“One of the greatest disasters ever to befall European civilisation”

I thought that I had blogged about this before, but I cannot find it, so I’ll do it again. Zhou Enlai did not say it was “too early to say” what impact the French Revolution had. In the Financial Times in June last year, Richard McGregor reported:

Zhou was not referring to the 1789 storming of the Bastille in a discussion with Richard Nixon during the late US president’s pioneering China visit. Zhou’s answer related to events only three years earlier – the 1968 students’ riots in Paris, according to Nixon’s interpreter at the time.

At a seminar in Washington to mark the publication of Henry Kissinger’s book, On China, Chas Freeman, a retired foreign service officer, sought to correct the long-standing error.

“I distinctly remember the exchange. There was a mis­understanding that was too delicious to invite correction,” said Mr Freeman.

He said Zhou had been confused when asked about the French Revolution and the Paris Commune. “But these were exactly the kinds of terms used by the students to describe what they were up to in 1968 and that is how Zhou understood them.”

I mention it because Jesse Norman, the Tory MP for Hereford who achieved a starring role in the rebellion against Lords reform on account of the Prime Minister having a “firm” word with him in the Lobby, said this earlier today:

Bastille Day today: effective start of the French Revolution in 1789, one of the greatest disasters ever to befall European civilisation.

I wondered if it were not too early for a true conservative to say.

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• andagain

  They are engaged in the ” systematic destruction of the fabric of British society”, and they give up anything as soon as it seems to be unpopular?

  Presumably you must think that the systematic destruction of the fabric of British society is not unpopular with the British public. What a curious belief.

• zandeman

  I’m sorry I read this. It’s spoiled my enjoyment of Zhou’s response.

• postageincluded

  Please God not another Rentoul list. Enough already.

• postageincluded

  Yes the English lost, thank goodness. If we’d won England would now be part of the United Kingdom of France and Great Britain, capital Paris.

• Eritres

  Only English subjects and happy to be just that, subjects, can call the French Revolution a disaster. I guess it is because English people were incapable in succeeding to overthrow their king and so, as to not look like the sore losers they are, need to call it a disaster.

  Vive la Révolution Française, vive la France !

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Dulcimer-Oneseventwo/100003258090363 Dulcimer Oneseventwo

  Oh – Bastille Day – I thought they mean when Don Revie got the England job, ahead of Brian Clough !

• porkfright

  That day was a far greater disaster for England than anything apart from the decision to join in the war against Iraq.