Reactionary

A reactionary (sometimes: reactionist) is someone who seeks to restore conditions to those of a previous era. The political attitude of a reactionary is reaction, reactionism (sometimes: reactionaryism). Reaction is always presented against something that it opposes. It is a reaction against something.

A reactionary is sometimes described as an extreme conservative, but whereas a conservative seeks, in the simplest terms, to preserve the status quo, a reactionary seeks to return to the situation of a prior time. In particular the term is used to describe those who are seen to oppose "progress" and particularly revolutionary change, and is used in revolutionary contexts interchangeably with the word counterrevolutionary. A reactionary is against parlimentarianism and democratic movements.

Often, reactionaries idealise either feudalism or the pre-modern era that preceded the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution when economies were largely agrarian, the landed aristocracy dominated society, a king was on the throne and the church was the moral centre of society. Thus, reactionaries once favoured the aristocracy over the middle class and the working class, even though they later favored the conservative bourgeoisie.

"Reactionary" is nowadays mostly used pejoratively by political groups, especially those of the "left-wing", to qualify politicians that they accuse of wanting to reverse some progress that they claim has been beneficial to society.

Meanings of "reactionary" in particular contexts

In Marxist terminology, "reactionary" is generally used in a pejorative sense, against any opponent of communism. (Oxford English Dictionary) It may be also be used to described themselves by people who believe in obedience to God, the natural law, the "original laws of the state", the "loyalty to one's tribe", etc...

The term "reaction" appeared in Europe during the French Revolution, when conservative, and especially Catholic, forces organized to oppose the changes brought by the revolution fighting for preservation of Church and Crown. Reaction was especially opposed to the most radical tendencies such as Jacobinism,

In the context of 19th century European politics, the reactionary class were the Roman Catholic hierarchy (namely the clergy), the aristocracy, royal families and royalists and all those who supported traditional monarchies and the involvement of the Catholic church in government. It is called the Legitimist reaction. At the time of the Third Republic, the monarchist party was called the "Reactionary Party" and it was later changed to the "Conservative Party". (1) The term was also used in Protestant countries to describe those who support tradition against modernity.

In the 20th century the term was often used to describe opponents of Socialist or Communist revolution such as the supporters of the White Army who opposed the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. It was also applied to supporters of highly authoritarian and anti-Communist regimes such as Vichy France, Francisco Franco's Spain or Antonio Salazar's Portugal. Franco was a reactionary in the usual sense of the word; he sought to defend the authority of the Catholic Church and the power of the Spanish state against democratic leftist forces, and he wanted to revert Spain's political situation to an authoritarian regime after a period of democracy.

Reactionary feelings in Europe

Reactionary feelings were in Europe generally associated with monarchist leanings, as well as a return to a society where the Church plays a major role in government.

The Clerical philosophers

In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the French state was in constant turmoil between the forces of restoration of the right and revolutionaries on the left. Herein arose the clerical philosophers Joseph de Maistre, Vicomte de Bonald, and François-René de Chateaubriand, whose solution was to restore the former absolute monarchy and reinstall the Catholic Church as a state church. This pattern of thought was to become recurrent in French reactionaries, who generally long for a pre-Revolutionary Golden Age and wish to repudiate the two centuries of changes after the Revolution (see Action Française).

De Maistre became famous as the philosoper of reaction during the Restoration. His writings were the authoritative sources of reactionary ideas. Holding to a pessimistic view of human nature, he repudiated the principles of the French Revolution and its political and social institutions. According to him, it was God that created the state and not a social contract; order and stability were paramount in a society and this could only come about by obedience to an absolute monarchy and the Catholic Church; law was the expression of the customs and traditions not the fickle opinion of the people. He defended authoritarian government, a hierarchical social order based on natural inequality.

De Bonald was of the same cloth as De Maistre but not as talented. In a sense, he only buttressed the convictions of already convinced reactionaries. Attacking the French Revolution as creating individualism and centralization in government, he championed the cause of absolute monarchy and the Catholic Church as the only means of securing tranquility. De Bonald proposed restoring the medieval guilds as a way of ensuring the rights of all classes.

Chateaubriand was an eloquent writer so much so that he was described as a Rousseau in Catholic dress; he is often considered the first Romantic writer. He was not a reactionary per se; he accepted the changes brought by the revolution but not the revolutionary principles. He thought to mingle the new institutions with the old memories, traditions and ideals of the ancien régime. By enveloping the Restoration in Catholic trappings, he sought to give the Bourbon regime stablity and devotion of the people. Chateaubriand wrote novels (such as Atala) with Christian themes and the Génie du Christianisme, among others.

These men advanced and promoted Catholicism without necessarily adhering themselves to its teaching, in an attitude that will be later reflected by Charles Maurras, an agnostic who supported Catholic clericalism. They saw the Catholic Church as essential in maintaining a conservative social order and the Monarchy. They mark out the beginning of the mentality of reaction to the liberalizing forces of modernity and democracy.

Metternich and Containment

The unleashing of democratic forces and ideas of the French Revolution had far-reaching consequences which threatened the established order of monarchical governments and promoted social unrest everywhere. Reaction set in against progressive forces.

During the period of 1815-1848, Prince Metternich, the foreign minister of the Austrian Empire, stepped in to organize containment of revolutionary forces by organinizing international alliances to prevent the spread of revolutionary fervor. At the Congress of Vienna, he was very influential in establishing the new order, the Concert of Europe, after the overthrow of Napoleon.

After the Congress, Prince Metternich worked hard bolstering and stabilizing the conservative regime of the Restoration period. He worked furiously to prevent Russia's Tsar Alexander I from gaining influence in Europe who aided the liberal forces in Germany, Italy and France. The Church was his principle ally, promoting it as a conservative principle of order while opposed democratic and liberal tendencies within the Church. His basic philosophy was based on Edmund Burke who championed the need for old roots and an orderly development of society. He opposed democratic and parliamentary institutions but favoured modernizing existing structures by gradual reform.

19th and 20th century

In Western Europe in the 19th century, liberals sought to create representative, secular regimes in the place of undemocratic monarchies whiich had often dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. Events such as the French Revolution brought dramatic changes in that respect. The reactionaries were thus those who wished for a Restoration of the ancien regime, namely, parts of the aristocracy, the Catholics and the royalist's, often lumped together in the "alliance of the Throne and the Altar".

In France, at the beginnings of the Third Republic, the parliamentary left-wing consisted of the Republicans and the right-wing of the royalists, roughly speaking. "Reactionary", "conservative", "right-wing" and "royalist" were thus almost synonymous. In reaction to the alliance of monarchist and clerical forces (the latter wanting a major official role and influence for the Church), strong feelings of anti-clericalism flared out.

Reactionary feelings were often coupled with an hostility to modern, industrial means of production and a nostalgia for a more rural society. The Vichy regime in France, Francisco Franco's regime, the Salazar regime in Portugal, and the Action Française political movements are examples of such traditional reactionary feelings, in favor of authoritarian regimes with strong unelected leaders and with Catholicism as a state religion. As an example, the motto of Vichy France was travail, famille, patrie ("work, family, homeland") and its leader, marshal Philippe Pétain, declared that la terre, elle ne ment pas ("earth does not lie") in an indication of his belief that the truest life is rural and agrarian.

Clerical fascist movements in Europe were arch-reactionaries in their promotion of a corporatist model of social relations, in their opposition to the reforms brought in by the French Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848 and in their promotion of the the church against liberal anti-clericalism.

However, other fascists disagreed. Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini attacked some reactionary policies, particularly monarchism, in the Doctrine of Fascism of l932. They wrote "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not taken De Maistre as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry." Conversely, in their enthusiasm for the corporate state, Mussolini and the Italian fascists showed a desire to bring about a neo-feudal social order though without serfdom..

Modern parties such as the Front National may also be called reactionary, for they seek to revert changes brought to their countries in the last decades through European integration, free trade and immigration.

American reaction

Since there never existed an American version of the absolutist monarchies in Europe, it is difficult to define the term "reactionary" in the context of the 18th century in America. One possible interpretation is that the first "reactionaries" in American history were the Tories or Loyalists who supported King George III and the British Crown, while the "revolutionaries" were the Founding Fathers. As with any revolution, the American Revolution consisted of "revolutionary" insurgents fighting against "reactionary" loyalists of the old regime. However, it may be argued that many leading American revolutionaries were far less radical in their views than their European counterparts, and that therefore, by European standards, the Founding Fathers might be leaning more towards being conservative than "revolutionary".

Some scholars note that, while the U.S. Constitution might be seen as conservative in contrast to the rhetoric of the earlier Declaration of Independence (drawn up by Thomas Jefferson) with its grand abstractions about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness', the Constitution was in the Burkean, not the reactionary mode of conservatism. Thus, it preserved the United States both from the radical decentralization proposed by Anti-Federalists as well as the more extreme conservative vision of those who, like Alexander Hamilton, hoped for a stronger executive and central government.

From the democratic forces, the Founding Fathers of the United States "represented the crest of reactionary movement of their own day." (2) They sought to balance the demands of the democratic elements with the keeping of the Senate, modeled on the House of Lords to, as in the words of Woodrow Wilson, "to check the sweep and power of popular majorities". (3) See Classic Definition of Republic.

In later American history, many have argued that the Confederacy was inherently reactionary in its desire to prevent economic industrialization. Others see it as a conservative effort to adhere to their interpretation of the original Constitutional norms. In either case, the American South has produced figures and movements that seem reactionary in retrospect. Among these are the literary and cultural critics known collectively as the Southern Agrarians along with their sympathizers. The most reactionary of these was perhaps Donald Davidson, who adhered to his agrarian beliefs long after many of the other members of the original group had ceased to embrace much of their original agenda.

After the publication of the so-called agrarian manifesto, I'll Take My Stand, in 1930, many of the contributors to that book published in the periodical The American Review. Published and edited by the fascist Seward Collins, The American Review served as a vehicle for further examination of agrarian and anti-modern proposals, including the distributism of G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.

During the same period, other areas of America saw the rise of reactionary spokesmen. Father Charles Coughlin of Detroit won over a huge audience with his radio broadcasts, which were notable for their harsh criticism of the New Deal and their anti-Semitic charges against Jewish bankers and their socialist and communist tendencies. Herbert Hoover was constantly attacked by his critics for his resistance to the New Deal. He said, "If it be reactionary to be for free men then I shall be proud of that title for my remaining days" for his philosophy was "True American Liberalism denies the whole creed of socialism".

The reactionary is considered to be the antithesis to the radical, though dramatically reversive change can itself be considered radical.

A modern American reactionary group is the John Birch Society. It claims to strenuously defend what they see as the original intention of the U. S. Constitution. The JBS, its acronym, promotes the idea that America is founded on Christian principles (or their interpretation thereof), and supports a strong Christian influence in culture and government. It is anti-leftist, particularly anti-socialist and anti-communist. The JBS has a conspiratorialist view of history. It is also anti-globalization and anti-immigration.

Sayings

• "Every nation has the government that it deserves". Joseph De Maistre Letter 1811.

• "A people who can neither read nor write, whose last word is the dagger-fine material for constitutional principles!...The English constitution is the work of centuries...There is no universal recipe for constitutions." Prince Metternich

• "Even corrected by a prince, parliamentarism will always appear as the regime of the competition between parties. It will mean the oppression of minorities. The leaders of parliamentarism will always represent parties, fellowships, personal rivalries, quarrels between clans." Charles Maurras

• "The Kings of France were the fathers of the Nation." Charles Maurras

Occurrences of the Word "Reactionary"

• "For the Bentham group Burke finally represented sheer reactionism". Modern Humanists, J. M. Robertson, 1891, pg 91. Oxford English Dictionary.

• "The philosophers of the reactionary school-of the school to which Coleridge belongs." London & Westminister Review, J. S. Mill, l840, Mar., pg 276. Oxford English Dictionary.

• "The French aristocrats became hopelessly reactionary and lent a willing ear to every plot, to every scheme, to every suggestion to overthrow the constititutional system established by the Charte, in order to restore the Old Regime." Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism, pg 159.

References

1. The Governments of Europe, Frederic Austin OGG, Rev. Ed., The MacMillan Co., l922, pg 485.
2. The Story of American Democracy, Political and Industrial, Willis Mason West, Allyn and Bacon, NY, l922. pg 276.
3. Ibid. Quoted from Division and Reunion, pg 12.
4. Safire's Political Dictionary, William Safire, under the heading "Reactionary" and the second quote from, The Challenge to Liberty by Hoover.

Bibliography

• Liberty or Equality, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Christendom Press, Front Royal, Virginia, l993.
• Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France 1815-1870, J. Salwyn Schapiro, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., NY, l949.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 20 Vol. 31 references on the use of the term.