Skip to main content
The Morning Star 2026 Conference
1848: the year of revolutions
KEITH FLETT looks back 170 years to a year of unrest across Europe
The 1848 revolution in France

IT IS 170 years since the French people overthrew King Louis Philippe and started a chain of events that led to 1848 being known as the “year of revolutions.”

One country that did not have a revolution was Britain and we should expect that point to be echoed again during 2018 by such media as bother to pay attention to history. 

The general drift is that the British are sensible, moderate people not given to sudden outbursts that remove rulers and overthrow governments.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
FORERUNNER: A stamp of Thomas Muntzer, issued by the GDR in 1989 Pic: Public domain
History / 10 November 2025
10 November 2025

NICK MATTHEWS recalls how the ideals of socialism and the holding of goods in common have an older provenance than you might think

Locomotion
Features / 27 September 2025
27 September 2025

Two-hundred years ago, on September 27 1825, the world’s first passenger railway line was opened between Stockton and Darlington. MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, reflects on the history – and the future – of Britain’s railway industry

Ramsgate beach 1899
History / 14 August 2025
14 August 2025

The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT

Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT