The word ‘Revolution’ has multiple
synonyms and in history it can be applied to a wide-range of events which
brought about change; this essay will use the definition that Revolution is the
forcible overthrow of a political regime which is replaced by the creation and
institutionalization of a new a new political order¹. This essay will look at
the impacts Revolution has had on European society throughout history and will
also take into account the importance of social change during times of
revolution. Einstadt brought attention to the fact that society has changed too
much over time for history to repeat itself, an argument that is vindicated by
the fact that the same principles and reasons for Revolutions occurring are not
uniform and do not all produce the same outcomes². For this reason this essay
will try to assess and justify its arguments, by taking a chronological view of
the most important Revolutions in European history and consider the affects
they had on politics, society and even the meaning of Revolution itself, while
also assessing how much social change has been a factor in bringing Revolution
about. This essay will argue that revolution has been important in changing
European politics, but will also argue that social change is the main reason
for Revolution.
A revolution comes about when there
is a revolutionary situation present caused by a major split in polity and will
only qualify as a total revolution if the outcome involves a substantial
transfer of power from one regime to the next³. What this substantial transfer
of political power has involved has altered throughout the centuries meaning
that the impact varies too; therefore this essay will begin by analysing the political
importance of the first major revolution and then pick out subsequent,
significant revolutions.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 is
not the ‘mother revolution’⁴ but it still had a significant impact on European
politics. This Revolution limited the authority of the monarchy, which
prevented the rise of Absolutism by installing a Constitution to limit the
powers of the monarch by having a Parliament of representatives with
legislative powers⁵. Although this revolution was really just a dispute between
rivalling aristocratic powers and did not lead to the inclusion of the masses
in politics, it was still important as it raised questions over the legitimacy
of sovereignty. The American Revolution of 1776 went a step further in terms of
legitimacy of sovereignty by establishing a, ‘government by consent of the
people’⁶, making the citizens of the United States sovereign, which meant that government would
now be determined by the will of the citizens. Even though both these
revolutions recognized theories of sovereignty, it has been argued that these
revolutions were unfinished as they did not assure progress but created a
flexible regime which could be changed with the application of reform and
amendment by future generations⁷. Such prudence would make future revolution
unnecessary as the regime was changeable within, this increased the credibility
and attractiveness of a constitutional system as it was stable but could be
reformed.
The affect Revolution had on
politics was enhanced further by the French Revolution, which was the first
revolutionary government to overthrow an authoritarian regime with the backing
of a mass uprising⁸. This revolutionized the way governments were formed in
Europe, because it completely undermined the monarchy and the aristocracy’s
position which used to be protected by traditional values. The Revolution meant
that ordinary people had to be involved in politics and their will had to be or
perceived to be represented by the governing classes, who knew that if they
failed to do so the masses could rise up again and not only take away their
authority but even their lives like it had done for many aristocrats during
‘The Terror’ ⁹. As ordinary people were represented in France at this time the
government had to seem to be conforming to the popular will of the people,
therefore massive social change was brought through. Along with their natural
rights, Frenchmen received the promise of equality and civil rights with the
establishment of the ‘French Declaration of the Rights of Man’ and where later
treated to reforms aimed at spreading liberty such as the abolition of
feudalism¹⁰. The promise of human rights
and liberty which were championed by the French Revolution are still alive
today and the threat mass discontent and insurrection has led to the ruling
classes accepting their duty to fulfil and maintain the ambitions of
humanity¹¹.
The Revolutionary process,
including ‘The Terror’, had an immense impact on European politics because not
only did it mean that rulers had to grant liberal concessions to moderate the
people away from a Revolutionary situation but it also brought about the
counter-revolutionary doctrine of conservatism¹². The liberal-revolutionary
principles and the creation of an opposition to revolution actually brought
about the emergence of the right and left in political theory which provided a
political spectrum to Europe which was later extended throughout the world as
an accepted measure of political extremity.
Another legacy of the French
Revolution was the initial confusion of the revolutionary process, this proved
to be important in the formation and implementation of political theories.
Ideas such as ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ did not have any fixed
definition, as McNiell points out to the ambiguous nature of the word
‘fraternity’, does it mean all men are brothers or just all Frenchmen¹³? As a
result there were many different contemporary and scholarly interpretations of
what such terms meant which influenced their own ideas, like Robespierre and
Marx who wished for worldwide proletarian fraternity when he called for,
‘WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!’¹⁴
The October Revolution established
the first communist regime which not only created a regime on the far left of
politics, it resulted in politics role in society being extended. The
Revolution was led by the Marxist Lenin who was completely against bourgeoisie
principles such as capitalism and private property, which led to the
revolutionary government taking over more than just the basic governmental apparatus
such as the bureaucracy and army but also banks, factories, farms, labour
unions and the media¹⁵. This control over almost all social and economic
institutions was an innovative step in the practice of totalitarian government,
a system which would allow dictators and regimes to interfere with the everyday
lives of individuals in society, taking away their autonomy. The Leninist model for revolution spread
around the world to other social revolutionaries and even anarchists over the
next thirty years to the point that over a third of the world’s population
lived under revolutionary governments¹⁶. This world Revolution was not only
important to the communist governments and societies of Eastern Europe, but
also to the ruling classes, bourgeoisie and liberal capitalists of the west.
These people responded to the spread of Marxist ideology either by passing
reforms to appease the masses or by supporting groups that would resist it like
the fascists¹⁷. These changes were important in European politics because they
gave more prominence to socialism within democracies which gave unions of
workers more say in government policy on the one hand and also inflamed the
extremity of the right of the political spectrum.
Before 1789, there have been plenty
of mass insurrections, particularly in rural areas, where the majority of the
population resided¹⁸. Skocpol argues that such revolutionary situations were
never politically motivated and were actually stimulated by social discontent
caused by economic hardships such as bad harvests or rising food prices¹⁹. Since
1789 political revolutions have occurred as a reaction to changes in society; both
Skocpol and Tilly agree that revolution comes about due to a combination of social
modernisation and political motivations. Tilly admits that contenders to the
regime like Lenin are motivated by political principles such as legitimacy of
the sovereignty or communism which give the revolutionary process purpose, but
it is mass discontent that has arisen from adverse consequences of modernisation
and social change such as population growth, industrialisation and urbanisation
that the contenders harness as muscle for the revolution²⁰. It is the masses
after all who are the engine of revolution; if Revolutionary leaders did not
have this numerical advantage the regime they are contending will not take them
seriously or easily stifle them as they are not a physical threat, just a small
voice²¹. It is no coincidence that almost all revolutions since 1789 occur at
times of economic and social hardship; the mobs in Paris in 1789²² and 1848²³
were made up of people who lacked food, employment and decent living
conditions, and Lenin’s promise of ‘Bread, Peace, Land’ swelled the support for
Bolshevism with discontented urban and rural masses²⁴.
However it is not enough to say
that it is solely the numerical advantage of the discontented masses that has
enabled successful Revolutions. Lasch believes that social change does not just
change the attitudes of the masses but also of the structure of government,
stating that revolution is largely caused by a regime’s ineffectiveness to
control society when he says, ‘not oppression, but weakness breeds revolution’²⁵.
Such ‘weakness’ emerges at times when the central administration and military
of a regime collapses, leaving the regime exposed to the physical and political
pressure of the revolution²⁶. The regime’s military plays a massive role in
determining whether or not it will survive. During the 1848 Revolutions Louis Philippe was forced to abdicate because
the army did not try to repress the mob enabling the revolutionaries to seize
power²⁷; whereas in Prussia the monarchy survived as the army remained loyal to
the regime and was able to put down the revolutionaries²⁸. Such desertions from
the regime by the military come about due to the vast change or collapse in the
central administrative system because the soldiers feel less obliged to serve a
regime that can not serve their own interests, like many did in France in 1789
while the aristocracy bickered amongst themselves²⁹. A collapse in the central
administration comes about when a nation’s ruler attempts to modernise the
economic and social structure of the state in order for the state to gain and
catch up with the military and economic strength attained by other, more
developed countries³⁰. However such a process may be quite difficult, by
suddenly introducing a new system to replace the traditional system can result
in the administrative structure being run inefficiently by officials who lack
experience in such conditions, leading to results such as economic collapse
which causes discontent throughout the masses and military, or make the system
less effective in controlling society³¹. Traditional institutions like serfdom
in Russia had been able to keep the rural masses under the control of the
administrative officials which in Russia’s case had been the landlords; once
these institutions were removed the masses were allowed more autonomy which
allowed ideas to spread through their societies, which may well be
revolutionary, without any kind of reaction by the regime³².
The revolutions of the last four
hundred years have been an essential part of Europe’s political history. Not
only has revolution moved and stretched the political spectrum towards the one
extreme of democracy and another extreme of totalitarianism; revolution
actually created such a spectrum in the first instance in the aftermath of the
1789 French Revolution. European society has also been changed vastly by
Revolution, which has established new ideas such as equality, the people are
sovereign and no private property in legislation which has helped accommodate
or remove nations from the strains of change in modern society. Without
Revolution it is highly unlikely that politics would ever change or conform to
popular will because the ruling regime would see no reason to satisfy the
masses unless they did not feel threatened by them. However Revolution has only
been allowed to have any impact on the entire population since the eighteenth-century
due to the social change which has weakened the old political order of a nation
and allowed a new one to arise, which indicates that revolution is a reaction
to social change and not the pioneer of it.
Footnotes
1. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New
Haven, 1968),p.266
2. S.N. Eisenstadt, ‘The Breakdown of
Communist Regimes’, Daedalus 121
(1992), pp.21-42
3. Charles Tilly, European
revolutions, 1492-1992 (Oxford, 1993), p.15
4.
H.C. Mansfield, ‘The Unfinished Revolution’, in The legacy of the French Revolution, ed. R.C
Hancock and L.G. Lambert (Lanham, 1996), p.28
5.
Ibid., pp.27-28
6.
Ibid., p.29
7.
Ibid., p.38
8. ‘The French Revolution: the People
enter Politics’ by W. Doyle, http://vista.shef.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc19897.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct, (November 24, 2009)
9. William H. McNiell, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human
Community (Chicago, 1991),
pp.746-749
10.
H.C. Mansfield, ‘The Unfinished Revolution’, in The legacy of the French Revolution, ed. R.C
Hancock and L.G. Lambert (Lanham, 1996), p.34-37
11.
R.C.Hancock, ‘Conclusion: The
Revolutions and the Problems of Modern Prudence’, in The legacy of the French Revolution, ed. R.C Hancock and L.G.
Lambert (Lanham, 1996), p.285
12.
J.W.Ceaser, ‘The Two Revolutions’,
in
The legacy of the French Revolution, ed. R.C
Hancock and L.G. Lambert (Lanham, 1996), pp. 101
13. William H. McNiell The Rise of the West: A History of the Human
Community (Chicago, 1991), pp744-745
14. Marx, The Communist Manifesto (Oxford,1992), p.39
15. McNiell The Rise of the West: A History of the
Human Community (Chicago, 1991),
pp796-799
16. Eric J. Hobsbawn, The Age of Extremes: 1914-1991(London,1995),
pp.64-84
17. Ibid., pp. 83-84
18. Charles Tilly, European
revolutions, 1492-1992 (Oxford, 1993), p.15
19. T. Skocpol, ‘France, Russia, China: a
structural analysis of social revolutions’, in Comparative studies in society and history 18 (1976), p.201
20. Charles Tilly, ‘Does
Modernization Breed Revolution?’, in Comparative
Politics 5, Special Issue on
Revolution and Social Change (1973), pp.445-447
21.
R.C.Hancock, ‘Conclusion: The Revolutions and the Problems
of Modern Prudence’, in The legacy of the
French Revolution, ed. R.C Hancock and L.G. Lambert (Lanham,
1996), p.260
22. Colin Lucas, ‘The
Crowd and Politics’, in The French
Revolution and the creation of modern political culture. Vol.2, The political
culture of the French Revolution, ed. C.Lucas (Oxford, 1988), pp.259-285
23. John M. Roberts, A History of Europe (London, 1997), p.353
24. Eric J. Hobsbawn, The Age of Extremes:1914-1991 (London,
1995), pp.61-64
25. Christopher Lasch, The New Radicalism in America (New York,
1967), p.141
26. T. Skocpol, ‘France, Russia, China: a
structural analysis of social revolutions’, in Comparative studies in society and history 18 (1976), pp.178-179
27. J.A.S.Grenville, Europe reshaped, 1848-1878 (Hassocks, 1976),pp.28-33
28. T. Skocpol, ‘France, Russia, China: a
structural analysis of social revolutions’, in Comparative studies in society and history 18 (1976), p.209
29. Ibid.,
pp.192-196
30. Ibid.,
p.179
31. Ibid.,
pp.175-179
32. Ibid.,
pp.192-195
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