workshops which gave the unemployed with a source of income.

The protests of February 22nd were triggered by the banning of political banquets, legal means of criticizing the government and fundraising for political organizing. Incidentally, communist journalist Friedrich Engels was in Paris at the time and witnessed these banquets. After the ban, thousands flooded out onto the streets to protest against the "Citizen King" Louis Philippe and his chief minister François Pierre Guillaume Guizot.

Shouting "Down with Guizot" and "Long Live the Reform", the crowds marched past Guizot's residence and erected barricades in the streets of Paris, where fighting broke out between the citizens and the Parisian municipal guards. French troops shot into the crowd, killing at least fifty-two people.

In the next few days, Guizot resigned and King Philippe fled the country. By February 26th, the Second Republic had been formed, with poet Alphonse de Lamartine acting as a de facto dictator over France for the next three months.

The Second Republic's governance would be tested in the "June Days" uprising, which Karl Marx identified as a conflict between petite bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The revolting workers were crushed by force (with over 4,000 insurgents being deported to Algeria) and the Second Republic continued until elected President Louis Napoléon Bonaparte dissolved the parliament in a coup in 1851.

The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 :marx-guns-blazing:

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  • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    until the plumber's tape gives me cancer or something but idk I don't think it's getting water any hotter than the hot water I bathe in every day which is also probably giving me cancer :yea: