Marx’s theory has, however been criticised by John Elster, who argues that ‘Marx provided no rational grounds for thinking that events would develop as he hoped. His scenarios were, essentially, based on wishful thinking, and ‘not on social analysis’, a vital component in formulating a relevant and maintainable theory. Following Marxist theory, which laid the basis for a political theory to have major repercussions throughout Europe, there have been three other major theories dealing with revolution, and these do provide and economical way of identifying relevant basic theoretical issues in a summarising and general medium for later commentary. Therefore, 3 major theories have arisen:
- Aggregate-psychological theories, Gurr ‘Why Men Rebel’, Wolfenstein
- Social structural theories, Johnson’s Revolutionary Change theory
- Political conflict theories, Tilly – From Mobilisation to Revolution
Aggregate-psychological theories explain revolutions in terms of people’s psychological motivations for engaging in political violence or joining opposition movements and are exemplified in Ted Gurr’s ‘Why Men Rebel’. This psychologically based theory sees political violence as all collective attacks within a political community against the political regime and identifies political violence occurring when there is a gap between the valued things they felt entitled to and what they get, described as ‘ relative deprivation’. Revolutions come about following widespread, intense and multi-faceted relative deprivation affecting the aspirations of the masses and the elites. It is according to this theory that when both potential leaders and followers are frustrated that the conditions for internal war are present. However this theory is limited in its assumptions that people will behave in the same way and crowd action has played little role in revolution since France in 1789. Wolfenstein’s theory, which sought to explain revolution in terms of personality have also failed as it is not possible to apply clinical methods to past political leaders and it appears only valuable to look at the role of leader in a wider social context. Having said this, Gurr’s ideas of relative deprivation do help in understanding a major aspect of revolution in giving a greater insight into what gives rise to discontent. Systems/Value Consensus theories explain revolutions as violent responses of ideological movements to severe disequilibrium in social systems.
Chalmers Johnson’s Revolutionary Change theory sees revolution as ‘the purposive implementation of a strategy of violence in order to effect a change in social structure’ that will change core-value orientations, which have become out of balance between the state and its institutions and the people. A successful revolution will accomplish the resynchronisation of a social system’s values and environment that the old regime was unable to accomplish.
The other most significant approach to revolutions comes in political conflict theories the most important of these being Charles Tilly’s From mobilization to Revolution. This theory puts the conflict between government and opposing groups at the centre of it explanation of collective violence and revolution. Tilly argues that no matter how discontented an aggregate (?) group of people may become, they cannot engage in political action unless they have some access to some resources. Incidents of collective violence are therefore in actuality, only by-products of normal processes of group competition over power and conflicting goals, compunded by the denial of a political franchise to the masses. Tilly writes that ‘the chief source of variation in collective violence is the oppression of the polity’, and if this is true, revolution can be viewed as a primarily political phenomenon, and it is these political elements, rather than economic or social conditions that are decisive.
The theories of Johnson, Gurr and Tilly are applicable to nearly all individual cases of social revolution, as the aspects of relative deprivation, multiple sovereignty and value orientated ideological movements are permanent features of social revolution; even if context and time change, these appear to be the most permanent structures. The identification of these elements means that there may well be some validity to these historical theories, but as Skocpol writes, ‘because the contemporary social-scientific theories are framed in such general terms, it is very difficult to test if they ever do apply to a given case’. Essentially, it can be seen that all societies have, to some extent, some sort of relative deprivation within them (although there are debates between the effects of relative and absolute deprivation upon a society). Due to this, purely theoretical approaches can end up offering little more than pointers towards certain factors that case analysts would themselves, take into account, but with no valid way to favour and categorise one theoretical explanation over another – each one is unfalsifiable.
This gap between generalising theories and the reality and factual basis of individual historical studies has led some historians to analyse revolutions only on a case by case basis in an attempt to overcome this problem. However, this does not resolve the fact that historians must always draw (at least implicitly) on theoretical ideas as well as comparative points of reference. Skocpol sees the solution to this problem as emerging through the employment of comparative historical analysis alongside ‘selected slices of national historical trajectories as units of comparison’. In this way, she uses positive cases of successful revolution alongside negative ones in order to highlight the reasons for each individual outcome. This method is effectively used in the study of revolutions in France, China and Russia, all of which contain the basic common factors necessary for analysis. All three were countries whose class and state structures had not been recently created or fundamentally altered until the advent of revolution, which was, if not the actual process of change, at least the catalyst by which change could occur. The old regimes also had a number of broad similarities, in that all three revolutions occurred in wealthy and politically ambitious agrarian states. In revolution, all three cases saw the conjuncture of the incapacitation of the established central, widespread rebellion by the lower classes (particularly the peasantry), and attempts by mass-mobilising political leaderships to consolidate a revolutionary state.
This again highlights the possibility for there to be consistent factors across revolutions – a large presumption that theories of revolution make. In light of this, and whilst paying significant attention to the key differences that also occur, it can be seen that, ‘the similar socio-political features of the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions can be highlighted and explained in ways that would purposefully be missed by analysts determined to keep them in separate type categories’. It is therefore clear that whilst general theoretical explanations of revolution can adapt to the many and varied forms necessary, they lack the applicability of grounded, specific case studies. It is a catch-22, in that neither can effectively be achieved without neglecting the other, but these theories have played a large part in sociological history, and this certainly, should not be ignored.
Bibliography
P. Calvert, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1990)
T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions
T. Skocpol, Social Revolutions and the Modern World (1994)
C. Johnson, Revolutionary Change
C. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (1978)
E. Acton, Rethinking the Russian Revolution
Skocpol, T-Social Revolutions And The Modern World (1994)
