Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

With the accelerated process of modernization the number of revolutions has increased. The twentieth century witnessed many events of this kind. In this chapter the authors analyze the main features of the twentieth-century revolutions, and their difference from those of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, revolutionary activities increasingly moved from the World System core to its semi-periphery or even to the periphery (in the nineteenth century, though they often happened not in the core, but close to it, which sometimes allowed countries that survived the revolution to move to the core). As a result, the influence of revolutions on the historical process changed and their role as driving forces of progress in respect of the World System generally decreased. Also, guerilla warfare in the revolutionary societies of the periphery and semi-periphery became very common. New types of revolution emerged, and less widespread types further diffused. First of all, these were the Communist revolutions, and toward the end of the century—as a result of the decline of Communism—anti-communist ones as well as power-modernist and others. The authors offer a new typology of revolutions. The twentieth-century revolutionary process is described in chronological order as comprising four revolutionary waves and intervening periods (like the 1930s, or the 1950s–1970s) when revolutionary waves were not observed. It shows significant differences in the characteristics of revolutions in the first and second half of the twentieth century. The chapter considers some aspects of the theory of revolution as applied to revolutions of the twentieth century. In particular, the concept of lines of revolutions is introduced; their connection with revolutionary waves and differences from them are shown. The lines of revolutions show significant similarities in the causes, character, goals and results of revolutions of certain periods (up to three-four decades). Moreover, the lines of revolutions do not coincide with the waves of revolutions. The wave of revolutions is a more objective concept associated with a group of fairly close-in-time events (often associated with a specific region and some common world-system event, see above). The line is a more theoretical construct, combining cases of different chronologies from different waves, but there are also quite objective things behind it. Nine lines of revolutions are analyzed (five in the first half of the century, four in the second). Much attention is paid to the analysis of revolution as one of the transformative changes (along with others—including coups, reforms, violent modernization, etc.) in society and in relation to different periods. For such an analysis, the term “analogue of revolution” is introduced. Revolution analogues are those sociopolitical events that result in a change of political regime and profound transformations in sociopolitical structure; but this change takes place not by mobilizing the masses and protest actions against the existing government, but by other means: a peaceful constitutional movement coming to power; a military coup; conspiracy and palace coup; constitutional coup (for example, the impeachment of the president, etc.). An important feature of the revolution analogue (and not just reforms, transformations, modernization, etc.) can be considered the subsequent mobilization of the masses, that is, the mobilization of masses in the course of social and political transformations after the seizure of power by the new elite. The chapter also includes two appendices, which contain a Table with the data on revolutionary events of the twentieth century, as well as diagrams with correlations and ratios of different types and subtypes of revolutions as well as other revolutionary events.