Question: [transl] Hello Mr. LaRouche, my question is, regarding Jacobinism in Latin America. Here in Mexico, we have it very strongly, among several labor unions, in the PRD party, in the Zapatista movement. I would like you to explain to us, your definition of Jacobinism.

LaRouche: Well, Jacobinism is essentially a disease, which was invented, and developed, in France, in order to prevent France from making the kind of reform which had happened in the United States.

The way to look at it, is to look at from the standpoint of [Jean Sylvain] Bailly, who is, probably in a sense, more able at this than Lafayette. Lafayette was a good-hearted person. But Lafayette was very close, in a sense emotionally, to the King, King Louis XVI; and was actually part of that caste, even though he was a very good representative of it. And, also remember, Lafayette was part of the youth movement--not to be forgotten.

But, anyway, Bailly had a much better conception of this. But, the two of them--Bailly and Lafayette--proposed a constitution for the monarchy, which would have saved the monarchy, and made the kind of reform, using the monarchy as an institution, which would have done in France, what had happened, in the reform--in the same year--in the United States, with the Constitutional republic.

So, that was the Jacobin movement's function, which was run, from Britain, by the British Foreign Office, through people like Jeremy Bentham, working for Lord Shelburne: They ran the operation. For example, the Bastille operation. The seizure of the Bastille was organized by two creatures, in the context of foreign armies occupying France. And the foreign armies were there, occupying the area around Paris, to try to suppress the republican Constitution, which had been voted up, but not adopted, by the King--voted up by the initiative of Bailly and Lafayette.

So, these Jacobins were, actually, British-directed operatives. It started with Louis-Philippe and Jacques Necker. Louis-Philippe was a British agent; Jacques Necker had been an agent of Lord Shelburne from his youth, from a youthful period. He was very close to Shelburne, through people like Gibbon and so forth, who were part of that Swiss environment, at that time, which was owned by Shelburne. So, the head of the British East India Company, Shelburne, essentially, had owned Necker, made his career; Necker had helped to bankrupt France by his service there.

And the whole thing was run as a stunt, where the [Bastille] guards were instructed to shoot--there were no prisoners of any importance; there were a few insane people, who were being transferred to a mental institution; hadn't been done yet. But, there were guards, these few insane people, and nothing else there. The guards were instructed to shoot. Louis-Philippe, and so forth, raised the money; armed the mob; besieged the thing; the guard surrendered, and then the mobs chopped their heads off, stuck 'em on pikes, took the gibbering idiots who were taken out [of the prison], put on the shoulders of the crowd. The crowd marched off, with the heads of the guards on pikes, off to the next event--and this was an election campaign to elect Necker the Prime Minister of France.

And, from that point on, it went down and down. Danton and Marat were both British trained agents, of the British Foreign Office. That's the character of Jacobinism.

Now, then you had this thing went through a phase--it went through the Barras phase, who became the successor of the Jacobins. And, then you had the Napoleonic phase. And Napoleon was the first modern fascist.

So, all the way through, this theory has been, of the idea that Jacobinism was the "left" wing, and the "right" wing was the right-wing side of Napoleon: Both were controlled by bankers. Not necessarily bankers, in the sense of bank owners, as such, but in the sense of financiers, who owned banks. So, these financier groups, using both a combination of both right-wing, like Barras, and left-wing, like the British agents who were the left of the operation, played one against the other, in order to destroy France.

That's what Jacobinism is.

Now, what's happened is this. Let's take the case of the German SPD, and some other labor parties around the world: The problem of the international labor movement--and this, of course, in the influence of the Spanish Civil War in Mexico, its spillover there. Franco was a fascist, of course. But then, you have this other syndrome, hmm? Here's a fascist--Maximilian was a fascist, hmm? So, you have the right-wing fascists, and you have the left-wing phenomenon. The distinction is this: In the labor movement, the focus on an anarcho-sindicalist approach to the interest of the laboring man, became a substitute for a Classical education. So, that the labor movements were very poorly developed as state movements. Now, in the case of Mexico, of course, in the PRI--people I've known in the PRI, represented a patriotic tradition, coming out of very peculiar circumstances, kind of a Treaty of Westphalia peace among forces, which ended this great period of civil war in Mexico. But, there were great statesmen who came into the picture. But also, in the labor movement, in the United States, in Europe, in South and Central American, there's also a Jacobinism tendency, which has been deliberately fostered, by an anarcho-sindicalist operation, which is the left side of fascism.

That's why, in the case of Mexico, for example, during the 1920s and 1930s, the classification of this problem in Mexico, by the U.S. military intelligence services--as in France--was "Synarchist/Nazi-Communist": Meaning that the people in the operation, the Synarchist operation--like Jacques Soustelle. Remember, when Jacques Soustelle's result: Jacques Soustelle was this so-called "leftist," of a certain type, who operated in Mexico, based on this cultural nonsense. He was appointed by British intelligence, to serve on the French intelligence staff of de Gaulle, during the war. He later turned up, as the man who was organizing, with Spain--with the Phalangist types, from Spain--was organizing the attempted assassination of de Gaulle; such that a friend of mine, who was General Revault d'Allonnes, who was the chief general for de Gaulle at that time, was out to kill him.

So, Soustelle, who is a subordinate level, a secondary level--not as significant as Alexandre Kojeve--was a typical fascist! And the typical fascist has a left side, and a right side, just as Mussolini did. Mussolini was a product of this--same thing: left side/right side. And, that is a problem

The way we have to combat that, in my view, is what I do: Combat this by presenting the question of man! Man, man, man! Man as what he is, not an animal! Not an animal with physical needs, but man as a human being, with a need for a sense of immortality as a human being!

And, the labor movement's interest should be in the general welfare, not in these little, petty Jacobin-type of incidents; not in, what we call in German "Schadenfroh" [ph]. Not in pleasure, in bringing a tyrant, although a tyrant should come down. But, we shouldn't take sordid, sadistic pleasure in that. Our job is to defend ourselves, and defend the coming generations, defend the nation, and to be nation-builders. And to be respected, and have a dignified life as nation-builders. And, unfortunately, the labor movement has not, generally, developed in that direction, sufficiently. I think, in my relationship to the labor movement has always been that point: Is that, you must get out of this nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts kind of (as we say, in the U.S.) operation; you must go back to the idea of the dignity of the individual. The dignity of the family; the dignity of the person who works and produces; the dignity of the farmer. And the basic thing, is to fight for their dignity, and look at their material conditions of life, as material conditions required for their dignity, and for the dignity and success of their coming generations. They should be nation-builders, in spirit, not look at themselves as an underclass, in revolt against an oppressor, but look at themselves as part of the ruling class: the ruling class of citizens, of a society.

-30-