purchased with the destruction of all the seductions and illusions of the February Revolution, with the complete disintegration of the old Republican Party, with the splitting of the French nation into two parts -- a nation of owners, and a nation of workers. The Republic of the tricolour will henceforth be of one hue only -- the colour of the vanquished, the colour of blood. It has become a Red Republic. "The February Revolution was splendid. It was a revolution of universal sympathies, for the contradictions which flared up within it against the royal power as yet lay in latent harmony, slumbering undeveloped side by side, since the social conflict which was their background had attained merely a phantom existence, the existence of a phrase, a word. The June Revolution, on the contrary, is disgusting, repulsive, for instead of the word emerged the deed, because the Republic itself bared the head of the monster, having dashed from it its protecting and concealing crown. "Are we democrats to be misled by the deep abyss that gapes before us? Are we to conclude that the struggle for new forms of the State is devoid of meaning, is illusory -- a phantasm? "Only weak, timid minds would ask this question. The conflicts arising from the very conditions of bourgeois society, have to be fought to the end; they cannot be reasoned away. The best form of state is one in which the social contradictions are not overcome by force, in other words, only by artificial and specious means. The best form of state is one in which the contradictions collide in open struggle and thus attain a solution. "We shall be asked, is it possible that we shall reserve not a single tear, not a sigh, not a word, for the victims of popular frenzy, for the National Guards, for the guardes mobiles, for the Republican Guards, for the soldiers of the line? "The State will take care of their widows and orphans, decrees will glorify them, solemn funeral processions will place their remains in their last resting places, the official press will proclaim them immortal, the European reaction will do homage to them from East to West. "But the plebeians, ravished by hunger, spat upon by the press, deserted by the physicians, denounced by respectable thieves as incendiaries
purchased with the destruction of all the seductions and illusions of the February Revolution, with the complete disintegration of the old Republican Party, with the splitting of the French nation into two parts -- a nation of owners, and a nation of workers. The Republic of the tricolour will henceforth be of one hue only -- the colour of the vanquished, the colour of blood. It has become a Red Republic. "The February Revolution was splendid. It was a revolution of universal sympathies, for the contradictions which flared up within it against the royal power as yet lay in latent harmony, slumbering undeveloped side by side, since the social conflict which was their background had attained merely a phantom existence, the existence of a phrase, a word. The June Revolution, on the contrary, is disgusting, repulsive, for instead of the word emerged the deed, because the Republic itself bared the head of the monster, having dashed from it its protecting and concealing crown. "Are we democrats to be misled by the deep abyss that gapes before us? Are we to conclude that the struggle for new forms of the State is devoid of meaning, is illusory -- a phantasm? "Only weak, timid minds would ask this question. The conflicts arising from the very conditions of bourgeois society, have to be fought to the end; they cannot be reasoned away. The best form of state is one in which the social contradictions are not overcome by force, in other words, only by artificial and specious means. The best form of state is one in which the contradictions collide in open struggle and thus attain a solution. "We shall be asked, is it possible that we shall reserve not a single tear, not a sigh, not a word, for the victims of popular frenzy, for the National Guards, for the guardes mobiles, for the Republican Guards, for the soldiers of the line? "The State will take care of their widows and orphans, decrees will glorify them, solemn funeral processions will place their remains in their last resting places, the official press will proclaim them immortal, the European reaction will do homage to them from East to West. "But the plebeians, ravished by hunger, spat upon by the press, deserted by the physicians, denounced by respectable thieves as incendiaries