LONG STORY SHORT
By L. Dean Webb
CHAPTER 3. REVOLUTIONS
Questions to Consider:
1. What sort of changes are associated with
revolutions?
2. What is the key long-term cause of revolutions?
3. Why does it require political organization to effect a
revolution?
4. Does middle-class unrest always result in
revolution?
5. What is the moderate phase?
6. What is the radical phase?
7. What is the thermidor phase?
A revolution is a period of time when people make incredible changes in
government, society, technology, and/or religion. We're not talking about
a few tinkering changes here and there. This is wholesale, across-theboard change. Those who promote the changes are revolutionaries and
they can be moderate or radical in their approach to making changes.
Those who are opposed to widespread changes are labeled reactionaries
or counter-revolutionaries.
So what's the difference between a revolutionary and a reformer?
A revolutionary rejects the current way things are done as is willing to
change it dramatically. A reformer accepts the current way things are done
and will make changes only if they won't upset the established order.
Who's likely to be a revolutionary?
In a political context, it's someone who is excluded from decision making
processes under the current regime. Those who make the decisions have
no problem holding power.
But more than it being a case of sour grapes, the
revolutionaries want to actually change the status
quo and create a new system for assigning power.
That's what made the American Revolution a revolution and not a revolt.
The colonies ditched monarchy in favor of a representative government.
When coups replaced Iranian leaders, it was the same old same old. When
Ayatollah Khomeini's followers set up an Islamic republic and cut ties with
the USA, that was a revolution. The combination of railroads, steel, and
assembly lines brought about industrial revolutions in countries able to
put them together. Not all revolutions need be political, remember that.
The political ones are just the bloodiest. With that in mind, I'm going to
focus the rest of this on political revolution.
All political revolutions are rooted in middle-class frustrations.
When elites are frustrated, they assassinate each other and then carry on
as before. Or they buy each other off, start a power struggle, stage coups,
whatever. You can't tell one faction from the other when this sort of thing
happens, as nothing fundamental changes. When the peasants are
frustrated, they rise up to smash the state and get massacred by the betterorganized forces of the state. The only ones who make changes are the
middle classes.
What causes the middle classes to start a revolution?
Given a long-term cause of frustrations, middle classes will just sit around
and whine about things for a long time. But if there's a period of
instability, they can organize to force action.
What causes instability?
Economic depressions, alienation of a popular movement, weakness or
division in the elite, or a war can all open up instability in a country. A
depression puts lots of people out of work and dashes the rising hopes of
the middle classes. Alienation of popular religious or social movements
can radicalize the movements to where they will not be content to effect a
few changes, but will push them to demand sweeping changes. Weakness
in the elite can be exploited by the middle class: it can eliminate some,
most, or all of the ruling class and then move in to fill the power vaccuum.
War is one of the most stressful of situations, and an unpopular war going
on too long or a dramatic loss in war can both take a middle class over the
edge into instability.
Although these situations take the middle classes to the brink of
revolution, they do not themselves cause the revolution. One of these
medium-term causes of instability requires a spark, a trigger, to set off the
pent-up tensions and unleash the forces of revolution. Triggers would
include a massacre of peaceful demonstrators, massive public
demonstrations, actions against a popular leader or figurehead, severe
losses in a war, or other dramatic moments in history such as those.
Keep in mind that even having middle class frustrations, instability, and a
trigger does not guarantee a violent revolution will be the result. If the
government itself can make major changes, then the revolution can
proceed peacefully. The government will also have to do some amazing
feats of public relations, but in today's mass media society, that is easier to
do than in earlier times of history.
So how does a revolution go?
A revolution follows three main phases. The beginning, the middle, and
the end.
Duh.
But, in order to sound smarter, historians and
political scientists have to give them different
names. The different names are also to be a little
more precise about what's going on. The
beginning is the moderate phase, the middle is
the radical phase, and the end is the terminal or
thermidor phase.
Thermidor? What?
That's the name of the month of the French
Revolutionary calendar in which Robespierre got
executed. Robespierre was a radical. When he
went to the guillotine, the radical phase of the
French Revolution ended. While we don't use the
French Revolutionary calendar anymore, we still
call the end of a revolution the thermidor phase.
OK. So why do we need to differentiate phases of a revolution?
I didn't ask that.
You should have.
Oh.
Yeah. So, the beginning of a revolution is called a moderate phase because
although sweeping changes are being made, the people in charge of the
changes aren't trying to get rid of everything associated with l'ancien
regime.
More French?
Yeah. It means "the old government." You won't see many people getting
marched in front of firing squads during a moderate phase. Folks can still
get roughed up and thrown into prison, but they also have a shot at fleeing
the country in one piece.
Moderate policies run into trouble as crisis situations mount one on top of
the other, creating a whole pile of difficulty. Foreign governments may be
intervening to get regimes friendly to them in power, or threatening
outright military conquest. Loyalists to the old government may be
agitating for an end to the changes or actually plotting a violent return to
power. Danger is everywhere and keeping a steady course of limited
change is seen by more and more people within the revolution as a
weakness. When people who believe changes should be eliminating more
of l'ancien regime take power, the revolution enters its radical phase.
There's no rule to show how long a moderate or radical phase will last, just
on how to recognize the transition periods.
In the radical phase, executions begin. Enemies of the state are labeled
and hauled up before tribunals and killed. Loyalists are lynched by gleeful
throngs of murderous revolutionaries. Traces of the old government are
searched for and destroyed. The radicals tend to be very thorough in their
terror and usually succeed in cementing some or most of the revolutionary
changes. The radicals are usually able to stand against foreign enemies and
weather their storms.
Once the greatest changes are made, things begin to settle. This is the
thermidor phase. In this phase, some of the more extreme changes are
rolled back and old ways return. Sometimes, the new regime becomes
indistinguishable from the old. Granted, there may be some fundamental
social differences, but the old abuses of power come back into play once
those in power find loopholes in the revolution to allow their return.
Kinda like how the pigs turned into humans in Animal Farm?
Yep. But it's like that in nearly every revolution, not just the Russian. I
think it's a disservice to claim Animal Farm is only about the Russian
Revolution. I can see parallels to the French Revolution, the Nazi takeover
of Germany, and even the American Revolution. Some revolutions have a
better fit to the plot of the
novel, but all have close
similarities.
OK, so explain this theory
of revolutions with the
American Revolution.
Gladly.
The moderate phase began when the colonists organized their own local
governments and agitated against taxes and a lack of political
representation. The propertied classes led these movements, organized
themselves, and basically controlled the countryside by 1775. British
governors and military commanders remarked that they had little or no
control of the colonists at the time. During 1775-1776, the American
Revolution entered a radical phase. Seeing no other alternative, many
Americans saw fit to sever all ties with their mother country and engage in
an armed rebellion. The radical phase continued through to the end of the
Confederation of States. The thermidor phase began with the strong
federal government created under the 1787 Constitution. Central authority
returned to the former colonies, albeit in a modified form.
One needs to realize America has had more than one political revolution
since 1775, even though they have been fortunately unbloody ones.
Revolutions tend to accompany changes in economic phases, from preindustrial to industrial and from industrial to post-industrial. The most
suceessful ones are those that manage to have a nonviolent or relatively
nonviolent radical phase: with little or no blood shed, people are more
likely to feel comfortable with the changes made in the radical phase.
The revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989 are perfect examples, as is the
revolution in South Africa at the same time. American social revolutions in
the 1960's and 1970's are also excellent examples of long-lasting
revolutions with limited rollback in the thermidor phase. Rather, the
changes made will be around for generations.