Explaining the anti-Soviet revolutions by state breakdown theory and geopolitical theory

Abstract

A major area of advance in social science in recent decades has been the state breakdown theory of revolution. This is part of a larger body of theory about the rise of the modern state and the crises that can befall it along the way. It is sometimes referred to as the military/fiscal theory of the modern state, and as a branch of that larger theory, the state-centered theory of revolution. Here I will link military/fiscal theory of the state to geopolitical theory. Military/fiscal theory shows us the central mechanism, both of state growth and state breakdown; these are proximate causes, and further back in the causal chain are geopolitical conditions. Geopolitics tends to be the primer mover in any particular historical sequence, what sets off the changes that eventually lead to state growth or breakdown.