Thermidor

Thermidor (French pronunciation: ​[tɛʁmidɔʁ]) was the eleventh month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the French word thermal which comes from the Greek word "thermos" which means heat.

Thermidor was the second month of the summer quarter (mois d'été). It started July 19 or 20. It ended August 17 or 18. It follows the Messidor and precedes the Fructidor. During Year 2, it was sometimes called Fervidor.

Because of the Thermidorian reaction — 9 Thermidor Year II — the overthrow of revolutionary radical Maximilien Robespierre and his followers in that month, the word "Thermidor" has come to mean a retreat from more radical goals and strategies during a revolution, especially when caused by a replacement of leading personalities.

The Thermidorian Reaction, Revolution of Thermidor, or simply Thermidor refers to the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) in which the Committee of Public Safety led by Maximilien Robespierre was sidelined and its leaders arrested and guillotined, resulting in the end of the Reign of Terror. The new regime, known as The Directory, introduced more conservative policies aimed at stabilizing the revolutionary government.

Consequently, for historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when the political pendulum swings back towards something resembling a pre-revolutionary state, and power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership. Leon Trotsky, in his book The Revolution Betrayed, refers to the rise of Joseph Stalin and the accompanying post-revolutionary bureaucracy as the "Soviet Thermidor".

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