The origins of political eschatology in Europe: The French Revolution as a cosmic struggle of good and evil forces

Eschatology is a religious doctrine about the coming end of the world and the coming of a new age. Beginning in the late 18th century, eschatology acquired a political content and was used often by many European ideologies, especially nationalism and socialism, to explain the course of history. Revolutions often included an eschatological content. The French Revolution was the first major European revolution with a large eschatological content. This article examines the influence of eschatology on the course of this revolution. The eschatological tendencies, begun in the French and other revolutions, culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917-1922. These tendencies included dividing people into categories of the saved and condemned, demonization of enemies, especially internal ones, conspiracy theories, compiling criteria for membership in a political or ethnic nation, determining norms of correct behavior for members of the nation, compiling criteria for the exclusion of people from the ranks of the nation. The article theme has a certain relevance to contemporary outbreaks of political and religious eschatology in different movements and ideologies.