***THE GRANDDADDY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE REVOLUTIONS-Crane Brinton

BOOK REVIEW

THE ANATOMY OF REVOLUTION, Revised and Expanded, CRANE BRINTON, VINTAGE BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1965

I have always been an avid student of the great modern revolutions both as a matter of practical politics and in order to glean some insights into how they have affected human history. In short, how the ideas and practice of those revolutions have acted as nodal points on the further progress of humankind. Crane Brinton’s little book was probably the first book I read that tried to put that idea into some kind of order. While some of the material in the book is dated and some has been superseded by events and further research every serious student of comparative revolutions depends in some way or another on his pioneering methodology.

Brinton takes the four great revolutions of his time (the Chinese Revolution had not occurred when he originally wrote the book)-the English of the 17^th century, the French and American of the 18^th century and the Russian of the 20^th century and draws some common conclusions from them. Here the American Revolution acts as a kind of control for viewing the others. While no one would deny that each great revolution has its own perculiarities some lessons, so to speak, can be drawn from the various experiences.

Brinton traces the role of ideas, all kinds of ideas, some fanciful some serious that accompany the dawn of every pre-revolutionary period as those who want to make a revolution or at least change things get a hearing from layers of society that they would not get in more stable times. He also notes that the old regimes have run out of steam both in ideas and personnel, as exemplified by those who ruled at the time of revolutionary upheaval. While the spark that ignited each revolution had different causes the revolutionary process itself starts out as a broad coalition of forces opposed for various reasons to the old regime. Then a process of differentiation occurs where various more moderate or modest revolutionary types fall by the way side or are pushed aside under pressure from the more plebian masses and those committed to see the revolution out to the end, the Cromwells, the Robsepierres and the Lenins. During the course of these changes the counter-revolution, usually aided by foreign powers, rears its head.

I want to give particular attention to the question of Thermidor- that is the point where the revolution itself loses steam.  The term itself stems from that point in the French Revolution in 1794 where the extreme left under Robespierre was defeated by more moderate forces within his own party (the Jacobins) and while not returning back to the old regime most definitely marked the end of progressive social experimentation.  This has always been a thorny question on the political left. The Bolsheviks, particularly Trotsky, in the period of decline of the Russian Revolution poured out reams of polemics on its meaning (and even its applicability to their revolution). There are various causes for Thermidor; the leadership cadre gets tired, complacent or dies defending the revolution against counter-revolution; the people who previously supported the more extreme measures act likewise; and, those who want to stop the revolution in its tracks find a voice for their frustrations. That much is clear from Brinton. What may need some revising is the question of whether in light of the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92 and the return to capitalism there  and the reverses in the Chinese Revolution which place it on the road back to capitalism that the previous premise about not going back to the old regime still holds true. The only way out of that dilemma is to argue that in neither case has the situation returned to the semi-feudal state before those revolutions. As for me, that argument is not good enough. In any case, while you will need to read other books on comparative revolutions this is the place to start.