Revolutions and Revolt

Define a riot

Attempt to express discontent

Local in nature

Define a rebellion

Singular, more educated person in leadership

Manifesto of some description

Rebels are punished harshly

What must a revolution create to be considered successful (Huntingdon)

New political order that is strong enough to govern after major upheaval

Why is discontent alone not enough to trigger a revolution?

Revolution require distinct challengers, political mobilisation and a weak state

Name three reasons a political revolution might not result in a dictatorial government

Wide coalition of revolting groups with different aims

State institutions are not totally destroyed

Ideology does not extent beyond removing old ruler

What is Davies’ J-Curve?

Long period of improving conditions followed by a sharp reversal, so people feel they are losing what they had gained

How does Huntingdon define a complete revolution?

creation and institutionalisation of a new political order, fully consummated when new state organisations withstand counter-revolutions

How did ancient people’s understand political transformations?

Cyclical restorations

What does Ardent define as the ‘pathos of revolution’

Emotional intensity which helps mobilise ordinary people

When does a revolution begin?

Government becomes the object of claims from more than one polity

Tilly (1973)

many groups want to define their own political objectives by reference to revolution, whether they fear or welcome an overturn of things as they are

Name two ways one can distinguish between a revolution and a war

Status of each participant at beginning and end

Mena employed by each participant

Name three reasons ideologies were helpful

Universalistic creeds

Elites could convert masses to an ideology

Non-religious outlooks

Skocpol, 1979

Revolutionary crises are not total breakpoints in history that suddenly make anything at all possible if only it is envisaged by wilful revolutionaries!

What does the fate of the Russian peasantry under stalin tell us?

Impossible to argue that communist revolutions serve peasant interests better than non-communist ones

What does Skocpol say is the key to a sucessful structural analysis of revolutions

Focus on state organisations

What are Moore’s 3 paths to modernity, with examples of each?

Democratic revolutions USA

Fascist revolutions Germany

Communist revolutions Russia

What three conditions combine to create social revolutions:

International pressure

State-elite conflict

Popular mobilisation

Rigby (2005)

the Soviet government was heir to a continental bureaucratic tradition which … linked decision-making with ample documentation, formal rules and secretarial support staff. 

Give two examples of the Bolsheviks not having to create systems from scratch

Sovnarkom still had Lenin surrounded by 14 others

Similar to Alexander II

Continuity with historical institutions can be useful …

to increase sense of legitimacy

Contrast Russian population growth with employment in civil state bureaucracy

Population rose 67%, employment rose 300%

Inevitable continuity in personnel

What is a ‘cordon sanitaire’

space between new and old regime, created through new language and imagery

What caused the October Revolution on a social, bottom up level?

War weariness

Mutual distrust

What caused the American revolution on a social, bottom up level?

Constant British presence eg Stamp Act

What ideology did the American revolution draw on

Evangelism

Republic where ordinary man could be successful

What ideology did the Russian revolution draw on

Marxism

Give two reasons comparing Russia and America is a helpful comparison

Two different paths to modernity

Experienced further upheaval within one hundred years