Француз революциясын қорғаған қарулы жұмысшылар тап

Armed working class people defending the French Revolution

The sans culottes (sɑ̃kylɔt, 'without breeches') were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime. The word came into vogue during the demonstration of 20 June 1792. The name sans culottes refers to their clothing, and through that to their lower class status: culottes were the fashionable silk knee breeches of the 18th century nobility and bourgeoisie, and the working class sans culottes wore pantaloons, or long trousers, instead. The sans culottes, most of them urban labourers, served as the driving popular force behind the revolution. They were judged by the other revolutionaries as "radicals" because they advocated a direct democracy, that is to say, without intermediaries such as members of parliament. Though ill clad and ill equipped, with little or no support from the middle and upper classes, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army and were responsible for many executions during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The most fundamental political ideals of the sans culottes were social equality, economic equality, and popular democracy. They supported the abolition of all the authority and privileges of the monarchy, nobility, and Roman Catholic clergy, the establishment of fixed wages, the implementation of price controls to ensure affordable food and other essentials, and vigilance against counter revolutionaries. They expressed their demands through petitions of the sections presented to the assemblies (the Legislative, and Convention) by the delegates. The sans culottes had a third way of applying pressure to achieve their demands: the police and the courts received thousands of denunciations of traitors and supposed conspirators. The height of their influence spanned roughly from the original overthrow of the monarchy in 1792 to the Thermidorian Reaction in 1794. The sans culottes also populated the ranks of paramilitary forces charged with physically enforcing the policies and legislation of the revolutionary government, a task that commonly included violence and the carrying out of executions against perceived enemies of the revolution. During the peak of their influence, the sans culottes were seen as the truest and most authentic sons of the French Revolution, held up as living representations of the revolutionary spirit. During the height of revolutionary fervor, such as during the Reign of Terror when it was dangerous to be associated with anything counter revolutionary, even public functionaries and officials actually from middle or upper class backgrounds adopted the clothing and label of the sans culottes as a demonstration of solidarity with the working class and patriotism for the new French Republic. He demanded the reconstitution of the army on a democratic basis to allow passive citizens. He felt that the army had to become the instrument of defence of the Revolution and no longer be a threat to it. On 28 April, despite Robespierre's intensive campaign, the principle of an armed bourgeois militia was definitively enacted in the Assembly. According to Jean Jaures, he considered this even more important than the right to strike. Following the king's veto of the Assembly's efforts to raise a militia of volunteers, the reinstatement of Brissotin ministers and suppression of non juring priests, the monarchy faced an abortive Demonstration of 20 June 1792. Sergent Marceau and lt=Panis, the administrators of police, urged the sans culottes to lay down their weapons, telling them it was illegal to present a petition in arms, although their march to the Tuileries was not banned. They invited the officials to join the procession and march along with them. Early in the morning (10 August 1792) 30,000 Fédérés, and sans culottes militants from the sections led a successful assault upon the Tuileries; according to Robespierre a triumph for the "passive" (non voting) citizens. fr, head of the sans culottes in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, was appointed provisional president of the Insurrectionary Commune. In Spring 1793, after the defection of Dumouriez, Robespierre urged the creation of a "sans culotte army" to sweep away any conspirator. On 1 May, the crowds threatened armed insurrection if the emergency measures demanded (price control) were not adopted. On 8 and 12 May Robespierre repeated in the Jacobin club the necessity of founding a revolutionary army consisting of sans culottes, paid by a tax on the rich, to beat the aristocrats inside France and the convention. Every public square should be used to produce arms and pikes. On 18 May, Marguerite Élie Guadet proposed to examine the "exactions" and to replace municipal authorities. As rioting persisted, a commission of inquiry of twelve members, with a very strong Girondin majority, was set up to investigate the anarchy in the communes and the activities of the sans culottes. On 28 May, the Paris Commune accepted the creation of a sans culottes army to enforce revolutionary laws. Petitioners from the sections and the Commune appeared at the bar of the Convention at about five o'clock in the afternoon on 31 May. They demanded that a domestic revolutionary army should be raised and that the price of bread should be fixed at three sous a pound, that nobles holding senior rank in the army should be dismissed, that armouries should be created for arming the sans culottes, the departments of State purged, suspects arrested, the right to vote provisionally reserved to sans culottes only, and a fund set apart for the relatives of those defending their country and for the relief of aged and infirm. According to Hampson, the subject is quite extraordinarily complicated and obscure. The next day all Paris was in arms. Hanriot was ordered to march his National Guard, by this time mostly consisting of sans culottes, from the town hall to the Palais National. On 2 June 1793, a large force of supposedly 80,000 sans culottes and National Guards led by Hanriot, surrounded the convention with 160–172 guns. On 4 September, the sans culottes again invaded the convention. They demanded tougher measures against rising prices and the setting up of a system of terror to root out the counter revolution. The sans culottes took an especially active interest in the revolutionary army. A "sans culotte army" (in a sense, Robespierre's brain child) was formed in Paris. Barère voiced the Committee of Public Safety's support for the measures desired by the assembly: he presented a decree that was passed immediately, establishing a paid armed force of 6,000 men and 1,000 gunners "designed to crush the counter revolutionaries, to execute wherever the need arises the revolutionary laws and the measures of public safety that are decreed by the National Convention, and to protect provisions (A force of citizen soldiers which could go into the countryside to supervise the requisition of grain, to prevent the manoeuvres of rich égoistes and deliver them up to the vengeance of the laws)". The sections lost all rights to control their delegates and officials. On 4 March 1794, there were rumours of uprising in the Cordeliers club. The Hébertists hoped that the National Convention would expel Robespierre and his Montagnard supporters. The sans culottes did not respond, and Hanriot refused to cooperate. On 13 March Hébert, the voice of the sans culottes, had been using the latest issue of italic=yes to criticise Robespierre. On 18 March Bourdon attacked the Commune and the sans culottes army. Jacques Hébert, Ronsin, Vincent, Momoro, Clootz, De Kock were arrested on charges of complicity with foreign powers (William Pitt the Younger) and guillotined on 24 March. On 27 March the infantry and cavalry of the revolutionary army, for eight months active in Paris and surroundings, were finally disbanded, except their artillery. (Hanriot was denounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal as an accomplice of Hébert, but seems to have been protected by Robespierre.)

The working class was especially hurt by a hail storm which damaged grain crops in 1788, which caused bread prices to skyrocket. While the peasants of rural France could sustain themselves with their farms, and the wealthy aristocracy could still afford bread, the urban workers of France, the group that comprised the sans culottes, suffered. In the city, the division grew between the sans culottes and these wealthy aristocrats; the former had a particular hostility "towards those with large private incomes." The faction known as the Montagnards expressed concern for the working classes of France. When the National Convention met to discuss the fate of the former king Louis XVI in 1792, the sans culottes vehemently opposed a proper trial, instead opting for an immediate execution. The moderate Girondin faction voted for a trial, but the radical Montagnards sided with the sans culottes, deeming that a trial was not necessary, and won with a slim majority. Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793. The demands of the sans culottes did not stop with the execution of the King, and the Montagnards worked hard to fulfil their mounting orders. This increased pressure from the radical masses exacerbated the ideological split between the Montagnards and the Girondins, and tensions began to grow within the convention. Eventually, by May 1793, the Montagnards worked with the National Guard—which was, at this time, mostly sans culottes—to depose many of the Girondin deputies. Jeremy Popkin writes, "[the Montagnards and the sans culottes] surrounded the Convention, and two days later the intimidated assembly suspended twenty nine Girondin deputies. The defeated Girondin leaders fled to the provinces. The Montagnards were left in control of the Convention, which itself was clearly at the mercy of whoever could command the armed sans culottes battalions." Now, whoever was in control of France's destiny had to answer to the sans culottes, who "effectively exercised legislative power" in situations of unrest. Otherwise, they would risk a similar uprising and their own exile, or possibly even execution. This political shift towards radicalism would soon turn into the Reign of Terror.

The mass violence of the sans culottes created a lasting impact during the Reign of Terror. These revolutionaries allied themselves most readily with those in power who promised radical change. The sans culottes believed in a complete upheaval of the government, pushing for the execution of any that were considered corrupt by the leaders, even going as far as wanting "the enemies of the republic [to] hang main and the guillotine to stand like the first patriots, the finisher of the law." The support of the sans culottes could be used as a political weapon to get rid of enemies of the Revolution. The key to Robespierre's Terror lay in their willingness and ability to mobilize. Thus, the Committee leaders used speeches to gain their support. In a speech On the Principles of Political Morality. Robespierre proclaimed: "It has been said that terror was the mainspring of despotic government. Does your government, then, resemble a despotism? Yes, as the sword which glitters in the hands of liberty's heroes resembles the one with which tyranny's lackeys are armed." Robespierre expressed a desire for liberty that the sans culottes admired. They pushed the committee for radical changes and often found a voice with Robespierre. Their desperate desire for immediate changes and their aptitude for violence made the sans culottes a necessary group in implementing the Terror.

The popular image of the sans culotte has gained currency as an enduring symbol for the passion, idealism and patriotism of the common man of the French Revolution. The term sans culottism, sans culottisme in French, refers to this idealized image and the themes associated with it. The members of the sans culottes were constantly on edge and fearing betrayal, which can be attributed to their violent and radical rebellion tactics. Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm observes that the sans culottes were a "shapeless, mostly urban movement of the labouring poor, small craftsmen, shopkeepers, artisans, tiny entrepreneurs and the like". He further notes they were organised notably in the local political clubs of Paris and "provided the main striking force of the revolution".

The term "culottes" in more recent French describes women's underpants, an article of clothing that has little or no relation to the historical culottes, but now also refers to apparent skirts that are actually split with two legs. The term sans culottes has been used colloquially to mean not wearing underpants.