Page:Voices of Revolt - Volume 1.djvu/34

 30 Revolution; as Marx says, they are an element in the new world order.

Revolutionary statesmen may attain, in the study of the French Revolution, a plastic vision of the disintegration of a nation into various parts and the birth of a new unit from the débris. The Committee of Public Safety, this engine of the Revolution, this all-fructifying center of energy, without which there is no doubt that counter-revolution would have come out victorious, is also not the result of a ready-made plan, but, on the contrary, each cog of this machine was fashioned by the events of the day and only later became a portion of a unified organism. When the Committee of Public-Safety came into being, two-thirds of France was occupied by enemies, the coast lines were blockaded by the English fleet, the cities in rebellion—and a rebellion led by the Gironde—Toulon and Brest surrendered the keys to these cities to the king, and Danton, who was the head of the first Committee of Safety, was planning to negotiate with the enemy, while Robespierre was of the opinion that negotiation under these circumstances would be equivalent to the beginning of the end; Danton was overthrown in the Convention. Robespierre assumed leadership. It is an error to believe that the Committee of Public Safety tyrannized the Convention, that the Convention led only a shadowy existence. The Committee of Public Safety was appointed by the Convention, regularly