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In politics, a reactionary is a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believe possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought Third Edition, (1999) p. 729. As a descriptor term, reactionary derives from the ideological context of the left–right political spectrum. As an adjective, the word reactionary describes points of view and policies meant to restore a .
As an ideology, reactionism is a tradition in right-wing politics; the reactionary stance opposes policies for the social transformation of society, whereas conservatives seek to preserve the socio-economic structure and order that exists in the present. In popular usage, reactionary refers to a strong traditionalist conservative political perspective of a person opposed to social, political, and economic change. In the 20th century, reactionary politics was associated with restoring values such as discipline, hierarchy and respect for authority and privilege.
Reactionary ideologies can be radical in the sense of Extremism in service to re-establishing past conditions. To some writers, the term reactionary carries negative connotations—Peter King observed that it is "an unsought-for label, used as a torment rather than a badge of honor."King, Peter. Reaction: Against the modern world. Andrews UK Limited, 2012. Despite this, the descriptor "political reactionary" has been adopted by writers such as the Austrian monarchist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Credo of a Reactionary by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn – The American Mercury, under his alias Francis Stuart Campbell the Scottish people journalist Gerald Warner, the Colombian political theologian Nicolás Gómez Dávila, and the American historian John Lukacs. (2025). 9781890318123, St. Augustine's Press. ISBN 9781890318123
During the French Revolution, conservative forces (especially within the Catholic Church) organized opposition to the Progressivism sociopolitical and economic changes brought by the Revolution; and so Conservatives fought to restore the temporal authority of the Church and The Crown. In 19th Century European politics, the reactionary class included the Catholic Church's hierarchy and the aristocracy, Royal family, and Monarchism 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 Third Republic, the monarchists were the reactionary faction, later renamed Conservative.
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, a landed aristocracy dominated society, a hereditary king ruled, and the Catholic Church was society's moral center. Those labeled "reactionary" favored the aristocracy instead of the middle class and . Reactionaries opposed democracy and parliamentarism.
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.
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 (who aided the liberalism 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 and institutions but favored modernization existing structures through gradual reform movement. Despite Metternich's efforts, a series of revolutions rocked Europe in 1848.
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 re-criminalisation of homosexuality, restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of the Zhenotdel women's department.Sandle, Mark (1999). A Short History of Soviet Socialism. UCL Press. doi:10.4324/9780203500279. .
Reactionary is also used to denote supporters of Authoritarianism Anti-communism régimes such as Vichy France, Spain under Francisco Franco, and Portugal under 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.
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."Gerarchia, March, 1923 quoted in George Seldes, Facts and Fascism, eighth edition, New York: In Fact, 1943, p. 277. 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 but revolutionary."
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 were as centralized as most communist states, and fascism's intense nationalism was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution.
Although the German did not consider themselves fascists or reactionaries and condemned the traditional German forces of reaction (Prussian , Junker nobility, and Roman Catholic clergy) as being among their enemies, next to their Red Front enemies in the Nazi Party march Die Fahne hoch, they virulently opposed revolutionary leftism. The fact that the Nazis called their 1933 rise to power the 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).
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.
Political scientist Corey Robin argues in his 2011 book The Reactionary Mind that modern conservatism in the United States is "inherently reactionary".
"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. The phrase "neo-reactionary" was coined by "Mencius Moldbug" (the pseudonym of Curtis Yarvin, a computer programmer) in 2008. (George Orwell used it in a different context in 1943 – ) Arnold Kling used it in 2010 to describe "Moldbug", and the subculture quickly adopted it. Proponents of the "Neo-reactionary" movement (also called the "Dark Enlightenment" movement) include philosopher Nick Land, among others.
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