State and Social Revolution

Abstract

Losing military ventures (undermining the army, but taking it out of the country) and fiscal crises (undermining the ability to pay the army, as a result of division among elites) combine to create regime crises which offern insurgent actors opportunities they would not otherwise have access to. 20. Skocpol, States and Revolution (1979) (classes/state/states) Comparative historical method with a structuralist approach to study three social revolutions (France, Russia, China) as contrasted with three non-revolutions (Prussia, Japan, England) focus on class dynamics, state organization, international dynamics. The pattern is as follows: 1) wealthy politically ambitious agrarian bureaucratic autocracies confronting (2) more economically developed military competitors. Conjuncture of: 1) incapacity of central state machinery (blocked by traditinal elites from raising money), 2) rebellion by lower classes, especially peasants (different due to different shape of communities in France (united only in opposition), Russia (united among themselves), China (separate familiees loosely integrated by elites), 3) attempts by mass mobilizing political leaderships to consolidate revolutionary power. Result: a centralized, bureaucratic, mass incorporating state with enhanced international power. A main obstacle to change (mobilziation of resources), the landed upper class, was removed and new development potential opened. Two phases: 1) regime breakdown 2) revolutionary consolidation. The result of an elite strong enough to resist (regime support) and/or army too weak to coerce (regime compliance). Contrast with Marxist, aggregate-psychological(Gurr: frustraiton), systems/value consensus (Johnson), political-conflict (Tilly: resources, coalitions, ideology). State autonomy: actors, resources, interests. France and Russia based on muncipal control first - urban center of revolution (Huntington). China - lost out in the cities - but got cadres there (Huntington). Russia trapped in archaic agriclture more resistant to development than to taxes. Japan: no politically powerful upper class to resist samuri reorientation. Prussia: landed elite allied with modernizing state. Critical: no role for ideology nor for agency, more visable in second phase (construction) than in first phase (collapse): hard to predict Bolshevik moves as result of “necessity”. Acknowledge bolshevik ideology gave organizational advantages, but not why it was accepted when others were not.