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France, Russia, China: A Structural Analysis of Social Revolutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Theda Skocpol
Theda Skocpol
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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'A revolution', writes Samuel P. Huntington in Political Order in Changing Societies, 'is a rapid, fundamental, and violent domestic change in the dominant values arfd myths of a society, in its political institutions, social structure, leadership, and government activities and policies'.1 In The Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Lenin provides a different, but complementary perspective: 'Revolutions', he says, 'are the festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the masses of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of a new social order'.

Type
The Analysis of Revolution
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 175 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1976

References

This article represents a shortened and revised version of a paper presented at the Session on Revolutions of the 1973 Meetings of the American Sociological Association. For criticism, advice (not all of it heeded), intellectual stimulation and encouragement offered to the author in the long course of preparing this paper, thanks go to: Daniel Bell, Mounira Charrad, Linda Frankel, George Homans, S. M. Lipset, Gary Marx, John Mollenkopf, Barrington Moore, Jr., Bill Skocpol, Sylvia Thrupp and Kay Trimberger.

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119 Normally ‘class structure’ is analyzed only or mainly with reference to the mode of production of a society, but state organization and activities influence patterns of stratification as well. State influences were crucial in creating social forces that played key roles in the great historical social revolutions.