Revolutionary wave
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A revolutionary wave or revolutionary decade is one series of revolutions occurring in various locations within a similar time-span. In many cases, past revolutions and revolutionary waves have inspired current ones, or an initial revolution has inspired other concurrent "affiliate revolutions" with similar aims.[1][2] The causes of revolutionary waves have become the subjects of study by historians and political philosophers, including Robert Roswell Palmer, Crane Brinton, Hannah Arendt, Eric Hoffer, and Jacques Godechot.[3]
Writers and activists, including Justin Raimondo and Michael Lind, have used the phrase "revolutionary wave" to describe discrete revolutions happening within a short time-span.[4][5][6]
Typology
Mark N. Katz[7] identified six forms of revolution;
- rural revolution
- urban revolution
- Coup d'état, e.g. Egypt, 1952
- revolution from above, e.g. Mao's Great Leap Forward of 1958
- revolution from without, e.g. the allied invasions of Italy, 1944 and Germany, 1945.
- revolution by osmosis, e.g. the gradual Islamizationof several countries.
These categories are not mutually exclusive; the Russian revolution of 1917 began with urban revolution to depose the Czar, followed by rural revolution, followed by the Bolshevik coup in November. Katz also cross-classified revolutions as follows;
- Central; countries, usually Great powers, which play a leading role in a Revolutionary wave; e.g. the USSR, Nazi Germany, Iran since 1979.[8]
- Aspiring revolutions, which follow the Central revolution
- subordinate or puppet revolutions
- rival revolutions, e.g. communist Yugoslavia, and China after 1969
Central and subordinate revolutions may support each other militarily, as for example the USSR, Cuba, Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and other Marxist regimes did in the 1970s and 1980s.[9]
A further dimension to Katz's typology[10] is that revolutions are either against (anti-monarchy, anti-dictatorial, anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-democratic) or for (pro-fascism, pro-liberalism, pro-communism, pro-nationalism etc.). In the latter cases, a transition period is often necessary to decide on the direction taken.
Periodisation
There is no consensus on a complete list of revolutionary waves. In particular, scholars disagree on how similar the ideologies of different events should be in order for them to be grouped as part of a single wave, and over what period a wave can be considered to be taking place – for example, Mark N. Katz discussed a "Marxist-Leninist wave" lasting from 1917 to 1991, and a "fascist wave" from 1922 to 1945, but limits an "anti-communist wave" to just the 1989 to 1991 period.[11]
Pre-19th century
- The Revolt of the Netherlands and the Second and Third Wars of Religion in France.[15]
- Jihadist wars in Western Africa in the 16th century.
- The Huguenot Wars in France.[15]
- The Atlantic Revolutions occurring at the end of the 18th century, including the American Revolution (1776), the French Revolution (1789), the Haitian Revolution (1791), the Batavian Revolution (1795) and the Irish Rebellion of 1798.[15][16]
19th century
- The Latin American wars of independence, including the various Spanish American wars of independence of 1810–1826 were often seen as inspired at least in part by the American and French Revolutions in terms of their liberal Enlightenment ideology and aims, are counted as the second part of the Atlantic Wave.[16]
- The Revolutions of 1820, also the Decembrist revolt of 1825 in Russia and the Greek War of Independence.[16][15]
- The Revolutions of 1830, such as the July Revolution in France and the Belgian Revolution[15] or November Uprising against the Russian rule in Poland.
- The Revolutions of 1848 throughout Europe, following the February Revolution in France.[11][15][16]
- The early 1850s saw the Taiping Rebellion in China, Great Revolt in India and Eureka Rebellion in Australia.
- In the 1860s, French Second Empire and replacement by the French Third Republic.
- The Royal Titles Act of 1876, establishing imperial rule in India; the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882; the founding of the Italian Empire in 1882; the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885, unifying British rule in Burma; the Scramble for Africa from 1885; and the founding of French Indochinain 1886.
- The Cretan Revolt.[15]
20th century
- The Revolutions of 1905–11 in the aftermath of the
- The Easter rising and Irish Free State; as well as other nationalist, populist and socialist uprisings and protests worldwide.[15][16]
- The Fascist Revolutionary wave, beginning in Italy in 1922, also including the 28 May 1926 coup d'état in Portugal, Japan from 1931, Germany from 1933, Greece from 1936, and the Spanish Civil War.[17][15]
- World War II Revolutions (1943–1949), including the
- The Indochina Wars were communist revolutions in East Asia and Southeast Asia including the Indonesian National Revolution in 1945.
- The decolonisation of Africa were waves of revolution in Africa, cresting in the 1970s, including the communist revolutions and pro-Soviet military coups in Somalia, the Congo-Brazzaville, Benin and Ethiopia, and the fight of the communist parties allied under CONCP against the Portuguese Empire in the Portuguese Colonial War.
- The Arab nationalist movement: revolutions occurred in Egypt, 1952; Syria, 1958; Iraq, 1958; Algeria, 1962; North Yemen, 1962; Sudan and Libya, 1969. The central regime in this case was Egypt, inspired especially by Gamal Abdel Nasser.[11]
- Following Stalinist old guard of the Polish United Workers' Party was forced out of power in favor of a new, more independent-minded Communist leadership. Pro-reform movements in Hungary, inspired in part by the Polish upheavals, soon erupted into the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a major popular uprising against the Soviet-backed regime in Budapest that was brutally crushed. There was also a nascent pro-reform movement in Romaniathat was suppressed.
- The Black Power movement and the civil rights movement organized successful protests against government and private discrimination. Continuing unrest in African-American communities led to the multi-city riots during the "Long, hot summer of 1967" and the various 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In Trinidad the Black Power Revolutionwas successful.
- The European monetary union.[18]
- The Carnation Revolution in Portugal (April 25, 1974) put an end to the oldest dictatorship in Western Europe (it lasted 48 years).
- The Central American crisis saw a socialist movement take power in the Nicaraguan Revolution and leftist popular uprisings in El Salvador and Guatemala.
- A decade of Al Qaeda, founded 1988; Hamas, founded 1987; Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen, founded 1981 or 1985; Lashkar-e-Taiba was founded in Pakistan in 1987. The modern version of the Taliban began in 1994.[19]
- The Apartheid South Africa, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakiaalso collapsed in the early 1990s.
- Pink Tide in Latin Americastarting in 1999 to late 2000s.
21st century
- The colour revolutions were various related movements that developed in several societies in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans during the early 2000s.[16]
- Between 2009 and 2014, there were revolutions or mass protests in the autodefensasin Mexico.
- The Arab Winter is a violent mass reaction following the Arab Spring characterized by resurgent authoritarianism, dictatorships, and Islamic extremism in the Middle East since 2014.
- Late 2019 and 2020 saw a significant wave of protest movements in Yellow Vests Movement in various European countries. The causes are varied, spanning from corruption, austerity, electoral fraud, inequality and democratic backsliding. Central themes in many of these protests include economic and racial equality and widespread resentment against the economic and political elite, as well as the opposition to the COVID-19 lockdownsand related measures.
- Second Arab Spring
In Marxism
Marxists see revolutionary waves as evidence that a world revolution is possible. For Rosa Luxemburg, "The most precious thing… in the sharp ebb and flow of the revolutionary waves is the proletariat's spiritual growth. The advance, by leaps and bounds, of the intellectual stature of the proletariat affords an inviolable guarantee of its further progress in the inevitable economic and political struggles ahead."[21] The need for a world-wide socialist revolutionary wave for the survival of a socialist state has and continues to be a topic of controversy between Marxists, most notably between Trotskyists and mainline Marxist-Leninist.[22]
Potential revolutionary waves
Mark Katz theorises that Buddhism (in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indochina, Burma, Tibet) and Confucianism (to replace Marxism in China and promote unity with Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia) might be the revolutionary waves of the future. In the past, these religions have been passively acquiescent to secular authority; but so was Islam, until recently.[23]
Katz also suggests that nationalisms such as
See also
- Exporting the revolution
- Nationalism
- Revolutionary nationalism
- Proletarian internationalism
- Cycle of violence
- Domino theory
- Ideocracy
- Social cycle theory
- State collapse
- Power politics
- Power Politics (Wight book)
- The Anatomy of Power
- The Anatomy of Revolution
- The True Believer
- War cycles
- Economic Cycle
References
- ^ Mark N. Katz, Revolution and Revolutionary Waves, Palgrave Macmillan (October 1, 1999)
- ISBN 978-0-521-19829-5
- ISBN 1-109-07655-X, 9781109076554.
- Note: Colin J. Beck also wrote The Ideological Roots of Waves of Revolution, BiblioBazaar, 2011, ISBN 1-243-60856-0, 9781243608567
- Note: Colin J. Beck also wrote The Ideological Roots of Waves of Revolution, BiblioBazaar, 2011,
- ^ Justin Raimondo, "The Revolutionary Wave: Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen – is the West next?", Antiwar.com, January 28, 2011 - "The revolutionary wave now sweeping the world will not exempt America, in spite of the myth of 'American exceptionalism.'".
- ^
Frank B. Tipton, A history of modern Germany since 1815, ISBN 978-0-520-24049-0Chapter 3: A Revolutionary Generation: The 1840s and the Revolutions of 1848 - "A rising revolutionary wave?"
- ^ a b
Michael Lind, Vietnam, the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict, Simon and Schuster, 2002
p 37 ISBN 978-0-684-87027-4- "The revolutionary wave effect produced by the fall of Saigon in 1975 was far more significant than the regional domino effect in Southeast Asia proper. [...] Mark N. Katz has identified a 'Marxist-Leninist revolutionary wave' that peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, along with an 'Arab nationalist revolutionary wave' that began with the [1978-1979] Iranian Revolution. Samuel P. Huntington has identified a 'democratic wave' that began with the defeat of the Soviet bloc in the Cold War. [...] The Marxist-Leninist revolutionary wave associated with the Vietnam War saw 'affiliate Marxist-Leninist revolutions' come to power outside of Indochina in the Congo (1964, 1968), Benin (1972), Ethiopia and Guinea-Bissau (1974), Madagascar, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Angola (1975), Afghanistan (1978), and Grenada and Nicaragua (1979)."
- ^ Mark N Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p4
- ^ Mark N Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p13
- ^ Mark Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p 86
- ^ Mark N Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p12
- ^ a b c d Mark N. Katz , "Cycles, waves and diffusion", in: Jack A. Goldstone, The Encyclopedia of Political Revolutions, pp. 126-127
- ISBN 9781134676620. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
- OCLC 1241099836.
- ISBN 978-0-8262-6516-6. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Colin A. Beck, "The World-Cultural Origins of Revolutionary Waves: Five Centuries of European Contention", Social Science History, vol.35, no.2, pp.167-207
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Laurence Cox and Alf Gunvald Nilson, "What Makes a Revolution?", Ceasefire, 30 September 2014
- ^ Mark Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p 22
- ^ Michael M. Seidman, The Imaginary Revolution: Parisian Students and Workers in 1968
- ^ Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, IB Tauris, 2000, chapter one
- ^ Mark Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, chapter 4
- ^ Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works), quoted in Tony Cliff, "Rosa Luxemburg, 1905 and the classic account of the mass strike" in "Patterns of mass strike", International Socialism, vol. 2, no. 29 (Summer 1985), pp. 3-61.
- ISBN 978-0-14-021040-8.
- ^ Mark Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p 138
- ^ Mark Katz, Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, St Martin's Press, 1997, p 139
External links
- Deborah Jerome, Can Tunisia Spark a Revolutionary Wave?, Council on Foreign Relations analysis brief, January 18, 2011.
- Mark Kosman, Is revolution back on the agenda?