Editing Reactionary (section)

== History and usage ==
{{see also|Glossary of the French Revolution|List of people associated with the French Revolution}}
The [[French Revolution]] gave the English language three politically descriptive words denoting anti-progressive politics: (i) "reactionary", (ii) "conservative", and (iii) "[[Right-wing politics|right]]". "Reactionary" derives from the French word {{lang|fr|réactionnaire}} (a late 18th-century coinage based on the word {{lang|fr|réaction}}, "reaction") and "[[conservative]]" from {{lang|fr|conservateur}}, identifying monarchist parliamentarians opposed to the revolution.<ref name=Austin>''The Governments of Europe'', Frederic Austin OGG, Rev. Ed., The MacMillan Co., 1922, p. 485.</ref> 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". The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' cites the first English language usage in 1799 in a translation of [[Lazare Carnot]]'s letter on the [[Coup of 18 Fructidor]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Reply of L. N. M. Carnot, citizen of France ... to the report made on the conspiracy of the 18th Fructidor |last=Carnot |first=L. N. M. |year=1799 |publisher=J. Wright |location=London |page=149| edition=3rd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xMdDAAAAYAAJ&q=reactionaries&pg=PA149 |via=books.google.com |access-date=11 March 2012}}</ref>

[[File:Europe 1848 map en.png|thumb|Several [[Revolutions of 1848|revolutions occurred in 1848]] and early 1849, before reactionary forces regained control and the revolutions collapsed.]]
During the French Revolution, conservative forces (especially within the [[Catholic Church]]) organized opposition to the [[Progressivism|progressive]] sociopolitical and economic changes brought by the Revolution; and so Conservatives fought to restore the temporal authority of the Church and [[The Crown|Crown]]. In 19th Century European politics, the reactionary class included the Catholic Church's hierarchy and the [[aristocracy]], [[Royal family|royal families]], and [[Monarchism|royalists]] 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 the [[House of Bourbon]] dynasty were labeled the [[legitimist]] reaction. In the [[French Third Republic|Third Republic]], the monarchists were the reactionary faction, later renamed ''Conservative''.<ref name=Austin />

In the 19th century, reactionary denoted people who idealized [[feudalism]] and the pre-modern era—before the [[Industrial Revolution]] and the French Revolution—when economies were mostly [[Agrarianism|agrarian]], a [[landed aristocracy]] dominated society, a [[Hereditary monarchy|hereditary king]] ruled, and the Catholic Church was society's moral center. Those labeled "reactionary" favored the [[aristocracy]] instead of the [[middle class|middle]] and [[working class]]es. Reactionaries [[Opposition to democracy|opposed democracy]] and [[parliamentarism]].{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

=== Thermidorian Reaction ===
{{main|Thermidorian Reaction}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=March 2024}}
The [[Thermidorian Reaction]] was a movement within the French Revolution against the perceived excesses of the [[Jacobin Club|Jacobins]]. [[Maximilien Robespierre]]'s [[Reign of Terror]] ended on 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor year II in the [[French Republican Calendar]]). The overthrow of Robespierre signaled the reassertion of the French [[National Convention]] over the [[Committee 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 the [[guillotine]] against alleged [[counter-revolutionaries]], set a middle course between the monarchists and the radicals, and ushered in a time of relative exuberance and its accompanying corruption.

=== Restoration of the French monarchy ===
{{see also|Bourbon Restoration in France}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=March 2024}}
[[File:Cruikshank - Old Bumblehead.png|thumb|Caricature of [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] preparing for the [[Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis|French intervention in Spain]] to help the Spanish Royalists, by [[George Cruikshank]]]]
{{Toryism |expanded=related}}
With the [[Congress of Vienna]], inspired by Tsar [[Alexander I of Russia]], the monarchs of [[Russian Empire|Russia]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]] and [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] formed the [[Holy Alliance]], a form of collective security against [[revolution]] and [[Bonapartism]]. This instance of reaction was surpassed by a movement that developed in France when, after the second fall of [[Napoleon]], the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]], or reinstatement of the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbon]] dynasty, ensued. This time it was to be a [[constitutional monarchy]], with an [[election|elected]] 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 the ''[[ancien régime]]''. Nevertheless, King [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] worried he would still suffer an intractable parliament. He was delighted with the [[ultra-royalist]]s, or Ultras, whom the election returned, declaring that he had found a ''[[chambre introuvable]]'', literally, an "unfindable house".

It was the [[Declaration 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 the [[French 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, the ''Chambre Introuvable'' set about reverting every law to return society to conditions prior to the [[absolute monarchy]] of [[Louis 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 the ''Chambre Introuvable'' in the history of other countries.

=== Clerical philosophers ===
{{main|Clerical philosophers}}
In the [[French Revolution]]'s aftermath, France was continually wracked by quarrels between right-wing [[legitimists]] and left-wing revolutionaries. Herein arose the clerical philosophers—[[Joseph de Maistre]], [[Louis de Bonald]], [[François-René de Chateaubriand]]—whose answer was restoring the [[House of Bourbon]] and reinstalling the Catholic Church as the [[established church]]. Since then, France's political spectrum has featured similar divisions (see {{lang|fr|[[Action Française]]}}). The teachings of the 19th-century popes buttressed the ideas of the clerical philosophers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fawcett |first=Edmund |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TO3eDwAAQBAJ |title=Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition |date=2020 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-17410-5|pages=3–25}}</ref>

=== Metternich and containment ===
{{see also|Age of Metternich}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=March 2024}}
From 1815 to 1848, [[Prince Metternich]], the [[List of foreign ministers of Austria-Hungary|foreign minister]] of the [[Austrian Empire]], stepped in to organize the [[Cordon sanitaire (politics)|containment of revolutionary forces]] through international [[Political alliance|alliances]] to prevent [[revolutionary]] fervor. At the [[Congress of Vienna]], he was very influential in establishing the new order, the [[Concert of Europe]], after the defeat of [[Napoleon]].

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 Tsar [[Alexander I of Russia|Alexander I]] (who aided the [[liberalism|liberal]] 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 opposing [[nationalist]] and liberal tendencies within the Church. His basic philosophy was based on [[Edmund Burke]], who championed the need for old roots and the orderly development of society. He opposed [[democracy|democratic]] and [[parliament]]ary institutions but favored [[modernization|modernizing]] existing structures through gradual [[reform movement|reform]]. Despite Metternich's efforts, a series of [[1848 Revolutions|revolutions rocked Europe in 1848]].

=== 20th century ===
{{see also|Reactionary modernism}}
[[File:Le suffrage à 2 tours vaincra la réaction.jpg|thumb|right|1932 poster of the [[Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste|French Radical Party]] (PRRRS) against the attempt by the [[Pierre Laval#First Laval government|Laval government]] to replace the [[two-round system]], which favored the Radicals, with [[Plurality voting|plurality]] ("''The two-round suffrage will overcome the reaction.''")]]
In the 20th century, proponents of [[socialism]] and [[communism]] used the term ''reactionary'' polemically to label their enemies, such as the [[White Armies]], who fought in the [[Russian Civil War]] against the [[Bolsheviks]] after the [[October Revolution]]. In [[Marxism|Marxist]] terminology, ''reactionary'' is a [[pejorative]] adjective denoting people whose ideas might appear to be socialist but, in their opinion, contain elements of [[feudalism]], [[capitalism]], [[nationalism]], [[fascism]], or other characteristics of the [[ruling class]], including usage between conflicting factions of Marxist movements.{{Citation needed|date=November 2018}} Non-socialists also used the label ''reactionary'', with British diplomat [[John Jordan (diplomat)|Sir John Jordan]] nicknaming the Chinese [[Royalist Party]] the "reactionary party" for supporting the [[Qing dynasty]] and opposing [[republicanism]] during the [[Xinhai Revolution]] in 1912.{{sfnp|Kit-ching|1978|p=51}}

Despite being traditionally related to right-wing governments, elements of reactionary politics were present in left-wing governments as well, such as when [[Soviet Union]] leader [[Joseph Stalin]] implemented conservative social policies, such as the  [[LGBT rights in the Soviet Union|re-criminalisation of homosexuality]], restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of the ''[[Zhenotdel]]'' women's department.<ref>Sandle, Mark (1999). ''A Short History of Soviet Socialism''. UCL Press. [[Doi (identifier)|doi]]:10.4324/9780203500279. {{ISBN|978-1-8572-8355-6}}.</ref>

''Reactionary'' is also used to denote supporters of [[Authoritarianism|authoritarian]] [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] régimes such as [[Vichy France]], Spain under [[Francisco Franco|Franco]], and Portugal under [[António Salazar|Salazar]]. One example occurred after [[Boris Pasternak]] was awarded the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]]. On 26 October 1958, the day following the [[Nobel Committee]]'s announcement, Moscow's ''Literary Gazette'' ran a polemical article by David Zaslavski entitled, ''Reactionary [[Propaganda]] Uproar over a Literary Weed''.<ref>{{cite book |first=Olga |last=Ivinskaya |author-link=Olga Ivinskaya |title=A Captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak |publisher=Doubleday |date=1978 |page=224 |isbn=978-0006353362}}</ref>

The [[Italian Fascists]] desired a new social order based on the ancient feudal principle of delegation (though without [[serfdom]]) in their enthusiasm for the [[corporate 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."<ref>Gerarchia, March, 1923 quoted in [[George Seldes]], ''Facts and Fascism'', eighth edition, New York: In Fact, 1943, p. 277.</ref> [[Giovanni Gentile]] and Mussolini also attacked certain reactionary policies, particularly monarchism, and veiled some aspects of Italian conservative [[Catholicism]]. They wrote, "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not taken [[Joseph 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|date=March 2024}}

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 in [[absolute monarchies]]. Fascist [[one-party state]]s were as centralized as most [[communist states]], and fascism's intense [[nationalism]] was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Although the German [[Nazi]]s did not consider themselves fascists or reactionaries and condemned the traditional German forces of reaction (Prussian [[monarchist]]s, [[Junker (Prussia)|Junker]] nobility, and [[Roman Catholicism in Germany|Roman Catholic clergy]]) as being among their enemies, next to their [[Roter Frontkämpferbund|Red Front]] enemies in the Nazi Party march {{lang|de|[[Die Fahne hoch]]}}, they virulently opposed revolutionary leftism. The fact that the Nazis called their 1933 rise to power the {{lang|de|[[Volksgemeinschaft]]}} (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 of [[Frederick the Great]]. They also rejected the [[Weimar Republic]] parliamentary era under the [[Weimar 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 towards [[Bolshevism]] and instead idealized more reactionary parts of Germany's past. They referred to [[Nazi Germany]] as the [[German Realm]] and informally as the ''Drittes Reich'' (Third Realm), a reference to past reactionary German entities: the [[Holy Roman Empire]] (First Realm) and the [[German Empire]] (Second Realm).{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

[[Clericalist]] movements, sometimes labeled as [[clerical 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 was [[Nicolás Gómez Dávila]].{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Political scientist [[Corey Robin]] argues in his 2011 book ''[[The Reactionary Mind]]'' that modern [[conservatism in the United States]] is "inherently reactionary".<ref>{{cite web |last=Johnson |first=David V. |date=22 March 2012 |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/corey-robin-reactionary-mind-conservatism/ |title=Contraception and Counterrevolution: An Interview with Corey Robin |website=Boston Review |access-date=12 August 2024}}</ref>

=== 21st century ===
{{main|Dark Enlightenment|Nippon Kaigi}}
[[File:Warning in Internet Cafe in Thu Duc, Vietnam-1.jpg|thumb|300px|
"Accessing reactional and perverse websites strictly prohibited" 
- Warning against visiting reactionary websites in a [[Vietnam]]ese [[internet café]]]]
[[Japan]]'s right-wing [[Japanese nationalism|nationalist]] and [[Right-wing populism#Japan|populist]] movements and related organizations, which emerged rapidly from the late 20th century, are considered "reactionary" because they revised the post-war [[Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution|peace constitution]] and have an advocating attitude toward the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese Empire]].<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Yul |editor1-last=Sohn |editor2-first=T. J. |editor2-last=Pempel |title=Japan and Asia's Contested Order: The Interplay of Security, Economics, and Identity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4F5qDwAAQBAJ&q=Reactionary+Nippon+Kaigi&pg=PA148 |quote=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). |date=2018 |page=148 |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media]] |isbn=9789811302565 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

"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.<ref name="TechCrunch: Geeks for Monarchy">{{cite web |url=https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/ |website=TechCrunch |title=Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries |date=22 November 2013 |first=Klint |last=Finley |access-date=14 December 2023}}</ref> The phrase "neo-reactionary" was coined by "Mencius Moldbug" (the pseudonym of [[Curtis Yarvin]], a computer programmer) in 2008.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/ol3-jacobite-history-of-world.html |title=Unqualified Reservations: OL3: the Jacobite history of the world |website=unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk |access-date=14 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/olx-simple-sovereign-bankruptcy.html |title=Unqualified Reservations: OLX: a simple sovereign bankruptcy procedure |website=unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk |access-date=14 February 2015}} ([[George Orwell]] used it in a different context in 1943 – {{cite web |url=http://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19431224.html |title=As I Please |work=Tribune |date=24 December 1943 |first=George |last=Orwell |author-link=George Orwell}})</ref> [[Arnold Kling]] used it in 2010 to describe "Moldbug", and the subculture quickly adopted it.<ref name="TechCrunch: Geeks for Monarchy" /> Proponents of the "Neo-reactionary" movement (also called the "[[Dark Enlightenment]]" movement) include philosopher [[Nick Land]], among others.<ref>{{cite web |first=Matthew |last=Walther |url=https://spectator.org/blog/57516/dark-enlightenment-silly-not-scary |title=The Dark Enlightenment Is Silly Not Scary |website=[[The American Spectator]] |date=January 23, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140126235319/https://spectator.org/blog/57516/dark-enlightenment-silly-not-scary |access-date=2 October 2014 |archive-date=2014-01-26}}</ref>