Revolution and Counter-Revolution – Part I Chapter XII. End of Part I – Part II Chapters I – III
Chapter XII
The Pacifist and Antimilitarist Character of the Revolution
The pacifist and therefore antimilitarist character of the Revolution is easily grasped in light of the preceding chapter.
1. Science Will Bring an End to War, The Military, and Police
In the technological paradise of the Revolution, peace has to be perpetual, for science has shown that war is evil, and technology can overcome all its causes.
Accordingly, there is a fundamental incompatibility between the Revolution and the armed forces. These will have to be abolished. In the universal republic there will only be a police force which will be abolished as soon as scientific and technological advances have completed the eradication of crime.
The uniform, by its mere presence, implicitly testifies to some truths that, although undoubtedly somewhat generic, are certainly of a counter-revolutionary character
2. The Doctrinal Incompatibility Between the Revolution and the Uniform
The uniform, by its mere presence, implicitly testifies to some truths that, although undoubtedly somewhat generic, are certainly of a counter-revolutionary character:
– the existence of values that are greater than life itself and for which one should be willing to die – which is contrary to the socialist mentality, wholly characterized by abhorrence of risk and pain and by adoration of security and utmost attachment to earthly life;
the existence of values that are greater than life itself and for which one should be willing to die – which is contrary to the socialist mentality, wholly characterized by abhorrence of risk and pain and by adoration of security and utmost attachment to earthly life
– the existence of morality, for the military condition is entirely based upon ideas of honor, of force placed at the service of good and turned against evil, and so on.
3. The Temperment of the Revolution is Contrary to the Military Life
Lastly, there is a temperamental antipathy between the Revolution and the military spirit. The Revolution, before it has full control, is verbose, declamatory, and scheming. The resolution of matters in a direct, drastic, straightforward way—the military way— displeases what we could call the present temperament of the Revolution. We stress present in allusion to the current stage of the Revolution among us, because there is nothing more despotic and cruel than the Revolution when it is omnipotent. Russia has provided an eloquent example of this. But even there the divergence remained, since the military spirit is quite different from that of the executioner.
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Having analyzed the revolutionary utopia in its various aspects, we close the study of the Revolution.
Russia (Nobility editor: and Nazi Germany) has provided an eloquent example of this. But even there the divergence remained, since the military spirit is quite different from that of the executioner.
End of Part I
Part II — The Counter-Revolution
Chapter I
The Counter-Revolution: Is A Reaction
One of the many protests against the Drag Queen Story Hour, throughout the United States.
1. The Counter-Revolution: A Specific and Direct Fight Against the Revolution
If such is the Revolution, what is the Counter-Revolution? In the literal sense of the word — therefore stripped of the illegitimate and demagogic connotations given it in everyday language — the Counter-Revolution is a reaction. That is to say, it is an action directed against another action. It is to the Revolution what, for example, the Counter-Reformation is to the Pseudo-Reformation.
2. The Nobility of This Reaction
The Counter-Revolution derives its nobility and importance from this character of reaction. Indeed, if the Revolution is killing us, nothing is more indispensable than a reaction that aims to crush it. To be adverse in principle to a counter-revolutionary reaction is the same as desiring to deliver the world over to the Revolution’s dominion.
A TFP Student Action campaign at George Washington University.
3. A Reaction Turned Against Present-Day Adversaries
It must be added that the Counter-Revolution, in this light, is not and cannot be a movement in the clouds, one that fights phantoms. It has to be the Counter-Revolution of the twentieth century, waged against the Revolution as it is in fact today. Therefore, it has to be waged against the revolutionary passions as they are inflamed today, revolutionary ideas as formulated today, revolutionary ambiences as seen today, revolutionary art and culture as they are today, and against the individuals and currents of opinion that, at whatever level, are the most active promoters of the Revolution today. The Counter-Revolution is not, then, a mere recitation of the evil deeds of the Revolution in the past, but an effort to bar its course in the present.
Fr. James Martin Protest at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama.
4. The Modernity and Integrity of the Counter-Revolution
The modernity of the Counter-Revolution does not consist in ignoring the Revolution nor in making a pact with it, even in the slightest degree. To the contrary, it consists in knowing the Revolution in its unchanging essence and in its relevant contemporary accidents, and combating the former and the latter intelligently, astutely, and systematically, using every licit means and the assistance of every child of light.
Chapter II
Reaction and Historical Immobility
1. What Is To Be Restored
If the Revolution is disorder….
If the Revolution is disorder, the Counter-Revolution is the restoration of order. And by order we mean the peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ, that is, Christian civilization, austere and hierarchical, fundamentally sacral, antiegalitarian, and antiliberal.
….the Counter-Revolution is the restoration of order.
2. What Is To Be Innovated
However, by force of the historical law according to which immobility does not exist in temporal things, the order born of the Counter-Revolution must have its own characteristics that will make it different from the order that existed before the Revolution. Of course, this affirmation does not refer to principles but to accidents. These accidents are, nevertheless, of such importance that they deserve to be mentioned.
Since it is impossible for us to go into this matter at length, we will merely note that, in general, when a fracture or a laceration occurs in an organism, the zone of mending or healing is marked by special safeguards. It is the loving care of Providence acting through secondary causes against the possibilities of a new disaster. This can be observed in the case of broken bones, whose mend forms as a reinforcement in the very zone of the fracture, or in the case of scar tissue. This is a material image of an analogous fact that takes place in the spiritual order. As a general rule, the sinner who truly amends has a greater horror for sin than he had in the best years before his fall. Such is the history of the penitent saints. So, also, after each trial, the Church emerges specially armed against the evil that tried to prostate her. A typical example of this is the Counter-Reformation.
In general, when a fracture or a laceration occurs in an organism, the zone of mending or healing is marked by special safeguards.
By virtue of this law, the order born of the Counter-Revolution will have to shine even more than that of the Middle Ages in the three principal points in which the latter was wounded by the Revolution:
- A profound respect for the rights of the Church and of the Papacy, and the sacralization, to the utmost possible extent, of the values of temporal life, all of this out of opposition to secularism, interconfessionalism, atheism, and pantheism, as well as their respective consequences.
The excommunicated Henry IV at Canossa doing public penance with Pope Gregory VII looking on. Painting by Eduard Schwoiser
- A spirit of hierarchy marking all aspects of society and State, of culture and life, out of opposition to the egalitarian metaphysics of the Revolution.
Coronation of Tsar Alexander II by Mikhail Zikhi
- A diligence in detecting and combating evil in its embryonic or veiled forms, in fulminating it with execration and a note of infamy, and in punishing it with unbreakable firmness in all its manifestations, particularly in those that offend against orthodoxy and purity of customs, in opposition to the liberal metaphysics of the Revolution and its tendency to give free rein and protection to evil.
Bronx, New York Traditional Marriage Rally on May 15, 2011
Chapter III
The Counter-Revolution and the Craving After Novelties
The tendency of so many of our contemporaries, children of the Revolution, is to unrestrictedly love the present, adore the future, and unconditionally consign the past to scorn and hatred. This tendency gives rise to a series of misunderstandings about the Counter-Revolution that should be brought to an end. Above all, it seems to many that the traditionalist and conservative character of the Counter-Revolution renders it a born enemy of human progress.
1. The Counter-Revolution Is Traditionalist
A. Reason
As we have seen, the Counter-Revolution is an effort developed in terms of the Revolution. The Revolution constantly turns against a whole legacy of Christian institutions, doctrines, customs, and ways of being, feeling, and thinking that we received from our forefathers and that are not yet completely abolished. The Counter-Revolution is therefore the defender of Christian traditions.
Strangler Fig, wrapping itself around another tree.
B. The Smoking Wick
The Revolution attacks Christian civilization in a manner that is more or less like that of a certain tree of the Brazilian forest. This tree, the strangler fig Urostigma olearia, by wrapping itself around the trunk of another tree, completely covers it and kills it. In its “moderate” and low-velocity currents, the Revolution approached Christian civilization in order to wrap itself around it and kill it. We are in a period in which this strange phenomenon of destruction is still incomplete. In other words, we are in a hybrid situation wherein what we would almost call the mortal remains of Christian civilization, and the aroma and remote action of many traditions only recently abolished yet still somehow alive in the memory of man, coexist with many revolutionary institutions and customs.
Faced with the struggle between a splendid Christian tradition in which life still stirs and a revolutionary action inspired by the mania for novelties to which Leo XIII referred in the opening words to the encyclical Rerum Novarum, it is only natural that the true counter-revolutionary be a born defender of the treasury of good traditions, for these are the values of the Christian past that remain and must be saved. In this sense, the counter-revolutionary acts like Our Lord, Who did not come to extinguish the smoking wick nor to break the bruised reed.39 Therefore, he must lovingly try to save all these Christian traditions. A counter-revolutionary action is, essentially, a traditionalist action.
C. False Traditionalism
The traditionalist spirit of the Counter-Revolution has nothing in common with a false and narrow traditionalism, which conserves certain rites, styles, or customs merely out of love for old forms and without any appreciation for the doctrine that gave rise to them. This would be archaeologism, not a sound and living traditionalism.
2. The Counter-Revolution is Conservative
Is the Counter-Revolution conservative? In one sense, it is, and profoundly so. And in another sense, it is not, and also profoundly so.
If it is a question of conserving something of the present that is good and deserves to live, the Counter-Revolution is conservative.
A “contemporary” stained glass windows that was installed in the Medieval Cathedral of Nevers.
But if it is a question of perpetuating the hybrid situation in which we find ourselves, of keeping the revolutionary process at its present stage, while remaining immobile like a statue of salt, on the sidelines of history and of time, embracing alike what is good and evil in our century, thus seeking a perpetual and harmonious coexistence of good and evil, then, the Counter-Revolution neither is nor can be conservative.
3. The Counter-Revolution Is An Essential Condition for Authentic Progress
Does the Counter-Revolution favor progress? Yes, if the progress is authentic. No, if it is the march toward the revolutionary utopia.
One of several crowns that are suspended above the streets for Christmas time at Zona Rosa in Kansas City, Missouri.
In its material aspect, genuine progress consists in the rightful use of the forces of nature according to the law of God, for the service of man. For this reason, the Counter-Revolution makes no pacts with today’s hypertrophied technicalism, with its adoration of novelties, speed, and machines, nor with the deplorable tendency to organize human society mechanistically. These are excesses that Pius XII condemned profoundly and precisely.40
Nor is the material progress of a people the main element of progress in Christian understanding. The latter lies above all in the full development of the powers of the soul and the ascent of mankind toward moral perfection. Thus, a counter-revolutionary conception of progress supposes the prevalence of spiritual values over material considerations. Accordingly, it is proper to the Counter-Revolution to promote, among individuals and the multitudes, a far greater esteem for all that has to do with true religion, philosophy, art, and literature than for what has to do with the good of the body and the exploitation of matter.
Finally, to clearly differentiate between the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary concepts of progress, it is necessary to note that the counter-revolutionary takes into account that the world will always be a valley of tears and a passageway to heaven, while the revolutionary considers that progress should make the earth a paradise in which man lives happily with no thought of eternity.
From the very notion of rightful progress, one can see that the revolutionary process is its contrary.
Thus, the Counter-Revolution is an essential condition for the preservation of the normal development of authentic progress and the defeat of the revolutionary utopia, which has only a facade of progress.
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Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Part I, Chapter XII. End of Part I. Part II, Chapters I – III pp. 69-80.
