States and Social Revolutions A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND CHINA THEDA SKOCPOL Harvard University Tlrt ri,,,, pl,h, UlltvtrJlly 1)/ CDmbrldg� ttl p,lni Qnd ull tJlI md/Jntt IJ/books WDS ;Itllfltd by Htnry YI/I ill lSJ4. Tht Unir�ujl)' has ptJfll�d tiM p"blil"�tI �n/'lIfI61UIy sillct 1581/. CAMRRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE NEW YORK MELBOURNE NEW ROCHELLE SYDNEY Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022,USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1979 First published 1979 Reprinted 1979,1980 (twice), 1981,1983,1984 (twice), 1985 (twic:e), 1986, 1987 (twice), 1988 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Skocpol, Theda. States and social revolutions. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Revolutions - Case studies. 2. Revolutions - France - His­ tory. 3. Revolutions - Russia - History. 4. Revolutions - China History. I. Title. HM283.S56 301.6'333 78-14314 ISBN 0 521 22439 X hiud covers ISBN 0 521 29499 I paperback for Bill Contents List of Tables and Maps ix Preface xi Introduction 1. Explaining Social Revolutions: Alternatives to Existing Theories A Structural Perspective International and World-historical Contexts The Potential Autonomy of the State A Comparative Historical Method Why France, Russia, and China? 3 14 19 24 33 40 Part I Causes of Social Revolutions in France, Russia, and China 2. Old-Regime States in Crisis 47 Old-Regime Franc_e: The Contradictions of Bourbon Absolutism 51 Manchu China: From the Celestial Empire to the Fall of the Imperial System Imperial Russia: An Underdeveloped Great Power Japan and Prussia as Contrasts 3. Agrarian Structures and Peasant Insurrections Peasants Against Seigneurs in the French Revolution The Revolution of the Obshchinas: Peasant Radicalism in Russia Two Counterpoints: The Absence of Peasant Revolts in the English and German Revolutions Peasant Incapacity and Gentry Vulnerability in China Vll 67 81 99 1 12 1 18 128 140 147 Contents Part II Outcomes of Social Revolutions in France, Russia, and China 4. What Changed and How: A Focus on State Building Political Leaderships The Role of Revolutionary Ideologies 5. The Birth of a "Modem State Edifice" in France A Bourgeois Revolution? The Effects of the Social-Revolutionary Crisis of 1789 War, the Jacohins, and Napoleon The New Regime 6. The Emergence of a Dictatorial Party-State in Russia The Effects of the Social-Revolutionary Crisis of 1917 The Bolshevik Struggle to Rule The Stalinist "Revolution from Above" The New Regime 7. The Rise of a Mass-Mobilizing Party-State in China The Social-Revolutionary Situation after 1911 The Rise and Decline of the Urban-Based Kuomintang The Communists and the Peasants The New Regime 161 164 168 174 174 181 185 196 206 207 212 220 225 236 237 242 252 263 Conclusion 284 Notes 294 Bibliography 351 Index 391 Vlll Tables and Maps Tables 1. 2. Causes of Social Revolutions in France, Russia, and China Outcomes of Social Revolutions in France, Russia and China 155 282 Maps 1. 2. 3. 4. s. 6. Major Administrative Divisions of Old-Regime France The Main Regions of European Russia The Departments of France Railroads and Major Industrial Areas of Euro pean Russia The Provinces of China Railroads and Major Industrial Areas of China 53 131 180 212 245 248 Preface OME B O OK S PR E S ENT fresh evidence; others make arguments . . that urge the reader to see old problems in a new light. This work is decidedly of the latter sort. It offers a frame of reference for analyzing social-revolutionary transformations in modern world history. And it uses comparative history to work out an explanation of the causes and out­ comes of the French Revolution of 1787-1800, the Russian Revolution of 1917-1921, and the Chinese Revolution of 1911-1949. Developed through critical reflection on assumptions and types of explanation com­ mon to most received theories of revolution, the principles of analysis sketched in the first chapter of the book are meant to reorient our sense of what is characteristic of- and problematic about- revolutions as they ac­ tually have occurred historically. Then the remainder of the book attempts to make the program of Chapter 1, calling for new kinds of explanatory arguments, come alive in application. In Part I, the roots of revolutionary crises and conflicts in France, Russia, and China are traced through anal­ yses of the state and class structures and the international situations of the Bourbon, Tsarist, and Imperial-Old Regimes. Particular emphasis is placed upon the ways in which the old-regime states came into crisis, and upon the emergence of peasant insurrections during the revolutionary interreg­ nums. Then, in Part II, the Revolutions themselves are traced from the original outbreaks through to the consolidation of relatively stable and distinctively structured New Regimes: the Napoleonic in France, the Sta­ linist in Russia, and the characteristically Sino-Communist (after the mid1950s) in China. Here special attention is paid to the state-building efforts of revolutionary leaderships, and to the structures and activities of new state organizations within the revolutionized societies. In their broad sweep from Old to New Regimes, the French, Russian, and Chinese Revo­ lutions are treated as three comparable instances of a single, coherent social-revolutionary pattern. As a result, both the similarities and the indi- S Xl Preface vidual features of these Revolutions are highlighted and explained in ways somewhat different from previous theoretical or historical discussions. Books grow in unique ways out of the experiences of their authors, and this one is no exception. The ideas for it germinated during my time as a graduate student at Harvard University in the early 19705. This was­ however faint the echoes now-a vivid period of political engagement for many students, myself included. The United States was brutally at war against the Vietnamese Revolution, while :at home movements calling for racial justice and for an immediate end to the foreign military involvement challenged the capacitIes for good and evil of our national political system. The times certainly stimulated my interest in unde.rstanding revolutionary change. And it was during these years that my commitment to democratic­ socialist ideals matured. Yet it would be a mistake to imply that States and Social Revolutions sprang immediately from day-to-day political preoccu­ pations. It didn't. Instead it developed in the relative "ivory tower" quiet of the library and the study. As a graduate student, I pursued studies in macrosociological theory and in comparative social and political history. Puzzles kept emerging at the interface of these sets of studies. My attempts to formulate answers to problematic issues, and then to follow answers through to their conclusions, led me, through many stages of formulation, to the arguments and analyses now embodied here. There was, for one thing, my early intellectual confrontation with the case of South Africa. The history of that unhappy land struck me as an obvious refutation of Parsonian structure-functionalist explanations of societal order and change, and as an insuperable challenge to commonplace and comforting predictions that mass discontent would lead to revolution against the blatantly oppressive apartheid regime. Liberal justice, it seemed, did not inevitably triumph. Marxist class analysis impressed me as much more useful than structure-functionalism or relative deprivation theory for understanding the situation of the nonwhites in South Africa and decipher­ ing the long-term tendencies of socioeconomic change. But, working strictly in terms of class analysis, it was difficult to conceptualize, let alone ade­ quately explain, the structure of the South African state and the political role of the Afrikaners. Yet these seemed to be the keys to why no social revolution had occurred-or likely soon would-in South Africa. Another formative experience was a lengthy, in-depth exploration of the historical origins of the Chinese Revolution. To structure my program of study, I compared and sought to explain the relative successes and failures of the Taiping Rebellion, the Kuomintang Nationalist movement, and the Chinese Communist Party, looking at all three movements in the histori­ cally changing overall context of Chinese society. Deeply fascinated by late xii Preface Imperial and modem China, I came away from this research profoundly skeptical about the applicability (to China, and perhaps to other agrarian states as well) of received social-scientific categorizations such as "tradi­ tional" or "feudal." I also became convinced that the causes of revolutions could only be understood by looking at the specific interrelations of class and state structures and the complex interplay over time of domestic and international developments. If most other students of comparative revolutions have moved, so to speak, from the West to the East- interpreting the Russian Revolution in terms of the French, or the Chinese in terms of the Russian - my intellec­ tual journey has been the other way around the globe. After first investi· gating China, I next learned about France as part of a general program oj studies on the comparative political development of Western Europe. AI· though I realized that France was "supposed" to be like England, hel absolutist Old Regime seemed in many ways similar to Imperial China. J also deciphered basic similarities in the French and Chinese revolutional1 processes, both of which were launched by landed upper class revolt! agaihst absolutist monarchs, and both of which involved peasant revolt! and culminated in more centralized and bureaucratic New Regimes. Fi· nally, I came to interpret old-regime and revolutionary Russia in the samt analytic terms that I had worked out for China and France. And tht emphases on agrarian structures and state building seemed a fruitful way to understand the fate of this "proletarian" revolution after 1917, through 1921 and the early 1930s. There was yet another peculiarity worth noting about my induction into systematic research on revoiutions. Unlike most sociologists who work in this area, I learned a good deal about the histories of actual revolutions before I read very extensively in the social-scientific literature that purports to explain revolutions theoretically. When I did survey this literature, ] quickly became frustrated with it. The revolutionary process itself was envisaged in ways that corresponded very poorly to the histories I knew. And the causal explanations offered seemed either irrelevant or just plain wrong, given what I had learned about the similarities and differences oj countries that had, versus those that had not, experienced revolutions. Before long, I decided (to my own satisfaction, at least) what the funda­ mental trouble was: Social-scientific theories derived their explanations oj revolution from models of how political protest and change were ideally supposed to occur in liberal-democratic or capitalist societies. Thus non­ Marxist theories tended to envisage revolutions as particularly radical and ideological variants of the typical social reform movement, and Marxist! saw them as class actions spearheaded by the bourgeoisie or the proletar­ iat. No wonder, I said to myself, that these theories offer so little insight Xlll Preface into the causes and accomplishments of revolutions in predominantly agrarian countries with absolutist-monarchical states and peasant-based social orders. From this melange of intellectual experiences, a possible project, des­ tined to culminate in this book, presented itself to me: Use comparisons among the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions, and some contrasts of these cases to other countries, to clarify my critique of the inadequacies of existing theories of revolution, and to develop an alternative theoretical approach and explanatory hypotheses .. Although I rejected the assump­ tions and substantive arguments of the theories of revolution I knew, I still had the urge to clarity the general logic that I sensed was at work across the diversely situated major revolutions I had studied. Comparative his­ torical analysis seemed an ideal way to proceed. To my good fortune, the three Revolutions that I wanted to include in my comparative analysis had been extensively researched by historians and area specialists. A large existin� literature may be a bane for the specialist who hopes to make a new contribution based upon previously undiscovered or underexploited primary evidence. But for the comparative sociologist this is the ideal situation. Inevitably, broadly conceived comparative historical projects draw their evidence almost entirely from "secondary sources"­ that is, from research monographs and syntheses already published in book or journal-article form by the relevant historical or culture-area specialists. The comparative historian's task- and potential distinctive scholarly contri­ bution-lies not in revealing new data about particular aspects of the large time periods and diverse places surveyed in the comparative study, but rather in establishing the interest and prima facie validity of an overall argument about causal regularities across the various historical cases. The comparativist has neither the time nor (all of) the appropriate skills to do the primary research that necessarily constitutes, in large amounts, the foun­ dation upon which comparative studies are built. Instead, the comparativist must concentrate upon searching out and systematically surveying special­ ists' publications that deal with the issues defined as important by theoreti­ cal considerations and by the logic of comparative analysis. If, as is often the case, the points debated by specialists about a particular historical epoch or event are not exactly the ones that seem most important from a comparative perspective, then the comparative analyst must be prepared to adapt the evidence presented in the works of the specialists to analytic purposes some­ what tangential to those they originally envisaged. And the comparativist must be as systematic as possible in searching out information on the same topics from case to case, even though the specialists are likely to emphasize varying topics in their research and polemics from one country to the next. Plainly, the work of the comparativist only becomes possible after a large primary literature has been built up by specialists. Only then can the compaXIV Preface rativist hope to find at least some material relevant to each topic that must �e investigated according to the dictates of the comparative, explanatory argument that he or she is attempting to develop. As the Bibliography for this book is meant to indicate, I have been able to draw extensively upon rich literatures about France, Russia, and China. Each literature has great depth and scope, and each includes many books and articles originally published in (or translated into) English and French, the two languages that I read most easily. With occasional exceptions attributable to the thinness of interest about particular topics in one his­ torical literature or another, the challenges I have faced have not been due to difficulties of finding basic information. Rather they have been chal­ lenges of surveying huge historical literatures and appropriately weighing and using the contributions of specialists, in order to develop a coherent comparative historical argument. How well I have met these challenges is for readers (including historians and area specialists) to judge for them­ selves. For myself, I shall be satisfied if this book serves in some small measure to provoke debate and inspire further investigations, both among people interested in one particular revolution or another and among people concerned to understand modern revolutions in general, their past causes and accomplishments and their future prospects. Comparative his­ tory grows out of the interplay of theory and history, and it should in turn contribute to the further enrichment of each. Working and reworking the argument of this book over the last few years has often felt like an unending lonely struggle with a giant jig-saw puzzle. But, in actuality, many people have lent a hand, helping me to see better the overall design and pointing out where particular pieces fit, or do not. My most fundamental scholarly debt is to Barrington Moore, Jr. It was my reading of his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy while I was still an undergraduate at Michigan State University that introduced me to the magnificent scope of com'parative history and taught me that agrarian structures and conflicts offer important keys to the patterns of modern politics. Moreover, the graduate seminars I took from Moore at Harvard were the crucibles within which my capacities to do comparative analysis were forged, even as I was allowed the space to develop my own interpretations. Moore set rigorous tasks and reacted with telling criti­ cisms. And student fellowship in the seminars provided a supportive and mtellectually lively atmosphere. In fact, two friends among fellow students in Moore's seminars, Mounira Charrad and John Mollenkopf, have given me encouragement and advice through all stages of this project on compar­ ative revolutions. Another crucial, longstanding influence has been Ellen Kay Trimberger. I first became aware of her kindred work on "revolutions from above" in xv Preface Japan and Turkey in 1970. And, ever since, Kay's ideas, comments, and friendship have helped me enormously to develop my analysis of France, Russia and China. Like many first books, this one had an earlier incarnation as a doctoral dissertation. That phase of the project was certainly the most painful, because I undertook too much in too short a time. Nevertheless, in retro­ spect it was worth it, for a "big" thesis, however imperfect, offers more potential for the subsequent development of a publishable book than a more polished narrow dissertation. For encouraging me to undertake the nearly impossible, lowe thanks to Daniel Bell, who also made detailed and provocative comments on the thesis draft. The dissertation was formally advised by the good and admirable George Caspar Homans, who gave careful feedback and exerted unremitting pressure for me to finish quickly. The remaining member of my thesis committee, Seymour Martin Lipset, made astute suggestions from beginning to end and was kind enough not to hold it against me when the thesis took longer to complete than I had originally planned. Financial support during my final years of Ph.D. work came from a Danforth Graduate Fellowship, which leaves its holders free to pursue research topics of their own choosing. After the dissertation was completed, Charles Tilly generously offered encouragement and recommendations for the major revisions that lay ahead. Colleagues and students at Harvard, where I teach, helped in innu­ merable ways to facilitate and stimulate my progress on the book. And once the revisions were partially done, many others helped speed the book to completion. Walter Lippincott, Jr., of Cambridge University Press, ar­ ranged for early reviews of the manuscript; these'resulted not only in a contract for publication but also in very useful advice on the introduction from John Dunn and Eric Wolf. Peter Evans also made suggestions that helped with the revisions of the first chapter. Mary Fulbrook provided research assistance for revisions of Chapter 3, and her work was paid for by a small grant from the Harvard Graduate Society. I likewise benefited from the Sociology Department's Fund for Junior Faculty Research. Several friends heroically took the time to make written comments on the entire book draft. These special helpers were: Susan Eckstein, Harriet Friedmann, Walter Goldfrank, Peter Gourevitch, Richard Kraus, Joel Mig­ dal, and Jonathan Zeitlin. In addition, Perry Anderson, Reinhard Bendix, Victoria Bonnell, Shmuel Eisenstadt, Terence Hopkins, Lynn Hunt, Bar­ rington Moore, Jr., Victor Nee, Magali Sarfatti-Larson, Ann Swidler, and Immanuel Wallerstein all made comments on related published articles of mine, comments which substantially influenced subsequent work on the book. Needless to say, whereas the abovementioned people are responsible for much of what may be good about this work, none is to be held accountable for its shortc1:Omings. XVI Preface Mrs; Nellie Miller, Louisa Amos, and Lynn McKay did wonderfully speedy and accurate work in typing the final manuscript. Mrs. Miller deserves thanks above all, for she did most of the typing in every stage of revision. I was fortunate indeed to be able to rely upon her perfectionism and intelligence. Finally, of course, I lovingly acknowledge the help of my husband, Bill SkocpoI; to whom this book is dedicated. His comments on all parts of the text through many revisions, his willingness to help with practical chores such as the typing of early thesis versions and the checking of quotes at the end, aIld his patience in the face of my emotional ups-and-downs through­ out:\the entire process- all of these contributions are embodied in every part9fStates and Social Revolutions. Bill is an experimental physicist, but withoufhis willing aid this work of comparative historical sociology could not have developed to completion. XVll Explaining Social Revolutions: Alternatives to Existing Theories Revolutions are the locomotives of history. Karl Marx Controversy over different views of "methodology" and "theory" is properly carried on in close and continuous relation with su bstantive prob lems .... The character of these problems limits and suggests the methods and conceptions that are used and how they are used. C. Wright Mills have been rare but momentous occur­ rences in modern world history. From France in the 1790s to Viet­ in the mid-twentieth century, �': se revoJ!!!ionlh ave transf�tate . , ,. ies. T�have giVen �rganizations class structures Jrt to nations whose power and autonomy markedly surpassed their ./()wn prerevolutionary pasts and outstripped other countries in similar cir­ .cumstances. Revolutionary France became suddenly a conquering power in Continental Europe, and the Russian Revolution generated an industrial :and military superpower. The Mexican Revolution gave its homeland the political strength to become one of the most industrialized of postcolonial ..'nations and the country in Latin America least prone to military coups. :Since World War II, the culmination of a revolutionary process long underway has reunited and transformed a shattered China. And new social . revolutions have enabled decolonizing and neocolonial countries such as Vietnam and Cuba to break the chains of extreme dependency. Nor have social revolutions had only national significance. In some cases social revolutions have given rise to models and ideals of enormous international impact and appeal-especially where the transformed soci­ eties have been large and geopolitically important, actual or potential Great Powers. The patriotic armies of revolutionary France mastered much of Europe. Even before the conquests and long after military defeat, the :F,rench revolutionary ideals of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" fired imaginations in quest of social and national liberation: The effects reached froJIl Geneva to Santo Domingo, from Ireland to Latin America and India, and influenced subsequent revolutionary theorists from Babeuf to Marx and Lenin, to anticolonialists of the twentieth century. The Russian RevoOCIAL R E V O L UT I ONS 3 Introduction lution astounded the capitalist West and whetted the ambitions of the emerging nations by demonstrating that revol utionary state power c ould, within the space of two generations, transform a backward agrarian coun­ try into the second-ranked industrial and military power in the world. What the Russian Revolution was for the first half of the twentieth c en­ tury, the Chinese has been for the second half. By showing that a Leninist party can lead a peasant majority in economic and military struggles, it " . . . has brought a great power into being which proclaims itself the revolutionary and developmental model for the poor c ountries of the world."l "The Yenan Way" and "The Countryside Against the City" have offered fresh ideals and models and renewed hopes for revolutionary na­ tionalists in the mid-twentieth century. Moreover, as Elbaki Hermassi has emphasized, major r evolutions affect not only those abroad who would like to imitate them. They also affect those in other countries who oppose revolutionary ideals but are compelled to respond to the c hallenges or threats posed by the enhanced national power that has been generated. "The world-historical character of revolutions means . . . , " says Her­ massi, that "they exert a demonstration effect beyond the boundaries of their country of origin, with a potential for triggering waves of revolution and counterrevolution both within and between societies."2 To be sure, social revolutions have not been the only forces for change at work in the modern era. Within the matrix of the "Great Transforma­ tion" (that is, worldwide commercialization and industrialization, and the rise of national states and expansion of the European states (system to encompass the entire globe) political upheavals and socioeconomic changes have happened in every country. But within this matrix, social revolutions deserve special attention, not only because of their extraordi­ nary significance for the histories of nations and the world but also be­ cause of their distinctive pattern of sociopolitical change. Social revolutions are rapid, basic transformations of a society's state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below. Social revol utions are set apart from other sorts of conflicts and transformative processes above all by the com­ bination of two coincidences: the coincidence of societal structural change with class upheaval; and the coincidence of political with social transfor­ mation. In contrast, rebellions, even when successful, may involve the revolt of subordinate classes- but they do not eventuate in structural change.3 Political revolutions transform state structures but not social structures, and they are not necessarily accomplished through class con­ flict.4 And processes such as industrialization can transform social struc­ tures without necessarily bringing about, or resulting from, sudden politi­ cal upheavals or basic political-structural changes. What is unique to social 4 Explaining Social Revolutions ii�volution is that basic changes in social structure and in political structure 9�cur together in a mutually reinforcing fashion. And these changes occur !hrough intense sociopolitical conflicts in which class strug��-y 191!./ lh/This conception of social revolution d iffers from many other definitions .ofrevolution in important respects. First, it identifies a complex object of �xplanarion, of which there:!!-e rela�y few � instances. It does �his rather than trying to multiply the number of cases for explanation by ¢ollcentrating only upon one analytic feature (such as violence or political ;¢bnflict) shared by many events of heterogeneous nature and outcome.5 It !s;my firm belief that analytic oversimplification cannot lead us toward v�1id, complete explanations of revolutions. If our intention is to under­ '§tand large-scale conflicts and changes such as those that occurred in lFra�ce from 1787 to 1800, we cannot make progress by starting with 'Objects of explanation that isolate only the aspects that such revolutionary �vents share with, say, riots or coups. We must look at the revolutions as" �wholes, in much of their complexity. Second, this definition makes successful sociopolitical transformation­ �ctual change of state and class structures-part of the specification of 'what is to be called a social revolution, rather than leaving change contin­ gent in the definition of "revolution" as many other scholars do.6 The i'aflonale IS my belief that successful social revolutIOns prObably emerge from different macro-structural and historical contexts than do either failed social revolutions or political transformations that are not accompa­ nied by transformations of class relations. Because I intend to focus exactly 90 this question in my comparative historical analysis - in which actual �odal revolutions will be compared to unsuccessful cases and to non­ '�oCial-revolutionary transformations- my concept of social revolution nec­ �ssarily highlights successful change as a ·basic defining feature. ,How, then, are social revolutions to be explained? Where are we to turn for fruitful modes of analyzing their causes and outcomes? In my view, existing social-scientific theories of revolution are not adequate. 7 In conse­ quence, the chief purpose of this chapter is to introduce and defend princi­ ples and methods of analysis that represent alternatives to those shared by aU (or most) existing approaches. I shall argue that, in contrast to the modes of explanation used by the currently prevalent theories, social revo­ bitions should be analyzed from a�ural pe�ctive, with special at­ tention devoted to international contexts and to developments at home 'and abroad that affect the breakdown of the state organizations of old tegj!nes and the bui.lg.!!P....9Ln:��..J--.!evolutionary state organizations. Fur­ thermore, I shall argue that comparative historical analysis is the most 5 Introduction appropriate way to develop explanations of revolutions that are at once historically grounded and generalizable beyond unique cases. To facilitate the subsequent presentation of these theoretical and meth· odological alternatives, it should be helpful to identify major types of social­ scientific theories of revolution, briefly sketching the important char­ acteristics of each as embodied in the work of a representative writer. The kinds of theories I am about to summarize in this manner are all properly calle d "general" theories of revolution - that is, they are r ather broadly fonnulated conceptual schemes and hypotheses meant to be applicable across many particular historical instances. This book itself does not repre­ sent exactly th� same sort of scholarly endeavor as such general theories. Instead, like other historically grounded, comparative studies of revolu­ tions- such as Barrington Moore, Jr.'s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Eric Wolf's Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, and John Dunn's Modern Revolutions8- this book basically analyzes in depth a set of cases. Yet, also like these siste��Il{s(and perhaps even more determinedly th an flie latter two), this book is concerned not merely with narrating the cases one by one but primarily with understanding and explaining the gen­ eralizable logic at work in the entire set of revolutions under discUs sion. Plainly, tEe sorts of concepts and hypotheses found in general theories.01' revolution are potentially relevant to the explanatory task of the compara­ tive historian; in fact, any comparative study either draws upon or reacts against the ideas put forward by social-scientific theorists of revolution, from Marx to more contemporary writers. It follows, therefore, that briefly. summarizing general theories, though not allowing us to explore the far " richer arguments of existing comparative-historical treatments of revolu­ tions, nevertheless does provide an economical way of identifying relevant basic theoretical issues for later commentary. It is useful, I suggest, to think of c urrently important social-scientinc theories of revolution as grouped into four major families, which I shall take up one by one. The most obviously relevant of these groupings is the Marxist; and the key ideas are best represented in the works of Karl Marx himself. As active proponents of this mode of social change, Marxists have been the social analysts most consistently concerned with understanding social revolutions as such. To be sure, in the tumultuous century since the de ath of Marx, many divergent tendencies have developed within Marxist intellectual and political traditions: Subsequent Marxist theorists of revo­ lution range from technological determinists such as Nikolai Bukharin (in Historical Materialism),9 to political strategists such as Lenin and Mao,lO to Western Marxists such as Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, and con­ temporary "structuralists" such as Louis Althusser.ll Nevertheless, Marx's original approach to revolutions has remained the unquestioned, if vari· ously interpreted, basis lor all such later Marxists. 6 Explaining Social Revolutions �����ebasic elements of Marx's theory can be straightforwardly identified \�!fhout in any way denying the fact that all of the elements are open to ��g�ly varying weights and interpretations. Marx understood revolutions ���,� .. ,> ' - t� 1 �*� � � W s PJ � :�ike. � ,y' . - '.... , 19 Introduction i d:� � overwhelms the integration of the social system, based upon value conse sus. Then, in tum, ideological movements are stimulated that overthro,; the existing authorities and reorient societal values. Or possibly the gesta:� tion of a new mode of production � thin th� womb of the old provides . of a new class, whIch estabhshes a new mode of produc� base for the nse tion through revolution. In any case, modernization gives rise to revolution through changing the temper, value commitments, or potential for collec:,l tive mobilization of people or groups in society. And revolution itseu.� creates conditions for (or at least removes obstacles to) further socioec� nomic development. •• .•� But conceptions of modernization as an intranational socioeconomi�: process that occurs in parallel ways from country to country cannot mak�j ' sense even of the original changes in Europe- much less of the subsequent! transformations in the rest of the world. From the start, international,: relations have intersected with preexisting class and political structures t()) promote and shape divergent as well as similar changes in various coun� tries. Certainly this has been true of economic developments, commerci�i and industrial. As capitalism has spread across the globe, transnational! flows of trade and investment have affected all countries- though in un�! even and often contrasting ways. England's original breakthroughs to capi� talist agriculture and industry depended in part upon her strong positionsl within international markets from the seventeenth century onward. Subs�1 quent national industrializations in the nineteenth century were partially-� and variously- shaped by international flows of goods, migrants, and in:! vestment capital, and by the attempts of each national state to influenc� these flows. Moreover, as "peripheral" areas of the globe were incorpo:i rated into world economic networks centered on the more industrially' advanced countries, their preexisting economic structures and class rela�i tions were often reinforced or modified in ways inimical to subsequent' self-sustaining and diversified growth. Even if conditions later changed, so; that i ndustrialization got under way in some of these areas, the process inevitably proceeded in forms quite different from those characteristic of earlier national .industrializations. We need not necessarily accept argu: ments that national economic developments are actually determined by the overall structure and market dynamics of a "world capitalist system." We can, however, certainly note that historically developing transnational eco· nomic relations have always strongly (and differentially) influenced na: tional economic developments. 50 .. Another kind of transnational structure - an international system of competing states - has also shaped the dynamic and uneven course of mod·, em world history. Europe was the site not only of capitalist economic breakthroughs but also of a continental political structure in which no one imperial state controlled the entire territory of Europe and her overseas � , � 20 ���t Explaining Social Revolutions �� ests (after 1450). Economic interchanges occurred systematically ��g�fa wider territory than any one state ever controlled. This meant, for !OWe�,thing, that the increased wealth that was generated by European geo­ �lpbical expansion and by the development of capitalism never was sim­ ,plrJL� iverted to the maintenance of a cumbersome imperial superstructure spi�\yling over an entire continent. Such had always been the eventual fate �!it#�hes generated in other world-economies encompassed by political ,emPires-such as Rome and China. But the European world-economy was \ll�q'Ue in that it developed within a system of competing states. 51 In the w-oHls of Walter Dorn: It is [the] very competitive character of the state system of modern Europe that distinguishes it from the political life of all previous and ·�· �.\J: Y;::· ·; ;� ": )i":"; non-European civilizations of the world. Its essence lies in the coexis­ tence of independent and coordinate states, whose expansionist drive · �I��\. provoked incessant military conflicts . . . and above all the prevention i ��N:W" subjection. S2 ·:· : '.��\/ of any single power from reducing the others to a state of permanent i���pecially as England underwent commercialization and the first na­ tl�'ii��H industrialization, competition within the European states system sa�ffed modernizing developments throughout Europe.53 Recurrent war­ f��� within the system of states prompted European monarchs and states­ ilt�;to centralize, regiment, and technologically upgrade armies and fiscal i��.iWhistrations. And, from the French Revolution on, such conflicts ��}:l�ed them to mobilize citizen masses with patriotic appeals. Political d�:v,elopments, in turn, reacted to modify patterns of economic: developnt�nt, first through bureaucratic attempts to guide or administer industrial­ ii�,tIon from above, and ultimately also through the harnessing of mass j�yplveinent by revolutionary regimes, as in Soviet Russia. :)1�M.oreover, as Europe experienced economic breakthroughs from the six­ t��i1th century on, the competitive dynamism of the European states sys­ t�ro promoted the spread of European "civilization" across the entire ;gI�be. Initially, the competition of states was one condition facilitating and ii*pmpting Iberian colonial expansion into the New World. Later England, �Mrred by worldwide competition with France, struggled for, and ulti­ :l!i*e1y achieved, formal control or de facto hegemony over virtually the �#()le of Europe's new colonial acquisitions and former New World hold­ �iGgs; Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the competition of more 1\��'Hy equal European industrial powers contributed to the carving up of tt#ri�a and much of Asia into colonial territories. Eventually, in the wake ,�,t�the massive economic and geopolitical shifts occasioned by World War llj'.;':these colonies would emerge as new, formally independent nations :W:ithirt the now global states system. By then even Japan and China, coun­ :Jiti$ that had traditionally remained aloof from the West and had escaped " v " '. .� . ,o'"-� , , Introduction colonization, would also be fully incorporated into the states system. By preindustrial standards, Japan and China were advanced and powerful agrarian states; and both avoided ultimate or permanent subjugationjn, large part because Western intrusions set afoot revolutionary upheavals that culminated sooner or later in vastly enhanced powers of national defense and assertion within the international states system. Some theorists of world capitalism, including most notably Immanll�1 Wallerstein, attempt to explain in economically reductionist terms ,the structure and dynamics of this (originally European and ultimately gloiJal) international states system. S4 In order to do this, such theorists typic;!l1y assume that individual nation-states are instruments used by economically dominant groups to pursue world-market oriented development at home and international economic advantages abroad. But a different perspective is adopted here, one which holds that nation-states are, more fundamen· tally, organizations geared to maintain control of home territories and populations and to undertake actual or potential military competition with other states in the international systein. The international states system a� a transnational structure of military competition was not originally created by capitalism. Throughout modem world history, it represents an analyti, cally autonomous level of transnational reality - interdependent in it� structure and dynamics with world capitalism, but not reducible to jt.5� The militarily relevant strengths and international advantages (or di�a'i: vantages) of states are not entirely explicable in terms of their domestic; economies or international economic positions. Such factors as state ;!d� ministrative efficiency, political capacities for mass mobilization, and inter" national geographical position are also relevant. S6 In addition, the will ;md capacity of states to undertake national economic transformations (which may also have international ramifications) are influenced by their military situations and their preexisting, militarily relevant administrative and po· litical capacitiesY Just as capitalist economic development has spurred transformations of states and of the international state system, so have these "acted back" upon the cou rse and forms of capital accumulation within nations and on a world scale. Right from the European beginnings, therefore, modernization has al· ways meant national developments only within the contexts of historically developing transnational structures, both economic and military. The so, cial analyst can make sense of transformations at the national level, includ· ing social revolutions, only through a kind of conceptual j uggling act. 4s long as nation-states and their competition remain important realities,itis best (at least for analyzing phenomena that centrally involve states) to, employ the state/society as the basic unit of analysis. Yet along with vari· abies referring to patterns and processes internal to these units, transna· tional factors must also be taken into consideration as key contextual 22 ��*�, Explaining Social Revolutions ,,·< ��r/:� · 58 Two different sorts of transnational contexts are relevant. On variables. tIi (al1e hand, there are the structures of the world capitalist economy and th��international states system, within which individual nations are situ­ �t¢a1�jn different positions. And, on the other hand, there are changes and tt�Q�missjons in "world time," which affect both the overall world con­ � Ffwithin which revolutions occur and the particular models and op­ n�fi$ ,tor action that can be borrowed from abroad by revolutionary l�� �shlps. �('JThejnvolvement within transnational structures of countries (actually d \Potentially) undergoing social revolutions is relevant in several ways. m�!p:t:ically, unequal or competitive transnational relations have helped to��� ape any given country's state and class structures, thus influencing �H�\t��isting "domestic" context from which revolution emerges (or not). FUrthermore, transnational relations influence the course of events during a�,��l revolutionary conjunctures. Modern social revolutions have hap­ p¢,ii�d '
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