Conner Clifford D. - Jean Paul Marat

Jean Paul Marat

Revolutionary Lives

Series Editors: Brian Doherty, Keele University; Sarah Irving, University of Edinburgh; and Professor Paul Le Blanc, La Roche College, Pittsburgh

Revolutionary Lives is a book series of short introductory critical biographies of radical political figures. The books are sympathetic but not sycophantic, and the intention is to present a balanced and where necessary critical evaluation of the individuals place in their political field, putting their actions and achievements in context and exploring issues raised by their lives, such as the use or rejection of violence, nationalism, or gender in political activism. While individuals are the subject of the books, their personal lives are dealt with lightly except in so far as they mesh with political issues. The focus of these books is the contribution their subjects have made to history, an examination of how far they achieved their aims in improving the lives of the oppressed and exploited, and how they can continue to be an inspiration for many today.

Published titles:

Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation

Sarah Irving

Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution

Clifford D. Conner

Gerrard Winstanley: The Diggers Life and Legacy

John Gurney

www.revolutionarylives.co.uk

First published 2012 by Pluto Press
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Copyright Clifford D. Conner 2012

The right of Clifford D. Conner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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To three American prisoners of conscience

Lynne Stewart

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Bradley Manning

To learn more about these courageous victims of injustice, go to

www.MaratScience.com

and click on Dedication

I have long been wary of authors who claim to have discovered some startlingly important aspect of history that all previous authors had somehow overlooked. Now I find myself reluctantly having to make a claim almost (but not quite) like that.

Jean Paul Marat was a key leader of what was arguably the most important of all social revolutions. And yet there have been virtually no adequate biographies of Marat published in the English language. Why not?

I am hard pressed to answer that question. The reason that I am not claiming to be the only adequate biographer of Marat is contained in the qualifying phrase in the English language. Numerous fine biographies have appeared in Frenchmy personal favorites are Jean Massins and Olivier Coquardsbut none have been published in English translation. The present volume is intended to remedy that glaring omission in the literature on the French Revolution.

As for previous English-language biographies of Marat, there have been a grand total of two published in the past hundred years. One was by the distinguished historian Louis Gottschalk and the other was by me. Gottschalks, which was originally published in 1927 and reissued, unchanged, in 1967, is not simply out of date, but in my opinion is also seriously flawed in its interpretation of Marats role in the Revolution.

Gottschalk portrayed Marat as an accidental figure on the stage of historyan ultraradical demagogue who gained immense notoriety but should not be counted among the authentic leaders of the Revolution. In 1997 I published a biography of Marat to challenge that notion. Au contraire, I argued, Marat was a highly effective leader of the French Revolution who earned his influence through the consistency and principled nature of his leadership.

My 1997 biography of Marat is not out of date, but I felt it would now be useful to write another one with a different focus. Although the earlier book did not ignore Marats revolutionary activity, it put more emphasis on his much longer career as a scientist. That was an aspect of his life that had not previously been treated adequately even by French biographers.

The volume you now hold in your hands, however, centers its attention squarely on Marats political career as journalist, agitator, and leader of the French Revolution during the last four years of his life, 178993. That, after all, is the basis of his historical importance and what he is rightfully remembered for. Without Marat, the French Revolution may well not have resulted in the social transformation of France, Europe, and the world.

Marats pre-Revolutionary careers as a medical doctor and an experimental physicist are not irrelevant to his later development, however. To fully come to grips with this enigmatic figure, it is necessary to take that formative part of his life into account. For that reason, I have created a website devoted primarily to an exposition of Marats medical and scientific work during the years 1765 through 1789, which I invite readers of this volume to peruse (www.MaratScience.com).

* * *

The French Revolution dealt the death blow to the traditional social structure not only in France but throughout Europe. The old regime had been founded on the principle of natural inequality: that some people were by birth superior to others and thereby entitled to special privileges. The Revolution produced a social order based on the opposite premise of human equality, from which derived the rights to equality before the law, representative government, and guarantees of civil liberties.

But to Marat these gains, however important, did not go nearly far enough. They amounted to a great leap forward in political equality but not economic equality. The rich and poor gained equal rights to sleep under the bridges of Paris, but the wretched of the earth remained mired in their wretchedness. What set Marat apart from all other major figures of the Revolutionfrom Mirabeau to Brissot to Danton to Robespierrewas his total identification with the struggle of the propertyless classes for full social equality.

The ever-deepening gulf between the billionaires and the slumdogs in todays world testifies to the continuing relevance of Marats revolutionary perspective. Properly understood, the triumphs and failures of his career shed light on some timeless and universal aspects of the revolutionary process that can benefitand perhaps inspireparticipants in the current struggles for social change. May they triumph, and the sooner the better.

Clifford D. Conner

November 2011

This book owes its existence first of all to Paul Le Blanc and the debt is twofold. It was he who in 1997 originally asked me, on behalf of what at that time was Humanities Press, to write a biography of Marat, which I did. And then it was also he who more recently asked me, on behalf of Pluto Press, to write the biography of Marat you are presently holding in your hand. Thank you twice, Paul.