WEBVTT 1 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:24.199 Hello, and Welcome to Western SIV, episode five hundred and nineteen. 2 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.920 Do you hear the people sing? In the summer of 3 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:34.479 eighteen thirty, Europe stirred again. Fifteen years had now passed 4 00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:37.439 since the defeat of Napoleon, and the diplomats of the 5 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:42.840 Congress of Vienna had promised stability. Yeah, it's true. Monarchies 6 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:47.039 had been restored, borders had been returned to their original 7 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:51.799 position more or less, and revolution had been banished. But 8 00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:56.320 beneath the polished surface of order, the continent remained restless. 9 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:01.280 As we talked about in a previous episode, industrialization was 10 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:06.319 starting to sweep the continent and cities were swelling. Ideas 11 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:10.079 were also circulating faster than armies ever had, and a 12 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:13.879 new generation, too young to remember the terror or the 13 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:17.920 Battle of Waterloo, was beginning to ask why kings got 14 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:22.400 to rule it all? And so the spark came, as 15 00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:26.120 it often did, in the city of Paris in July 16 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:30.359 of eighteen thirty, King Charles the Tenth, stubbornly clinging to 17 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:33.519 the divine right and aristocratic privilege that he thought had 18 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:36.840 been restored, as with everything else, during the Congress of Vienna, 19 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:42.120 issued the July Ordinances. The July Ordinances dissolved the Chamber 20 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:46.319 of Deputes, the really only elected body of the French 21 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:50.239 government at that point. He restricted the press, and he 22 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:54.920 narrowed who was allowed to vote even further. And so 23 00:01:55.159 --> 00:02:03.079 for three days Letois Lurias Paris positively erupted. Students, workers 24 00:02:03.079 --> 00:02:07.560 and shopkeepers, tore up paving stones and raised barricades. The 25 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:10.840 tricolor flag, which had been banned since the days of Napoleon, 26 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:15.319 suddenly reappeared in the streets. Charles the tenth fled, and 27 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:21.199 once again the Bourbon monarchy found itself toppled. However, this 28 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:25.199 was not seventeen eighty nine. Once again, power did not 29 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:30.000 pass to the people, but to the liberal bourgeoisie. In 30 00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:34.599 this case, the crown was offered to Louis Philippe, the 31 00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:38.400 citizen king, who would rule not by the grace of God, 32 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:45.000 but as the king of the French. Louis Philippe Orleans 33 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:48.680 was born in Paris in seventeen seventy three into a 34 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:51.479 branch of the Bourbon family that was close enough to 35 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:54.560 the throne to enjoy its privileges, but far enough away, 36 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:59.919 luckily to feel its resentments. His father Louis Felippe the second, 37 00:03:00.039 --> 00:03:02.560 the Duke of Orleans, was a prince of the blood 38 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:06.120 who styled himself as kind of a reformer, flirting with 39 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:10.840 the Enlightenment ideas and disastrously with revolution from the start. 40 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:14.199 The younger Louis Fleebey grew up in a household where 41 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:18.960 royalty and rebellion were constantly kind of rubbing shoulders altogether uneasily. 42 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:25.000 As a boy, his education was deliberately modern. Tutors emphasized science, languages, 43 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:29.000 and history over court etiquette. He learned English early, he 44 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:32.879 read Brousseau, and he absorbed the idea dangerous for a prince, 45 00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:36.080 that monarchy might only survive if it adapted to the 46 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:40.479 will of the nation. These lessons wouldn't make him a revolutionary, 47 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:44.639 but they would critically make him a survivor. The French 48 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:50.360 Revolution tested that flexibility almost immediately in seventeen eighty nine, 49 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:54.599 when Paris exploded, Louis Fleebey was only sixteen years old. 50 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:58.319 Two years later, as France slid toward war, he joined 51 00:03:58.319 --> 00:04:01.599 the revolutionary army, not as a court ornament but as 52 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:05.360 an actual officer, and in seventeen ninety two he fought 53 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:08.159 at the Battle of val May, the cannon smoked battle 54 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:11.759 that saved the Revolution from foreign invasion. It was an 55 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:15.400 extraordinary moment, a boorbomb prince standing in the ranks of 56 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:19.639 a Republican army, cheering the retreat of Prussian troops, and 57 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:22.920 for a time it looked like Louis Felipe might become 58 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:26.600 a new kind of royal, one forged by revolution rather 59 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:29.800 than crushed by it. But that hope did not last. 60 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:34.680 In seventeen ninety three, his commander, General du Morees, defected 61 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:38.439 to the Austrians. Though Louis Felipe had absolutely no part 62 00:04:38.519 --> 00:04:42.759 in the burial, suspicion just clung to him and worse, 63 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:46.000 back in Paris, his father actually voted for the execution 64 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:51.000 of King Louis the sixteenth and renamed himself Felipe Egalite. 65 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:55.079 The gesture, however, did not save him, and he was 66 00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:59.439 guillotined later that year. With his family named poison and 67 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:05.240 his safety gone, Louis Philippe fled France and exile became 68 00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:09.120 a rather long apprenticeship for the young man. For the 69 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:14.680 next two decades, he lived as a wanderer, moving through Switzerland, Scandinavia, 70 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:18.879 and eventually the United states in America in the seventeen nineties, 71 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.600 he traveled the length of the Young Republic, down the 72 00:05:21.639 --> 00:05:25.279 Ohio River, across the frontier, and through cities that still 73 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:30.199 smelled of fresh lumber and fresh ambition. He taught French 74 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:34.199 in classrooms just to get along. He lodged and modest ends, 75 00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:38.279 and he learned firsthand what a society without an aristocratic 76 00:05:38.360 --> 00:05:42.639 privilege actually looked like. It was not a Romantic democracy, 77 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:47.839 he admitted that, But it seemed practical and energetic, and 78 00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:52.199 he never forgot that lesson. When Napoleon seized power in France, 79 00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:56.959 Louis Philippe remained distant. He refused to serve the empire, 80 00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:01.639 but he also avoided loud opposition. Instead, he just waited. 81 00:06:02.399 --> 00:06:05.279 By the time the Romans were restored in eighteen fourteen, 82 00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:09.399 he had become something rare among European princes, a man 83 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:11.920 who had lived like a commoner and who actually understood 84 00:06:11.959 --> 00:06:15.959 the modern world. The restoration ultimately brought him home, but 85 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:20.639 not back into favor. King Louis the eighteenth tolerated him, 86 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:24.519 wary of his popularity and liberal reputation. Under his son 87 00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:29.360 Charles the tenth, that weariness turned into open hostility. Louis 88 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:34.480 Felipe cultivated a careful image, neither reactionary nor radical. He 89 00:06:34.519 --> 00:06:37.759 lived quietly at the Palais Royal, walked the streets of 90 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:42.279 Paris without excessive ceremony, dressed plainly, and presented himself as 91 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:45.800 the citizen prince. This was not humility so much as 92 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:49.319 it was a strategy. He knew that legitimacy in post 93 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:54.240 revolutionary France could no longer rest on divine right alone. 94 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:58.439 Throughout the eighteen twenties, he became a focal point for 95 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:04.519 liberal opposition. Journalists, bankers and constitutional monarchists whispered his name 96 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:08.720 as an alternative. He never openly plotted against Charles the Tenth, 97 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:12.439 but nor did he ever do anything to discourage the rumors. 98 00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:16.800 And so he waited as he always had it. And then, ultimately, 99 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:20.879 as I mentioned in July of eighteen thirty, that patience 100 00:07:21.199 --> 00:07:26.160 finally paid it off. Louis Felipe emerged just as Charles 101 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:30.519 the Tenth attempted an illiberal crackdown that cost him his throne. 102 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:33.720 He presented himself not as king by God's will, but 103 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:37.199 as a constitutional monarch would be chosen by the nation, 104 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:41.839 and he would be king of the French, not of France, 105 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:46.759 a subtle but profound shift in its meaning. Sovereignty, at 106 00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:50.759 least in theory, flowed upward from the people, not downward 107 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:58.279 from heaven. His regime promised constitutionalism, property rights and order, liberty, 108 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:01.800 but not, of course democracy. France had changed its king, 109 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:07.560 but not a social hierarchy. Still, the July Revolution sent 110 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:13.000 a shockwave across Europe, proving that the Viennas system could 111 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:17.160 actually be challenged and beaten, because after all, it was 112 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:21.759 not Louis Philippe who had been restored to the throne. 113 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:27.279 Neder Niche's careful policies were starting to come undone, and 114 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:31.759 the aftershocks quickly rippled outward. In the southern Netherlands, Catholic 115 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:36.279 and French speaking Belgians revolted against Protestant Dutch rule. By 116 00:08:36.279 --> 00:08:39.440 the end of eighteen thirty Belgium declared its independence, and in 117 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:43.799 eighteen thirty one Europe's great powers begrudgingly accepted a new 118 00:08:43.879 --> 00:08:49.480 constitutional monarchy. It was the first successful national secession of 119 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:53.960 the post Napoleonic era, a dangerous precedent for a continent 120 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:59.639 stitched together from empires and dynasties. Britain, watching events on 121 00:08:59.679 --> 00:09:04.679 the with a mixture of fear and fascination, ultimately chose 122 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:09.639 reform over revolution. As I mentioned before, the Peterloo Massacre 123 00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:16.159 still lingered, and industrial cities like Manchester Birmingham still had 124 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:21.639 no parliamentary representation. In eighteen thirty two, Parliament passed the 125 00:09:21.679 --> 00:09:27.399 Great Reform Act, expanding the electorate and redistributing seats. It 126 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:31.679 didn't necessarily create democracy, after all, most working class british 127 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:37.159 Men still couldn't vote, but it signaled something crucial. In Britain, 128 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:44.639 political pressures could lead to change without the rise of barricades. Elsewhere, 129 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:53.320 reformers took a harder line in Poland and elsewhere, rulers 130 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.840 took a harder line. In Poland, a nationalists uprising against 131 00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:00.279 Russian rule in eighteen thirty to eighteen thirty one was 132 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:05.399 crushed with brutal efficiency. The Polish Constitution was abolished and 133 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:08.480 the country was absorbed ever more tightly into the Russian Empire. 134 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:14.159 The lesson was clear, reform depended not only on ideas, 135 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:20.759 but power and armies. In Germany and Italian lands, unrest 136 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:26.200 simmered rather than exploded in the early nineteenth century, as 137 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:28.840 Europe struggled to settle out for the fall of Napoleon. 138 00:10:29.279 --> 00:10:32.399 Italy was not a nation, but it was a puzzle 139 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:36.279 of broken kingdoms. It was duchies, papal lands, and still 140 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:41.200 foreign possessions. The Congress of Vienna had restored old rulers 141 00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:45.840 and old borders, but had never restored legitimacy to a 142 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:50.240 country yearning for its own nationhood. And it was in 143 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:54.799 that simmering heat that some really interesting secret societies start 144 00:10:54.879 --> 00:10:58.320 to flourish. The most famous and most fear of these 145 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:03.360 was the Carbonari. The Carbonari took their name from charcoal burners, 146 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:08.279 men who worked in forests and mountains, living outside of society. 147 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:12.200 It was a perfect disguise. Like their namesake, the Carbonari 148 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:16.480 operated in the shadows, gathering in secluded places, speaking in 149 00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:21.720 coded language and swearing elaborate oaths. Their rituals were theatrical, 150 00:11:21.879 --> 00:11:25.759 often medieval. Honestly, if you look at them, initiations could 151 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:30.679 be by candlelight, symbols of fire and smoke, allegories of 152 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:35.240 tyranny and liberation. But honestly, beneath all the medieval pageantry 153 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:40.039 and drama, there was a real modern anger. The Carbonari 154 00:11:40.279 --> 00:11:44.039 were not revolutionaries, and like the Jacobin sense right. They 155 00:11:44.039 --> 00:11:47.279 didn't want to tear society down to its foundations. They 156 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:50.879 wanted a constitution, They wanted limits on royal power. They wanted, 157 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:56.039 especially an end to foreign domination, particularly Austrian domination in 158 00:11:56.039 --> 00:12:00.080 northern Italy. And they wanted the fair rule of law. 159 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:04.320 These men were lawyers, army officers, minor nobles, and educated professionals. 160 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:08.440 They were men caught between two worlds. They were too 161 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:15.720 modern for absolutism, too cautious for radical democracy. Their moment 162 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:19.600 finally came in the wake of Napoleon's fall. During the 163 00:12:19.679 --> 00:12:25.279 Napoleonic era, Italians had tasted centralized administration, legal quality, and 164 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:30.120 careers open to talent. When the old regimes returned after 165 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:37.240 eighteen fifteen, those gains vanished almost overnight. Censorship returned, constitutions 166 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:42.080 were revoked, Austrian troops marched openly through Lombardy and Venetia. 167 00:12:42.840 --> 00:12:46.559 For many Italians, restoration didn't seem like peace at all. 168 00:12:47.320 --> 00:12:52.159 It seemed like a return to suffocation, a return to subjugation, 169 00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:56.919 and so in eighteen twenty and eighteen twenty one, the 170 00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:01.440 Carbonari moved from conspiracy to action. In the Kingdom of 171 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:05.320 the Two Sicilies, officers linked to the society forced King 172 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:09.679 Ferdinand I to finally grant a constitution. For a brief 173 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:13.840 intoxicating moment, it seemed as though Italy might follow Spain 174 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:18.440 and Portugal down the path of constitutional reform, but that 175 00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:23.639 dream collapsed just as quickly. Austrian armies intervened, crushed the 176 00:13:23.679 --> 00:13:30.120 movement and restored absolutist rule. Executions, imprisonment, and exile quickly followed. 177 00:13:31.159 --> 00:13:35.720 A similar fate met Carbonari inspired uprisings in Piedmont. The 178 00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:41.679 pattern became grimly familiar, whispered meetings, sudden revolt, short lived success, 179 00:13:42.039 --> 00:13:46.679 and then brutal, brutal repression. By the mid eighteen twenties, 180 00:13:47.039 --> 00:13:52.320 the Carbinari were weakened, infiltrated and hunted men. Their secrecy 181 00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:54.960 had protected them from the police, but it had also 182 00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:59.600 limited their reach. They could ignite sparks, but they could 183 00:13:59.639 --> 00:14:04.600 never sustain a general conflagration. But out of that failure 184 00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:08.120 emerged something new. One of the men watching closely was 185 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:13.600 Giuseppe Nazzini born in genu One, eighteen oh five. Mazzini 186 00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:16.639 had flirted briefly with the Carbonari as a young man, 187 00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:19.840 and he had paid the price. Arrested in eighteen thirty 188 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:23.720 and imprisoned. He was released into exile, an experience that 189 00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:28.559 would define his life. From abroad, he reflected bitterly on 190 00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:33.679 what had gone wrong. The Carbonari, Mazzini concluded, were doomed 191 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:38.159 by their very nature. They were too secretive, too cautious, 192 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:42.879 too dependent on elites and military officers. They spoke in symbols, 193 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:46.480 is that of principles. Worst of all, they lacked a 194 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:51.120 clear vision of Italy itself. They wanted constitutions, yes, but 195 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:55.399 for what country and under what identity. In exile, Mizzini 196 00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:59.200 began to imagine a different kind of movement, not a 197 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:03.960 secret societ wrapped in the throes of ritual but something 198 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:09.080 more open, a national mission grounded in moral purpose and 199 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:13.759 popular participation. And so in eighteen thirty one, in Marseilles, 200 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:19.440 he founded Young Italy. Young Italy was radical in the 201 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:22.679 way that the Carbonari had never been. Its goal was 202 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:27.799 explicit and uncompromising. It wanted a united, independent Italian republic, 203 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:33.799 no foreign rulers, no patchwork of states, no restored dynasties 204 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:40.480 softened by constitutions. Italy, Menzini insisted, was not merely a 205 00:15:40.559 --> 00:15:44.039 geographic region. It was a nation with its own destiny. 206 00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:50.639 The movement rejected propaganda secrecy. Instead of whispered oaths, Young 207 00:15:50.679 --> 00:15:56.639 Italy used pamphlets, newspapers, manifestos. Mizzini wrote endlessly, passionately, framing 208 00:15:56.720 --> 00:16:02.200 nationalism as a moral duty. He believed were instruments of 209 00:16:02.279 --> 00:16:07.519 human progress, each with a role assigned by providence. Italians 210 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:11.879 divided and humiliated had a sacred obligation to rise, not 211 00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:16.279 for material gain, but for the soul of humanity. Young 212 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:21.799 Italy targeted the young deliberately, students, artisans, junior officers, people 213 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:26.799 with energy and little to lose. It encouraged insurrection not 214 00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:29.960 as a coup by elites, but as a popular uprising. 215 00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:35.960 Where the Cobbinari had feared mass politics, Mizzini embraced it 216 00:16:37.080 --> 00:16:39.399 now yet honestly, in practice, I hate to say it, 217 00:16:39.399 --> 00:16:43.279 but Young Italy didn't fare hardly any better than its predecessor, 218 00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:46.759 of the Carbonari insurrections in the early eighteen thirties. All 219 00:16:46.759 --> 00:16:52.039 failed leaders were arrested, supporters were executed. Mazzini himself lived 220 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:56.639 a life perpetual exile, pursued by police and mocked by monarchs. 221 00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:02.279 To many contemporaries, he seemed a romantic failailure, brilliant sincere, 222 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:08.240 but totally impracticable. But here's the thing, guys ideas sometimes 223 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:12.119 they have long lives. The Carbonari had cracked the facade 224 00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:16.519 of restored absolutism. They proved that resistance was possible, that 225 00:17:16.680 --> 00:17:21.599 constitutions could be demanded at gunpoint, even briefly. Young Italy 226 00:17:21.640 --> 00:17:27.960 transformed that resistance into something larger, more enduring, a national ideology. 227 00:17:28.839 --> 00:17:33.000 Where the Carbonari whispered about reform, Mazzini shouted about unity. 228 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:40.680 Where they sought concessions, he demanded transformation. And together they 229 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.759 marked the opening chapters of a period of Italian history 230 00:17:43.759 --> 00:17:47.400 that will get into later called the resor Jimiento, the reorganization. 231 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:51.920 The Carbonari had first lit these fires in secrets, and 232 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.880 now Young Italy would carry the flame into the streets. Unification, 233 00:17:57.240 --> 00:18:01.400 though still decades away, had been written, and it would 234 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:07.480 not be erased. In the German Confederation, similar tensions emerged 235 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:11.920 the Humback Festival of eighteen thirty two, through tens of 236 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:16.839 thousands waving black, red and gold banners, colors that symbolized 237 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:23.480 a united German nation. Speakers likewise demanded constitutional governments, civil liberties, 238 00:18:23.720 --> 00:18:28.039 and national unity. But the response, in this case from 239 00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:33.000 conservative rulers was swift. There was censorship tightening, student groups 240 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:38.680 were simply dissolved, and police surveillance was expanded everywhere. The 241 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:44.240 message was unmistakable. Dreams of unity in Germany would not 242 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:50.279 be tolerated, at least for the moment. By the eighteen forties, 243 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:55.039 Europe was changing faster, honestly than its political systems could absorb. 244 00:18:55.880 --> 00:19:01.359 Railways now crisscrossed the continent, collapsing distances and accelerating commerce. 245 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:06.400 Factories were drawing millions into cities where housing was cramped, 246 00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:12.079 wages low, and disease common. A new social class, the 247 00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:16.200 industrial working class, was growing and it was increasingly aware 248 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:22.640 of itself. Economic hardship sharpened political tension. Poor harvests in 249 00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:26.200 the mid eighteen forties drove up food prices while industrial 250 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:30.279 downturns threw thousands out of work. And then in Britain, 251 00:19:30.680 --> 00:19:35.359 the Chartist movement demanded universal mail, suffrage and secret ballots. 252 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:36.960 And it's worth kind of digging into this for a 253 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.599 moment because I think it's indicative of what's going on 254 00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:42.359 in Europe at the time. There were a lot of 255 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:46.119 contradictions right now in the British political system. You know, 256 00:19:46.119 --> 00:19:50.359 we're talking about an industrialized nation that's honestly governed by 257 00:19:50.359 --> 00:19:53.480 a political system that excludes most of the people who 258 00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:55.839 made it run because it just hadn't been a lot 259 00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:59.839 of changes to Britain's political systems since the Middle Ages, 260 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:04.839 and out of those contradictions emerged the Chartist movement, which 261 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:09.759 was the first mass working class political movement in modern 262 00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:16.079 British history. Chartism was born in the eighteen thirties, a decade, 263 00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.680 to be honest with you, deep disappointment. The Reform Act 264 00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:24.960 that I mentioned earlier of eighteen thirty two had promised changed, 265 00:20:25.319 --> 00:20:31.200 but for working people it delivered very little. Rotten boroughs disappeared, 266 00:20:31.559 --> 00:20:34.680 and the middle class gained new political power, yet the 267 00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:39.880 vast majority of adult men, especially industrial workers, remained voteless. 268 00:20:40.599 --> 00:20:46.359 At the same time, industrialization was reshaping human life, long hours, 269 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:51.839 dangerous factories, child labor, and economic cycles of boom and 270 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:57.200 bust produced insecurity rather than prosperity. When the Poor Laws 271 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:01.599 were reformed in eighteen thirty four, were placing outdoor relief 272 00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:07.559 with grim workhouses. Many workers concluded that Parliament governed against them, 273 00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:11.880 not for them. The response was not immediate, rebellion, but 274 00:21:11.920 --> 00:21:16.960 an organization. In eighteen thirty eight, a group of reformers 275 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:20.160 drafted a short document that would give the movement its name, 276 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:26.000 the People's Charter. It contained six demand simple and radical 277 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:30.880 in their implications. They wanted universal mail suffrage, secret ballots, 278 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:36.960 equal electoral districts, payment for members of parliament, annual parliaments, 279 00:21:37.400 --> 00:21:41.240 and the abolition of property qualifications for members of parliament. 280 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:46.880 None of these proposals addressed wages, food prices, or factory 281 00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:50.160 hours directly, but together they struck at the heart of 282 00:21:50.200 --> 00:21:56.000 political power. The message was unmistakable. Social reform was impossible 283 00:21:56.240 --> 00:22:01.920 without political democracy. Chartism spread rapidly because it spoke the 284 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:07.799 language of injustice that working people already understood. Mass meetings 285 00:22:08.039 --> 00:22:13.440 filled open fields and town squares. Petitions were circulating in factories, 286 00:22:13.640 --> 00:22:18.759 hubs and workshops. Newspapers carried Chartist arguments into homes that 287 00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:23.359 had never before seen political writing aimed at them. Leaders 288 00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:27.400 such as Fergus O'Connor gave the movement a fiery public face, 289 00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:33.680 while quieter organizations built local associations across Britain. When made 290 00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:38.160 the Chartism revolutionary was not violence, but it was the 291 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:42.440 sheer scale honestly. For the first time, there were hundreds 292 00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:47.160 of thousands of working men acting together as one political class. 293 00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:52.799 They didn't ask for favors, they claimed rights. Parliament was 294 00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:59.000 inundated with petitions bearing millions of signatures, an unprecedented assertion 295 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:06.119 of popular sovereignty. The state, however, was not impressed. The 296 00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:10.400 first Great Chartist petition in eighteen thirty nine, was rejected 297 00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:15.279 overwhelmingly by the House of Commons. Frustrations billed into unrest. 298 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:20.200 In Newport, Wales, armed Chartist clash with troops in an 299 00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:25.640 uprising that edited in bloodshed and executions. Elsewhere, strikes and 300 00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:30.720 demonstrations rattled authorities, Yet the movement remained divided over strategy. 301 00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:36.039 Some believed simple moral force, peaceful persuasion, and political pressure 302 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:40.599 would bring the day. Others argued for physical force, convinced 303 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:45.160 that power would never healed without coercion, and that division 304 00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:50.599 haunted Chartism throughout its life. Despite setbacks, the movement endured. 305 00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:55.319 A second petition in eighteen forty two carried even more signatures, 306 00:23:55.640 --> 00:24:00.799 only to be rejected again same year. Economic depression triggered 307 00:24:00.839 --> 00:24:05.200 the plug plot strikes, as workers pulled plugs from factory 308 00:24:05.240 --> 00:24:12.599 boilers to halt production. Once more. Repression followed arrests, transportation, imprisonment, 309 00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:17.640 but Chartism, for a little bit at least, refused to die. 310 00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:23.079 Its final great moment came in eighteen forty eight, a 311 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:28.960 year when revolution swept across Europe. In Britain, chartists planned 312 00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:33.880 a massive demonstration at Kennington Common, accompanied by another petition, 313 00:24:34.519 --> 00:24:40.839 this one claiming nearly six million signatures. The government panicked quietly, 314 00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:45.839 mobilizing troops and enrolling special constables. When the day came, 315 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:51.160 the demonstration was peaceful and the petition, once examined, proved inflated. 316 00:24:51.759 --> 00:24:56.319 Parliament rejected it again, and the movement never recovered its 317 00:24:56.359 --> 00:25:01.759 former momentum. By the early eighteen fifties, Chartism had faded. 318 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:04.799 None of its six points had become law, and to 319 00:25:04.920 --> 00:25:08.720 many contemporaries it looked like a failure. But history judged 320 00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:14.480 it differently. Chartism changed Britain by changing political expectations. It 321 00:25:14.599 --> 00:25:18.880 normalized the idea that working people belonged in national politics. 322 00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:23.960 It trained a generation and organization debate and protest, and 323 00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:29.680 over time, slowly, grudgingly, almost every single Chartist demand became law. 324 00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:35.519 Secret ballots finally came in eighteen seventy two, property qualifications 325 00:25:35.559 --> 00:25:41.039 slowly vanished, members of parliament were paid, electoral districts were reformed, 326 00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:47.279 and universal mail suffrage followed by the early twentieth century. Still, 327 00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:50.799 Chartism failed in the short term because Britain's rulers simply 328 00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:54.039 refused to yield. It succeeded in the long term because 329 00:25:54.079 --> 00:25:58.440 industrialization and changed to society made opposition to it quite 330 00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:03.160 frankly untenable. The movement ultimately proved that democracy was not 331 00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:07.880 a gift bestowed from above, but a demand built from below. 332 00:26:12.319 --> 00:26:15.920 Now back on the continent, socialist ideas were actually gaining traction, 333 00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:19.319 and that brings us to another actor in our story, 334 00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:24.720 Karl Marx. Karl Marx was born in eighteen eighteen in 335 00:26:24.759 --> 00:26:27.640 the quiet Rhineland town of Trier, a place that looked 336 00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:32.200 ancient but lived under modern pressures. Roman ruins actually were 337 00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:37.640 directly next to Prussian bureaucratic offices. Catholic tradition co existed 338 00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:44.680 uneasily with Enlightenment rationalism. Marx's family embodied these tensions. His father, 339 00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:49.599 Henrik Marx, was a lawyer, Jewish by birth Lutheran by conversion, 340 00:26:49.799 --> 00:26:54.119 who embraced both Voltaire and Kant with the fervor of 341 00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:58.000 a man who believed reason could liberate society from him. 342 00:26:58.079 --> 00:27:01.599 Karl inherited both skepticism towards its authority at a confidence 343 00:27:01.640 --> 00:27:04.640 in the power of ideas. And we know that Marx 344 00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:10.160 was a difficult child, but brilliant, sharp tongued, restless, and 345 00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:14.359 impatient with convention. At the University of Bong and later Berlin, 346 00:27:14.680 --> 00:27:17.839 he immersed himself in philosophy, particularly the work of Heigel. 347 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:21.720 But Marx was never content to admire systems from a distance. 348 00:27:22.359 --> 00:27:25.440 He wanted to expose their contradictions. He wanted to open 349 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:28.279 up the machine and show everybody how it worked. While 350 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:33.119 his peers debated metaphysics, Marx sharpened his talents for polenic, 351 00:27:33.640 --> 00:27:37.400 learning how to argue not just persuasively, but honestly, a 352 00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:42.440 little mercilessly. In Berlin, he fell in with the young Hegelians, 353 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:47.240 radical intellectuals who used Hegel's philosophy to critique religion, monarchy, 354 00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:50.440 and tradition. Marx quickly emerged as one of the most 355 00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:55.920 aggressive voices among them. But even there he was dissatisfied philosophy. 356 00:27:55.960 --> 00:27:59.480 He started to suspect, explained the world brilliantly and never 357 00:27:59.559 --> 00:28:03.839 changed it, and so the realization pushed him towards journalism. 358 00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:07.720 In eighteen forty two, Marx became the editor of the 359 00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:12.559 reichland Zetunde, a liberal newspaper published in Cologne. For the 360 00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:16.720 first time, his ideas collided directly with political reality. Writing 361 00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:19.799 on censorship, poverty, land rights, and the plight of the 362 00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:24.759 rural poor, Marx discovered the limits of abstract liberalism. Prussian 363 00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:28.880 officials did not argue with his logic, they just shut 364 00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:34.640 the paper down. The experience radicalized him. If rational criticism 365 00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:38.319 could be silent so easily, perhaps the problem wasn't bad policies, 366 00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:43.319 but it was the structure of the system itself. Forced 367 00:28:43.359 --> 00:28:46.519 into exile, Marx moved to Paris in eighteen forty three, 368 00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:52.839 and there, amid the cafes, his thinking transformed. Paris exposed 369 00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:55.480 him to socialism not as a philosophy, but as a 370 00:28:55.519 --> 00:29:00.759 lived experience. He met with workers, artisans, and revolutionary who 371 00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:04.640 spoke not of ideas but of hunger, wages, and exploitation. 372 00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:08.759 It was also in Paris that Marx met the man 373 00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:14.279 who would become his lifelong collaborator, Friedrich Engels. Angeles was 374 00:29:14.440 --> 00:29:19.319 everything that Marx was not He was financially secure, socially graceful, 375 00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:23.279 and already emerged in the reality of industrial capitalism through 376 00:29:23.319 --> 00:29:27.920 his family's textile business. Yet intellectually they were two peas 377 00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:35.119 in a pod. Angles brought empirical observation, factories, slums, labor conditions, 378 00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:39.880 Marx brought theoretical firepower. Together they forged a new understanding 379 00:29:39.880 --> 00:29:43.839 of society history, driven not by ideals alone, but by 380 00:29:43.880 --> 00:29:48.880 material conditions and class struggle. By the mid eighteen forties, 381 00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:54.759 Marx's thinking had hardened into coherent worldview. He rejected utopian 382 00:29:54.839 --> 00:30:00.400 socialism as naive and liberal reform as insufficient. Capitalism, he argued, 383 00:30:00.839 --> 00:30:04.160 was not unjust because of moral failure. It was unjust 384 00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:10.720 because exploitation was the foundation of capital's very structure. The 385 00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:15.079 bourgeois didn't choose to exploit, they had to in order 386 00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:19.279 to survive in the system within which they controlled. Workers, meanwhile, 387 00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:23.279 were alienated from their labor, from their products, and ultimately 388 00:30:23.559 --> 00:30:28.599 from themselves. Prussian pressure followed Marx even into exile. In 389 00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:31.759 eighteen forty five, he was expelled from France and settled 390 00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:35.599 in Brussels, where he continued writing and organizing, and here 391 00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:39.960 his tone sharpened, gone was any lingering faith in the 392 00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:45.880 idea that gradual reform could work. Revolution, Marx now believed, 393 00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:50.519 was not only inevitable, it was necessary. Class conflict was 394 00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:54.359 not a tragic deviation from history, was actually the engine 395 00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:59.279 that drove everything. And as Europe drifted towards crisis in 396 00:30:59.319 --> 00:31:03.799 the late eighteen forties, Marx found himself increasingly at the 397 00:31:03.839 --> 00:31:07.279 center of radical networks. When a small group called the 398 00:31:07.319 --> 00:31:10.559 Communist League asked him to draft a statement of principles, 399 00:31:11.160 --> 00:31:14.039 he jumped at it. The result that was published in 400 00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:19.319 February of eighteen forty eight was the Communist Manifesto. It 401 00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:22.240