In this essay I had to answer the question "Can an overall pattern be identified for the causes and outcomes of revolutions?". I really enjoyed writing this one because I came across some very interesting theories of revolutions and very controversial arguments on the topic. I recommend you to see the bibliography in the end if you're interested.
In this essay we will argue that we can observe an overall pattern for the causes and outcomes of revolutions but that we should also take into account the specificities of each revolution which may divert it from the pattern we will look at. To support this argument we will focus on the French, Russian and Iranian Revolution throughout this essay and we will form our overall pattern based on the natural phases of revolutions presented by Crane Brinton (Brinton 1965); the J-curve concept developed by James Davies (Davies 1962); and finally, DeFronzo’s critical factors of revolutionary movements (DeFronzo 2007). To complement we will later highlight some of the specificities that led Anne Applebaum to say that “every revolution is different” (Applebaum 2011). Before doing so, we will present a definition of revolution based on Brinton (Brinton 1965: 4) and Goodwin (Goodwin 2001: 9).
In 1965, Crane Brinton defined a revolution as a “drastic, sudden substitution of one group in charge of the running of a territorial political entity by another group hitherto not running that government” (Brinton 165: 4). For Brinton, a revolution is then a radical change of the people in charge of the state which usually involves some level of violent uprisings. This definition can certainly be used when referring to the three cases we are considering: France in 1789, Russia in 1917 and Iran in 1979, but we should complement it with Goodwin’s restrictive definition of the term which says that “revolutions entail not only mass mobilization and regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change during or soon after the struggle for state power” (Goodwin 2001: 9). Therefore, what we will assist in the three cases is an enormous level of transformation in the state’s political, economic and social structures essentially due to a change of thinking of the masses and subsequent protest against the regime.
The first study about this issue we should analyse to observe the pattern of revolutions is the one of Brinton who is considered “the founder of the study of comparative revolution” (Knutsen and Bailey 1989: 424). He used pathological terms to explain a revolution and was thus able to describe the major phases revolutions have in common after the collapse of the old regime: the Moderate Phase, when a moderate new government emerges and tries to institute reforms to bring the Old Regime’s structures to an end (Knutsen and Bailey 1989: 421); the Radical Phase, when moderate reforms and attempts to establish order ultimately fail and a radical faction starts to get mass support against the new government, until it takes over and begins a process of radicalization of the state (Knutsen and Bailey 1989: 422); the Phase of Terror, when radicalization resulted in more instability and, as a response, the radical government institutes a strong, violent and authoritarian regime to ensure reforms are in motion (Knutsen and Bailey 1989: 422); and finally, the Thermidor, when the revolutionary wave starts to give place to stability and from within the radicals a single man takes command of the government and rules in the form of a dictatorship and imposes order and reorganization (Knutsen and Bailey 1989: 422). There are however two problems with Brinton’s perspective. The first is that it gives us only small insights on the causes of revolutions as it is mainly focused on the occurring events and so it would be incomplete to use it as an answer for this essay. The second is that Brinton himself claimed that he only meant to describe the similarities between the four classical revolutions of which he clearly acknowledges that the American Revolution did not follow all the phases he described and he did not intended to apply his model to other revolutionary movements (Brinton 1965: 7).
Brinton explains how the French and the Russian Revolution fit his model. The Girondins in France and the Provisional Government in Russia represented the Moderate Phase. In France, the war with European powers led to the removal of some constitutional provisions (Brinton 1965: 129). In Russia, the government decided to continue the involvement in the war as opposed to popular desires (Brinton 1965: 131). The moderates are then replaced by the radicals: the Jacobins in France and the Bolsheviks in Russia. In this period, in both revolutions, the radicals eliminate all its opposition and start to build “the machinery of the coming Terror” (Brinton 1965: 165) such as the creation of revolutionary polices: Cheka and Comités Révolutionnaires (Brinton 1965: 172). Then the Terror began and violence and a strong cult of the Revolution become constant in both revolutions (Brinton 1965: 198). The Thermidorian Phase was very clear in both revolutions when Napoleon Bonaparte in France and Joseph Stalin in Russia, rose from the chaos of the revolution and took power (Brinton 1965: 207).
We can also apply this pattern to the Iranian Revolution. The Moderate Phase was present under the government of Mehdi Bazargan and his democratic views (Keddie 1985). Bazargan was not intended to form a theocratic republic and eventually his government resigned due to ineffectiveness and lack of support from Khomeini after the American hostages’ crisis. Then the Radical Phase began when the leftist Abol Hassan Banisadr was elected (Keddie 1985). However, he was in a constant struggle with the Iranian clerics and in June 1981 he fled to France in exile. The Phase of Terror clearly followed after the rise of the Islamic Republican Party: thousands of people were killed or executed, including some dissident clerics, and the opposition was target of a brutal level of repression (Parsa 2011: 67). In the last phase, the Thermidor, we could witness a decline in violence from the government and an improvement of foreign relations (Keddie 1985). However the rise of one single authoritative leader was not very explicit. Some authors (Ferguson 2005; Bill 1981) argue that the revolution is not yet finished and that that character may still appear but we argue that man was there since the beginning and even if he was not part of the government, he was definitely the most influential person in the country: Ruhollah Khomeini.
The second important theory on this subject is the J-curve created by Davies based on de Tocqueville’s and Marx’s theories of revolutions (Davies 1962: 5). According to Davies, revolutions will occur when after a period of economic growth, social development and subsequent rising expectations of the population is followed by an inverted period when the people get frustrated with the huge gap between their expectations and what they actually get in the system (Davies 1962: 6). Therefore he claims that the state of mind of the people is of extreme importance for revolution to happen (Davies 1962: 18). In contrast with Brinton’s, this theory can be used quite well as an analytical tool to explain the causes of revolutions (Stone 1966: 172) but does not explain how the revolutions later develop and what sort of outcome follows. To a better understanding of the J-curve pattern please observe the picture below (Davies 1962: 6).
The J-curve can be used to explain our three revolutions. In the years before the French Revolution, there was an increase in rural prosperity; the pressure of the bourgeoisie for reforms was being peacefully received by the state and the expectations of the people were rising (Davies 1962: 15). However, everything changed in 1787 with the fiscal crisis of the state, weak military capabilities following the support given to the United States of America against the British and the bad harvests of 1787 and 1788 which led to the rise of bread prices and the beginning of popular unrest (Davies 1962: 16; Brinton 1965: 32). In Russia, this started in 1861 with the emancipation of serfs which, in addition to the country’s industrialization and decline in repression, led to an increase of expectations (Davies 1962: 10). But the war with Japan, the events of the Bloody Sunday and subsequent increase in repression and the First World War, led to the rise of a feeling of frustration which reached an unbearable point in February 1917 (Davies 1962: 12). Finally, in Iran, the situation was the same. Before the revolution the country was witnessing a great period of economic growth, especially due to the rise of oil prices in 1973 and the Shah’s modernization programme. This was followed by a period of increased housing prices, unemployment and economic downturn after 1976 (Keddie 1985; Muhl 1990: 7-8).
The last theory we should focus on is the group of critical factors described by James DeFronzo in order for a revolution succeed. Disregarding any particular order, DeFronzo presents these elements: 1) frustration of the expectations of the people and popular uprisings; 2) divisions among elites; 3) revolutionary motivations unify different classes in society; 4) crisis of the state’s coercive and administrative capabilities; and 5) a “permissive world context” (DeFronzo 2007: 11), the unsuccessful, or absence of, intervention of other countries during the revolutionary process. The most important factor for our pattern, and for DeFronzo himself, which is many times forgotten in most theories of revolutions, is precisely the tolerance of other countries and ineffective intervention in the country where a revolutionary movement has erupted even if they supported the overthrown government. This point was also emphasized by Goldstone when he claimed that “[…] which foreign powers seek to intervene, on whose side, and with what effort—all will determine the contours of the revolutionary struggle and its outcome” (Goldstone 2011: 173-174). This element was present during our three revolutions, or at least partially. During the most intense, fragile and revolutionary period of the French Revolution, even though there was a large opposition against it in many European countries, they never executed a mass intervention in France. Actually, what succeeded was quite the opposite because France declared war to Austria and thus started a series of victories against several European countries and consequently spreading the revolutionary ideas. The situation was similar in Iran. The United States were a long-time supporter of the Shah’s regime and President Carter even called Iran an “island of stability” (Carter cited in Whitney 2010: 1) under the Shah’s leadership but when the revolution took place the US were not that supportive anymore and did not intervened in the country to stabilize it (Whitney 2010: 1). The Russian Revolution is the one which most contrasts from the others in this aspect because foreign powers such as the British Empire, China and Italy intervened in the country and supported the White Forces against the Bolsheviks. However, the size and the effectiveness of the Red Army defeated the opposing factions and the revolution was consolidated (DeFronzo 2007: 48-49).
As we just discussed we can build a pattern for most revolutions based on the work of Brinton, DeFronzo and Davies. However we must be careful when applying this pattern because certain specificities of context and unexpected decisions might deflect a revolution from it. Both Montefiore and Applebaum while looking at the revolution of the Arab Spring argued that every revolution has its differences (Applebaum 2011; Montefiore 2011); “every revolution is revolutionary in its own way” (Montefiore 2011). This is not entirely incorrect if look to the revolutions under examination, in particular in terms of outcomes. In the French Revolution the imperialist ambitions of Bonaparte, and especially the fatal military mistake of invading Russia in the winter, ultimately led to his fall and the restoration of the monarchy. In Russia the strong organization and centralization undertook by Stalin as a way of ruling such a vast nation in such a chaotic period led to the creation of an authoritarian regime which lasted for almost 70 years. On the other hand in Iran, after a fight for freedom against the Shah, Khomeini surprised most of the population with his theocratic ideas (Parsa 2011: 67-68). Each of them had a specific context in which it developed and we should never disregard that because it can lead to different outcomes.
As we have seen in this essay, it is possible to identify an overall pattern for the causes and, to a certain extent, the outcomes of revolutions based on the three theories explained. As it was said they complement each other because each of them focuses on different common aspects of revolutions. However, when studying a revolutionary moment, we must pay attention to the differences they show as well. But as we said in the beginning, this essay had the objective of finding an “overall” pattern and not a specific set of rules and procedures of which all revolutions strictly followed in the past and will go through in the future.
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Brinton, C., (1965). The Anatomy of Revolution. New York: Vintage Books.
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DeFronzo, J., (2007). Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements. 3rd ed. Colorado: Westview Press.
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Parsa, M., (2011). “Ideology and Political Action in the Iranian Revolution”. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 31, 1, pp. 53-68.
Stone, L., (1966). “Theories of Revolution”, World Politics, 18, 2, pp. 159-176.
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