Distinguishes a revolutionary movement from other social movements? How far do you consider the Cuban revolution a ‘successful’ revolution?
A revolutionary movement from other social movements? How far
do you consider the Cuban revolution a ‘successful’ revolution have changed as
new events have come forth on the stage of world history. Through the 1980s,
most writers on revolution focused on the “great revolutions” of England
(1640), France , Russia , and China . Although scholars
admitted that other events, like the Mexican and Cuban revolutions , had valid claims to be great
revolutions, the foremost influential comparative studies of revolution from
Brinton to Skocpol dealt mainly with a couple of European and
Asian cases. Skocpol's definition of great social revolutions—“rapid,
basic transformations of a society's state and sophistication structures accompanied
and partially carried through by class-based revolts from below”—was taken as
standard.
Skocpol's work capped what I even have called the third
generation of revolutionary analysis (Goldstone 1980). therein work, a series
of students including Moore (1966), Paige (1975), Eisenstadt (1978) and lots of
others expanded on the old Marxist class-conflict approach to revolutions by
turning attention to rural agrarian-class conflict, state conflicts with
autonomous elites, and therefore the impact of interstate military and economic
competition on domestic political change. This work, during which revolution
was attributed to a conjunction of multiple conflicts involving states, elites,
and therefore the lower classes, was a serious improvement on simple
descriptive generalizations, like those of Brinton (1938), or of analyses that
rested on such broad single factors as “modernization” (Huntington 1968) or
“relative deprivation” (Davies 1962, Gurr 1970).
From the 1970s through the 1990s, however, the planet saw a number of revolutions that challenged the class-based understanding of revolutions. In Iran and Nicaragua in 1979 and within the Philippines in 1986, multiclass coalitions toppled dictators who had long enjoyed strong support from the world's leading superpower, the us (Dix 1984, Liu 1988, Goodwin 1989, Farhi 1990, Parsa 2000). In Eastern Europe and therefore the Soviet Union in 1989–1991, socialist and totalitarian societies that were alleged to be impervious to class conflict collapsed amid popular demonstrations and mass strikes (Banac 1992, Dunlop 1993, Oberschall 1994a, Urban et al 1997, Beissinger 1998). The Iranian Revolution and therefore the Afghan Revolution of 1979 proudly proclaimed themselves as religious struggles, not based totally on class issues. A revolutionary movement from other social movements? How far do you consider the Cuban revolution a ‘successful’ revolution and therefore the host of anticolonial and antidictatorial revolutions within the Third World , starting from Angola to Zaire, became so numerous and affected numerous folks that the parochial practice of defining revolutions in terms of a couple of cases in European history plus China became untenable (Boswell 1989, Foran 1997b). additionally , whereas the “great revolutions” had all led fairly on to populist dictatorship and civil wars, variety of the newer revolutions—including that of the Philippines, the revolutionary struggle in South Africa , and a number of other of the anticommunist revolutions of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—seemed to supply a replacement model during which the revolutionary collapse of the old regime was including a comparatively nonviolent transition to democracy.
In response to those events, theories of revolution evolved
in three directions. First, researchers sought to use the structural theory of
revolution to an increasingly diverse set of cases, well beyond the tiny number
of “great” social revolutions. These included studies of guerrilla wars and
popular mobilization in Latin America ; studies of anticolonial and
antidictatorial revolutions in developing nations ; studies of revolutions and
rebellions in Eurasia from 1500 to; A revolutionary movement from other social
movements? How far do you consider the Cuban revolution a ‘successful’
revolution , studies of the Islamic revolution against the Shah in Iran; and
studies of the collapse of communism within the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe .
Second, partially propelled by the above-noted works, which
found in these new cases a strong role for ideologies and diverse multiclass
revolutionary coalitions, there emerged direct attacks on the “third
generation” approach. Scholars involved greater attention to conscious agency,
to the role of ideology and culture in shaping revolutionary mobilization and
objectives, and to contingency within the course and outcome of revolutions Important new comparative studies of revolutions demonstrated the importance of
those additional factors in recent events .
Third, analysts of both revolutions and social movements
realized that a lot of of the processes underlying revolutions—e.g. mass
mobilization, ideological conflicts, confrontation with authorities—have been
well studied within the analysis of social movements. Indeed, a number of the
more extensive and radical social movements that involved major changes to the
distribution of power, like the international movement for women's rights, the
trade union movement , and therefore the US civil rights movement, were revolutionary
within the risks taken by activists and therefore the institutional
restructurings produced by their efforts. Thus, a replacement literature on
“contentious politics” has developed that attempts to mix insights from the
literature on social movements and revolutions to raised understand both
phenomena.
As a results of these critiques, the straightforward state-
and class-based conception of revolutions advanced by Skocpol not seems
adequate. an enormous range of events now claim our attention as samples of
revolution, starting from the fascist, Nazi, and communist transformations of
countries within the first a part of this century to the collapses of communist
regimes at its end; from the idealistic revolutions of America and France at
the top of the eighteenth century to the chaotic revolutionary wars in Africa
at the top of the 20 th . A revolutionary movement from other social movements?
How far do you consider the Cuban revolution a ‘successful’ revolution , Two
recent surveys of revolution (Tilly 1993, Goldstone 1998c) list literally many
events as “revolutionary” in character. Nonetheless, these events still have a
standard set of elements at their core: (a) efforts to vary the political
regime that draw on a competing vision (or visions) of a just order, (b) a
notable degree of informal or formal mass mobilization, and (c) efforts to
force change through noninstitutionalized actions like mass demonstrations,
protests, strikes, or violence.
This definition is broad enough to encompass events starting
from the relatively peaceful revolutions that overthrew communist regimes to
the violent Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. At an equivalent time, this
definition is robust enough to exclude coups, revolts, civil wars, and
rebellions that make no effort to rework institutions or the justification for
authority. It also excludes peaceful transitions to democracy through
institutional arrangements like plebiscites and free elections, as in Spain
after Franco.
Types of Revolutions
Revolutions are distinguished sometimes by outcomes,
sometimes by actors. Revolutions that transform economic and social structures
also as political institutions, like the French Revolution of 1789, are called
great revolutions; people who change only state institutions are called
political revolutions. Revolutions that involve autonomous lower-class revolts are
labeled social revolutions , whereas sweeping reforms administered by elites
who directly control mass mobilization are sometimes called elite revolutions
or revolutions from above . Revolutions that fail to secure power after
temporary victories or large-scale mobilization are often called failed or
abortive revolutions; oppositional movements that either don't aim to require
power (such as peasant or worker protests) or specialise in a specific region
or subpopulation are usually called rebellions (if violent) or protests. A
revolutionary movement from other social movements? How far do you consider the
Cuban revolution a ‘successful’ revolution , Despite these differences, all of
those revolutionary events have similar dynamics and characteristics (McAdam et
al, in preparation).
Revolutions don't always feature an equivalent set of key
actors, nor do all of them unfold within the same way. Popular mobilization
could also be primarily urban (as in Iran and Eastern Europe), feature
extensive peasant revolts (Wolf 1969), or involve organized guerrilla war.
Huntington (1968) acknowledged that major revolutions show a minimum of two
distinct patterns of mobilization and development. If military and most
civilian elites initially are actively supportive of the govt , popular
mobilization must happen from a secure, often remote, base. within the course
of a guerrilla or war during which revolutionary leaders gradually extend their
control of the countryside, they have to create popular support while expecting
the regime to be weakened by events—such as military defeats, affronts to
national pride and identity, or its own ill-directed repression or acts of
corruption—that cost it domestic elite and foreign support. Eventually, if the
regime suffers elite or military defections, the revolutionary movement can
advance or begin urban insurrections and seize the capital . Revolutions of
this sort , which we may call peripheral revolutions, occurred in Cuba,
Vietnam, Nicaragua, Zaire, Afghanistan, and Mozambique.
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