Inpolitical science, areactionary or areactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to thestatus quo ante—the previous political state of society—which the person believes possessed positive characteristics that are absent from contemporary society. As a descriptor term,reactionary derives from the ideological context of theleft–right political spectrum. As an adjective, the wordreactionary describes points of view and policies meant to restore astatus quo ante.[1]
As anideology,reactionism is a tradition inright-wing politics;[1] the reactionary stance opposes policies for thesocial transformation of society, whereasconservatives seek to preserve the socio-economic structure and order that exists in the present.[2] In popular usage,reactionary refers to a strongtraditionalist conservative political perspective of a person opposed to social, political, and economic change.[3][4]
Reactionary ideologies can be radical in the sense ofpolitical extremism in service to re-establishing past conditions. To some writers, the termreactionary carries negative connotations—Peter King observed that it is "an unsought-for label, used as a torment rather than a badge of honor."[5] Despite this, the descriptor "political reactionary" has been adopted by writers such as the Austrian monarchistErik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn,[6] theScottish journalistGerald Warner of Craigenmaddie,[7] the Colombianpolitical theologianNicolás Gómez Dávila, and the American historianJohn Lukacs.[8]
TheFrench Revolution gave the English language three politically descriptive words denoting anti-progressive politics: (i) "reactionary", (ii) "conservative", and (iii) "right". "Reactionary" derives from the French wordréactionnaire (a late 18th-century coinage based on the wordréaction, "reaction") and "conservative" fromconservateur, identifying monarchist parliamentarians opposed to the revolution.[9] In this French usage, reactionary denotes "a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state" and a "return to a previous condition of affairs". TheOxford English Dictionary cites the first English language usage in 1799 in a translation ofLazare Carnot's letter on theCoup of 18 Fructidor.[10]
During the French Revolution, conservative forces (especially within theCatholic Church) organized opposition to theprogressive sociopolitical and economic changes brought by the Revolution; and so Conservatives fought to restore the temporal authority of the Church andCrown. In 19th Century European politics, the reactionary class included the Catholic Church's hierarchy and thearistocracy,royal families, androyalists who believed that national government was the sole domain of the Church and the State. In France, supporters of traditional rule by direct heirs of theHouse of Bourbon dynasty were labeled thelegitimist reaction. In theThird Republic, the monarchists were the reactionary faction, later renamedConservative.[9]
In the 19th century, reactionary denoted people who idealizedfeudalism and the pre-modern era—before theIndustrial Revolution and the French Revolution—when economies were mostlyagrarian, alanded aristocracy dominated society, ahereditary king ruled, and the Catholic Church was society's moral center. Those labeled "reactionary" favored thearistocracy instead of themiddle andworking classes. Reactionariesopposed democracy andparliamentarism.[citation needed]
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TheThermidorian Reaction was a movement within the French Revolution against the perceived excesses of theJacobins.Maximilien Robespierre'sReign of Terror ended on 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor year II in theFrench Republican Calendar). The overthrow of Robespierre signaled the reassertion of the FrenchNational Convention over theCommittee of Public Safety. The Jacobins were suppressed, the prisons were emptied, and the committee was shorn of its powers. After the execution of some 104 Robespierre supporters, the Thermidorian Reaction stopped using theguillotine against allegedcounter-revolutionaries, set a middle course between the monarchists and the radicals, and ushered in a time of relative exuberance and its accompanying corruption.
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With theCongress of Vienna, inspired by TsarAlexander I of Russia, the monarchs ofRussia,Prussia andAustria formed theHoly Alliance, a form of collective security againstrevolution andBonapartism. This instance of reaction was surpassed by a movement that developed in France when, after the second fall ofNapoleon, theBourbon Restoration, or reinstatement of theBourbon dynasty, ensued. This time it was to be aconstitutional monarchy, with anelected lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. The Franchise was restricted to men over the age of forty, which indicated that for the first fifteen years of their lives, they had lived under theancien régime. Nevertheless, KingLouis XVIII worried he would still suffer an intractable parliament. He was delighted with theultra-royalists, or Ultras, whom the election returned, declaring that he had found achambre introuvable, literally, an "unfindable house".
It was theDeclaration of Saint-Ouen that prepared the way for the Restoration. Before the French Revolution, which radically and bloodily overthrew most aspects of French society's organization, the only way constitutional change could be instituted was by extracting it from old legal documents that could be interpreted as agreeing with the proposal. Everything new had to be expressed as a righteous revival of something old that had lapsed and had been forgotten. This was also the means used by diminished aristocrats to get themselves a bigger piece of the pie. In the 18th century, those gentry whose fortunes and prestige had diminished to the level of peasants would search diligently for every ancient feudal statute that might give them something. For example, the "ban" meant that all peasants had to grind their grain in their lord's mill. Therefore, these gentry came to theFrench States-General of 1789 fully prepared to press for expanding such practices in all provinces to the legal limit. They were horrified when, for example, the French Revolution permitted common citizens to go hunting, one of the few perquisites they had always enjoyed.
Thus with the Bourbons Restoration, theChambre Introuvable set about reverting every law to return society to conditions prior to theabsolute monarchy ofLouis XIV, when the power of the Second Estate was at its zenith. This clearly distinguishes a "reactionary" from a "conservative". The use of the word "reactionary" in later days as a political slur is thus often rhetorical since there is nothing directly comparable with theChambre Introuvable in the history of other countries.
In theFrench Revolution's aftermath, France was continually wracked by quarrels between right-winglegitimists and left-wing revolutionaries. Herein arose the clerical philosophers—Joseph de Maistre,Louis de Bonald,François-René de Chateaubriand—whose answer was restoring theHouse of Bourbon and reinstalling the Catholic Church as theestablished church. Since then, France's political spectrum has featured similar divisions (seeAction Française). The teachings of the 19th-century popes buttressed the ideas of the clerical philosophers.[11]
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From 1815 to 1848,Prince Metternich, theforeign minister of theAustrian Empire, stepped in to organize thecontainment of revolutionary forces through internationalalliances to preventrevolutionary fervor. At theCongress of Vienna, he was very influential in establishing the new order, theConcert of Europe, after the defeat ofNapoleon.
After the Congress, Prince Metternich worked hard to bolster and stabilize the conservative regime of the Restoration period. He worked furiously to prevent Russia's TsarAlexander I (who aided theliberal forces in Germany, Italy, and France) from gaining influence in Europe. The Church was his principal ally. He promoted it as a conservative principle of order while opposingnationalist and liberal tendencies within the Church. His basic philosophy was based onEdmund Burke, who championed the need for old roots and the orderly development of society. He opposeddemocratic andparliamentary institutions but favoredmodernizing existing structures through gradualreform. Despite Metternich's efforts, a series ofrevolutions rocked Europe in 1848.
In the 20th century, proponents ofsocialism andcommunism used the termreactionary polemically to label their enemies, such as theWhite Armies, who fought in theRussian Civil War against theBolsheviks after theOctober Revolution. InMarxist terminology,reactionary is apejorative adjective denoting people whose ideas might appear to be socialist but, in their opinion, contain elements offeudalism,capitalism,nationalism,fascism, or other characteristics of theruling class, including usage between conflicting factions of Marxist movements.[citation needed] Non-socialists also used the labelreactionary, with British diplomatSir John Jordan nicknaming the ChineseRoyalist Party the "reactionary party" for supporting theQing dynasty and opposingrepublicanism during theXinhai Revolution in 1912.[12]
Despite being traditionally related to right-wing governments, elements of reactionary politics were present in left-wing governments as well, such as whenSoviet Union leaderJoseph Stalin implemented conservative social policies, such as there-criminalisation of homosexuality, restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of theZhenotdel women's department.[13]
Reactionary is also used to denote supporters ofauthoritariananti-communist régimes such asVichy France, Spain underFranco, and Portugal underSalazar. One example occurred afterBoris Pasternak was awarded theNobel Prize for Literature. On 26 October 1958, the day following theNobel Committee's announcement, Moscow'sLiterary Gazette ran a polemical article by David Zaslavski entitled,ReactionaryPropaganda Uproar over a Literary Weed.[14]
TheItalian Fascists desired a new social order based on the ancient feudal principle of delegation (though withoutserfdom) in their enthusiasm for thecorporate state.Benito Mussolini said that "fascism is reaction" and that "fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary... has not today any impediment against declaring itself illiberal and anti-liberal."[15]Giovanni Gentile and Mussolini also attacked certain reactionary policies, particularly monarchism, and veiled some aspects of Italian conservativeCatholicism. They wrote, "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not takenJoseph de Maistre as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry." They further elaborated in their political doctrine that fascism "is not reactionary [in the old way] but revolutionary."[citation needed]
Conversely, they explained that fascism was of the right, not the left. Fascism was certainly not simply a return to tradition, as it carried the centralized state beyond even what had been seen inabsolute monarchies. Fascistone-party states were as centralized as mostcommunist states, and fascism's intensenationalism was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution.[citation needed]
Although the GermanNazis did not consider themselves fascists or reactionaries and condemned the traditional German forces of reaction (Prussianmonarchists,Junker nobility, andRoman Catholic clergy) as being among their enemies, next to theirRed Front enemies in the Nazi Party marchDie Fahne hoch, they virulently opposed revolutionary leftism. The fact that the Nazis called their 1933 rise to power theVolksgemeinschaft (national revolution) showed that, like the Italian Fascists, they supported some form of revolution; however, the Germans and Italian fascists both idealized tradition, folklore, and the tenets of classical thought and leadership, as exemplified in Nazi-era Germany by the idolization ofFrederick the Great. They also rejected theWeimar Republic parliamentary era under theWeimar Constitution, which had succeeded the monarchy in 1918, despite it also being capitalist and classical. Although claiming to be separate from reactionism, the Nazis' rejection of Weimar was based on ostensibly reactionary principles, as the Nazis claimed that the parliamentary system was simply the first step towardsBolshevism and instead idealized more reactionary parts of Germany's past. They referred toNazi Germany as theGerman Realm and informally as theDrittes Reich (Third Realm), a reference to past reactionary German entities: theHoly Roman Empire (First Realm) and theGerman Empire (Second Realm).[citation needed]
Clericalist movements, sometimes labeled asclerical fascist by their critics, can be considered reactionaries in terms of the 19th century since they share some elements of fascism while at the same time promoting a return to the pre-revolutionary model of social relations, with a strong role for the Church. Their utmost philosopher wasNicolás Gómez Dávila.[citation needed]
Political scientistCorey Robin argues in his 2011 bookThe Reactionary Mind that modernconservatism in the United States is "inherently reactionary".[16]
Japan's right-wingnationalist andpopulist movements and related organizations, which emerged rapidly from the late 20th century, are considered "reactionary" because they revised the post-warpeace constitution and have an advocating attitude toward theJapanese Empire.[17]
"Neo-reactionary" is a term that is sometimes a self-description of an informal group of online political theorists who have been active since the 2000s.[18] The phrase "neo-reactionary" was coined by "Mencius Moldbug" (the pseudonym ofCurtis Yarvin, a computer programmer) in 2008.[19][20]Arnold Kling used it in 2010 to describe "Moldbug", and the subculture quickly adopted it.[18] Proponents of the "Neo-reactionary" movement (also called the "Dark Enlightenment" movement) include philosopherNick Land, among others.[21]
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Persons who have at times been designated reactionaries, by themselves or others, include:
Note thatGermany did not become united as a country until 1871. Metternich was born in theHoly Roman Empire.
the reactionary group Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference)—has been waging war over its shared past with China and South Korea on battlegrounds ranging from Yasukuni Shrine to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Media related toReactionary at Wikimedia Commons
