Chapter 2 preface

Words are often louder testimony than literature.Let us consider the words that were invented during the sixty years covered in this book, or that acquired their modern meaning during this period.Such as "industry", "industrialists", "factory", "middle class", "working class", "capitalism" and "socialism"; such as "aristocracy", "railway", "liberty" as a political term " and "conservative," "nation," "scientist" and "engineer," "proletarian" and (economic) "crisis"; and "utilitarianism" and "statistics," "sociology," and many other modern sciences. name, "press publication" and "ideology" and so on.These are words newly coined during this period, or words produced to meet the needs of this period. (Most of these terms have either been used internationally, or have been translated into various languages ​​according to the exact meaning of the letter. For example, "socialism" or "press and publication" are widely popular in the world; while "iron" and "road" " (the combination of iron road, which is railway in every place except its birthplace.) The same goes for "strike" and "poverty."

Without these words (that is, without the things and ideas they give their names to), how to measure the profound significance of the revolution that took place between 1789 and 1848?How to conceive the greatest change in human history since the invention of agriculture and metallurgy, writing, and the distant era of city-states?What would the modern world be like without them?This dual revolution changed the world and continues to change the world as a whole.But in thinking about such a revolution, we must be careful to distinguish its long-term consequences from its early critical developments,

The former is not restricted by any social structure, political organization, or allocation of international power and resources, while the latter is closely related to a specific social and international situation.This great revolution, which took place between 1789-1848, was a great victory not just for "industry" itself, but for capitalist industry; not just for liberty and equality in general, but for the middle class Or the great victory of bourgeois free society; not just the victory of the "modern economy" or the "modern state," but the great victory of the economy and the state in a given part of the world (parts of Europe and a few places in North America)— — At its center were the neighboring and rival states of Great Britain and France. The transformation from 1789 to 1848 was basically the twin great transformations that took place in these two countries.Since then, the revolution has rippled around the world.

Although the main carriers and symbols of this dual revolution—more precisely, the French political revolution and the British industrial revolution—are France and Britain, we should not regard this revolution as belonging to these two countries. It is not unreasonable to think of it as a historical event, but as twin vents of a volcano covering a wider area.The simultaneous eruption of the French and British craters, each with its own characteristics, was neither an accident nor a senseless event.From the point of view of a historian in 3000 AD, or from the point of view of a Chinese or African observer, we can rightly say that one cannot expect these events in northwestern Europe and some of its overseas colonies, when in other parts of the world; and we can equally rightly point out that there is a revolution in this period in which we cannot conceive of any other kind of revolution than the triumph of bourgeois liberal capitalism.

Obviously, if we do not go further back to the history before 1789, especially the eve of this change, it is obviously reflected (at least in retrospect) in the Northwest of the world, reflected in the crisis of the ancien regime that this dual revolution is going to sweep We cannot comprehend this profound transformation without the decades of history.Should we regard the American Revolution of 1776 as an outbreak of equal significance to the English and French Revolutions, or merely as their most important and most direct forerunner and promoter; The institutional crises, economic changes and dramatic events between the years have given significance, or at best they can only clearly explain the immediate cause and timing of this outbreak, but cannot explain its root cause.How far back should the analyst go back—to the English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, to the Reformation, to the beginnings of world military conquest by Europeans and colonial exploitation in the early sixteenth century, and beyond ?None of this matters to us, since such insightful analysis extends well beyond the time bounds of this book.

All we need to comment here is that the social and economic forces, the political and theoretical instruments required for such a change, were in any case ready in one part of Europe and sufficient to revolutionize the rest of the world.Our problem is not to trace the emergence of a world market, the emergence of a dynamic private entrepreneurial class, or even the existence of a government that asserts that "government policy is based on a desire to maximize private profit." Emergence of Britain.Nor do we seek to pursue the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge, or in other words, the development of individualistic, secular, or rationalistic progressive beliefs.We take it for granted that in the 1780s all of these existed, although we cannot yet assume that their force was sufficiently strong or widespread at the time.On the contrary, if one tries to find a way out of the familiarity of the outer garments of the dual revolution, or the undeniable facts—such as Robespierre and Saint-Just (Robespierre and Saint-Just) dress, talk manners would not be detached from the social locus of the ancien régime; its ideas of reform typified that of the English bourgeois Jeremy Bentham of the 1730s, who made the same claim to Catherine the Great of Russia. One; the most extreme accounts of middle-class political economy come from 18th-century English House of Lords, etc. - underestimating the novelty of a dual revolution, against which we must guard against such attempts.

Our problem, therefore, is not to explain the existence of these emerging economic and social factors, but their triumph; not to trace their gradually erosive and destructive achievements over the centuries, but their decisive conquer.Furthermore, we have to trace the far-reaching effects of this sudden victory on both those countries most directly affected by it, and others directly exposed to its new powers—to quote the world history at this time , that is, the "conquering bourgeoisie" - the world of explosive influence. Since the dual revolution took place in parts of Europe, where its most visible and immediate effects were naturally most pronounced, the history dealt with in this book must be primarily regional.In the same way, since this world revolution erupted from the twin craters of England and France, it must have initially taken the form of European expansion and subsequent conquest of the rest of the world.Indeed, its most dramatic consequence for world history was the establishment of global domination by several Western regimes (notably Britain), an event without precedent.In the face of Western merchants, steam engines, strong ships and guns, as well as Western ideas, the ancient civilizations and empires of the world surrendered and collapsed.India was reduced to a province ruled by the British colonial governor, the Islamic State was in crisis and crumbling, Africa was nakedly conquered, and even the huge Chinese Empire was forced to open its doors to Western colonists in 1839-1842.By 1848, there were no longer any obstacles to occupying lands that Western governments and businessmen considered useful to them.Just like the development of western capitalist enterprises, its future has been smooth, and all it needs is time.

However, the history of dual revolutions is not only the history of the victories of nascent capitalist societies, it is also the history of the transition from expansion to contraction of these emerging powers in the century after 1848.What's more, by 1848 this extraordinary reversal of fortune was already visible.As we all know, the worldwide anti-Western struggle that reached its climax in the middle of the 20th century was only in its infancy at that time.Only in the Islamic world can we observe the first stages of the process by which countries conquered by the West, adopting Western ideas and technologies, reversed the situation: for example, within the Turkish Empire in the 1830s and the lesser-noticed but significant reform enterprise of Mohammed Ali in Egypt.But within Europe the forces and ideas that would presage the success of this new society were already germinating. Before 1848, the "ghost of communism" was already haunting Europe. In 1848, the "ghost" was driven away. After that, for a long period of time, it was actually in a state of weakness like a ghost, especially in the The Western world rapidly changed by the dual revolution.But if we look around the world in the 1960s, then we dare not underestimate the historical force of the revolutionary socialist and communist ideology born out of the dual revolution against the In 1848, the first classic exposition was made.The historic period of the Dual Revolution began with the establishment of the modern world's first factory system in Lancashire and the French Revolution in 1789, and ended with the establishment of the first railway network and the Communist Manifesto (Communist Manifesto).