Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (Societies and Political Orders in Transition) 3030864677, 9783030864675

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Societies and Political Orders in Transition

Jack A. Goldstone Leonid Grinin Andrey Korotayev   Editors

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change

Societies and Political Orders in Transition Series Editors Alexander Chepurenko, Higher School of Economics, National Research University, Moscow, Russia Stein Ugelvik Larsen, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway William Reisinger, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Managing Editors Ekim Arbatli, Higher School of Economics, National Research University, Moscow, Russia Dina Rosenberg, Higher School of Economics, National Research University, Moscow, Russia Aigul Mavletova, Higher School of Economics, National Research University, Moscow, Russia

This book series presents scientific and scholarly studies focusing on societies and political orders in transition, for example in Central and Eastern Europe but also elsewhere in the world. By comparing established societies, characterized by wellestablished market economies and well-functioning democracies, with post-socialist societies, often characterized by emerging markets and fragile political systems, the series identifies and analyzes factors influencing change and continuity in societies and political orders. These factors include state capacity to establish formal and informal rules, democratic institutions, forms of social structuration, political regimes, levels of corruption, specificity of political cultures, as well as types and orientation of political and economic elites. Societies and Political Orders in Transition welcomes monographs and edited volumes from a variety of disciplines and approaches, such as political and social sciences and economics, which are accessible to both academics and interested general readers. Topics may include, but are not limited to, democratization, regime change, changing social norms, migration, etc. All titles in this series are peer-reviewed. This book series is indexed in Scopus. For further information on the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please contact Johannes Glaeser (Senior Editor Economics and Political Science) [email protected].

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15626

Jack A. Goldstone · Leonid Grinin · Andrey Korotayev Editors

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change

Editors Jack A. Goldstone Schar School of Policy and Government George Mason University Arlington, VA, USA Andrey Korotayev HSE University Moscow, Russia

Leonid Grinin HSE University Moscow, Russia Institute of Oriental Studies Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow, Russia

Institute for African Studies Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow, Russia

ISSN 2511-2201 ISSN 2511-221X (electronic) Societies and Political Orders in Transition ISBN 978-3-030-86467-5 ISBN 978-3-030-86468-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

Is there a more important area of study in the contemporary world than revolution? As I write this foreword, in June 2021, a large number of revolutionary mobilisations are underway, from Myanmar to Colombia, Tigray to Belarus. If we extend our historical range back a decade, we would encounter experiences of revolution in nearly every world region. And if we extend our range even further back in time, say two centuries or so, we would find every country in the world touched by revolution, whether through direct experience of revolutionary uprisings, reformist attempts to defang the revolutionary challenge, or programmes of counter-revolution intended to drive revolutionaries underground, sometimes literally. Revolutions, therefore, are vital areas of study not just for contemporary world politics but for modern world history. If this point was forgotten during the Rip Van Winkle period that followed the end of the Cold War, few people remain asleep today. And if there are any deepsleepers or late-risers out there, this volume serves as an alarm call. Time to wake up. This is a big book in more ways than one. In its 41 chapters, readers will find much to keep them occupied. The volume’s range is vast, covering several hundred years of history and an equally expansive geography, offering grand theorizing alongside granular analysis, and providing insights ranging from the descriptive to the predictive. Within this panorama, I would highlight four general themes that strike me as particularly significant: first, the book focuses on waves; second, its insistence on the back and forth between history and theory; third, its global frame of reference; and fourth, its attentiveness to non-progressive revolutionary currents, most notably religious revolutionary forces. Let me briefly address each. The first important innovation in the volume lies in its central object of enquiry: waves. Revolutionary waves can be seen as groups of revolutions that arise from a similar context, have linked objectives, and share common features, whether in terms of their organizational form (e.g., a horizontalist people power movement), tactics (e.g., a commitment to non-violence), and/or their symbolic repertoires (e.g., shared slogans or colors). The contributors to this volume extend our understanding of revolutionary waves by specifying a number of causal mechanisms that produce waves, such as ‘agflation’ (inflation in the prices of agricultural commodities), and also v

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by noting the presence of waves-within-waves, such as the three mini-revolutionary waves that the world has experienced since the turn of the century. As the editors note, international dynamics need to be entwined with domestic factors in order to explain why revolutions happen ‘here’ and not ‘there.’ In this entwining, the focus on waves is a logical extension of scholarship on the international features of revolutionary change which, since the work of Theda Skocpol and others in the 1970s, has become a significant strand of research. But there are different ways of doing this research. A minimalist approach is to ‘add the international and stir,’ examining how revolutionary tactics and symbols cross-borders, for example, while leaving existing theoretical schemas in place. A more maximalist approach recalibrates what it is we mean by revolutions, for example, by making the object of enquiry itself transnational or by focusing on groups of revolutions that are not contained by a specific geography. In this way of thinking, revolutionary waves become more than the sum of their parts; rather, they become the subject matter of revolutions research itself. Much to its credit, this book takes up both of these agendas. In doing so, it provides the kind of full-spectrum challenge that is the hallmark of a vibrant research programme. The second highlight is the volume’s insistence on the back and forth between revolutionary history and theory. The editors quite rightly point to revolutions as ‘emergent’ processes that adapt to the contexts in which they emerge. This allows them to distinguish between a range of revolutionary and revolutionary-like dynamics, which vary by degrees of ambition, transformative capacity, and more. The editors also distinguish between premodern and modern revolutions, with the former as more limited in their scope and effects. In the contemporary world, this more limited model of revolution is, once again, in vogue. For all their frequency and capacity to stir up societies around the world, few revolutions of the post-1989 period have radically broken with existing conditions, let alone provided a new model of historical development. In many ways, these revolutions are not just limited, but self-limited—revolutionaries deliberately hem themselves in, whether by introducing democratic practices and institutions at home, or by joining international organizations abroad. This move represents a rejection of the twentieth-century experience of revolutionary states, many of which were marred by despotism. But it also represents the latest twist in a long-running drama between revolutions and liberalism, one that was born in radical fusion in the late eighteenth century, underwent divorce in the twentieth century as revolution was taken up primarily by leftist and anti-colonial forces, and which has remarried, or at least agreed to cohabitate, in the present day. It is curious that this story remains without a definitive study. Once again, this volume points the way to an unfolding, highly productive research agenda. The third point worth emphasizing is the globalization of revolution as a field of study. Like other parts of the social sciences, the study of revolutions has been marred by Eurocentrism, whether in terms of the cases it sees as archetypal or in the concepts and categories it uses to construct theories. The lived experience of revolution has always exceeded this dual limitation. To take one obvious example, shifting the center of gravity in the late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century Atlantic Age of Revolution from France to Haiti both challenges historical narratives of revolution and poses a

Foreword

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range of new questions, not least whether ideas of equality, justice, and solidarity can include, both then and now, non-white peoples. Even more productive is the linking of these two cases into a single field of practice, one conjoined through the entanglements of peoples, war, trade, ideas, and more. This expansiveness in the subject matter of revolutions is, therefore, both empirical (it widens our universe of cases) and theoretical (it broadens our conceptual and analytical frameworks). It is remarkable, and not in a good way, that the social science of revolution has been, until relatively recently, built on a handful of ‘great’ cases. The absence of comparative or transnational work on ‘small’ or ‘forgotten’ revolutions, particularly from places we now think of as the global south, is a striking, persistent shortcoming of the field. We can, and must, do better. This volume is an important step in that direction. Finally, there is the opening presented by the volume to analysis of non-progressive forms of revolution. For almost the entire modern period, revolutions have been studied as if they could only be secular, liberal, or leftist projects, aimed at particular ideals of social justice and emancipation. This bias toward self-consciously progressive movements has been a significant blind-spot in revolutionary analysis, preventing scholars from paying sufficient attention to radical programmes that do not conform to the progressive script: fascism, hyper-nationalism, religious-inspired revolutionaries, and more. The 1979 revolution in Iran should have been a spur to this work. But despite the world-historical magnitude of the Iranian revolution, and despite the radicalisation of both Shi’a and Sunni movements over the past 40 years, research on revolutions has failed to sufficiently address the emergence of varieties of militant Islamism. In the contemporary world, neglect has become negligence. While unarmed movements remain the main focus of Western researchers and activists, militant Islamists and white supremacists are taking part in armed campaigns around the world, some of them sporadic, many of them sustained. If the epicenter of militant Islamism is currently located in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa, the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021 shows that revolutionary white nationalism is firmly entrenched within Western democracies. Given their scope, these violent strains of revolution should occupy a much more central role within contemporary revolutions research. Once again, this volume demonstrates the kind of open-minded, systematic analysis that the field of revolutionary studies requires. I commend the editors and contributors for putting together such a thought-provoking, agenda-setting book. June 2021

Prof. George Lawson Department of International Relations Australian National University Canberra, Australia

Acknowledgements

Putting together a volume with the scope and diversity of this, one requires the help of many able collaborators. We are all grateful to Springer and to our editor—Johannes Glaeser—for patience and support in pulling together this diverse volume. We also owe thanks to Vladimir Mau and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, which provided Dr. Goldstone with a visiting position in Russia and facilitated his collaboration with Dr. Korotayev. Dr. Goldstone owes a great debt to his teachers who were masters in the study of revolutions: Theda Skocpol, S.N. Eisenstadt, and Charles Tilly. They provided early guidance and continuing inspiration in the study of this vexing but critically important social phenomenon. He also thanks his wonderful wife, Gina, for her support and understanding and grace, and his children Alex and Simone, who now (building their own careers) finally may forgive their father’s long hours at work. His thanks are also owed to the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and to the Charles Koch Foundation, which has funded the program on population, migration, and social change at the Schar School. This volume was also made possible in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. However, the statements made and views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the chapters’ authors. Dr. Grinin would like to thank the staff of the Volgograd Center for Social Research for their expert technical assistance in preparing this book. Dr. Korotayev expresses his gratitude to his colleagues in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the HSE University in Moscow for their continuous support and understanding. His special thanks go to the Institute for Advanced Study administration and Dr. Mark R. Beissinger (the Department of Politics) at Princeton University who sponsored a research visit to the Princeton University in 2017 that allowed him to collect materials, which turned out to be indispensable for the preparation of the present volume. Dr. Grinin and Dr. Korotayev would also like to express their special gratitude to Daria Bykanova and Elena Emanova for their invaluable technical help with the preparation of their chapters. ix

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Acknowledgements

We also want to thank the doctoral students in the USA who helped with copyediting many of the chapters—Feyza Koseoglu Darilmaz, Angelo Gabriel Santos, Khawaja Masnoon Zayeem, and Michael Gigante. Of course, we also thank our many talented authors who contributed to this volume, especially for their patience with our editing and for their expertise. This volume was truly a collaborative enterprise throughout. Moscow and Washington DC January 28, 2022

About This Book

Only a small number of comparative studies of revolutions have appeared in the last decade. Against this background, there are reasons to hope that this volume will be an important step toward the improved understanding of the varied forms, features, and historical context of revolutions, and thus contribute to the development of richer and more widely applicable theories of revolution. The main purpose of this book is to develop a comparative analysis of the revolutions and its waves of the twenty-first century, events in which revolutions manifested themselves in some respects in new ways. Yet in doing so, its authors found it was necessary to forge new analytical tools to help understand the causes of these revolutions, and to place them in proper perspective in the wider and deeper history of revolutions. In particular, the book’s authors found it important to develop fresh ideas about how clusters of revolutions develop and are linked, and how revolutions both are shaped by, and then in turn reshape, global relations and the World System. The contributions gathered here are divided into seven parts, the first of which examines the history of views on revolution and important aspects of the theory of revolution. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of revolutions within longterm historical trends and in the World System context. In turn, the third part explores specific major revolutionary waves in history. The fourth part analyzes the first revolutionary wave of the twenty-first century (2000–2009), the wave of Color Revolutions, while the fifth part discusses the second wave—the Arab Spring (2010–2013) as an important revolutionary turning point. The sixth part is dedicated to the analysis of revolutions and revolutionary movements beyond the Arab Spring and some revolutionary events from the third wave that has started in 2018. The final seventh part is devoted to forecasts about the future of revolutions. All the contributors to this part believe that revolutions will continue to have a rather prominent future in the twenty-first century. Forecasts are based on a broad survey of the past and present revolutionary processes. The conclusion focuses on asking which states and regions are most likely to display the future of revolutions. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars from various disciplines interested in historical trends, sociopolitical change, contentious politics, social movements, and revolutionary processes involving both nonviolent campaigns and political violence. xi

Contents

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin, and Andrey Korotayev

1

The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin, and Andrey Korotayev On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev

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Revolutions: History, Aspects and Dimensions Revolutions and Historical Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin

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Evolution and Typology of Revolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin

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The Problem of Structure and Agency and the Contemporary Sociology of Revolutions and Social Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dmitriy Karasev Revolution and Modernization Traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin

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Revolutionary Waves in History Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nikolai S. Rozov

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Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern Period. Types and Phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vladislav Tsygankov

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The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the 19th Century: Their Causes and Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin

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Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin and Anton Grinin

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On Revolutionary Waves Since the 16th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin

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Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Wave of Color Revolutions All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eric Selbin

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The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lincoln A. Mitchell

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The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Khodunov

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Serbian “Otpor” and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nikita Filin, Alexander Khodunov, and Vladimir Koklikov

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The Rose Revolution in Georgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Khodunov

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The Orange Revolution in Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Khodunov

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Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yevgeny Ivanov

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‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the days that Followed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Tkachuk, Alexei Romanchuk, and Iulia Timotin The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nikita Filin

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Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Arab Spring Wave as an Important Revolutionary Turning Point The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vasily Kuznetsov

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Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis . . . . . . . . Andrey Korotayev and Julia Zinkina

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The Arab Spring in Yemen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Issaev, Alina Khokhlova, and Andrey Korotayev

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The Syrian Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vladimir M. Akhmedov

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Revolution in Libya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yury Barmin

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The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, and Hicham Bou Nassif The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrey Korotayev, Leonid Issaev, Sergey Malkov, and Alisa Shishkina

739 781

Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements Beyond the Arab Spring Global Echo of the Arab Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrey Korotayev, Alisa Shishkina, and Alina Khokhlova

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Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dmitry Shevsky

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Two Experiences of Islamic “Revival”: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nikita Filin, Sandra Fahmy, Alexander Khodunov, and Vladimir Koklikov

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Turkey. The (Gülen) Cemaat and the State: An Unfinished Conquest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Birol Ba¸skan

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The Post-Soviet Revolution in Armenia: Victory, Defeat, and Possible Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Georgi Derluguian and Ruben Hovhannisyan

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Modern Civic Protest Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lubow Sadovskaya, Naila Fakhrutdinova, and Tatiana Kochanova

923

Articulating the Web of Transnational Social Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Chase-Dunn, Roman Stäbler, Ian Breckenridge-Jackson, and Joel Herrera

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Revolutions of the 21st Century: Today and Tomorrow Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonid Grinin

975

Global Inequality and World Revolutions: Past, Present and Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001 Christopher Chase-Dunn and Sandor Nagy Revolution Forecasting—Formulation of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1025 Eduard Shults Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin, and Andrey Korotayev

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair Professor and Eminent Scholar of Public Policy at George Mason University. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley and San Diego, the California Institute of Technology, Konstanz University, Cambridge University, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford), and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author or editor of 13 books and over 175 research articles and has won prizes and fellowships from the International Studies Association, the American Sociological Association, the Historical Society, and the MacArthur, Carnegie, and Guggenheim Foundations. His primary research interests are the effects of population change on political stability and economic growth, economic history, global population cycles, the causes and outcomes of revolutions, and improving governance in developing nations. Leonid Grinin is a senior research professor at Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as a senior research professor of the Oriental Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a co-editor of the international journals Social Evolution & History and the Journal of Globalization Studies, as well as a co-editor of the international almanacs Evolution, History & Mathematics, and Kondratieff Waves. He is an author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology. In 2012, he was awarded with the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation. Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of the Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, Russia. He is also a senior research professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and Institute for African Studies,

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Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He has authored or co-authored over 650 scholarly publications, including such monographs as Ancient Yemen (Oxford University Press, 1995), World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth (URSS, 2006; with Daria Khaltorina and Artemy Malkov), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends (URSS, 2006; with Daria Khaltorina and Artemy Malkov), Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015; with Leonid Grinin), Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (Springer, 2016; with Leonid Grinin), Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy. World System and World Values Perspectives (Springer, 2019; with Leonid Grinin and Arno Tausch). He is a laureate of a Russian Science Support Foundation in ‘The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Nomination (2006); in 2012, he was awarded with the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.

Contributors Vladimir M. Akhmedov Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Yury Barmin Moscow Policy Group, Moscow, Russia Birol Ba¸skan The Middle East Institute, Washington, DC, USA Ian Breckenridge-Jackson Los Angeles Valley College, Valley Glen, CA, USA Christopher Chase-Dunn Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California—Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA Georgi Derluguian New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE; The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (“Shaninka”), Moscow, Russia Sandra Fahmy Department of the Modern East, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia Naila Fakhrutdinova Center for Sociological and Political Research, Institute for African Studies RAS, Moscow, Russia Nikita Filin Department of the Modern East, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia

Editors and Contributors

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Jack A. Goldstone Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA Anton Grinin Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Leonid Grinin Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; HSE University, Moscow, Russia Joel Herrera Graduate Program in Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Ruben Hovhannisyan HSE University, Moscow, Russia Leonid Issaev Laboratory for Monitoring of Socio-Political Destabilization, HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; RUDN University, Moscow, Russia Yevgeny Ivanov HSE University, Moscow, Russia Dmitriy Karasev Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Moscow, Russia Alexander Khodunov Department of the Modern East, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia Alina Khokhlova Laboratory for Monitoring of Socio-Political Destabilization, HSE University, Moscow, Russia Tatiana Kochanova Center for North African and Horn of Africa Studies, Institute for African Studies RAS, Moscow, Russia Vladimir Koklikov Department of Oriental Languages, Moscow State Linguistic University, Moscow, Russia Andrey Korotayev Laboratory for Monitoring of Socio-Political Destabilization, HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia; Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia; RUDN University, Moscow, Russia Vasily Kuznetsov Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Oriental Faculty, State Academic University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia

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Editors and Contributors

Sergey Malkov Laboratory for Monitoring of Socio-Political Destabilization, HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Lincoln A. Mitchell Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, New York, USA Sandor Nagy Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California— Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA Hicham Bou Nassif Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA Karen Rasler Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Alexei Romanchuk Cultural Heritage Institute of Moldova Academy of Sciences, Chis, in˘au, Republic of Moldova Nikolai S. Rozov Institute for Philosophy and Law (Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences), Novosibirsk, Russia; Department of International Relations and Regional Studies, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk, Russia Lubow Sadovskaya Center for Sociological and Political Research, Institute for African Studies RAS, Moscow, Russia Eric Selbin Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, USA Dmitry Shevsky HSE University, Moscow, Russia Alisa Shishkina Laboratory for Monitoring of Socio-Political Destabilization, HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Eduard Shults Moscow State Regional University, Moscow, Russia Roman Stäbler Staebler Appraisal and Consulting, Bradenton, FL, USA William R. Thompson Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Iulia Timotin High Anthropological School University, Chis, in˘au, Republic of Moldova Mark Tkachuk High Anthropological School University, Chis, in˘au, Republic of Moldova Vladislav Tsygankov Department of Philosophy, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

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Julia Zinkina Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia; Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin, and Andrey Korotayev

1 Aims of this Volume “The term ‘revolution’ troubles the semanticist not only because of the wide range in popular usage, but also because it is one of those words charged with emotional content” (Brinton, 1965: 4). Indeed, despite the fact that the development of theoretical views on revolutions has been going on for almost two and a half centuries,1 there is still no acceptable and, most importantly, conventional definition of revolution. In the next chapter (Goldstone et al., 2022b) we offer our definitions of revolution: Revolution is anti-government (very often illegal) mass actions (mass mobilization) with the following aims: (1) to overthrow or replace the existing government within a certain period of time; (2) to seize power or to provide conditions for coming to power; (3) to make significant changes in the regime, social or political institutions; Revolution is the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilization (whether military or civilian or both) in the name of social justice, to create new political institutions; Revolution is “an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities”. (see the next chapter, in

1 In the next Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) we review the history of theorizing on revolutions.

J. A. Goldstone (B) Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Grinin · A. Korotayev HSE University, Moscow, Russia Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1

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J. A. Goldstone et al. this volume, “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” [Goldstone et al., 2022b]; see also Goldstone, 2001: 142; 2014: 4; Grinin & Korotayev, 2020: 856)

These definitions are broad enough to encompass events ranging from the relatively peaceful revolutions that overthrew communist regimes to the violent Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. At the same time, this definition is strong enough to exclude coups, revolts, civil wars, and rebellions that make no effort to transform institutions or the justification for authority. It also excludes peaceful transitions to democracy through institutional arrangements such as plebiscites and free elections, as in Spain after Franco. Still, we recognize that there are events on the “fuzzy edge” of any definition of revolution. Below, we will discuss definitions of revolutions, revolution analogues, revolutionary movements without revolution and other types of revolutionary events in more detail (for a discussion of definitions of revolutions see also Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” [Selbin, 2022] in this book). But definitions, of course, are not the main goals of this volume. Only a small number of comparative studies of revolutions have appeared in the last decade (Beck, 2015; Goldstone, 2014; Kamrava, 2019; Lawson, 2019; Ritter, 2015; Stone, 2013); indeed, one of them notes that “There has been a stall in theories of revolution even as empirical studies of revolutionary episodes are thriving. It is time for revolutionary theory to catch up” (Lawson, 2019: 72). We heartily agree. The last few decades have seen a surge in revolutions of great variety in their location, trajectories, and outcomes, from the collapse of communist regimes to a chain of color revolutions to the complexity of the Arab Spring. These provide both a challenge to prior theories of revolution and rich materials for fresh theorizing. The main purpose of this volume is to develop a comparative analysis of the revolutions of the twenty-first century, events in which revolutions manifested themselves in some respects in new ways (see Part IV [“Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Wave of Color Revolutions”], Part V [“Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Arab Spring Wave as an Important Revolutionary Turning Point”], and Part VI [“Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements Beyond the Arab Spring”] of this monograph). Yet in doing so, we found it was necessary to forge new analytical tools to help understand the causes of these revolutions, and to place them in proper perspective in the wider and deeper history of revolutions. In particular, we found it important to develop fresh ideas about how clusters of revolutions develop and are linked, and how revolutions are both shaped by, and in turn reshape, global relations and the World System. Thus, the objectives of this volume are: (1)

(2)

to continue working on theoretical problems, and develop the theory of revolutions, to which the first, second and partly the third parts of the book are devoted; to describe the historical background, the types and patterns of revolutions that preceded contemporary ones. The second and third parts are devoted to

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions …

(3)

(4)

3

this. Of course, this picture could only be painted in broad strokes; nevertheless, a sweeping picture unfolds before the reader, especially in relation to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; to analyze, individually and collectively, the many revolutions and revolutionary movements of the twenty-first century, in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. These efforts constitute the core of parts four, five and six; to offer forecasts about the future of revolutions. This is the subject of part seven and the Conclusion.

The topics covered include the theory of revolutions, including its typology, similarities and differences with other types of events; revolutionary waves and global cycles from the 16th to the twenty-first century, color revolutions, the Arab Uprisings, the Islamic State, and how global trends underpin revolutionary periods. Many contributors explore the connections between the World System’s evolution, globalization and other processes and the development of the revolutionary process. Attention is also drawn to the important differences between the revolutions of antiquity, the Middle Ages and the modern era, especially the differences in their historical and world-historical significance, and their role as an instrument of societal transformations. Such varied tasks did not allow us to unify the chapters either in size or in terms of presentation. The tasks of the authors were too different. The chapters therefore vary in length and focus according to topic and perspective. We also embraced a wide range of contributors. This volume brings together both Western and Russian experts on revolutions and revolutionary theory, providing an exceptional breadth of viewpoints on these events.

2 Revolutions Change Their Types and Forms Over the Course of History In this volume, from different angles we illustrate the profound idea that revolutions change their types and forms over the course of history.2 Revolutions, like other historical events, at each historical phase acquire new features or change the old ones (see also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b). Therefore, it is important to work on the 2

See Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter, “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022g), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), Chapter, “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin 2022c), Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022f), and Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al. 2022a) in this volume.

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theory of revolutions, plural, taking into account how changes in this phenomenon have developed across history, and how recent cases appear to us as contemporaries as new kinds of revolutions. In fact, revolutions have changed their form throughout human history, with new forms being added while older forms persist. The elite revolution against the Tarquin kings that launched the Roman Republic was one early form of revolution, but the modality of elite leaders gathering a military force to overthrow a monarchy and create a new form of government appeared in the seventeenth century in Britain and in the nineteenth century in Japan. The modality of urban crowds forcing a change in government by a mass uprising in cities appeared in Greek city states during the Peloponnesian Wars, in the Renaissance cities of northern Italy, in Europe in the Revolutions of 1848, and again in the anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe and the USSR in 1989–1991. The combination of peasants, townsmen, and professionals rising up to overthrow landed aristocrats appeared in the constitutional revolutions of Athens and Sparta, and of course in the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of February 1917, and the Chinese Revolution of 1911. Communist revolutions that aimed to end private property were imagined in the nineteenth century, implemented on a small scale by utopian communities in that era, and then transformed major nations in the twentieth century. Revolutions that developed as drawn-out guerilla wars became widespread in the twentieth century, being realized in China, Cuba, Nicaragua and the anti-colonial revolutions in Algeria, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Revolution by a deliberate policy of non-violence was also a twentieth century innovation, beginning with the Indian Independence movement, and finding new expression in the antiCommunist revolutions and color revolutions of the late 20th and early twenty-first centuries (e.g., Ritter, 2015).3 It appears that the vogue for communist revolutions (Colburn, 1994) has faded, but religious revolutions continue. Revolutions driven by a fervor for religious reform were common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, arising in Scotland, Geneva, and Great Britain; they have returned in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the Islamic State’s efforts to create a Caliphate from lands seized by rebels in Iraq and Syria, and the revolutionary movements of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, the Houthi in Yemen, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.4 3 Some of those revolutions mentioned in this and previous pages are analyzed in Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022g), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022c) in this volume. 4 For an analysis of such revolutions see Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022c), and Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2022a, in this volume).

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Nationalism has always been a strong factor in mobilization for revolutions, and various forms of ethno-nationalism have driven numerous revolutions, from the Greek revolution against Ottoman rule in the 1820s and subsequent anti-Ottoman revolts to the many revolutions that developed from ethnic and anti-imperialist conflicts and movements in Asia and Africa in the twentieth century.5 Far from being a single “type” of event that characterized a certain period in the past, revolutions encompass many kinds of events whose forms have emerged and shifted according to local context over thousands of years. One could say that “revolution” is a genus with many species and sub-species variants. What all revolutions have in common is a deliberate effort to change the structure of government by extraordinary actions in pursuit of a vision of greater justice. Yet, the goals of protestors, the particular actions taken, the visions pursued, the trajectories of events, the lines of conflicts, the methods and scope of mobilization, and the changes achieved have varied greatly over time and space. It is not only the forms, types and methods of revolutions that are changing. Their role in the historical process is changing, as are theoretical views on revolutions. The last few decades have been a graveyard, not only for a wide variety of regimes, but for many theories of revolution (Beck, 2017). Both Marxism and modernization theory claimed that revolutions were characteristic of a particular stage of economic development—the onset of capitalist industrialization, which would bring new classes and new conflicts to the fore. Yet we have seen revolutions overturn the regime of one of the world’s industrial super-powers (the USSR) as well as governments in poor rural nations (Burkina Faso, Zaire, Rwanda) and in middleincome, semi-industrialized ones (the Arab Revolutions). Modernization theory6 further suggested that traditional monarchies and empires would be overthrown by revolutions and replaced by constitutional or party states; yet in the Arab Revolutions it was traditional monarchies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the Emirates that remained stable while the modernizing authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria faced revolutionary tumult.7 5 The twentieth century revolutions are analyzed in Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022g) and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) in this volume. 6 For an analysis of the rather complex relationship between modernization and revolutions see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume); see also Grinin (2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2017a, 2017b), Korotayev et al. (2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2018a, 2018b), Korotayev et al. (2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b), Korotayev et al. (2020a, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2021d). 7 See Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and their Aftermath” (Rasler et al., 2022) and Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022a, in this volume); see also Grinin (2012a), Korotayev and Khokhlova (2022).

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The most famous theory of revolutions of the 1970s and 1980s, advanced by Skocpol (1979) to explain great social revolutions, argued that such events arose when rulers faced the dual pressures of competition with more advanced external adversaries and opposition to needed reforms from autonomous internal elites, leading to a state crisis that was catalyzed into social revolution by peasant uprisings from rural communities under weak local control. Yet such a theory could not account for the Iranian Islamic Revolution, which arose in one of the most powerful nations in the Middle East, and was catalyzed by massive urban protests. Nor could it account for the revolutions which overthrew communism; for while the external pressures of competition with the West were surely a cause, it was the core leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev who orchestrated the reforms and elections that led to communism’s decline, again with the catalyst of massive urban protests. Indeed, for the great variety of revolutions since 1979, from Iran and Nicaragua up through the Arab Spring, the most common pattern is that of a ruler forfeiting elite support through corruption and cronyism, with mostly urban popular mobilization spurred by aspirations for greater accountability, freedom, and prosperity, and anger at pervasive oppression and economic frustration. Skocpol’s theories about the great revolutions of the past thus hardly suit the new modalities of current revolutions. The theories that do seem to have held up better are the notion of Barrington Moore, Jr. (1978) that revolutions are at base a struggle against injustice, and some other works that have been developed on various aspects of revolutions. These works argued that revolutions are a struggle for greater justice, but that their forms and trajectories vary, that demographic pressures play a role, as do international trends and international interventions, and that revolutions increasingly resemble and overlap with social movements in their development (Goldstone, 1998, 2009, 2014, 2016; Goldstone & Ritter, 2018). Above all, it is important to recognize that revolutions are varied, innovative, and emergent phenomena. They recur in some ways, but appear as novel in others. The key conditions that combine to create a revolutionary situation8 —state weakness, elite conflicts, popular discontent, a narrative of injustice, and international support— may not combine often, hence revolutions are rare. But these elements, and their combination, are bound to no particular time or place, no particular kind of regime, and no specific stage of economic or political development.

3 Toward a Typology of Revolutionary Events Drawing on the above definitions, we can describe revolution in terms of the following components: (1) anti-government (very often illegal) mass actions (mass mobilization); (2) the aim of overthrowing or replacing within a specified time the existing 8

On revolutionary situations see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume); see also Grinin (2020b).

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government; (3) seizing power or providing conditions for certain forces to come to power; and (4) making significant changes in the regime, social or political institutions. While we see point (1) as essential (while allowing that mass mobilization can involve highly varied groups and different modes of organization, from peasant uprisings to peaceful demonstrations to military forces in revolutionary civil wars), in any given revolution we might see all of elements (2), (3) and (4) as well as in many cases just one or even two points out of these three. The number of points involved will indicate the strength and scale of the revolution. It should be noted that in the twenty-first century, revolutions are significantly "shallower", so not all of them combine all three points. If we analyze points (2) and (3), then we will understand that sometimes a revolution is satisfied with a change of government/president, without predetermining who should come to power (such are, say, the events in Algeria in 2019), and sometimes revolutionaries insist on a particular person, party, etc., coming to power (such were the events, say, in Armenia in 2018—see Chapter “The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation” [Derluguian & Hovhannisyan, 2022, in this volume]). The characteristic of mass protests, or some form of mass mobilization, is indicated as obligatory for revolutions. If points (2), (3) and (4) are present, but there is no mass mobilization (point 1), or mass mobilization is aimed not at the forcible overthrow of the government, but at a legitimate victory in the elections, and the revolutionaries win power (by means of a military coup, victory in the elections and the subsequent radical change of the regime through legislative and other methods, etc.), then this is an analogue of revolution or a revolution analogue (mass mobilization is either legal, or comes after the overthrow of the old government). The Nazi analogue of revolution after 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power through elections with preceding and subsequent mass mobilization can serve as an example. Many revolutionary events, which in the scientific sense must be classified precisely as analogues of revolutions, are often called revolutions in political terminology (cp., for example, the frequently encountered characterization of the events in Egypt in 1952 as a “revolution”). More recent examples include the so-called "Bolivarian Revolution" in Venezuela (Hugo Chavez’s coming to power through elections with subsequent revolutionary transformations that marked the beginning of the revolutionary era in Venezuela, which will be discussed below).9 As more recent examples one may mention events in Zimbabwe in 2017, or a failed analogue of revolution in Turkey in 2016. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between true revolutions and their analogues. In true revolutions, a new regime takes power on the basis of mass actions. In analogues of revolution, by contrast, the change of government/president/monarch occurs by a coup or by elections, and this is followed by the new (revolutionary-minded) regime making significant changes in the regime and social or political institutions (about analogues of revolution as well as revolutionary 9

About analogues of revolution in Germany after 1933, in Egypt after 1952, and in Venezuela after 1999 see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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epochs and revolutionary movements without revolutions see also Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]; see also Grinin & Grinin, 2020). If a revolutionary event that meets the requirements of the definition of a revolution does not achieve its goal, and suffers a defeat, then this event should be considered as a revolutionary episode. If, at the same time, a revolutionary episode is very largescale, lengthy, stubborn and (often) bloody, and at the same time suffers defeat, then this event should be qualified as an unsuccessful revolution. If there is a mass mobilization, but there are no demands to overthrow the government, or sufficient efforts are not made for the purpose of overthrowing the government and seizing power (there is no evidence that there have been serious attempts to overthrow the government and seize power), then this is a quasi-revolutionary episode. It is also necessary to distinguish between revolutions and revolutionary movements without revolutions (RMWR). A movement is called revolutionary if (a) there is a mass mobilization; (b) revolutionary methods are used; (c) even if the requirements are formulated vaguely or limited, there is usually an underlying deep discontent/disappointment in the regime, living conditions, prospects, etc.; (d) usually the revolutionary movement expands its demands in the process. The difference between a revolution and a revolutionary movement may be that a revolution is aimed at overthrowing the regime within a sufficiently limited time, but (1) sometimes a revolutionary movement may be aimed at protecting certain elements of the regime by attacking others (for example, anti-immigration or populist movements, as well as a movement against attempts to violate the constitution, rig the vote, etc.); or (2) the revolutionary movement is aimed at forcing the inclusion in the polity of groups which had previously been discriminated against or excluded, which de facto leads to serious transformations in sociopolitical institutions, but without the demand to overthrow the government, whereas the revolution, as a rule, aims to overthrow it; (3) the revolutionary movement can be aimed at preserving the status quo against unwelcome changes (for example, a new tax, law, etc.), by mobilizing to hinder or threaten the government (e.g., the Hong Kong protests against the new security and extradition laws). In general, the demands of a revolution are usually more sweeping than those of a revolutionary movement. One of the differences is that usually the struggle to achieve the goals of a revolutionary movement continues for a long time (such are, for example, movements for civil rights or women’s rights); examples of such movements are the “Yellow Vests”, BLM, Occupy Wall Street, 15-M (Indignados) movement in Spain, Syriza movement in Greece, Candle-light Revolution in Korea (2016–2017), Estallido Social in Chile (since 2019), or the Women’s Strike in Poland in 2020–2021. We also introduce the notion of a revolutionary epoch as a long period of transformations in a society. It is known that profound transformations in different countries often (and even as a rule) do not finish with a single revolution, especially if the latter is defeated. As long as the main problems causing a revolution are not resolved, the peaceful periods (which can be periods of uncertain equilibrium between old and new institutions, of weak democracy or counterrevolutions and dictatorships) can

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give way to a new revolution (sometimes even two or three) as well as attempts at counter-revolution, mutinies etc. So, the revolutionary epoch is a long period of transformation, in which revolutions, revolutionary changes, counter-revolutions, and various revolutionary episodes, which are associated with the struggle of various political and social forces for the political/social order, power, etc., take place. In connection with the concept of a revolutionary epoch, it is also important to keep in mind that the revolutionary events that occur during the revolutionary epoch must be characterized as related (which significantly transforms revolutionary events), whereas revolutionary events that happened in other periods can be classified as independent ones. In the case of related events, revolutionary events can be simultaneously counter-revolutionary in relation to the ongoing revolutionary era; thus, the June 30 Revolution in Egypt in 2013 can well be regarded as a counter-revolution in relation to the January 25 Revolution of 2011 (see, e.g., Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume]; see also Grinin & Korotayev, 2016; Korotayev et al., 2016]).

4 Waves of Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century The main theme of this volume is the waves of revolutions of the twenty-first century—although one should not lose sight of either revolutions that stand outside the waves, or other forms of revolutionary events. This volume describes in detail eleven revolutions of the twenty-first century, as well as some important revolutionary (protest) movements and episodes (in Moldova,10 Iran,11 Turkey,12 subSaharan Africa,13 etc.). Naturally, we did not have the opportunity to describe all the revolutionary episodes and movements in this period, so it makes sense to focus on the particular waves of revolutions that can be distinguished in the twenty-first century. The 1st wave of (color) revolutions—2000–2009. In fact, this wave began in the last year of the twentieth century—2000—with the 2000–2001 revolution in the Philippines (People Power Revolution II) and the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia/Yugoslavia,14 and included revolutions and revolutionary episodes

10

See Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022, in this volume). 11 See Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022, in this volume). 12 See Chapter “Turkey. The (Gulen) Cemaat and the State: An Unfinished Conquest” (Baskan, 2022) in this volume. 13 See Chapter “Modern Protest Civil Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization” (Sadovskaya et al., 2022, in this volume). 14 See Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a, in this volume).

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in Georgia,15 the Maldives, Ukraine,16 Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan,17 Myanmar, Iran,18 Moldova19 etc. (see Table 1 below).20 Many of these were patterned after the initial wave of anti-communist revolutions in 1989–1990 in regard to their tactics and their goals. The reasons for this wave at the World System level were the following: (1) the world economy was on the rise, especially actively in the countries of the former second and third worlds; (2) rapid development contributed to the growth of both rising expectations21 and an increase in inequality; (3) the general rise of the global economy went along with the rise of democratization in the world (the so-called third wave of democratization—see, e.g., Huntington, 1993); (4) the growth of democratization was closely related to (a) the fall of communism (though it should be noted that a number of countries of the former USSR and the Communist bloc resisted the trend to liberal democracy); (b) the growth of the prestige of the United States and other democratic countries; and (c) the increasing influence of Western countries and organizations seeking to assist and/or promote democratization in many formerly authoritarian countries. The main features of the wave were the following: (1) the revolutions did not coincide or overlap (as in the previous and next waves) but generally followed one another sequentially with some delay, more like a relay race, in a kind of chain, with only one event per year, or two; (2) at the same time, there is a clear connection between these revolutions with regard to (a) world-systemic reasons (see above); (b) external forces and organizations that provided comprehensive guidance, training and assistance to the revolutionaries; (c) their goals; and (d) their methods of revolutionary action; and (3) thanks to excellent organization, weak state resistance and Western support, these revolutions have mostly won. A few revolutions in this period happened outside this wave—e.g., in Cote d’Ivoire (2002), Bolivia (2003), Nepal (2006), and the Gaza Sector of Palestine (2007) (see Table 1).

15

See Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c, in this volume). See Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b) in this volume. 17 See Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume). 18 See Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022) in this volume. 19 See Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022, in this volume). 20 To these one may add a number of revolutions, revolutionary and quasi-revolutionary episodes in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 2000s (Senegal-2000, Madagascar-2001–2002, Togo-2005, Guinea2007–2010, Ivory Coast-2010–2011 and so on). 21 About rising expectations, see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a) and Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022d) in this volume. 16

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The 2nd wave: the Arab Spring and its echo, 2010/2011–2013.22 The reasons at the World System level for this wave were as follows: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Unlike the previous wave, at the end of the 2000s the world economy was in crisis due to the world-wide Great Recession that began in the USA23 and also due to exceptional spikes in food prices; this crisis became a world-systemic global cause of revolutionary activity. We should note that the crisis engulfed all countries, and there were revolutionary activities all around the world; however, due to the particular characteristics of their regimes, the center of activity was in the MENA region. In the wake of the rapid but highly unequal development of countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and others, the slowdown during the economic crisis accelerated the approach of revolutions. Agflation (inflation in the prices of agricultural commodities) became a specific consequence of the economic crisis, that is, there were classical revolutionary reasons (as opposed to the first wave) associated with a deterioration in the standard of living. Unlike the countries of the first wave, in the Middle East there were longterm authoritarian regimes (30 years or more), several of which were holding together countries with significant regional, ethnic, or religious cleavages; this affected the trajectory and outcome of these cases, often leading to violent internal conflicts.

In addition to the Arab revolutions in the MENA region, the wave included a number of revolutionary events in the other parts of the world, including revolutionary movements without revolutions in the advanced Western countries that were related to the Great Recession (e.g., Occupy Wall Street, Indignados etc.) (see the chapter “Global echo of the Arab Spring” [Korotayev et al., 2022b, in this volume]). The main features of this wave were: (1) the rapid diffusion of revolutions from country to country, being in this regard a classic wave; (2) the strong cultural and linguistic unity of the region; (3) the special role of educated youth; and (4) the special role of ethnic, religious, and regional identities as factors shaping the pattern and outcomes of events.24 22

However, the sub-wave/line of the Islamist revolutions and rebellions in 2013–2016 (ISIS, Boco Haram, radical Islamist rebellion in Yemen and so on) may be regarded as a continuation of this wave in a dramatically different form—see Chapter “Global echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022b) and Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al. 2022a) in this book. 23 It was triggered by the global financial-economic crisis that marked the onset of the downswing phase of the fifth Kondratieff wave, which continues through 2021 (see, e.g., Korotayev & Grinin, 2012; Grinin et al., 2016, 2017). 24 For a deeper analysis of the revolutions of this wave see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022),

12

J. A. Goldstone et al.

The 3rd wave (2018–present). This includes revolutions, revolutionary episodes, and revolutionary movements without revolutions in Armenia (2018), Sudan (2018– 2019), Bolivia (2019), Algeria (2019), Hong Kong (2019–2020), Chile (2019), Kyrgyzstan (2020), Iraq (2019), Lebanon (2019), Iran (2019), the USA (the attack on the Capitol in 2021), the Yellow Vests in France (2018–2020), Belarus (2020–2021), Myanmar (2021) etc. (see Table 1). At the World System level, this wave has the following reasons: (1) a new deterioration of the situation in the world economy in the framework of the downswing phase of the fifth Kondratieff wave, which brought a generally greater concentration of wealth and greater inequality within nations, and in many cases the stagnation or decline of living standards for less educated workers; 25 (2) political destabilization in the World System in reaction to heightened tensions among states (including Russia’s absorption of Crimea and the war in Ukraine, the rise of China and perceived weakening of the U.S., exacerbated by sanction pressures and the reduction of globalization during the Trump administration, provoking a rising nationalist backlash); (3) at the same time, the promotion of democracy continued in a number of countries—Hong Kong, Belarus, Armenia, etc.; (4) in 2020, COVID is added, which significantly worsens the economic and social situation26 ; and (5) a new wave of agflation as a result of counter-crisis quantitative easing measures helped to increase and prolong this wave. This wave is characterized by the following features: (1) a wide range of revolutionary events; (2) a variety of reasons for revolutions with a common base associated with a deterioration not only in the economic, but also in foreign policy and international terms; (3) the spread of revolutionary events to the countries of the first world with consolidated democracy (this makes the wave similar to the previous one, with the difference that this time the intensity of revolutionary events in such countries became stronger); (4) accordingly, an increase in such forms of revolutionary events as revolutionary movements without revolutions; and (5) an especially wide geography of revolutionary events. Thus, all three waves were associated with very powerful world-system events. At the same time, the first wave took place against a positive economic and political background, the second against a negative economic one, and the third against a negative economic and foreign policy background. All three waves were also associated with more or less strong external influences from other countries, including Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and their Aftermath” (Rasler et al., 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022b), and Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume). 25 However, the emerging global inflation launched by the new quantitative easing and other phenomena can make this wave similar to the previous one. 26 For the impact of the COVID pandemic on economic, social and political life, see, for example, Grinin (2020a), Irshad (2020), Korotayev et al. (2020a; 2020b), Widdowson (2021), Rodrigue (2021). Examples of direct contributions of the COVID-19 pandemic to the genesis of revolutionary events already can be found in Kyrgyzstan (see Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan [Ivanov, 2022, in this volume], Belarus, and Cuba.

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions …

13

support for attempts to democratize (especially in the first and third waves); these ranged from financial support and training for regime opponents to direct military intervention for the second wave, particularly in Libya, Syria and Yemen. The extent of additional revolutionary activity (but without obvious ties to a particular wave) in the five years of 2013–2017 should also be noted, to highlight the great number and range of revolutionary-type episodes occurring in this decade.27 Several factors converged here: (1) geopolitical conflicts as US global domination greatly weakened and other states grew more aggressive (which played a role in Ukraine in 2014, Turkey-2013 and -2016, Hong Kong-2014, and Venezuela); (2) the growth of nationalism in Europe producing regional uprisings (Donbass-2014, Catalonia2016); (3) the deterioration of the economic situation in southern Europe due to EU budget policies (Greece-2015); (4) efforts to maintain or rectify democracy in democratic countries (revolution analogue in Brazil in 2013–2016, revolutionary movement without revolution in Korea 2016); and (5) religious and other factors for several revolutionary events in Africa (see Table 1). The first two waves, as well as many events from the revolutionary four years of 2013–2017, are sufficiently presented in this volume. We hope to analyze the wave of 2018–2021 in future works.

5 Revolutions of the 21st Century: A List As there are many forms and types of revolutionary events and episodes, it is sometimes difficult to make a firm determination of whether an event belongs in this category. For example, the Hong Kong “Umbrella Revolution” was a sustained mass mobilization seeking to change the form of Hong Kong’s government, from a chief executive nominated by a select body chosen with Chinese supervision to an open, one person, one vote, democratic process of nominations and elections. But it achieved nothing. Even more evanescent were the “Occupy Wall Street/We are the 99%” movements which occupied public spaces in American and European cities for many weeks, demanding a change in the economic system, but which were largely ignored by governments. Nonetheless, if we are to understand the variety and evolution of revolutionary movements and episodes, we should include all cases in which large scale or disruptive popular mobilizations to overturn or change the institutions of

27

On the other hand, this is still sometimes regarded as a separate revolutionary wave—see Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022, in this volume); see also Korotayev et al. (2015a; 2015b).

14

J. A. Goldstone et al.

government arose. As it was mentioned above we therefore develop a typology that includes various types of events from quasi-revolutionary episodes to revolutionary epochs, including victorious and losing revolutions, analogues of revolutions, and revolutionary movements without revolutions. These various types can be united by the concept of revolutionary events, a series of which constitutes a revolutionary process. It should be noted that the development of revolutionary processes in recent years has been very active, involving all inhabited continents, except Australia, not only developing, but also developed countries, not only authoritarian, but also democratic regimes. This suggests that social discontent associated with both distorted economic development and the growth of inequality in societies is growing, and that the World System is on the verge of serious transformations. Protests in a number of countries, for example, in Chile and in Lebanon in 2019, showed that mass unrest, with the accumulated tension in society, can be triggered by a seemingly insignificant reason (an increase in metro fares or a tax on messaging, in particular WhatsApp). The growth of revolutionary movements without revolutions in a number of developed countries says both that institutional democracy is not a panacea for the emergence of revolutionary movements, and that even consolidated democracy can be infected with factional cleavages (as has happened in the USA). In addition, democracy is not always able to solve the problems of national self-determination, as a result of which there are such revolutionary movements as that which we saw in Catalonia; also, the movement towards democracy can stall or be reversed, as in Hungary and Turkey. The spread of revolutionary events to many democratic countries also says that modern democracy is experiencing a certain crisis, which can become systemic under some circumstances. We would like to conclude this part of the introduction with Table 1 listing the most important revolutionary events of the twenty-first century.

Start date

2000

2000

2000

2000

2001

2001

2001

2002

2003

2003

2003

#

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

2008

2003

2003

2007

present

2002

2001

2005

2000

2000

2000

End date

Maldives

Bolivia

Georgia

Ivory Coast

Afghanistan

Madagascar

Philippines

Palestine

Fiji

Ecuador

Yugoslavia

Country

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution and civil war

Anti-Gayoom Movement

Rose Revolution

Democratic

Social and ethnonational

Democratic

Social and ethnonational

Democratic Islamist

Taliban rebellion

Democratic

National liberation

Nationalist

Democratic, social, ethno-nationalist

Democratic

Type of revolutionary event

RGWa

Second EDSA Revolution, People Power Revolution II

Al-Aqsa Intifada

Anti-Chaudhry Movement

Anti-Mahuad

Bulldozer Revolution

Special names

Revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Table 1 Revolutions of the twenty-first century

1

1

1?

1?

1

Revolution wave #

(continued)

Supported by Otpor, see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b, in this volume)

Color revolution (see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” [Khodunov, 2022c, in this volume])

In the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Color revolution (see Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” [Khodunov, 2022a, in this volume])

Notes

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions … 15

Start date

2003

2004

2004

2004

2005

2005

2005

2005

#

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

2008

2005

2005

2005

2004

2005

2005

2012

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Chad

Togo

Lebanon

Kyrgyzstan

Haiti

Ecuador

Ukraine

Sudan

Country

RGWa , failed

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode

Anti-Gnassingbe

Cedar Revolution

Tulip Revolution

Anti-Aristide Rebellion

Rebellion of the Forajidos

Orange Revolution

Darfur rebellion

RGWa , failed

Revolution

Special names

Kind of revolutionary event

Mixed (ethnonational, social and democratic)

Democratic

National-liberation

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

National liberation

Type of revolutionary event

1?

1

1

1

Revolution wave #

(continued)

Mixed type because of participation of different revolutionary forces

Color revolution, Supported by Otpor, see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b, in this volume)

Color revolution (see Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” [Ivanov, 2022])

Revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Color revolution (see Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” [Khodunov, 2022b])

Notes

16 J. A. Goldstone et al.

Start date

2006

2006

2007

2007

2007

2007

2009

2009

2010

#

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

2010

2010

2009

2010

2008

2007

2007

2006

2006

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Failed revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Kyrgyzstan

Iran

Moldova

Guinea

Comoros, Anjouan

Revolution

Failed revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Failed revolution analogue

Gaza, Palestine Revolution

Myanmar

Tonga

Nepal

Country

Melon Revolution

Green Movement

Twitter Revolution, Grape Revolution

2nd Anjouan Revolution

Saffron Revolution

April Revolution

Special names

Ethno-social and democratic

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

National Liberation

Islamist and democratic

Democratic

Anti-monarchy

Anti-monarchy

Type of revolutionary event

1

1

1?

1

Revolution wave #

(continued)

See Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume)

Color revolution (Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” [Filin, 2022, in this volume])

Color revolution (Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” [Tkachuk et al., 2022, in this volume])

Failed national liberation revolution analogue accompanied by foreign intervention

Hamas takes power in Gaza

Color revolution

Revolution within the revolutionary epoch starting in 1996, see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)

Notes

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions … 17

Start date

2010

2010

2010

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

#

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

2012

2012

2014

2012

2011

present

present

2012

2015

2011

2011

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Kuwait

Jordan

Bahrain

Morocco

Libya

Syria

Yemen

Egypt

Greece

Tunisia

Ivory Coast

Country

Failed revolution

Revolutionary episode

Failed revolution

Revolution?

Revolution

Failed revolution

Revolution

Social

Democratic

Democratic

Type of revolutionary event

Pearl Revolution

Arab Spring in Morocco

17 February Revolution

Syrian Revolution

Coffee Revolution

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic Islamist

Democratic

Democratic, Islamic

Democratic

25 January Revolution, Lotus Democratic Revolution

Greek anti-austerity (Syriza) protests

RMWRa

Revolution

Jasmine Revolution

Pro-Ouattara Revolt

Special names

Revolution

Revolution and civil war

Kind of revolutionary event

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

1?

Revolution wave #

Negotiated revolution with inconsistent results?

(continued)

Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022, in this volume)

Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022, in this volume)

Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022, in this volume)

Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)

See Chapter “Global echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022b, in this volume)

Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022, in this volume)

Notes

18 J. A. Goldstone et al.

Start date

2011

2011

2011

2011

2012

2012

2013

2013

#

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

2013

2013

present

2012

2012

2012

2012

2011

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Egypt

Turkey

Rojava, Syria

Mali

Spain

USA

Malawi

Djibouti

Country

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

30 June Revolution

Taksim Protests

Rojava Revolution

Tuareg Rebellion

15-M Movement, Indignados

RMWRa

Failed evolution

Anti-Mutharika Movement Occupy Wall Street

Revolution

Special names

RMWRa

Revolutionary episode

Kind of revolutionary event

Anti-Islamist (secularist), accompanied by a coup

Democratic

National Liberation, Social

National Liberation

Social

Social

Democratic

Democratic

Type of revolutionary event

2

2

2

2

2

2

Revolution wave #

(continued)

Revolution within a revolutionary epoch, in some respects a counter-revolution, see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume)

See Chapter “Global echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022b, in this volume)

See Chapter “Global echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022b, in this volume)

Notes

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions … 19

Start date

2013

2013

2013

2013

2014

2014

2014

2014

#

48

49

50

50

51

52

53

54

present

2014

2014

2014

2016

2015

2014

2019

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Libya

Hong Kong

Abkhazia

Burkina Faso

Brazil

Venezuela

Ukraine

Iraq & Syria

Country

Revolution and civil war

Revolution episode

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution analogue

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Failed revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Operation Dignity, Haftar’s Rebellion

Umbrella Revolution

Abkhazian Revolution

Burkinabé uprising

Vinegar Revolution

Euromaidan Revolution

ISIS

Special names

Anti-Islamist (Secularist)

National Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

Social (with a right-wing component)

Democratic

Nationalist

Religious (Islamist)

Type of revolutionary event

Revolution wave #

(continued)

Revolution in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

See Chapter “Modern Protest Civil Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization” (Sadovskaya et al., 2022, in this volume)

Color revolution analogue (ending with the incumbent’s impeachment)

Revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Color revolution (see Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” [Shevsky, 2022, in this volume])

Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2022, in this volume)

Notes

20 J. A. Goldstone et al.

Start date

2014

2015

2015

2015

2015

2016

2016

2016

2016

#

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

2017

2016

2019

2016

2019

2017

2015

2015

2015

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Korea

Catalonia, Spain

Kashmir, India

Turkey

Venezuela

North Macedonia

Guatemala

Burundi

Yemen

Country

Social

Candlelight Revolution

RMWRa

National Liberation and Islamic

Combined

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

National Religious

Type of revolutionary event

National Liberation

Kashmir anti-India protests

15 July 2016 coup d’état attempt

Colorful Revolution

Guatemala Uprising

September 21 Revolution

Special names

Quasi revolutionary or revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode

Failed revolution analogue

Failed revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Revolution wave #

(continued)

See Chapter “Turkey. The (Gulen) Cemaat and the State: An Unfinished Conquest” (Baskan, 2022) in this volume

Failed color revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

Revolutionary episode accompanied by a coup attempt

May be said to have begun in 2004 and continues till now; a part of the revolutionary epoch in Yemen

Notes

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions … 21

Start date

2016

2017

2017

2017

2017

2018

2018

2018

2018

2019

#

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

2019

2019

2019

2019

2018

present

2019

2019

2017

2017

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Bolivia

Sudan

France

Nicaragua

Armenia

Mozambique

Cameroon

Togo

DRC

Zimbabwe

Country

Revolution

Pitita Revolution

Democratic

Democratic

Social

Sudanese Revolution

Yellow Vests

RMWRa

Revolution with coup d’état

Democratic

Democratic

Islamist

National Liberation

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic

Type of revolutionary event

Revolutionary episode

Velvet Revolution

Insurgency in Cabo Delgado

RGWa

Revolution

Ambazonia Independence

Anti-Gnassingbe Revolt

Anti-Kabila Rebellion

Anti-Mugabe Protests

Special names

Revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode

Revolution analogue

Kind of revolutionary event

3

3

3

3

Revolution wave #

Color revolution (continued)

With a secularist anti-Islamist component

Color revolution

See Chapter “The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation” (Derluguian & Hovhannisyan, 2022, in this volume)

See Chapter “Modern Protest Civil Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization” (Sadovskaya et al., 2022, in this volume)

Notes

22 J. A. Goldstone et al.

Start date

2019

2019

2019

2019

2019

2020

2020

2020

#

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

2021

2021

2020

2021

2020

2021

2020

2021

End date

Table 1 (continued)

Belarus

Armenia

Kyrgyzstan

Algeria

Hong Kong, China

Iraq

Lebanon

Chile

Country

October Revolution

2019–2021 Iraqi protests

RMWRa or major revolutionary episode

RMWRa or major revolutionary episode

Failed revolution

Revolutionary or quasi revolutionary episode

Revolution

Revolutionary episode or failed revolution

Anti-Cockroach Revolution

March of Dignity

The 3rd Kyrgyz Revolution

Smile Revolution

2019–2020 Hong Kong protests

Estallido Social

RMWRa or major revolutionary episode

Failed revolution

Special names

Kind of revolutionary event

Democratic

Power-modernist

Ethno-social and Democratic

Democratic

Democratic and National

Sociopolitical (with a secularist component)

Sociopolitical (with a secularist component)

Social

Type of revolutionary event

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

Revolution wave #

Color revolution (continued)

See Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume)

Notes

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions … 23

2020

2020

2021

2021

2021

83

84

85

86

87

2021

2021?

2021

2021

2021

2021

End date

Myanmar

Palestine

USA

Somalia

Tigray, Ethiopia

Poland

Country

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolutionary episode?

Revolutionary episode

Spring Revolution

2021 storming of the United States Capitol

Electoral Revolution

Tigray War

Women Strike

RMWRa

Revolution

Special names

Kind of revolutionary event

revolutionary movement without revolution. RGW revolutionary guerilla war

2020

82

a RMWR

Start date

#

Table 1 (continued)

Democratic

National Liberation

Right-wing anti-democratic

Democratic

National Liberation

Social

Type of revolutionary event

3

3?

3

3?

3

Revolution wave #

Revolutionary episode in the framework of a revolutionary epoch

See Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume)

Notes

24 J. A. Goldstone et al.

Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions …

25

6 The Structure of This Volume This volume consists of seven parts, this Introduction and a Conclusion. PART I (“The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution”) consists of three chapters,28 which examine the history of views on revolution and important aspects of the theory of revolution. Among them are the very phenomenon of revolution and its definition; revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and the relationship between revolutions and democracy. As examples, events of both past and modern eras are considered, and special attention is paid to the events of the Arab Spring, in particular the 2011 revolution in Egypt, its development and the 2013 counter-revolution and coup. PART II (“Revolutions: History, Aspects & Dimensions”). One of the main ideas of this collective monograph is the need to consider revolutions within long-term historical trends and in the World System context. Particular attention is paid to this problem in the second part of the volume, which consists of four chapters.29 In particular, the development of the characteristics of revolutions during a five-hundred-year historical period, starting with the early Reformation at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is considered. It is shown why such an ancient phenomenon as revolutions, precisely since the Modern Age, has become extremely important as an instrument of social progress and historical development. The correlation between revolutions and modernization traps is traced, and it is also shown how the role of revolutions in the World System has changed as a way of forming new models of development. It is shown that when approaching modernity, the tendency for disruptive political changes has been increasing as a result of revolutions. A new typology of revolutions is also presented, which contributes to the theory of revolution, as we believe typology remains its weak point. PART III (“Revolutionary Waves in History”) consists of five chapters30 that analyze practically all major revolutionary waves in history. First of all is discussion of what can be called a revolutionary wave, what are its characteristics and signs, their causes of occurrence and connection with world-system events, and classification of waves and their structure. A new classification of revolutions and other revolutionary 28 See Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), and Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a). 29 Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), “The ‘problem of structure and agency’ and contemporary sociology of revolution and social movements” (Karasev, 2022), and Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022d). 30 Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022g), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022c) in the present monograph.

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events (analogues of revolutions, revolutionary movements without revolution, lines and clusters of revolutions, etc.) is offered. The authors show their vision of how many revolutionary events can be identified since the beginning of the Modern Age. Revolutionary waves from the beginning of the Reformation are analyzed, but a more detailed analysis is made of the waves of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (for the latter, a quantitative analysis of revolutionary events has also been carried out). PART IV (“Revolutions of the Early twenty-first Century. The Wave of Color Revolutions”): These nine chapters31 analyze and describe a significantly larger number of revolutions, revolutionary episodes and movements. Here the authors to a much lesser extent dwell on the theoretical aspects, as their task is to dissect the events whose contemporaries we were, to show their causes and consequences, including disruptive political and social changes. The wave of Color Revolutions was the first revolutionary wave of the twenty-first century, in which the most notable events took place within the countries of the former USSR and the former Yugoslavia, although one cannot but mention Iran, to which the last chapter of this part is devoted (see also a number of revolutionary events of this wave in Table 1). The first chapter of this part (“All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” [Selbin, 2022]) also gives a panorama of the revolutionary events in different parts of the world in the early twenty-first century, some of which are not associated with the first revolutionary wave. PART V (“Revolutions of the Early twenty-first Century. The Arab Spring Wave as an Important Revolutionary Turning Point”) is devoted to the 2nd wave of the twentyfirst century revolutions—the Arab Spring of 2010/2011–2013. Those events shocked the world, as this wave took many by surprise with its speed and intensity. At the same time, it vividly demonstrated that the fall of stable regimes as a result of revolutions in societies with insufficient preparedness for a democratic form of government may lead to very serious disruptive changes, sometimes throwing societies back decades in a few months. The eight chapters of this part32 examine the causes, conditions, and driving forces of the Arab Spring, revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya,

31

See Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” (Selbin, 2022), Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022), and Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022) in this book. 32 See Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and their Aftermath” (Rasler et al., 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022a, in this volume).

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and Yemen. They also analyze general and specific reasons for these events, and the features of these revolutions in specific states. PART VI (“Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements Beyond the Arab Spring”) consists of seven chapters.33 The Arab Spring had a global echo that thundered across many countries in 2011–2016. One of them, the undemocratic and ultraIslamist revolution of the Islamic State,34 is described in this part of the volume. This part also describes the events in Turkey during the reign of Erdogan,35 as well as various revolutionary movements, including ones in Tropical Africa.36 The chapter on “The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation” (Derluguian & Hovhannisyan, 2022) analyzes in detail one of the most interesting revolutions of the third wave of the twenty-first century. PART VII (“Revolutions of the twenty-first Century: Today and Tomorrow”) consists of three chapters.37 It is devoted to forecasts about the future of revolutions. All the contributors to this part believe that revolutions will continue to have a rather prominent future in the twenty-first century. Forecasts are based on a broad survey of the past and present revolutionary processes. The conclusion38 focuses on asking which states and regions are most likely to display the future of revolutions. We hope that this volume will be a step towards the improved understanding of the varied forms, features, world-systemic and historical context of revolutions, and thus contribute to the development of richer and more widely applicable theories of revolution. Acknowledgement This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2021 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254) for Professors Grinin and Korotayev. Dr. Goldstone’s contribution to this chapter was made possible in part by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and 33

Chapter “Global echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022b), Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky 2022), Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2022a), Chapter “Turkey. The (Gulen) Cemaat and the State: An Unfinished Conquest” (Baskan, 2022), Chapter “The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation” (Derluguian & Hovhannisyan, 2022), Chapter “Modern Protest Civil Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization” (Sadovskaya et al., 2022), Chapter “Articulating the Web of Transnational Social Movements” (Chase-Dunn et al., 2022) in this volume. 34 Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2022a, in this volume). 35 Chapter “Turkey. The (Gulen) Cemaat and the State: An Unfinished Conquest” (Baskan, 2022) in this volume. 36 Chapter “Modern Protest Civil Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization” (Sadovskaya et al., 2022, in this volume). 37 Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (2022f), Chapter “Global Inequality and World Revolutions: Past, Present and Future” (Chase-Dunn & Nagy, 2022), and Chapter “Revolution Forecasting. Formulation of the Problem” (Shults, 2022). 38 Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a).

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the Charles Koch Foundation. The statements made and views expressed therein are solely the responsibility of the authors

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century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 241–264). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_9. Sadovskaya, L., Fakhrutdinova, N., & Kochanova, T. (2022). Modern protest civil movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of global political destabilization. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 923–938). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_36. Selbin, E. (2022). All around the world: Revolutionary potential in the age of authoritarian revanchism. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 415–433). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_14. Shevsky, D. (2022). Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 851–863). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_32. Shults, E. (2022). Revolution forecasting. Formulation of the problem. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 1023–1033). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_40. Skocpol, T. (1979). States and social revolutions. Cambridge University Press. Stone, B. (2013). The anatomy of revolution revisited. Cambridge University Press. Tkachuk, M., Romanchuk, A., & Timotin, I. (2022). ‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The atypical ‘revolution’ of April 7 and the days that followed. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 549–569). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_21. Tsygankov, V. (2022). Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 265–279). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_10. Widdowson, M. (2021). From Covid-19 to zero-gravity: Complex crises and production revolutions. Journal of Globalization Studies, 12(1), 117–144.

Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair Professor and Eminent Scholar of Public Policy at George Mason University. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley and San Diego, The California Institute of Technology, Konstanz University, Cambridge University, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford), and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author or editor of 13 books and over 175 research articles, and has won prizes and fellowships from the International Studies Association, the American Sociological Association, the Historical Society, and the MacArthur, Carnegie, and Guggenheim Foundations. Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor of the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese.

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Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of the Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He has authored or co-authored over 650 scholarly publications, including 35 monographs.

The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution

The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin, and Andrey Korotayev

In the history of complex human societies, revolutions have been observed for many centuries. The politics of some regions—for example, the Greek city-states and Ancient Rome, as well as many Eastern societies—can be presented as a struggle between social and political groups for the distribution of resources and power that sometimes resulted in revolutions that transformed political and social regimes in a rather significant way.1 But only starting from the early modern period have revolutions become one of the major driving forces of historical progress, leading to novel regime types and reshaping international power relations on a global scale.2 The advanced state modernization and profound transformations of society associated with true popular sovereignty and party-states are usually associated with major social and political revolutions, such as those that occurred in Britain, France, and 1 See,

for example, Sorokin (1925), Forrest (1979), Eisenstadt (1978), Goldstone (2014b), Shaban (1979), Ober (1998), Syme (2002), Korotayev (2004), Grinin (2004a, 2004b, 2010a, 2011, 2014); see also Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022c) and Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a) in this volume. 2 See Katz (1999), Goldstone (2014b), Grinin (2007), Semenov et al., (2007), Travin and Marganiya (2004), Grinin (2012c; 2018a; 2018b; 2019a; 2019b); see also Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022c), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), and Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) in this volume. J. A. Goldstone (B) Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Grinin · A. Korotayev HSE University, Moscow, Russia Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_2

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other countries of Europe, North America and later in other parts of the world since the seventeenth century (see, e.g., Goldstone, 2014b; Travin & Marganiya, 2004).3 Starting from the modern era, in most cases revolutions have been generated by tensions which emerged as a result of rapid economic modernization (Foran, 2005; Grinin, 2012c, 2013; see also Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” [Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume]). Such modernization brought an explosive growth of population, urbanization, youth bulges, new sources of income, shifts in social mobility, increases in inequality, and more visible corruption.4 Modern revolutions can thus be viewed as the result of changes brought by the development process, which can produce a great variety of societal tensions and conflicts. This explains these revolutions, not as an accident, but as a natural product of social-political contradictions arising from rapid development. Various studies suggest a link between revolutions and the degree of modernization of a society (see, for example, Lipset, 1959; Olson, 1963; Huntington, 1968; Epstein et al., 2006; Boix, 2011; Mau & Starodubrovskaya, 2001; Butcher & Svensson, 2016) though the latter is not the direct cause of revolutions but one of their main prerequisites (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” [Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume]). Our own study of a number of developmental models of different countries in different epochs shows that regardless of consumption level and population growth rate, the processes of modernization can be regarded as a strong factor strengthening contradictions within society. Thus, the various social changes that flow from modernization are quite tightly and intrinsically related to the perils of social and political cataclysms, which can rather easily transform into revolutions and violent disorders (see, e.g., Goldstone, 2002, 2011b; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2018; Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2014; Grinin, 2011, 2012c, 2013). That is why one should consider the cases of crisis-free development in the course of modernization and escape from the Malthusian trap to be exceptions, in comparison with the cases of revolutions and large-scale political upheavals (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). Indeed, there are few modern countries that cannot point to some kind of revolutionary upheaval in their past. 3 See also Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022c), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022d), Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022e), and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) in this volume. 4 See Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022c), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022) in this volume.

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As a result, revolutions frequently occur in economically successful, even very successful societies. However, that very success in the context of uneven development leads to unrealistic expectations and grievances that become the ideological basis for social upheavals. By the 2010s, the situation in such countries as Egypt and Tunisia developed following this model, which is described in this volume’s Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022; see also Lawson, 2015), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), and Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a). The present chapter gives only a general understanding of the development of ideas and theories related to the phenomenon of revolution (for more information on the theories see Eisenstadt, 1978; Goldstone, 1980, 2001; 2014b; Giddens, 1989; Stone, 2014; Schultz 2016; Sanderson, 2016; Beck, 2018; Lawson, 2019). Many theoretical questions, such as the reasons for the emergence of revolutionary situations and revolutions, their general phases and features, the typologies of revolutions, the changing historical role of revolutions in the development process, the causes and consequences of revolutionary waves, etc., will be discussed in more detail in the subsequent chapters of this monograph, especially in Parts I–III.

1 The Changing Theories of Revolution The concept of revolution began to be applied relatively late to characterize social phenomena. The very term revolution appears to have been borrowed from astronomy, where it still means “circulation” on a repeated path around a fixed point (cf. Drabkin, 1968: 928). The term revolution was also used in astrology and alchemy. Some attribute its first use in scientific language to the title of the seminal book of Nicolaus Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, Regensburg, 1543). In political philosophy it started to be used in the seventeenth century (Sztompka, 1993: 303). Many studies have been devoted to the historical, moral and political analysis of the problem of revolution since the period of the English Revolution by the authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (e.g. Clarendon, 1888 [1641; publ. 1702–1704]; Hume, 1773; de Mably, 1972 [1758/1789]); Jefferson, 1998; see also Bernstein, 2004 [1874]: 78). There is no need to consider in detail the views of this era; suffice to say that these views differed greatly.5 But only in the course of the American 5

In particular, philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke viewed revolution as a violation of the state order, although their assessment of the English Revolution differed markedly (see Grinin, 2012d). Some English ideologists of this period, such as James Harrington and Gerrard Winstanley (in Utopian compositions and pamphlets), expressed ideas that are still relevant today—e.g., that the process of revolution demands the redistribution of land and other economic assets (see Winstanley, 1950; Saprykin, 1975; Ado, 1977: 21–23).

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and French Revolutions of 1776–1787 and 1789–1799, and especially after them, was the concept of “revolution” filled with a wider content, including the conversion of the masses to “citizens” of the state, the political transformation of the state from a traditionally-governed system of power and authority to a rationally-designed and controlled mechanism of government, and an ideological shift in legitimacy based on the “nation” as sovereign (about state sovereignty in the past and nowadays see Grinin 2012a, b). The concepts of “counter-revolution”, “revolutionary”, and the “evolution” of societies emerged; the concept of revolution began to be used in describing epochal breakthroughs, fundamental transformations of society (see Drabkin, 1968: 928; Sztompka, 1993: 303). The conflicting assessments of revolutions from different socio-political sides, with regard to their value, their progressive or negative role, their reasons and inevitability appeared already in the period of the French Revolution (e.g. Burke, 1965 [1790]; Barnave, 1971 [1792; publ. 1843]; de Maistre, 1841 [1796]; Bonald, 1836 [1800]); and the sharp discussion continued in the subsequent decades (e.g., Thiers, 1881 [1823–1827]; Koch, 1836; Carlyle, 1903 [1837]; Michelet, 1847; Tocqueville, 1955 [1856]; see also Blamires, 1985). In the nineteenth century these aspects of revolutions were studied very actively against the background of the very significant number of revolutions that occurred in this century. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, first Saint-Simon6 (e.g. 1952, 1975), and later the French historians Thierry (2012 [1827]), Guizot (1844 [1836]), Mignet (1824) and some others took the first steps towards explaining revolutions as a result of class struggle (see, for example, Bazard, 1831; Volgin, 1961; Dalin, 1981: 7–41; Grinin, 2010b, 2012d). Later, as revolutionary sentiments grew, revolutions became the subject of research first of all for the representatives of the left and radical camp, including socialists and Marxists (see, for example, Volodin, 1982), but also of critical studies by conservatives. Revolutions, depending on the author’s ideological position, were romanticized or demonized, and the images of revolutionaries acquired, in the words of Sztompka (1993: 303), Promethean traits or, on the contrary, the features of complete villains. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels made a significant contribution to the theory of revolution, although, of course, they weaponized this concept, aiming it at overthrowing capitalism. Marx already in his early works came to a rather deep understanding of the interconnection of the political and social aspects of revolution: “Every revolution dissolves the old order of society; to that extent it is social. Every revolution brings down the old ruling power; to that extent it is political” (Marx, 2000 [1844]: 137]. Marx and Engels then concluded that revolution is the driving force of history. They also actively developed the idea put forward by the French historians of the Restoration Period, that revolutions are a form of class struggle (see, for example, Marx, 1957 [1848]; 2000 [1850], 2000 [1852], Engels, 1979 [1851–1852], 1977 [1878]). Marx also proposed a particular understanding of social revolution as a transition from one mode of production to another, as, first of all, “changes in the economic 6

E.g., “On the industrial system” (1821), “Catechism of the industrialists” (1823–1824), “The new Christianity” (1825).

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foundation” of a social system: “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out” (Marx, 1994, [1859]: 211). It was this understanding of social revolution that became dominant within the Soviet “Historical Materialism” (see, e.g., Drabkin, 1968; Kovalev, 1969; Seleznev, 1971, 1982; Sukharev & Fedoseyev 1984: 202–218; about later views of western Marxism on the dialectical relations between productive forces and relations of production see Grinin, 2019a). Diverse theories of revolution began to take shape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.7 Theories of revolution of the nineteenth century and up to WWI can be considered as belonging to “traditional” or “classical social theory,” with a few exceptions (e.g., de Tocqueville, 1955 [1856], 1896; Stein, 1848, 1934),8 seeking to understand revolutions in the broader framework of social philosophy, or philosophies of history/ideologies of social change, or of human nature. By contrast, theories of revolution from the 1920s onward can be seen as a series of generations of theory that focus more narrowly on the internal dynamics of revolutions and on their causes and outcomes (Goldstone, 1980, 2001; Lawson, 2016, 2019: 48–49). These modern theories treated “revolutions” as an abstract scientific entity that could be analyzed for general patterns and characteristics, similar to a species being described in regard to its origins and behaviors. Theorists of revolution from the classical period include such figures as Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Thomas Bailey, George Helm Yeaman, Joseph Clark, Karl Kautsky, Brooks Adams, Gustave LeBon, Charles A. Ellwood, Emil Lederer, and Gustav Landauer.9 However, as was noted already by Pitirim Sorokin, definitions of revolution in the works of this period were based on false principles and can be divided, in Sorokin’s words, into “sweet” and “bitter tasting” definitions. As was 7

See, e.g., Sorokin (1925), Smelser (1963), Brinton (1965), Skocpol (1979), Goldstone (1980, 2001), Giddens (1989), Sztompka (1993), Sanderson (2016), Lawson (2016, 2019: 48–49), Gavlin and Kazakova (1980), Grinin et al. (2010), Grinin et al. (2016), Grinin (2018a; 2019b), Shultz (2016). 8 According to Eisenstadt, de Tocqueville, von Stein and Marx were the first to systematize the image of the revolution in the nineteenth century (Eisenstadt, 1978: ch. 1). But unlike Marx, de Tocqueville did not consider revolutions absolutely obligatory for historical progress, believing that even without them, gradual development could lead to the same results. 9 See, e.g., de Tocqueville (1955 [1856]), von Stein (1848, 1934), Marx (1957 [1848], 2000 [1852]), Bailey (1830), Yeaman (1986 [1861]), Clark (1862), Kautsky (1899, 1903), Ellwood (1905), Adams (1913), LeBon (1913), Lederer (1918), Landauer (1912).

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stressed by Sorokin himself, such definitions corresponded to imagined rather than real characteristics of revolutions (Sorokin, 1925). On the other hand, one could also observe more and more influential claims that the results aimed at by the revolutions could be achieved much more effectively by social reforms.10 However, one should not fail to notice that the works by representatives of revolutionary parties11 included a number of rather interesting studies that contributed in a significant way to the understanding of revolutions. In particular, one can mention works by Lenin (1969 [1917], 2017 [1917]), Kautsky (1899, 1903), Luxemburg (1991), Trotsky (1931), etc. The next phase began after the First World War. Following Goldstone (1980, 2001) we denote this wave of scholarship as “the first generation” of modern theories of revolutions. This designation makes some sense as it was in this period that one could first observe the institutionalization of the sociology of revolution as a discrete field. Indeed, in the 1920s and 1930s this generation of revolution theorists achieved the institutionalization of the Sociology of Revolution, whose emergence is connected with the name of Pitirim Sorokin and his monograph Sociology of Revolution (Sorokin, 1925; Sorokin, 1992). In addition to Pitirim Sorokin, representatives of this generation include such figures as Lyford P. Edwards, George S. Pettee, Crane Brinton, Theodor Geiger, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, and Emil Lederer (see, e.g., Edwards, 1927; Lederer, 1936; Pettee, 1938; Brinton, 1938; Geiger, 1931; Rosenstock-Huessy, 1931). In addition to Pitirim Sorokin, we should also mention some other Russian scholars, in particular Nikolai Berdyaev’s (1928, 1990) ideas about what we call his “Law of Revolution,” which also can be connected with the phase of revolution named “Thermidor”.12 This generation developed both the first historical statistics regarding the frequency of revolutions (Sorokin) and the first efforts at a comparative anatomy of revolutions, that is, the decomposition of revolutions into a characteristic set and sequence of events, such as the defection of the elites, moderate and radical phases, and the return to stable order. The 1950s evidenced the beginning of a new (“second”) generation of modern theories of revolutions, seeking general causes for such events. Sociologists of revolutions of this generation include, among others, Chalmers Johnson, James C. Davies, Ted Robert Gurr, Neil Smelser, Barrington Moore, Samuel P. Huntington, and Charles Tilly (see, e.g., Davies, 1962, 1969; Smelser, 1963; Huntington, 1968; Johnson, 1968; Gurr, 1968, 1970; Tilly, 1978). Researchers of this period strove to overcome the schematism of the “classical” sociology of revolutions, and the more descriptive mode of the first generation theories, by drawing on contemporary psychological, functional, and organizational theory. Among the directions taken by this generation in the development of concepts of revolution, some scholars identify three main 10

According to Adams (1913: 30), we need a “peaceful” revolution aimed at the strengthening of the state which alone can assume the role of the Supreme Judge and reformer. 11 Note that even Pitirim Sorokin (who is considered to be a major representative of the next generation of the revolution theories) for most of the Russian period of his life was a very prominent and active member of one of the main Russian revolutionary parties (the “Socialist Revolutionaries”). 12 See Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a) and Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a) in this volume.

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approaches: (1) an approach based on cognitive psychology and theory of frustration (Davies, 1962, 1969; Feierabend & Feierabend, 1972; Feierabend et al., 1969; Geschwender, 1968; Gurr, 1968, 1970; Morrison, 1971; Schwartz, 1972 etc.); (2) the structural-functionalist approach based on treating societies as systems and revolutions as disequilibria or failure of such systems (Hagopian, 1974; Hart, 1971; Jessop, 1972; Johnson, 1968; Smelser, 1963; Tiryakian, 1967 etc.); and (3) the political-legal approach, which focused on the political processes of organization and mobilization against the state, and the political contestation between regime incumbents and opponents seeking participatory inclusion in the political system (Amman, 1962; Stinchcombe, 1965; Huntington, 1968; Tilly, 1975, 1978 etc.; see Gavlin & Kazakova, 1980; Stone, 1966; Kramnick, 1972; Zagorin, 1973; and Goldstone, 1980 for more detail on these approaches). In our opinion, particularly valuable results were obtained in the framework of the first of these approaches. Indeed, it was in this framework that important results were obtained in understanding the influence on revolutionary destabilization of the inflated expectations of the population (see in particular Davies, 1962). These results retain their importance up to the present time (see, for example, Grinin, 2012c; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev & Shishkina, 2020; see also Chapter “Revolutions and modernization traps” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). Of great interest also are the works of the Feierabends who showed with quantitative crossnational statistical analysis that measures linked to such high expectations quite naturally arise in the process of modernization in general—and in the process of urbanization in particular (Feierabend & Feierabend, 1972).13 Also important are the conclusions of Ted Gurr who showed the particularly important role played in the generation of “revolutionary frustration” of the systematic blockage of upward social mobility for certain ethnic, ethnosocial or social groups (Gurr, 1968, 1970). Further important results were obtained in the framework of the second approach. These researchers analyzed societies as systems whose normal functioning depends on maintaining equilibrium in the interchange of matter, energy and information between the system and its environment, and among the subsystems of which this system consists. Researchers utilizing this approach argued with good reason that any critical disturbance that destroys this equilibrium leads society into a state of imbalance (Hagopian, 1974) or dysfunction (Johnson, 1968), which leads to a serious risk of revolutionary destabilization. Within this approach, a number of “candidates” have been proposed for the role of forces that lead social systems into dysfunction/destabilization states, such as the uneven impact of technological growth and modernization processes on the needs of different subsystems, producing changes in the distribution of power between the elites of different subsystems (Jessop,

13

In fact, some roots of these ideas as well as ideas on the connection between revolution and modernization can be found in Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the French Revolution (1955 [1856]).

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1972), dramatic changes in value systems as a result of the emergence of new religions or ideologies (Johnson, 1968) or simply asynchronism of changes in different subsystems (Hagopian, 1974). Within the framework of the third approach, revolution is viewed as a result of the development of political conflict between various interest groups, when a radical escalation of the usual conflict between them occurs (both as a result of the intensification of the conflict itself and as a result of a sharp increase in the volume of the involved resources), to a level where the usual mechanisms of mediation and the search for a peaceful solution cease to function and the political system undergoes violent disintegration. The revolution is seen as the genesis of “multiple sovereignty”, which is described as a situation with the following characteristics: (1) conflicting socio-political groups are so much opposed to each other on critical issues that their contradictions cannot be reconciled within the existing political system; (2) two or more conflict groups have enough political, financial, organizational and power resources to establish “sovereignty” over a significant political or military base and to try to achieve their goals by force. Such a situation can arise under the influence of a number of factors, including, for example, wars, economic modernization, urbanization or changes in value systems and ideological shifts (see, for example, Tilly, 1975, 1978). It should be emphasized that some very important results have been achieved within the framework of this approach. For example, typologizing the patterns of revolutionary destabilization into the modes of “central collapse” and “peripheral advance” proposed by Huntington (1968) still remains rather useful (see, e.g., Goldstone, 2014b; Korotayev et al., 2015).14 It has been demonstrated (Goldstone, 1980, 2001) that we can identify the emergence in the late 1970s of a new (“third”) generation of theories of revolution, which is connected with the publication of fundamental works by Shmuel Eisenstadt, Jeffrey Paige, Theda Skocpol, and Kay Ellen Trimberger (Eisenstadt, 1978; Paige, 1975; Skocpol, 1979; Trimberger, 1978).15 This generation of theories of revolution differed from its predecessor in the following ways: (1)

(2)

14

The role of the state. The second generation of theories of revolution had interpreted the state as an arena for the conflict of socio-political groupings or as an instrument for suppressing one grouping by another. Theories of the third generation began to emphasize the autonomous role of the state as an actor with its own goals and resources (see, e.g., Sanderson, 2016: 74–83). Reconsideration of the role of international factors, especially military and economic competition. The second generation paid considerable attention to such factors, but above all they spoke of wars as triggers of revolutionary destabilization. The third generation theories of revolution began to pay special attention to the longer-term influence of international factors, particularly the

One should add that the model of peripheral advance has a submodel (an offensive from outside, from foreign bases, as it happened in Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, etc.). 15 For an analysis of some of their ideas see Chapter “The “problem of structure and agency” and contemporary sociology of revolution and social movements” (Karasev, 2022) in this volume.

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(3)

(4)

(5)

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configuration of the global capitalist and geopolitical systems, and how they imposed competitive pressures on individual states; as well as the wider web of international relations and influences. The role of the army. The third generation of theories of revolution paid special attention to the structure of the state’s coercive forces, and the factors that conditioned their loyalty to the state or their defection to the side of insurgents.16 The role of elites. Attention was paid to the role of elites in the framework of the first and second generation theories, although they dealt primarily with the inflexibility of the behavior of the ruling elite as a factor of revolutionary destabilization, or the defection of segments of the elite. However, the third generation theories showed that both the process of revolutionary destabilization and its consequences depended very much on the detailed structure and behavior of elites. For example, S. N. Eisenstadt showed that if revolutionary elites have close ties with other elites, then as a result of revolutionary destabilization, relatively pluralistic open political systems are more likely to emerge, whereas isolated elites tend to form closed regimes based on coercion (Eisenstadt, 1978). Skocpol, building on the work of Barrington Moore (1966), argued that the relations of elites to both the state and the rural population determined a society’s vulnerability to social revolution, and that the revolutionary classes mobilized by elites for their seizure of state power shaped the choices they made in revolutionary state-building. Historical context. Where earlier generations sought to develop theories of revolution that were largely independent of context, being applicable to all revolutions (or at least those since the French Revolution), the third generation paid increased attention to the specific historical conditions under which revolutions and revolutionary transformations took place. Thus particular conjunctures in the development of empires (Eisenstadt, 1978) or in the development of competition among capitalist states (Skocpol, 1979) were seen as critical to understanding why and when particular revolutions occurred.

The powerful and detailed historical case studies and richly contextualized theories of the Third Generation were widely admired, and seen as a vital corrective to the overly universalistic and monocausal approaches of the Second Generation, and many excellent scholars continued to build on their approach (Goodwin, 2001; Wickham-Crowley, 1992). Yet the Third Generation also came in for considerable criticism in the 1990s (for a detailed account, see Goldstone, 2001). Their works were criticized for being too deterministic, for giving insufficient weight to the role of ideology, and for focusing mainly on agrarian and social revolutions in traditional societies. World events also created a challenge, as shortly after the main Third Generation works appeared, there occurred a mainly urban and religious revolution in Iran (1979), a non-violent revolution against a modernizing dictator in the Philippines (1986), and then the largely non-violent overthrow of modern communist regimes in 16 About the role of army in revolutions see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) in this volume.

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Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. These were all events that Third Generation theories struggled to explain. Therefore, from the 1990s it appears possible to speak about the formation of a new perspective on revolutions that was denoted by Goldstone (2001) as an emerging “fourth generation” (see also Foran, 1993; Lawson, 2016, 2019: 52–53). Since the early 2000s, and especially since 2010, this new generation has now taken on firmer shape. The most significant achievements in the study of revolutions made in these years can be formulated as follows: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

17

Where First and Third Generation theories spoke of the defection of elites immediately preceding revolutions, or the development of elite conflicts vs. the state, Fourth Generation scholars began to reveal the importance of intra-elite conflicts developing over several decades and becoming a systemic impediment to state function, as a factor in the causes of revolutions (Bearman, 1993; Haggard & Kaufman, 1995; DeFronzo, 1996; Hough, 1997; Lachmann, 1997; Dogan & Higley, 1998; Snyder, 1998; Parsa, 2000; Goldstone, 1991, 2009, 2011a, 2016; see also Korotayev et al., 2016). Looking at modern as well as traditional regimes, these scholars identified the special instability of both personalist regimes and of intermediate regimes that are between a consolidated democracy and consistent authoritarianism (Albrecht & Koehler, 2020; Esty et al., 1998; Goldstone et al., 2003, 2010; Lawson, 2019; Shugart, 1989; Slinko et al., 2017; Snyder, 1998). Looking comparatively at the outcomes of revolutions, and including quantitative data on post-revolutionary economic performance and political development, these scholars showed that revolutions are more likely to hamper than promote democracy and economic growth (Chirot, 1991; Eckstein, 1982, 1986; Gurr, 1988; Haggard & Kaufman, 1995; Kurzman, 2008; Weede & Muller, 1997; Zimmermann, 1990). Integrating cultural and ideological factors as drivers of revolution and determinants of their outcomes, alongside structural factors such as the configuration and resources of states and elites (Foran, 2005; Goldstone, 1991; Kurzman, 2004; Parsa, 2000; Selbin, 2010). An emphasis on the need to treat revolutions as occurring not in isolation, but as part of regional or global waves of rebellion and revolution that coincide in time across geographical space (Goldstone, 1991; Halliday, 1999; Katz, 1999; Beck, 2011, 2014; Ritter, 2015; Lawson, 2019; Grinin, 2019b; Grinin & Grinin, 2020; Albrecht & Koehler, 2020).17

See also Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2021), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022e), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022b) in this volume.

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The treatment of revolutions as having diverse trajectories, which can lead to different outcomes depending on slight variations in initial conditions or the sequence of events (Goldstone, 2009; Goodwin, 2001; Kurzman, 2008; Lawson, 2005, 2019).

The theories of the fourth generation focus more on the reasons why some regimes are more stable than others (that is, they concentrate on studying stability factors rather than instabilities); they “recognize that the processes and outcomes of revolutions are mediated by group identification, networks, and coalitions; leadership and competing ideologies; and the interplay among rulers, elites, popular groups, and foreign powers in response to ongoing conflicts” (Goldstone, 2001: 172).18 From the 1990s to the early 2000s, scholars of revolution developed these insights and criticisms of earlier works, but were not able to consolidate a clearly new approach. Indeed, work on revolutions seemed to focus on the same small number of cases and progress on novel theory seemed to be stalled (Beck, 2018). However, it now seems possible to talk about a clearly new generation of theories of revolution. These are associated not only with the post-Third Generation insights noted above, but also with a major expansion of the historical cases considered as worthy of inclusion under the umbrella of the “theory of revolution.” These cases include the experience of the color (non-violent) revolutions, the overthrow of communist regimes, Islamist revolutions in Iran and Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring (see, e.g. Aslund & McFaul, 2006; Nepstad, 2011; Bunce & Wolchik, 2011; Goldstone, 2011a, 2011b, 2014a, 2014b; Mitchell, 2012; Filali-Ansary, 2012; Lynch, 2012; Ritter, 2015; Della Porta, 2016; Bayat, 2017; Grinin et al., 2019; Lawson, 2019). Scholars have now developed a considerable literature on the role of non-violent protest in bringing down authoritarian regimes. They have found that, in general, non-violent protests are the most reliable (but not the only, nor always effective) pathway to replacing authoritarian regimes with stable democracy (Bayer et al., 2016; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013; Chenoweth & Stepan, 2011; Kadivar & Caren, 2016; Kadivar & Ketchley, 2018; Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005; Kim, 2017; Kim & Kroeger, 2019; Nepstad, 2011; Schock, 2005; Stradiotto & Guo, 2010). Yet they have noted that non-violent protests do not win the day on their own. It is also critical how the military judges the situation and reacts, whether it chooses loyalty to the regime, or if not, what role it chooses in the conflict and post-revolutionary reconstruction (see Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and their Aftermath” [Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume]; Nepstad, 2011; Shama, 2019; Koehler & Albrecht, 2021; Barany, 2016). Non-violent protests are also more effective in bringing transitions to democracy if international pressures limit the regime’s repressive response (Lawson, 2015; Ritter, 2015), and if there are other democratic states in the immediate neighborhood (Albrecht & Kohler, 2020; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013; Keller, 2012; Kim, 2017). 18

For more detail about the role of elites, split of elites, and elite conflicts in pre-revolutionary crisis, revolutionary situations see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume); see also Grinin (2012a).

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In viewing these events, these theories also pay more attention to the world-system factor, regarding the process of the changing features, characteristics, and historical meaning/role of revolutions and how they are connected with global historical processes. In particular, research has shown clearly that the factors that produce mass uprisings and revolutionary success have varied over time. This takes the form of both cyclic patterns, producing revolutionary waves and periods, and linear ones, with certain modes of revolution fading and new ones developing (Bowlsby et al., 2020; Djuve et al., 2020; Keller, 2012; Beissinger, forthcoming). Note that Allinson (2019) has already proposed to attribute three of the abovementioned studies (Bayat, 2017; Della Porta, 2016; Ritter, 2015) to a “fifth generation” of the theories of revolution. He takes the “fourth generation” to be the work of the 1990s and 2000s that produced the six advances noted above (for a criticism see Abrams, 2019). According to Allinson, “this fifth generation of revolutionary theory is distinguished, as previous such generations have been, by a shift in the object of study; by the account of the relationship between intentions, behaviour and structure in revolutions; and by the place assigned to politics between, and beyond, states as well as within them” (Allinson, 2019: 143). We agree that the new generation of revolutionary theory shows a shift in the object of study and the relationships it deems crucial; but we do not see a sharp rift between the insights of the scholars of the 1990s and 2000s and the more consolidated work on non-violent revolutions and other new cases that developed after 2010. We thus consider this entire span of work as contributing to the fourth generation. If we identify the critical elements of the “Fourth Generation” approach as (1) the treatment of a much larger range of cases, including non-violent, religious, and anticommunist revolutions; (2) a focus on factors that lead to both stability and instability (e.g. personalist and intermediate regime types); (3) integrating agency, leadership, and ideology as key elements of revolutionary causation and outcomes19 ; (4) treating and seeking to explain a wide range of revolutionary trajectories, including violent social revolutions, negotiated revolutions, non-violent revolutions; and (5) treating international influences and interventions as fundamental and integral, sometimes determining, elements in revolutions, then we can identify a number of works that now fully instantiate all these elements and are moving to consolidate a “Fourth Generation” of revolutions theory, e.g. Beck, (2011), Nepstad (2011), Goldstone (2014b), Ritter (2015), Lawson (2019), Beissinger (Forthcoming). For all of this progress, however, it is already clear that this Fourth Generation will not be the last word in theories of revolution. These works are, despite their other virtues, not satisfactory in their treatment of the role of women, or of gender issues in general (Jayawardena, 2016; Moghadam, 1994, 2005); they do not fully engage ethnic and racial struggles to determine how ethnic rebellions are similar or different from other revolutions, and have only touched on such issues as right-wing revolutions (e.g. Fascist or authoritarian-populist revolutions) and the rise of radical 19

About the role of ideology in revolutions see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) and Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume).

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Islam as a global revolutionary movement (e.g., Grinin, 2019c). There is thus much work to be done, only some of which is addressed in this volume. However, we hope that the authors of this volume have managed to build on many of the abovementioned virtues and achievements of the Fourth Generation theorists, especially with respect to the application of world-system approach to the analysis of revolutions, a broader classification of revolutions and other revolutionary events, and a deeper theory of revolutionary waves as well as other directions and dimensions. The authors of this volume also try to consider revolutions in their longterm historical context as phenomena whose role as an instrument of development considerably changes in the course of history, so that both the character of revolutions and their impact transforms over time.

2 The Phenomenon of Revolution Despite the huge number of works devoted to the problem of revolution, there is no universally accepted definition of it. Apparently, there are as many definitions as there are writers on revolution; and so we have many dozens, if not hundreds, of different definitions of the term “revolution.” In order to better represent the spectrum of different ideas, it makes sense to give a lengthy quotation from the monograph of Sztompka (1993: 303–304), in which he gives, it seems to us, an entirely relevant classification of such definitions: The modern concept of revolution derives from two intellectual traditions: historiographical and sociological. The historiographical concept of revolution signifies a radical breach of continuity, a fundamental disruption, a ‘cataclysmic break’ (Brinton, 1965, 1938]: 237) in the course of history. The focus rests on the overall pattern of a historical process, and revolutions mark the qualitative thresholds in this pattern… The Sociological concept of revolution refers to mass movements using or threatening coercion and violence against rulers in order to enforce basic and lasting changes in their societies. The focus moves from the overall pattern, necessary direction and ultimate outcomes towards the causal agents, mechanism and alternative scenarios of social processes, the means that people use to shape and reshape history… The reflection of both traditions, historiographical and sociological, is to be found in current definitions of revolutions. (Sztompka, 1993: 304)

Sztompka suggests dividing them into three groups, whereby the first includes such definitions that stress wide-ranging, fundamental societal transformations: Within those definitions, “the focus is on the scope and depth of change. In this sense ‘revolution’ is an antonym of ‘reform’. Thus, we find a revolution defined as ‘sudden, radical changes in the political, social and economic structure of society’ (Bullock & Stallybras, 1977: 542), or ‘a sweeping sudden change in the societal structure, or in some important feature of it’ (Fairchild, 1966: 259)” (Ibid.) …

Definitions putting their emphasis on the speed of change, struggle and violence are included by Sztompka into the second group: In the definitions of the second group, “the focus is on the techniques of change. In this sense ‘revolution’ is an antonym of ‘evolution’. Thus numerous authors define revolution as:

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J. A. Goldstone et al. ‘attempts to realize changes in the constitutions by force’ (Johnson, 1968: 1); ‘fundamental sociopolitical change accomplished through violence’ (Gurr, 1970: 4); ‘drastic, sudden substitution of one group in charge of the running of a territorial political entity by another group hitherto not running the government’ (Brinton, 1965: 40); ‘the seizure (or attempted seizure) of control over governmental apparatus—understood as the principal concentrated means of coercion, taxation and administration in society—by one class, group, or (more likely) coalition, from another’. (Aya, 1979: 44)” (Ibid.)

However, Sztompka finds the third group of definitions to be the most useful: The definitions of this group combine “both aspects of revolutions in a systematic formulation. Thus revolutions are understood as: ‘rapid, fundamental, and violent domestic change in the dominant values and myths of a society, in its political institutions, social structure, leadership, and government activities and policies’ (Huntington, 1968: 264); ‘rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures… accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below’ (Skocpol, 1979: 4); ‘the seizure of state power through violent means by the leaders of a mass movement, where that power is subsequently used to initiate major processes of social reform’ (Giddens, 1989: 605)”. (Sztompka, 1993: 305)

Finally, Sztompka sums up a consensus that seems to exist on basic constitutive components of the phenomenon of revolution in the following way: (1) Revolutions refer to fundamental, comprehensive, multidimensional changes, touching the very core of the social order. (2) Revolutions involve large masses of people mobilized and acting within a revolutionary movement. The most characteristic cases involve peasant revolts (Jenkins, 1982) and urban uprisings. In this sense, even the deepest, most fundamental changes, if imposed by rulers ‘from above’ (e.g. Meiji reforms in Japan, Ataturk’s reforms in Turkey, Nasser’s reforms in Egypt, Gorbachev’s perestroika), will not count as revolutions… (3) Most authors seem to believe that revolutions necessarily involve ‘violence and coercion’. (Ibid.)

One could add a number of other, more or less adequate, in our opinion, definitions of the revolution. For example: “a sweeping, fundamental change in political organization, social structure, economic property control and the predominant myth of a social order, thus indicating a major break in the continuity of development” (Neumann, 1949: 333–334), and, especially: “a revolution is a collective mobilization that attempts to quickly and forcibly overthrow an existing regime in order to transform political, economic, and symbolic relations” (Lawson, 2019: 5). The editors of this volume have proposed the following definitions of revolution: Revolution is “an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities” (Goldstone, 2001: 142); “Revolution is the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilization (whether military or civilian or both) in the name of social justice, to create new political institutions” (Goldstone, 2014b: 4); “Revolution is anti-government (very often illegal) mass actions (mass mobilization) with the following aims: (1) to overthrow or replace the existing government within a certain period of time; (2) to seize power or to provide conditions for coming to power; (3)

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to make significant changes in the regime, social or political institutions” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2020: 856).20 The frequency of non-violent or “color” revolutions in recent years forces us to confront the fact that large-scale violence may not be an essential characteristic of revolutions (Nepstad, 2011, 2015). Yet the return of large-scale violence in the revolutions in Libya, Yemen and Syria equally forces us to recognize that such violence is still often an integral part of revolutions. In general, at a very high level of abstraction, these definitions point to revolutions as resting on an increasing disparity between the existing social and political systems and their dominant ideology, on the one hand, and the development of disruptive social, economic and cultural changes in the country, on the other. The breakdown of the political system, and subsequent shifts in the social order and dominant ideology, a process that is pushed forward by confrontations between the populace and the regime, is what we refer to as a “revolution.” The important causes of revolutions are somehow connected with the change of ideology, with the growing discontent with the authorities, and with the impotence of existing authorities to control the social order. The stronger this public discontent and the greater the weakness of the ruler (or ruling group) in power, the more realistic is the possibility of a revolution. As Sorokin (1992: 278) says, “when the halo of power has evaporated, legitimate doubts arise in the likelihood of its preservation”. The loss of confidence in the authorities is often associated with the sensation of an impending catastrophe, when society begins to realize the proximity of an unforeseen social upheaval, wherein the revolution becomes more and more desirable as a means to resolve the tension and uncertainty (Johnson, 1968: 12). At the same time, as it was noted, the ruling elite loses confidence in the regime, and becomes divided over the best means of selfpreservation. Thus some elites support the revolutionary movement, while others seek to preserve the regime or at least conserve key elements of the old order. With the spread of globalization and economic development bringing higher incomes, literacy, urbanization, and electronic media, and the diffusion of political models and radical ideologies, the number of revolutions has also multiplied. The twentieth century was especially rich in them (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022] and the Appendix to it in this volume). Even thirty or forty years ago, many historians and social scientists believed that the twentieth century would be remembered as “a century of struggle and revolutions” (Woddis, 1972: 1). But the twenty-first century demonstrates more revolutions per year than the twentieth one (see Chapter “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022: Table 1] in this volume). 20

About our definitions of other types of revolutionary events as well as our comments to definitions see Chapter “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022); see also Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) in this volume. For a discussion of definitions of revolutions see also Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” (Selbin, 2022) in this volume.

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Revolution is a specific form of changing the government or political (or social and political) regime. Being quite familiar with the theory and the practice of revolutions, Vladimir Lenin fairly noted that the basic issue of any revolution is the issue of power (Lenin, 1969 [1917]: 145). Let us point out that any truly fundamental change, even the most legitimate change of political regime, no matter under monarchy or democracy, inevitably leads to more or less considerable breakdowns in the functioning of administrative and political mechanisms. This is due both to the fact that political power in one or another degree depends on the personal composition of the power elite (and especially on the qualities of the supreme leader), and the fact that any radical change of power to some extent leads to changes in the ideological interpretation of societal goals. Even Plato and Aristotle recognized that in changing the political order from oligarchy to democracy, or the reverse, a society would see changes in basic social relations and the goals of government. In addition, in anticipation of inevitable changes, the class of administrators is naturally disorganized (for example, during the election campaign or in anticipation of displacements and new appointments). With the change of the monarch or the ruling party, almost all the chief political administrators are often replaced, and it regularly takes new administrators a long time to understand the state of affairs and to restart the effective functioning of the administrative machine. As a result, even with a relatively peaceful change of regime, the work of the state machine can become less effective for quite a long time. However, the revolutionary overthrow of political regimes usually brings a much more dramatic breakdown in the functioning of the system, often bringing unpredictable consequences. That is why, in general, revolutions have always been a very disruptive and devastating method of social progress (which often turns into anti-progress21 ). Despite generations of scholarship on revolutions, with aspirations to scientific progress, normative attitudes toward revolutions have continued to vary depending on the position of political actors and social researchers, and their situation within a society. Across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, marginal or radical actors embraced the prospect of revolutions as bringing liberation and progress. By contrast, for conservatives, and for most Western governments during the Cold War era, revolutions were often associated with the threat of establishing hostile or communist regimes; many pro-government Western political analysts (especially in the USA) therefore gave them a negative assessment (Lawson, 2019: 28–29). Particularly in the 1950s through the 1980s, a common trend among pro-government Western researchers was to define the causes of revolutions as disruptive and to find ways to prevent them. Indeed, to fight the Cold War against communism, many Western states felt the necessity to develop, in Lyford P. Edwards’ words, a mechanism for the prevention of revolutions (Edwards, 1927, 1965: 213).22 Western nations also

21

On the notion of “antiprogress” see Korotayev (2004: 7–8). This was one of the reasons for the intensified study of the problem of revolutions. For example, in the mid-1950s the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford, California, USA

22

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sought to develop effective strategies of “counterinsurgency” (Rabasa et al., 2011; Lawson, 2019: 28–29). The collapse of communism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe seemed to have finally proved that major social revolutions were no longer an acceptable tool of social progress. However, paradoxically, just from that moment the USA and Western countries dramatically changed their attitude toward revolutions. Once it seemed that the danger of establishing communist regimes as a result of revolutions was eliminated, and that instead democratic revolutions might replace hostile authoritarian regimes, revolutions started to be considered as a positive and advantageous phenomenon for the Western countries (see, e.g., Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005; Beissinger, 2007; Slinko et al., 2017; Grinin et al., 2016; see also Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” [Mitchell, 2022, in this volume]). In Beissinger’s words, “democratic revolution has come to the center of attention within the American government and democracy-promoting NGOs as a strategy for democratization” (2007: 259). Revolutions today are often considered as a means to create democracy (as in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), while the latter is considered by all means a positive form of government. This point is also analyzed in this monograph in rather considerable detail, particularly in the chapters dealing with the “color” revolutions.23 At the end of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, opponents of authoritarian regimes increasingly adopted the tactics of non-violent mass protest; these decades therefore became a period of revolutions of a new type—“color revolutions,” whose success increasingly depended on the relations and interactions with external powers.24 As noted by Mark Beissinger, “foreign democracy-promoting NGOs were not a significant part of the 1974 Portuguese [‘Carnation’] Revolution, the ‘People Power’ revolutions of East Asia, or the 1989 revolutions in East Europe. But under the influence of the civil society communities that they serve and their government funders, and often under pressure from repressive states themselves, a number of American-based NGOs (Freedom House, the National Endowment for

began a series of studies to describe the contemporary revolutions and their impact on international and national policies (Fisher, 1955: II). 23 See Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter“‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The atypical ‘revolution’ of April 7 and the days that followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022), and Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022) in this volume. 24 To be sure, there have previously been revolutions based on non-violent mass protests that forced rulers to flee; certainly several of the Revolutions of 1848 began in this way. One could argue that the British “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 similarly operated mainly through popular protest and elite defections that led the ruler to flee rather than risk violent confrontations with the opposition. But the term “color” revolutions only arose in the late twentieth century when oppositions in the Philippines, Ukraine, and other cases adopted colored ribbons as the insignia of their revolutionary movements.

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Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the Soros Foundation) have quietly come to embrace more confrontational modes of fostering change, even while seeking to promote democratic evolution from within” (Beissinger, 2007: 261–262; see also Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” [Mitchell, 2022] and Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” [Filin et al., 2022, in this volume]). The initial wave of symbolically named “color revolutions” occurred in a number of countries in the last decades of the twentieth century.25 The most successful in replacing dictatorships with democracies were the “yellow” revolution (also known as the “People Power Revolution”) in the Philippines, the anti-communist revolutions in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, and the anti-dictator revolutions in Romania and Yugoslavia. These successes led Western nations and affiliated NGOs to consider promoting such revolutions. For this purpose, in targeted countries the opposition was intensively trained often by Western instructors (as well as by Serbian instructors funded by the abovementioned agencies—see, e.g., Beissinger, 2007; Mitchell, 2012; see also Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” [Filin, Khodunov et al., 2022, in this volume]). Unfortunately, in many cases the positive effect of these revolutions was modest or nil, producing new regimes that remained highly corrupt (Georgia, Ukraine in 2004), harsh counterrevolutions (Bahrain, Egypt), or further civil conflicts (Ukraine in 2014, Myanmar, Libya, Syria, Yemen). The adverse effects of some revolutions that were intended as peaceful color revolutions have thus ranged from moderately significant to disastrous. As has been noted by one of the authors of this chapter, “most of the countries that have had ‘color’ revolutions have not made a swift and certain transition to democracy” (Goldstone, 2014b: 116). Such revolutions still begin with the overthrow of the old regime, but they have a very difficult and protracted process of new regime formation ahead; revolutions inevitably generate new difficulties, a new struggle for power and a high probability of slipping into authoritarianism (Ibidem). The peaceful nature of color revolutions has the side effect of leaving intact many 25

Incidentally, there does not seem to be an intelligible explanation of why these revolutions acquired the common label of “color” revolutions. The author of Color Revolutions, Lincoln Mitchell (who studied the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005), notes: “The Color Revolutions were, to a great extent, neither colors nor revolutions…” (Mitchell, 2012: 7; see also Chernov, 2006; Esenbayev, 2009). Indeed, it would be more logical to call these revolutions “floral”, and not “color”, because among the classic Color Revolutions, only the Orange Revolution in Ukraine has a clear color name, whereas the names associated with the names of flowers clearly prevail—to the Carnation Revolution, Rose Revolution and the Tulip Revolution already mentioned above one can add the failed Cornflower Revolution in Belarus in 2006, the Saffron Revolution in Myanmar in 2007, or the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia 2011. However, of course, the variety of symbols of the color revolutions goes far beyond just the flowers (one could mention, for example, the “Bulldozer Revolution” in Serbia in 2000, the “Melon Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, or the anti-government protests labelled the “Umbrella Revolution” in Hong Kong in 2014). It still seems the use of colored ribbons as symbols of non-violent mass resistance in the Philippines in 1986 gave a name to this strategy of revolution regardless of the specific symbol chosen by the opposition.

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of the organizations and personnel of the old regime, allowing their practices and habits to persist as obstacles to progressive change. Continued corruption, weak or dysfunctional government and ongoing political conflict is thus a common outcome. The conundrum that while revolution may be necessary for change, the outcome that revolution is often a destructive, unproductive way of progress for modern complex sociopolitical systems (see, e.g., Grinin, 1997, 2007, 2019b) is reaffirmed again and again. Ironically, the spread of color revolutions as a means of ending authoritarian regimes has also led to a change in the attitude of former sponsors of revolution in Russia and China. While the U.S.S.R. (and Russia as part of it) presented itself as the vanguard of global revolution, and China, in its conflict with the U.S.S.R., sought to appropriate that role, with both giving support to revolutionary efforts and regimes in Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. Now, however, both Russia and China denounce “color revolutions” as dangerous Western plots to foment conflict and destabilize states in their region. Indeed, from the perspective of the major powers, revolutions are not efforts by oppressed groups to liberate themselves and achieve greater justice; they are simply rationalizations for the efforts of opposing major powers to seek regime change and replace hostile with friendly regimes. This attitude may be traced back to ancient Athens and Sparta, who similarly weaponized democratic or oligarchic revolutions to change the allegiance of targeted states. In truth, neither view is fully accurate: revolutions are both domestic struggles with internal motivations and thoroughly enmeshed in, and often determined by, international factors. The influence of external forces on twenty-first century revolutions is quite evident (which is proved conclusively in this volume, see also Lawson, 2019). Nonetheless, we always find that the causes of revolutions are determined by external influence to some degree only; they are also always a result of some internal crisis. In the present volume, we try to deduce the causes and terms of such a crisis with respect to a number of those countries where twenty-first century revolutions occurred. As has already been mentioned above, there is no universally acknowledged definition of revolution. This arises from the fact that revolutionary and quasi-revolutionary upheavals occur in countries with different levels of development. While revolutions in such countries as Egypt and Tunisia took place as a result of internal social tensions,26 in a number of other Arab countries they were caused by internal ethnic and religious contradictions. These contradictions had never disappeared and they gained impetus from a number of factors including social discontent, other countries’ example, as well as instigation of protests and active help from outside. This was the case with Libya, Yemen, and Syria, where foreign intervention exacerbated regional, ethnic and religious conflicts.27 The latter could be constrained only by 26

See Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022) and Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022) in this volume. 27 See Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022, in this volume).

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rather rigid and authoritarian regimes. As soon as such a regime is toppled, the respective country is pushed into chaos. The idea of revolution is very perilous for those countries with weak statehood, strong ethno-national divisions and an only partly modernized political culture, as it usually leads to grievous instability. Note that one of the main opportunities for revolution in modern authoritarian regimes appears to arise due to the lack of clear legitimate mechanisms for the transfer of power. Proceeding from the essence of the authoritarian regime, the transfer of power in the absence of objective legitimation mechanisms must follow the classical monarchical principle (to the son or relative or to the appointed successor). However, in modern conditions such attempts obviously contradict the declared principles of democracy (note that even the most undemocratic regime of the present-day is still called officially “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”). Thus, democratic ideas come into collision with the requirements for stability; as a result, the renewal of power in authoritarian regimes—whether at the time of succession, or when an authoritarian regime seeks to legitimate itself by staging an election—becomes their vulnerable point.

3 Conclusion In conclusion, it can be pointed out that many revolutions prove incapable of solving the very problems that to a certain extent created them. For example, in ten years, none of the revolutions of the Arab Spring have solved any serious problems (excepting Tunisia, which has so far achieved a cooperation of secular and Islamic movements, but still suffers from major economic problems and regional disparities (see Part V [“Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Arab Spring Wave as an Important Revolutionary Turning Point”] of this volume; see also Grinin et al., 2016; Grinin et al., 2019). We often find that many of the things that needed to be done for modernization were not done, or not completed, within the framework of pre-revolutionary regimes. This made them vulnerable to revolutions. But as the revolutionary regimes have not solved these problems, they remain vulnerable to future upheavals. Revolutions have undeniably played a great role in historical processes, though their role has been dramatically changing since the seventeenth century (see Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022c], Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a], and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” [Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume]). The British Revolutions of 1640 and 1688 created the world’s most successful constitutional monarchy. The Atlantic Revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries created the democratic United States, and liberated Haiti and most of South America from European rule. The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, though political failures in most countries, laid the groundwork for the modern states of France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Greece. The waves of revolutions in the early twentieth century broke up a number of great empires: the Austro-Hungarian, German, Russian, and Ottoman ones, creating in their place many

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nation states. The anti-colonial revolutions of the twentieth century ended European imperialism and gave birth to dozens of new states, while the communist revolutions of that century profoundly affected the populations of Russia, China, Cuba, Indochina, Korea, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and ushered in a four-decade long Cold War. The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries produced Islamic revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Syria and Iraq, Sudan (and numerous attempted Islamic revolutions in other African countries) that harked back to earlier theocratic regimes (see Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” [Filin et al., 2022, in this volume]). At the same time, these decades produced anti-communist and “people power” revolutions around the world that overturned military and party dictatorships and, at least in Eastern Europe, ushered in decades of democracy and prosperity (though several of these democracies seem, at present, to be imperfect or sliding back to authoritarianism). While the successes of the latter created a wave of optimism about the potential for democratic revolutions, that optimism was quickly dashed by the vicious civil wars and humanitarian disasters that arose after the revolutions in Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Indeed, those disasters spurred such large waves of refugees to Europe that even the European democracies began to reconsider their policies of open borders, receptivity to refugees, and the value of having a European Union. Revolutions thus remain a problem—a source of paradoxes, and of unexpected outcomes. Sources of great energy and change, and constantly evolving, revolutions still require great attention and additional research. This is especially true of twentyfirst century revolutions which appear to demonstrate new features and forms. We hope that this volume will contribute to a deeper understanding of their variety and character. Acknowledgement This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254) for Professors Grinin and Korotayev. Professor Goldstone received support from the Charles Koch Foundation and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

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Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press. Hume, D. (1773). The history of England. T. Cadell. Issaev, L., Khokhlova, A., & Korotayev, L. (2022). The Arab Spring in Yemen. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 685–705). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26. Ivanov, E. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 517–547). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_20. Jayawardena, K. (2016). Feminism and nationalism in the third world. Verso. Jefferson, T. A. (1998). The life and selected writings of Thomas Jefferson: Including the autobiography. The Declaration of Independence & His Public and Private Letters. Modern Library. Jenkins, J. C. (1982). Why do Peasants Rebel? Structural and historical theories of modern peasant rebellions. American Journal of Sociology, 88(3), 487–514. Jessop, B. (1972). Social order, reform, and revolution. Macmillan. Johnson, Ch. (1968). Revolutionary change. Little, Brown. Kadivar, M. A., & Caren, N. (2016). Disruptive democratization: Contentious events and liberalizing outcomes globally, 1990–2004. Social Forces, 94(3), 975–996. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov096 Kadivar, M. A., & Ketchley, N. (2018). Sticks, stones, and Molotov cocktails: Unarmed collective violence and democratization. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 4, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118773614 Karasev, D. (2022). The “problem of structure and agency” and contemporary sociology of revolution and social movements. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 201–217). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864 68-2_7. Karatnycky, A., & Ackerman, P. (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. Freedom House. Katz, M. N. (1999). Revolutions and revolutionary waves. Palgrave Macmillan. Kautsky, K. (1899). The class struggle. New York Labor News. Kautsky, K. (1903). The social revolution and on the day after the social revolution. Twentieth Century Press. Keller, F. (2012). (Why) do revolutions spread? Paper presented at the 2012 meeting of the American Political Science Association Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer revolution in Serbia. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16. Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Orange revolution in Ukraine. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 501–515). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19. Khodunov, A. (2022c). The Rose revolution in Georgia. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 483–499). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_18. Kim, N. K. (2017). Anti-regime uprisings and the emergence of electoral authoritarianism. Political Research Quarterly, 70(1), 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912916675739 Kim, N. K., & Kroeger, A. M. (2019). Conquering and coercing: Nonviolent anti-regime protests and pathways to democracy. Journal of Peace Research, 56(5), 650–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0022343319830267

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Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair Professor and Eminent Scholar of Public Policy at George Mason University. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley and San Diego, The California Institute of Technology, Konstanz University, Cambridge University, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford), and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor of the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”.

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Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution Leonid Grinin

1 Introductory Notes One should note that although sometimes revolutions are a quite dangerous and costly way to reform a society (see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume]; also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2019; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2016b, 2016c). So by no means have they become an archaic phenomenon in the contemporary world. That is why they attract great attention from researchers. But as already mentioned in Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume), there has not been elaborated any generally accepted theory of revolutions (see Goldstone, 2001b, 2014; Grinin et al., 2016b; Lawson, 2016; Skocpol, 1979; see also Grinin & Grinin, 2020; Sanderson, 2010; Shults, 2016). This gives an additional reason to discuss some important aspects of the theory of revolutions. We will present some ideas which we hope will contribute to this theory. This chapter to a certain extent continues the previous one (Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” [Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume]), therefore it is organized as an analysis of some important aspects of the theory of revolutions, which have been weakly covered or not touched at all in Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c) in the present collective monograph. But we do not attempt to systematically present a complete theory of revolutions. Similar to other social phenomena, revolutions become mature and transform in the course of historical process (see Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a] and Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]; also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2019). The neglect of this factor is one of the reasons for the difficulties on the way to developing an appropriate L. Grinin (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia HSE University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_3

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theory of revolution.1 The character, patterns and role of revolutions vary in different historical periods (for more details see Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]) while still preserving much in common. Thus, it makes sense to consider revolutions as recurrent phenomena which, however, transform over time and due to the growing complexity of social life. This also gives an insight both into their common features and peculiarities. Revolutions often occur in societies with archaic political structure (or with rather strong archaic features), i.e. which have been insufficiently modernized. It is important that revolutions are the result (albeit not obligatory) of a crisis situation arising from some peculiar circumstances. All these may create a peculiar revolutionary situation, which we are going to discuss in more detail in the third section of the present chapter. In the next section we will consider revolutions in the world-system perspective (neglecting this aspect is another reason for the difficulties with elaborating a theory of revolutions [see, e.g., Lawson, 2015: 303]). Revolution and the emergence of revolutionary sentiments in general, is a phenomenon that many societies have encountered and continue to experience from time to time, sometimes even falling into revolutionary traps (see Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” [Goldstone et al., 2022a]). Therefore, it becomes obvious that to a certain extent it is characteristic of a particular stage of societal development (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c] in this book; see also Grinin & Korotayev, 2016c); yet, it would be incorrect to consider revolutions as absolutely inevitable. If one treats revolutions as repeated phenomena in the history of different societies, one can find certain evident similarities already pointed out by researchers. However, we still should realize that like other great historical events (e.g., wars, economic crises) every revolution is unique and peculiar (see also Brinton, 1965). Moreover, when considering each revolution separately, one can reveal significant subjective factors, a sequence of certain circumstances, a chain of events as well as an outstanding role of historical figures without which a revolution would have hardly occurred or would have taken a different path. This adds difficulties to developing a theory of revolutions (see Goldstone, 2014; Grinin et al., 2016a, 2016b: 4–23; Grinin, 2010). Finally, one can point out that as a rule the common features of revolutions and the possibility of their occurrence in societies are associated primarily not with some period in their history but with a definite developmental level achieved by societies (Huntington, 1968, 1986; see also Eisenstadt, 1978; Goldstone, 1991; Grinin, 2012d, 2013, 2017a, 2017b, 2017d) as well as with emergence of certain phenomena and 1

When attempting to treat revolutions only as a sociological phenomenon as well as to create a nontemporal theory of revolutions one can encounter difficulties with defining common features: the early revolutions may lack certain later common features due to the fact that there was not enough experience and material prerequisites for them, while the subsequent revolutions appear different since a number of social problems had been already solved, and some revolutionary incidents were already disapproved so the revolutionaries could avoid them. The support base of revolutions and many other characteristics also changed (the neglect of these methodological approaches and related drawbacks could be found, e.g., in Eduard Shults’s Theory of Revolution (2016) which in other respects is quite an informative book).

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relationships within them2 ; secondly, with a peculiar societal socio-political structure and thirdly, with a particular crisis situation arising at a certain moment.

2 Impact of Revolutions on the World System 2.1 The Mutual Influence Between Revolutions and the World System It has been noted that the international situation often leads to internal crises which may trigger revolutionary events and affect the outcome of revolutions.3 The international situation may produce different impacts, as well as requiring the mobilization of resources in the fierce competition among rival powers (Goldstone, 1991, 2001a, 2001b, 2014; Skocpol, 1979; Skocpol & Trimberger, 1994; about the influence of international situation and the World System see Lawson, 2015; Mau & Starodubrovskaya, 2001; Panah, 2002; Sanderson, 2010: 74–77; Tilly, 1986: 56). Despite significant advances this aspect of revolutionary theory requires further research. It is very important to understand that most revolutions in the Modern history appeared to be in bunches of revolutionary waves. However, waves of revolutions themselves are being caused by more or less by strong world-systems events. One from five criteria that we formulated for a revolutionary wave’s definition is the existence of an objective common cause underlying the events within the World System framework. Because we dedicated a number of pages to this point (see Chapters “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f]; Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022], and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]) we do not discuss this point here. At the same time revolutions also have a great influence on the international situation and balance of power in the World System. They can produce significant influence even if there is only one revolution (e.g., the American War of Independence4 ) and especially if there is a wave of revolutions.5 The impact of revolution on global 2

In particular, revolutions can be considered as a result of rapid and abrupt changes, including sharp demographic changes with increasing share of young people in the population (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c]; see also Goldstone 1991; Grinin, 2012d). 3 It is generally accepted that the military defeat or even overstretch of the forces of society in war often becomes the starting point for mass discontent and revolution. But we do not consider this aspect in this chapter (but see Chapters “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022c] and “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin and Grinin 2022, in this volume]). 4 See about its influence Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume). 5 About the revolutionary waves and their influence on the World System see Chapter “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), Chapter

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political processes depends on its scale and character. Great revolutions by themselves produced a huge impact on the world and sometimes they cause a new wave of revolutions as, e.g., the French Revolution did (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b] and Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]). But they are a particular case since the epoch of great revolutions probably ended in 1949 (with the Chinese communists’ victory). However, in the globalizing world even local revolutions may produce quite a significant impact in some cases and revolutionary process itself can be a strong cause of the World System change (see Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2012a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012). In our opinion, in some respects this aspect is even more understudied, especially as concerns the influence on the changing balance within the World System and the world order, even the transformation of the World System. And here we need a successful combination of two theories: the world-system theory and theory of revolution (about our approach to the analysis of the world-system aspect in the theory of revolution see also Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2019). According to Katz (2001: 1), revolutions can produce three basic effects on international relations. “First, revolutions can magnify the importance of the countries experiencing them, even if the countries are relatively small and weak. Second, revolution can upset existing alliance patterns. Third, others countries usually fear that revolutionary regimes will attempt to export their revolution.”6 This is true. However, there are some other ways in which revolutions may influence international relations. The key point is that revolutions often become an instrument of geopolitical struggle. They are often inspired from outside in order to weaken or overthrow the regime which is a thorn in the side of some great power (or superpower). Sometimes revolutions are inspired in order to change the geopolitical status quo. Of course, a revolutionary outbreak requires certain prerequisites such as a discontent of a large part of a country’s population, increasing crisis, the authorities’ decay (mostly associated with corruption, nepotism and direct plundering of national wealth), sometimes a country’s strong polarization resulting from abrupt reforms or repressions, etc. But “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern period. Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f), “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022b), Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e), and Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al , 2022a) in this volume. 6 For more details on the third effect see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume).

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without intensive external support such potentials may never be realized. Finally, in some countries, revolutions may become a knot of contradictions which can trap for a long time not only the opposite parties but also the rival states and powers supporting them. In the latter case revolutions may become the source of international tensions and escalated negative activities. Currently, two revolutions vividly illustrate this idea; we mean Ukraine and Syria. Both countries became the arena of confrontation between Russia and the West; yet, in Syria some other Middle Eastern players, especially Turkey, are also involved (see Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022) and Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” [Shevsky, 2022, in this volume], as well as Grinin, 2014; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012, 2016a, 2016b; Grinin et al., 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2019). Besides, the revolution in Syria, which failed to overthrow the regime, still reinforced fundamentalism in Islam and contributed to the rise of Islamic State as well as became the trigger of a huge (and actually unprecedented) migrant crisis in Europe (even though most migrants came not from Syria). The echoes of this crisis will be perceived for quite a long time. In the modern world revolutions can affect economic processes both directly and through increasing political tensions among countries. This is most vividly demonstrated by sanctions and sanction wars. In some cases, sanctions may be kept for decades. Thus, the Cuban Revolution took place in 1959 but the issue of cancellation of sanctions was raised only during Obama’s presidency and was not resolved. The Iran revolution took place in 1979 but sanctions imposed on the country have not been fully eliminated even after the Iran nuclear deal, and then President Trump introduced new severe sanctions. Another important impact of revolutions on global political processes is associated with terror and support of terrorists and their punishment. Let us take Afghanistan as an example. This is a vivid example showing that revolutions frequently open a revolutionary epoch (see Chapter “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022b] and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]) or even launch processes making countries dysfunctional and failed states. And sometimes they become a source of disturbances for many decades. Having experienced (not without an external influence) the Revolution of 1978, Afghanistan became the source of geopolitical tensions between the USSR and USA. In this struggle the latter succeeded in part by bringing up powerful fundamentalist forces, armed and organized, including the later emerging Al-Qaeda. After the events of 9/11 in the USA, Afghanistan became the target of American intervention since the USA started to fight with Al-Qaeda and its supporters. As a result, Afghanistan sank into decades of civil war and became a major drug trafficking hub, having an obvious effect on many countries. Perhaps, the most serious result of revolutions or their waves may be that in some cases they can change the geopolitical balance of forces in the World System (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f] and “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]).

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This has occurred many times in history (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]), for example, after the French Revolution and the advent of Napoleonic rule (see Grinin, 2016; Grinin et al., 2016a, 2016b). Also, the 1848 revolution in Prussia and Germany can be considered as the starting point of the process of subsequent unification of Germany, which eventually changed the balance of power in Europe. Another example of such impact of revolutions is a series of anti-colonial and communist revolutions in the wave of the 1940s (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]), when the power of the communist camp increased dramatically while the positions of the former great powers such as France and Great Britain were weakened. Finally, the successful anti-communist revolutions of 1989– 1991 in Europe, the USSR and Mongolia (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]), radically changed the geopolitical balance in the world and quickly created a unipolar world, almost a Pax Americana (see Grinin, 2016; Grinin et al., 2016a, 2016b). These revolutions also contributed to the spread of democratic sentiments in the world. This was the third wave of democratization that Huntington wrote about (1991). However, these revolutions were peaceful and democracy was established only in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, where it already had meaningful traditions before the communist regime. In other cases, authoritarian or quasi-democratic post-Soviet and post-communist regimes were established. There were also quite protracted and bloody ethnopolitical conflicts (e.g., in the republics of former Yugoslavia and some territories of the former USSR, see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). Thus, revolutions in the modern world have produced different impacts on global political processes (see also Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a] and Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume], as well as Grinin, 1997, 2007; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2016c).

2.2 Revolutions as a Geopolitical Weapon and Reduction of Their Positive Role in the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century We can find cases of inspiring revolutions in other countries as a means of achieving military or geopolitical goals, and using revolutionary sentiments in certain countries as a means of open or secret foreign-policy activities already in the histories of Ancient Greece or Medieval Italy. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth century we can trace this policy in the attempts of exporting revolution after the French Revolution (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]), in supporting the national liberation movement in Greece and other Turkish provinces, or in boosting the uprisings in nineteenth-century

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Poland against the power of Russia, etc. (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). However, in the twentieth century such attempts to inspire revolutions became more intensive. They started with the Russo-Japanese War, when the Japanese inspired revolutionary sentiments in Russia. During the First World War, Britain and France supported the Constitutional Democratic Party [Kadets] and other oppositionists in Russia who stood against monarchy and, in fact, called for a revolution (and according to some reports the embassies to some extent coordinated these intrigues). There are different points of view on the position of Russian allies concerning the revolution, one of them argues that by means of revolution they sought to immediately achieve two goals: to continue taking advantage of Russia as an actively fighting ally against Germany and to find an opportunity to avoid keeping their promises to transfer the Black Sea straits and Constantinople to Russia. As we know, Germany tried (and rather successfully) to exploit the revolutionaries especially the Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, who advocated an immediate war termination. In fact, after the October Revolution the USSR systematically promoted revolutions and this became a constant element of its foreign policy (see Grinin, 2017c). Western countries less frequently made use of revolutions. There have also been failed attempts to export Islamic revolutions from Iran after 1979. After the collapse of the communist regimes, the USA and the Western countries reversed their attitude to revolutions and today often consider them as positive and beneficial phenomena for Western countries (since there is no longer a threat of the emergence of communist regimes as a result of revolution). The start of the twentyfirst century has become a period of a new type of revolution with an increasing share of external interference and incitation to overthrow undesirable regimes. Waves of such revolutions, called “color revolutions”, swept through a number of countries (see Parts IV–VI, and, in particular, Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” [Mitchell, 2022, in this volume]). The US and Western countries supported these revolutions as a major geopolitical means to strengthen their influence and spread friendly Western-style regimes. For this purpose, they actively supported opposition movements, which received financial support and sometimes training from Western NGOs and diplomatic missions or representatives of such revolutionary organizations as Serbian Otpor (see about this in Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” [Filin et al., 2022, in this volume]). Of course, such influence can be traced not in all revolutions of the twenty-first century. In some cases, the US was surprised and reacted mainly after the fact. It happened that US allies were overthrown by such revolutions, etc. Although the “color” revolutions are associated with attempts to create more democratic regimes, which are recognized as an undoubtedly positive form, this goal has in fact been rarely attained (see Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theory of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume]7 ). Many countries with successful color revolutions, including the Philippines, Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and 7

The Color Revolutions produced chronic instability, as their democratic advances were followed by backsliding to illiberal and corrupt regimes, which led to further protests and political upheavals (see

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others have produced new regimes that were deeply corrupt, or ineffective, or reverted to semi-authoritarian governments, or that incited internal conflicts. As Jack A. Goldstone notes, “Most of the countries that have had ‘color’ revolutions have not made a swift and certain transition to democracy” (Goldstone, 2014: 116); he also shows that revolutions continue to start with an overthrow of the old regime, but then undergo a complicated and long-lasting process of establishing a new one. Revolutions inevitably cause new difficulties along with further struggles for power which have a good chance of lapsing into authoritarian rule (Ibid.: 116, 132). However, any revolution has a certain impact on world order (see Chapters “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e], “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” [Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume]).

3 On the Revolutionary Situation As we have already mentioned, some conditions for deep contradictions in a society can be a result of the previous rapid development which leads to significant changes in societies whose public mind is still incapable of adapting to these transformations. In such situations there emerges a strong continual tension between social groups and a split among elites which may intensify over time; such a situation can be regarded as providing objective conditions for a revolution. But existing objective conditions are not enough for the start of revolution. It has become common knowledge among researchers that revolutions can occur in crisis situations which evolve into revolutionary situations under certain conditions, about which we are going to speak in more detail. Although there is no fully unified view concerning the indications of a revolutionary situation, researchers have developed some common ideas.8 In our opinion, the theory should distinguish: (a) (b) (c)

the emergence of a general revolutionary situation; an acute pre-revolutionary crisis, which often occurs in the period between a general revolutionary situation and the onset of a particular revolutionary one; the emergence of a particular revolutionary situation in which objective, subjective, and purely random “constituents” are combined in a peculiar way.

Thus, a revolutionary situation can be general and particular. A revolution cannot start without the latter which in its turn can hardly appear without the former. See the Fig. 1. The differentiation between a general and particular revolutionary situation becomes especially important when guerrilla warfare continues in a country and Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” [Mitchell, 2022, in this volume]). 8 Some researchers speak about a great number of revolutionary situations in the Modern Period. Thus, Tilly alone counted 707 revolutionary situations in Europe for a period of about five hundred years, from 1492 till 1991 (Tilly, 1996: 243).

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the government has no control over certain regions. Such warfare can continue for decades, and still a particular revolutionary situation does not always arise, as it happens, for example, when mass protest in the capital city and other areas merge with guerrilla troops (as in case of positive example of Nicaragua). In Colombia the guerrilla warfare continued for decades, starting from 1964, but finally, a particular revolutionary situation failed to emerge, so the opposing parties reached a compromise. In 2012 a peaceful dialogue between the Colombian government and FARC was initiated in order to find a political solution to the armed conflict. In Burma one observes an ambiguous situation, but most probably similar to the Tamil Tigers rebellion in Sri Lanka, which weakened after the provincial insurrectionists had been defeated.

3.1 A General Revolutionary Situation and Objective Conditions for Its Emergence Contradictions in society do not always lead to revolutions and even revolutionary situations. But the latter cannot arise without deep social conflicts and antagonisms. Thus, one can distinguish the following prerequisites for the emergence of the general revolutionary situation: (1)

(2)

(3)

9

Disintegration of society. In other words, there arise rigid social, national or class contradictions and conflicts; the psychological situation of confrontation “we—they”; history of confrontation, etc. Contradictions within the elite camp. There are numerous cases when state breakdowns as well as revolutions occurred due to elite divisions and defections from the regime (Goldstone, 1991, 2001a, 2001b: 150; see also Grinin, 2020).9 Some pro-revolutionary sympathies and affinity to struggle against government, radical changes, etc. are required among certain strata or representatives of the elite. Such sympathy for revolutionaries is easily observed, for example in the history of France, Russia and other countries (Skocpol, 1979; see Sect. 6 of this chapter). A wide spread of alternative ideology as well as formation and support of antigovernment organizations; readiness of at least some part of society for serious transformations. Meanwhile, there usually appear alternative spiritual leaders, so that the search for “truth” and “fact” strengthens, while ideas and rumors negative for government are actively circulating, the position of press (media)

See also Tilly (1978), Skocpol (1979), Kileff and Robinson (1986), Arjomand (1988), Higley and Burton (1989), Wickham-Crowley (1989), Bunce (1989), Paige (1989), Goldstone (1991), Goldstone et al., (1991), Bearman (1993), Haggard and Kaufman (1995), DeFronzo (1996), Hough (1997), Lachmann (1997), Dogan and Higley (1998), Snyder (1998), Parsa (2000).

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and other forms of public expression, ruthlessly criticizing the government, etc. is reinforced.10 A gradual decrease of government’s authority (at least, the lack of sacred attitude towards it) and the regime’s relatively liberal views are simultaneously observed. Revolution can hardly occur if government manages to establish a rather efficient punitive regime (it may sometimes occur only due to external support, as it happened in Libya not long ago—see Grinin et al., 2016b, 2019 and Chapter “Revolution in Libya” [Barmin, 2022, in this volume]). On the other hand, the state’s vulnerability may provide structural precondition for the emergence of revolutionary situation (Parsa, 2000). Thus, a regime may lose its authority and be insufficiently repressive, act cautiously with regard to repressions, pardon or release oppositionists, etc. All this contributes to the rise of both legal and illegal movements against government, with freedom of criticism gradually increasing on the part of the media and publicists.

In the situation of above-described social contradictions and antagonisms a society actually falls into a long-lasting and deepening social-structural crisis (which should not be confused with an acute crisis, see below). It is important to note that confrontations in social and economic relations among different social groups are often predetermined by factors that are extremely difficult to eliminate, this especially refers to demographic pressure, excessive population growth, land scarcity and poverty (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]). The elimination of these factors requires fundamental reforms which the ruling regime is not able to implement. It either ignores these factors or delays the decision, so the situation tends to get worse. When crisis expands to the degree when ideas about the necessity of dramatic change become widespread and certain social-political forces, promoting such inevitable changes, emerge and win support, one may speak about emerging general revolutionary situation. This situation may continue sometimes for a long time, even decades, since much depends on the economic, external and domestic political situation, as well as on the role of an individual in the position of the head of state (see Grinin, 2007, 2010, 2012b). The duration of the situation of disintegration can also depend on whether this is the first revolution in the country or not (since a failed revolution can increase polarization).

3.2 Features of an Acute Pre-revolutionary Crisis The longer the problems generating the general revolutionary situation remain unresolved the larger is the probability that the latter will finally transform into a particular revolutionary situation and then into revolution. It should come as no surprise that, 10

About the importance of agreement on the value issues for consolidation of a society and the danger of its split in the context of existence of opposing ideologies see Pettee (1938: 42–45), Heberle (1951), Gurr (1970).

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given the above-described structural crisis and general revolutionary situation in the case of deteriorating circumstances (e.g., resulting from bad harvest, economic depression, military defeats, fiscal strain,11 etc.) there may start an acute crisis which often develops into a pre-revolutionary crisis. The latter can transform the general revolutionary situation into a particular revolutionary situation (see the Figure). But a particular revolutionary situation can hardly emerge without a trigger (which is often a contingent event [see the Fig. 1]). We can formulate some features of such acute pre-revolutionary crises (see also the Fig. 1) though it is worth taking into consideration that they greatly vary. The first feature is aggravating social-structural tensions. Vladimir I. Lenin defined the aggravation of people’s poverty and misfortunes above the usual level as a prerequisite for revolution (Lenin, 1974 [1915]: 215). This is a rather frequent but not universal phenomenon since the growing discontent above the acceptable level can be caused by other reasons. In particular, there was no aggravation of need and disasters of people at the end of 2013 on the eve of Euromaidan in Ukraine.12 Thus, the second feature is the government’s inability to take adequate or decisive actions along with its dramatically decreasing authority. This strengthens the positions of the proponents of transformations (revolution).13 Analysts often mention this point. Thus, Huntington (1968) points out that, former elite loses the will to rule and the capacity to govern. Lenin defined this situation in the following way, “the ruling classes cannot continue to rule in the old way” (Lenin, 1970 [1920]: 87). Nevertheless, we should note that before the Russian February Revolution the situation described by Lenin was absent until the revolution had actually started. Meanwhile, one could observe inadequate actions along with decreasing ability to efficiently govern (at least it was obvious in the strange shuffling of prime ministers and ministers). The third feature is a weakening elite and its reduced cohesion accompanied with significant changes in the balance of social and political forces in a society (About some situations when the elite loses the sense of self-preservation see Sect. 6 in this chapter.). 11

Fiscal strain often becomes a trigger for the revolutionary outbreak as pointed by many researchers (e.g., Foran, 2005; Goldstone, 1982, 1991, 2001a; Paige, 1975; Skocpol, 1979; Walton, 1984; see also Beck, 2011; Sanderson, 2010; Tilly, 1978). 12 As Jack A. Goldstone notes, ‘Revolutions do not arise simply from mounting discontent over poverty, inequality, or other changes. Rather, revolution is a complex process that emerges from the social order becoming frayed in many areas at once’ (Goldstone, 2014: 15). One can both agree and disagree with this. It is true that revolution is a very complicated process that happens due to the crises of social systems, but, firstly, one can hardly agree that the system always has to decay in many spheres at once. For example, the political regime or economy may be prosperous, but discontent with its evils, the weakness of the government, its mistakes, ‘lack of talent’, etc., may provoke violent protests. 13 Additionally, if the government that lost its authority shows weakness or compliance at the wrong time, this leads to increasing demands on the part of its opposition.

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Fig. 1 Revolutionary situations

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The fourth feature is the increasing popular discontent that exceeds a tolerable level and a rapid growth of supporters of decisive changes and revolutionary actions. There should be formed a rather powerful camp of revolutionary proponents and those sympathizing with them, as well as a vast stratum of people dissatisfied with the authorities for whatever reason. Hereafter, there emerges a numerous camp of those who do not resist the revolution or more exactly, the fall of the regime. Meanwhile, the number of those supporting the regime and authorities declines as well. So the deepening crisis further reinforces the former camp and weakens the latter. This may be hardly evident but a hidden and informal regrouping of forces can proceed in a society and suddenly come out, and then revolution bursts into the open. However, until the elite is no longer consolidated it is very difficult to take the regime down. It is quite obvious that the fate of the regime may depend on the government’s ability to resolve the problems. This is especially true when the crisis is caused by a sudden failure on the part of the government to meet its obligations at a rough time or it is associated with sharply increasing extraction of resources by the government from the population (Tilly, 1978), that is when the government’s guilt is both fairly clear and absolutely unjustified. The further movement to a revolution occurs when the government cannot handle the situation. On the whole, one should state that the pre-revolutionary crisis closely corresponds to the complex of conditions which induce an unstable equilibrium in the society. According to Goldstone, these conditions are fiscal strain, alienation and opposition among the elites, widespread popular anger at injustice, a persuasive shared narrative of resistance and favorable international relations (Goldstone, 2014: 19). One should primarily speak only of the first four features (and additionally about abovementioned inability of the government to resolve the problems). Concerning the latter, favorable international relations are not often required for the creation of a revolutionary situation. It is rather necessary for victory and recognition of the revolution.

3.3 A Particular Revolutionary Situation A particular revolutionary situation arises as a triggering event preceding a revolution; yet, sometimes there may be several triggering events, some of them preceding a particular revolutionary situation and others starting a revolution. Sometimes a particular revolutionary situation is quite obvious; it may also be temporarily separated from the start of a revolution or almost coincide with it. Thus, actually, the first days of the February 1917 Revolution in Russia demonstrated the public’s unrest due to people’s dissatisfaction with shortages in bread supply; only later did they turn into the revolution. Here the particular revolutionary situation slid into revolution. On the contrary, the events of the Ukrainian Euromaidan are clearly divided into a particular revolutionary situation consisting in the confrontation between activists and the authorities and only later the revolt started (see Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” [Shevsky, 2022, in this volume]). Respectively, the slogans change in the

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course of the transition from one phase to another. A particular revolutionary situation is bifurcational in its nature. It can or cannot turn into a revolution, depending on numerous minor factors and moments, on contingencies and coincidences. Of course, the timing of revolutionary events is crucial (Lawson, 2016: 111). It is just in this context that a unique combination of contingencies may lead to a success or failure, and become fatal or decisive for revolutionaries and authorities. The fact that Nicholas II’s daughters were ill with measles during the February revolution in 1917 was naturally a mere coincidence, which, however, strongly distracted Alexandra Feodorovna, the Tsarina, from the situation outside the palace.14 Perhaps, at some other moment she would have given it more importance and paid more attention to the events. In support of all the authorities throughout the world who “missed” the beginning of the revolution in due course, we should also note that it is objectively very difficult to distinguish the formation of a particular revolutionary situation from ordinary protests. It often happens that demonstrations and other forms of confrontation follow each other without any disastrous consequences for the authorities, and then one of such events generates the start of an outbreak and catastrophe for the regime. Jack A. Goldstone speaks about an unstable equilibrium which is not visible from daily events; so to predict the exact start of a revolution is as difficult as to predict an earthquake (Goldstone, 2014: 15). A particular revolutionary situation is characterized by the following features: 1.

2.

14

Concentration of accumulated discontent (its localization) in a certain region (a capital, a city, a province, a place of a mutiny, intervention, etc.).15 Selfperception of social strata and groups is the most important point for the analysis of revolutions, since revolutions always appear to be a manifestation of discontent that has exceeded the acceptable level; it is also a concentration of discontent at a particular place and time; the very possibility of such manifestation and concentration, as well as its channeling under someone’s management, determines the possibility of turning a crisis into a revolution. The emergence of the pretext that causes a sharp increase of protest moods (by means of demonstrations, strikes, riotous disturbances, etc.). For a particular revolutionary situation to emerge, that is for the accumulation of an abundant “combustible material” in a society one needs that “the flame is burst from a little spark”. In other words, we need this very “spark”, a trigger, that is, a cause, a reason, a pretext that generates discontent. It is not surprising that while accumulating discontent almost any event may become such a trigger. But nevertheless, it does not always occur at the right time and place. That is why the revolutionaries often commit provocative acts in order to create a cause for protests.

She was the head of power in Petrograd at this moment since Nicholas II was in the Russian Supreme High Command General Headquarters. 15 As we already mentioned in Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume), there are two types of revolutions according to the starting point and further spreading of revolutionary events (a central collapse or an advance from the periphery [Goldstone, 2014; Huntington, 1968]).

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The authorities’ inability to adequately respond to rising protests and the final loss of supporters.

It is clear that much depends on forces of the parties, leaders’ actions, the position of security agencies, and so on. On the whole, a particular revolutionary situation is connected with a number of situational aspects, therefore its emergence and unfolding into a revolution depends on whether all the components coincide and whether this case will be favorable for the opponents and protesters. As for a possible escalation of a particular revolutionary situation into a revolution and its subsequent victory, here one should pay attention to the following aspects. (1)

The position of the elite or of its parts.

(2)

“Revolutions can occur only when significant portions of the elites, and especially the military, defect or stand aside” (Goldstone, 2014: 10; see also Goldstone, 2001a). One should mention that most revolutionaries come from counter-elites, or from the layer of outcast or marginalized elite blocked by regime, that is, a part of society that feels unfairly pushed back from certain positions. Jack A. Goldstone states that “in most revolutions it is the elites who mobilize the population to help them overthrow the regime” (Goldstone, 2014: 10). However, one can hardly determine whether this happened during most of revolutions or only some of them. For example, in February 1917 in Russia and November 1918 in Germany, such direction was not obvious. The role of the army.

(3)

(4)

Theorists of revolution pay special attention to the role of armed forces and factors determining their support of the opposition (Ibid.). Fierce repression is sometimes unable to daunt and on the contrary may even inflames revolutionary opposition (Goldstone, 2001a, 2001b, 2014; Khawaja, 1993; Kurzman, 1996; Lichbach, 1987; Moore, 1998; Olivier, 1991; Rasler, 1996; Weede, 1987); this is especially the case when police or military are seen to be using excessive force against protestors, or protestors are able to draw sympathy for representing “true” society while the repressive forces are seen as serving a corrupt or evil leader, rather than defending the nation. This can lead the military to stand back or even partially defect. However, as long as the government is supported by the army, and the army remains firmly under control and disciplined, the outcome of revolution is almost always a failure (e.g., Hagopian, 1975: 157). The comparison of revolutions of 1905–1907 and 1917 in Russia quite well illustrates this. In 1905, the army remained mostly loyal to the Tsar, and the empire resisted. In 1917, in February, the army defected to the people’s side, and the empire fell. The inaction of the army during the revolution indicates that the regime has become defenseless (Goldstone, 2014). The role of the individual in both revolutionary and government camps. Sometimes victory or defeat depends on leaders’ personal qualities. Great men on either side can provide great opportunities for their camps (see Grinin, 2010, 2012b). Favorable international relations and/or support of the revolution from outside.

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One should take into account that we have drawn a full stage picture of the path from the start of growing dissatisfaction to revolution. However, in some cases this path can be shorter and certain stages can be missed.

4 About Great Revolutions Revolutions differ drastically in scale, intensity of transformations, historical significance, etc. Among them one can distinguish quite a few “great” revolutions. Each of them gave a powerful impulse to changes in the World System. They unfold according to the lines of the revolutionary hymn The Internationale, “We’ll change henceforth the old tradition.” It is not surprising that first there is a powerful breakthrough in the destruction of old institutions, and then one can observe the rollback of more stable relations (for more details about the “Thermidor law” see the next section). On the one hand, great revolutions appeared an attractive example for revolutionaries from different countries and epochs. On the other hand, most happened revolutions hardly had the same features as the handful of “great” revolutions. That is why it would be incorrect to define major characteristics just from great revolutions and then try to find them in ordinary revolutions. There have been very few great revolutions, namely: the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution that started in 1911, went through a new revolutionary rise in 1925 and ended in 1949. Probably, the English Revolution of the seventeenth century can be also included in this list. The American Revolution is sometimes attributed to great revolutions as well (e.g., Arendt, 2006 [1963]) but in our opinion this is not correct because despite the fact that the impact of this revolution on other countries was great (especially with respect to the future influence of the American democracy on the world) there were no major social transformations within American colonies (about the English, American, French, and Chinese revolutions see Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume; Skocpol (1979)]; about the Russian Revolution see Grinin, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c). Some scholars suppose that other events, such as the Mexican and Cuban revolutions (Dominguez, 1978; Eckstein, 1986; Knight, 1986; Krejci, 1995; Womack, 1968) had valid claims to be great revolutions but one can hardly agree with them. It is interesting to note that great revolutions took place only in societies with a predominantly illiterate population and revolutionary events actively engaged the major part of the population, i. e. the peasantry (see Skocpol, 1979). However, in such societies the number of educated people must be sufficient (not less than 20–30%). Many researchers mostly focus on great revolutions (e.g., Brinton, 1965 [1938]; Eisenstadt, 1978: Ch. 1; Goldstone, 2001a, 2001b: 140; Grinin, 2017b; Mau & Starodubrovskaya, 2001; Skocpol, 1979; see also Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume]). According to Skocpol (1979: 4), social revolutions, including the great ones, are “rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures accompanied… and in part

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carried through by class-based revolts from below.16 This definition was taken as standard,” (Goldstone, 2001a, 2001b: 140). However, it is not a comprehensive definition of great revolutions. It should be emphasized that the great revolution produces an enormous influence and gives a powerful impetus not only to the revolutionary society but also to the whole historical process and the World System and the world order (see above) and it affects the further transformations for decades (see Chapters “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d], “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2017c, 2018a, 2018b, 2019). Thereby, a great revolution is great in two aspects: first, due to major transformations in the society which it induces; second, due to huge and lasting influence on other countries. Thus, we can define a revolution as the great one when it (a) paves a new way in the development of many countries; (b) is a large-scale event and is associated with very deep socio-political transformations; (c) influences the balance of power and configuration of the World System; (d) has numerous long-term followers in other societies, providing both practical and theoretical guidance. Besides, great revolutions give rise to alternative developmental trajectories which enrich social evolution; however, such revolutionary trajectories of development eventually manifest themselves as deadlocks to a greater or lesser extent. The seventeenth century revolution in England created a republican trajectory of development of a major power.17 However, soon it ended in a deadlock. As a result of the Stuart Restoration in 1660 and subsequent Glorious Revolution of 1688, the idea of establishing a Commonwealth (a republic) in England was rejected. The same refers to the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century, which failed to prove the vitality both of the republican system of government and of a complete abolition of estates. None of the revolutions of 1848–1849 can be regarded as great; but on the whole (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]) taking into account the mass character of revolutionary actions and the rapid “spread” of this wave of revolutions from one country to another, these events can be characterized as a great European revolution.18 Not without reason these events were called “the Springtime of Nations.” The ideas of social revolution and society, which they tried to introduce in France in July 1848, not only frightened the bourgeoisie, but did not appeal to many strata of European societies. Consequently, the revolutions of that period were defeated (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). The Russian Revolution gave rise to transformational changes of 16

It is not surprising that fundamental social changes during the great revolutions lead to a very intense social struggle. Therefore, one can hardly disagree with the idea of Armitage (2015) which is expressed in his article’s title “Every Great Revolution is a Civil War.”. 17 Prior to that time the republics existed only in small states. 18 In this respect it is interesting to note that great revolutions or something that substituted them occurred with the interval of about half a century after the beginning of the Great French Revolution. In 1848−1849 the European revolutions occurred, and then in 1905 a revolutionary epoch emerged in Russia. The revolution of 1949 succeeded in China but in fact it continued for twenty years.

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society on the basis of ideas of egalitarian socialism and abolition of private property. Eventually, yet, far from immediately, this direction of historical process also came to dead end. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the world-historical development the impact of great revolutions is far from being senseless. On the contrary, according to Hegel’s law of double negation their ideas and practices are widely introduced, but this became possible only since they managed to eliminate extreme radicalism in practice. Thus, after the Glorious Revolution in England, there was established not a republic but a constitutional monarchy which became a developmental model for European societies for the next two centuries. As a result of the (Great) French Revolution in France and some European countries constitutions were introduced, serfdom was abolished or mitigated in a number of countries, the peasant ownership of land was strengthened, and significant changes took place in legislation and other spheres. Thus, due to the negation of extremes of the social revolution of 1848 (and the French Revolution), but under the influence of these ideas, European societies underwent significant changes: these paved the way to the development of capitalism and partly to the formation of state’s social policy, especially in Germany (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). Meanwhile, under the influence of socialist ideas of the Russian Revolution and the USSR, democratic societies started to actively develop social policy and means of social security and eventually reached the level of social welfare (although, currently, as a result of growing inequality some societies have distanced themselves from it). As a result of revolution in China, there emerged a new combination of state regulation and private interests in the economy (not at once but only in the last decades of the twentieth century) which produced exceptional results in the economic progress of the PRC. Thus, great revolutions may divert and even throw back the society that generated them, and yet still realize the aspirations for historical development and certain changes, transformations and needs (though in a distorted ideological way). Meanwhile, the neighboring societies can benefit from such development since they can make appropriate changes under the influence of revolutionary events. In other words, the impact of great revolutions may consist in initiating the waves of change which give rise to new developmental paths of historical process; however, here some societies’ progress may be achieved at the expense of others’ failure—sometimes the failure of the countries that launched those revolutions.

5 Stages of Revolutionary Change 5.1 A Revolutionary Cycle The fact that revolutions may pass through similar stages was discussed already at the end of the eighteenth century. The history of the French Revolution clearly

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showed that a revolution has a life-cycle. This became especially evident after the epoch of the French Revolution and the Bourbon Restoration had ended.19 It is not surprising that already in the late eighteenth century they started to argue that revolutions and related epochs may have similar stages in different countries; yet, it took about a century to elaborate a complete scholarly description of those stages. Thus, the theory of revolutions gradually took shape (see Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al. 2022c, in this book), which also encompassed the ideas of a cycle.20 A century after the French Revolution, already a sufficient number of intellectuals became aware of common features of revolutions and widely accepted the alternation between the upswing and downswing phases. Schematically it can be presented in the following way. First, one can observe an escalation of revolution. Then, either more radical revolutionaries come to power, or there occurs radicalization of the forces in power (that is, there occurs a split within the revolutionary camp). Finally, a revolution and terror reach their apogee.21 Then, as the society becomes tired of revolution and its support fades away while the economy declines (and the main military threats recede), there occurs a more or less considerable blowback. These phenomena enabled analysts to start to distinguish regular stages in the development of revolutions. But one should realize that a full cycle might not be traced in all successful revolutions, not to mention in failed or abortive ones. In 1938, Crane Brinton systematically and thoroughly described these stages (which can be subdivided into several sub-stages). The first stage includes the growing crisis of the old order and increasing conflicts between the supporters of the old order and those who are seeking newer approaches. This stage ends with the victory of the revolutionaries and a loss or sharing of power by the old regime (Brinton, 1965 [1938]: 90). The subsequent stages are the Rule of the Moderates; the Accession of the Extremists; Reigns of Terror and Virtue; and Thermidor (Ibid.).22 This concept undoubtedly influenced later studies and was widely taken into account by other researchers. However, there was no advancement and unanimity among scholars concerning the general issue of revolutionary trajectories, and in particular, how and 19

The regular character of revolutionary stages was pointed out by François-Auguste Mignet, Thomas Carlyle, Wilhelm Josef Blos and others (Blos, 1906; Carlyle, 1903 [1837]; Mignet, 1824). When comparing the English and the French revolutions, Joseph-Marie de Maistre predicted restoration of monarchy after the French revolutions (Maistre, 1841 [1796]). 20 Contributions were made also by Marx (e.g. 2000 [1852]) and Engels (e.g. 1955 [1887]). 21 However, both during this period and later, there may be attempts to carry out even more radical transformations, but they usually do not receive support or end in failure. With respect to the English Revolution, there was the radical egalitarian movement of the ‘Levellers.’ With respect to the French Revolution we should mention the so-called ‘The Enrage’ and Gracchus Babeuf’s ‘Conspiracy of Equals’ (1796), whose participants set a goal to equalize property. In Soviet Russia on the eve of the introduction of NEP there were many hotheads who wanted to march to Europe in order to approach the coming of the world revolution. 22 As is known on 9 Thermidor, according to the French Republican Calendar (27/28 July) 1794 there took place a coup that ended the Jacobean dictatorship. Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Georges Couthon and other revolutionaries were executed, whereas Joseph Fouché and Paul Barras and others, who united the opponents of Robespierre, came to power.

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why some cases diverge from this scheme and have various outcomes. As Eduard Shults points out there is no distinct approach to defining revolutionary stages and no algorithm of unfolding revolutionary events. Although the disagreement is mostly in details, still the latter create a considerable difference in evaluation and understanding of revolutionary stages and ongoing processes (Shults, 2016: 68). One can agree that the struggle between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces can change the basic point of revolutionary cycle (e.g., Hagopian, 1975).23 It is also possible to distinguish different number of phases in revolutions (see, e.g., the comparison between the American and French revolutions in Pettee, 1966). Jack A. Goldstone describes a revolutionary cycle in the following way, “A revolution starts when a regime becomes vulnerable; …[then] the revolutionaries heading the army or popular rebellion seize power. Yet, … revolutions are not a single event but a long-lasting process. Before the situation becomes stable revolutions may pass through phases of counterrevolutions, civil war, terror, and another revolutionary explosion. Meanwhile, the outcomes of revolutions may vary from democracy to another dictatorship” (Goldstone, 2014: 25; on such transformations in detail see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). In any case, it is important that many researchers generally identify upswing and downswing stages of revolutions (e.g., Berdyaev, 1990 [1923]; Huntington, 1968; Sorokin, 1925).24 Meanwhile, in the present section we will focus on the Thermidorian stage.

5.2 Revolution and the Thermidorian Law The possibility that a revolutionary cycle may end with the return to the former regime, or transformation into some kind of dictatorship, became quite evident after the end of the epoch associated with the French Revolution and the Bourbon Restoration. After the end of the Russian Revolution, among its winners and losers there was spread the idea that a revolutionary high tide should be followed by a low tide. The Russian intellectuals who did not support the October revolution, but realized that it had to be accepted and recognized as an indisputable fact, could think and dream of the Thermidor after the October events, which would have allowed the country 23

For example, Hobsbawm (1996) speaks about the phase of split among moderate revolutionaries drifting towards the camp of order and counterrevolution. 24 ‘Every revolutionary period inevitably splits into two interrelated stages. “Reaction” is not a phenomenon beyond revolution but its immanent part—the second stage’ (Sorokin, 1992a: 268; 1925: 7). According to Berdyaev, ‘Every revolution ends in reaction. It is inevitable, it is a law’ (Berdyaev, 1990 [1923]: 29). About Berdyaev’s law see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume); also Grinin and Korotayev (2014, 2016b, 2016c). Huntington reduces to the first two large stages of revolution, probably, because he delineates the Western and the Eastern types of revolutions, noting that the Western revolutions have a more evident sequence of stages compared to the Eastern revolutions (Huntington, 1968).

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to return to former way of life. That is why, already in 1921, Nikolay Ustryalov gave the title “The Way of Thermidor” to the second part of his article “Patriotica” published in Prague in his seminal collection Smena vekh [Change of Landmarks]25 (Ustryalov, 1921). He offered to accept the fact of the revolution and expect a transition to the Thermidor, that is to a reasonable account of reality. He exclaimed, “A difficult task—but may God give it success!” Ustryalov started his research by pointing that he was not the first to talk about Thermidor in the Russian Revolution. The Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921 and the resulting Bolsheviks’ turn to the New Economic Policy (NEP) were a signal that made some Russian publicists in Paris start talking about the “Russian Thermidor”. In particular, several articles in the Russian-language newspaper The Latest News edited by Pavel Milyukov (who was, by the way, a very intelligent historian) were devoted to establishing an analogy between the process which was unfolding in Russia and the Thermidorian period of the French Revolution. Ustryalov tried to define to what extent these analogies were valid and what the “Thermidorian path” was like, and he came to the conclusion that it was of small importance whether the overthrow of former revolutionary idols and subsequent change of the course would take place, or whether the actual leaders would themselves appear quite pragmatic and change direction. The matter is that the Thermidorian path consists in the transformation of the very fabric of revolution as well as of souls and hearts of its actors. As a result, revolution is released from its own superfluidity and excess of zeal and passes to a reasonable consideration of the situation (Ibid.). The transition to NEP actually brought hope for the Thermidorian Reaction in the Russian revolution. But Ustryalov, Milyukov, and other ideologists did not account that the very revolutionary pattern had changed in the course of historical process and that unlike the French Revolution, which experienced only a rather short period of terror, the Russian revolution would witness a new round of revolutionary changes starting nine years after the expected Thermidor, along with a new round of social terror which would almost surpass the revolutionary one by the scale of its destruction. Moreover, for some revolutionary leaders, the terror had to become a permanent feature (later the Chinese and some other communist revolutions would implement the same approach). Several years later after the discussion of the Thermidorian path among the Russian revolutionary emigres. Also Leo Trotsky and his supporters, who suffered a defeat in the intraparty strife, spoke about the party Thermidor.26 It is important to take into account that the Trotskyists adhered to left-wing positions, implying an increasing activity of world revolution and arguing about the impossibility of building socialism in a separate country, while Joseph Stalin and his supporters intended to build socialism in the USSR without waiting for the world revolution (hopes of 25

Its predecessor, the collection Vekhi [Landmarks] will be described below. However, Trotsky himself did not claim to be the first and pointed out in one of his anti-Stalinist articles that it is not easy to determine who was the first to appeal to historical analogy with the Thermidor. Already in 1926, the members of a group who valued ‘democratic centralism’ claimed, ‘The Thermidor is an accomplished fact!’ (Trotsky, 1935).

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which became more and more delusory). As we said above the idea of Thermidor as a possible stage of revolutions entered the academic discourse after Brinton’s work in which Chap. 8 was devoted to the analysis of this stage and was entitled “Thermidor.” Among contemporary scholars who study the Thermidor stage, one can mention Baczko (1989), Shults (2016), Mau and Starodubrovskaya (2001). Thus, the transition from violent destruction of social and other relations and the apogee of violence and terror to a more moderate policy is considered to be normal for some revolutions. Indeed, this phenomenon may be called the Thermidorian law, which is an inevitable reaction to extremes. In this context, it is worth mentioning an interesting fact that in Soviet historiography they were reluctant to accept the presence of such regularity not only in socialist, but even in the bourgeois revolution. In particular, the French Revolution was dated back to 1789 from 1794 (see Manfred, 1974; yet, this approach probably goes back to Pyotr Kropotkin 2009 [1909] or maybe even earlier), whereas it is widely recognized that though with less intensity the revolution actually lasted until Napoleon’s seizure of power. In 1795, the new Constitution of France was adopted and the Convention was respectively dismissed. There was established the Directory, which was a collective state government consisting of five directors. After the coup of 18th Brumaire in 1799, Napoleon formally replaced the Directory by the Consulate, which remained a revolutionary body until 1804 (when Napoleon was declared Emperor).

5.3 Ideology and the Thermidorian Law Ideology is the most important element of revolution. Naturally, ideology is always the outcome of: (1) common material causes: technological development, population growth, urbanization, literacy growth, etc.; and (2) socio-economic requirements, needs, and aspirations. But, naturally, it is always the result of intellectual and spiritual work of a group of leaders/ideologists or intelligentsia. The result often depends on a number of historical factors, as well as the ideologists’ individual reasons and spiritual inclinations. Ideology is always inherently detached from practice since it aspires for perfection and the ideal. Hence, the practical implementation of ideology always faces reality that later becomes a more formidable obstacle. It is so typical of revolutionaries to overcome obstacles regardless of costs; for them the steeper the breakdown—the better. In this context, the more deeply the ideology is imposed, the stronger are the emerging contradictions. After all, politics is the art of the possible. The attempts to introduce a pure ideology always end with severe problems as well as with inevitable departure from revolutionary ideals. What does the Thermidor law mean with respect to revolutionary ideology and revolution? It shows that we need a compromise between traditions, common sense, practical needs and revolutionary ideology. Thermidor is considered to be a serious attempt at a pragmatic search for the ways to complete revolution (Polyakova, 2014). This usually does not mean an open break with revolutionary ideology, but life brings

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its own rules. Therefore, to continue to stay in power a revolutionary regime needs to create a governmental system that will somehow restrain fantasy and take into account objective laws of social life. Sometimes this requires the adjustment of ideology; otherwise, they have to pretend that the existing situation is just what was planned to achieve. Eventually there emerge different variations of relying on reality. We can observe how they start to “wind down” from a great utopia towards a sound approach to a renewed reality and devotion to it (Ustryalov, 1921). The radical ideology can become efficient only if imposed in a balanced and “diluted’ manner, like a highly concentrated substance. Otherwise, it causes harm or even death. Communism was exactly that radical ideology, which could be imposed only in a gradual and partial manner and in certain spheres. As practice showed, this could give a positive effect and become an important part of system only in certain periods of time or in certain societies. The consequences of attempts to build life wholly according to this ideology were negative. This also refers to fervent nationalism and religious ideology (e.g., Islamism [see Grinin et al., 2019]). Thus, although it may seem cynical, the loyal adherents of ideology lead society to deplorable results, whereas opportunists can lead it to more successful results. The radical ideology, similar to revolutions in general, brings the greatest benefit when its supporters, being in opposition, put forward the slogans and demands, which more pragmatic ruling elites have to take into account and implement somehow. That is why, in some situations it may become reasonable to support moderate Islamists to succeed against the radicals (for more details see Grinin et al., 2019). Concerning the Thermidorian period itself it could have several sub-stages. For example, with respect to the USSR one could speak first about the revolutionary Thermidor associated with the introduction of the new economic program at the 10th Congress of the RCP(B) and the “tightening of the screws” via reinforcement of party discipline (the prohibition of factions, etc.), and then also about the political Thermidor (Trotsky dated it start to 1924 [Trotsky, 1935], but this became especially noticeable after the years 1927–1928), when as a result of fierce party discussions, there was made a decision about the possibility of building socialism in a particular country. By 1929 all opposition movements had been eliminated, and their leaders were sidelined (Trotsky was exiled), and later repressed. As to the party discipline, “the screws have been tightened’ much stronger than before. It is interesting that the end of the Thermidorian coup in the party coincided with a new revolutionary tide of 1929–1933, after which peasant property was abolished, and the peasantry was actually transformed into state-owned serfs.

5.4 Bonapartism As shown by the English Revolution and the French revolutions of the late eighteenth century, the blowback of the revolution (Thermidor) could continue and transform

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into the regime of personal dictatorship which could later evolve into a kind of monarchy. While in Britain Cromwell’s dictatorship did not become a monarchy,27 in France, after both revolutions, the republic changed into an empire. This regime was called Bonapartism. The dual character of this regime which was neither republican nor monarchic in a traditional sense (since the new emperor was treated as a usurper) was expressed in peculiar characteristics associated with attempts to maneuver between different strata of society, to change the course, and to gain popular support. It was Karl Marx who first spoke about Bonapartism in a broad sense in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte written in connection with the military coup carried out by Napoleon I’s nephew, Louis Bonaparte, who was the President of the French Republic from 1848 to 1851. A year later he seized full power and became Emperor Napoleon III.28 Thus, as Marx noted (2000 [1852]), the revolution proceeds downward. The term “Bonapartism” initially denoted the postrevolutionary dictatorship, and later it started to define any regime of personal power maneuvering between different social forces, and has been and is currently used in the political discourse. In particular, Trotsky employed this term in the above-mentioned article when he spoke about Stalin’s regime (Trotsky, 1935). Thus, one can conclude that every drastic revolution is a jump ahead; this especially refers to great revolutions which can go too far in the matter of social destruction. At some stage this leads to a blowback. Revolutions are often an attempt to organize life not in accordance with practical criteria, but with ideological goals. But this gap between aspirations for embodiment of revolutionary ideals in practice and the realities that hardly fit the bookish model cannot last for a long time. Hence, a slowdown of the revolutionary high tide (Thermidor) is inevitable along with the subsequent return to the previously existing norms (Bonapartism).

6 On the Cases When the Elite Loses Its Sense of Self-Preservation We should start the discussion with a statement that was expressed in the literature, but, unfortunately, did not become widespread. Meanwhile, it deserves considerable attention. The point is that the ruling elite, as well as the closely adjacent strata, seem to lose their sense for self-preservation during certain difficult periods, including the initial revolutionary phases.29 We do not mean the split of elites, which is a common 27

Yet, there were some efforts in this direction, since Oliver Cromwell assigned his son Richard as his successor in the office of Lord Protector. 28 The renewal of the mandate for ten years was enshrined by the referendum on December 21, 1851; the transformation of the presidency into a monarchy—by the referendum on November 21, 1852. The actions of Louis Bonaparte were approved by an overwhelming majority of votes in both referenda. For more details about the referenda of Napoleon III see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume]. 29 In particular, Veblen (1973 [1899]) argued that sometimes a leisure class may lose the instinct for self-preservation. For example, that was the case with the Romans during the barbarian invasions

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situation and is well researched (see e.g. Goldstone, 1991; Skocpol, 1979; Tilly, 1978; see above par. 3). Here we discuss the situation when even the conservative bulk of elites are not ready to act immediately against revolution and are even ready to recognize the overthrow of the regime. They appear simply unprepared to unite when facing the imminent danger of popular unrest and to support an unstable authority which is much closer to them despite all its shortcomings and flaws. So they either express discontent with the existing power, or directly agitate against it, welcoming the revolutionaries and oncoming revolution, or even directly participate in the events. The perception comes only in the course of revolution, especially after the revolutionary breakdown engages wider population and various institutions and terror is used for such a breakdown, sometimes even after the revolution. Thus, between February and March 1917 in Russia all the commanders of the fronts supported the revolution in Petrograd, and none of them supported the Emperor and the commander-in-chief Nicholas II; on the contrary, everyone advised him to abdicate the throne.30 And only later did they realize that the revolution, which they hoped would somehow intensify military activities, led Russia to military defeat and catastrophe. In his diary on March 2, 1917 Nicholas II wrote, “All around is betrayal, cowardice and deceit!” (The Diaries…, 1991: 625). But the emperor himself also did not show any will to power at this decisive moment; on the contrary, he hurried to abdicate, as if this was a good reason to cast off the burden of rule. Later his brother Mikhail easily renounced a throne his family held for 300 years, and none of the royal family decided to lead a struggle for the preservation of monarchy. In 1991 and 1992, the leaders of the Communist Party of the USSR (CPSU) and the newly emerged Communist Party of Russia allowed the destruction of both the USSR and the CPSU. In 1993 during the opposition between the President and the Supreme Council many of them were to pay for it. However, such a loss of will to power (to use Friedrich Nietzsche’s term)31 and of a sense of self-preservation is characteristic not only for Russia but also for many other countries and revolutionary epochs. In May 1789 in Paris, the Estates General consisted of the elected representatives of the three estates—the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. However, as a result of revolutionary tumults, many representatives of the nobility and clergy joined the representatives of the Third Estate to form a revolutionary Constituent

in the late Roman Empire. Yet, in a book analysing sociological theories the authors tried to correct Veblen arguing that the leisure class loses not the sense for self-preservation but the ability of selfdefence, that is, that the Romans probably forgot how to protect themselves, that is forgot how to do it since the barbarians had replaced them everywhere (Adams & Sydie, 2002: 253). 30 Perhaps in February 1917 the Russian supreme generalship supported the czar’s demise, having a strange belief that the beginning of the revolution would strengthen the mood to continue the war (at least such an explanation was given by Admiral Alexander V. Kolchak, which can be found in the records of his interrogations [Starikov, 2014]). The awareness of the mistake came some time later when the defensism policy was substituted with defeatist moods and immediate peace-making. 31 Huntington (1968) also notes that on the eve of revolution the former elite “loses will to power.”.

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Assembly, whose decrees actually triggered the French Revolution.32 By July, many of the French nobility and clergy were enthusiastically supporting motions for the destruction of their own exceptional privileges. We should note that the instinct of self-preservation and the perception of the need for struggle to preserve one’s position were lost during other crucial epochs as well. Thus, in 1939–1940 after the surrender of France to the German invaders, French military leaders looked amazingly helpless and unwilling to sacrifice anything for the sake of the country. This awesome cowardice (after powerful activity during WWI), however, became apparent already from the mid-1930s, when France gradually lost the advantages got after the Treaty of Versailles to a rising but still weak Germany. Recently we have observed a real helplessness of European administrators when they faced the invasion of migrants in 2015. In Russia’s best-known fabulist Ivan Krylov’s words, they failed to “take action” The situation can be also exacerbated by the desire to imitate the more developed societies via establishing institutions that do not correspond to the elite’s interests and which society is not ready for. The establishment of democratic institutions after which the elite may lose its power, is quite a frequently cited case. For example, this happened under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR, though there was no need for such an abrupt turn to democracy. Sometimes it seems that part of the modern Saudi elite in the lead of Mohammad bin Salman is losing the instinct of self-preservation, risking much in trying to launch very risky reforms using rather doubtful means. In 1909, soon after the first Russian Revolution a famous miscellany Vekhi [Landmarks] appeared with the subtitle A collection of articles on the Russian intelligentsia (Vekhi, 1909).33 It was actually devoted to the Russian Revolution and role of intelligentsia in it. In Nikolay Berdyaev’s article “Philosophical Verity and Intelligentsia Truth” from this collection, the intelligentsia’s position was sharply criticized. In Berdyaev’s opinion, the Russian intelligentsia practically worshipped the people and revolution, while the struggle against autocracy became the criterion of assessing any phenomenon. At the same time, the intelligentsia “would always put the blame for everything on external forces and thus justify their own failures” (Berdyaev, 1994 [1909]: 15) thus, forgetting about the truth, and about the fact that one has to take the responsibility and “cease blaming everything on external forces” (Ibid.). In the article “Creative Self-Consciousness” the historian, literary critic and philosopher Mikhail Gershenzon (who initiated the publication of the collection of papers) wrote, “What has our intelligentsia been doing for the last half-century? (I am referring, of course, to the intelligentsia rank-and-file.) A handful of revolutionaries has been going from house to house and knocking on every door: “Everyone into the street! It is shameful to stay at home!” And every consciousness, the halt, the blind and the armless, poured out into the square; not one stayed home. For half a century they 32

It is remarkable that Louis XVI, the king, still ordered the Life Guards to disperse the disobedient deputies, but when the guards tried to enter the Hall of Minor Pleasures where they gathered, Marquis de La Fayette and some remaining noblemen blocked their route with swords in their hands. About the elite’s strange behavior on the eve and during the French Revolution see, e.g., Furet and Richet (1970), Furet (1981, 1996). 33 For an interesting analysis of this miscellany see Eidelman (n.d.).

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have been milling about, wailing and quarreling. At home there is dirt, destitution, disorder, but the master doesn’t care. He is out in public, saving the people—and that is easier and more entertaining than drudgery at home” (Gershenzon, 1994: 58). This particular intelligentsia made claims for power, showing a kind of messiahship and believing that educated people are supposed to know how to reorganize life in a proper way. And without the slightest doubt, they were ready to reorganize it not from below but through claims for participation in power and even for the supreme power (as the leaders of the Cadet Party used to). All this turned fatal for Russia’s history and the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia of which many nobles were a part. However, one would think, that after the First Russian Revolution (1905–1907), it would have been necessary to reassess the situation, to understand that popular revolution would sweep away not only the autocracy, but also the intelligentsia. Gershenzon wrote about it quite frankly, “Such as we are, we not only cannot dream of merging with the people, but we must fear them more than all the government’s executions, and we must bless this government which alone, with its bayonets and prisons, still protects us from the people’s wrath” (Ibid.: 64). But these words produced an opposite reaction. The author was condemned by every conceivable allegation. However, we are well aware of what happened with the Russian intelligentsia. Those whom the steamboats took abroad in 1922 were lucky,34 since they would not be drowned on barges in rivers. Thus, the elite or some its strata, figuratively speaking, quite often bite the feeding hand without understanding that they can exist only under this “bad’ (in their opinion) regime. The Soviet creative upper strata, which had peculiar privileges and a huge audience and was provided with food and lodging thanks to the state’s policy, demanded freedom of speech, thinking that one could have freedom of speech, including unrestrained criticism of power, and still preserve the former protection from the state. Meanwhile, did those people standing at the top of culture before 1991 achieve anything simply remarkable, not to speak of great? One can hardly remember, there was almost nothing … The fact is that the creative intelligentsia could exist only under the Soviet regime, but not the market economy. Why does this loss of sense of self-preservation happen? This issue needs further investigation. But we can assume that it is the result of the following factors: 1.

2.

34

A certain effeminacy of the elite which ceases to fight for its positions. In the fifteenth century a similar case was described by Ibn-Khaldun (Ibn-Khaldun, 1980; see also Grinin, 2012c: 83−84) when the third-generation rulers due to their propensity for luxury would bring a dynasty to fall. The increasing level of education and humanization of relations among the elite. In this situation, some members of the new generation are “infected” with ideas that hardly align with their position.

In 1922, a great number of philosophers and publicists were sent abroad by the Soviet government on the so-called Philosophers’ ship.

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3.

Foreign (global nowadays) influence on some part of societies with a superior cultural level and relations in society; sometimes strong pressure from a mighty ally35 ; the elite focuses on them (to some extent) as a model or ideal, and cease to focus on managing their own domestic affairs. A rather soft (not too repressive) regime and ruler. Rising awareness that elites should be formed by persons of merit and not due to a birthright or other particular rights. Overproduction of the elite. On the one hand, a great number of people lose touch with elite resources but still claim a place of honor. Moreover, since a part of the generation inherits its position with little effort while the aspirations for a place in the elite increase, the criticism of the elite also intensifies. As a result, many representatives of the elite acutely perceive any and all criticism of the upper strata and government. Long-lasting criticism of the government makes some members of the elite take it seriously and believe that they can change the situation. Here manifests a significant role of ideology, which penetrates all strata of society and not only the more discontented people. Rulers sometimes can lose power in the course of reforms that were intended to strengthen their position, but in fact would strengthen the opposition; there are many examples where this is the case, starting from Louis XVI to Mikhail Gorbachev.

4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

7 On the Role of Information Technologies in Revolutionary Practices Revolutions, as well as wars, can (and should) be analyzed in different aspects, for example, not only in terms of their socio-political dimensions, which are more common, but also the technical basis which is used by revolutionaries, the art (practices) of conducting revolutionary actions, i.e., technologies of influencing society, power, opponents and surrounding countries, as well as ways of disseminating knowledge about these technologies. The latter two aspects are less frequently analyzed (a good example is the Serbian revolutionaries from the organization “Otpor” who in many cases significantly contributed to the success of “color” movements; see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this volume). Meanwhile, information technologies and practices always reflect the level of development of society, its technical capabilities and forms of communication. It should be noted that over the past three decades the level of proficiency in organizing revolutions, technologies and practice of mobilization of supporters and 35

In Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume) we discuss the pressure from the American president James Carter who under influence of democratic ideology demanded from Iranian shah and the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza to weaken repressions against opposition. They both did this and in result in the both countries in 1979 revolutions began.

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masses, the ways of fighting against government, and earning sympathy in foreign countries have significantly improved largely due to the fact that professionals and special organizations train potential revolutionaries and support them in the course of revolutions (in the chapters about color revolutions the reader will find many facts about it; see also Kara-Murza et al., 2005). The scope of this chapter does not allow us to dwell on these two aspects but they could bring much clarity to the reasons of failure or success of revolutions. We would like to focus on the importance of information technologies as one of the most significant technical and technological means in preparation and implementation of revolutions. We will briefly show the change of these means in the course of history. Revolutions are closely related to new information technologies and actively use them for their own purposes [also see Chapters “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions (Grinin, 2022a)”, “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. Any great revolution or a new wave of revolutions is somehow connected with emerging principally new media or with its improvement. This means that new revolutionary epoch employs its own means: for the English Revolution those were pamphlets and other publicist and agitation literature (newspapers were not a serious political weapon yet). The development of mail also promoted dissemination of information, in particular, it greatly facilitated communication for revolutionaries; yet, it also provided the secret police with a powerful means of revealing the thoughts and plans of the discontented. Pamphlets played a great role before and in the course of the French Revolution. But there already appeared political newspapers originating from pamphlets. Successful pamphlets became periodicals, as, for example, the well-known Marat’s pamphlet “The People’s Friend” (L’Ami du peuple). As a result, political newspapers became the main type of journalism. Along with common newspapers (which generally disseminated news) they became the leading information technology in the nineteenth century along with books, magazines and leaflets (pamphlets also continued to play a significant role). A well-known example is “The New Rheinische Zeitung”, for which Karl Marx made contributions during the revolution of 1848–1849. Newspapers have long been the most important form of revolutionary agitation. As better postal services and the distribution system of newspapers were developed, the more important role they played. However, the invention of the telegraph and telephone provided revolutions with new opportunities. With the development of the Internet and social networks the opportunities for revolutionary mobilization significantly increased. It should be noted that, although radically new media, namely radio and television (in addition to film and newsreel), appeared in the twentieth century, they hardly played such an important role in revolutionary waves as newspapers and social networks. On the contrary, along with cinema they became rather powerful support for emerging totalitarian regimes. In our opinion, this may be explained by the fact that these media are more centralized unlike newspapers and social networks, so it is easier for governments to control them. Television is a type of media that

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requires huge investments (unlike newspapers and even radio); therefore, the revolutionary opposition is unlikely to widely use it.36 Moreover, it is extremely difficult to get access to such means under conditions of hard-line regimes, while within a true democracy the opposition’s political ambitions are aimed at victory at the election and not at barricades. Therefore, the emergence of computer technologies and especially of the Internet and social networks, which are decentralized unlike television and are able to purposefully impact a huge number of users, played a decisive role for the new waves of revolutions in the 2000s and 2010s (see Chapters “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b], “Global echo of the Arab Spring” [Korotayev et al., 2022] and other chapters in Parts IV–VI of this volume). For example, the revolutionary episodes in Moldova and Iran in 2009 were called Twitter revolutions (see Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” [Tkachuk et al., 2022] and Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” [Filin, 2022, in this volume]). On the other hand, the new possibilities of AI (e.g. in faces recognition) can be a strong weapon in the government’s hands against protesters. Acknowledgement This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254).

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Manfred, A. Z. (1974). Frantsuzskaya burzhuaznaya revolyutsiya kontsa XVIII veka. In E. M. Zhukov (Ed.), Sovetskaya istoricheskaya entsiklopediya: in 16 vols (Vol. 15, pp. 370–383). Sovetskaya entsiklopediya, Moscow. Marx, K. (2000 [1852]). The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. In D. McLellan (Ed.), Selected writings (pp. 329–355). Oxford University Press. Mau, V., & Starodubrovskaya, I. (2001). The challenge of revolution: Contemporary Russia in historical perspective. Oxford University Press. Mignet, F.-A. (1824). Histoire de la Révolution française. Firmin Didot. Mitchell, L. A. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15 Moore, W. H. (1998). Repression and dissent: Substitution, context, and timing. American Journal of Political Science, 42, 851–873. https://doi.org/10.2307/2991732 Olivier, J. (1991). State repression and collective action in South Africa, 1970–1984. South African Journal of Sociology, 22, 109–117. Paige, J. M. (1975). Agrarian revolution. Free Press. Paige, J. M. (1989). Revolution and the agrarian bourgeoisie in Nicaragua. In T. Boswell (Ed.), Revolution in the world-system (pp. 99–128). Greenwood. Panah, M. (2002). Social revolution: The elusive emergence of an agenda in international relations. Review of International Studies, 28(2), 271–291. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210502002711 Parsa, M. (2000). States, ideologies, and social revolutions. Cambridge University Press. Pettee, G. (1938). The process of revolution. Harper and Row. Pettee, G. (1966). Revolution—Typology and process. In C. J. Friedrich (Ed.), Revolution: Yearbook of the American society for political and legal philosophy (pp. 10–33). Atherton Press. Polyakova, N. V. (2014). “Zakon Termidora”: Traditsii i novatsii. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Seriya 6. Politologiya. Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 3, 98–106. Rasler, K. (1996). Concessions, repression, and political protest in the Iranian revolution. American Sociological Review, 61, 132–152. https://doi.org/10.2307/2096410 Rozov, N. (2022). Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 241–264). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_9 Sanderson, S. K. (2010). Revolutions. A Worldwide introduction to social and political contention (2nd ed.). Routledge. Shevsky, D. (2022). Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 851–863). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_32 Shults, E. E. (2016). Teoriya revolyutsii. Revolyutsii i sovremennye tsivilizatsii. LENAND. Skocpol, T. (1979). States and social revolutions. Cambridge University Press. Skocpol, T., & Trimberger, E. K. (1994). Revolutions and the world-historical development of capitalism. In T. Skocpol (Ed.), Social revolution in the modern world. Cambridge University Press. Snyder, R. (1998). Paths out of Sultanistic regimes: Combining structural and voluntarist perspectives. In H. E. Chehabi & J. J. Linz (Eds.), Sultanistic Regimes (pp. 49–81). Johns Hopkins University Press. Sorokin, P. (1925). The sociology of revolution. Lippincott. Sorokin, P. A. (1992a). Chelovek. Tsivilizatsiya. Obshchestvo. Politizdat. Sorokin, P. A. (1992b). Sotsiologiya revolyutsii. In P. A. Sorokin (Ed.), Chelovek. Tsivilizatsii. Obschestvo (pp. 266–294) Starikov, N. (2014). Admiral Kolchak. Protokoly doprosa. Piter, Saint Petersburg. The Diaries … (1991). Dnevniki imperatora Nikolaya II. ORBITA.

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Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. Tilly, C. (1986). Does modernization breed revolution? In J. A.Goldstone (Ed.), Revolutions: Theoretical, comparative, and historical studies (pp. 47–57). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Tilly, C. (1996). European revolutions, 1492–1992. Blackwell. Tkachuk, M., Romanchuk, A., Timotin, I. (2022). ‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The atypical ‘revolution’ of April 7 and the days that followed. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 549–569). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_21 Trotskiy, L. D. (1935). Rabochee gosudarstvo, termidor i bonapartizm. Byulleten’ oppozitsii (bol’shevikov-lenintsev) 43. In L. D. Trotskiy (Ed.), Protiv Stalina: dvenadtsat’ let oppozitsii (Stat’i, rechi i pis’ma L. Trotskogo iz “Byulletenya oppozitsii”, iyul’ 1929—avgust 1941). http:// magister.msk.ru/library/trotsky/trotm235.htm Tsygankov, V. (2022) Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 265– 279). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_10 Ustryalov, N. (1921). Patriotica. Smena vekh: sb. Praga. http://lib.ru/POLITOLOG/USTRYALOV/ patriotica.txt Veblen, T. (1973 [1899]). The theory of the leisure class: An economic study of institutions. Houghton Mifflin. Vekhi. (1909). Sbornik statey o russkoy intelligentsii. http://imwerden.de/pdf/vehi_1909.pdf Walton, J. (1984). Reluctant rebels: Comparative studies of revolution and underdevelopment. Columbia University Press. Weede, E. (1987). Some new evidence on correlates of political violence: Income inequality, regime repressiveness, and economic development. European Sociological Review, 3, 97–108. https:// doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.esr.a036448 Wickham-Crowley, T. (1989). Winners, losers, and also-rans: Toward a comparative sociology of Latin American guerrilla movements. In S. Eckstein (Ed.), Power and popular protest: Latin American social movements (pp. 132–181). Univ. Calif. Womack, J. (1968). Zapata and the Mexican revolution. Knopf.

Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor of the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology.

Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev

The paths to democracy in history have been difficult and complicated; there have been many social battles on this road. The history of the movement towards democracy demonstrates to us that the expansion of democratic rights and freedoms was slow, and every step forward required active action. In England, for example, already after the revolutions of the seventeenth century and changes in the political system in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, five major reforms in the field of electoral rights were still required in order to reach universal and equal suffrage (three reforms in the nineteenth century: in 1832, 1867, and 1884–1885, and two reforms in the twentieth century: in 1918 and 1928). But, it seems, it was this gradualness that determined the firmness of the democratic regime in this country. It is no accident that in democratic countries with a stable and effective consolidated democracy, as a rule, there are no revolutions (Goodwin, 2001: 277). Of course, this does not mean that there never can be. One cannot exclude the possibility that in the twenty-first century they will become a reality [this issue is discussed in the last chapters of this monograph,1 see also the debate between Goodwin (2001) and Selbin (2001)]. But so far, revolutions have occurred in countries with authoritarian regimes or non-consolidated democracy. Why? Apparently, firstly, because democracy creates conditions for a regular change of power. What is a revolution? L. Grinin (B) · A. Korotayev HSE University, Moscow, Russia Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia 1

See Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022f), Chapter “Global Inequality and World Revolutions: Past, Present and Future” (Chase-Dunn & Nagy, 2022), and Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) in the present book. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4

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This is primarily a change of power (very often a particular ruler or government, towards which discontent is directed). But if they can be changed in 2–3–4 years (depending on how many are left before the elections), is it worth striving for illegitimate change? Secondly, the ideological factor prevents revolutions in consolidated democracies. Namely, the conviction that there is nothing better than democracy, because a better system for the rotation of power has not yet been invented. Thirdly, a consolidated democracy is linked to the notion of legitimacy. Accordingly, a habit is developed for legitimate democratic change of power or legitimate pressure on it.2 Thus, consolidated democracy prevents revolutions. This statement, as a rule, is not questioned. And this chapter is not devoted to it. Rather, we will be interested in other problems. In particular: is the reverse idea true—that the path to effective democracy lies through revolutions? How often are revolution and democracy causally related? Why, after many revolutions, did dictatorial regimes arise and endure for a long time? The present chapter analyzes the relationships between revolution, democracy and the level of stability in unstable sociopolitical systems.

1 The Problems and Contradictions of Young Democratic Societies There is a widespread opinion that globalization contributes to the spread of democracy. Besides, there is a conviction, which is more widespread among politicians and ideologists than among scholars, that democracy contributes to faster and/or more widespread economic growth. The following quotation passionately expresses this conviction: “For the past three decades, globalization, human rights, and democracy have been marching forward together, haltingly, not always and everywhere in step, but in a way that unmistakably shows they are interconnected. By encouraging globalization in less developed countries, we not only help to raise growth rates and incomes, promote higher standards, and feed, clothe, and house the poor; we also spread political and civil freedoms” (Griswold, 2006). In this context, many supporters of democracy consider it extremely disappointing that at times democracy does not work properly and consequently the waves of democratization get weaker. Samuel Huntington (1993) called the period of a rapid spread of democracy in the 1970s—early 1990s “the third wave of democratization”. On the threshold of the twenty-first century, many researchers noted that the number of democratic regimes ceased to grow and that it would be a dangerous intellectual temptation for the democrats to consider that the world is inevitably moving towards some final natural democratic state (see Diamond, 1999, 2004, 2008). In this context, the trend has strengthened which promotes democracy in all countries with non-democratic or partially democratic regimes. This trend, on the one hand, is based on the global geopolitical goals of the USA and the West (see, e.g., 2

The fact that Ukrainians did not wait a year before the elections to legitimately change the president, suggests that citizens did not have an idea of legitimacy and the right order.

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Brzezinski, 1998), and on the other hand, relies upon the active support of a broad ideological and informal movement. And this justifies the efforts to support democracy and to encourage democratic opposition for the purpose of increasing chances of victory of democracy in case of the crisis of authoritarian regimes (Diamond, 2004). In Beissinger’s words, “democratic revolution has come to the center of attention within the American government and democracy-promoting NGOs as a strategy for democratization” (2007: 259). He notes that “foreign democracy-promoting NGOs were not a significant part of the Portuguese Revolution, the ‘People Power’ revolutions of East Asia, or the 1989 revolutions in East Europe. But under the influence of the civil society communities that they serve and their government funders, and often under pressure from repressive states themselves, a number of Americanbased NGOs (Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the Soros Foundation) have quietly come to embrace more confrontational modes of fostering change, even while seeking to promote democratic evolution from within” (Beissinger, 2007: 261–262). The problems of young democracies have been known for a rather long time (see, e.g., Aron, 1965). In what follows we are going to reconsider these problems. Unfortunately, in recent decades politicians and some scholars have forgotten that young democracies are not simply imperfect; some of their characteristics may become dangerous for the countries’ development. As a result, in the last two decades most experiments to establish democracies by revolutions beyond Europe have been hardly successful. Moreover, they have led to drastic consequences in a number of countries including the Arab Spring countries.3 Inglehart and Welzel note that “the Third Wave [of democratization] gave birth to a large number of new democracies that were initially greeted with enthusiasm (Fukuyama, 1992; Pye, 1990). Subsequently, however, a growing number of observers have noted that many of the new democracies show severe deficiencies in their actual practice of civil and political liberties (Ottaway, 2003). Widespread concern has been expressed about ‘low intensity democracies’, ‘electoral democracies’, ‘defective democracy’, or ‘illiberal democracies’ (Bollen & Paxton, 1997; Collier & Adcock, 1999; Merkel et al., 2003; O’Donnell et al., 2004). Many writers emphasize the need to distinguish between merely formal democracy or electoral democracy and genuinely effective liberal democracy (see, e.g., Gills & Rocamora, 1992; O’Donnell, 1996; Bunce, 2000; Heller, 2000; Rose, 1995). Using this distinction, a crucial point becomes evident. Formal democracy can be imposed on almost any society, but whether it provides genuine autonomous choice to its citizens largely depends on mass values”. (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005: 149)

Undoubtedly, the trend of globalization was connected to the growing number of democratic regimes (about the last period see Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” (Selbin, 2022) in 3

See Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022) in this book; see also Grinin et al., 2019.

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this book. However, the connection between democratization and economic success is not that evident as many new democratic regimes failed to advance substantially either in the economic or social spheres. That is why the intervention and propagation of democracy arouses much criticism. Besides, an increasing number of people support the idea that people should create their own democratic models which can significantly differ from the Western model (Weinstein, 2001: 414). Thus, we suppose that some delay in the spread of democracy in the 2000s and 2010s was due to the formation of rather successful economic models of development which do not require democracy and even contradict it. Hence, in practice the relationship between democratic governance and economic growth is not all that simple as the political philosophers, political scientists and politicians used to think. First of all, an explicit connection between a democratic regime and economic success is not always present; one could even say that it is present in the minority of cases. There are rather few studies which clearly demonstrate such a connection especially with respect to emerging democracies, but at the same time there are abundant works that prove the opposite (see Polterovich & Popov, 2007).4 On the contrary, in most cases it is precisely the authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes that achieve considerable economic success, as they can better concentrate resources and invest (Ibid.). Of course, the most telling example here is China, where authoritarian rule is the basis for economic progress. Such countries as Singapore, Vietnam and Kazakhstan are also rather illuminating examples, as well as Egypt and Tunisia before the Arab Spring events (the cases of South Korea, Taiwan and Chile, which are also relevant here, will be discussed below). A successful economic development may contribute to the political transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Griswold (2006) claims the following: In the past two decades, a number of economies have followed the path of economic and trade reform leading to political reform. South Korea and Taiwan as recently as the 1980s were governed by authoritarian regimes that did not permit much open dissent. Today, after years of expanding trade and rising incomes, both are multiparty democracies with full political and civil liberties.

In fact, such transitions from authoritarianism to democracy did clearly occur. But one can hardly describe their way to democracy as a quick and easy one. Besides, it is important to keep in mind that such countries as Taiwan, South Korea and Chile achieved their main economic breakthroughs right under the governance of authoritarian regimes. And it is far from certain that if a political democracy had been immediately established there (or preserved as in case with Chile) that these countries would have shown the outstanding results at the onset of their economic rise 4

Even the UN Report stated that there is no direct relationship between democracy and economic growth (UNDP, 2002). It is also noted that the total effect of democracy on the economic growth can be characterized as weakly negative (see Barro, 1996). In addition, in Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume) we note that studies of the third and fourth generation of the modern revolutionary theories show that revolutions are more likely to hamper than promote democracy and economic growth (Eckstein, 1982, 1986; Gurr, 1988; Zimmermann, 1990; Haggard & Kaufman, 1995; Weede & Muller, 1997: see also Grinin, 2021a, 2012b, 2013, 2017a, 2017b; Ginin & Korotayev, 2014, 2016).

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(we can suppose that this would not have come true). Finally, there are many examples when a rapid transition to democracy leads to economic (and often associated social) decline, as well as to hard times in these countries’ histories. Rather tragic events occurred in the development of the former USSR and a number of socialist countries among which Rumania and Bulgaria are only now recovering from their problems. The revolutions occurring in Ukraine under the banner of a great democratic enhancement have also exacerbated economic difficulties (after the period of economic growth—see Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” [Khodunov, 2022b] and Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” [Shevsky, 2022] in this book). Here we can conclude that ideology aimed at introducing democracy in countries with non-democratic or partly democratic regimes can bring drastic consequences for the people of those countries; the application of democratic ideology may not bring prosperity but on the contrary, can cost the country massive and unnecessary sacrifices (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). “Democracy above all” is a dangerous slogan, and the policy supporting the radicals and revolutionaries does not hold true from the point of welfare for those countries to which revolution is exported or where it is introduced. It was demonstrated quite some time ago that revolutions in general tend to impede rather than to promote the economic growth: “One might expect revolutions to unleash great energy for rebuilding economic systems, just as they lead to rebuilding of political institutions. Yet in fact this rarely if ever takes place. For the most part, long-term economic performance in revolutionary regimes lags behind that of comparable countries that have not experienced revolutions” (Goldstone, 2001: 168).5 Thus, one may conclude that there is generally a need for quite a long transitional period to democracy; and moreover, it may often turn out that an authoritarian or semi authoritarian regime is quite capable of such a transitional function. So, to evaluate a regime positively, one should estimate it not in terms of its concordance with democratic values, but in terms of its economic success and social orientation, as well as the efficiency of its state institutions contributing to order, stability, and secure and consistent policy implementation (on the particular importance of a strong order, state institutions efficiency see among others Liew, 2001; Barro, 2000; Polterovich & Popov, 2007). With a country’s economic advancement toward greater opportunities for people, such regimes are very likely to move toward larger liberalization. Here it is sufficient to encourage the regime’s actions contributing to liberalization but definitely not to rely on radical forces that can overthrow the regime under the banner of democracy, hurling a country into chaos. 5

See also Eckstein (1982, 1986), Zimmermann (1990), Haggard and Kaufman (1995), Weede and Muller (1997), Mau and Starodubrovskaia (2001), Grinin (2012a, 2013, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b), as well as Chapter “Revolutions and modernization traps” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022e), and Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022f) in this book.

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One should note that the context of globalization combined with the general recognition of people’s rights and the condemnation of violations of justice and law and with a demand for legitimacy (that is electivity) of government can by itself generate a positive trend and in certain respects restrain authoritarian rulers. With decreasing illiteracy and a growing population-wide self-consciousness which is necessarily accompanied with enlarging personal political experience, a non-revolutionary transition to democracy may proceed much easier, smoother and more effectively than the attempts to establish democracy through revolutionary ways. The present chapter makes an attempt to show different variants of a transition to democracy, to show the costs and political, economic and social perils of striving to establish democracy quickly and by radical means. We shall use examples from different countries and epochs, and start with the recent events in Egypt.6

2 Revolutions and Reactions The general mood in Egypt in July 2013 was exultant. The revolutionaries were also exultant and their slogans demanded true democracy. They were exultant because the Egyptian military had ousted the legitimately, publicly and democratically elected President. Why were the revolutionaries excited with the overthrow of the legitimately elected President? What was this? An absurdity, a paradox, a peculiarity of Egypt? No, this paradox is just a common and quite expected outcome of revolutionary events. So, the major issue to be discussed in the present chapter is whether the revolution and a democratic outcome are always closely related. “Every revolution ends in reaction. It is inevitable, it is a law” wrote the famous Russian thinker Nikolay Berdyaev (1990 [1923]: 29) who elaborated this profound idea through hard intellectual efforts and personal political experience. Of course, Berdyaev was limited by the historical background of the early twentieth century. The past and the present century have shown that the stability of democratic accomplishments of a revolution to a huge degree depends on the phase in which a society finds itself in its transition to modernization, on its cultural traditions, environment and a number of other factors. So successful democratic revolutions (or the reforms of a revolutionary kind) tend to happen in countries with a high level of sociocultural and economic development, and where a long period of fascination and disappointment in democracy (as well as cycles of democracy and authoritarianism) has already past; after such revolutions a rather stable democratic regime is established. One can set here as an example ‘the Velvet Revolution’ in what was then

6

For more details on those events see, e.g., Korotayev et al. (2016), Grinin et al. (2019).

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Czechoslovakia in 1989.7 Besides, such successful revolutions—‘glorious’, ‘velvet’ and usually non-violent—would proceed quite quickly. The history of such political overthrows starts from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, but the recent decades of human history have witnessed a large number of them (Goldstone, 2009; Ackerman & Karatnycky, 2005; Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; see also Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-Violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” [Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume]). However, if a society is not properly modernized (also in terms of demography—that is, if there is first of all a very high proportion of the youth in the total adult population of this society—the so-called “youth bulge”8 ), if the level of its economic development is low, if non-urban populations constitute a large share of the total population, if there are many illiterate people and the general level of the proliferation of modern education is low, if there is a strong influence of the traditionalists and so on, then ‘Berdayev’s Law’ of a revolution’s transformation into reaction9 has a large probability of coming true.10 7

In addition, scholars also tend to characterize as such some other revolutions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the 1986 Revolution in the Philippines, as well as the revolutionary reforms in South Africa in the early 1990s (about 1986 Revolution in the Philippines, the revolution analogue in South Africa in the early 1990s, and velvet revolutions in Eastern European nations in 1989–1991, including Czechoslovakia in 1989 see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this book]). For example, Jack A. Goldstone gives the following comment in reference to Gurr: “Until very recently, revolutions have invariably failed to produce democracy. The need to consolidate a new regime in the face of struggles with domestic and foreign foes has instead produced authoritarian regimes, often in the guise of populist dictatorships such as those of Napoleon, Castro, and Mao, or of one party states such as the PRI state in Mexico or the Communist Party-led states of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Indeed, the struggle required to take and hold power in revolutions generally leaves its mark in the militarized and coercive character of new revolutionary regimes (Gurr, 1988). It is therefore striking that in several recent revolutions—in the Philippines in 1986, in South Africa in 1990, in Eastern European nations in 1989–1991—the sudden collapse of the old regime has led directly to new democracies, often against strong expectations of reversion to dictatorship” (Goldstone, 2001: 168; see also Foran & Goodwin, 1993; Weitman, 1992; Pastor, 2001). However, Gurr’s idea that revolutions tend to fail to produce consolidated democracy is being confirmed in most revolutions of the twenty-first century. 8 The structural-demographic factors regularly generating social explosions in the modernization process are thoroughly investigated in our earlier publications (see, e.g., Goldstone, 1991, 2002, 2010, 2017; Korotayev et al., 2006; Korotayev & Khaltourina, 2006; Turchin & Korotayev, 2006, 2020; Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Korotayev et al., 2012; Grinin, 2010, 2011, 2012a, 2012b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a, 2012b; Korotayev et al., 2013; Korotayev et al., 2013a, 2013b, 2014a, 2014b, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c; Malkov et al., 2013; Korotayev, 2014; Zinkina & Korotayev, 2014a, 2014b; Korotayev et al., 2014a, 2014b; Ortmans et al., 2017; Korotayev et al., 2020, 2021c, Sawyer & Korotayev, 2021; Romanov et al., 2021); hence, we will not describe them here in detail. 9 Note that some modern political scientists denote such “reactions” as “autocratic/authoritarian backslides”, or “backslides into authoritarianism” (e.g., Alemán & Yang, 2011; Bayer et al., 2016; Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011). 10 It is worthwhile to mention that after the French revolution there emerged the term Thermidor, which later was used to denote the phase in some revolutions when the political pendulum swings back, the revolutionary radicalism steps back and a less radical revolutionary regime

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These points are supported by numerous recent publications dedicated to the study of the outcomes of the so called “maximalist campaigns” (Ackerman & Karatnycky, 2005; Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008; Johnstad, 2010; Stradiotto & Guo, 2010; Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013; Bayer et al., 2016; Butcher & Svensson, 2016; Kim & Kroeger, 2019; see also Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-Violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” [Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume]). Following Ackerman and Kruegler (1994: 10–11). Chenoweth and Stephan (2011: 14) define “campaign” as “a series of observable, continual, purposive mass tactics in pursuit of a political objective.” What is more, the above-mentioned studies consider campaigns “with goals that are perceived as maximalist (fundamentally altering the political order); …we deliberately choose campaigns with goals commonly perceived to be maximalist in nature: regime change, antioccupation, and secession” (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011: 68). Thus, the abovementioned works study “series of observable, continual, purposive mass tactics in pursuit of fundamentally altering the political order: regime change, antioccupation, and secession”. Let us recollect that in this chapter (as well as in this book as a whole) we rely on such definitions of revolution as “a revolution is a collective mobilization that attempts to quickly and forcibly overthrow an existing regime in order to transform political, economic, and symbolic relations” (Lawson, 2019: 5); “anti-government (very often illegal) mass actions (mass mobilization) with the following aims: (1) to overthrow or replace the existing government within a certain period of time; (2) to seize power or to provide conditions for coming to power; (3) to make significant changes in the regime, social or political institutions”,11 or “an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities” (Goldstone, 2001: 142). Thus, we find that “maximalist campaigns” are just nothing else but revolutions (including national liberation ones); hence, the abovementioned works actually study revolutions (rather oddly denoted as “campaigns”). This point is further supported by the fact that Chenoweth’s database of Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) designates as “campaigns” all the indisputable revolutions since 1900—including Russian revolutions of 1905–1907 and 1917, Constitutional Revolution in Iran, Xinhai Revolution in China, Mexican Revolution of 1910–1917 and so on (Chenoweth & Shay, 2020). In our opinion such a substitution of notions not only does not help us in deeper studying the situations of revolutionary destabilization, but obscures it. In fact, this substitution throws away (without is established which gradually reduces the revolutionary excesses [for more detail see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume); see also Grinin, 2017a, 2017b]. So, the Berdayev’s Law can also be named the revolutionary phase of Thermidorian Reaction or we can use a political term widely used by Russian political scientists—the Thermidor Law. In fact, Crane Brinton talked about Universality of Thermidorian Reaction (1965: 205–207). 11 See Chapter “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) and Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022s) in this book.

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any grounds) the achievements of all the four (or five) generations of revolutionary theory (surveyed, e.g., in Goldstone, 1980, 2001; Lawson, 2016, 2019; See also Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022s) in this book). However, the results of the abovementioned studies on the outcomes of “maximalist campaigns” turn out to be perfectly relevant for our understanding of the outcomes of revolutions. Against this background, it is highly remarkable that the main finding of the abovementioned studies (supported by a number of rather rigorous tests on the basis of a very wide range of worldwide empirical data) is that violent revolutions (“campaigns”) are very unlikely to lead to the formation of stable democratic regimes, whereas this is much more probable as a result of nonviolent revolutions (Ackerman & Karatnycky, 2005; Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008; Johnstad, 2010; Stradiotto & Guo, 2010; Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013; Bayer et al., 2016; Kim & Kroeger, 2019; see also Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-Violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” [Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume]). It is also highly remarkable that many of these studies identify a higher level of economic development (operationalized usually through the GDP per capita indicator) as a factor making a democratic outcome of revolutions significantly more likely (see, e.g., Celestino & Gleditsch, 2013: 393; Bayer et al., 2016: 766; Kadivar & Ketchley, 2018: 8; see also Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-Violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” [Rasler et al., 2022: Tables 5–6, in this volume]). Bayer et al., (2016: 766)12 also identify as such a factor a higher level of urbanization.13 Against this background, it is a bit surprising that there seems to be only one systematic quantitative global cross-national study of factors of violent vs. nonviolent revolutions (Butcher & Svensson, 2016). And some of the findings of this paper appear quite relevant. Of special importance is that Butcher and Svensson (2016: 324–325) show that the likelihood of onset of nonviolent revolutions (but not violent ones) increases significantly with the increase of the level of education (operationalized through average years of schooling) of the population of a respective country. Of course, in conjunction with the abovementioned finding that the nonviolent revolutions are more likely to lead to a stable democracy than the violent ones are, this suggests that in a country with a very highly educated population a revolution is quite likely to lead to the establishment of a stable democracy; but, on the other hand, this implies that in a country with a very poorly educated population a revolution is much more likely to be violent and, thus, is very unlikely to produce a democratic outcome. Note also a recent study by Cincotta and Weber (2021) who demonstrate that violent revolutions are significantly more likely in countries with a very high proportion of the youth in the total adult population of this society—the so-called 12

See also Chenoweth & Ulfelder (2017: 316). Note that another factor making a democratic outcome of revolutions significantly more likely has been identified by a number of studies as a high proportion of neighboring states that are democracies (the so called “democratic neighborhood” factor) (Celestino & Gleditsch 2013: 393; Bayer et al., 2016: 766).

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“youth bulge”. This finding is very congruent with our research on demographic structural factors of revolutions.14 In conjunction with the results of the studies surveyed above, this suggests that countries with younger population (which are mainly lowincome, less educated and less urbanized) are more likely to have violent revolutions and less likely to establish stable democracies, while countries with older population (mainly more economically developed, more educated, and more urbanized) are more likely to have non-violent revolutions and to establish democracies. There is clearly a cluster of variables—mean age, income, education, urbanization—which move mostly together and create characteristic patterns of revolutionary action and outcomes. It is also important to emphasize that the less developed a society and the weaker its statehood traditions are, the greater are the chances that the throwback will be not to a reactionary regime but to chaos without strong and responsible government and to violent civil war. The cases in point are Libya, Yemen and Syria.15 The revolution in Afghanistan in 1978 led to its destabilization which has lasted for more than four decades. Such revolutions can turn states into failed ones. Only the revolutions which occur at the very end of the modernization and transformation waves (including the recurrent revolutions) can appear relatively low-cost in social terms, i.e. ‘velvet’, and unequivocally progressive. We suppose also that countries that have had an experience of democracy in their history have more chances to establish real democracy after the period of autocracy than those that have not had such an experience. For example, if we compare the ways of the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) which were democratic countries for at least some part of the interbellum period, on the one hand, and the Kyrgyz state that have never had an effective democracy before 1991, on the other hand, we can see different results. The former are stable democracies and the latter is caught up in the revolutionary trap and tends to change presidents not by elections, but by revolutions (about the Kyrgyz revolutions see Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” [Ivanov, 2022, in this volume]).16 So the former democratic experience might also be very important for the prediction of a revolutionary outcome. Among the revolutions which trigger sociopolitical breakdown and transformations, among the most productive might be the failed ones (although it may seem unexpected). Having prevented the society from complete collapse, such revolutions become the drivers forcing the governments to reform political and social systems; moreover, since governments receive a certain ‘vaccination’ of the fear of revolution, 14

See, e.g., Goldstone (1991, 2002, 2010, 2017), Grinin (2012a; 2012b; 2010, 2011), Grinin and Korotayev (2012a; 2012b), Korotayev and Zinkina (2011a; 2011b; 2011c), Korotayev et al. (2011), Korotayev et al., (2012), Korotayev (2014), etc. 15 See Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), and Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022) in this book; see also Issaev et al., (2018), Grinin et al. (2019), Korotayev et al. (2021b). 16 About the falling of such countries into the revolutionary traps see Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al. ,2022b) and Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022f) in this book.

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they are often pushed to further reforms (as it happened during Bismarck’s rule in Germany). This was the case with the revolutions of 1848–1849, which led to the emergence of capitalism and democracy in the European states (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin 2022c, in this volume]). And, by the way, after the fright experienced by the Austrian monarchy during the Hungarian revolution of 1849, the defeat in the war with Prussia in 1866 forced it, without waiting for a new revolutionary outbreak, to turn the Austrian empire into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which allowed it to exist for another half a century. That was the case of the Russian Revolution in 1905–1907 which gave a powerful impetus to the country’s development including its parliamentary system. Should the country have passed through another such failed revolution the government would have been forced to continue reforms including those in the sphere of forcible delineation of landowners’ lands, as well as in the sphere of ethnic relations and other political and economic reforms. Then the country would have chosen a more peaceful path of development (yet, in retrospective, one may suggest that the Great Depression of the 1930s, with falling bread prices, could have made it very difficult for Russia to develop without a social crisis in almost any case).

3 Why Is the Path to Sustainable Democracy so Hard? The path to a stable and sustainable democracy is rather long and complicated.17 In any case, it requires a certain level of society’s economic, social and cultural development. Let us emphasize again that liberal democracy is not likely to endure long in those countries with large shares of uneducated and rural population, and with low living standards (see, e.g., Przeworski & Limongi, 1997). Modernization in (more or less large) countries always proceeds unevenly (see Chapter “Revolutions and modernization traps” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2012b, 2013, 2014, 2016; Korotayev et al., 2017, 2018). As a result, in modernizing countries a rather modernized ‘core’ is formed while the periphery remains rather weakly modernized and prone to conservatism with the majority of population living in this condition. In this context, it turns out that revolutionaries (who claim to care for the people), regularly become disappointed in the people and the people’s conservatism, and in that at some point the people start voting in a way different from the liberals and radicals’ expectations (see, e.g., Korotayev et al., 2015b, 2015c) preferring order and stability, and also preferring familiar and clear forms of government to some unfamiliar political and ideological appeals. Moreover, the people 17

Both in a particular country and in the world in general. It may seem paradoxical but in 1990, democratic regimes were established in approximately 45.4 per cent of independent countries of the world, that is almost the same rate as it was seventy years earlier in 1922 (Huntington, 1993). On some factors affecting the genesis of democratic institutions see also, e.g., Korotayev and Bondarenko (2000), Bondarenko and Korotayev (2000), Korotayev (2003a; 2003b), Korotayev and Cardinale (2003).

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would prefer solid material gains to superficially ethereal freedoms. Stable democracy requires that citizens should take time to gain their own political experiences of several generations, to gradually emancipate their own consciousness, and to support cultural-humanitarian development, so that freedoms and democracy would receive the status of the values that are precious to the majority.18 One should also realize that the stability of democracy does not depend on to what extent a constitution is democratic but on how political institutions and actors coordinate with each other and are ready to play the democratic game. An outstanding French sociologist Raymond Aron fairly notes in his profound study Democracy and Totalitarianism that “the stability and efficiency are supported not by the constitutional rules as such, but by their harmony with the party system, with the nature of parties, their programs, and political conceptions” (Aron, 1993: 125). This naturally takes much time to achieve. Similar ideas on high requirements to society, its leaders and bureaucracy, were also pronounced by Schumpeter (1995: 378–385). In particular, he argues that for a successful functioning of the democratic system “the human material of politics” (that is people who operate the party machines, work in the executive branch, and take part in broader political life) “should be of sufficiently high quality”; it is necessary that the bureaucracy should also be of high quality and have a developed sense of duty and esprit (this notion will naturally exclude corruption and nepotism). “Democratic self-control” is also needed (Ibid.). Let us cite once more Inglehart and Welzel: “Democracy is not simply the result of clever elite bargaining and constitutional engineering. It depends on deep-rooted orientations among the people themselves. These orientations motivate them to demand freedom and responsive government—and to act to ensure that the governing elites remain responsive to them. Genuine democracy is not simply a machine that, once set up, functions by itself. It depends on the people” (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005: 2). In other words, it is not enough if a revolution introduces democracy by force. There should be present the institutions and social groups supporting them that will endeavor to reproduce the democratic system. Meanwhile, the revolutionary trajectories (as we show below) often lead just to the authoritarian and violent means. Thus, the people (or the majority of people) can eventually and unconsciously betray the ideas of revolution and the very notion of democracy. On the other hand, the population’s sensible pragmatism can prove to be wiser than the educated radical and revolutionary minority’s lofty ideals and aspirations. Then people will by intuition choose a leader who (with all his/her drawbacks, vices and egoism) will generally 18

This means that one should first achieve the cultural-humanitarian level allowing a true democratic transformation, namely, there should be present an intellectual stratum, a certain level of borrowings from the world culture, and certain political forms. But to establish democracy an even higher cultural-humanitarian level is needed as well as a dramatic change in social and economic situation (see, e.g., Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). Besides, democracy is not just an idea but a mode of life; and to take root it should become a really important part of everyday life. But since in newly democratic states the idea of democracy is quickly discredited, it fails to become a constituent of everyday life. Here we observe a vicious circle which can be broken only after several attempts and under certain social and economic conditions.

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choose for the country a moderate and more appropriate course (diverging in the most important aspects from the previous pre-revolutionary policy but at the same time not longing to implement the revolutionary slogans at all accounts). Napoleon III’s activity serves a quite typical example here.19 There are many other such examples.20 But at the same time (as we witness this today in some Near Eastern countries) it can happen that even the revolutionary minority itself that previously strived for power under the banner of establishing democracy can give up on democratic principles. Thus, the conservative majority can turn out to be more democratically-oriented. And this is not surprising. As already stated, in the process of modernization, a country’s core is modernized more quickly and thus, the ‘liberal-revolutionary’ minority in ‘capitals’ turns out to be surrounded by the conservative, not to say ‘counterrevolutionary’, majority of provinces (e.g., Grinin, 2012b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2016; Korotayev et al., 2015b, 2015c). Against this background, the increasing adherence to democracy on the side of the conservative (‘reactionary’) majority is quite natural as with fair elections they have good chances to come to power through an absolutely democratic procedure. Meanwhile, among the revolutionary (‘progressive’) minority the adherence to democratic ideals can be undermined, as for them fair elections are likely to end with defeat. Even with an election falsification in the societies where democracy appears restricted through the manipulation of the “party in power”, quite a large share of society or even its majority is loyal to power (even if they are discontented with something) and consequently, conservative. The rulers can win even fair elections but certainly with less advantage than with a faked vote (with 80–90% of votes). Put another way, in theory they could do without vote falsification but here 19

In December, 1848 Louis Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon I, was elected the President of the French Republic, which was formed as a result of the February revolution of 1848. He was elected by the French peasants, while the Parisians responsible for the revolution were against him. His further career is extremely interesting in terms of the relationship between revolution and democracy. On the one hand, he betrayed the Republic, having made a military coup on December 2, 1851. A year later he became the Emperor Napoleon III, which, as one can see, was quite logical and typical for the life cycle of revolution. But on the other hand, he also applied democratic methods. Thus, the extension of his mandate for ten years was approved by the referendum on December 21, 1851 (it took place three weeks after the coup). Later, the transformation of the presidency into monarchy was approved by the referendum on November 21, 1852. In both referenda Louis Bonaparte’s actions were approved by an overwhelming majority of votes. Thus, one can see a contradiction between the liberal French capital, aspiring to a liberal and democratic republic and a conservative French village that yearned for a strong imperial hand. If the revolution had introduced limited suffrage, the urban residents could have won; meanwhile, universal suffrage gave the advantage to the conservatives. The same dilemma between universal democracy and the strife for a higher-level democracy exists in Muslim countries, where secular forces are consistently a minority (for more detail see Grinin, 2019a, 2020a, 2020b; Grinin et al., 2019). The same refers to a number of countries with an authoritarian regime outside the Islamic world. 20 One can also recall that during the elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly the principal Russian liberal party (the Constitutional Democrats) whose main objective was just to establish a system of universal, direct, equal, and secret polls, during the first Russian truly universal, direct, equal, and secret poll only got a tiny minority of votes, whereas the majority of votes were won by the peasant-oriented party of “Socialist Revolutionaries” (however, as is well known, this did not prevent the political power in Russia from being grabbed by a third political party that also got a minority of votes—the Bolsheviks).

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this system of “controlled democracy” starts operating in its own way and forces the local authorities to demonstrate their loyalty, because an unconvincing majority at the elections is considered as a motion of no confidence to an authoritarian ruler. Returning to the issue of a correlation between revolution and democracy, one can remember that the brilliant politician Vladimir Lenin emphasized that ‘the key question of every revolution is undoubtedly the question of state power’ (Lenin, 1958 [1917]: 145). At the early stages of modernization, the revolutionaries who are too devoted to their initial slogans inevitably fail, because their appeals, although being attractive and inspiring for the masses, are still unrealizable under existing conditions. That is why the logic of revolution either makes the revolutionaries in power ignore democracy and even suppress it (as it happened when the Bolsheviks illegitimately terminated the democratically elected Russian Constituent Assembly), thus continuing the escalation of violence; or those who are too devoted to democratic revolutionary ideals are substituted (in a non-democratic and less frequently, in a democratic way) by those who are less democracy-driven but are more prone to radicalism, to the deepening of forced changes and in reinforcing power for themselves. The history of the French Revolution of 1789–1799 and Napoleon serves here as a classical example.

4 Minority and Majority in Revolutions Pitirim Sorokin, who studied the history and typology of multiple revolutions in the ancient world (note that in Greek poleis and Roman civitas intense socio-political struggle between citizens for power and rights was much more frequent than peaceful periods21 ) pointed out that famine and/or a war often trigger a revolution (Sorokin, 1992, 1994). Lenin also considered the “aggravation of the masses’ distresses below usual levels” as one of the main characteristics of the revolutionary situation (Lenin, 1958 [1917]). However, more recent research demonstrates something different: revolutions are often preceded by a rather long period of growth of living standards (see, e.g., Davies, 1969; Grinin et al. 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2016; Grinin 2012a, 2013, 2017a, 2017b; Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev et al. 2011; Korotayev, Khodunov et al., 2012; on the Egyptian revolution see Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; see also Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume]). But such a growth often combines with exactly the same and sometimes with even larger increase of social inequality and stratification (see, e.g., Olson, 1963; Huntington, 1968). This 21

For example, in Athens since Solon’s times there operated a law that claimed that when the city was torn by civil strife everyone who refused to join one of the warring sides and place his arms at the disposal of either side would be deprived of civil rights (see Aristotle 8.5; Kautsky, 1931: 334–335). The situation of civil strife was called stasis (for details about it see Finley, 1984a, 1984b; van der Vliet, 2005; Berent, 1998). About the peculiarities of ancient democracies, the overthrows of power and civil strife in them see also Grinin (2004a, 2004b).

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increases social tensions in society and brings to life the idea that the living standard achieved by a part of population should become the majority’s property. At the same time, the modernization of society brings the formation of a more or less large stratum of intellectuals (and students/recent graduates as its ‘striking force’) who strive for higher (adequate to their education level) living standards but, naturally, the number of lucrative positions is always limited. These topics will be discussed in more detail in Chapter “Revolution and modernization traps” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume). Now we will consider in what way the above-discussed trend is related to the issue of democracy. First of all, democracy can become the opposition’s key idea, a magic wand that is thought to help to solve social problems (naturally implying that democracy is a system that will inevitably bring the “right leaders”, that is the oppositionists, to power). And since a rigid regime is in power (principally non-democratic or usurping of that power) and naturally resists the quick establishment of democracy, then to overthrow this regime becomes a goal in itself. This regime embodies society’s every evil (which is expected to disappear with the fall of the regime). The regime is claimed to have no positive, valuable, and advanced characteristics (everything positive made by the regime is supposed to happen all by itself or it is even spoiled by the regime without which this good would have been even better). However, in spite of the widespread frustration in society, the ideas of democracy actually penetrate the minds of only a part of the population which often represents neither the society’s majority nor even a significant minority. For most people who have a limited cultural intelligence and relatively narrow outlook, democracy is a mere word (or something established by someone but not necessary for the population to take part in).22 Under certain circumstances, the ideology-driven minority attracts the majority which is indifferent to democracy (to democracy but not to personal problems) and in this case a revolutionary situation can arise under these circumstances. But from this specific position, it is a long way to a strong democracy. Here it is appropriate to reflect on the correlation between the revolutionary minority and the majority within different contexts. The revolutionary minority is strong in its activity, persistence, ability to self-organize for joint actions, etc. That is what brings it to the fore of the political scene of revolution; it is ahead and at first seems to represent the whole society. Besides, the radicals/liberals genuinely believe that they are the society, their aspirations are necessary for the society (here the logic that anyone who is against “us” is the enemy of revolution works; who is not with 22

The voting abstention in both full and partial democracies (even when the mass voter turnout could be decisive) is quite a typical example. Moreover, a large number of voters (especially among the young) almost simultaneously with the right of voting get a steady diet of ideological skepticism. Why voting? What is the use of it? Nothing will ever change. My vote means nothing. On the other hand, there is some truth in this skepticism. The other part of the population is accustomed to voting (“they say we should, then we will vote”), but also not for the sake of reasonable voting. In any case, it is beyond question that the skepticism of one part of population and the promptness of the other part have been to the advantage of the party in power. This example explains how political apathy may in a democratic way support certain forces in power. Karl Kautski called such masses involved in voting “the political flock of sheep”.

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us is against us). If the revolutions are “superficial” and do not establish universal democracy (as was the case in Latin America occasionally or Spain in the nineteenth century), then the greater part of population stays out of politics. The revolutions are made by a rather numerous segment of population, which is still a minority. Here, by the way, originates one of the most important causes of instability of revolutionary governments, since the masses would quite indifferently witness their overthrow. But if a fair (without falsifications) suffrage is immediately introduced, then the relationship between the revolutionary minority and the majority can significantly change. In such a new situation, the latter actually becomes democratic, but paradoxically it may still continue to be unconvinced of the value of democracy. The example of Egypt proved this rather well. Against the background of meetings and exultation one can really think that all the people expected radical changes in the spirit of Western democratic and liberal ideology, but it turned out that the major part of the population had rather different values. However, in certain specific situations the democratic system can actually turn profitable to the conservative (“reactionary”) majority, and thus it becomes more popular with them (the voting for Trump in 2016 and even 2020 is also a remarkable example in this respect [see Grinin, 2020c; Grinin & Korotayev, 2021b]); meanwhile, this movement toward democracy loses supporters among the revolutionary (“progressive”) minority who strived for power under democratic slogans. There can be no doubt that the revolutionaries’ activity, their good organization, propaganda and persistence also play a great part at elections, but still it is less than it used to be when organizing meetings and revolutionary actions. Outcries will not lead to an easy victory. The defeat of the revolutionaries to a great extent is caused by their internal disagreements (which could seem quite unimportant for an external observer but crucial for the parties themselves). As a result of such a turn, the democratic elections, for whose sake the revolution is actually undertaken, seem to bring victory to conservative forces and with this conservative victory comes the moment of truth. What is more important for the revolutionaries: the democratic ideals or the revolution proper, that is, a constant overthrow and escalation of changes in society? The challenge is solved in different ways by different parties in different countries and situations. Some political forces are unable to reconsider the situation and diverge from their absolutes. Thus, the Mensheviks (Social Democrats) during the Civil War in Russia hesitated to join either the Whites or the Reds (the Bolsheviks), and disappeared as a political force by 1922. But quite frequently it is just the revolutionary leadership (for the sake of rather vague revolutionary principles but with an ultimate urge for power) that becomes of utmost importance. In recent decades, one considers as faked votes any defeat at elections where radicals who previously overthrew the government (or forced it to conduct free elections) failed to win elections (when the hated government actually gives them such an opportunity). The examples of the “color revolutions” in post-Soviet states,

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in Serbia and other countries prove this rather well.23 Thereafter, the revolutionaries insisted on a solution by force. The logic is that it is not democracy proper that is of utmost importance but rather that the opponent defeated at any cost.24 This logic is quite clear and explicable. But this is the point where revolution and democracy diverge. In short, in a society with uncertain democratic values the following principle works: “We will support democracy if our candidate wins elections. If he does not, we do not need such a democracy”.25 The ability to lose elections, to acknowledge the value of rules of democratic game irrespective of who comes to power, to wait for next elections and to work hard to win—these are actually essential signs of social readiness for democracy. Since revolutions often occur in societies unprepared for democracy, it often happens that at early and intermediate stages of modernization the pathways of democracy and revolution eventually diverge. Their conjunction at relatively early stages is an exception rather than a rule. Of course, as we said above, we remember ‘velvet revolutions’ in Czechoslovakia, some other Eastern European countries, etc. Clearly, it is highly desirable that all revolutions follow the same scenario. However, as has been said previously, at initial stages of modernization this can be hardly realized, as “velvet” revolutions are observed already at the end of a long-lasting social and political development. Speaking about difficult and often bloody revolutions, on the one hand, and relatively light, “velvet” revolutions, on the other, one can recall that John Dunn wrote that the revolution, like the Roman god Janus, has two faces. One face is elegant and humane, the other is rude and violent (Dunn, 1972: 11–12). Political opponents can make more or less active attempts to turn the revolution to their advantage through reduction, renunciation or abolition of democratic procedures and institutions established during the revolution. Sometimes they succeed; in any case, these attempts do produce some significant effect. It often provokes a dramatic aggravation of the conflict.

23

See, e.g., Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), or Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022) in this book. 24 Revolution (as any kind of politics) is hardly a fair contest, in this or that way one uses provocations, disinformation, deceit, and backstage dealings. The provocations often imply stirring up enmity towards government and opponents through direct or indirect murders—shooting from within crowd or something of this kind, which provokes the escalation of violence, formation of militias etc.—with respect to the revolutions of 1848 and some other revolutionary events see Nefedov (2008); recent examples can be found in Brazil or Ukraine [see Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022, in this volume)]. Thus, violence and other rather dangerous means become normal. Consequently, the violation of democracy is not considered as something terrible. 25 The elections in such Caucasian territories as Karachay Cherkessia (in 1999) and South Ossetia (in 2011), when the opponents renounce the win of the other party and thus trigger an acute political crisis, are very illustrative examples. This seemed as anecdotal evidence in an exotic region, however it almost repeated in the old and stable democracy—the USA—in 2020–2021.

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5 Revolutions Versus Democracy? Let us dwell on the question why the pathways of revolution and democracy in countries with unstable democracy are likely to diverge? In addition to the abovementioned reasons (the unpreparedness of society, idealization of democracy, etc.) there are a variety of causes. Firstly, it appears that democracy by itself is insufficient to accomplish the purposes of revolution; you cannot go with democracy alone. Theoretically, democracy is a means to replace a bad government by a good one which is supposed to automatically assure the country’s prosperity. In reality this is almost certainly impossible. The arrangement of particular matters requires a specific and effective management. But revolutionaries as a rule do not possess such skills. They should either retain old functionaries and managers (who are anyway professional), but then the situation to a large extent remains the same with same abuses; or substitute them, and thus worsen the situation as revolutionary reforms usually aggravate the economic situation (see, e.g., Eckstein, 1982, 1986; Zimmermann, 1990; Haggard & Kaufman, 1995; Weede & Muller, 1997; Goldstone, 2001: 168; Mau & Starodubrovskaia, 2001). Secondly, since a rapid miracle and general improvement do not happen, and revolutionary actions and ample promises aggravate the situation, it is absolutely essential to find someone to blame and thus, to draw attention away from the real problem.26 But then what does the respect for democracy really count for? Will the revolutionaries (or radicals, if the moderate revolutionaries come to power) wait for several years to win the next election? Certainly, they will not. The revolutionary epoch is not the time for a quiet life. Everyone wants to obtain the targeted results immediately and without any compromises. If the radicals wait, they will lose their influence, their common followers will start asking hard questions and so on. In this case the democratically elected or transitional (provisional) government finds itself between the hammer and the anvil (i.e., between the radicals’ discontent with the worsening situation, and the conservatives displeased with changes and disorders). Thirdly, the masses, whose main concerns are their own specific and immediate problems (e.g., food for their children etc.), become disenchanted with democracy. In general, people gradually cease to connect the solution of acute social problems with an abstract idea of democracy, and instead they associate these solutions with the struggle against the enemies of the Revolution, the enemies of the President, those of the Party, of Islam, Socialism, People, ‘Democracy’, etc. This association is clearer 26

The trial of the former rulers is one of the common revolutionary rituals. In Egypt before Morsi’s disposition, the trial of the President Hosni Mubarak and his sons Ala’a and Gamal and a number of former top police officials was held. Even after the June 30 Revolution and July 3 coup of 2013 (e.g., Korotayev et al., 2016) the trial would continue and only in March 2017 the former President returned home. After the take-over, the former President Morsi became the accused and after numerous sentences, appellations and retrials he was given a long prison term; he eventually died in prison. It is interesting that he was even accused of the escape from prison during the mass turmoil in 2011, that is, during revolutionary events. It is worth noting that the military regime surpassed all the previous regimes in Egypt in the number of death sentences.

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and more concrete in these comparisons than with democratic ideals. As a result, conditions for radicalization and the broadening of the revolution emerge. However, as we remember, the more radical is a revolution, the greater the probability that it will transform into reaction.27 Among other important conditions of stability of liberal regimes, Raymond Aron points out the necessity to limit people’s demands in the initial period of development of a constitutional regime (Aron, 1993: 141). He writes: “Let us study the situation in France in 1848. The substitution of monarchy by a republic did not increase the society’s resources and economic production. For the masses’ income to grow it is insufficient to call the regime republican or democratic. The revolutionary changes naturally evoke hopes and demands. And the regime falls victim to discontent.” However, it is obvious that the revolutionary masses support revolution not to lower their demands and to wait for something. On the contrary they think that they have already been waiting for too long. But since the rapid and excessive demands are difficult to satisfy, the country can slide into economic disaster while the democratic regime risks being overthrown. Fourthly, all that is described above means that a democratic revolution in an unprepared country can open a more or less long and always hard revolutionary epoch. It is a transitional epoch from an authoritarian to democratic regime, from an undermodernized society to a modernized one with new revolutionary and counterrevolutionary episodes, economic disasters and social instability; with alternate periods of reaction and new revolutions (about the notion and examples of revolutionary epochs see Chapter “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022a], and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022] in this book). Fifthly, in this context it turns out that the number of genuinely democracyoriented people is very small in comparison with those who strive for power or welfare. In a modernizing, rather poor, narrow-minded and developmentally retarded society it cannot be otherwise. In corrupt undemocratic societies, everybody abuses the laws (although, perhaps, bad laws that often complicate life) and accuses everyone (except oneself) of this. Everyone thinks in an undemocratic way, even those who struggle for democracy. Only a few people can stick to their principles, but they have little influence. However, one should realize that globalization can really strengthen the people’s desire to change the political regime, but nothing can make up for the people’s peculiar political experience which helps to transform political mistakes 27

The “reaction”/”counterrevolution” is usually considered to be a definitely negative phenomenon (while revolution is associated, though not so unambiguously, with something positive—among other things because it is supposed to lead to democracy). But such an interpretation is not always reasonable. The reaction often plays a rather positive role preventing the aggravation of revolutionary upheavals and thus establishing more balanced and viable political institutions. Sometimes positive aspects of the political reaction are more pronounced, than the negative ones. For example, the Thermidorian reaction of 1794 can be considered as an attempt by French political leaders to mitigate the rampages of the Jacobin Terror, which caused a fierce civil war in many provinces and to form a new more viable social and political system. One can also point to a positive component in the Bonapartist reaction to the French revolution of 1848 (about the Thermidor phase in revolutions, see Chapter On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution [Grinin, 2022b] in this book).

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into political wisdom. This refers not only to insufficiently politically aware masses but also to intellectuals who need much time to strip away their illusions. Thus, globalization increases the gap between the rate of getting information and ideological attitudes from outside, on the one hand, and the accumulation of experience and creation of a necessary economic basis for a transition to stable democracy, on the other. Sixthly, democracy as a political system when people accept their defeat and work peacefully in opposition, in a non-modernized society commonly has a generally limited social base. It can persist in one form or another, but reduced and misrepresented. That is why assemblies, parliaments, councils, or majlises can issue laws and decrees to launch radical changes, but it is the dictatorial authority (a party, central committee, executive committee, leader etc.), relying on the revolutionary source of power and, therefore, independent from the parliament, that should run the state. It is those authorities that solve the major problems and then submit their decisions for approval. The democratic and pseudo-democratic decision-making process is quite often used to approve determining and fundamental documents and to consolidate the winning party’s power. That is what Morsi did with the Constitution in December 2012. In January 2014 Morsi’s opponents did the same. It is not surprising that dictators so like referenda which consolidate their power. In fact, the democratic institutions turn out to be subsidiary. Thus, a genuine and full-scale democracy, that revolution strives to formalize, soon enough starts to contradict both the real purposes of revolution and other political (party, group and private) goals and conditions. Democratically elected authorities (or even a transitional pro-democratic government) are often either overthrown or separated in full or in part from democracy (transforming into a pseudo-democratic organization like the Long Parliament of England). As has been mentioned above, we mostly speak about societies that have not completed modernization; meanwhile, more culturally developed and advanced societies can frequently transform a post-revolutionary regime into a firmly liberal one. One should also keep in mind that the key issue of revolution is always one of power, so democracy is acceptable as long as it supports the domination of the most powerful group, party, social stratum, etc. Since a large-scale and omnipotent democracy does not fit revolutionary transformations, and due to the lack of necessary institutions and the ability to live according to democratic laws (as well as the fact that revolution is always a struggle—sometimes illegal—between opposing forces, involving huge masses of people), in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary period a pure democracy is reduced and transformed to a degree and in different ways in accordance with society’s peculiarities, results of political struggle and other factors. In societies which are ready for democracy and where modernization has been completed, this can be an insignificant reduction (similar to the prohibition to propose a candidate from among the former members of communist parties, etc.). It is worth noting that universal suffrage, taken as a model today, was not legalized in a day, there often were applied voting qualifications. Even in the USA, whose

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comprehensive democracy fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, democracy was not perfect. The Amerindians, Afro-Americans, women and a considerable part of men (who acquired the right during Jackson’s presidency) were deprived of electoral rights. Moreover, the presidential elections were a staged procedure (quite real at that time). In the cradle of modern democracy, Great Britain, in 1830 only a small percentage of population had the voting right. In 1789, in France the part of the Estates-General, which at first declared themselves the National Assembly and then the National Constituent Assembly, passed many well-known laws. But one should remember that the election rules there had little, if anything, to do with the current notion of democracy. Just as an embryo passes certain developmental stages, the non-democratic societies, striving for democracy, go through evolutionary stages of democracy associated with its limitations. But in many cases, democracy is limited, because it fails to function to its fullest simply due to the above-mentioned reasons. In the course of revolution, these restrictions can be associated with attempts to secure political advantages, and also with revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence (we can observe both of these in Egypt), with the activity of a powerful ideological or any other center (as for example, in Iran), with a dictatorial body, with an introduction of property or political qualifications, with assassination or arrests of the opposition’s leaders (what has happened in Egypt not long ago), with curtailment of free speech and associations, with the formation of unconstitutional repressive bodies, etc. The post-revolutionary regime also restricts democracy or simply imitates it. In the contemporary world the most widespread forms of limitation of universal democracy (without which only a few governments perceive themselves legitimate) are different kinds of falsification of election results which often combine the repression of political opponents (a good example is Ukraine where until 2014 one of the opposition political leaders was imprisoned, and after 2014 the political activity of many others has been forbidden), and constitutional and legal tricks. Russia shows remarkable examples in the recent years, and recently the Chinese Constitution has been changed in the same direction. Egypt and Syria provide salient examples too. There are also some peculiar cases when there is an unconstitutional or constitutional, but non-democratic, force which enjoys supreme authority (Iran). Other forms of democratic distortion are possible as well. The most widespread one is still the military coup or attempts to conduct a revolutionary overthrow (Georgia, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan provide numerous examples28 ). The military forces step in when a democratic government decays or degrades or when a state reaches an impasse (a recent example is Myanmar). Anyway, the course of democratic development is corrected. On the other hand, the military cannot remain in power endlessly without legitimizing the regime, so they have to hand over authority to the civilian community and hold elections. 28

See Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation” (Derluguian & Hovhannisyan, 2022), and Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022) in this book.

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Thus, the general political course of modernizing societies follows the democratic trend (increasingly approaching the “ideal”), but the fluctuations along this trend can be severe, painful and long if it transforms into a revolutionary epoch or moreover into an epoch of disturbances. The development can remain incomplete, oscillating within an anocratic (“controlled democratic”) system. Another important point explains why democracy might not be established in a post-revolutionary society or, if established, quickly degrades there. “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”, said Winston Churchill. For the societies that just entered this path, the first part of the phrase is of the utmost importance. Democracy (just as free market and private property) has numerous drawbacks. Mature democratic societies, among other things, have found some means to mitigate them. But in young democracies these drawbacks have excessive forms. And acquiring immunity against such ‘infantile diseases’ of democracy is a long and painful process. As a result, a society can turn out to be abnormal (as in the case with a lack of immunity against drawbacks of private property and free market—actually, rather egoistic institutions if they are not correctly restricted and regulated). It is clear that an introduction of formally democratic institutions is absolutely insufficient, since although including multi-party elections, these institutions often conceal and even legitimate an actual dominance of authoritarian rule (Diamond et al., 1995: 8; see also Diamond, 1999; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005).

6 Conclusion In conclusion, we should note that the transition from an authoritarian regime to democracy can occur in three major ways: through a revolution (quickly from below), through a military takeover or coup d’etat, i.e. a revolutionary analogue (e.g., the Carnation “Revolution” in Portugal in 1974), and through reformation (gradually from above). In previous epochs the reformative way was almost impossible, so the path to democracy was paved by revolutions and counterrevolutions. Still, some rather successful examples of reformative transition to democracy (or just steps in this direction) can be observed as early as in the nineteenth century. For example, in Japan the parliament was established from above (1889). In Germany Otto Bismarck introduced full male suffrage (1867), while in Prussia the election system proper was established by the Revolution of 1848. Some Latin American states experienced transitions from military dictatorship to democracy, but the latter could not be firmly established in this region, with a few exceptions. However, in the twentieth century, especially in its last decades, due largely to globalization, we can find numerous examples of voluntary dismantling of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes by the military or other type of dictatorship (in Spain, Chile and other Latin American countries, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and lastly the USSR [see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]]). Some significant steps towards democratization were also made by the Arab monarchic states. Paradoxically, on the eve of the Arab Spring some Arab

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monarchies appeared much more democratic than the majority of the Arab republics (see, e.g., Truevtsev, 2011). Such a non-revolutionary transition to democracy, ceteris paribus, can turn out to be more direct and secure. This is especially important against the background of the absence of any significant positive correlation between the democratic government and the GDP growth rates—what is more, in authoritarian states higher GDP growth rates are more likely than in young democracies—let alone post-revolution systems (Eckstein, 1982, 1986; Zimmermann, 1990; Haggard & Kaufman, 1995; Weede & Muller, 1997; Goldstone, 2001: 168; Polterovich & Popov, 2007; see also Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” [Goldstone et al. 2022b] in this book). And in the modernization context economic growth rates are of crucial importance. In Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” (Goldstone et al. 2022b, in this volume) we will return to the problem of the connection between democracy and revolution with respect to the possibility of revolutionary events in democratic countries (including ones with stable democratic regimes) in the forthcoming decades of the twenty-first century. Acknowledgement This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254). The parts of this chapter have been published previously in the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (Grinin & Korotayev, 2016).

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Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Shishkina, A. (2013b). Women in the Islamic economy: A cross-cultural perspective. St Petersburg Annual of Asian and African Studies, 2, 105–116. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Shishkina, A. (2014). The Arab spring: a quantitative analysis. Arab Studies Quarterly, 36(2), 149–169. https://doi.org/10.13169/arabstudquar.36.2.0149 Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Shishkina, A. R. (2015a). Female labor force participation rate, Islam, and Arab culture in cross-cultural perspective. Cross-Cultural Research, 49(1), 3–19. https://doi. org/10.1177/1069397114536126 Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Shishkina, A. (2016). Egyptian coup of 2013: An ‘econometric’ analysis. The Journal of North African Studies, 21(3), 341–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2015. 1124238 Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Shishkina, A. (2021). Second wave of the Libyan civil war: Factors and actors. World Economy and International Relations, 65(3), 111–119. https://doi.org/10.20542/ 0131-2227-2021-65-3-111-119 Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Vasiliev, A. (2015b). Quantitative analysis of 2013–2014 revolutionary wave. Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, 8, 119–127. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Zinkina, J. (2015c). Center-periphery dissonance as a possible factor of the revolutionary wave of 2013–2014: A cross-national analysis. Cross-Cultural Research, 49(5), 461–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397115595374 Korotayev, A., & Khaltourina, D. (2006). Introduction to social macrodynamics: Secular cycles and millennial trends in Africa. KomKniga/URSS. Korotayev, A., Khodunov, A., Burova, A., Malkov, S., Khaltourina, D., & Zinkina, J. (2012). Socialno-demograficheskij analiz Arabskoj vesny. In: A. Korotayev, J. Zinkina, & A. Khodunov (Eds.), Sistemnyi monitoring globalnyh i regionalnyh riskov: Arabskaya vesna 2011 goda (pp. 28– 76). LKI/URSS. Korotayev, A., Malkov, A., & Khaltourina, D. (2006). Introduction to social macrodynamics: Secular cycles and millennial trends. KomKniga/URSS. Korotayev, A., Malkov, S., & Grinin, L. (2014b). A trap at the escape from the trap? Some demographic structural factors of political instability in modernizing social systems. History & Mathematics, 4, 201–267. Korotayev, A., Sawyer, P., Grinin, L., Romanov, D., & Shishkina, A. (2020) Socio-economic development and anti-government protests in light of a new quantitative analysis of global databases. Sotsiologicheskiy Zhurnal, 26(4), 61–78. https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2020.26.4.7642 Korotayev, A., Sawyer, P., & Romanov, D. (2021c). Socio-economic development and protests A Quantitative Reanalysis. Comparative Sociology, 20(2), 195–222. https://doi.org/10.1163/156 91330-bja10030 Korotayev, A., Vaskin, I., & Bilyuga, S. (2017). Olson-Huntington hypothesis on a bell-shaped relationship between the level of economic development and sociopolitical destabilization: A quantitative analysis. Sotsiologicheskoye Obozrenie, 16(1), 9–49. https://doi.org/10.17323/1728192X2017-1-9-49 Korotayev, A., Vaskin, I., Bilyuga, S., & Ilyin, I. (2018). Economic development and sociopolitical destabilization: A re-analysis. Cliodynamics, 9(1), 59–118. https://doi.org/10.21237/C7clio913 7314 Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2011a). Egyptian revolution of January 25: A demographic structural analysis. Middle East Studies Online Journal, 2(5), 57–95. https://www.academia.edu/37189716/ Egyptian_Revolution_A_Demographic_Structural_Analysis Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2011b). Egyptian revolution: A demographic structural analysis. Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar, 13, 139–169. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2011c). Egipetskaya revolyuciya 2011 goda: Sociodemograficheskij analiz. Istoricheskaya Psihologiya i Sociologiya Istorii, 2, 5–29. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2014). How to optimize fertility and prevent humanitarian catastrophes in Tropical Africa. African Studies in Russia, 6, 94–107. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2022). Egypt’s 2011 revolution: A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st

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Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 651–683). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25 Korotayev, A., Zinkina, J., Kobzeva, S., Bogevolnov, J., Khaltourina, D., Malkov, A., & Malkov, S. (2011c). A trap at the escape from the trap? Demographic-structural factors of political instability in modern Africa and West Asia. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, 2(2), 276–303. https://doi.org/10.21237/C7clio22217 Lawson, G. (2016). Within and beyond the “Fourth Generation” of revolutionary theory. Sociological Theory, 34(2), 106–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275116649221 Lawson, G. (2019). Anatomies of revolutions. Cambridge University Press. Lenin, V. (1958 [1917]). O dvoevlastii. In: Lenin, V. (auth). Poln. sobr. soch. 31. Politizdat (pp. 145– 148). Liew, L. (2001). Marketization, democracy and economic growth in China. In A. Chowdhury & I. Iyanatul (Eds.), Beyond the Asian crisis: Pathways to sustainable growth (pp. 299–323). Edward Elgar. Malkov, S., Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Kuzminova, E. (2013). On methods of estimating current condition and of forecasting social instability: Attempted quantitative analysis of the events of the Arab spring. Polis—Politicheskiye Issledovaniya, 4, 134–162. Mau, V., & Starodubrovskaia, I. (2001). The challenge of revolution: Contemporary Russia in historical perspective. Oxford University Press. Merkel, W., Puhle, H.-J., Croissant, A., Eicher, C., & Thierry, P. (2003). Defekte Demokratien: Theorien und Probleme. Leske and Budrich. Mitchell, L. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15 Nefedov, S. (2008). Faktornyj analiz istoricheskogo processa. Territoriya budushhego. O’Donnell, G. (1996). Illusions about consolidation. Journal of Democracy, 7, 34–51. O’Donnell, G., Cullel, J. V., & Iazzetta, O. M. (Eds.). (2004). The quality of democracy: Theory and applications. University of Notre Dame Press. Olson, M. (1963). Rapid growth as a destabilizing force. The Journal of Economic History, 23(4), 529–552. Ortmans, O., Mazzeo, E., & Meshcherina, K., Korotayev, A. (2017). Modeling social pressures toward political instability in the United Kingdom after 1960: A demographic structural analysis. Cliodynamics, 8(2), 113–158. https://doi.org/10.21237/C7clio8237313 Ottaway, M. (2003). Democracy challenged: The rise of semi-authoritarianism. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Pastor, R. (2001). Preempting revolutions: The boundaries of U.S. influence. In M. Katz (Ed.), Revolution: International dimensions (pp. 169–197). Congressional Quarterly Press. Polterovich, V., & Popov, V. (2007). Demokratizaciya i ekonomicheskij rost. Obshhestvennye Nauki i Sovremennost, 2, 13–27. Przeworski, A., & Limongi, F. (1997). Modernization: Theories and facts. World Politics, 49(2), 155–183. Pye, L. W. (1990). Political science and the crisis of authoritarianism. American Political Science Review, 84, 3–19. Rasler, K., Thompson, W. R., & Bou Nassif, H. (2022). The extent of military involvement in non-violent, civilian revolts and their aftermath. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 739–779). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_29 Romanov, D., Meshcherina, K., & Korotayev, A. (2021). The share of youth in the total population as a factor of intensity of non-violent protests: A quantitative analysis. Polis. Political Studies, 3, 166–181. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.03.11 Rose, R. (1995). A divergent Europe. Journal of Democracy, 12, 93–106.

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Sawyer, P., & Korotayev, A. (2021). Formal education and contentious politics: The case of violent and non-violent protest. Political Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929921998210 Schumpeter, J. (1995). Kapitalizm, socializm i demokratiya. Ekonomika. Selbin, E. (2001). Same as it ever was: The future of revolution at the end of the century. In M. N. Katz (Ed.), Revolution international Dimensions (pp. 284–297). Congressional Quarterly Press. Selbin, E. (2022). All around the world: Revolutionary potential in the age of authoritarian revanchism. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 415–433). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_14 Shevsky, D. (2022). Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 851–863). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_32 Sorokin, P. (1992). Sociologiya revolyucii. In: P. Sorokin (auth). Chelovek. Civilizaciya. Obshchestvo (pp. 266–294). Poliizdat. Sorokin, P. (1994). Golod i ideologiya obshchestva. In P. Sorokin (auth), Obshchedostupnyj uchebnik sociologii. Statyi raznyh let (pp. 367–395). Nauka. Stephan, M. J., & Chenoweth, E. (2008). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. International Security, 33(1), 7–44. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.7 Stradiotto, G. A., & Guo, S. (2010). Transitional modes of democratization and democratic outcomes. International Journal on World Peace, 27(4), 5–40. Tkachuk, M., Romanchuk, A., & Timotin, I. (2022). ‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The atypical ‘revolution’ of April 7 and the days that followed. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 549–569). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_21 Truevtsev, K. (2011). God 2011 – novaya demokraticheskaya volna? Izd. dom VShE. Turchin, P., & Korotayev, A. (2006). Population density and warfare: A reconsideration. Social Evolution & History, 5(2), 121–158. Turchin, P., & Korotayev, A. (2020). The 2010 structural-demographic forecast for the 2010–2020 decade: A retrospective assessment. PLoS ONE, 15(8), e0237458. https://doi.org/10.1371/jou rnal.pone.0237458 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2002). Human development report 2002: Deepening democracy in a fragmented world. UNDP. van der Vliet, E. C. L. (2005). Polis. The Problem of Statehood. Social Evolution and History, 4(2), 120–150 Weede, E., Muller, E. N. (1997). Consequences of revolutions. Rational Society, 9, 327–350. https:// doi.org/10.1177%2F104346397009003004. Weinstein, G. (2001). Rossijskij tranzit i problema tipologicheskogo raznoobraziya “globalnoj demokratizacii.” Dubna University. Weitman, S. (1992). Thinking the revolutions of 1989. British Journal of Sociology, 43, 13–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/591199 Zimmermann, E. (1990). On the outcomes of revolutions: Some preliminary considerations. Sociological Theory, 8, 33–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/202193 Zinkina, J., & Korotayev, A. (2014). Explosive population growth in Tropical Africa: Crucial omission in development forecasts (emerging risks and way out). World Futures, 70(4), 271–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2014.894868 Zinkina, J., & Korotayev, A. (2014). Projecting Mozambique’s demographic futures. Journal of Futures Studies, 19(2), 21–40.

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Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor at Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology. In 2012 he was awarded with the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation. Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of the Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He has authored or co-authored over 650 scholarly publications, including 35 monographs. He is a laureate of a Russian Science Support Foundation in “The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences” Nomination (2006); in 2012 he was awarded with the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.

Revolutions: History, Aspects and Dimensions

Revolutions and Historical Process Leonid Grinin

1 Introduction: Ancient and Modern Revolutions Revolutions can be (and should be) considered within several approaches: (1)

Systemic approach. It considers revolutions as resulting from serious imbalances and a sort of disequilibria in the social system.1 Revolution can break out when a system shifts from a relatively stable state into an unstable one due to the emergence of major disproportions in societal development. Being unstable, the system enters the crisis period, while revolutions appear as one

1 About

an unstable equilibrium resulting from a number of serious challenges in a society see Chapter “The phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume) and Goldstone (2014). Many researchers also analyzed societies as systems whose adequate functioning depended on the maintained equilibrium of interchange of matter, energy and information between the system and its environment, as well as between subsystems constituting a system. Within this approach, researchers not without reason argued that any critical disturbance destroying this equilibrium leads a society to a state of imbalance (Hagopian, 1974) or dysfunction (Johnson, 1968), which brings a serious risk of revolutionary destabilization. Besides, within this approach there were proposed a number of ‘candidates’ that can become the forces leading social systems to dysfunction/destabilization, for example: an uneven impact of technological growth and modernization processes on the needs of different subsystems in resources and on their actual supply with these resources, changes in distribution of power between the elites of different subsystems (Jessop, 1972), violent changes in value systems resulting from the emergence of new religions or ideologies (Johnson, 1968; see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this book]) or just asynchrony of the changes in different subsystems (Hagopian, 1974). This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-1800254). L. Grinin (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia HSE University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_5

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of the forms of crisis resolution. This approach is most frequently applied (we used it in Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022f, in this book] and we are going to apply it in the present chapter as well). Sociological approach. Revolutions are considered as “cases” of a general phenomenon, so the major focus is put on their recurrent features, rather than their particular historical details or context. This approach is widely applied. However, while it may be analytically useful to consider revolutions only in the frameworks of systemic or sociological approaches, when a society is considered mostly as a self-sufficient system, this appears not enough. Revolutions should be considered within a wider context.2 For this purpose one may use the following approaches: The world-system approach. Revolutions are considered within the framework of the World System; this approach studies the impact of changes in the World System on revolutions and vice versa, that is, the impact of revolutions on transformations and reconfigurations of the World System. The world-historical approach. Revolutions are considered as phenomena whose role as an instrument of progress considerably changes in the course of history, so that both the character of revolutions and their impact changes over time. Unfortunately, investigators less frequently apply the last two approaches. So, in the present chapter we will pay them particular attention.3 It is also obvious that certain combinations of the approaches are possible. It is also worth analyzing revolutions in relation to other societal changes, especially to those leading to similar results. However, only a few investigators of revolutions systemically consider the place of revolutions among other forms of societal transformation and means of resolution of social and political contradictions especially within the historical process frames. Among those who performed it unfailingly and systematically one can name Shmuel Eisenstadt and also to a certain extent, Samuel Huntington, Jack A. Goldstone, and Charles Tilly (Eisenstadt, 1978; Huntington, 1968, 1993, 1996; Goldstone, 1991; Tilly, 1992, 1996; Beck, 2011; Lawson, 2015, 2016; see our definitions and examples of different types of revolutionary events in Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022c] and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this monograph]). In the present chapter we will also discuss why and how the role of revolutions in the historical process creates substantial changes in a society and its development.

In this respect it is worth citing Colin Beck (2014: 201) “Revolutionary theory must develop accounts of each level of analysis, including the transnational, the state, and the subnational.” See also Lawson (2015, 2016). 3 Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume) offers an explanation about all the four ways described above. However, the first two are shown in detail, whereas the third and fourth are only described very briefly.

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In this chapter we analyze the transformations of revolutions within historical and globalization processes and in connection with the world-system’s transformations. It will be shown why the nature of revolutions changed and their significance sharply increased since the beginning of the sixteenth century in comparison with premodern revolutions and how this was connected with the start of the Industrial Revolution and Early Modern period. We also analyze how the role of revolutions increased within historical process and globalization, the latter being one of the major components of historical processes. In this chapter we also point out why the role of revolutions started to decline in the second half of the nineteenth century if one regards it in terms of the most important driving forces of progress. We will also examine the current role of revolutions. While considering these aspects we will address some issues related to the theory of revolution (see also Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022f] and Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]). In the last section we show the correlation between the development of technologies, globalization, and the role of revolution in history. In conclusion we also offer some forecasts regarding the future role of revolutions in the development of societies and the World System in general. Scholars have sometimes argued that revolutions did not take place prior to the Modern era (e.g., Ellul, 1971), but of course, this is far from true. If we consider revolutions as a violent change of regime accompanied by popular uprisings, we can say that they appear in political history for many millennia. But such revolutions were mainly characteristic of the polis-type states whose regimes could alternate from oligarchic (or tyrannical) to democratic and vice versa. Large territorial monarchies and empires had violent regime changes and popular uprisings, but these almost always simply changed the ruling personnel or a dynasty (see below), and not the type of regime. Thus, prior to the Early Modern period revolutions mostly occurred in the states whose political regimes were less widespread in the Afrourasian world-system (the Old World) during the pre-industrial period. In a revolutionary perspective the history of some Hellenistic states and Rome may be also presented as a struggle between social and political groups for the distribution of resources and power (see, e.g., Sorokin, 1992, 1994; Hansen, 1989; Cartledge, 1998; Grinin, 2004a, 2004b). We find some phenomena resembling political and social revolutions in medieval states (in Italy and some other countries). Social struggle is also observed in the history of some Eastern states. But these attempts to establish a new regime and, figuratively speaking, change the ‘constitution,’ were quite infrequent; yet, sometimes one observes something like social revolutions when socio-economic (distributive) relations are changed.4 In China, there occurred devastating uprisings sometimes sweeping away dynasties, and resulting in substantial changes in specific institutions and the access of specific groups to wealth 4

For example, the reforms conducted in the twenty-fourth century B.C. by Uruinimgina who was probably elected the ruler of Lagash after the popular uprising (Dyakonov, 1951, 1983: 207–274, 2000: 55–56); or the Muhammad revolution in the early seventh century Arabia (Korotayev et al., 1999); about similar uprisings and establishment of peculiar forms of government see also Shtyrbul (2006).

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and office, as it happened when the Mongol Yuan dynasty replaced the Song, or the Manchu Qing dynasty replaced the Ming. Yet the basic character of the Chinese regime as absolute Imperial rule managed mainly by Confucian-trained scholars did not change.5 However, despite the abovementioned examples, in ancient times and medieval period there were no revolutions that would promote a societal advance to a higher stage of social evolution. No doubt, revolutions used to be a developmental factor but obviously less important than wars and other transformations. The societies’ productive basis would remain the same after revolutions and their progressive effect was more modest than in the Modern era. Only starting from the Modern period do revolutions become one of the leading driving forces of the historical process (see Eisenstadt, 1978; Huntington, 1968; Grinin, 1997; Semyonov et al., 2007; Mau and Starodubrovskaya (2001); Travin & Morgania, 2004; Goldstone, 2014). Why did this happen? The reason is the transition to a new—industrial—production principle which started in the late fifteenth century (for more details see: Grinin, 2006; Grinin & Grinin, 2015a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015; Grinin et al., 2017, 2020; see the correlation between the stages of technological development and the role of revolutions in Table 1). Along with a breakthrough in production it was necessary to transform all other relations, in order that a society could create abundant expanse for the development of new productive forces. The role of revolutions was to help to break the relations hampering that development. Thus, in the present Chapter we mostly speak about revolutions of a new type, which were practically unknown in history prior to the sixteenth century. We describe them as phenomena that appeared extremely important for the unfolding historical process and as a means of realizing the society’s progressive development by raising its economic, cultural, political, and legal level.6 In other words, here we treat revolutions not just as a means to change political regime or as a means of conflict resolution in societies but as transformations which eventually took a temporal lead in terms of technological, cultural and political development and which would drive ahead not only a certain society but the whole World System.7 Starting from the Modern era one can speak about a peculiar role of revolutions in the development of historical process, the role of “a locomotive of history” (according to Marx, 1964); yet, as we will show, this role started to decline and change already in the mid-nineteenth century. For Shmuel Eisenstadt (1978) the early Modern era 5

Among the Chinese popular uprisings the Taiping Rebellion of 1850–1864 is the closest to revolution (see, e.g., Ilyushechkin, 1967). 6 Of course, we can denote it as a progressive development only in the final account (since revolutions proved to be a rather costly way of development and sometimes would temporarily throw society back). Moreover, we denote them in such a way also referring to the period before the end of nineteenth century (see below). 7 However, as we will see below, in the twentieth century due to the changing historical role of revolutions, the latter could bring a society to a non-mainstream path of development. Such paths were communism and fascism; the religious revolution in Iran can also be mentioned here (see about Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this monograph]).

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revolutions are modern revolutions. However, he notes that many scholars ignore the relation between revolution and modernity. And those who acknowledge that the main structural and institutional features of revolutions are inherent to the Modern era still fail to trace the relation between these features and fundamental characteristics of modernity. Samuel Huntington also argues that revolutions can hardly arise in traditional societies with a low level of social and economic complexity. It is a phenomenon of a modernizing society (Huntington, 1968; see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]). Finally, we should note that the increasing role of revolutions in historical process was associated not only with general technological transformations clearly manifested from the last third of the fifteenth century (see Grinin, 2006, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b; Grinin & Grinin, 2015a, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015), but also with the concurrent breakthrough in information technologies (see also Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]). As we mentioned in Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume), any great revolution or a new wave of revolutions is somehow connected with emerging principally new media or with their improvement. In what follows (in the second section), we try to trace this trajectory of revolutionary practices (see also Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]). Before proceeding to the next section we would like to make another note. Although the starting point of globalization has been long debated (see Grinin, 2011b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2018) still nobody denies that the beginning of the Age of Discovery (between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) was a great landmark for the history of globalization. Moreover, it is not a coincidence that almost at the same period the history of modern revolutions also originates. We mean the start of the Reformation in Germany whose 500th anniversary was marked in 2017. Just from this time one can start marking off modern revolutions in Europe and in the world (about the Reformation in Germany as the first revolution, the Reformation in Europe and the first waves of revolutions as well as about differences between the revolutions of the modern period and earlier ones, see Chapters “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2017b, 2018c).

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2 The Role of Revolutions for the Development of Social System and the World System 2.1 Revolutions as a Means to Change a Society’s Social-Political Structure Under Capitalist and Industrial Production As we mentioned, although the history of some ancient and medieval societies can be described in revolutionary terms as a struggle between social and political groups, it is only after the coming of the Modern era that revolutions became one of the leading driving forces of historical process. And as already pointed out, this happened mostly because the European countries entered a new—industrial—production principle (see Grinin & Grinin, 2015, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015) which provoked the necessity to transform other societal subsystems. This process is also connected with the early type of modernization (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]).8 Thus, revolutions are the result of transitions of societies and in general, of historical development to the path of consistent economic growth and respective changes in relations and institutions. Therefore, revolutions appear to be a search for the way to provide societies’ continuous development while a society does not yet realize that constant growth is not occasional and abnormal, but a necessary prerequisite for the existence of modern society. Revolution is one of the means to transform society and to give a wide scope for constant economic growth and technical change in society, and for its existence under these changes. As a result, the criteria for successful societies within historical processes started to change. If we follow the common developmental logic of the historical process, one may trace at its origin a search for opportunities to transform local and relatively small societies/polities into larger entities: states and later empires. To create sustainable political entities there were needed powerful and stable institutions which were gradually established. We also observe a number of centralization/decentralization cycles combined with the search for mechanisms and institutions to consolidate societies (Chase-Dunn & Hall, 1997; Chase-Dunn et al., 2010; Frank & Gills, 1993; Grinin, 2008, 2011a; Tilly, 1992, 1996). In Europe these institutions developed into legitimate and sacralized monarchy (which needed much time to create the rules of inheritance), national states, social class or other forms of structuring the social order (Grinin, 2008, 2012a). Thus, the historical process ‘operated’ in order to establish strong institutions that could 8

The concept of modernization covers a wide range of subjects and its exact definition is disputable (Black, 1966; Rostow, 1971; Przeworski & Limongi, 1997; Poberezhnikov, 2006; Travin & Margania, 2004; Grinin, 2012c). About the connection between revolution and modernization see, e.g., (Huntington, 1968, 1986; Tilly, 1986; Hobsbawm, 1996; Boix, 2011); see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]; see also Grinin (2013, 2017a, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b).

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maintain social stability under any perturbations along with states’ constant external activity. This was also supported by quite conservative, archaic and far from constantly changing industrial and technological (as well as social) foundations of society (since the peasantry constituted the major part of population and their cultural level was archaic with low literacy standard). But with the change of productive and technological basis, the strong and sometimes too strong societal bonds (e.g., a particular dynasty’s imperial power used to be the most important connective for a multinational state) would gradually turn into an obstacle for the advance of a society, which at that point considered industry and trade as the most important means to solve financial and other problems and that had both to endure and develop them under conditions of international rivalry as well as to take care of the means of communication, education, etc. Hence, the major and most important achievements of historical progress (a well-organized autocracy, an absolute monarchy and strong state-controlled estates, a clear social hierarchy, totalitarian religion and others) suddenly started to hamper development and progress, the idea of which began to form and strengthen. At the same time, liberalization and humanization of relations took place—from absolute monarchy to absolute enlightened monarchy. These humanized relations prevented repressiveness and became an important factor for activating revolutions (see below). Thus, the former institutions, including absolute monarchy and in many respects the self-sustaining aristocracy (along with the church and estate structure which became state-sanctioned) became a brake for progress since the model of existence and functioning had changed from conservative to dynamic one. And as it has already been mentioned, since those were very strong and powerful institutions and there were no other instruments to influence them (and no suitable historical experience) the revolutions appeared to be the only way to destroy these institutions. As already pointed out, the modern type revolutions occur at a certain stage when development becomes impeded by rigid obstacles and institutions. And these may include not only absolute monarchy, aristocracy or large feudal landholding but also rigid institutions of exploitation. Moreover, if the exploited class grows rapidly in quantitative and qualitative terms as it was with the working class in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is clear that the proletariat’s struggle for rights and guarantees might become a part of revolutionary movement and at certain stages even its major constituent (as it happened in July 1848 and in 1871 in Paris (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). Only the adoption of relevant legislation and establishment of a more flexible system allowed eliminating the threat of proletarian revolution in some countries. To a greater extent this also refers to growing national self-consciousness among peoples deprived of their own statehood and lacking at least regional autonomy. National oppression and the legislation fixing inequality of peoples, languages, national religions, etc., form very strict relations which are usually very difficult to change (moreover, a purposeful state policy can strengthen them). Hence, nationalist revolutions as a means of changing a situation are quite characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (see Gellner, 1983; see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves

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of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022d] and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin and Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). Revolutions in the Austrian Empire in 1848–1849 and 1918–1919 were in many respects caused by dissatisfaction with national relations. Even in Britain, which seemed to have passed through the revolutionary epoch long ago, a nationalist revolution would break out in Ireland in 1916 precisely because of the failed solution of the Irish self-determination problem. Thus, revolutions generally provide an opportunity to forcibly change the situation when certain forces (along with their self-consciousness) grow in the presence of rigid institutions and relations (also including the consciousness of the authorities and elites), which hinder the further growth and self-determination of those forces. Revolutionary conflicts may break out in different spheres including political, national, social and even religious ones.

2.2 Revolution as a Means of Mutual Influence Between Societies and the World System Revolutions cannot be explained only within the systemic-approach framework through the analysis of a society as a self-sustaining system. One also needs a different approach like the world-system’s one. Many studies show the importance of accounting for the international factor for understanding both the causes of revolutions and their success/failure (in theoretical terms and with respect to certain revolutions) (e.g., Skocpol, 1979; Skocpol & Trimberger, 1994; WickhamCrowley, 1992, Halliday, 1999, Snyder, 1999, Pastor, 2001; Goldstone, 2001, 2014, etc.; Lawson, 2015; see also Sanderson, 2005). We also find quite challenging the idea about a permissive or favorable world context for revolutions (e.g., Goldfrank, 1979; Goodwin & Skopol, 1989; Wickham-Crowley, 1992). Many researchers deal with the ideological influence of foreign ideas and movements, as well as with the content of revolutionary movements in one nation influencing others (Arjomand, 1992; Colburn, 1994; Katz, 1997; Halliday, 1999; see also Johnson, 1993; Katz, 1997; Boswell & Chase-Dunn, 2000; Beck, 2011, 2014; Lawson, 2015; see Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume]).9 A number of authors analyze the international effect manifested in waves of revolutions (see, e.g., Beck, 2011; Goldstone, 2014; Lawson, 2015; see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022d], Chapter “Revolutionary Waves 9

Note that the third-generation revolutionary theorists (following Goldstone’s terminology [2001, 2014]) started to pay great attention to the impact of external factors (especially wars) as triggers of revolutionary destabilization. Meanwhile, the fourth-generation revolutionary theorists put particular emphasis on the long-term impact of external factors (such as shifts in international relations or diffusion of revolutionary ideas; for details see Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume]).

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and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022], and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). Nevertheless, in our opinion, there are few full-scale studies of the impact of the world-system factor on different aspects of revolutions and revolutionary waves.

Along with wars, long cycles of political hegemony and other phenomena, revolutions can be treated as a means of the world-system’s impact on particular societies and vice versa as a means of transformation or even reconfiguration of the World System itself and transition to a new world order (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022f] and Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e, in this volume], as well as Grinin & Korotayev, 2012). Let us apply the world-system approach to define some peculiarities of revolutions in the countries of the world-system periphery and semi-periphery. The heart of the matter is that the revolutionary impact penetrating from the more developed countries of the World System to its less developed ones, can make the revolutionary traits considerably differ in the developed and less developed countries. By the time when revolutions started in the world-system semi-peripheral and peripheral countries, that is by the early twentieth century, revolutions in a number of advanced societies seem to be out of use as a means of social development and conflict resolution, and so they were replaced by more civilized forms of social renovation (see below).10 Thus, the World System core tried to advance using different and smoother means. However, in the twentieth century a great number of revolutions broke out far from the core: in the semi-periphery and periphery (see Chapters “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022f] and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]; see also Sanderson, 2016: 74–77). Thus, revolutions start to be a driver for semi-peripheral and peripheral countries which strive to catch up to the advanced ones, yet, the characteristics of revolutions as well as their opportunities to draw the revolutionary society to a more advanced developmental trajectory could vary considerably (for details see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). That is why in many societies revolutions have preserved their relevance. This primarily refers to those societies that grew to the level when revolutions became generally possible while the political system did not keep up with the times. As a result, these developing countries experienced a revolutionary collapse and a long revolution and disturbance epoch (as happened in China in the twentieth century). This also fully refers to national-liberation revolutions which mostly occurred when semi-peripheral and peripheral nations developed to the level to claim their sovereignty. 10

We do not consider here the 19th-century revolutions in Latin America. But still we should note that since it was the world-system periphery, the revolutions did not and could not lead to any stable progressive outcome there.

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In fact, the transition to a necessary constant development (as well as the idea of modernization needed) could hardly spread in many societies, were it not for the international military-political rivalry and economic superiority of other countries as its inevitable consequences. Since military capabilities became dependent on technology (gunpowder revolutions, shipping, routes of communication, infrastructure, etc.), the need for military and economic modernization became a dire necessity. The financial costs of such military modernization forced rulers to look for sources in the development of trade and industry, improvement of education, etc. Hence, the role of the external factor was crucial. Other achievements, including medical, scientific, etc. are also borrowed. In the first case, modernization needed to borrow knowledge and education systems, which together could trigger cultural borrowings as well. However, cultural borrowings would sooner or later lead to importation of revolutionary ideologies. As a result, in the catching-up countries indigenous leaders started to consider revolutions (similar to democracy afterward) in the Western model as a certain universal and advanced means to rise to a new level. The World System’s own structure affects countries in different ways depending on their functional position. The penetration of new ideologies into dependent countries also creates some new situations there. Besides, since development constantly proceeded in all societies, yet were more intensive in the World System core, there is an evident aspiration of societies lagging behind the core to catch up with it (but only a few of them could finally succeed). However, this race creates prerequisites for recurrent revolutions in lagging countries, especially if the latter fail to establish institutions capable of peaceful societal transformations. The emerging gap between ideologies and opportunities of a particular society increases tension and revolutionary sentiments. This finally leads to a kind of frustration and evaluation of one’s own political regime and relations as backward, useless and demanding a breakup; and consequently, this increases tension and revolutionary sentiments caused by propaganda. There is also an international, albeit small but active, social group of ideologists-revolutionaries. The ongoing modernization reinforces the impact of new ideologies in societies. Hence there emerges revolutionary internationalism and a global revolutionary ideology. In other words, revolutions quite often occur in societies that hardly achieve the objective level when revolutions become inevitable; but since certain social groups are formed due to revolutionary ideologies and practices borrowed from more advanced societies, the social protests and discontent are canalized in an objectively higher social form than they should be. In brief, the world-system effect allows revolutions to engage peripheral countries which are not objectively ready for such forms of advancement. The situation seems similar to the economic crisis transmission to peripheral countries with industrial economies which are still too weak and would hardly reach the crisis level on their own. So the world-system effects can bring revolutions even to societies with a weak or absolutely absent social basis for the outbreak. Thus, in the course of or after revolution these societies appear thrown back, since the attempts to introduce a new level of social relations fails and the relations inherent for these societies are

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somehow restored (which can be manifested in decentralization, bloody dictatorships and modification of archaic relations). In our opinion, many revolutions in the East and other peripheral regions starting from the early twentieth century as well as many communist revolutions are just of this kind. Thus, it appears that since ideologies can be borrowed (or deliberately imposed from outside with the purpose of preparing revolution) there emerge revolutionary internationalism and revolutionary ideology which become universal for the World System or its parts. The wider revolutions were spread in the periphery the stronger were their destructive effects and negative consequences (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). And one more important remark. If there emerge centers of revolutionary transformations that consider revolutions in other countries to be their most important objective, the possibilities of revolutionary outbreaks and their success significantly increase. In many respects this is the result of implementation of special technologies which take into account preparation of revolutionaries, etc. The USSR remained such a center for a long time, and in recent decades the USA has become a center of the so-called ‘color revolutions’ (certainly there existed and do exist smaller centers, e.g., those inspiring Islamic revolutions; about the modern Islamism see Grinin, 2019a). Besides, the dominating revolutionary ideologies and propaganda proclaiming revolutions as fair and progressive substantially weaken the authorities’ and regimes’ abilities to resist them (see also about this Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022a] and Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). Also add that in the two recent decades the core, which demands democratic changes, brings constant and strong pressure on the ruling elite in these countries and a powerful support for those forces seeking forcible changes. Thus, we observe a new wave of revolutions (in the beginning of the twenty-first century) caused by the fact that the core societies stimulate the semi-peripheral societies’ transformations (see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this book]). Thus, the world-system effect enlarges the scope of revolutions in the world involving societies that are immature or not fully prepared for revolutions, and increases the chances of their success. To a certain extent, it is the world-system effect that makes revolutions remain an important means of social transformations.

3 The Changing Role of Revolutions in the Historical Process In this section we will try to combine considering revolutions within two approaches, namely, the historical process and the world-system one.

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3.1 The Role of Revolutions Prior to the Modern Era A society, especially a modernizing one, is a self-developing system which is destined to go through crises from time to time. One should note that these crises result from long-term growth. Therefore, crises emerge in any societies experiencing sustained rapid growth. But the manifestations of crises can vary. For example, in the early medieval period the rapid economic and socio-cultural development of territories of barbarian kingdoms led to the decentralization crisis of archaic monarchy, while the rapid territorial growth of the Roman Republic led to civil war and a change of political regime. In the millennial history there were many cases of state crisis associated with different factors (Eisenstadt, 1978; Chase-Dunn & Hall, 1997; Grinin 2004a, 2010, 2011a, 2012c). Respectively, one can observe various forms of crisis and contradictions and their resolution in the societies prior to the Modern era, including revolts and rebellions, plots and coups d’état, external and civil wars, repressions and deportations, relocations and colonies exit and many others. As already said, revolutions also contribute to this list but mainly in a definite type of societies and in general they were a far less frequent form in comparison with others (see above). Among the transforming means, institutional reforms and large-scale activities are most often applied to solve objective tasks of strengthening and development of a society. Also changes were conducted to unify the management of conquered lands (this was the case with emerging large empires). They were usually performed by a state under the initiative and rule of vigorous politicians. Not only in monarchies and empires, but often in republics such reforms were conducted by rather violent means. Sometimes there were reformers (like Solon in Athens) who create new legal or other systems. There were also religious reformers (like Akhenaten in Egypt or Ashoka in India). Over a large part of history revolutions served just as an additional means of societal development and were hardly able to push the society to a new developmental stage.

3.2 The Role of Revolutions in the Modern Era Before the Mid-Nineteenth Century. The Changing Role of Revolutions in the World System Core In the Modern era, revolutions become a tool to change society, its political and social order. The main difference between political crises and anti-governmental actions of the early modern period and the revolts in the late-agrarian societies consists in the aspiration to spread the action nationwide, to give it a prominent ideological character, and the most vivid difference is the goal to replace the existing regime with a new national-scale public authority. Herewith, the upper urban strata, consisting of counter-elite and some of the elite ousted from power, form the core and primary force of such a movement. But all these strata are united by a new ideology.

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Until the mid-nineteenth century, revolutions occurred primarily in the countries technological advanced in terms of a new production principle, that is with developing early industrialization and capitalist entrepreneurship (see Grinin & Grinin, 2015a, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). Here one can name early sixteenth-century Germany, the Netherlands in the late sixteenth century, and England in the seventeenth century. Thus, these early revolutions, especially in the Netherlands and Britain, opened new paths and huge perspectives both for these countries and for other European countries and their colonies. As for the Reformation, based on the early urbanized and early bourgeois societies in a number of European countries, it opened the way to strengthening and institutionalization of that “spirit of capitalism” which Max Weber spoke about (1930 [1904]). It is worth noting that revolutions of this period (especially in the seventeenth century and the major part of the eighteenth century) were rare cases, actually exceptions. The main forms of protests, along with peaceful and legal actions, were revolts and insurrections. The leading forms of societal transformations were reforms and forced transformations caused by the efforts to enhance the military and financial situation in a state and also to strengthen the estates’ rights. The main forms of political transformations were conspiracies, coups d’état, small and large civil wars and also external wars which were almost endless. But the role of occasional revolutions in terms of opening new paths for advancement and for the World System increased immensely. Besides, revolutions considerably changed the balance of power in the World System. So when Braudel (1985) and Arrighi (1994) speak about the change of leaders during long cycles of capital accumulation and hegemonic transitions of the Modern era (in particular, about the transition from the Genoese to the Dutch cycle of Accumulation and later to the British one) the roots of this transition across cycles originated in the consequences of these revolutions. In the late eighteenth century there occurred two large revolutions: the American and French (about them see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). While the American Revolution can undoubtedly be considered as a powerful driver of social advance since it created the first large territorial republic since Rome, the progressive role of the French revolution immediately became the matter of fierce debates (see Chapter “On Theories and Phenomenon of Revolution” [Goldstone et al., 2022a] in the present monograph). In the mid-nineteenth century this was already pointed out by Alexis de Tocqueville who analyzed the ‘old’ regime, that is, the pre-revolutionary (prior to 1789) one in France. He concluded that ‘the Revolution effected suddenly, by a convulsive and sudden effort, without transition, precautions, or pity, what would have been gradually affected by time had it never occurred’ (Tocqueville, 2010 [1856]: 36–37). But this referred only to the development of France. The French Revolution despite all its high costs (including millions of lives lost during the Napoleonic wars) undoubtedly gave a significant impetus to transformations not only in France but also in Europe and in the whole world (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b] and Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences”

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[Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). As we pointed out in Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume], great revolutions may divert and even throw back the society that generated them, and still they realize the aspirations for certain changes, transformations and needs (though this is conducted in a distorted ideological way). Meanwhile, the neighboring societies can benefit from such development since they can conduct appropriate changes under the influence of revolutionary events. In other words, it is a path of historical process in which some societies’ progress can be achieved at the expense of the others’ failure. The revolutions of the 1830s and 1848–1849 in Europe expanded developmental opportunities for national states and opened a wide path for European democracy and completion of industrialization in many European states (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). One may draw a conclusion that revolutions of the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century occurred not in the economically leading countries but in those that were literally close to the most developed countries. As a result, the role of revolutions in the nineteenth century changed in a way. Although they still preserved a significant progressive meaning, they would hardly open different developmental paths but still created alternatives (as in the USA and Germany) and extended the World System core.11

3.3 The Declining Progressive Role of Revolutions in the World System Core and Their Substitution for Reforms After the revolutions of 1848–1849 in Europe there started a period when there occurred quite a few revolutions (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). The revolutionary epoch in Spain and France was still on the way while the Civil War continued in the USA. But there was nothing similar to the wave of 1848–1849 until the start of the revolutionary wave associated with World War I (Below we will show that in terms of historical process the nature of those revolutions was already different, see also Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). However, European countries developed rather rapidly both in terms of expanded freedoms and improvement of the life quality. This was connected in many ways 11

For example, in the USA industrialization with a high level of machines proceeded until the mid19th century and mostly relied not on the steam engine but on water power which was abundant in North America (see Grinin, 2007; Grinin & Grinin, 2015a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). It is worth mentioning that the Meiji revolution in Japan in 1868 in some sense opened a new way for Asian countries.

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with the fact that revolutionary experiments obviously cost too much and the revolutionary ‘bitter pill’ turned out to be too strong and dangerous. So the societies that had experienced revolutions and feared their memories were eager to conduct preventive reforms. This contributed to the historical lessons learned by the elites and states along with their well-developed sense of self-preservation, and new institutions were established as a result of previous fights and development (in particular, local governments, constitutional monarchies, parliaments, new proceedings, the system of political parties and professional associations). Deliberate reforms were adopted, which if successful could reduce social tension, and what is more important, open horizons for society’s development for decades. Reforms could also come at a price but still they turned out to be far less costly than revolutions. All these considerations led to the fact that in a number of societies revolutions became an outdated means of social transformations.12 Gradually and with difficulty, did they become associated with a definite historical stage of societal development. But this occurred only in some societies, which had avoided revolutions and approached the leading societies in their institutions and technologies (the World System core including the English dominions like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). This has generally decreased the role of revolutions as the driving force of the historical process in the World System (and as the factor paving the way for new levels and models of political regime and development), since its core would now advance via different and smoother ways.

3.4 The Increasing Role of Revolutions in the World-System Semi-Periphery and Periphery. Revolutions as a Result of the World system’s Transformations in the First Half of the Twentieth Century Thus, the world system’s most developed countries shifted away from revolutions to preventive reforms. However, in certain circumstances, revolutions were still relevant. This primarily refers to those societies that achieved the level when revolutions became possible, but their political system did not change in tune with the epoch. This means that societies in certain spheres (especially in production, communication means and transport, culture, and demography) start to develop quicker than

12

This conviction started to widely spread after the French Revolution. Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century it became a dominant idea in social philosophy especially after the spread of Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary ideas (Spencer, 2000 [1862], 1872). In the twentieth century this almost became a postulate in academic social studies (e.g., Le Bon, 1913, Adams, 1913; Sorokin, 1925; Edwards, 1927; Pettee, 1938; Brinton, 1965 [1938]; Brogan, 1952: 96; Carr, 1955: 710; Wolfe, 1965: 7; Berger & Neuhaus, 1970: 53; ; Boulding, 1953: xiv; Ellul, 1971: 39, 43; Dunn, 1989).

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their social-political structures allow. The more explosive development and growth, the stronger can be the crisis caused by such development. If we consider the general range of revolutions since the Modern period, it becomes clear that such events are associated with a definite stage of societal development. Revolutions can hardly occur in a society at any period of its history (Huntington, 1968). Thus, a society should come up to revolution. However, the success of revolution in terms of its further progressive role largely depends on the correlation between a society’s actual preparedness for transformations which are proclaimed as the goals of revolution and these goals as such. The large discrepancies between revolutionary slogans and real opportunities can be found in any revolution.13 But the more the revolutionary slogans and ideas are borrowed from outside, the less understandable is the meaning of revolutionary ideas for social forces and the larger is the defined gap. Also the more the revolutionary goals diverge from a society’s readiness to follow them the stronger is the possibility that progressive outcomes of revolution would be minimal or negative. This especially refers to democratic ideals in societies lacking relevant experience (see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022, in this volume]). That is why it is the possible introduction of stable democracy that revolutions often fail to accomplish. Meanwhile, the national-liberation struggle and endeavors to establish an independent state more often succeed with revolutions. Thus, the communist ideal failed during revolutions in the countries where private property relations and religion are strong (as it occurred in Afghanistan after 1978); on the contrary, communist relations can be established in the societies where private property positions are weak with a traditionally strong role for the state. This considerable unpreparedness of a society to realize revolutionary goals may help to explain why the role of revolutions as a way to a new level in the framework not of certain developing countries but of the World-System semi-periphery and periphery in general, considerably declined in comparison with their role in the World System core in earlier periods. The societies of the World System near and far semi-periphery were getting more mature during the second half of the nineteenth century and specially its last third. Since those semi-peripheral societies developed unevenly in economic, political and cultural terms, revolutions became a powerful alternative to reforms. And when we account for the fact that their ruling elite was not ready to counter a revolutionary rise, and their intelligentsia took the model of revolution from the more advanced European countries, a number of countries in the semi-periphery were captured by revolutions in the early twentieth century. So the first revolutionary wave of the twentieth century started and involved Russia, Turkey, Persia, China and Mexico (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). 13

In order to accomplish the goals set by a revolution there is often needed not one but two or more revolutions and often a whole revolutionary epoch during which both the goals and the society’s mindset are modified. About revolutionary epochs see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022c) and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this book).

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Yet, one should note that these countries as social systems proper had not developed to the level when revolutions may appear an efficient and, what is more important, final resolution of internal problems. Under previous regimes they far from exhausted their reform resources. As a result, these rapidly developing societies experienced a revolutionary collapse. Often accompanied with the split of the state, and an epoch of disturbances and revolutions, i.e. severe internal social and military conflicts (the most vivid example here is China in 1920–1949). This was exacerbated by the revolutionaries’ ultimate goal of creating a democratic society which these countries were not ready for (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). The role of these revolutions in terms of historical process was connected with dragging the semi-periphery and a part of the periphery to the World System core and the search for new developmental paths (among which communism would later show up). But this catching up proved enormously difficult. So the revolutions appeared devastating, leading to civil wars and severe hardships. The First World War opened a very harsh period of the world-system’s transformation (and change of its leader), which was mostly completed only by the midtwentieth century. To a certain extent the revolutions of 1917–1923 and subsequent events could be considered as related to those world-system transformations. During the same period many revolutions took place and also other events that were equal to revolutions in their consequence and were connected with military turnovers, dictatorships, and peaceful but very profound and severe changes in different countries including those close to the World System core or those constituting this core (Germany, Austria, Italy). These changes far from always proceeded as revolutions so we consider them as analogues of revolutions (here we attribute the Nazis’ seizure of power in Germany and the changes they conducted in the country and neighboring states. For details about the analogues of revolutions see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]; also Grinin & Grinin, 2020). After their completion, many revolutions of the 1900–1930s (with a few exceptions including Mexico14 )generally failed to become a means of obvious progress which could be considered as an evident advantage over the previous development without paying high price in revolutionary violence and disruption.15 This does not mean that they had no positive impact, but the cost was too high. And the transition of Germany to the right-wing national-socialist revolution had huge negative consequences.

14

This happened in many ways due to the fact that this was hardly the first revolution in this country and besides, they had a certain experience of democracy. 15 For example, as it was in the USSR where mass repressions had continued to the 1920s and 1930s.

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3.5 Revolutions of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century and Early Twenty-First Century Revolutions of the 1940–1970s had two major aspects. First, they were mostly revolutions in the far periphery and opened the way to the emergence of new states in Asia, Africa and other places. These countries’ further development mostly proceeded far from smoothly. However, with the emergence of new states in the 1940–1970s there increased by ten-fold the number of military coups in the world, which became for many countries the main form of changing policy and regimes (e.g. Beissinger, 2017; Huntington, 1993; Tilly, 1992, 1996). Just a small part of these turnovers can be considered as analogues of revolutions (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). We would also point out that countries that became independent as a result of revolutionary wars with metropoles got no evident advantages in comparison with the countries that obtained independence after agreements with metropoles or which the latter set free of their own free will. The second aspect was connected with the struggle between superpowers (the USA and the USSR) for global leadership. There were, respectively, communist revolutions and anti-communist actions. Let us note that communist revolutions, especially in Europe, mostly exhausted their progressive potential and their ideas mainly effected the adoption of social welfare policies in other countries. This was also connected with the fact that such revolutions became a geopolitical weapon which mostly solved not national objectives but the interests of the communist superpowers (the USSR and Maoist China). Thus, numerous revolutions and their analogues in the 1940–1970s undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the change in the World-System’s semiperiphery and periphery and promoted the emergence of new states. But on the whole, the progressive potential of revolutions in terms of formation of a more efficient model of political regime or creation of new opportunities in economic and technological development on the world-system’s scale was rather limited and can be hardly compared with the role of revolutions in the seventeenth–nineteenth century.16 However, in connection with the growing number of revolutions and involvement of many regions in revolutionary process, the role of revolutions in the reconfiguration of the World System remains high enough. In some respects this role has been even increasing starting from the 1970s up to modern period (see Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e, in this volume]). The wave of anti-communist revolutions in 1989–1991 brought a number of East European countries back to the developmental mainstream. Their value consisted in the fact that most of them were “velvet” and bloodless. Concerning the revolutionary 16

However, it is undisputed that the most successful economic development of recent decades has been achieved by a country undeniably affected by a Communist Revolution. The People’s Republic of China was able to combine the advantages of socialist state economic planning and of the capitalist free markets and competition.

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waves of the twenty-first century, as we already pointed out in Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al. 2022c, in this book), the first its wave (2000–2010) included color revolutions which were often used as a geopolitical weapon and because of this they considerably undermined their progressive potential. The second wave was the Arab Spring and its echo, in 2010/2011–2013, and its revolutions were mostly caused by internal problems, though the external powers were involved in them actively. In any case they did not exhibit an advantage in comparison with modernization imposed by authoritarian regimes. On the contrary (see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022, and Parts 4–6 in this volume]17 ), most of the world’s contemporary revolutions can hardly be considered as a progressive impetus (Ukraine, Egypt, Venezuela etc. are vivid examples here [see Grinin, 2012b]), besides they do cause international crises (as in Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen). Quite often revolutions provoke a return to the previous authoritarian model and as a result almost everything returns to the state as it was before revolution (as in Egypt after the military takeover in July 2013; see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022, in this volume]). Moreover, the prospects of success for a revolution (again in terms of improving life and especially in eliminating the roots that cause it) are not guaranteed and sometimes are very small, indeed. And we should repeat again, there is a high probability that everything will return back to its place. Concerning the results of the third wave of the twenty-first century it is difficult to formulate certain opinions because it continues. We have already compared the cost of revolutions and reforms. Now the balance has considerably shifted in favor of the latter. That is why today one can hardly regard many revolutions (especially in societies which are not ready for democracy (see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022, in this volume]) in positive terms since their value has been modest, while the risks of bringing a society to a wrong path (as it happened in 1979 in Iran) significantly exceed potential progress. In other words, similar results (i.e., the improvement of the quality of life and modernization of society) can eventually be achieved at a more peaceful pace, albeit perhaps at the cost of preserving an immoral regime but without social upheavals. Thus, we can conclude that in the course of the historical process the role of revolutions as a means of advancing societies and the World System at a new level, and as a driving force of progress opening new developmental perspectives, has changed. It increased starting from the sixteenth century, reached its apogee in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, remained high over the nineteenth century and then its role as a driver of the world-system progress generally began to decline; yet, its role as a means of the world-system transformation 17 E.g., Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Color Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), or Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022, in this volume).

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increased and will increase in some respects. In recent decades, the role of revolutions as a geopolitical weapon to increase a superpowers’ influence has grown considerably.

4 Revolutions and the Globalization Process Although hardly anyone will argue that globalization is an important element of historical process and consequently, every developmental stage of the latter correlates with a new stage of globalization, nevertheless, these relations are obviously insufficiently studied. In the present section we would like to briefly consider this topic in order to give a more thorough treatment of the relations between globalization and the historical process on the one hand, and revolutions on the other. The Early Modern era serves as a very good example to support the idea of a close interrelation between these processes. With respect to globalization one can hardly ignore the fact that revolutions generate new ideologies spreading worldwide and also contribute to the emergence of new international ideas, thus increasing the opportunities to synchronize the development which helps to expand globalization. Revolutions allowed strengthening of new religious trends which, for the first time in history, approved of trade and wealth accumulation (which, in fact, definitely makes them new ideologies). In particular, the success of the Dutch revolt (1566–1609) allowed the small Netherlands to gain independence from Spain and thus laid the foundation for the Dutch Golden Age, which brought the development of world trade and navigation in the seventeenth century along with a general development of globalization. Revolutions give impetus to the development of education systems which provide the basis for increasing information flows and transformation of information into a more important element of productive forces. The development of new ideologies, including the religious ones, contributes to growing activity of some part of the population and new land settlement. Thus, the victory of the Glorious Revolution in England accelerated the settlement of North America and as a result created there a society absolutely free from feudal burdens and consisting of Protestants who created their communities following their own prescriptions (a rare phenomenon in history indeed). The historical process can be described as cycles of accelerated development of certain countries or regions alternated by their catching up by lagging countries.18 The development of globalization is also associated with these cycles since they somehow change and complicate the relations between different countries and regions as well as change the World System’s configuration (in particular, by shifting its core [see, e.g., Arrighi, 1994]). The development of navigation and conquering of new lands were enough to launch globalization. To expand the latter there were needed the adjustment of societies along with periphery’s ability to serve the core’s interests which required the development of semi-periphery and periphery after the Industrial Revolution had been completed (see Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). 18

For the divergence/convergence cycles (see Grinin & Korotayev, 2016; Grinin, 2017c).

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Revolutions, as we saw above, can fulfill two functions: they can support some societies’ advance, in particular, those developmental leaders that make a path for other societies. That was the case of England after the seventeenth-century revolution. Revolutions also push the peripheral and semi-peripheral societies toward the leaders. In some cases this function can be fulfilled by forced changes imposed by the winner. Thus, Napoleon would change regimes in German states and Italy (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c], “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). Of the same kind were the occupational transformations in Japan and Korea (as well as in communist countries under the USSR) after World War II (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). Such transformations are of great importance for globalization. The advances in technologies and trade together with the Age of Discovery, growing urbanization and literacy levels, and information distribution obviously accelerated development from the start of the Modern Era. Revolutions were one of the most important means supporting this acceleration and after they had led to advantageous changes in some societies, so the need for transformations in them and the lagging societies became even more acute. In the present volume we investigate all revolutionary waves (see Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” [Rozov, 2022], Chapter “Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern Period: Types and Phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022d], Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b], and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). Here we should only point out that each of them considerably affected globalization processes; yet, some of them played a pivotal role. For example, the revolutions of 1808 through the 1820s, especially in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, actually opened up Spanish America, which used to be closed (except for Spain) for trade. Starting from that time the development of Latin America took a new path, under the particular influence of Britain and the USA.19 It is also worth mentioning the wave of revolutions of the early twentieth century (1905–1911) which started in Russia, and engaged a number of peripheral countries (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). These revolutions essentially changed the relations between these countries and the rest of the world, yet they caused great disasters there (especially long-lasting in China). Meanwhile, the socialist revolutions of the 1940s (which were a part of the wave in the post-war years) produced a rather controversial impact on globalization. On the one hand, they promoted a rapid

19

It is worth mentioning another example of the connection between globalization and revolutions. The revolutionizing influence of the Great French revolution in 1791–1804 on the Caribbean societies including Haiti (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume)) helped in some respect to rise of the revolutionary wave of 1808–1826.

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industrialization in these countries; on the other hand, they created obstacles for globalization since the world was split into two camps. A number of national-liberation revolutions in the post-war period launched a flow of emancipation of colonies. This also produced an ambiguous effect on the development of globalization. Before this, the colonial empires made the world more consolidated in certain respects. Now many independent states would emerge each having its own interests. Nevertheless, globalization generally accelerated. Finally, the recent wave of revolutions of the late twentieth century—the antisocialist revolutions of the 1980s—eliminated the strict division of the world into two camps. About the waves of revolutions in twenty-first century see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022c). In conclusion of this section, let us consider the correlation between historical process, globalization and revolutions. The results of our analysis of revolutions, historical process and globalization are presented in Table 1. We describe the historical process by means of two indicators: the stage of technological development (we define them as production principles and the transition from one to another occurs via production/technological revolutions (Grinin, 2007; Grinin & Grinin, 2015a, 2015b; Grinin & Grinin, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015; Grinin et al., 2017, 2020) and the level of development of political organization of a society (Grinin, 2008, 2011a, 2012a). Globalization is described by our periodization in which the level of development of spatial links serves as the criterion for developmental stages of globalization; the spatial links are the relations among societies and other actors which qualitatively characterize the developmental level of globalization. Taken together the spatial links and types of political organization show the general unfolding of the historical process. The last two columns describe the changing role of revolutions in the historical process and globalization.

5 Conclusion. The Role of Revolutions in the Future An important point related to the world-historical aspect of the impact of great revolutions is the emergence of new trajectories of historical development (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)). The emergence of a new developmental trajectory provides new opportunities and increases competition along with simultaneous divergence and convergence. However, in this respect the role of revolutions in the historical process decreases and since the 1950s there have hardly occurred any great or even large-scale revolutions that could change the global developmental trajectory. And this is good indeed since great revolutions bring great upheavals and sacrifices while the same transformations can be achieved by more balanced means.

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Therefore, we trace the changing role of revolutions as a means of social advance in the historical process. They used to be the means of social and political transformations that opened new horizons for the historical process in general, but today in many cases they have become a geopolitical means of increasing the impact of certain forces and regimes or of imposing certain political arrangements. Moreover, instead of becoming the means to generate modernization, revolutions often turned into upheavals bringing societies to stagnation and degradation (see about decreasing role, importance and even very meaning of the word “revolution” in Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” [Selbin, 2022] and Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” [Mitchell, 2022, in this book]). With respect to the subject of the present volume, one can confidently argue that the diminishing role of revolutions in the historical process (as paving the way for new levels and trajectories) as a trend observed over several decades of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will certainly continue. However, their importance for the World System, as we pointed above, remains rather significant and can increase in some respects. Speaking about the future of revolutions it seems clear that (1)

(2)

(3)

Revolutions as a means of modernization will still play their part in currently underdeveloped countries (e.g. in Africa) but this role will decrease due to the world community’s impact and accumulation of historical experience as well as due to the development of alternative modernization patterns. Revolutions as a means of democratization of authoritarian societies will continue to prove problematic and often lead to non-consolidated democracy. Revolutions may generate new developmental alternatives within individual societies. But it is important to speak about quite modest chances that such new alternatives will be better than development achieved under reforms that transition from the authoritarian mode. Even though revolutions will not offer effective means of systemic advance of nations, nonetheless, they may play a major role in transforming the World System. Given that authoritarian government has remained and grown stronger in the countries of the former Soviet Union, China, and many Middle Eastern and African countries, in the future revolutions may be quite numerous and engage influential nations. This will strongly affect the destiny of many countries. Such revolutions appear to be a probable important factor of the World System’s reconfiguration (see Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e, in this volume)). Many democratic revolutions are likely to take the existing patterns of “color revolutions” or violent upheavals.

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Moreover, in this case revolutions will become a kind of a battering ram destroying the old world-system/global order and preparing the ground for the establishment of a new world order. This will be discussed in detail in Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e) and “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) to the present volume. Since we expect a drastic transformation of the world order during the coming decades it seems reasonable to suppose that this new order will be established via different means including numerous revolutions. That is why the importance of revolutions as tools of progress may increase, especially if they occur in the USA or other Western countries (this becomes quite possible if the situation in the world changes dramatically). Moreover, revolutions in great powers like Russia and especially China will also strongly affect the World System and the future world order.

From the 7th—6th millennia BCE to the second half of the 4th millennium BCE

The second half of the 4th millennium BCE—the second half of the 1st millennium BCE

Regional links

Regional and continental links

Except for such revolutions as the plebian movements in ancient Rome.

Prior to the 7th—6th millennia BCE

Local links

20

Time period

Type of socio-spatial links

Early states and their analogues; the first empires

Pre-state political forms of medium complexity and first complex polities

Pre-state (simple and medium complexity) political forms

Forms of political organization

The second phase of the agrarian revolution; agrarian production principle reaches its maturity

The first phases of agrarian production principle

Hunter-gatherer production principle, beginning of the agrarian production principle

Level of technology (production principles and production revolutions)

Table 1 Correlation between the types of revolutions, historical process and globalization

Early polis and national-liberation

No or unrevealed

No

Relatively small20

No or unrevealed

No

The predominating Role of type of revolution revolutions in historical process

Minor

(continued)

No or unrevealed

No

Role of revolutions in globalization

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21

From the early nineteenth century to the 1960s–1970s Mature states and early forms of supranational entities

Of most importance was the Muhammad revolution in the early seventh century CE.

Global links

Rise of developed states, first mature states

From the 16th to the early nineteenth centuries (≈ 1492–1821)

Intercontinental (oceanic) links

Forms of political organization

Rise of empires and first developed states

Time period

Continental and The second half of the 1st millennium BCE—the late fifteenth trans-continental century CE links

Type of socio-spatial links

Table 1 (continued)

Religious, early anti-monarchist

Minor

Role of revolutions in globalization

Starting from the mid-nineteenth century, breakthrough role of revolutions in advancing of the World System decreases. Reforms and deliberate transformations become the driving forces of historical process

(continued)

Significant role until the third decade of the twentieth century, then it becomes ambiguous and sometimes counterproductive

Revolutions Significant become the most important driving force of historical process

Polis, early Relatively religious and small21 national-liberation, social-political

The predominating Role of type of revolution revolutions in historical process

The final phases of Democratic, the industrial national-liberation production principle, and communist the very beginning of the scientific-information production principle

The first phase of the industrial production principle and industrial revolution

Final phase of the agrarian production principle

Level of technology (production principles and production revolutions)

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The last third of the 20th to the twenty-first centuries; especially vivid will become in the forthcoming decades—by the mid-twenty-first century

Planetary links

22

Formation of supranational entities, weakening of state sovereignty and struggle around sovereign rights, search for new types of political unions and entities, planetary governance forms

Forms of political organization

The start and development of scientific-information revolution whose second phase is forecasted for the 2030s and 2040s

Level of technology (production principles and production revolutions) Anti-socialist, ‘color’ inspired by geopolitical actors, democratic

The role of revolutions as a tool of reconfiguration of the World System increases

The predominating Role of type of revolution revolutions in historical process

See Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e, in this volume).

Source Grinin and Korotayev (2014, 2018); Grinin (2019b)

Time period

Type of socio-spatial links

Table 1 (continued)

Declining role of revolutions in globalization but their role increases in process of World System reconfiguration22

Role of revolutions in globalization

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Frank, A. G., & Gills, B. K. (Eds.). (1993). The world system: Five hundred years of five thousand? Routledge. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Blackwell. Goldfrank, W. L. (1979). Theories of revolution and revolution without theory: The case of Mexico. Theory and Society, 7, 135–165. Goldstone, J. A. (1991). Revolution and rebellion in the early modern world. University of California Press. Goldstone, J. A. (2001). Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 4, 139–187. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.139 Goldstone, J. A. (2014). Revolutions: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 37–68). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_2 Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). Conclusion. Why have so many revolutions occurred in recent years, and are they likely to continue to occur in the future. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 1033–1057). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_41 Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022c). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 1–33). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Goodwin, J., & Skocpol, T. (1989). Explaining revolutions in the contemporary Third World. Politics & Society, 17(4), 489–507. Grinin, L. (1997). Formatsii i tsivilizatsii. Glava 2. Filosofiya i Obshchestvo, 2, 5–89. Grinin, L. (2004a). Democracy and early state. Social Evolution & History, 3(2), 93–149. Grinin, L. (2004b). Early state and democracy. In L. E. Grinin, R. L. Carneiro, D. M. Bondarenko, N. N. Kradin, A. V. Korotayev (Eds.), The early state, its alternatives and analogues (pp. 419–463). Uchitel. Grinin, L. (2006). Proizvoditel’nye sily i istoricheskiy protsess. Izd. 3-e. KomKniga. Grinin, L. (2007). Production revolutions and periodization of history: A comparative and theoreticmathematical approach. Social Evolution & History, 6(2), 75–120. Grinin, L. (2008). Early state, developed state, mature state: Statehood evolutionary sequence. Social Evolution & History, 7(1), 67–81. Grinin, L. (2010). Gosudarstvo i istoricheskiy protsess: Evolyutsiya gosudarstvennosti: Ot rannego gosudarstva k zrelomu. Knizhniy Dom «Librokom». Grinin, L. (2011a). The evolution of statehood. From early state to global society. Lambert Academic Publishing. Grinin, L. (2011b). Istoki Globalizatsii. Mir-Sistemnyi Analiz. Vek Globalizatisii, 1, 80–94. Grinin, L. (2012a). Macrohistory and globalization. Uchitel. Grinin, L. (2012b). Arabskaya vesna i rekonfiguratsiya Mir-Sistemy. In A. V. Korotayev, Yu. V. Zinkina, & A. S. Khodunova (Eds.), Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov (pp. 188–223). LIBROKOM/URSS. Grinin, L. (2012c). State and socio-political crises in the process of modernization. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, 3(1), 124–157. Grinin, L. (2013). Gosudarstvo i krizisy v protsesse modernizatsii. Filosofiya i Obshchestvo, 3, 29–59. Grinin, L. (2017a). Russkaya revolyutsiya i lovushki modernizatsii. Polis. Politicheskie Issledovaniya, 4, 138–155. Grinin, L. (2017b). Revolutsii. Vzglyad na pyatisotletniy trend. Istoricheskaya Psikhologia i Sotsiologiya Istorii, 2, 5–42.

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Grinin, L. (2017c). The processes of systemic integration in the world system. Journal of Globalization Studies, 8(1), 97–118. Grinin, L. (2018a). Revolutions and historical process. Journal of Globalization Studies, 9(2), 126–141. https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2019.02.14 Grinin, L. (2018b). Revolutsii, istoricheskiy protsess i globalizatsiya. Vek Globalizatsii, 4, 16–29. Grinin, L. (2018c). Revolutions: An insight into a five centuries’ trend. Social Evolution & History, 17(2), 171–204. Grinin, L. (2019). Islamism and globalization. Journal of Globalization Studies, 10(2), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.30884/jogs/2019.02.02 Grinin, L. (2019b). Revolutions in the light of historical process. Social Evolution & History, 18(2), 260–285. Grinin, L. (2022a). Evolution and typology of revolutions. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 173–200). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_6 Grinin, L. (2022b). On revolutionary waves since the 16th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 389–411). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_13 Grinin. (2022c). Revolution and modernization traps. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 219–238). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_8 Grinin. (2022d). The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 281–313). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_11 Grinin, L. (2022e). Revolutions of the 21st century as a factor in the World System reconfiguration. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 975–998). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_38 Grinin, L. (2022f). On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 69–104). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864 68-2_3 Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2015a). Ot rubil do nanorobotov. Mir na puti k epokhe samoupravlyayemykh sistem (istoriya tekhnologiy i opisaniye ikh budushchego). Moskovskoe redaktsiya izdatel’stva ‘Uchitel’ Grinin, A., & Grinin, L. (2015b). The cybernetic revolution and historical process. Social Evolution & History, 14(1), 125–184. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2016). The Cybernetic revolution and the forthcoming epoch of selfregulating systems. Moscow branch of Uchitel Publishing House. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2020). Revolutions of the 20th century: A theoretical-quantitative analysis. Polis (Russian Federation), 5, 130–147. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2020.05.10 Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 315–388). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12 Grinin, L., Grinin, A., & Korotayev, A. (2017). Forthcoming Kondratieff wave, cybernetic revolution, and global ageing. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 115, 52–68. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.09.017

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Grinin, L., Grinin, A., & Korotayev, A. (2020). A quantitative analysis of worldwide long-term technology growth: From 40,000 BCE to the early 22nd century. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 155, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.119955 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2012). Does ‘Arab Spring’ mean the beginning of world system reconfiguration? World Futures: The Journal of Global Education, 68(7), 471–505. https://doi. org/10.1080/02604027.2012.697836 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2014). Origins of globalization in the framework of the Afroeurasian world-system history. Journal of Globalization Studies, 5(1), 32–64. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2015). Great divergence and great convergence. A global perspective. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17780-9 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016). Blizhniy Vostok, India i Kitai v globalizatsionnykh protsessakh. Moscoe branch of Uchitel Publishers. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2018). Origins of globalization in the framework of the Afroeurasian world-system history. In T. D. Hall (Ed.), Comparing globalizations, world-systems evolution and global futures (pp. 37–70). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68219-8_3 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Hagopian, M. (1974). The phenomenon of revolution. Dodd, Mead. Halliday, F. (1999). Revolution & world politics. Macmillan. Hansen, M. N. (1989). Was Athens a democracy? Munksgaard. Hobsbawm, E. (1996). The age of revolution: Europe 1789–1848. Vintage. Huntington, S. (1968). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press. Huntington, S. (1986). Revolution and political order. In J. A. Goldstone (Ed.), Revolutions: Theoretical, comparative, and historical studies (pp. 39–47). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Huntington, S. (1993). The third wave. Democratization in the late twentieth century. University of Oklahoma Press. Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Simon & Schuster. Ilyushechkin, V. (1967). Krest’yanskaya voyna taypinov. Nauka. Issaev, L., Khokhlova, A., & Korotayev, A. (2022). The Arab Spring in Yemen. In J.A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 685–705). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26 Ivanov, E. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 517–547). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_20 Johnson, C. (1968). Revolutionary change. University of London Press. Johnson, V. (1993). The structural causes of anticolonial revolutions in Africa. Alternatives, 18, 201–227. Katz, M. (1997). Revolutions and revolutionary waves. St. Martin’s. Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16 Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Orange Revolution in Ukraine. In J.A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 501–515). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19 Khodunov, A. (2022c). The Rose Revolution in Georgia. In J.A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and

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Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology.

Evolution and Typology of Revolutions Leonid Grinin

This chapter studies the development of revolutions over 500 years since the beginning of the sixteenth century. It analyzes the patterns of transformation of revolutions during the Modern Era, in particular, the way their world-historical role, social bases, revolutionary ideologies, practices, and the information technologies they employed were changing throughout these centuries. It is shown how, why, and what new characteristics, practices etc. appeared after each great revolution and several revolutionary waves (about waves see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f], Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022], and Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). In Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d, in this book), we have shown that although there were revolutions in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages, their role in the development of the historical process was relatively insignificant. Only starting from Modern history did the role of revolutions as driving forces, as engines of the historical process, social and economic development, increase dramatically. We showed that this new role is connected with the beginning of the industrial era and new technologies, and the development of capitalist relations, for which modern revolutions opened the way by fighting against absolutism and obsolete social relations. However, the formation of the modern type of revolutions as a powerful tool of progress started from the Reformation. We define four important prerequisites for the transition to modern revolutions and show that by the beginning of the sixteenth This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254). L. Grinin (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia HSE University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_6

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century these had already appeared in a number of European societies. This chapter analyzes the lines of transformation of revolutions in terms of their contribution to revolutionary strategy and goals, ideologies and social bases, and also the way the information technologies used during revolutions have changed throughout these centuries. It shows the important changes introduced by each major revolution to revolutionary practices and to the very understanding of the essence of revolution. The author shows their changing significance over the course of historical process, in particular, how their world-historical role was transformed. The chapter also proposes a new and original typology of revolutions according to the goals of revolutions. We point out six different types of revolutions.

1 On Some Preconditions for a Revolutionary Outbreak There are a number of conditions for the outbreak, development and success of a revolution. We will focus on four preconditions which are hardly debated but are closely interrelated.1 It is important that by the beginning of the sixteenth century these four important prerequisites for the transition to modern revolutions can already be found in a number of European societies. The first precondition is available information technologies which appear important for many reasons since they serve to spread revolutionary ideology and propaganda and to attract supporters. The second precondition is a certain level of urbanization since with other conditions being equal, the level of culture, literacy, opportunities for the diffusion of new ideas and uniting for protests in cities is higher than in rural areas. In addition, there is a high concentration of the middle class and elite in cities, especially in capitals. As we know, the role of the elite in organizing revolutions was significant in many cases (Skocpol, 1979; Arjomand, 1988; Higley & Burton, 1989; Goldstone, 1991; Goldstone et al., 1991; DeFronzo, 1996; Lachmann, 1997; Dogan & Higley, 1998; see also Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]; see also Grinin 2017a, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019).2 The third important precondition is a high literacy rate since revolutions can hardly occur in societies with a 2–3% literate population and demand a considerable share of literate people. 1

For the analysis of some of these conditions see Grinin (2017b); see also Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume). 2 Not without reason the revolutions, if they ever occurred in antiquity and medieval period, would break out in urban societies where the literacy rate was relatively high. The high level of urbanization for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as well as literacy influenced the fact that some features of coming revolutions were already manifested in the Hussite movement in the first half of the fifteenth century and in some uprisings in Italy in the fourteenth century.

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The fourth precondition for the revolution is the existence of a relatively new or modified ideology (its distribution may take place before the revolution or during its course). In our opinion, a revolution needs a new or modified ideology which is not only capable of uniting people (this can be achieved by protest sentiments, exacerbated needs and disasters, increasing resentments from oppression and injustice) but it can also give a more or less clear idea (yet, at the level of rather universal slogans) that a certain political regime is better than the existing one, and to live a better life it is absolutely necessary to change the existing regime (for the analysis of the role of ideologies in revolutions see Goldstone, 2001b and Selbin, 2013; see also Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]; for another opinion on revolutionary ideologies and religious reformation see in Chapter “The ‘Problem of Structure and Agency’ and Contemporary Sociology of Revolution and Social Movements” [Karasev, 2022, in this volume]). All these four preconditions (new ideology, information technologies, literacy and a certain level of urbanization) are closely interrelated. Thus, revolution as a movement with an ideology that requires institutional changes in the political and social order, could only appear in an urbanized society with a certain level of literacy and culture and with the intellectuals formed as a social group. In other words, it is a society in which at least early modernization has begun and is still ongoing (on the relationship between revolution and modernization see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c]; see also Grinin, 2013, 2017b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a).

2 Early Revolutions (The Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries) 2.1 Why May One Consider the Reformation as the First Revolution of the Early Modern Period?3 The year 2017 marked the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation in Germany.4 It was the Reformation that gave a start to modern revolutions in Europe and the world (about the first revolutionary wave in the Modern era [1517–1555] see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). We will see below that by the beginning of the Reformation all the above-mentioned and other preconditions for the revolutionary outbreak in Germany and some other countries were evidently present. Since its beginning the Reformation 3

We define the early Modern period starting from the late fifteenth century. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther, Doctor of Theology at the University of Wittenberg posted his famous Ninety-five Theses, in which he sharply criticized the existing practices of the Catholic Church, in particular the sale of indulgences.

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appeared as a new ideology. At the same time, with respect to the Reformation the idea would be particularly true that the most effective ideologies are those that strike roots in prevailing cultural frameworks, appropriating older stories and images and retooling them to resonate with the issues of the present day (Goldstone, 2001b; Nash, 1989; Selbin, 2013; Shin, 1996). In spite of the fact that its ideology was religious, the Reformation differed fundamentally from the millennialist uprisings of the Medieval era, since it carried a clear message about revising religious authority and it was laden with a this-worldly emphasis on the virtue and discipline of economic life, what Max Weber (1930 [1904]) famously described as the spirit of capitalism. The germs of modernization were also evident.5 Germany was one of the most advanced countries in Europe in terms of urban development, trade, and industry (especially mining). The expanding stocks of European silver originated from the mines of Saxony and Bohemia (Nef, 1987: 735), while the mining was highly mechanized (for details see Baks, 1986; Grinin, 2006; Grinin & Grinin, 2015; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). Not incidentally, printing was invented in Germany as well. It makes sense to pay especial attention to book printing, as this new and enormously large-scale and powerful information technology became the most important material basis preparing the religious revolution. As is well known, book printing appeared in the mid-fifteenth century (1445) and quickly spread in Europe. Already in the fifteenth century critical works, especially those related to the Church, were widely distributed in printed form, preparing the ground for the Reformation. Luther’s theses were quickly printed and distributed throughout Europe. Printing technology kindled the Reformation. In the sixteenth century, that is during the period of rising and strengthening Protestantism in Europe, there were printed many million copies of the Bible (Nazarchuk, 2006: 79; see also Buringh & Van Zanden, 2009)6 along with large numbers of other books. Naturally, the increasing market for books relied on growing literacy, and, in turn, influenced their distribution. Again, revolutions cannot occur in fully illiterate societies. And at the beginning of the sixteenth century the literacy rate was rather high even among peasants: in 1525 during the Peasants’ War in Germany, they would print their demands (The Twelve Articles). Thus, all crucial preconditions for revolution were evident: the increasing activity of broad masses of population together with elite leadership against the Pope’s power,7 the emergence of new ideologies, the formation of amorphous parties and sufficiently clear programs, the aspirations for radical changes in society involving its property and social relations, and a sharp split among elites and in the society 5

The Reformation, as the European movement carried by printing, strongly differed even from such very rare for the Middle Ages religious uprisings as the Hussite Wars, which that can be qualified as a revolution of the religious and national liberation type. 6 We should note that before the Reformation, believers were not advised to read the Bible by themselves, and the number of copies was limited, since it was mostly rewritten (although it was printed in the fifteenth century, which, in fact, appeared the basis for ripening of religious unrest). 7 Goldstone (2001b: 152; also Goldstone et al., 1991) states, that a successful revolution needs some linkage or coalition between popular mobilization and elite anti-regime movements (see also Kropotkin 2009 [1909]; Liu 1988; Dix 1983; Goodwin and Skocpol 1989; Eckstein 1989; Aya 1990; Farhi 1990; Wickham-Crowley 1992; Foran 1997; Paige 1997).

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in general. All these led to civil wars. There remains the question of changing the political regime. Actually, the Reformation differs from a common type of revolution in this aspect since the change of political regime was hardly its aim (certainly not its major objective). However, the Reformation to a certain extent was a political protest as well, in particular, against the foreign sovereign power of the Pope (e.g., in German society) and against the church feudal states (archbishoprics, bishoprics, etc.). Later, religious wars became more strongly associated with political systems. In particular, in Germany, as a result of the Augsburg religious peace of 1555, there was proclaimed the principle: “Whose realm, his religion”, in other words the major religion in the principality was determined by the religious confession of its ruler.8

2.2 Religious Revolutions and Their Transformations Why was the religious revolution historically the primary form of revolution in Europe? To answer this question, we should define the difference between rebellions, insurrections, movements, peasant/people’s wars and other forms of socio-political struggle of the medieval period, on the one hand, and revolutions of the early modern period on the other (see also Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). For the participants of the former type of socio-political struggle, the only way to overcome the worsening of living conditions, disasters, crisis etc. was by protests revealing the ‘truth’ to the monarch, who it was hoped would recognize the insurgents’ demands, substitute the ruling person (a specific monarch, minister or courtier and etc.) or, at best, a whole dynasty (as it was in China, where people believed that the sins of the dynasty deprived it of the Mandate of Heaven). There were seldom cases (besides the history of city-states) when goals of social struggle aimed to change the political regime. In contrast to that, a revolution usually requires institutionalized changes in the political system, i.e. popular representation, restricted monarchy and/or estate’s rights, and a republic.9 The emerging classical revolutionary forms with their clear requirements to replace or limit monarchy needed a long time to ripen, and imply certain historical experiences conceptualized in ideologists’ writings, as well as a certain maturity of the society in which political and religious authority have become less closed or even separated.10 All these were hardly present in the sixteenth century. Consequently, 8

It is not by chance that we date the end of the first revolutionary wave (1517–1555) with the Augsburg religious peace. See Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin 2022b, in this volume). 9 However, the change of dynasties became a very important institutionalizing instrument for the establishment of constitutional monarchy. 10 The early modern period was crucial with respect to revolutionary ideology. In fact, the ideologists (especially in England and France) outlined the reorganization of society for two centuries. Obviously, a great variety of new ideas, principles, slogans, demands would emerge in the course of

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some intermediate forms between the Medieval theology and secular ideology should have emerged. The Reformation turned into an intermediate form between the oldtype heresies and social-political revolutions of the early Modern era, as well as contributing to the ideological and partly to the social and economic breakdown of the old regime, due to the confiscation of Church lands, the dissolution of monasteries and other reforms.11 Of course, the religious constituent of revolutions could hardly disappear quickly. First of all, the Reformation and religious wars lasted almost until the end of the sixteenth century in Germany and throughout the Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland, France; and as revolution from above in England, Sweden, and Denmark. Secondly, the subsequent revolution—the Dutch revolt (1566–1609)—also had a clearly religious nature. The Dutch Calvinists’ rebellion was caused by the fact that the Spanish government started harsh persecutions against the Dutch and actively used a religious repressive body—the Inquisition—for this purpose. However, as often happens in such circumstances, Spain’s intransigence in matters of faith and other things (taxes, trade rules, the level of autonomy, etc.) led to a situation when the insurgents considered their separation from Spain as the only opportunity to defend Dutch rights; therefore, the Dutch Republic of a new type emerged. Therefore, along with the religious component, the Dutch revolt encompassed a clearly manifested national liberation struggle which later became one of the most widespread types of revolutions.12 We pointed out two revolutionary waves connected with the epoch of Reformation and religious wars: the first Reformation wave of 1517–1555 and the second Reformation wave of 1562–1609 (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). The further evolution of revolutions as recurrent phenomena was connected with the events in England in the first half of the seventeenth century. But again this revolution still had a religious dimension (see Richards, 2004: 11; also Como, 2015). It was sometimes even called the Puritan Revolution (Gardiner, 1876). The English Reformation of the sixteenth century was carried out by Henry VIII from above and led to the establishment of the Church of England. However, later the reformist movement went from the bottom, and Puritanism (close to Calvinism) emerged in England. It required further changes in the state Church as well as in sociocultural life. The Puritans were persecuted, but they played a crucial role in the defeat of King

revolutions. The migration from the countries where revolutions occurred also had a great impact on the distribution of ideologies (including the conservative, counterrevolutionary one). 11 In this context it is important to mention mass dissident emigrations. The transfer of dissident ideology is also associated with this (as happened in England, where craftsmen from Flanders and French Huguenots had moved). 12 The utmost importance of the religious issue for this revolution is proved by the fact that 10 out of 17 southern Dutch provinces, where Catholicism prevailed, did not want a complete break with Spain, and eventually remained a part of the Habsburg monarchy, preserving the Catholic faith. Thus, only seven Northern provinces, where the Calvinists predominated, founded the Dutch Republic (Republic of the United Netherlands).

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Charles I.13 The religious factors would hardly disappear from English political life even after the revolution. In particular, the overthrow of James II in 1688 (the socalled Glorious Revolution) was caused by the King’s attempts to restore the leading role of Catholicism in the country, whereas the majority of the population and nobility was opposed to it. Thus, much time had passed, in fact more than a century, until a civil revolutionary ideology appeared during the French Revolution (see: Grinin, 2012b: Lecture 8).14 Since the civil revolutionary ideology was insufficiently developed during the English Revolution, some scholars questioned whether it was a revolution or just ‘a great rebellion’ (see Harris, 2015; Como, 2015). We should note that up to the French Revolution the revolutionaries often identified their struggle not with examples from the recent past but with antique or biblical scenes (the English Puritans particularly preferred the latter).15

2.3 Revolutions, Political Regime and Opportunities for the Development of Society After the emergence of the new-type republic in the Netherlands, revolutions became inherently associated with changing the political system. Even if it was mainly a matter of supporting a contender for the throne (as it was in the nineteenth century in Spain), the candidates were expected to change the political regime. This aspiration to somehow change political systems can be considered the most important attribute of revolution. Why should revolutions bring changes in the political system? This was surely connected with the then existing rigid and hierarchical form of government (between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries). On the one hand, there was simply no other way to consolidate a society when states were overcoming the medieval pattern of extreme decentralization. But on the other hand, any urgent transformations required changes in laws which would inevitably encounter these rigid political structures. Starting from the Early Modern period the pace of economic development had

13

The Church of England reasserted its firm positions during the Restoration of the Stuart Dynasty, remaining predominant in England ever since. 14 Although the American Revolution (the struggle for independence) was secular, the role of the Puritans and other Protestants who moved to the American colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was very significant, and the fact that they were fighting against the king, who headed the Anglican Church, inspired them even more. 15 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Dutch presented themselves as descendants of the ancient Helvetian tribes who were fighting Roman imperial rule during their revolt against Spain (see Goldstone, 2001b: 155). In particular Marx noted that the French Revolution appeared in Roman dress (Arendt, 2006 [1963]).

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evidently accelerated due to technological development, trade, the Great Geographical discoveries, increasing urbanization, literacy, distribution of information, etc. It is clear that changes within societies in the course of accelerated historical development could hardly be permanently hindered and prevented. Thus, the long delays in performing urgent and expected changes, and all the more the attempts to aggravate the situation through prohibitions and violations (as happened in the Netherlands and England) caused an inevitable breakdown of the old political frame works in the context of economic and social worsening conditions (see, e.g., Goldstone, 1991, 2001a); besides, the climatic cooling in the seventeenth century contributed to the worsening (Ibidem). Since the monarchy was deemed to be absolute and irresistible, the crucial question became how one could resist an absolute regime. Then the inevitable question arose of what to put in the place of that old regime (Harris, 2015: 28). One could observe a rather significant population growth accompanying the technological, industrial and agricultural growth. The demographic pressure, along with the rapidly increasing number of elites, has become a powerful reason for creating conditions for the first revolutions (see Goldstone, 1991; Grinin et al., 2008, 2009; Grinin, 2012d; Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]). After some societies obtained benefits from revolutions the need for changes in other states became even more acute. First, a permanent criticism of the regime (since the countries with a more liberal regime and higher developmental level would set an example for others, like England exemplified for France in the eighteenth century, and France for Russia in the early twentieth century) caused a certain shift in the minds of a part of the elite towards a realized need for changes (even via revolutionary means). Second, we can include living under somewhat liberalized and humanized regimes, as occurred in France under Louis XVI and in Russia under Nicholas II. This simultaneously strengthens the opposition, increases its demands, reduces fear of reprisals, and gives revolutionaries more opportunities to arrange revolution.

2.4 The Development of Revolutionary Movements: Expanding the Support Bases, Emergence of New Features and Radicalization The spread of revolution was connected not only with increasing literacy and the advancement of printing, but also, and most importantly, with the expanding support bases of revolutions (engaging the bourgeoisie, townspeople, intelligentsia, workhands, etc.). In other words, in the course of revolutions their support bases increase and at a certain point engage the absolute majority of the population. The Reformation involved broad strata, yet, the peasantry would mostly stand back from the struggle. Meanwhile, when the peasantry made attempts to become a social power, as happened in Germany in 1525, their insurrections were ruthlessly suppressed.

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Although the Dutch revolution generated a new regime and new capitalist economy, as well as triggered the most powerful development of world trade, it still remained a national-liberation and religious struggle and was hardly related to internal class contradictions. We should also add that the urbanization level in the Netherlands was uncommonly high for that time (in the early sixteenth century in the Southern Netherlands it was up to 50 per cent, [see Blockmans, 1989: 734]) while the peasantry largely became commercial farmers.

2.5 The English Revolution and the Outlines of Subsequent Revolutions The English Revolution was the first typical socio-political revolution. One should certainly regard it as the first great revolution due to its impact, the ideological boost it provided for the future, and its successful establishment of a new political regime (about the great revolutions see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). It introduced new realities and characteristics into all subsequent revolutions (see Richards, 2004: 1). First of all, it was a liberal and anti-monarchical revolution which ideologically divided countries into those with the royal right as a source of supreme power and those where the source of power was popular sovereignty. The English Revolution also transformed the character of civil war. Certainly, civil wars (including those for religious reasons as well as for supporting republican or tyrannical regimes) were hardly something new in history. However, the revolutionary civil wars in support of monarchy or republic can be treated in some respect as a novel phenomenon. New ideological banners, new principles of the (revolutionary) army formation and new tactics leading to success, and to the king’s trial and execution—these are characteristics adopted by subsequent revolutions. Here one can also point out the important changes in revolutionary ideology, strategy and tactics which now implied a powerful and fierce struggle via new forms of printed word and political journalism in general.16 Here we should remember the so-called “pamphlet war.” There also emerged political groups that later would lay foundations for political parties. Meanwhile, the English Revolution followed a certain life-cycle: from the rise to decline of revolution and its transition into (Cromwell’s) dictatorship, and later—to the restoration of the old system (of royal power).17 But, of course, one cannot step 16

The Reformation was rather a war of sermons than that one of printed word, despite the fact that the role of the latter enormously increased. 17 About revolutionary cycle see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume). There we also mentioned that basing on the history of the English Revolution, Joseph de Maistre (1841 [1796]),

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into the same river twice in politics, so the Restoration appeared as the swan song of the old monarchy even though the former revolutionaries were persecuted during that period (this was also a characteristic feature later recurring in other revolutions). The cycle was completed by the new and almost bloodless Glorious revolution of 1688 (the first ‘velvet’ revolution18 ), which marked the origin of constitutional monarchy. The ideal of constitutional monarchy became a goal of many revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (e.g., Friedrich, 1966). Finally, since it was more a political than religious matter and the struggle occurred between two political centers—the king and the parliament—the English Revolution showed that revolutions are necessarily the struggle for power and for control of shaping a nation’s political institutions.

2.6 The American Revolution The American Revolution was a struggle for independence in its form, but intrinsically it was a revolution. It was based on the ideas of the French Enlightenment; therefore, it introduced a number of innovations into revolutionary practice. First, the declaration of rights, which became a commonplace in subsequent revolutions; second, the legitimacy of the people’s will, which becomes superior over monarchical will; third, the constitution, which also became a commonplace in many revolutions (since the English Revolution had occurred much earlier there was no constitution in Britain but only a constitutional monarchy); and finally, the universal arming of the people also became a widespread practice (because there was no army in America). The American Revolution in many respects (but of course except for the terror and many other excesses) can be called a rehearsal of the French Revolution (since some future French revolutionaries were engaged in a ‘practice lap’ there). After the American Revolution, revolutionary leaders would put forward slogans of political freedom and democratic changes as a basic or additional demand of

one of the leading conservative analysts of the French Revolution, predicted the restoration of royal power in France in 1796; see also Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theory of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume). 18 See chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume); see also Grinin & Korotayev 2014; Grinin et al., 2019; about peculiarities of this revolution see Baker (2015).

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every revolution.19 About the influence of the American Revolution on revolutionary process in Europe see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]).

2.7 The French Revolution and the Formation of Classic Features of Revolutions In this section we will briefly define new features emerging during the French Revolution. So, what new features did the French Revolution introduce into the perception of revolutions? It is all the more important to define them since the French Revolution remained an example for revolutionaries for more than a century (Arendt, 2006 [1963]). This revolution became the favorite example for the researchers of revolution, especially of the great revolutions (Skocpol, 1979; see Goldstone, 2001b on different aspects of this revolution among researchers). When speaking about the French Revolution Keith Baker (2015: 71) uses the expression ‘a revolutionizing Revolution’, in other words, the French Revolution intensified the revolutionary process and gave a way to conceptualization of revolution as an ongoing process. As a result, the French Revolution became the script on which subsequent revolutionaries improvised (see also Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). First of all, this revolution had a broader support base than the English Revolution, since the majority of population, i.e. the peasantry, had joined the revolutionary process (Skocpol, 1979). Second, the French Revolution had a profoundly social character in order to resolve issues of inequality and land reform. Actually it was the first social revolution in Skocpol’s definition, which is a comparatively rare event in world history (Skocpol, 1979). The French Revolution raised in its entirety the problem of the abolition of separate estates and the creation of total legal equality. All people became citizens.20

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Even revolutionaries who regard democracy only as a means to capture power or camouflage a desire to establish an authoritarian regime use liberty and democracy as a slogan (e.g. communists after WWII or nationalist revolutionaries whose purpose was to gain independence). Even the Bolsheviks speaking about the dictatorship of proletariat and revolutionary terror, theoretically combined them with the idea of democracy for working people, as well as democracy inside their party. Only the National Socialists in Germany and the Fascists in Italy conducted revolutions which denied democracy as a value (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)). 20 The concept of citizenship was undoubtedly inspired by ancient, in particular, Roman stories, in this and some other respects (the idea of the consulate was also taken from the Roman tradition). Certainly, despite its innovations, in some respects the French revolution was a kind of imitation of ancient examples.

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Third, the Revolution had a clear anti-feudal (anti-liege) character since the former land and class relationships in rural areas dramatically changed. Along with other features this gave the Revolution a particularly grand scale. Fourth, certain changes occurred in ideology. On the one hand, the French Revolution turned out to be fundamentally antireligious, unlike the English Revolution, which tried to affirm the right to freedom of belief but remained essentially devout in Protestant beliefs. As a result, the desire to take away not only the Church’s property but also the very necessity of faith in God became characteristic of the radical phase of the French Revolution. Subsequent revolutions thus often involved attempts to impose a new secular ideology instead of a religious one. Fifth, the radicalization of the revolution exhibited constantly increasing demands. In the course of its development any revolution becomes radicalized (it became clear already during the Reformation, when the Lutherans were forced to fight against the Anabaptists and other radical reformers). As Samuel Huntington (1968) notes, the main struggle (especially in the West) usually unfolds between the moderates and the radicals. But the French Revolution made this tendency especially evident. During its first five years the increasingly radical groups snatched power one from another, and in 1794, after the Thermidor, there were (failed) attempts of further coups on the part of the extreme left-wingers. Sixth (resulting from the fifth) was the appearance of institutionalized terror, in the form of mass sentencing and executions by the revolutionary government. Due to the unprecedented scale on which it was applied, the terror became a new weapon that proved as dangerous to the revolutionaries as to their foes. Seventh are the new revolutionary bodies and unions which were prototypes of modern revolutionary parties. While the English Revolution demonstrated that a revolution may result in civil war, the French Revolution showed that the ousted elite may even be ready to welcome foreign forces in order to return to power. The struggle against foreign intervention determined the creation of the people’s revolutionary army and promoted the emergence of new tactics as well as opportunities for the promotion of talented commanders from the masses (this was also characteristic of the earlier revolutions). Thus, foreign intervention and the struggle against it became a rather common feature of revolutions. About the influence of the French Revolution on revolutionary changings in Europe see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]).

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3 The Heyday of Revolutions (Nineteenth–First Half of the Twentieth Century) In the nineteenth century the number of revolutions was increasing, and moreover, there was a strengthening conviction that revolutions may help solve various social problems.21 While the earlier revolutions had been the unplanned result of a combination of unexpected circumstances, in the nineteenth and especially twentieth centuries there were conscious and long-term efforts made to prepare revolutions. For the first time in history, revolutionary activities became more professionalized, as leaders who sought to make revolutions developed consciously revolutionary ideologies along with criticisms of existing regimes and aspirations for changes. Finally, the following new features of revolutions can be distinguished: (1) revolutionary organizations, including secretive ones22 ; and (2) conscious and extensive agitation for revolution. For detail on organization and technique of the revolutionaries in nineteenth century see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume). The emergence of new information technologies, i. e. the telegraph and telephone, gave a boost to revolutionary events. Now the information about revolutionary events would spread with lightning speed. The response to revolution in one society also accelerated in others if there were suitable conditions. Revolutionaries and groups could go by train to cross continents more quickly. Yet, the government’s tactics would change as well. Thus, we can identify the following emerging phenomena in revolutions in this period: 1.

21

The armed revolutionary rebellions in Europe more commonly were begun in cities (we should note that since the time of the French Revolution the role of capital cities particularly increased, although in a number of cases, e.g., in Latin America, one could observe the pattern of revolutionary movements spreading from the periphery [Goldstone, 2014; Huntington, 1968]). These urban-centered insurrections developed the revolutionary tactic of constructing barricades in narrow streets to exclude government forces (which in the following century

At the same time, there was a conviction that revolutions could be preferably replaced with preventive reforms, as shown in Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume). This influenced the fact that the role of revolutions as a driving force of progress began to decline. See below in this chapter. 22 They partly replaced the old forms of such organizations, e.g., Masonic lodges, which were actively employed for this purpose from the seventeenth century. For example, there are some statements that nearly all revolutionists of renown were freemasons: Mirabeau, Bailly, Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Condorcet, Brissot, Lalande, and many others were masonic brothers (Nys, 1908; Kropotkin, 2009 [1909]).

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became typical). The July Revolution of 1830 in France was the first violent popular uprising of the kind. Internationalization of revolutionary movements. At the same time perceiving revolution as a general threat to monarchies, European monarchs and their ministers established the first counter-revolutionary International in 1815 of its kind (the Holy Alliance [see Grinin et al., 2016]). Nevertheless, after 1849 the Communist International became the most important part of revolutionary movements all across Europe, whose ideology was expressed in the slogan ‘Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!’ The establishment of formally organized revolutionary political parties (both legal and illegal), with explicit membership, professional leadership, and plans to take power. The development of a support base which expanded (involving the proletariat, intelligentsia, and with the increasing scale of higher education – students) and systematic propaganda among these strata. The emergence of ideologies promoting the proletariat to the leading position while downgrading the role of peasantry and lower middle class. The increasing role of the intelligentsia in framing and spreading revolutionary ideology and revolutionary actions (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]). Newspapers becoming the most important information and ideological weapon.

It is characteristic that governments generally used massive repression of the insurgents (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]), targeting both revolutionary actors and even organized labor, during the revolutionary events of the 19th and even early twentieth centuries, if not in every instance. However, the spreading revolutionary ideologies aiming at radical changes in society, property redistribution etc., promoted new ideas and tactics, all looking for methods implying the seizure of power by the successful rebellion (blanquism). Another tactic which was established and unfortunately became a curse of our age was revolutionary terrorism (first it was an individual terror against the authorities aiming at revenge and intimidate the authorities but later it transformed into mass terror against ordinary people). Undoubtedly, this was supported by the new methods of dissemination of information, as people would quickly learn about terrorist attacks, spreading their impact. Perhaps, the Italian Carbonari were the first to employ it, and it was actively used by the Irish nationalists, while political terror against the head of state was probably the Russian Narodniks (or populists) invention in the 1860s–1870s.

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3.1 The Strengthening of Socialist Ideology in the Revolutions of the Nineteenth–Early Twentieth Centuries The development of industry, the increasing number of workers and urban population, the general humanization of life, along with the need to maintain hygiene and order in cities, etc., led to the growing demand for minimal levels of living standards, hygiene and social guarantees on the part of a society. We can also add the emergence of the new type of social disaster in economic crises with mass unemployment, which could significantly aggravate the workers’ economic situation (see Grinin & Korotayev, 2010). Meanwhile, the concentration of working people in certain places and at enterprises facilitated their organization and struggle for the rights (and also made them a powerful source of social instability as well as a revolutionary force (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c] and Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). Simultaneously, we can observe intensifying sympathy with the position of the working class on the part of the society’s well-off layers and intelligentsia (see Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d] and Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]). For a long time, increasing production volumes combined with the presence or even intensification of social stratification and the growing gap in living standards (in current terms, the Gini coefficient was high and sometimes substantially increased). This supported the strengthening appeal of socialist ideologies, which focused both on criticisms of the new economic and social reality and on projects of social restructuring. The Revolution in Paris in July 1848 turned into a social one as well as the subsequent revolution of 1870–1871 (the Paris Commune [see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)]). The peculiar feature of social revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was that they transformed into socialist ones (as in case of the Paris Commune). So the increasing radicalization of such revolutions was explained by the fact that the most important societal institution, i.e., private property, was questioned. This already meant an extreme and drastic reorganization of the society’s whole social structure and most of its institutions. As a result, public consciousness developed along an important path of growing popularity of the ideology of radical social changes via revolutions, when the latter were claimed to be the key to the kingdom of the future fair society, something like a bridge from prehistory to real history.

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3.2 The Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917 The socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 surpassed its predecessors both in terms of terror and radical social changes. We should note the following new revolutionary technologies which emerged in the course of that revolution. 1.

2.

3.

The establishment of a totalitarian party, which became the most important revolutionary weapon capable of integrating regions even of different ethnic characteristics. At the same time, the idea of a total monopoly of power was reinforced not immediately, but became the basis of the new system already in the course of the Civil War of 1917–1921 and after victory. The totalitarian party became a completely new international phenomenon. Totalitarian power emerged as a complete monopoly on power in all its forms, not only in the political sphere but also in economic and spiritual ones, wielded at all levels of society (local, regional, and national) by a single all-powerful Party. We already observed such a turn during the French Revolution, but then it was short-term. Now this was the basis of a new socio-political system and it was reproduced in different versions in other societies. Significant expansion of the revolutionary time frames within which the return to normal life was incomplete. This was due to the fact that the social disruption turned out to be extremely radical, so the resistance to it and terror against the real and potentially dissatisfied people were very strong. The scale and projects of social breakdown were so immense, and the number of potential enemies of those ideas so large, that it took a long time to realize them.

Previously employed revolutionary methods became more active and widespread. They included mass terror with the execution of hostages, creation of a special punitive body, the involvement of military specialists from a socially hostile environment with their families’ lives at stake; the creation of revolutionary committees at grassroots levels, the mass distribution of new revolutionary organs, and a complete reorganization of the entire governmental system.

3.3 The Chinese Socialist Revolution The Chinese socialist revolution is the only great revolution which witnessed the revolutionary movement spreading not from the center of a country but from its periphery. The Chinese revolution was completed after a new stage of the civil war in 1946–1949, when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong and his military leaders marched triumphantly from remote inner lands of the country to the capital. Such tactics used to be typical for the Latin American revolutions but not for the European ones. The Chinese revolution spread revolutionary guerrilla tactics and developed the main features of social policy in respect of the peasantry as well

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as a showcasing the coexistence of both governmental and revolutionary reformed areas (see about the Chinese revolution Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this book]).

4 Differentiation of Revolutions and Their Typology It is not without reason that the nineteenth century was called the Age of Revolution (Hobsbawm, 1996; see Chapters “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume); see also Grinin’s Chap. 11 ‘Revolution and Revolutionary Movements’ in Zinkina et al., 2017). Yet, the twentieth century obviously surpassed it by their number (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin and Grinin, 2022, in this volume)). The increasing number of revolutions allows elaborating their typology, since various states, societies and peoples had different problems and goals. Instead of religious revolutions there is observed an advent of new types of revolutions. What are those types that can be distinguished in the nineteenth–the first half of the twentieth centuries?23 Scholars rarely pursue the issue of typology of revolutions as such. They most often reduce their discussion to distinguishing types or simply giving individual or passing remarks while investigating other problems. A citation from Goldstone may provide some insights into these approaches. “Revolutions are sometimes distinguished by outcomes, sometimes by actors. Revolutions that transform economic and social structures as well as political institutions, such as the French Revolution of 1789, are called great revolutions; those that change only state institutions are called political revolutions. Revolutions that involve autonomous lower-class revolts are labeled social revolutions (Skocpol, 1979), whereas sweeping reforms carried out by elites who directly control mass mobilization are sometimes called elite revolutions or revolutions from above (Trimberger, 1978). Revolutions that fail to secure power after temporary victories or largescale mobilization are often called failed or abortive revolutions; oppositional movements that either do not aim to take power (such as peasants or workers’ protests) or focus on a particular region or subpopulation are usually called rebellions (if violent) or protests (if predominantly peaceful)” (Goldstone, 2001b: 142–143). Unfortunately, there are practically no detailed and systematic typologies, and this problem has not been solved in general (see Shults, 2016: 48; see the analysis of available typologies Ibidem: Chap. 1, § 3). In the present chapter we propose our

23

Almost the whole range of revolutions occurred during the period of the European “Springtime of Nations” between 1848 and 1849.

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own typology whose types are determined according to the goals and objectives of revolutions. We should mention that many revolutions were of mixed type.24 1.

2.

3.

4.

24

Revolutions associated with what would be called today state-building, aiming at uniting the nations separated into many states but considering themselves as a single entity. First of all, we mean Germany in 1848–1849 and Italy in 1848 and 1860 (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). With respect to the latter, it should be mentioned that this was one of the few, if not the only revolution that contributed to the country’s unification together with the state (Piedmont). Later Germany was united ‘top-down’. Yet, during the German revolution of 1848–1849 the National Assembly continued to work there, albeit ineffectively. However, such unifying revolutions were a rare phenomenon in history.25 National and national liberation revolutions, when nations endeavored to gain independence or autonomy. Nationalism accompanied industrialization, modernization, and cultural development, for example, the Greek revolution in 1821–1829, the Czech and Hungarian revolutions in 1848–1849 (see about this three revolutions Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). It is worth noting that nationalist and national liberation revolutions became increasingly widespread and remain so until present. Liberal democratic revolutions, whose major task was to establish a certain form of democracy or a more liberal political system, and to expand rights and freedoms. These were, for example, the Revolution of 1830 in France, the Revolutions of 1848–1849 in Austria, Prussia, and a number of German states (see about all these revolutions Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). Social/Socialist revolutions considered social issues to be the main goal and regarded the change of political regime as a means of achieving social objectives. At a certain stage the Revolutions of 1848 and 1870–1871 in France, the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907 and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 were of this kind. But this type of social revolution is especially characteristic of the twentieth century, when they started to acquire socialist features after October 1917 (on the

The typology given in this chapter is just one of many possible typologies, which can be based on different criteria. We present another extended typology of revolutions in Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume), which takes into account peculiarities of the revolutions of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. 25 Later there hardly occurred a revolution of this rare kind, except for the one in 1989 in the GDR, where the very desire to unite with Western Germany appeared the key factor. We may possibly regard the events in the Donbas and a little bit earlier—in the former Soviet space—in Transnistria and South Ossetia in the same context (with certain reservations).

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5.

6.

26

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first two revolutions see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f], about the last revolutions see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin and Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). Anti-colonial revolutions as a special kind of national liberation revolutions (which started with the American Revolution in the late eighteenth century; then in 1812 in Latin America, but in the twentieth century they covered Asia and Africa)—see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022a], Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f], and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin and Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). Religious revolutions. It is interesting to note that there were no religious revolutions in the nineteenth century (although the requirements for freedom of religious beliefs became universal). Surely, it was not accidental, since religious ideology was replaced by other ones, especially nationalism, liberalism and socialism. In some cases such ideologies were a kind of new secular religions. According to Daniel Bell’s formulation, politics and ideology were assuming religious form during the nineteenth–twentieth centuries (Bell, 1960, 1979; Berman 1994: 47; Grinin, 1998, 2010; see also: Balibar, Wallerstein 2003: 111–112). But religious revolutions vanished only at the core of the World System and its semiperiphery. In some cases, we can identify such revolutions or even movements approaching them at the periphery of the World System, for example, the Taiping Rebellion in China (1850–1864), the Wahhabi movement in Arabia in the late eighteenth–nineteenth centuries; Mahdi uprising in Sudan (1881–1998). In the last two cases one may speak about creating a religious state on the basis of a reformed religion. Finally, both Iranian revolutions (1906–1911 and 1979) were associated with religious foundations.26

The revolution of the kind unexpectedly broke out in Iran in the second half of the twentieth century (1978–1979), which, in our opinion, was connected with two factors (along with historical peculiarities of the relationship between religious leaders and secular authorities in Iran): with the fact that the Middle East reached the typological level of European development of the sixteenth– seventeenth centuries, and with the fact that the role of revolutions in historical process decreased in the world. The Islamic revolution in Iran was a new ideological model, competing with the ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ revolutionary traditions and significant ideas (Dzhanabi, 2015: 58–59). However, it is important to note that the first Iranian revolution (1905–1911) also had an evident religious color, also the clergy played a great part during its first stage (Doroshenko, 1998: 8–9). The ignorant, fanatically believing and bound by religious traditions people obediently followed not so much the ‘liberals’ but their spiritual leaders. And when the Shia clergy turned against the revolution, the obedient crowd followed it. Doroshenko also cites opinions of other specialists in Iranian studies that the participation of the religious establishment in the revolutionary movement was connected with the rivalry with secular authorities in the fields of education, law, influence on the people; they were also interested in weakening of the secular power and preserving its influence over the state policy. The Ulemas and mullahs diverged from the revolution after its ‘anti-Islamic potential’ became more obvious for them (Ibid.: 13–17). According to other researchers, the revolution of 1905–1911 was a ‘direct clash’ between two ideologies: Islam and Western modernism (Ibid.: 18).

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5 The Changing Role of Revolutions in the Historical Process (Second Half of the Twentieth—Beginning of the Twenty-First Century) During the period from the 1950s to the 1990s there occurred many revolutions (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]), but they involved peripheral or at best semi-peripheral countries, so their role for historical process (with respect to paving new trajectories in it) was hardly significant. As we have already mentioned in Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume), by the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries, revolutions became the most important means of ensuring progress in societies of the historical mainstream. Closer to their heyday in the middle of the nineteenth century (1848–1849) they already contributed not only to creating entirely new paths for the development of the countries of the World-System core, but to increasing the diversity of and improving these paths.27 Due to them, the elite recognized the need for proactive reforms, and there emerged peaceful mechanisms that helped to mitigate exploitation and raise the living standards of hired workers in European countries. The role of revolutions as ‘the engines’ of the historical process began to decrease from the second half of the nineteenth century, since they could not open up new paths of development for the World-System as a whole, and, accordingly, faded away at its core. But the great revolutions could still open up alternative trajectories of historical development elsewhere (in particular, socialism, see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume)). The role of revolutions as a means to advance the World System semi-periphery and periphery to its core also increased, which opened the way for accelerated modernization for a number of countries. This kind of revolution can be called a power-modernist revolution since it occurs with the definite purpose of accelerating a country’s development (meanwhile, the choice of socio-political path or regime is mostly determined by the considerations of momentary advantage28 ). We observed revolutions of this kind in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (e.g., in Latin America, Turkey). In addition to the classic type of

The same refers to the 1978–1979 revolution. With the account of this fact the Iranian revolutions, especially taken together, appear unique phenomena and to a certain extent have no analogues in history (Doroshenko, 1998: 8; about the Iranian revolution of 1979 see also Skocpol, 1982; Parsa, 1989, 2000 and Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2022, in this volume); on the modern Islamism see Grinin (2019), Grinin et al. (2019). 27 Perhaps it was obvious that the outcomes of revolutions may be not be to democracy, but to another dictatorship (Goldstone 2014: 25; see about such transformations in detail Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin 2022f, in this volume]). 28 See Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume) for detail.

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revolutions of the twentieth century we should mention a great number of deep transformations, which we called analogues of revolutions (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume] for detail). They might be brought about by military coups, or peaceful usurpation of power. The main thing was that they seem full-fledged revolutions with respect to the change of political regime (from monarchy/dictatorship to a republic or people’s republic, jamahiriyyah, etc.), to the scale of changes, social perturbations and the resultant increasing activity of people’s forces. In most cases they were declared as revolutions. The most famous among them is the 1952 “Arab Socialist” revolution in Egypt, as well as several coups in the Middle East and even in Europe, including the 1969 revolution in Libya led by Muammar Gaddafi and the Carnation Revolution of 1974 in Portugal (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). In addition, the revolutionary waves after the two World Wars made a great contribution to the reconstruction of the World System (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). National liberation revolutions in the former colonies in the 1950–1970s greatly changed the political map of the world. Starting from 1989 the USSR began to lose its position as a superpower, and in 1991 it collapsed. This meant a quick reconfiguration of the World System as well as the destruction of the bipolar world order and the formation of a unipolar world. The revolutionary wave of 1989–1991 across the communist countries of the USSR and Eastern Europe made a significant contribution to this process (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). It is interesting that most anti-Communist revolutions in Eastern Europe were ‘velvet’. In addition to them several revolutions of a non-violent kind took place in the last decades of the twentieth century like the above-mentioned ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 1974 in Portugal and the Philippines “people power” or ‘Yellow’ revolution of 1986, as well as the revolution of 2000–2001 there. In Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin and Korotayev 2022a, in this volume), we discuss that a revolution of this type made up the last act of revolutionary changes that originated with the English Glorious Revolution of 1688, that is, they completed a rather long history of attempts at democratic transformations and previous revolutions so they usually passed quickly and nonviolently. In societies having little democratic experience, revolutions often evolve into a bloody and destructive struggle. So it was not a surprise that revolutions led to cruel and bloody civil wars in some former USSR republics (as Georgia) and in several republics of the former Yugoslavia (see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). If society is not modernized enough, the ‘velvet’ revolution will hardly occur since great changes can hardly proceed smoothly. Therefore, even if the first stage of revolution passes quickly and nonviolently, the further revolutionary steps bring a toughening and growing internal struggle. The latter may be exemplified by the events in Egypt in 2011, which triggered daunting violence of exceedingly bloody terrorist

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acts (see Chapters “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a], “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022], and “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume]). The first wave of revolutions of the twenty-first century is represented by the so-called ‘color revolutions’.29 As we mention in Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), and Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume), these revolutions in some respects have become a tool of geopolitical struggle, which completely reduced their role as a factor of historical progress (see also Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” [Mitchell, 2022, in this book]30 ). At the same time these revolutions contributed to preparing the future reconfiguration of the World System and changing the world order (see Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e] and Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?” [Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2012a, 2012c; Grinin & Grinin, 2015; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012, 2015; 2016a, 2016b, 2016c; Grinin et al., 2016; Grinin et al., 2016, 2019). Speaking about the Arab Spring, in our opinion the role of external factors in the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and in the beginning in Yemen, was less significant than the internal ones31 (see Grinin, 2012a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012; Grinin et al., 2016; Grinin et al., 2019 as well as Chapters “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a]”, “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” [Kuznetsov, 2022], “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022], and “The Arab Spring in Yemen” [Issaev et al., 2022, in this volume]). But these revolutions play a very significant role for the future

29

For more details on color revolutions see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a), Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b), Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Color Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume); see also Mitchell 2012; Grinin et al., 2016; Grinin et al., 2019. 30 Besides, “the Color Revolutions produced chronic instability, as their democratic advances were followed by backsliding to illiberal and corrupt regimes, which led to further protests and political upheavals” (see Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” [Selbin, 2022, in this volume]). 31 Quite another matter is Syria and especially Libya, where the inspiration from abroad and direct intervention in the events were much more active (see Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” [Akhmedov, 2022] and Chapter “Revolution in Libya” [Barmin 2022, in this volume]).

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reconfiguration of the World System (on development of the Arab Spring Revolutions see Grinin et al., 2019, as well as Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a], Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” [Akhmedov, 2022], Chapter “Revolution in Libya” [Barmin, 2022], Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” [Korotayev et al., 2022], and Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e, in this volume]).

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Grinin, L. (2013). State and socio-political crises in the process of modernization. Social Evolution & History, 12(2), 35–76. Grinin, L. (2017a). Russkaya revolyutsiya i lovushki modernizatsii. Polis. Politicheskiye Issledovaniya, 4, 138–155. Grinin, L. (2017b). Rossiyskaya revolyutsiya v svete teorii modernizatsii. Istoriya i Sovremennost’, 2, 22–57. Grinin, L. (2018a). Revolutions and historical process. Journal of Globalization Studies, 9(2), 126–141. https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2019.02.14. Grinin, L. (2018b). Revolutsii, istoricheskiy protsess i globalizatsiya. Vek globalizatsii, 4, 16–29. Grinin, L. (2018c). Revolutions: An insight into a five centuries’ trend. Social Evolution & History, 17(2), 171–204. Grinin, L. (2019). Islamism and globalization. Journal of Globalization Studies, 10(2), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.30884/jogs/2019.02.02. Grinin, L. (2022a). On revolutionary waves since the 16th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 389–411). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_13. Grinin, L. (2022b). On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 69–104). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_3. Grinin, L. (2022c). Revolution and modernization traps. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 219–238). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_8. Grinin, L. (2022d). Revolutions and historical process. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 139–171). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_5. Grinin, L. (2022e). Revolutions of the 21st century as a factor in the World System reconfiguration. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 975–998). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_38. Grinin, L. (2022f). The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: Their causes and consequences. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 281–313). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864682_11. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 315–388). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2015). Ot rubil do nanorobotov. Mir na puti k epokhe samoupravlyaemykh sistem (istoriya tekhnologiy i opisaniye ikh budushchego). Moskovskaya redaktsiya izdatelstva ‘Uchitel’. Grinin, L., Ilyin, I., & Andreev, A. (2016). Global history and future world order. In L. Grinin, I. V. Ilyin, P. Herrmann, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Globalistics and globalization studies: Global transformations and global future (pp. 93–110). ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House. Grinin, L., Issaev, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016). Revolyutsii i nestabil’nost’ na Blizhnem Vostoke (2nd ed.). ‘Uchitel’. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2010). Global’nyy krizis v retrospektive. Kratkaya istoriya pod’yemov i krizisov ot Likurga do Alana Grinspena. Knizhnyy dom LIBROKOM.

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Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2012). Does “Arab Spring” mean the beginning of world system reconfiguration? World Futures: The Journal of Global Education, 68(7), 471–505. https://doi. org/10.1080/02604027.2012.697836. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2014). Revolution and democracy in the context of the globalization. In E. Kiss (Ed.), The dialectics of modernity—Recognizing globalization (pp. 119–140). Arisztotelész Kiadó. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2015). Great divergence and great convergence. A global perspective. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17780-9. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016a). Revolution and democracy: Sociopolitical systems in the context of modernization. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 10(3), 110–131. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016b). MENA region and the possible beginning of world system reconfiguration. In M. Mustafa Erdo˘gdu & B. Christiansen (Eds.), Comparative political and economic perspectives on the MENA region (pp. 28–58). Information Science Reference. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016c). Arabskiy krizis i rekonfiguratsiya Mir-Sistemy. In A. M. Vasiliev (Ed.), Arabskiy krizis: Ugrozy bol’shoy voyny (pp. 286–329). URSS. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). The Arab Spring: causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 595–624). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23. Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Malkov, S. (2008). Matematicheskiye modeli sotsialnodemograficheskikh tsiklov i vykhoda iz ‘maltuzianskoy lovushki’: nekotoryye vozmozhnyye napravleniya dalneyshego razvitiya. In G. G. Malinetskii & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Problemy matematicheskoy istorii. Matematicheskoye modelirovaniye istoricheskikh protsessov (pp. 78– 117). LIBROKOM. Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Tausch, A. (2016). Economic cycles, crises, and the global periphery. Springer.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41262-7. Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Tausch, A. (2019). Islamism, Arab Spring, and the future of democracy. World System and world values perspectives. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-910 77-2. Grinin, L., Malkov, S., Gusev, V., & Korotayev, A. (2009) Nekotoryye vozmozhnyye napravleniya razvitiya teorii sotsialno-demograficheskikh tsiklov i matematicheskiye modeli vykhoda iz ‘maltuzianskoy lovushki’. In S. Yu. Malkov, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Istoriya i matematika. Protsessy i modeli (pp 134–210). LIBROKOM. Harris, T. (2015). Did the English have a script for revolution in the seventeenth century? In K. M. Baker & D. Edelstein (Eds.), Scripting revolution (pp. 25–40). Stanford University Press. Higley, J., & Burton, M. (1989). The elite variable in democratic transitions and breakdowns. American Sociological Review, 54, 17–32. Hobsbawm, E. (1996). The age of revolution: Europe 1789–1848. Vintage. Huntington, S. (1968). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press. Issaev, L., Khokhlova, A., & Korotayev, L. (2022). The Arab Spring in Yemen. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 685–705). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26. Ivanov, E. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 517–547). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_20.

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Karasev, D. (2022). The “problem of structure and agency” and contemporary sociology of revolution and social movements. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 201–217). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864 68-2_7. Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16. Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Orange Revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 501–515). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19. Khodunov, A. (2022c). The Rose Revolution in Georgia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 483–499). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_18. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., Malkov, S., & Shishkina, A. (2022). The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 781–810). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_30. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2022). Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 651–683). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25. Kropotkin, P. (2009 [1909]). The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793. Vanguard Printings. Kuznetsov, V. (2022). The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring uprisings. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 625–649). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_24. Lachmann, R. (1997). Agents of revolution: elite conflicts and mass mobilization from the Medici to Yeltsin. In J. Foran (Ed.), Theorizing revolutions: Disciplines, approaches. Routledge. Liu, M. T. (1988). States and urban revolutions: Explaining the revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Poland. Theory and Society, 17, 179–210. de Maistre, J. M. (1841 [1796]). Considérations sur la France: principe générateur des constitutions politiques, etc. délais de la justice divine. Du pape. De l’église Gallicane. Imprimerie catholique de Migne. Mitchell, L. A. (2012). The color revolutions. University of Pennsylvania Press. Mitchell, L. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15. Nash, J. (1989). Cultural resistance and class consciousness in Bolivian tin mining communities. In S. Eckstein (Ed.), Power and popular protest: Latin American social movements (pp. 182–202). University California Press. Nazarchuk, A. (2006). Vliyanie knigopechataniya na razvitiye protestantizma v Evrope. Novaya i Noveyshaya Istoriya, 4, 79–90. Nef, J. U. (1987). Mining and metallurgy in medieval civilization. Trade and industry in the middle agesIn M. M. Postan & E. Miller (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of Europe (Vol. 2, pp. 693–762). Cambridge University Press. Nys, E. (1908). Idées modernes: Droit International et Franc-Maconnerie. Bruxelles. Paige, J. M. (1997). Coffee and power: Revolution and the rise of democracy in Central America. Harvard University Press.

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Parsa, M. (1989). The social origins of the Iranian revolution. Rutgers University Press. Parsa, M. (2000). States, ideologies, and social revolutions: A comparative analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. Cambridge University Press. Richards, M. D. (2004). Revolutions in world history. Routledge. Selbin, E. (2013). Revolution, rebellion, resistance: The power of story. Zed Books. Selbin, E. (2022). All around the world: Revolutionary potential in the age of authoritarian Revanchism. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 415–433). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_14. Shin, G.-W. (1996). Peasant Protest and Social Change in Colonial Korea. University of Washington Press. Shults, E. E. (2016). Teoriya revolyutsii. Revolyutsii i sovremennye tsivilizatsii. Moscow: LENAND. Skocpol, T. (1982). Rentier state and Shi’a Islam in the Iranian Revolution. Theory and Society, 11, 265–303. Skocpol, Th. (1979). States and social revolutions. Cambridge University Press. Trimberger, E. K. (1978). Revolution from above: Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru. Transaction Books. Weber, M. (1930 [1904]). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. The Citadel Press. Wickham-Crowley, T. (1992). Guerrillas and revolution in Latin America. Princeton University Press. Zinkina, J., Grinin, L., Ilyin, I., Andreev, A., Aleshkovski, I., Shulghin, S., & Korotayev, A. (2017). Istoricheskaya globalistika. Tom 2. XIX vek. Uchitel Publishing House Branch.

Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution and History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as coeditor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History and Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology.

The Problem of Structure and Agency and the Contemporary Sociology of Revolutions and Social Movements Dmitriy Karasev

“The ‘problem of structure and agency’ is widely acknowledged to lie at the heart of social theorizing” (Archer, 2000: 1). From the history of philosophical thought sociology has inherited numerous antinomies: freedom versus necessity, subjectivity versus objectivity, holism versus particularism, chance versus necessity, voluntarism versus determinism, etc. In the nineteenth century its philosophical heritage transformed into self-determination debates between the “science of society” and the “science of human action”; in classical sociological theory it was a confrontation between methodological Individualism and Holism. In American post-war sociology the problem was developed under the label of the “problem of micro/macro links”. While classics have always reduced one part of structure/agency dualism to another or vice versa, American sociologists reworked the conflict between micro-sociology and macro-sociology in terms of Robert Merton’s “middle-range theory”—e.g. Peter Blau’s (1964) bottom-up approach—from the micro exchange theory to the macro theory of power structures or Neil Smelser’s (1965) polar top-down approach—from structural environment to social action (see, e.g., Collins, 1981 for more detail). In recent sociological theory there are “conflationary” and “non-conflationary” attempts to solve the problem. The most sustained effort at dealing with problem of structure and agency in recent social theory has been made by Anthony Giddens. Giddens (1986) elaborates “structuration theory” in order to replace the classical dichotomy of structure and agency with the “duality of structure”, that empowers and constrains social action and that tends to be reproduced in the course of, and simultaneously changed by, social action. From the perspective of her morphogenetic approach, Margaret Archer (1995) criticizes Bourdieu (1977)/Giddens (1979, 1986)style conflation theorizing and calls for an analytical dualism of structure and agency,

D. Karasev (B) Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_7

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of structure and culture, underlaid by a single emergent social process of morphogenesis/morphostasis. Jeffrey Alexander puts the same task in terms of linking action and its environments: “The collective environments of action simultaneously inspire and confine it. If I have conceptualized action correctly, these environments will be seen as its products; if I can conceptualize the environments correctly, action will be seen as their result” (Alexander, 1988a: 303). In turn he argues that Archer’s morphogenetic approach is too voluntarist in nature, because she works with too creative a notion of “action” (Alexander, 1992). Generally speaking, these approaches comprise leading contemporary theoretical attempts to solve the problem. And the central argument of this chapter is the correspondence between leading approaches grappling with the problem of structure and agency in so-called “high sociological theory” and recent sociology of revolutions and social movements. I will focus my analysis on the above-mentioned theoretical approaches to the problem of structure/agency, leaving aside the others (e.g., Bourdieu, 1977; Joas, 1996; Sewell, 2005, etc.), since it seems that contribution of the former is more evident, well-studied and for that reason has more influence in the studies of revolutions. The problem of structure and agency has been central to the agenda of contemporary sociology of revolution and social movements, as shown by the clear premise of Skocpol (1979) that “revolutions are not made; they come”. In a word, from this perspective only structural factors matter: “revolutionary situations have developed due to the emergence of politico-military crises of state and class domination. And only because of the possibilities thus created have revolutionary leaderships and rebellious masses contributed to the accomplishment of revolutionary transformations” (Skocpol, 1979: 17). According to Skocpol, it is a historical is that “no successful social revolution has ever been ‘made’ by a mass-mobilizing, avowedly revolutionary movement” (Skocpol, 1979: 17).1 Skocpol’s view has been challenged by Eric Selbin’s anthropological approach: “revolutions do not just come, as structural theories would have it, but are intentionally made by people consciously seeking to change their world—though inevitably with unintended consequences they are unlikely and perhaps unable to imagine, and under the circumstances over which they may have little control—and the primary vehicle for this is the articulation of compelling stories with engaging and empowering plots” (Selbin, 2008: 135; see also Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” [Selbin, 2022, in this book]). Different solutions of the structure/agency puzzle even lead to different definitions of the notion of “revolution” (cf. Jeffry Paige’s definition [Paige, 2003: 24] with typical structural definitions). Are successful revolutionary outcomes even possible without “consolidation” or interiorization of the revolution’s goals, ideals, and projects among huge masses of ordinary people with different interests and worldviews?

1

About revolutionary situations see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022, in this volume). About the development of ideas on revolutionary mass mobilization see Chapter “On Theories and Phenomenon of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume).

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Thus, it is impossible to investigate revolutions (let alone theoretical generalizations about their origins, nature and outcomes) without an explicit or implicit preliminary solution for the puzzle of structure and agency. Without it one cannot connect a revolution or social movement’s micro-foundations with their macro-consequences; consequently, agency and ideological variables were very often taken into account only as the residual or as ad hoc casual hypotheses. Most researchers of revolutions and collective movements know well that human emotion, beliefs, habits, flaws and moral commitments really matter; only a few believe that human beings are just bearers of social roles mirroring a social structure, so-called cultural dopes. But structural theories cannot elucidate the role that these factors play in the causes, processes, and outcomes of revolutions. And it seems to me that the reason for this failure lies in the defects of an extreme structural approach, rather than in the lack of empirical data on the “Lifeworld” of actors distant from researchers in time and space (especially in the case of recent revolutions and movements, when researchers really can get more, but surely not all evidence from a venue). Furthermore, in its strong (insuperable) version the problem of structure and agency ultimately breaks the sociology of revolution and of social movements into two separate sociological fields: structural theory of revolutions with its comparative and historically based top-down explanations and sociology of social movements describing how participants associate and identify themselves with goals of movements, how they mobilize resources, organize themselves and act collectively expressing their interests, emotions and beliefs. The just described situation of two separate fields would be a step back into the age of classical sociology, when the theory of social change and the theory of social action were seen as two absolutely different kinds of theories. Obviously, not all social movements are revolutionary (i.e. aimed at the violent seizure of state power in order to implement radical social change).2 But it is an indisputable fact (at least from the perspective of the school of “political opportunity structures” or “framing theory” of social movements) that the most favorable conditions for collective action of any social movement are created when its counteragents (or restrictive social structures) are weakened (and the most powerful opponent of any social movement is the state protecting status quo). Therefore, the main direction of development of contemporary sociology of revolution and social movements is synthesis of structural and agent explanations and approaches (it is no doubt that many authors in the field have already gone to considerable length to bridge this separation, see e.g. McAdam et al., 2001; Goldstone, 1998, etc.; yet it seems that the goal is still far from being achieved). As William H. Sewell Jr. notes, “‘Structure’ is one of the most important and most elusive terms in the vocabulary of current social science… It is nearly impossible to define it adequately” (Sewell, 1992: 1). Structural approaches too often rest analytically upon reification of social relations: structures are conceptualized as independent 2

About the differences between revolutions and revolutionary movements without revolutions see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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from individuals’ action “concrete” entities or as socio-spatial (“hard” or “material”) organizations or infrastructures rather than mental schemas and rules determining social action. Furthermore, the term “structure” is also often used in two apparently contradictory senses in sociology and anthropology. Sociology typically opposes “structure” (as determining factor) to “culture” (as source to creative resistance to determinism of any sort). Anthropology on the contrary, works with “soft” but determining “cultural structures”. Many researchers make the misguided assumption that the “cultural turn” in revolution studies is a solid solution to the structure and agency problem (for details see Karasev, 2017). (There are—for sure—other reasons why research focus was changed from leaders, elites, parties, social classes to fragile unions of identities as the main revolutionary actor). Yet major issues remain, and I will return in some detail to that misleading solution later. The best example of understanding the role of structures in revolution is presented in the foremost and most influential classical structural Marxian theory of revolution. In his Preface to “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” Marx summarized his famous structural argument: “At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relation of production From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Thus, begins an epoch of social revolution” (Marx, 1978: 4–5). It means that in orthodox Marxism, a revolutionary situation is the result of contradictory developments of economic and social structures; revolutions cannot be made without it, no matter how much people would struggle. On the contrary, class struggle (i.e. collective action and ultimately agency) is just a mirror of the objective conflict between new means of production and productive relations (i.e. between structures). The same situation is observed with class consciousness—with regard to “ultimate primacy” it is secondary (i.e. revolutions do not depend upon internal psychological states of members of any collectivity). “Revolutions are the locomotives of history;” they are ways to change socio-economic formations (universal progressive historical stages), and they clear away all social obstacles to increased economic development. In “The Eighteenth Brumaire” Marx served notice: “men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past” (Marx, 1964: 5). That is, pre-existing socio-economic circumstances of historical development are the structures determining revolution. And agency is only the possibility of social action to influence social development in particular structural circumstances. The problem with structural theories of revolutions is that they make dealing with revolutionary change awkward. If structures tend to assume rigid causal determinism, then if one has sufficient data, one can predict revolutions using correct structural theories. Yet, this has not been the case; revolutions continue to occur naturally, unexpectedly, even in places that were thought to be immune to revolution (e.g. the Communist party-states or the Arab modernizing dictatorships). The attempts to get over a dilemma of voluntarism/determinism in Marxist revolutionary tradition could be found in Lenin’s theory (see Žižek, 2001). Lenin revised Marx’s economic determinism in his concept of the “revolutionary situation” to add

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a critical role for agent-based factors in revolutionary mobilization. In particular, the key to a revolutionary situation, according to Lenin, lies not only in the weakening capacity of the ruling class to maintain its domination without change, but also in the increasing capacity for collective action among the masses. The latter does not arise naturally out of structure, as Marx argued, but depends on the actions of a “new type” of revolutionary party, organized to develop the class consciousness of the revolutionary class from outside. “The history of all countries shows that the working class, solely by its own forces, is able to work out merely trade-union consciousness” (Lenin, 1970: 80). One can find that Lenin combined economic structuralism with the political (or organizational) one because he still believed in the Marxist progressive philosophy of history, dealing with human agency as a tool of the Progress (it appears that for Lenin it is agency of the Progress, i.e. structure as well, rather than truly human agency). In recent historical sociology, Charles Tilly (1987) made an important attempt to integrate “causal” (or structural) and “purposive” (or agent) explanations of revolution and collective action. Toward this end he zigzagged between two theoretical models—the “mobilization model” and the “polity model”—without integrating them firmly. He analyses revolution and collective action in terms of “group decision rules and tactical competitions (the purposive part) which operate within severe constraints set by the contender’s internal organization, its relationship to other groups, and the current state of opportunities and threats in the world (the causal part)” (Tilly, 1987: 8–12). However, in the course of the synthesis he was faced with a problem of temporality. In other words, the two theoretical models are inherently static: the “mobilization model” serves to underpin short-run analyses and the “polity model” to the long-run. So, when time is re-entered, independent variables of the two models became dependent ones and vice-versa. For example, the independent variables of contender’s interest and organization in the short run become dependent on the intensity and results of collective action in the long term (put simply, this example is a description of Robert Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy,” just in Tilly’s terms). The difficulty is obvious: in the long-run or in static analysis one can afford to treat the actions of others groups, including in the situation of analyzed collective action, as structural features of the environment; but when time enters or in the short-run, the actions and reactions of the others become crucial agent-based variables that can quickly change (e.g. see Nikki Keddie’s [1995] examination of the issue of multiple opponents’ decisions in the case of the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the resulting problems of theorizing and predictability). It is like a three-body problem in astronomy. The second failure of Tilly’s synthesis is its one-dimensional, instrumentalist notion of agency, whereby he tries to grapple with the psychological reductionism of deprivation and frustration-aggression hypotheses (Snyder & Tilly, 1974). Although Tilly distinguished four types of agency—“zealots”, “misers”, “run-of-the-mill contenders” and “opportunists”—he did it in terms of the relative values assigned by collective actors to resulting collective goods in proportion to the price of the collective resources spent to acquire them. Put simply, Tilly assumes a model of agency

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from rational choice theories (a model of “homo economicus”), looking to the maximization of efficiency in goal achievement. Thus, following Tilly, in the curse of revolution these “utility maximizers” make history unintentionally by pursuing their selfish material interests in every single moment. Furthermore, such a concept of agency loses sight of any role of their “irrational” motives (beliefs, emotions, moral commitments etc.), and the latter’s transformative or reproductive influence on social structures. Surprisingly, the problem of structure and agency has been solved in a very similar way in Giddens’ structuration theory. No doubt, it is more sophisticated and partly cleansed of rational choice instrumentalism, given structuration processes’ hermeneutic (“recursive”) nature, and since the “knowledgeable” character of agents is assumed, and so on and so forth, but unfortunately the main theoretical difficulties are the same. According to Archer, the main failure of Giddens’s theory is an inadequate conceptualization of the temporality of structuring properties. “Duality of structure” means that “structure is both medium and outcome of reproduction of practices” (Giddens, 1979: 69). Eventually it leads to researchers’ inability to analytically separate whether the structuration cycle represented in the action (in that instance read: revolutionary action or collective action) under study was transformation (“morphogenesis”) or reproduction (“morphostasis”) of social structure? In its strong version, this fault of structuration theory undermines revolutionary theorizing that adopts its solution to the structure/agency problem, since from its theoretical framework it is impossible to distinguish revolution from reform, upheaval (and other sorts of structural revitalization or recursion accomplished with ruling elites’ support) and finally from politics as usual. From this perspective everything in social structures is new or renewed in every single moment and simultaneously there is “nothing new under the sun”. The consequences are evident even in Giddens’s definition of revolution—“the seizure of state power through violent means by the leaders of a mass movement, where that power is subsequently used to initiate major processes of social reforms” (Giddens, 1989: 605). That is, he defines revolution in terms of mass violence and subsequent reforms, reducing transformation to revitalizing reproduction (for the more detailed explanation of difficulties with Bourdieu/Giddens’ attempt to build a theory of change into a theory of structure see Sewell, 1992). Similar criticism addressing Tilly’s revolutionary theorizing has come from Peter Sztompka (1993), who argues that Tilly deals with revolutions as just one end of a range with politics as usual and regular political contention (rephrasing Carl von Clausewitz, according to Tilly, revolution is mere “continuation of politics by other means”). In the case of structuration theory, the very source of this failure lies in inadequate conceptualization of structure. Following French structuralist (and mainly anthropological) tradition, Giddens argues that structures have only a “virtual” existence as “memory traces, the organic basis of knowledgeability” as they are “instantiated in action” (Giddens, 1986: 17). Yet it seems that Giddens then decided to separate his theory from French-style cultural structuralism and insisted that structures are not merely mental schemes, but also rules and resources. Unfortunately, unlike schemes, resources are not virtual; they exist in the real world, not merely in knowledgeability.

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Fig. 1 The morphogenetic approach. Source Archer (1995)

As Margaret Archer formulates it, these two types of structures are different in kind ontologically rather than purely theoretically. Thus, structuration theory is a powerful theoretical synthetic solution to the duality of structure and agency, but it comes at the cost of a very contradictory social ontology. If structures are tied to resources and their actual distribution in society, then they are ontologically separate from agency, and the duality of structure and agency is not overcome. On the basis of her realist social ontology, Margaret Archer replaced Giddens’s “duality of structure” with “analytical dualism”. Morphogenetic and structuration approaches have many common features; but put briefly, from the morphogenesis perspective, analytically distinct structure and agency operate in different time spans, however small the gap between them is. Temporality is integral to the M/M approach and contained in its first axiom—“that structure necessarily predates the action(s) which transform it” (Archer, 1995: 138). Archer distinguishes three phases of morphogenetic cycle: structural condition, social interaction and structural elaboration (Fig. 1). In other words, adequate conceptualization of time is Archer’s answer on the issue of linking structure and agency without conflating them. Furthermore, following Lockwood’s distinction between Social and System Integration, Archer argues for analytical autonomy of cultural structures (symbolic empowering and constraining social properties) from social structures (material ones), which are conflated as components of structures in Giddens’ structuration theory. In this chapter there is no need to delve deep into the theoretical details of the Giddens/Archer debates (for details see Archer, 1982).

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Fig. 2 “Revolution” or “revolutions-like” event

What I want to stress here is that, independently from Archer (in contrast to the apparent Giddens-Tilly mutual influence), Jack Goldstone (1991b) came to a very similar solution to the problem of structure and agency as she did. Goldstone argues that the major obstacle to understanding the role of ideology and agency lies in the failure of most theorists of revolution to distinguish clearly the various phases through which a revolution unfolds. Ideology and agency play different roles in the different phases of a revolution process. Goldstone considers “revolutions” as well as “revolution-like” events as involving three overlapping stages which may span decades: state breakdown; struggles for power; and reconstruction and consolidation of authority (see Goldstone, 1991a). The first phase is dominated by structural and demographic factors: a combination of state fiscal crisis, elite disaffection due to competition for state offices and long-team changes in wages, landholding, urban concentration and youthfulness of the population that increase the potential for mass mobilization. But in the last two phases casual focus shifts to cultural and agent factors. Goldstone argues that in the first phase of state breakdown, ideology and agency play only a reactive role in the expression of discontent. He supposed that agency and ideological factors alone may “promote” but do not “produce” the breakdown of Old Regimes. They play a leading role only after the initial breakdown of the state (Fig. .2). In “Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World,” Goldstone emphasized structural (‘conjunctural’) and demographic similarities among waves of state breakdown in early modern Eurasian societies despite their cultural differences; but finally he shows that it was initial pre-crises cultural peculiarities that led some but not other state breakdowns to revolutionary results. One may argue that he overemphasized the autonomy of pre-revolutionary cultural factors in the role of ideological

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factors that emerged in the course of revolutionary crises; but Goldstone stressed that the influence of pre-revolutionary cultural futures on post-revolutionary divergence was mediated by revolutionary power struggles, in which everything is subjected to reinterpretation. In that second phase, when the old regime totally lost agency initiative and revolutionary contenders were struggling with each other to mobilizing supporters and become primary actors, ideology becomes an organizational means of mobilization and plays a more important and autonomous role. Goldstone considers “ideologies” (including ‘heterodoxies’ versus cultural ‘orthodoxies’) as self-conscious rationales and programs for political (and social) reforms in the nearest future. The problem with describing the role of ideology arises because ideology is highly fluid. Ideologies taken as strategic plans for the future do not always provide a clear guide to action right now. Finally, at the third phase, when after civil war a single group has seized power and begun to destroy its remaining rivals, ideology plays its foremost role as mean of stabilization of that leading group’s authority. Ideology becomes a new culture. In this final phase, with the help of ideology new state-builders attempt to gain routine acceptance of reconstructed political, religious, economic and social institutions. Thus, Goldstone combines Archer’s analytical phase approach to link structure and agency with Alexander’s approach of inseparability of action from its internal (cultural) contests. At deeper theoretical level one can find more striking similarities between morphogenesis theory’s principal arguments—including the stratified nature of social reality; intersection of relative autonomous structural and cultural properties only in the interactional phase; the notion of “vested interests” as objective features of the situations in which agents find themselves—and Goldstone’s emphasis on the role of elites, their mobilization strategies and the mixture of their interests, resource strategies and ideologies during the phase of the struggle for power generating unintended emergent consequences which are later institutionalized as fundamental patterns of concrete revolutions’ outcomes, with world-historical importance. Let me clarify the above-mentioned thesis with Goldstone’s (1991a) insight on the historically widespread, yet unintended left shift among revolutionary leaders and their ideologies during the phase of struggle for power. They tend to drift leftward in response to the intensification of factional struggles for power. Leftist and populist ideologies provide more powerful organizational tools, since moderate elites with rectification ideologies ultimately lose national scale mobilization to more radical elites with populist ideologies turned to redistributive or nationalist themes. In his article “Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory” Goldstone proves that the synthesis of the structural, cultural and agent factors should become the mainstream in current sociology of revolution: “in the last decade, critics of structural theories have argued for the need to incorporate leadership, ideology, and processes of identification with revolutionary movements as key elements in the production of revolution” (Goldstone, 2001). Furthermore, he shows that the micro processes of revolutionary mobilization, leadership and identification have already been well elaborated in the vein of contemporary sociology of social movements as

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well as in previous generations of revolutionary theorizing. In other words, it appears that, Goldstone’s call for synthesis would help in overcoming the distance between the sociology of revolution and the sociology of social movements, as well as crossgenerational synthesis. And, it is a kind of challenge, since Goldstone doesn’t explain how precisely the new synthesis should or could be made. It seems that, it could be explained by the fact that the desired synthesis requires a brand-new complex and at the same time practically usable solution to the problem of structure and agency, that has not been offered yet either by “high sociological theory” or by Goldstone himself (or other theorists of revolution). In addition, Goldstone warns that it may be the case that the study of revolutions is reaching a deadlock where it becomes overwhelmed by the variety of revolutionary cases and theories. From the fact that its contours are clear, the fourth-generation theory does not become easier to create!3 Unlike Foran (1993), Goldstone believes that fourth generation synthesis might perfect the flaws of the third generation (see Cucut˘a, 2013). Unfortunately, as already has been mentioned a synthesis on the basis of third generation or structural theories of revolutions cannot lead to an agency-centered approach taking into account culture other than as cultural structures; it more often results in usage of culture and agency as ad hoc explanations. It is my assumption that Goldstone calls for cross-generational synthesis and his own approach is a brilliant example of it; but it seems to me that it does not lead to a fourth generation. To identify the major and semi-universal stages in the revolutionary process was one of the main methodological techniques of the “natural history” school or first generation (see Goldstone, 1980, 1982). Goldstone detects revolutionary stages in order to separate structural factors from culture and agency and take all into account; like the second generation, Goldstone prefers a broad definition of “revolution-like events” (for details see Goldstone, 1995) instead of too narrow “social revolutions” in order to test his conjunctural and demographic generalizations about “state breakdown” on large numbers of events across time and space using quantitative indicators as well (it can be estimated as a cliometric step beyond the third generation with its not too wide clusters of social revolutions). In addition, not all generations are compatible, since it was very common that new generations emerged exactly from criticism of the previous ones (yet there are some examples of more agency-centered, and at the same time less vulnerable to rational choice agency, cross-generation theoretical syntheses; see, e.g., Lindholm, 2013). The temporal solution of the problem of structure and agency in revolutions through highlighting different elements in different stages leads to a certain fraction of structural determinism at the first stage of state breakdown, that has already been criticized (as if the order of different variables’ contribution was equal to its weight in the final result; see Wasserstrom, 1995). In turn it ignores Huntington’s famous distinction between two patterns or types of revolutionary processes: in the Western, type rapid mass political mobilization and participation is the consequence 3

See Chapter “On Theories and Phenomenon of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume) for more detail about the ideas of Jack Goldstone as well as about the fourth generation of revolutionary theory.

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of the collapse of the old regime; in the Eastern type, it is the cause of the destruction of the old regime (see Huntington, 1968: 266–267). In terms of Goldstone’s stages, it means that the stage of struggle for power does not always follow the state breakdown stage, with all the consequences for the order of structural, cultural and agent variables. In terms of the structure/agency problem, it means that there are cases where emergence of revolutionary subjectivity or revolutionary agency preceded state breakdown and influenced it no less than structural factors. Despite the evolution of research methodology in the comparative and historical sociology of revolutions, we can recognize the inevitably strong impact of the base revolutionary case, from which a researcher begins his investigations, on his consequent vision of other cases. (It is like the ‘Gerschenkron effect’ in economic history statistics). Apparently, it seems that the order of Goldstone’s stages was influenced by his initial focus on the cases of England and France, with their Western type of revolutionary process. In Archer’s terms, it could be opposed with the thesis that revolutionary movement (or movements) formation and state breakdown are simply two different morphogenesis processes that occasionally (yet not causally) coincide. Unfortunately, objection of this kind would mean steping back to structuralism and the separation of the sociology of revolution from the sociology of social movements, that Goldstone justifiably denies. Therefore, this issue requires further investigations. It seems that in recent theorizing Goodwin (2001) was able to advance a little further than others in developing the fourth-generation theory, given most of Goldstone’s recommendations for it. The point is, that he was one of the few theorists of revolution who began his theoretical interpretation of revolutions with an explicit prior attempt to solve the structure/agency problem, since he had to dispel two very popular (and surprisingly reciprocal in terms of structure and agency) myths about revolutions in the Third World: that they were structurally determined from outside by Great Powers rivalry in the Cold war; and that the successful cases are well explained by the agency of famous professional revolutionary leaders (like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro) (see Goodwin & Skocpol, 1989). Therefore, Goodwin turned to the question of where and when the revolutionary movements firstly, successfully mobilized their supporters and secondly, take power by force (rather than compromise). Moreover, he did this on the basis of a novel idea, invoking a network approach. Goodwin elaborated a synthetic network theory of revolution and collective action starting precisely with tackling a puzzle of structure and agency in collaboration with Mustafa Emirbayer (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994, 1996). Their intention was to integrate network analysis, which they argued to be one of the most promising approaches to social structures, with more adequate conceptualizations of human agency and culture (the typical weaknesses of network perspectives). They based their solution in the first place on Alexander’s (1988a) identification argument. According to Alexander, identification of actors (persons who act) with agency (free will) leads to the failure of “misplaced concreteness”. Agency is the moment of freedom (or in Talcott Parsons’ terms, “effort”) that occurs within three structured environments, and two of these environments (culture and personality) ontologically exist only within the actor. “Action can be conceived of as a ‘flow’ within symbolic,

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social, and psychological environments. These environments interpenetrate within the concrete empirical actor, who is no longer identified with purely contingent action as he or she typically is in the traditions of micro-theory” (Alexander, 1988b). Agency should be regarded as a theoretically distinct element of all actual empirical instances of action. Therefore, according to Alexander, the main failure of Archer’s morphogenesis theory, paired with some followers of the Birmingham school, is that action is taken as something opposed to institutionalized cultural codes. Thus, such a way of thinking leads to equation of action with creative, reflexive or rebellious agency (cf. Joas, 1996), and deals with cultural patterns as existing outside the actor (see Alexander, 1992). On the contrary, according to Alexander, if one does not conflate individual actors with agency and romanticize the latter, then it would be obvious that actors are not heroes struggling against conformist culture existing somewhere outside them. “They are often befuddled, passive, self-deceptive, thoughtless and vicious” rather than rational, autonomous, self-sufficient, wily and clever. And agency presupposes externalization and representation of actors’ internal environment in Alexander (1992), or transposition and extension of schemas to new contexts in Sewell’s (1992) terms. In turn, network analysis rejects all sorts of culturalism, essentialism and methodological individualism. Networks are regarded as processual in their very nature; they exist as long as and to the degree that action flows through them. The network approach stresses priority of interaction processes (rather than reified structures) over different kinds of sociological “essences”. By itself, “networks” are less sustained and reified, less tight and cohesive than the metaphor of “structure” implies. They are solid, but also ephemeral; they come into existence, expand by adding new links and intensifying the flow through them, but also contract, die down, and fade out. From a network perspective, the nature of groups is determined by interactions of the actors within it and in turn the nature of actors and their actions are determined by the groups in which they are involved. Thus, network analysis suggests a Simmel-style solution of the problem of “macro–micro”. Goodwin and Emirbayer distinguish three models of network analysis: “structural determinism”, “structural instrumentalism” and “structural constitutionism”. The first model neglects agent’s ability to transform network structures and culture or ideology; their actions only reproduce them. This mode of network analysis usually results in a succession of static or timeless representations or “snapshots” of social/network structure. Structural instrumentalism accepts a prominent role of human agency in history but only in instrumental terms, ignoring actors’ moral beliefs, values and normative commitments and setting apart the role of culture and ideology. Structural constitutionalism conceptualizes the transformative impact of human agency and ideology or culture more adequately, but it still fails to encompass the full complexity of interconnections between culture, agency and social structure. Integrating network analysis with Alexander’s arguments, Goodwin and Emirbayer analytically distinguish three kinds of network or three relational contexts (or environments) of every empirical action: the cultural, social-structural and socialpsychological. The nodes of these three networks or contexts (“environments” in

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Fig. 3 Agency—Action—Practice. Source Emirbayer and Goodwin (1996)

Alexander’s terms) of action are the following: symbols in the cultural context; positions in the social-structural context and “objects” (in psychoanalytic terms of an “object relations” theorist) in the social-psychological context. They take culture or cultural structures as analytically autonomous from social structure. The argument about inseparability of culture and social structure leads to the fallacy of “central conflation” in Archer’s terms; and from Alexander’s viewpoint, transfiguration of the analytical distinction between the structure of social relations and the structure of cultural formations into ontological dualism leads to what he has called the mistake of “misplaced concreteness”. Social action is shaped and guided by all three contexts that overlap and at the same time are mutually autonomous. Furthermore, action is never completely determined by the relational contexts in which it is embedded. Agency is defined as the engagement by actors of their different contexts of action that reproduces but also potentially transforms those contexts in interactive response to the problems posed by a changing historical situation. Emirbayer and Mische distinguished three temporal aspects of agency—“iterational” (or habitual aspects), “projective” and “practical-evaluative” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). The iterational aspect of agency describes actors’ selective reactivation of past patterns of thought and action. The projective aspect refers to actors’ capacities to generate future trajectories of action that enable creative reconstruction of existing structures of thought and action under the impact of diverse emotions about the future. The practical-evaluative aspect empowers actors to make practical and normative judgments between alternative options of action (see Fig. .3). It might be said that another theoretical and network-type source of Goodwin’s inspiration was Michael Mann’s (1986) theory of sources of social power. I will leave aside “direct” and “indirect” types of colonialism and the notion of “infrastructural power” borrowed by Goodwin (2001) from Mann’s theory in order to explain the casual influence of different environments on outcomes of ‘periphery revolutions’ (for detailed analysis see Karasev, 2018), and focus on the consequences of Mann’s networks argument as a theoretical solution for Goodwin.

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The argument that societies are constituted by multiple overlapping and intersecting socio-spatial networks of power has an important implication for the problem of structure and agency. It means that societies are not unitary; they are not social systems; they are not totalities, hence there are no levels, dimensions or parts of such a totality and hence they cannot be reduced to some of their structural properties. “Because there is no totality, individuals are not constrained in their behavior by “social structure as a whole,” and so it is not helpful to make a distinction between “social action” and “social structure” (Mann, 2012). In short, Mann argues that his “organizational rather than motivational” theory of sources of social power makes the problem of structure and agency irrelevant, yet very soon it was criticized for its implicit instrumental conception of agency (Bryant, 2006). However, it seems that Goodwin managed to avoid this failure of Mann’s theory and it is especially obvious in the case of his analysis of the “Huk rebellion,” where he describes how rebels’ libidinal ties (i.e. partly irrational agency in social-psychological context), among other factors, patterned the rise and demise of the rebellion (see Goodwin, 1997). Unfortunately, because of the high complexity of his synthetic network solution to the structure/agency problem and also because of the shortage of firm and solid micro-level empirical evidence from Third World revolutions, it is difficult to say how far Goodwin really moved beyond structural analysis, even if theoretically he utilized a network-related approach to revolution. (It must be mentioned that Goldstone [2004] addressed network approaches as well, yet only in the vein of social movements studies). To sum up: the problem of structure and agency and the contemporary sociology of revolutions and social movements are very closely interrelated. Leading theoretical attempts to solve this problem have had a great impact on recent theories of revolution and social movements; but it seems that the more complex the theoretical solution, the less likely it is that it will be taken into account in further empirical research.

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Dmitry Karasev is a senior research fellow in the Institute for International Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, as well as researcher in the Laboratory for Social and Economic History at the School of Public Policy (RANEPA), Moscow. His main scientific interest and the theme of his Ph.D. dissertation are the recent sociological theories of social revolutions.

Revolution and Modernization Traps Leonid Grinin

1 Revolutions and Modernization Period As shown in the previous chapters,1 with the advent of the Modern era, revolutions became not only one of the means of changing socio-political regimes but also an important accelerator of development both of certain advanced societies and of the World System in general. It is no surprise that they became a landmark phenomenon in socio-political transformations of the Modern period. Thus, in terms of the world historical process, revolutions (starting from the early Modern period) can be considered as a regularity intrinsic to a certain stage of a society’s development (see Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” [Goldstone et al., 2022b], Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” [Grinin, 2022d], Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a], Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” [Grinin, 2022e], Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” [Grinin, 2022b] and others in this volume; see also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019b). This stage is often defined as a modernization period witnessing changes in many societal relations which gradually (but in comparison with previous time quite quickly) transform societies from archaic into modern ones. However, such transitional periods often 1 Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022d), Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), and Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume).

This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-1800254). L. Grinin (B) HSE University, Moscow, Russia Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_8

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proceed with crises. The latter are a consequence of the inability of many traditional institutions and social relations, as well as ideologies, to keep up with changes in technology, communications, the education system, medicine, and demographic structures. This results in growing radical sentiments in society and a revolutionary crisis. Revolutions occurred prior to the beginning of the Modern period. They may also break out in societies which completed their modernization rather long ago. Besides, revolutions may occur due to some other causes including the fight for independence or against authoritarian regimes.2 However, in the present Chapter we mostly deal with classical-type revolutions which are more closely associated with societal modernization. The suggested idea about the relation between revolutions and the modernization period is that just in this period (a) revolutions occur more frequently; (b) the role of revolutions increases since they become the means of developmental advance of societies; and (c) revolutions may be treated as a result of abrupt changes in societies which unfold (usually in an uncontrollable way) in the process of its complex and contradictory development, in particular in cases of catching-up (i.e. accelerated) development. However, it would be an oversimplification to state that modernization generates revolution. The relationship between revolutions and modernization undoubtedly exists but it is indirect and much more complex than it is often suggested.3 In the present Chapter we will show the critical mechanism of this relationship. There are a number of studies which investigate the relations between revolutions and the degree of modernization of a society (see, e.g. Brunk et al., 1987; Burkhart & Lewis-Beck, 1994; Cutright, 1963; Dahl, 1971; Epstein et al., 2006; Goldstone, 2001, 2014; Hobsbawm, 1996; Huntington, 1968, 1986; Lipset, 1959; Londregan & Poole, 1996; Mau & Starodubrovskaya, 2001; Moore, 1966; Rueschemeyer et al., 1992; Tilly, 1986; Boix, 2011; about the connection between modernization and waves of revolutions see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” [Rozov, 2022, in this volume]).4 There exist diametrically opposed views on the character of these relations (see, e.g., Huntington-Tilly’s debate 2

As a result, today revolutions may break out in already modernized societies, in which case their main causes are the incongruences between society’s self-identification (and the respective adopted values) and its political organization (see Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; we already spoke about it in Chapter “Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume]; see also Grinin & Korotayev, 2016). On the other hand, there are a number of cases where democratic revolutions occured in societies that were underdeveloped for them, for example, as happened in 1905–1911 in Iran or in 1911 in China. This can happen due to the world-system impact when in ideological and political terms the revolutionaries start to get ahead of the developmental level of their society. See more details in Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022d) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume). 3 In this context Goldstone is surely right when arguing that modernization has no consistent relationship to the onset of revolutions (Goldstone, 2014: 12). 4 See also our studies of the complex relationship between the processes covered by the terms of modernization and revolutions (e.g., Grinin, 2012a, 2013b, 2017a, 2017b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a, 2012b; Korotayev et al., 2011; Korotayev et al., 2017).

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[Huntington, 1986; Tilly, 1986]). One should note that the researchers’ views to a great degree depend on their attitude towards the very concept of modernization. Modernization is a vague and tendentious concept (Tilly, 1986: 48). “Instead of trying to pace off modernization precisely, I shall ordinarily substitute for it somewhat better defined processes, such as industrialization or demographic expansion”—Tilly added (Ibid.). However, the changing aspects are numerous in a modernizing society and they are closely related to each other. So it would be inefficient to consider them in isolation. On a large temporal scale or in the world-system context, it would be more convenient to apply a term that would cover the whole range of the interrelated transformations. Thus, Tilly (Ibid.: 57) finally admits that, though indirectly, population growth, industrialization, urbanization, and other large-scale structural changes do, to be sure, affect the probabilities of revolution. Besides he pointed out that the mobilization of new groups into politics (or into a revolution) occurs as a more or less direct effect of rapid social and economic change (Ibid.: 50). And what are industrialization, urbanization, population growth, rapid social and economic change, and other large-scale structural changes if not the different facets of modernization? So, similar to other broad concepts the term ‘modernization’ has its drawbacks. Yet, I maintain that its advantages outweigh the drawbacks, since it gives a definite perception concerning the direction and rate of a society’s development. I agree on this point with Tipps that the notion of modernization must be sought not in its clarity and precision as a vehicle of scholarly communication, but rather in its ability to evoke generalized images which serve to summarize all the various transformations of social life attendant upon the rise of industrialization and the nation-state (Tipps, 1973: 199). Therefore, it will be more reasonable to make a conclusion that one should better understand the relationship between modernization and revolutions not as a direct and specific cause of revolutions but as their main foundation. And this becomes all the more meaningful if one accounts for what we have said in Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022d) about the division of a revolutionary situation into a general situation (which can last for many years and even decades) and a much shorter particular situation (see Fig. 1 in Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). Modernization can hardly affect the particular revolutionary situation since these are two different phenomena in type, duration and scale; but it can produce a strong impact on the origin of a general revolutionary situation and its exacerbation.5 Thus due to the inability of many traditional institutions and relations, as well as ideologies, to keep up with changes in economy, technology, urbanization, demography and other rapid and uncontrolled transformations caused by modernization, there emerges a strong probability of a structural crisis. 5

It seems that in his arguing against Huntington’s idea about correlation between modernization and revolutions (Huntington 1968, 1986), Tilly made the same mistake in his structure and agency approach on revolutions, i.e. mixed short-run and a long-run analyses—see Chapter “The problem of structure and agency and the contemporary sociology of revolutions and social movements” (Karasev, 2022, in this volume).

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All together the major changes in these factors create structural vulnerability to the danger of social upheavals like revolutions. To be sure, revolutions may start due to some other reasons or they may break out in rather modernized societies. There are also a number of examples when no revolutions occurred in countries during their modernization period. This explains why there hardly exists a direct correlation between modernization and revolutions (Goldstone, 2014). However, despite these variations, the modernization transition, in our opinion, is still the most dangerous period in this context. As to those cases of countries with rapid modernization accompanied by drastic population growth, yet without revolution we can say that sometimes it may be explained by a state’s more or less successful domestic and foreign policy (e.g., Japan after the Meiji Restoration or Egypt in the nineteenth–beginning of the twentieth century).This means that at a certain stage of development a society manages to escape the modernization trap. However, in the context of modernization and rapid demographic growth the cases of crisis-free development should be considered more as an exception that needs special explanation, while revolutions and political upheavals are the typical phenomena observed. This conclusion leads us to introduce the notion of the modernization trap, which is an expected social-political crisis resulting from modernization which a society faces when trying to overcome its backwardness (see Grinin, 2012b, 2013a). In what follows we present a detailed description of the correlation between the Malthusian and modernization traps as well as of the different types of modernization traps.

2 The Processes and Types of Modernization The concept of modernization covers a wide range of subjects and its exact definition is disputable (Apter, 1965; Black, 1966; Eisenstadt, 1966, 1978; Grinin, 2010a, 2013b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015; Huntington, 1968; Levy, 1966, 1967; Nefedov, 2007; Poberezhnikov, 2006; Przeworski & Limongi, 1997; Rostow, 1971; Smelser, 1967; Tipps, 1973; Travin & Margania, 2004; Yakovlev, 2010; see also Bendix, 1967; Collins, 1968). Despite this variety, for this chapter we define it as follows. Modernization is the process of a society’s (and of the whole World System’s) transition from archaic (supercomplex agrarian) to industrial society (and currently, to industrial-informational society). The term may also refer to a group of related societies (as it was in disunited Italy and Germany in the nineteenth century) and to the whole World System if we take the period when such transition occurred for the first time (i.e. among most of developed societies). This process is continuous enough for every society (lasting at least for several decades, sometimes over a hundred or more years) and all the more continuous for the World System (see below). With respect to the World System we can speak about the early modernization (in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries), classical modernization (the nineteenth

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and the beginning of the twentieth centuries), modern modernization (in the 1910– 1960s), and postmodern modernization (the 1970s–nowadays). The early modernization correlates with the catching-up divergence (see Grinin & Korotayev, 2015), the classical and modern ones correlate with the Great Divergence (see e.g., Goldstone, 2002b, 2009); the postmodern correlates with the Great Convergence (Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). Each period of modernization has its own fundamental peculiarities and relations with evolution (see below). Moreover, the relationship between early modernization (the early Modern era) and early revolutions is much more complex and ambiguous. The great revolutions in the Netherlands (in the 1560s), Britain (the 1640s), even the US (1776) and France (1789) all occurred before there was any shift to markedly higher GDP per capita and before steam industrialization. Within these revolutions the defined relationship was heavily complicated by the religious ideology, archaic social system and absence of nations and of the moderntype state or the mature one (see Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” [Grinin, 2022e], Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” [Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2008, 2011, 2012b). The most obvious relationship with revolutions is traced for the periods of the classical and modern modernization (see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the nineteenth century: Their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022c], and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). In this chapter we will apply the term modernization in its full sense mostly to the period of steam engine industrialization (i.e., after 1800) because such industrialization is a core element of the modernization process. We deal mainly with classical revolutions which are more closely related to the modernization of society. The process of modernization is accompanied by accelerated social development and is usually characterized by the following features: • development of a dominant commercial sector and monetization; • industrial development; • urbanization (a transition to societies with a large part of the population living in cities); • modernization in agriculture; • spread of mass education, the establishment of modernized health service, and propagation of sanitary culture and hygienic norms; • significant changes in demographic development, the so-called demographic modernization (i.e. the first and the second phase of the demographic transition); • transition to the economic model of continual growth of volume of output as well as capital and income on the base of continual technical improvement. This model was closely connected with economic cycles of a new type. Besides, modernization ultimately requires significant political, legal and social transformations which political elites often resist. This may be the main cause of modernization crises (see below).

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Modernization also significantly changes and often splits the elite, some part of which can start supporting revolutionary changes. This reinforces the revolutionary crisis, increases the chances of successful mobilization of the masses and weakens the government. Thus, revolutions can be viewed as the result of drastic changes in the development process which lead to a great variety of societal tensions and conflicts.6 The modernization processes cover quite a long period, and in every society they have their own peculiarities (Berger, 1986). However, one can distinguish several types of modernization: a natural-historical, a catching-up modernization, and a forced one. A natural-historical modernization occurs without external impact. It can unfold only in societies which are first to launch the process. In their case modernization can take a long time. Such pioneer societies lack models and must cope with new challenges by trial and error. Consequently, the dramatic changes in social structure, in particular, the growing urbanization and literacy, can cause acute tensions and social conflicts. As a result of falling into modernization traps, such societies experience revolutions. Since in such pre-industrial societies there was a relatively high level of urbanization, this type of modernization trap will be further referred to as an urbanization trap, proposed as a subtype of the modernization trap (see below). However, even more often a society’s modernization is associated with catch-up development by accelerated industrialization or rapid joining of international division of labor, when the already existing industrial and sociopolitical management technologies are borrowed. In this situation, on the one hand, the process of transformation accelerates, but, on the other hand, many necessary reforms fail. Thus, great disproportions arise in a society, since modernization involves, first of all, the military sphere, technology and economy, while privileges, the distribution system, archaic political and social structures may change much more slowly.7 Sometimes a forced (imposed from outside) modernization can take place, but it more frequently happens that only certain phases or modes of implementation are externally imposed rather than the entire process. This can be illustrated by the example of Egypt under English occupation (1882–1919), Japan under American occupation (after 1945), and India in the late period of British Raj. For the purposes of the chapter, it is worth noting that a society undergoing forced modernization often succeeds in avoiding social explosion for a long time (though they can at last break out as happened in Egypt in 1919 and in India in 1942–1947 see Chapter 6

About the splitting of elites and other abovementioned processes see Chapter “The phenomenon and theories of revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) and Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022d, in this book). 7 Such catching-up modernization leads to cultural borrowings and then sooner or later to importation of revolutionary ideologies. As a result, in the catching-up countries indigenous leaders started to consider revolutions (similar to democracy) as a certain universal and advanced means to rise to a new level. Such a world-system effect allows revolutions to engage peripheral countries which are not objectively ready for such forms of advancement—see about this Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume).

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“Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]).

3 The Malthusian and Modernization Traps It is also important to emphasize that modernization is tightly connected with an escape from the Malthusian trap although unfortunately this aspect of modernization is insufficiently studied and rarely mentioned. The Malthusian trap (as we define it) implies a situation when a society fails to technologically resolve the problem of sustaining the growth of agricultural output at a faster rate than the population increases.8 In this situation an agrarian society actually exhausts its potential. In the pre-industrial period, the supercomplex societies’ attempts to overcome resource restrictions typically resulted in their falling into the Malthusian trap. The escape from the Malthusian trap started with the first phase of the Industrial Revolution in the sixteenth century and in advanced European countries it ended with the completion of this Revolution (see Grinin, 2007a, 2007b; Grinin & Grinin, 2015, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2009a, 2015; Grinin et al., 2009; Grinin et al., 2008 for more details). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries most social systems managed to escape the Malthusian trap (see the references in note 8). Thus, in the World System core the escape took a very long period of three centuries, from the second half of the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century (the landmark is the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1847 in Great Britain). In the late nineteenth century, the international division of labor became so advanced that some societies could specialize in industrial production while making up for food shortages with imports. Thus, a growing number of states started their escape from the Malthusian trap. The final escape from the Malthusian trap took place in Europe with the global agrarian crisis (in the 1870–1890s), which led to a continuous price reduction or stagnation for basic grains, thus clearly demonstrating a qualitative change in the World System (Grinin et al., 2009, 2010; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a). Still even now there are some societies, especially in Tropical Africa, that have failed to fully escape it.

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This may at times mean a decline of living standards for a considerable part of population and even their balancing at the edge of physical survival (see, e.g., Artzrouni & Komlos, 1985; Kögel & Prskawetz, 2001; Komlos & Artzrouni, 1990; Steinmann & Komlos, 1988; Steinmann et al., 1998; Wood, 1998; see also Grinin et al., 2008, 2009; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a).

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3.1 The Societal Contradiction Generated by the Modernization Process and the Threat of Revolutions The escape from the Malthusian trap together with a society’s transformation brings great danger of falling into a trap of another type—the modernization one. And while the Malthusian trap is associated with the lag of productive forces behind the population’s growth rate (i.e., with their insufficiently rapid growth and generally low dynamics of changes), the modernization trap is, on the contrary, a result of sweeping changes which leave a number of important relations and institutions behind. The following disproportions emerge as result of the transformation process: (1) shifts in the size and incomes of various economic groups, generally creating a deeply unequal income distribution among social groups and regions (leading to under consumption in some strata, groups, and regions); (2) the maldistribution of resources and population within society (e.g., when with an overall sufficiency of farmland, some districts face an acute problem of land shortage and rural overpopulation); (3) disproportions in the population age structure (see below); (4) resistance on the part of outdated, but influential institutions (e.g., religious movements or institutions, in particular, like the Islamic institutions [Grinin, 2019a], craftsmen or peasants’ organizations, the Russian peasant community may be a well-known example here [see Grinin, 2017a, 2017b); (5) the authorities’ self-interested reaction to increasing resources, in particular their interest in international adventures; (6) growing literacy and education levels create a powerful group of intellectuals who try to ideologically influence the whole of society; (7) increasing expectations among different sections of the population, which often fail to be realized in full. This range of changes tends to destroy traditional ideology and authorities. Generally speaking, the escape from the Malthusian trap actually means that the population on average improves its living standards (as evidenced, e.g., by increasing average values of per capita calorie intake or rising life expectancies). However, actual improvements are often highly disproportionate, and combined with other social distortions, certain crisis situations are fraught with revolution. The increasing contradictions and revolutionary spirits are also fueled by the population’s growing expectations (see below).

3.2 Types of Modernization Traps at the Escape from the Malthusian Trap Since the World System core generally needed much time to escape from the Malthusian trap, it is not surprising that we observe an evolution of the modernization trap itself. This is the reason for working out a classification of traps. The main types of modernization traps emerging in the process of escaping from the Malthusian trap are presented in Fig. 1.

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ESCAPE

MODERNIZATION TRAP

Urbanization trap

Marxian trap

Youth-bulge trap

Fig. 1 Main types of modernization traps

Urbanization trap. At first, the Malthusian trap can evolve into the one that can be called an urbanization trap. It primarily affects pre-industrial societies with a relatively high urbanization level and an established bourgeoisie. In such societies, there is no machine industry yet, but there exist different forms of early capitalist trade and industrial enterprise. But the main point is that urbanization reaches the level beyond which some serious societal transformations are indispensable. At the same time the political elite hardly realizes this whereas some citizens, bourgeoisie, and intellectuals come out as a vanguard of public opposition. Our investigations show that in modernizing societies most of such tensions arise at an urbanization rate from 10 to 30% (Grinin et al., 2008, 2009; Grinin & Korotayev, 2009b). The urbanization trap correlates with early modernization (in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries), which we call a natural-historical modernization (see above). Britain before the Revolution of 1640 is the first example of this dynamic pattern. Another example is France on the eve of the French Revolution of 1789. Yet, in Britain, distinctly from France, great progress was made in the agricultural sector (see Apostolides et al., 2008; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015; Grinin et al., 2008, 2009; Goldstone, 1984, 2009; Overton, 1996; Trevelyan, 1978),9 which probably was one of the reasons for the peasants’ relative inactivity during the revolutionary period. The main difference that political crises and political actions against authorities in the situation of an urbanization trap display (in comparison with rebellions in the late-agrarian estate societies10 ) consists in the following: there is an aspiration to spread the action nation-wide and give it a definite ideological character. Moreover, another evident difference is the aspiration to change the existing social system and create a new national body of power. Moreover, the upper urban strata, including counter-elites and a part of the elite that believes it has no real power commensurate with its importance (e.g., “What is the Third Estate? Everything! What has it been in the political order? Nothing!”), make the core of such movements (for the social 9

Between 1600 and 1750, labor productivity noticeably increased, approximately twofold (see Dennison & Simpson, 2010: 150, Table 6.2). 10 See Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume).

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structure of revolutionary masses see, e.g., Sorokin, 1992: 286). These strata are united by a new ideology. In other words, the urbanization trap means a transition from urban rebellions and peasant wars to social revolutions. Malthusian-Marxian trap and the Marxian trap. The Marxian trap is a situation of weakly regulated exploitation of the emerging working class and a consequent fierce class struggle leading to dangerous social destabilization. However, the transition to the Marxian trap occurs far from immediately and only at the stage of intense industrialization. The transition from the Malthusian trap to the Marxian one occurs during the start of industrialization (i.e., the last phase of Industrial revolution, see Grinin & Grinin, 2015, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015), when the factory industry emerges and the industrial proletariat becomes a noticeable (but still rather small in number) social layer. The Malthusian-Marxian trap emerges when the demographic pressure in a society is great while the society is still in the course of transition from feudalism to capitalism (Grinin, 2010b, 2017a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a; Grinin et al., 2008: 81). One can distinguish two main constituents of this trap: the economic (Marxian) and demographic (Malthusian). Its Malthusian component provides a relatively cheap labor force, and Marxian component is connected with a high level of exploitation. In industrialized societies, a large and relatively redundant rural population is a source of serious demographic pressure.11 Thus, here the structural-demographic constituent acts not in the direct Malthusian form, but as a producer of socially explosive material in the form of an unsatisfied proletariat and urban community. The entrepreneurs get their labor force from the seemingly inexhaustible reserve of workers and the demographic pressure constantly emits new workers to towns. The Marxian component arises from the disproportion in distribution of benefits from rapid economic growth and from the lack of social legislation; and all that makes the workers powerless and the exploitation often becomes barbaric. In short, the rapid dynamics of economic development and changes in social life require serious transformations in the political system and legislation, but these transformations can seriously lag behind. These disproportions are one of the most common reasons for revolutions. A more specific reason is that most of the new members of the working class have few or no skills. Therefore, a disparity emerges between demand for a skilled labor force and an excessive offer of a non-skilled labor force, and as a consequence a large gap grows in the income of workers of different groups. During periods of economic growth, employers are often ready to increase wages, yet in the periodic crises the demand for workers, especially the unskilled ones, significantly decreases and the danger of social unrest grows. 11

On the other hand, it is worth noting that Marxian traps are far from always connected with the problems of powerful demographic pressure and rapid population growth. In nineteenth century France, for example, the population grew comparatively slowly, increasing only by 50%, from 26.9 to 40.7 million (Armengaud, 1976: 29). But that did not prevent several revolutions in France during the nineteenth century.

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But with the development of capitalist industrialization and the growth of class struggle, the Malthusian-Marxian trap turns into a typical Marxian trap (Grinin, 2010b, 2012b, 2013a, 2017a, 2017b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a). The Marxian trap can be resolved by means of (a) social reforms; (b) completed industrialization; (c) completed demographic transition (birthrate reduction); (d) achievement of a certain degree of democratization which yet is far from complete. As we pointed out above, a sharp increase of the urban population share in the demographic structure may also cause social tensions. In the situation of a Marxian trap among the urban population, it is the middle-class and proletariat that actively participate in revolutionary events. Samuel Huntington places the middle-class in the first place, especially the intellectuals with traditional background and modern values which are followed by salary earners (Huntington, 1968) while the working class is placed in the second place (Ibid.). Yet, in his study Huntington focuses on the society of his epoch (that is, of the 1940–1960s) adding that in the nineteenth century the proletariat used to be much more radical in European countries (Ibid.). In fact, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was workers and employees who were the revolutionary impact force and actively employed such means as mass protests or general strikes. Thus the modernization process proceeded far from smoothly and easily in most countries. “Modernity breeds stability, but modernization breeds instability” (Huntington, 1968: 41). It is only after passing through the modernization period that a society gains immunity (yet, not permanent) to certain types of crises. The youth-bulge is always associated with social-demographic factors and is a result of modernization. Due to modernization, growing food production together with improved medical care reduces mortality and sharply increases the proportion of youths (aged from 15 to 29 years old),12 i.e. there appears a so-called youth bulge, which is presented in the diagrams showing the proportion of young people relative to the total adult population or total population (Fig. 2). Such a change in the age structure with the onset of modernization creates conditions for socialpolitical instability. According to Jack Goldstone most twentieth-century revolutions in developing countries occurred in societies with exceptionally large youth bulges (Goldstone, 1991, 2002a: 11–12; see also Fuller, 2004; Grinin, 2013a; Grinin et al., 2016; Heinsohn, 2003; Korotayev & Khaltourina, 2011; Mesquida & Weiner, 1999; Moller, 1968).13 In many countries, such large youth cohorts who benefit from more education and higher aspirations as part of modernization, but yet are unable to find satisfactory employment or political roles, play a key role (especially at the present stage) in creating a continuity of political instability in society after the escape from the Malthusian trap. That is why we propose to call this type of modernization trap the 12

But of course, the more mature (up to 35 years of age) cohorts of youth also play an active part in protests. 13 About the role of youth bulges in the Arab Spring see Chapter “The Arab Spring: causes, conditions, and driving forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), and Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume).

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Fig. 2 The dynamics of the proportion of youth (20–29 years old) in the total population of Algeria in 1970–2020, %. Source UN Population Division, 2021

youth-bulge trap. (About the mechanism of falling into such a trap in the process and/or as a result of the escape from the Malthusian trap see Grinin et al., 2010; Grinin, 2011; Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2011; Korotayev et al., 2014). The youth-bulge trap is typical for the first phase of the demographic transition (it can also operate at its final stage or at the beginning of its second phase). It appears due to a rapid reduction of infant and child mortality with the birth rate remaining high (Grinin & Korotayev, 2012b; Korotayev et al., 2011). The results of this reduction in child mortality and several-fold growth in the number of surviving children can lead to considerable increase of youth cohorts as part of the population structure within 15–20 years. As a result, each generation is much more numerous than their parents’ generation. The effect of this trap is reinforced by rapid urbanization processes (Grinin et al., 2010; Grinin & Korotayev, 2009b). In the past centuries, ‘youth bulges’ were observed as part of the development of many modernizing states. However, currently the great progress in medicine has reduced infant and child mortality to unprecedentedly low rates. Additionally, in a number of contemporary developing countries (even in the medium-developed countries) the consumption level has substantially increased in comparison with previous years. That is why today with other conditions being equal, the youth share (and correspondingly the scale of the youth bulge) is larger than in previous epochs. Consequently, nowadays for a number of developing countries the danger of falling into the youth trap is in some respects even larger in comparison with the previous period (but at the same time due to historical experience and the international community’s aid the danger can also be reduced). Today political analysts speak about the countries with a young age structure (the youth bulge) as forming an “arc of instability” stretching from the Andes region in Latin America across Africa (especially south of the Sahara), then across the Middle East and the northern regions of South Asia (Mir posle krizisa… 2009: 59). Such fears came true with respect to Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and other Arab countries in 2010–2011 (see Chapter “The Arab Spring:

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causes, conditions, and driving forces” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b] and other Arab Spring chapters14 in this volume; see also Chapter “Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a] and Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume], as well as Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b; Grinin et al., 2016, 2019).

4 Conclusion In conclusion, we may summarize that during the modernization period rapid and uncontrolled changes together with increasing structural disproportions and demographic pressure can lead a society into an emergent—modernization—trap. These disproportions can also be enhanced by rapid urbanization and growing expectations; the latter surpass the society’s opportunities and are taken especially hard against the background of growing inequality. All together these factors increase the danger of the disruption of social equilibrium (e.g., Goldstone, 2014; Johnson, 1968; Smelser, 1963) that can lead to social upheavals like revolutions and even civil wars. Thus, the fundamental roots of revolutions mostly lie in serious disproportions emerging in a society’s development which result from accelerated modernization. As we have already pointed out, modernization in every society has a certain type and aspect, so that the same institutions (depending on their development and society’s peculiarities) may both reduce the threat of revolution and increase its danger. We already considered the correlation between revolutions and democracy in Chapters “Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume). Still we would like to point to further examples when democracy prevented revolution, and when it prepared the prerequisites for its outbreak. On the one hand, many modernizing societies are to a certain extent authoritarian and possess a rigid structure. That is why they are more prone to revolutionary breaks in contrast to the societies in which social discontent can be canalized in legal (i.e., democratic) forms. For example, in 1848 in Europe and Britain there was observed a rise of social activities. In Britain, the peaceful forms (Chartism) would prevail while Continental Europe faced revolutions (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the nineteenth century: Their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]). On the other hand, in our opinion the most dangerous in terms of social upheavals are the situations of partial (notinstitutionalized) democracy when the zero-sum game starts between the authoritarian and radical forces and also when influential radical forces, which are not democratic in their nature and views, use democratic freedoms and elections to take 14

Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume).

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power. That was the case in Russia in 1917 and in Germany in 1933. Such situations continue to take place (see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). This also happened in Egypt after the Islamists’ victory at the 2011–2012 elections (see Chapters “Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a], Chapter “The Arab Spring: causes, conditions, and driving forces” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b], and Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis” [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume]; see also Chapter “Conclusion. How many revolutions will we see in the twenty-first century?” [Goldstone et al., 2022a]). We should also point out that modernization often leads to a situation when the previously economically and culturally backward regions and peoples within multinational empires and states develop to the level where their national self-identity awakens. And this paves the way for their struggle for political equality, autonomy and even the desire to break free of larger states and create independent states. As a result, most national liberation revolutions in a certain sense were more or less prepared by transformations associated with modernization (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the nineteenth century: Their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022c], Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) and Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the color revolutions’ diffusion” [Filin et al., 2022, in this volume]), inasmuch as nationalism is yet another product of changes in literacy, communications, and social relations (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the nineteenth century: Their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]; see also Gellner, 1983; Grinin, 2008).

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Tsygankov, V. (2022). Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 265–279). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_10. UN Population Division. (2021). UN Population Division Database. http://www.un.org/esa/popula tion. Wood, J. W. (1998). A theory of pre-industrial population dynamics: Demography, economy, and well-being in Malthusian systems. Current Anthropology, 39, 99–135. Yakovlev, A. (2010). Ocherki modernizatsii stran Vostoka i Zapada v 19–20 vekakh. URSS.

Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor at Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as coeditor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology.

Revolutionary Waves in History

Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History Nikolai S. Rozov

Revolutionary waves are series of revolutionary events that occur close in time in different (often neighboring) societies, moreover these events are causes for each other or have common causes. By revolutionary events I mean any mass protests coupled with a political crisis that threatens the continuation in power of the current ruler. Such events here, for brevity, will be called revolutions regardless of various consequences: the revolution can win (in cases of government overthrow or significant concessions), they can be pacified (no overthrow, no concessions, and no repression) or they can be suppressed (with reaction, mass arrests, and executions).1

1 For definitions of revolution and various revolutionary events see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) and Chapter “On theories and phenomenon of revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) in this book. For definitions and other theoretical ideas on revolutionary waves see Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022), Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), and Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume).

N. S. Rozov (B) Institute for Philosophy and Law (Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences), Novosibirsk, Russia Department of International Relations and Regional Studies, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_9

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1 Landmarks in Understanding Revolutionary Waves Marx did not describe waves of revolutions, but he called for the internationalization of revolution, for example, in “The Class Struggles in France” (1850). In the subsequent Marxist tradition, waves of revolutions (particularly in Western nations) have been repeatedly noted albeit in a different terminology (in particular, in the works of Rosa Luxemburg). They were welcomed as a sign of the coming world victory of the proletariat and communism. In the 1950–1970s, the “domino theory” of the diffusion of communism was popular in the West. According to this theory the victory of a communist movement in one country (e.g., in Vietnam or Cuba) directly threatened neighboring countries with similar events. While prior writers treated waves of revolutions mainly as something to welcome or to fear, the less ideological, more objective study of revolutionary waves began only in the last decade of 20st century. Thus, in a pioneering monograph, Marc Katz compared the ‘Marxist-Leninist’, Arab nationalist, and modern Islamist revolutions as distinct revolutionary waves (Katz, 1999). Since the time of Marx, commonplace in understanding revolutionary waves was the idea that societies respond to a wave according to the degree of their ‘maturation’ for revolution. This ‘maturation’ can be presented as a linear variable with two poles: ‘revolutionary situation’, when a sufficiently small push can initiate flashing masses and persistent protests, and ‘stable regime’, when any tensions and conflicts are resolved in accordance with regular practices, or institutions, and nothing can break the strength and legitimacy of state power. Scholars usually focus on three large groups of structural factors that drive societies from stability to a revolutionary situation. These are: • Demographic pressures, including the massive influx of peasants to cities, a ‘youth bulge’, etc. (Goldstone, 1991; Grinin et al., 2010). • Geo-economic and socio-economic factors. Thus, downturns in the global economy often lead to a drop in the welfare of elites, to impoverishment of the population, and to state budget strains, and all these processes in turn generate political instability that can bring revolutions or state decay (Boswell & Dixon, 1990); • Geopolitical and hegemonic cycles. While the establishment of a strong hegemony provides relative stability to the international system, the decline of hegemony leads to outbreaks of protest mobilization, and uprisings against regimes that depend on this international order (Arrighi & Silver, 1999).2 Contemporary research in the study of revolutions is still fragmented (Beck, 2017). It is dominated by specific studies of individual revolutions or by large statistical studies of instability factors. However, researchers’ interest in revolutionary waves has greatly increased after the wave of anti-communist revolutions 2

See also Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022c, in this book).

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(“Velvet revolutions”) in the late 1980s–1990s, “Color revolutions” in the 2000s3 and the Arab Spring of 2010–2012.4 Several books and dozens of articles have been devoted to various aspects of the phenomenon of revolutionary waves. Several Russian researchers noticed the fact of the waves and proposed general hypotheses of their origin (Korotayev et al., 2015a, 2015b; Tsirel, 2012a, 2012b). Where historical descriptions emphasize the commonalities of requirements and ideological forces of cultural change across national boundaries, sociological explanations emphasize general structural processes. For example, economic dependence (e.g., of a peripheral economy or former colony on imperial nations, or of a regional economy on global capital and markets) increases class exploitation, develops exclusivist forms of rule and personalist regimes, and therefore increases the structural similarity among peripheral societies. In such countries, a crisis or shift in the global economy increases the discontent of population and challenges the state’s ability to maintain control, thus creating an opportunity for a transnational “anti-system” movement. In addition, geopolitical competition creates a political opportunity for opposition forces to protest, as it weakens regimes who are dependent on foreign powers, and gives hope for possible success in the ‘unstable period’. However, not all sociological work on revolutionary waves is state-centered. Colin Beck explores the cultural and ideological origins of revolutionary waves. He suggests we can “unify the sociological structural perspective and the historical cultural account of revolutionary waves in two assertions: (1) revolutionary waves are transnational events of the international states system as a whole, and (2) revolutionary waves are profoundly cultural events, as they involve alternative ideals of political order” (Beck, 2011: 168). He points to a correspondence between the onset of revolutionary waves and the relatively rapid growth of a common set of ideologies within a shared world culture. Beck considers two mechanisms for how this world culture operates. First, the possibility of new political practices (strikes, rallies, marches, pickets, campgrounds, etc.) opens up for individuals according to new scenarios presented within the world culture. Second, the ideas of world culture are influential for elites; international support for human rights means that for some elites their justification of violent 3

See Chapter “The ‘color’ revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest” (Mitchell, 2022), Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the color revolutions’ diffusion” (Filin, 2022), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Color revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The atypical ‘revolution’ of April 7 and the days that followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022), and Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022, in this volume). 4 See Chapter “The Arab Spring: causes, conditions, and driving forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume).

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suppression of street protests erodes and their self-legitimacy diminishes, leading to splits among the elites. Beck observes how the spread of examples of revolution, their practices and ideas, feeds into a spreading world culture. “A successful revolution in a neighboring or referential society increases regional instability, increases the likelihood of international war, thus giving an example of success, and it creates and sponsors brokers for further protest actions. The ideological shift in world culture delegitimizes inappropriate regimes, undermining the unity of elites, changes the role of non-state actors, at the same time increases the “theorizing” of cross-national similarities, i.e. contributes to the emergence of ideas, summarizing the mood of protest and pointing to their common cause. Furthermore, such a shift is supplying protesters with new models and expanding diffusion channels” (Beck, 2015: 149). Revolutionary waves can be studied in different contexts: from the point of view of modernization processes; in terms of the root causes of maturing crises; as responses to the social and philosophical problems of progress, evolution, and the legitimacy of the old and new regimes; with regard to evaluation criteria of revolutionary/counterrevolutionary actions; and the strategies of political actors. International factors remain poorly understood: why does one revolution lead to a revolution in the neighboring country (the “domino” effect) but not others? Why do the great powers support an old regime or support a revolutionary movement? Why are they sometimes divided in their support? Comparison of revolutionary waves from different historical periods makes it possible to reveal not only local and particular, but also general and structural factors of these phenomena.

2 Types of Revolutionary Waves Let us label a revolution that causes a subsequent wave as the original one. Then the next revolutions (or revolutionary events, crises with a real danger of overthrowing the government) come, and finally a closing revolutionary event stops the wave. A revolution in a donor society (hereinafter—the donor-revolution) causes subsequent revolutions in recipient societies. “Society” is usually a country (a nation-state, a polity). Culturally and politically autonomous provinces (principalities, ethnic enclaves, national republics, colonies) in large empires, world-empires, colonial empires, confederations, and coalitions of states are also considered as “societies”; here revolutionary waves can pass from one to another. Various types of links between revolutions in different societies form the basis of the following typology. The generalization of revolutionary waves in the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries allows us to reveal five types of links between revolutions: • direct emotional effect (“domino”), • induction (transfer of political action methods through dialogue, missions, training, pilgrimage), • ideological influence (continuity of purposes, slogans, organizational models),

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• military participation (in an international war), • common structural causes (above all, socio-economic and demographic ones). This list is not complete because new types of links can be found, or some of these types can be divided. In the meantime, the typology of revolutionary waves in this paper is built on the basis of these five types of links. Domino waves occur when revolution in a donor society, through a strong emotional effect of its example, leads to a revolution in some other society (usually one that is neighboring and/or culturally close). The Springtime of Nations (1848– 1849) and the Arab Spring (2010–2012) are prime examples of domino waves. There is no purposeful activity in such waves seeking to export or import revolutions. Revolutions occur in sufficiently “mature” societies because of the attractive pattern and emotional push from a revolution (especially if successful) in some referential society (about domino-effect see also Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” [Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume]). Induced waves occur when there is a deliberate transfer of organizational patterns of political protest actions (violent and/or peaceful). Emissaries from a donor-society or from a sponsoring revolution agitate, bring literature, train local leaders and activists. They themselves can participate in protests and revolutionary actions (cases of revolutionary export such as Russia → Germany 1918, Cuba → Angola 1975, etc.).5 It also happens that “pilgrims” come to a donor-society or to a sponsoring power for experience and instructions (revolutionary importation). Examples of this type are multiple revolutions inspired and supported by the Communist International and the Soviet Union (from Spain in 1936 and China in the 1940s to Afghanistan in the late 1970s.). Also, Cuba’s role in the revolutions in Latin America and Africa is well-known as is the role of various Western pro-democracy organizations in the “velvet” (1989) and “color” (the 2000s) revolutions, and similarly the role of Serbia and Qatar in the Arab Spring (2011–2012). Ideological waves occur when there is a clear continuity of slogans, religious ideas, ideological values, social and political ideals between revolutions. This type also includes borrowing organizational and institutional models from past revolutions, but these patterns are drawn from books and not necessarily from personal communication and interaction (as in induced waves). The Reformation in Northern Europe in the sixteenth century, the revolutions in the Netherlands (the Dutch Revolt), Britain and France, the revolutions in Russia in 1905 and February 1917, in the Ottoman Empire of 1908, in Mexico in 1910, and China in 1911 were all related to the general ideas of transition to a modern type of state with a constitution and parliament. The Marxist and Soviet revolutions in the 1910–1930s, the national liberation revolutions in the 1950s and 1960s, the anti-communist revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s—these are, first of all, ideological waves. Polemogen waves (from the Greek π´oλεμoς—war) occur in countries involved in a common international war, or a series of wars. As a rule, revolutions take place 5

About the examples of export of revolutions see Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022a) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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in losing powers (such are the Kemalist Revolution in Turkey in 1918–1923 and the November Revolution in Germany in 1918), but they can also result from military tension and weakening of imperial coercion (Revolution in the Russian Empire in 1917–1918, the Irish Uprising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence against Great Britain in 1919–1921 were all products of the strains of fighting in World War I). Structural waves occur in different societies because of the general basic causes: socio-economic, geopolitical, geo-economic, technological, ecological, demographic, and cultural. Such factors can be the processes of colonization, rapid progress in military technologies (‘military revolution’), commercialization, modernization, industrialization, urbanization, globalization, geo-cultural expansion, etc. Peasant and workers’ uprisings, anti-feudal bourgeois revolutions, and national liberation movements, as a rule, have common structural causes, and some of them are included in structural waves. The presence of some type of link between revolutions in different societies does not mean the absence of other ties between them. Thus, different types of waves are not mutually exclusive; they can form intersecting subsets of the general set of revolutionary waves. For example, all induced waves are also ideological ones, because slogans, revolutionary goals and ideals are important components of transfer. Presumably many polemogen waves propagate by the “domino effect” (in a common information and emotional space of war). The majority of domino-waves and ideological waves also are structural ones, inasmuch as revolutionary ideas and military crises propagate more easily among states that are structurally weakened and vulnerable to loss of legitimacy. Domino-waves, induced waves, and polemogen waves (hereinafter, I combine these three types under the name of wave-chains) are always concentrated in time, and often in space. If they are separated in space, information, organizational or military ties are always traceable between revolutions. The situation is more complicated with the ideological and structural waves. What if the general ideas or basic causes took place in revolutionary events separated by tens or hundreds of years, in societies on different continents? Here we need criteria for discernment between waves and non-waves, i.e., series of separate, unrelated revolutions.

3 Criteria for Selection: Revolutionary Waves as a Class of Phenomena For polemogen waves, all revolutions that have taken place in warring societies, their satellites, and colonies during a war and in the subsequent three years after the war will be considered belonging to the same polemogen wave. This approach is motivated by the fact that revolutions usually occur with the weakening of governments and the loss of their legitimacy, reducing the state’s monopoly on violence; along with the

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depletion of resources and the growth of social conflict—international wars constitute the strongest stressors promoting each of these factors. Domino-waves occur if the time interval between revolutionary events in different societies is not more than six months (for the earlier historical periods, up to the nineteenth century, it is necessary to make allowances for low-speed communication: here the lag time can be up to 2–3 years). Also, to qualify a series of revolutions as domino-waves evidence is needed of strong impressions produced by events in a donor-society to protest groups and their leaders in a recipient-society, a kind of “emotional infection.” There also should be documented calls for emulation of foreign riots, protests, revolutions. For induced waves this period can be much larger. For induced waves the period should not be more than one generation (25 years), because the longer gap calls into question the possibility of direct interaction of revolutionary export and import. If revolutions follow one after another in less time, then they are considered as belonging to the same wave; if the gap is longer then they are considered as separate. The starting point for timing is the first bright resonant event, or rather the moment (a few days later), when it became widely-known and had become the most important news in recipient-societies. A textbook example of such events is the taking of the Bastille in July 1789, the abdication of King Louis Philippe of France in February 1848, Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication in March 1917, the end of Communism in Poland via the Communist Party’s defeat in elections in August 1989, and Boris Yeltsin’s victory over the attempted conservative-military putsch in the Soviet Union in August 1991. What should be considered as the first important revolutionary event? Revolutions can ripen for a long time, and then they deploy during some weeks, months, or years. Establishing rigid boundaries between events is always arbitrary. It would be right to point out the massive protests (rallies, marches, strikes), local riots, raids against government forces, or explicit political declarations, but they can take place in smaller scale before a revolution did break out. Therefore, let us take the following three criteria for establishing the date of a revolution commencement: • there is a massive violent or nonviolent protest action, or another event that quickly became widely known and an impressive symbol for following actions; • in subsequent actions, the number of participants either increases or does not decrease, while political goals, slogans and demands become more radical, and, possibly, the level of mutual violence also increases; • as a result of these subsequent actions, significant changes occur in power and control over violence (concessions, dissolution of government, abdication, overthrow, declaration of a state of emergency, the introduction of troops, transition to repression, etc.). The date of such a first action or event (with extraordinary symbolical significance and subsequent uncontrollable deployment of events) will be considered the beginning of the revolution. In examining ideological and structural waves, we find that ideological continuity (e.g., freedom, equality, national self-determination) and general structural causes

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(e.g., modernization or urbanization) can be found in revolutions in societies that are very far apart from each other in time and/or space. What should be considered as the requisite conditions for an ideological or structural wave? The general principle is this: that revolutions within one wave in close-by societies can proceed while separated by a moderately long break, but revolutions in remote societies follow each other with a short break. First, we formulate more precisely the general criteria for these two types of non-chain waves. In a series of revolutions, the following variants can occur: • a donor-society and a recipient-society are neighbors (they have a common land border or a body of water with a developed water transport); • they both belong to a certain political, cultural entity (e.g., they are provinces of one empire, or a metropolis and its colony, or colonies of one metropolis, etc.); • they have strong economic, cultural and political ties, so that major events in the donor-society usually become important news that is actively discussed and emotionally resonates in the recipient-society. In these cases, revolutions in different societies are considered to belong to the same wave if the gap between the main events of a previous revolution and beginning of a following one is not more than one generation (circa 25 years); If societies are spatially, culturally, and economically distant (the terms noted above are not met) the gap between the revolutions should not exceed three (to five) years to treat them as belonging to one ideological or structural wave. For ideological waves there is an additional criterion: • there is good evidence of continuity of ideas, slogans, or revolutionary texts from a donor-society in a recipient-society. For structural waves the additional criterion is formulated as follows: • some common basic causes (geo-economic, geo-political, socio-economic, demographic, technological, environmental, cultural ones) are detected and empirically justified in revolutions within one wave.

4 Listing the Main Revolutionary Waves There have been several attempts to make a list of revolutionary waves. I integrate these lists indicating the nature of each wave (D—domino-wave, N—induced wave, P—polemogen wave, I—ideological wave, S—structural wave). One recognized expert in the study of revolutions, Jack Goldstone (2001: 145), identifies the following revolutionary waves: 1. 2.

1776–1794—the Atlantic revolutions, driven by anti-monarchical uprisings (United States, Netherlands, France); N, I. 1848–1849—the European revolutions driven by liberalism (“The Springtime of nations”); D, N, I, S.

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

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1950–1970—The post-World War II anticolonial revolutions driven by nationalism; N, I, S. 1945–1979—the Communist revolutions (Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Vietnam and other developing countries); P, N, I, S. 1952–1969—the Arab nationalist revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa; N, I, S. 1979–1989—the Islamic Revolutions (Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan); I, N, S. 1989–1991—the Anti-Communist revolutions (Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union); D, N, I, S. As one can see, this list includes ideological revolutionary waves, despite the fact that some of them clearly have the nature of a chain: induced waves, domino-waves, polemogen waves, or combinations. Sergei Tsirel (2012a, 2012b) does not include in his list the Atlantic Revolutions, the Communist Revolutions 1945–1970s, the Arab nationalist revolutions, or the Islamic Revolutions, but he adds the following waves: 1810–1813(15)—The War of Liberation in Latin America; D, N, P, I, S. 1830–1831—The Small wave of revolutions and rebellions in Europe; D, I, S. 1905–1911—The first Red wave,6 which began with the Russian Revolution of 1905; I, S. 1917–1920—The second Red wave (during and after the First World War); D, N, P, I, S. 1968—the wave of Youth protests; D, I, S. 2010–2012—The Arab Spring; D, N, I, S. Colin Beck presented a more complete list of revolutionary waves. He starts counting them since the sixteenth century (below only those waves are listed that were not represented above): 1566–1609—The first Calvinist, or the Second Reformation (France, Netherlands); D, N, P, I, S. 1618–1630—The second Calvinist Reformation which intersects with the Thirty Years’ War (France, Switzerland); D, N, P, I, S. 1821–1831—The Greek War for Independence (Greece, Moldova, Crete); D, P, I, S. 1875–1878—The Balkan crisis (Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Thessaly, Crete); D, N, P, I, S. 1926–1945—The Fascist coups and anti-fascist movements (Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia, France); N, P, I, S.

Nader Sohrabi (1995) names this wave as “Constitutional Revolutions” in Turkey, Iran and Russia. Jack Goldstone adds the 1911 Republican Revolution in China and formulates their general pattern: all were propelled by modernizers who shared the ideology that catching up with Western Powers required overturning traditional imperial dynasties and creating constitutional republics (personal communication). In fact, these revolutions included both anticapitalist, socialist (“red”) components and pro-Western, modernist, democratic ones.

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20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

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Finally, in conjunction with Tsygankov,7 Pustovoyt, and Filippov we have added the following waves of revolutions: 1514–1555—The Antifeudal burgher rebellions and wars, or the first Reformation (Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Wittenberg, Switzerland, Flanders, Bohemia); D, N, P, I, S. 1595–1608—The Eurasian peasant wars (Ottoman Empire, Muscovy); P, S. 1648–1650—The Slavic revolts (Ukraine, Poland, Muscovy); D, I, S. 1703–1709—The East Slavic anti-imperial rebellions (Hungary, Russia); I, S. 1861–1878—The American liberation uprisings and wars (the United States, Dominican Republic, Cuba); D, N, P, I, S. 1930–1940—The Latin American uprisings and coups (Brazil, Peru, Cuba); I, N, S. 2000–2009—The “Color revolutions” (Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Belarus, Myanmar, Moldova, Iran); I, N, S. 2011–2012—The “Occupy” and “Bolotnaya” movements and protests (USA, Spain, Canada, Israel, Portugal, Greece, Australia, United Kingdom, Russia); D, I, N, S (see Chapter “Global Echo of the Arab Spring” [Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume] for more detail). 2013–2014—The Revolts against hybrid regimes (a wave of “Central collapse” in Thailand, Ukraine, Bosnia, Venezuela, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt [Korotayev et al., 2015a, 2015b]); I, S.

So, this general list of 27 waves can well be qualified as the general set, i.e., a full list of the events falling within the class of “revolutionary waves” in the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries.8

5 Types of Revolutionary Events Goldstone is right in saying that it is necessary to take into account in theoretical analysis not only successful revolutions (with the change of power or significant concessions to the protesters), but also revolutionary events or socio-political crises that have not led to success, but were ended by suppression and reaction (Goldstone, 2009). That is why all phenomena that may be elements of revolutionary waves will be called, for brevity’s sake, “revolutions”. These include: • successful revolutions, which culminated in a change of supreme authority or significant institutional concessions, with long-term pacification (not suppression) of protests; recent examples include the revolutions in the USSR in August 1991, the “Velvet revolutions” and “Color revolutions” in the late 1980–2000s, the 7

See also Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume). 8 For another full list of revolutionary waves since, the sixteenth century see Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022a, in this book).

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revolutions in 2010–2011 in Tunisia and Egypt, and the Ukrainian Euromaidan revolution in February 2014. • revolutionary events, including mass protests, at least in the capital (where not less than 5% of the adult population of the capital take part in protests), and taking place despite regime restrictions; these events lead to significant changes in internal and/or external policy; they can lead to social and political crisis, to a state collapse, to a civil war; such were the events in Libya and Syria since 2011; • socio-political crises, including prolonged mass street protests (at least 30,000 participating in each event) in the capital, with government and elite conflicts, which cannot be resolved by standard methods; examples include the anti-war protests in the US and the student unrest in France (1968); • mass protests (at least 10,000), as well as strikes, acts of violence, not necessarily in the capital, but which have received a national outcry. The student protests in China (Tiananmen Square, 1989), the “Occupy” movement in the United States and the United Kingdom, the “Bolotnye” protests in Moscow (2011–2012), and the “Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests)” protests in France are the best-known examples.

6 Factors of Instability In each country experiencing a revolutionary event, there is a certain level of crisisinducing factors which produce a revolutionary situation (Collins, 2015; Goldstone, 2009; Tsirel, 2012a, 2012b): • the level of delegitimization of the regime; “delegitimization means a loss of faith not only in existing authority but also in the possibility of a legal way to improve the situation” (Tsirel, 2012a, 2012b); • weakness and inefficiency of the government (regular failures, broken promises and obligations); • presence and influence of a political alternative to the old regime (ideas, organizations, leaders, prospects); • split of elites, that is, the emergence of a counter-elite with substantial political resources, which is not satisfied with the existing authorities and institutions and looks forward to improving its position by a change of power; • decay of the coercive coalition and the growing readiness of the coercive apparatus to be self-blocking; security forces leaders lose their usual confidence that the safest strategy is complete loyalty and submission to rulers, especially in suppression of protests and riots; such strategies as “to overstay”, “to sit out” or even “to support people” seem to them safer; • sharp deterioration of the economic situation or violation of expectations; • concentration of discontented masses ready to protest and take part in radical political actions (“combustible material”). The revolutionary situation turns into a revolution when mass emotions (anger, hostility, frustration) reach such a level that the number of protests and the level of demands are increasing even as attempts to

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suppress them fail, and on the contrary lead to further escalation and radicalization of protests; • ready structures and patterns of organization and mobilization of protest; those may be already existing groups and networks on the basis of previous experience of protests and violence, also on the basis kinship, neighborhood, business cooperation, participation in wars, etc., or new models of recruitment and indoctrination of new members, planning political actions, distribution of powers, and consolidation of efforts, as by new political parties or labor unions or other civic associations or by militias. The combination of high levels of all crisis-prone factors means that there is a revolutionary situation, the combination of low levels means the lack of it. The combination of high and low values means social-political instability with challenges. In such crises, while appropriate responses lead to regime strengthening (decrease of these factors), inadequate responses weaken the regime and lead to a revolution. Extremely high values of all factors can be metaphorically represented as a “supersaturated solution,” when even a small perturbation leads to explosive growth of protests and radical actions.

7 The Protest Strain and a Factor of Sample The useful concept of “revolutionary situation” usually has a binary structure (yes/no), although it is obvious that each factor constituting a revolutionary situation dynamically changes along its scale: legitimacy of the government fluctuates, conflicts within the elite change from usual competition to complete division and antagonism, the attractiveness of a political alternative (ideas, leaders, organizations) increases and decreases, etc. Integration of all the factors contributing to a revolutionary situation gives an aggregate variable which we label “the protest strain” with the following stages: 0—no strain, the regime is legitimate and strong, it enjoys support by influential groups and masses; 1—low strain, some weakening of the regime, of legitimacy of power; there is dissatisfaction of some social groups but with no public resonance; 2—strong pressure in the majority of factors, a crisis, in which, however, the political resources and practices of the ruling group and loyal elites allow the regime to tamp down the protests or rebellion and maintain stability; 3—the ultimate stress, deep crisis, a revolutionary situation, when any small push (a trigger event—‘a normal accident’) is sufficient for an explosion of indignation, which is manifested in growing mass political actions with high potential for aggression. In the first revolutions of each wave one should expect a combination of ultimate protest strain (stage 3) and the trigger event within the donor-society. The next

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following revolutions also occur in societies with high levels of strain, and revolution in the donor-society plays the role of trigger. The more referentially and culturally close is a donor-society to a recipient-society, and the more successful revolution is presented in the former, the stronger is the effect for making revolution in the latter. The level of the revolutionary impact of the donor-society is also an aggregated variable that can be named ‘the strength of example’. It is reasonable to assume that with the success of revolutions in two or more referent societies their strength of example adds up. Then it can be enough to ensure that the next society with a level of protest strain 2 also experiences a revolution. It is highly doubtful that any strength of example will suffice for a revolution in a society with a strain level of 1 or 0, although even here there are likely to be changes in policy either towards concessions (liberalization) or, on the contrary, in regime tightening (restrictions on freedoms, “freezing”, an authoritarian rollback).

8 Modernization and Maturing of the Socio-political Crisis Revolutionary waves are an integral part of global modernization processes over the past five centuries. When thresholds of social and political strain are reached, accumulating stresses are highly likely to lead to revolutions. Increasingly close ties between societies contribute to the spread of revolutions. Capitalist industrialization for the most part promotes in societies a more humane order; at the same time, capitalism, the replacement of living human labor by machines (from steam engines to robots and neural networks), and new patterns of social life in cities and factories brings certain tensions and social vices that require settlement through law, education, morality, and the institution of reputation. The deficit of such regulation causes the crisis to ripen and is fraught with revolutions, especially in the absence of channels and means of political influence (for example, through representation).9 If the church is closely connected with the state, if it is perceived as its source of spiritual control and is associated with the power and the regime against which the revolution is directed, then the ideology of protest and revolution in this aspect will be either heterodox and anti-confessional, or secular, or radically atheistic. Alternatively, if popular religion is being oppressed by the regime, or by foreign elites, such religion can come to be perceived as the unifying principle of a people eager for liberation, the basis for national sovereignty, and naturally forms part of revolutionary ideology. If the revolutionary movement wins, that religion strengthens its position and becomes one of the main legitimators of the new regime and new power.

9

See also Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism” (Selbin, 2022) in this volume about the role of sharp feelings of social justice’s lack for the emergence of revolutions.

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9 Transition to Revolution The revolutionary situation turns into a revolution when the emotions (anger, hostility, despair) of the masses reach such a limit that the number of protests and the radicalism of their demands increase many times, while attempts to suppress or pacify them lead not to extinction but rather to further escalation and radicalization of the protests. The transition to revolution occurs when the parties choose suppression strategies in the context of discrediting compromise strategies. Further selection of the trajectory of revolutionary dynamics depends on the positive and negative reinforcements of new attempts to suppress or compromise, as well as on the balance of forces and the ability of each side to mobilize reinforcements. As a rule, revolutions begin with a trigger event, which means the transformation of political polemics and struggle from formal and informal institutions operating according to the established rules into the field of uninstitutionalized street confrontation fraught with violence. The failure of negotiations and compromises and efforts at suppression reinforce the aggressive strategies of the parties. The main reason for the failure of compromise is that one or more parties seek to gain support (forceful, popular or international) from those parties for whom any compromises are perceived as a complete political loss. The main requirement for a society entering revolution is not so much the presence of a clear political program of transformations or an alternative ideology, as the appearance of discriminated, diverse, but united, status groups with experience in self-organization, interaction and exchange of resources, supported by those who are ready for violent confrontation. If such experience and attitude exist, the chances of the country getting into a revolutionary wave increase; if not, it decreases.

10 The Dynamics of the Revolutionary Wave The complex conflict dynamics of crises and revolutions is not simple; a revolution is by no means complete chaos, nor a guarantee of transition to a just society, nor just terrible useless bloodshed. Since most of the participants (including those in the elites and power structures) are opportunistic and fear to be on the losing side, the peak of the confrontation over supreme power in the capital often does not last more than several days, after which the winning side is surrounded by supporters, like a snowball. In protracted revolutionary processes there may be several such turning points. The fate of each revolution (or key period in an ongoing, recurring revolution) depends on which field of struggle becomes decisive: a peaceful institutional field, including an electoral contest; the military field; or intermediate fields of conflict (street protests, their suppression, attempts to overthrow the government or its restoration), as well as which side in the decisive field has the advantage in the resources

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specific to that field. External support is also highly significant since it changes the ratio of resources (power, economic, symbolic ones) in each field. At first, waves of revolutionary influence are picked up by those societies with a maximum of potential instability: those that are already in or nearly in a revolutionary situation. But the effect of several revolutions is enough for a “revolutionary fire” to “ignite” even societies with relatively stable regimes. Nonetheless, eventually the wave of revolutions ceases to expand. As the “revolutionary fire” spreads, less “ripened” societies will be engulfed by the wave. Being less vulnerable, many of their revolutions will be unsuccessful. The sooner such failures emerge, the more frustrating the effect they will have on other societies, and the weaker the resolve will become for open political protests elsewhere, bringing the fading and cessation of the revolutionary wave. The very appeal of revolutions also changes over time. In every successful revolution, after a change of power or concessions, subsequent triumph and general euphoria, difficult weeks, months or even years always come, which are associated with the transformation (up to the destruction and decline) of the functioning of the old structures and orders. These processes are expressed in socio-economic turmoil (rising inflation, economic downturn, layoffs, interruptions in supply), as well as political violence, often leading to reactionary and/or revolutionary terror. Even in the first successful revolutions such processes reduce their attractiveness to other societies as potential participants in the wave. Revolutionary events can go on for a long time (years) in societies engulfed by the wave, through a succession of wars and coups. However, some stability sooner or later is established. The main reason is “fatigue” or rather the depletion of revolutionary resources in the main parties to the conflict (or at least in the one that is losing). These can include emotional exhaustion (losing the determination to fight), social exhaustion (it’s not possible to win anyone over), or exhaustion of financial, power, or symbolic resources. For the outbreak of civil war, radicalism of at least one side, seeking outcomes not acceptable to the other, and military resources being available to both parties, are necessary and sufficient. After revolutions, civil war does not occur in the absence of military capacity among the forces of the parties (a necessary condition). Nor does it occur if there is a lack of unacceptable radicalism, or an early consolidation of power by radical groups that pre-empts civil war.

11 The Hypothesis of Compensating Crisis-Prone Factors A revolutionary wave occurs or does not occur after an initial revolution. It depends on how “ripe” the revolutionary situation is in every society among potential participants of the wave. Also, it depends on the success and impressiveness of previous revolutions, as well as on the activity of influential states (“Great Powers”), which in some cases tend to suppress revolutions in dependent countries, while in other cases they support or even provoke them, in both cases with varying rates of success.

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It is necessary to consider separately the impact of the revolution in the donorsociety on the factors of a revolutionary situation, and hence the level of instability and chances for a successful revolution, in the recipient-societies. The most general hypothesis is that a donor-revolution somehow compensates for any missing factors for a revolutionary event in a recipient-society. It is evident that in each case the protest movements in a recipient-society can now visualize and present a political alternative due to the donor-revolution (especially if already successful): “they did it and we should try”. If in both societies the regimes are similar or justify their authority in similar terms, then a successful donor-revolution almost automatically leads to a relative delegitimization of the regime in a recipient society. The revolutionary rhetoric always contains charges of the old regime and its leaders being guilty of injustice (violation of moral, legal, political values), inefficiency (inability to govern, systematic failures), and these charges are easily transferred from a donor’s regime to a recipient’s regime. While sometimes delegitimization is significant and widespread, involving elites and masses of a recipient-society, sometimes delegitimization remains limited within narrow circles of stubborn opponents of the regime: this is also an important issue for further study. A revolution in one society can hardly lead to the government’s weakness in another society, but it can make such weakness more visible. Such an example may reinforce hope for change and fortify resistance to repression, and make people more suspicious or less grateful for concessions. After a revolution in a neighboring country, concessions may be perceived as belated, fraudulent or insufficient. Rulers and elites always carefully and jealously watch stormy political events in neighboring and influential societies. A successful revolution in a donor-society will certainly cause concern to both, but if rulers are focused on rallying elite support act quickly to suppress or buy off protesters, they are likely to survive. Conversely, if rulers are overconfident or offer little change, they may produce an elite split and be caught off guard or react poorly to spreading protests. What influence does a donor-revolution have on the potential “combustible material” in a recipient-society? Perhaps the most important impact is the enthusiasm of the masses (which is similar in effect to the emergence of a political alternative), as well as a fresh supply of mobilization instruction via emissaries and pilgrims, training in revolutionary methods and techniques, propaganda, creation of organizations and networks, supply by revolutionary literature, etc.

12 The Role of Coercive Structures Loyalty or disloyalty of coercive elites (authorities in police, army, and security services) has an extraordinary importance in revolutionary events: it determines whether protest forces fail or prevail. It is reasonable to assume that coercive elites of any potential recipient society observe with great attention the fate of their colleagues in the revolutionary storms

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of a donor-society. There is always a desire to repeat their success and to avoid their failure (Beissinger, 2007). If the heads of police, army, and security services remained neutral, and did not suffer from the revolution in a donor-society, even stayed in their seats, then the willingness of coercive elites in a recipient-society to actively pursue repression falls. If by contrast, the violent suppression of protests led, after the victory of the revolutionaries, to repression against the agents of the suppression, then security force leaders must make a choice: “to rally around the throne” and to prevent the revolution even by the cruelest means, or to refuse suppression, defect, and look to build bridges with the potential new rulers. The fate of revolutions (success or suppression) within a wave in this aspect is determined by the tendency of coercive elites to emulate the success of foreign colleagues (in protection of old regime, in sitting out, or support the protest), and not to repeat their failures (when those suffered who unsuccessfully tried to defend the old regime, who sat out, or supported the revolution).

13 The Level of Violence in Revolutions Big wars lead to the spread of armaments and to the militarization of the masses, which significantly increases the level of violence when revolutions occur. The intervention of other states, and the ideological imperatives of leaders, can act in both directions, sometimes increasing and sometimes reducing violence. Apparently, a country’s geopolitical, economic, social and cultural isolation from countries of the first echelon of modernization is accompanied by a high level of violence in revolutions. High population density with strict stratification boundaries, and great gulfs between economic classes, or extreme ethnopolitical alienation, also exacerbate violence in the revolutionary period. The wave of “velvet” and “color” revolutions shows the prominent role of the influence of external powers, and of the choice by political actors of the main field of political interaction: institutionalized peaceful politics (peaceful occupations of public space, negotiations, elections). The timing of the start of discussions of the necessary political changes, and the level of development of the relevant social structures, are also significant. The earlier the discussion processes began, and the more established, reformist and oppositional groups are familiar with each other, the higher is the barrier for the regime to use open violence in situations of mass street protests, and the stronger will be the inclination of the protest leaders to try to achieve transformations peacefully.

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14 Preservation or Destruction of the State and Basic Institutions The destructive effect of revolutions that take power, in regard to the existing political and economic institutions, is the greater the less involvement there was of protest leaders in these institutions and organizations prior to the revolution. In addition, the more that members of the prior elite (including those who joined the revolution) are removed from power, the less likely the revolution is to preserve elements of existing institutions. Finally, the more large-scale and prolonged are armed clashes (or civil war), the more likely is a wholesale change in institutions. Accordingly, the inclusion of protesters in basic social structures and institutions (“there is something to lose”), the preservation of the influence of the former elite in the post-revolutionary regime, the absence of a civil war and a relatively quick, peaceful change of power preserve the foundations of statehood and the existing social order. The principle of inversion. When a certain order is discredited as vicious, hostile, outdated, the founders of the new order choose its features by the principle of inversion, that is, opposite to the features of the old order, and within the framework of the used categories. The principle of direct class interest. The groups who receive power usually give preference to those structures that strengthen their position, that is, they provide such levels of welfare, power, and demonstration of status for themselves and their environment that are considered sufficient and worthy. The above considerations apply mainly to the restructuring of the political order. In the economic realm, the success of an anti-authoritarian revolution does not guarantee the successful solution of economic problems by the winners. The reasons for success or failure in this area are only partially related to the nature of ideology and political structure. The new revolutionary government may try to preserve much of the existing economy, or to nationalize it while keeping it intact, or to wholly restructure the economy. These choices may depend on prior ideology, or on opportunism and expediency; and indeed revolutionary governments may switch tacks frequently in a desperate search to find ways to cope with inherited or newly arising economic difficulties.

15 Who Wins the Revolutions? The outcome of a revolution always depends on the balance of resources among the parties in conflict. However, the position of various groups is not fixed; in the contest for power different groups and social layers may adjoin one or another side of the conflict (sometimes repeatedly) at different times. In the competition for support in civil conflict, the most successful group (whether the regime or the revolutionary forces) will be the one that:

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• is best able to seize the mantle of legitimacy as the new rulers of society; • has sufficient resources to win in the appropriate field of interaction (symbolic, negotiating, electoral, in street politics, in armed confrontation, in a large-scale civil war); • demonstrates involvement in such symbols, shrines, social and political projects that are most consistent with the world-views, value attitudes and identities of the most influential and resource-rich groups; • offers political perspectives with which the hesitant will associate their hopes and relevant interests, • shows convincingly strength and efficiency (where the sphere of geopolitical prestige remains the main one), but does not cause great and lasting indignation due to its extreme cruelty. Leaders and parties win if by their intuitive sensitivity they choose and propagate slogans that are most effective for mass mobilization in a crisis period. All these attitudes are affected by the influence of “world ideas” especially in situation of economic and cultural cohesion between societies. Military victory, a demonstration of leadership in the external arena, always increases the internal legitimacy of the successful regime, as well as the international legitimacy of the winner. The role of such a winner may be taken by either a revolutionary government or by the old regime. Depending on these events, the revolutionary wave in surrounding and culturally dependent societies either intensifies or fades away. The vivid military victories of the imperial center marginalize the opposition, increase the loyalty of the outskirts, reduce the support of the separatists, and demoralize the adherents of the revolution in other societies. External defeats, by contrast, intensify the political crisis in the center of the state, which weakens its military power and strengthens separatism. The external defeats of the post-revolutionary regimes undermine not only their power and leaders, but also the symbols, slogans and ideology of the revolution itself; they serve as factors in the extinction of the revolutionary wave.

16 The Role of External Powers A donor-society can act in the role of an influential foreign power, and in this case, it is an attempt to export revolution. An inclination of great powers to suppress revolutions in foreign countries is rather common. Great Britain in the late eighteenth century took part in the suppression of the revolution in the North American colonies and in France. Republican France in the twentieth century tried to suppress revolutions in Vietnam and in Algeria. The USA suppressed revolutions with success or failure in China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua and others. The Soviet Union suppressed the 1950s and 1960s liberation

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movements in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The Russian Federation already in the twenty-first century has supported the Yanukovych regime in Ukraine, has been hostile to the Maidan and to the post-Maidan regime there, and carried out exercised annexation of Crimea and aggression in the Donbass, i.e., actions aimed at weakening and undermining the post-revolutionary Ukrainian state. Note that all of these great powers themselves were the result of successful revolutions. Each wave-chain takes place in a particular geopolitical oikumene, i.e., the arena of powers (states which are able to defend their territory and the territory of their clients by military force) interrelated with each other by allied, neutral, and conflict relations. Non-conflict oikumenes are characterized by the presence of a single leader recognized by other powers, or the alliance of great powers, neither of which is interested in any revolution, regime change and/or state disintegration in the oikumene. It is obvious that in this situation a revolutionary wave induces anxiety, and the further rise of the wave leads to cohesion of the status quo powers and their resolute desire to suppress the revolutions. If a revolutionary conflagration is stronger than the ability of the allied great powers to snuff it out, the era of large-scale violence begins which is subordinate to military dynamics. Examples are the Thirty Years’ War after the Reformation wave of sixteenth century, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars after the French Revolution, and the Second World War after the wave of fascist coups in Europe of the 1920s and 1930s. If the counter-revolutionary alliance of powers or a hegemonic power are strong enough, then weak protest movements are suppressed and the rest of the potential revolutions are blocked (as was the case of European revolution waves of 1830–31 and 1848–49). Many revolutionary waves are successful in spite of external suppressive attempts: The Reformation in Northern Europe, the Atlantic revolutions, the Bolivarian revolutions in South America, the anti-capitalist revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s, the Islamic revolutions of the 1970s and 1980s were victorious though each time powerful forces tried to suppress them. This is what happens in a geopolitical configuration, when there are two or more conflicting leaders, when the great powers are split and quarrel with each other. In such cases each camp is interested in the crisis and the decline of powers in the alien camp, and, respectively, it is inclined to support revolutions in its enemies. This external support from one camp (moral, financial and military) plays a significant role in the growth of a revolutionary wave in the other camp. For example, Russia supported the Balkan anti-Turkish rebellion in 1870s, the Soviet Union supported procommunist and anti-colonial revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s, Western Europe and the United States supported separatist movements in Yugoslavia, “velvet” and “color” revolutions in Central Europe, in post-Soviet countries, and (initially) the Arab Spring. If a hegemonic power with its coalition of supporting old regimes is weakened, the revolutions tend to win, but only where old regimes were dependent to a large extent on this hegemonic power. Along with the weakening of their geopolitical patron these old regimes lose legitimacy and the determination to defend themselves.

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A coalition of powers supports revolutions in adversary societies not only according to “idealistic” motives (freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, stopping exploitation, etc.); the powers usually also have an underlying “political realist” reason such as the weakening of their enemy. Therefore, their support it aimed at revolutions in societies that are most closely affiliated to the military, economic and ideological aspects of the coalition’s enemy. If the enemy hegemon is unable to respond, loss of such external support can be a painful loss for dependent regimes, making successful revolution more likely in these cases. Other regimes with greater military, economic and ideological autonomy in this situation are more stable, and more likely to successfully block or suppress protest encroachments in their societies. Thus, in large and autonomous countries that developed independently and rapidly (Western Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Italy) anti-capitalist, communist movements either have been transformed or completely stalled despite massive support from Moscow. A similar phenomenon was observed with the anti-communist revolutions in Central Europe in 1989. They have been successful in countries (Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania) whose regimes were most dependent on the Soviet Union. It was the U.S.S.R.’s going through Perestroika that stimulated the discrediting of communism. At the same time, socialist regimes that were based on their own military force and ideology (China, North Korea, and Cuba) have remained virtually invulnerable. It seems that the dramatic disintegration of Yugoslavia violates this pattern, but on closer examination it turns out that it reinforces the regularity. Here Serbia had the role of hegemonic power, whereas in the majority of its dependent societies (republics with titular nationhood)—in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia— national liberation forces (separatist movements, if you like) won with explicit and strong support from Western Europe and later from the United States. The geopolitical logic does not reject the factor of world culture (emphasized by Colin Beck), but complements and even substantiates it. Indeed, the world culture not only helps geopolitical hegemonies to win, but also follows geopolitics. Symbols, values, and slogans of a winning coalition are widely distributed in the world. On the contrary, ideas and principles of a declining hegemony are discredited. Revolutionary waves are among the largest macro-social phenomena, along with mass migrations, world wars, scientific and technological progress, and the processes of urbanization, industrialization, and informatization. As the connectedness of modern societies grows and tensions accumulate, waves of revolution have not ceased and will likely again arise in the future. The study of their causes and dynamics, therfore, is one of the most urgent tasks of modern macrosociology.

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Mitchell, L. A. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15. Rozov, N. (2014). The principles and criteria for the legitimacy of the post-revolutionary power. Polis (political Studies), 5, 90–107. Selbin, E. (2022). All around the world: Revolutionary potential in the age of authoritarian revanchism. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 415–433). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_14. Sohrabi, N. (1995). Historicizing revolutions: Constitutional revolutions in the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Russia, 1905–1908. American Journal of Sociology, 100(6), 1383–1447. Tkachuk, M., Romanchuk, A., & Timotin, I. (2022). ‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The atypical ‘revolution’ of April 7 and the days that followed. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 549–569). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_21 Tsirel S (2012a) Revolyutsii, volny revolyutsiy i Arabskaya vesna. In: A. V. Korotayev, J. V. Zinkina, & A. S. Khodunov (Eds.), Arabskaya vesna 2011 goda. Sistemnyy monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov (pp. 128–161). LIBROCOM/URSS. Tsirel, S. (2012b). Revolyutsionnyye situatsii, revolyutsii i volny revolyutsiy: Usloviya, zakonomernosti, primery. Oecumene, 8, 174–209. Tsygankov, V. (2022). Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 265–279). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_10.

Nikolai S. Rozov is Chief Researcher in the Institute for Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as Head of the Department for Social Philosophy and Political Sciences in the Novosibirsk State University (NSU). He is the author of over 350 scholarly publications, including such monographs as Philosophy and theory of history. Book 1: Prolegomena (Moscow, URSS, 2019), Philosophy and theory of history. Book 2: Causes, Dynamics, and Meaning of Revolutions (Moscow, URSS, 2019), Ideas and intellectuals in the flow of history: Macrosociology of Philosophy, Science and Education (Moscow, URSS, 2019), Track and Pass: Macrosociological Foundations of Russia’s Strategies in 21st century (Moscow, ROSSPEN, 2011), Historical Macrosociology: Methodology and Methods (Novosibirsk, NSU, 2009), Values in the Problematic World: Philosophical Foundations and Social Applications of Constructive Axiology (Novosibirsk, NSU, 1998), The Philosophy of Humanities and Social Sciences in Higher Education (Moscow, RCSE, 1993), The Structure of Civilization and World Development Trends (Novosibirsk, NSU, 1992). His sphere of academic interests includes historical macrosociology, dynamics of crises and revolutions, philosophy of social sciences, philosophy of history, origin and evolution of language.

Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern Period. Types and Phases Vladislav Tsygankov

Revolutions, insurrections, and other acts of social protest and violence continue to shake various states of the Oecumene. Therefore, the patterns by which groups of states lose their social and political stability continue to be at the center of attention for social scientists. To date, the concept of “revolutionary waves” has many supporters: this is one of the explanations the loss of stability in a state or a series thereof. The main idea of a “revolutionary wave” is consideration of the external causes of a revolution, and those reasons that are connected with revolutions in other societies. At the limit, we refer to the “domino effect”, when one revolution provokes another one (about the “domino effect” see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” [Rozov, 2022, in this monograph]). For our purposes, “revolutionary waves” are series of social and political upheavals that feature either an ideological relationship between them or common exo/endostructural cause; or, else, they influence each other within a separate series in such a way that we can talk about the “domino effect”.1 Common ideas and slogans create another form of dependence, which we call here the “ideological dependence” and which presumes not only borrowing ideological constructions, but also common organizational methods for their dissemination.

1 For definitions and other theoretical ideas on revolutionary waves see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a), Chapter “On theories and phenomenon of revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022d), Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022c), and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

V. Tsygankov (B) Department of Philosophy, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_10

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Common causes of revolutions are conventionally referred to as “structural dependence”, which involves various macro-sociological shifts in modernization, world-system integration, population, etc. The “Domino effect” presumes a “direct impact” of one revolution on another. Here, we mean that a revolution recipient is a spatial neighbor of the donor society, being either adjoining or in a shared cultural/political region with the donor, and the events themselves must be chronologically close (from 18 months to 3 years, depending on the conditions of the era). In addition, there must be a proven diffusion of organizational patterns (together with their actor-carriers). Besides, the recipient’s provoking (or protective) reaction is usually not recorded, if the revolution is not successful (i.e., if the revolutionary regime does not show any viability). Based on research by Goldstone (2014), Tsirel (2012a, 2012b), and others Nikolai Rozov identifies 27 revolutionary waves demonstrating all three kinds of causality (see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022); about revolutionary waves see also Chapters “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century” (Grinin, 2022c), “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b), and “Global Echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume); see also Beck, 2011; Goldstone, 2001). Detailed consideration of the phenomena with in these waves, as well as demarcation of the borders of such waves themselves are the subject of this paper. We should note a reservation: the researchers who combine revolutionary events into waves often mix all three types of causal dependence. For example, wave 1905– 1911 (“The First Red Wave”) includes both the revolution of 1905 in Russia, and the revolution in Mexico (since 1910), as well as the Xinhai Revolution in China (1911), the ideological and, even more, the “chain” dependence among which is far from obvious. On the other hand, waves 1950–1970 (Anti-colonial revolutions driven by nationalism) and 1952–1969 (Arab nationalist revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa) are singled out as separate waves, although all three causal mechanisms, which pushed events in all of them, can be considered as common to them. Such discrepancies require some ordering work aimed at distinguishing and analyzing the causes on the basis of which revolutionary waves are identified. First of all, let us turn to the causes of the revolutions that we described above as “common” or “structural”. There is a wide range of ideas about what phenomena should be taken into account. Thus, the Thirty Years’ War is recognized as the “platform” for protest activity in the first third of the seventeenth century, whereas the pan-European economic crisis is an equally recognized “platform” for the wave in 1848–1849. At the same time, the structural causes of the French Revolution in 1789, of the Russian revolution in 1905, and the Chinese revolution in 1911 can also be considered as common: in all three cases, there were long-term modernization processes associated with the decay of a class structure and expansion of political participation in societies (Skocpol, 1979). Here, we see immediately that, in fact, we should distinguish at least between causes that are: exostructural (external to the

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society) and endostructural (inherent in society due to the stage and features of its development) as regards relationships within each individual wave. Exostructural dependence means any external process causing loss of stability in many countries (about world-system factors see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a], Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century” [Grinin, 2022c], Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022], Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” [Grinin, 2022b], and Chapter “Global Echo of the Arab Spring” [Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume]). Processes of this kind are described using the basic macro-sociological approaches (the model of change in technological structures in the framework of modernization theory; the world-system analysis, geopolitical models, the “military revolution” model, etc.). Examples include global crises of capitalism such as bouts of global inflation or deflation or financial/credit crises; international wars or shifts in military technology that undermine certain regimes; and the diffusion of particular religions/ideologies and waves of activism. As a rule, these involve some cyclic dynamics: cycles of capital accumulation and cycles of hegemonic change in the world-economy (Arrighi, 2006); cycles of change in technological structures (and related recoveries, booms, crises); stages of a “military revolution” traced for large countries in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (Nefedov, 2008; Roberts, 1979; Chap. 1). Some cycles can be very long (they can last up to hundreds of years and more). For the problem of revolutionary waves, individual cycle, periods are important which, within one or two decades, necessarily trigger events in several countries. Within the exostructural dependence, we can talk about diffusion of examples, occurrence of geopolitical challenges or the strengthening geo-economic competition. For instance, the first stage of the “military revolution” at the beginning of the sixteenth century (with the invention of “Italian fortresses”, the “Turkish” and “Spanish” tactical schools), together with a rapid diffusion of military equipment and organizational novelties, drastically increased the requirement for purely financial solvency of belligerent polities (now, most of the troops consisted of mercenaries—representatives of ignoble classes) (McNeill, 1982). This meant generally the same requirements were imposed by circumstances on both large Empires (Turkish, Spanish, Holy Roman ones) and for more modest states. The general logic of the exostructural dependence for the first stage of the “military revolution” is as follows: “Dissemination of tactical and technical novelties – evolution of the “Gunpowder Empires” – struggle of classes in defense of their liberties and privileges against the growth of duties and taxes”. For the economic downturn phase of a business cycle, the sequence should be as follows: “Market glut – unemployment and non-fulfillment of the rate of profit – struggle of labor groups for expansion of political participation”. An endostructural relationship presumes the existence of typologically similar processes and conditions that are characteristic of several countries. For instance, the modernization of societies in its social and political aspects often involves the process of democratization, which involves the establishment of parliamentary regimes by

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revolutionary means. The Malthusian structural and demographic cycles of “Contraction/Growth” also describe intra-society processes running under general conditions that may arise synchronously in different countries (Nefedov, 2005: Chap. 1; about structural-demographic theory and the breakdown of states see Goldstone, 1991; about the Malthusian trap see Chapter “Revolution and modernization traps” [Grinin, 2022d] and Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution: a demographic structural analysis” [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume]). The temporal separation of episodes of social instability in different societies on the basis of this type of dependence can sometimes reach hundreds of years and more. The causal mechanisms of this dependence can be regarded as a “natural evolution” based on internal processes. In this form, they are unsuitable for use when explaining revolutionary waves. At the same time, if we reformulate these mechanisms in exostructural logic (i.e., if we are able to trace the dependence on a case by case basis), they can be used. Thus, if in a given region several countries have reached a similar level in their internal conditions (e.g., corrupt and economically weak monarchies, or a high level of youth and rapid population growth), a revolution in one country can trigger similar events in other, similarly situated societies, giving rise to a revolutionary wave. Often, among the main factors of a revolution, our attention is invariably drawn to the pressures on government institutions of an economic and/or foreign character. The former, in the most general sense, means an increase in costs (reduction in income) of a state; the latter, a military competition among states (Beck, 2017). It seems that, for the period in question, we can carry out a synthesis of these two factors. For example, the concept of establishing absolutism in order to raise revenues, provoking a crisis of barons’ privileges and urban liberties, naturally coincides with the onset of a “military revolution”, where military, administrative, social and political transformations do not originate from internal immanent grounds, but in an attempt to keep up with the leader, and to maintain an acceptable level of political power and control in the conditions of aggravated military struggle. Simply put, when investigating revolutionary waves, we should consider only such aspects of structural dependence where there will be a combination of “endo” and “exo” factors. Nevertheless, the ideological form of dependence should be separated from the organizational one. Ideological dependence involves borrowing the declared goals, ideology, and rhetoric of the lead case. In this case, the time gap between two cases can reach hundreds or more years (thus, the slogans of the French Revolution “Peace to the huts – war to the palaces!”, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” were used in Russian revolutions almost 130 years later).2 Organizational dependence involves borrowing organizational models of an earlier revolution (a kind of politico-administrative imitation). For example, borrowing can be related to which institutions the revolutionary forces are based upon (central and local forms of social class delegations, parliament, secret societies, parties, communities, etc.); what is their script of actions (parliament members’ oath, proclamations, “banquet campaigns” to collect signatures, conspiracy among 2

About the contributions of the French Revolution of 1789 to the subsequent revolutions see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume).

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the military, ways of intra-party and inter-party struggle, etc. On revolutionary scripts, see Baker & Edelstein, 2015). Such dependence can be traced within several years, unless it is a question of two consecutive revolutions (rebellions, insurrections) in the same country: in this case, dependence can be traced for decades (as long as witnesses and organizers are still alive). Finally, “chain” dependence (“the domino effect”) presumes inspiration from the success of another revolution, which is close chronologically, ideologically and structurally. In addition to the time criterion, this relationship does not seem to have any other differences from the types of dependence considered above. By commonsense reasoning, if we can detect any exostructural, ideological and organizational dependence between two events, we can assume that the “chain” relationship is present. In complicated cases, a relatively small time lag between events, and their spatial proximity based on the exostructural relationship, can also confirm this fact. The above type of relationship can now be used to identify revolutionary waves within the history of Europe, and then, in world history. For the convenience of this study, we will limit the consideration and analysis of the “totality” of “revolutionary wave” cases to a particular time and place. The scope of this work will be limited to the period from the early sixteenth century to Pugachev’s uprising (1773)—the last Cossack-peasant revolt in Eastern Europe. And we will focus our attention on continental Europe from Spain to Russia. This distinction was chosen because the main framing structural process—“the origins of absolutism”— ended in the 1770s. The wave launched by the war for US independence, marked the start of another framing structure’s logic: “the crisis of absolutism”. Seven revolutionary waves can be tentatively attributed to the period of the Early Modernity: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

1514–1555: Burgher anti-feudal revolts and wars (The First Reformation, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Wittenberg, Switzerland, Flanders, Bohemia); 1566–1609: The First Calvinist (The Second Reformation, France, Netherlands); 1595–1608: The Eurasian Peasant Wars (the Ottoman Empire, Muscovy); 1618–1630: The Second Calvinist (which intersects with the Thirty Years’ War, France, Switzerland); 1637–1653: Revolts against absolutism or feudalism in Western Europe (Portugal, Catalonia, Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Sicily and southern Italy)3 ; 1648–1650: Slavic riots (Ukraine, Poland-Lithuania, Muscovy); 1703–1709: Anti-imperial East Slavic uprisings (Hungary, Russia).

The types of structural dependence for the Early Modern Period are one way or another connected with the process of the emergence of absolutist regimes, which 3

As Vladislav Tsygankov considers only Europe, it appears appropriate to mention that Jack Goldstone (1991, 2016) speaks about a global wave of revolutions and rebellions between 1640 and 1668 in different parts of the World System, including China—Editors’ note.

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strengthened the armed forces but increased fiscal pressure, while relying on the institutions and practices of the feudal system of ordering society.4 This causes a conflict in four areas: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

mobilization of the traditional “nobility”, i.e. communities of aristocracy and nobility—in the struggle to preserve their privileged position (here: aristocratic riots like the French Frondes, the rokosz of the Polish nobility or Kuruc uprising in Hungary); mobilization of the agricultural population, i.e. (as a rule) peasant communities, who resist (as a rule) the strengthening of the pressure of taxes and duties (here: peasant uprisings and wars); mobilization of “burghers”, i.e. the urban business and professional population, which make up the top of a “free city”, strives for republican political forms, and resists the strengthening tax pressure, trying to protect their income from it (here: urban Protestant rebels in European religious wars and revolutions of the period under consideration); mobilization of representatives of “lower” military estates, as well as all kinds of casual participants in hostilities, who are “looking for service” in the situation of partial or total demobilization (here: from streltsy and Cossacks to “soldiers’ confederations”, marauders and “Lisowczycy”).

These main sources of insurgent activity of societies in the period under consideration could be ethnically or denominationally marked; however, they can be well traced on the studied material. It happens that, with the success of their revolutionary activity, one of the lines triggers another line. For example, making concessions to aristocrats, the government establishes attachment of peasants to the land or to aristocratic families—and faces an outbreak of peasant insurgencies. It can be easily seen that the process of establishing absolutism entails several elements of various causal accounts of revolution: the escalation of state expenses with the “military revolution” model, the structural and demographic processes of neo-Malthusian dynamics (overproduction of elites and pretenders to elites, “contraction” of per capita resources for the producing population), as well as world-system processes (the cycle of capital accumulation and the cycle of hegemonic change). However, at first glance, the use of models of such a global scale will simply lead to 4

In the treatment of revolutionary waves by C. Beck, there is the category of “brittle regimes” (i.e., those that are especially vulnerable to revolution): namely patrimonial and personalistic ones. Firstly, in their logic, the amount of resources (and the resources dynamics) of the state is especially tightly connected with the loyalty of the elites; secondly, these are regimes that feature “limited capacity for pretenders”: they exclude rather than absorb potential adversaries. As a result, such regimes produce apostasy and heresy (or a republican movement) among the elites. “Brittle regimes” may also include empires, an indirect consequence of expansion of which is increase in the autonomy of peripheral subjects (Beck, 2017). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, virtually all political actors fall in the category of “brittle” regimes; the turn from feudal to absolute monarchy was linked with the special demands of the “military revolution,” which added greatly to expenses and reduced the role of aristocrats as military retainers, but added to the autonomy of military leaders, as embracing the military revolution was impossible without widespread use of irregular autonomous and semi-autonomous military troops.

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the fact that all insurrections and revolts of the period can be considered to be bound by a single structural relationship. For instance, because the process of transition from the feudal estate monarchy to the absolute one is a common phenomenon of this period. For the structural dependence model to acquire heuristic potential, we should dwell on the two main exostructural components: the “military revolution” and the “world-economy”. Within the “military revolution”, we can identify two stages (Renaissance and Protestant stages) (Parker, 1996; Penskoy, 2010). The first one falls in the sixteenth century; usually, researchers date its beginning back to the Italian wars, when sophisticated and expensive “Italian fortresses” were invented, able to withstand artillery and siege engines, and the “Spanish tactics” dominated in the field (pikemen + musketeers + reiters). In political terms, it meant that only the strongest seignorial monarchies were able to take and protect such fortresses (the barons’ liberties are a thing of the past); and in social terms, wars become the work of soldiers and sailors of base classes (the crisis of chivalry begins) (Black, 2002). However, some researchers argue that, at this stage, Europe was not a monopolist of samples for a “military revolution”. By the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire has created the “Turkish tactics”, where the dominant force in the battlefield is half-regular infantry (“janissaries”), and numerous local cavalries (“timariots”, “sipahi”). Turks preferred to sack neighborhoods using irregular light cavalry (Tatars, “Cossacks”), rather than to take a fortress. Politically, this meant subordination of the local landowning elite to the sultan (patrimonial estates becoming manorial ones), and, socially, Turkish troops were based not on a short-term contractual mercenary relationship, but on semiregular troops, where there was no blurring of the noble military class (at the same time, the sultan plays upon the contradictions between the local timariots and state janissaries) (Petrosyan, 2003). At the second stage of a “military revolution”, we can also single out two important organizational forms. By the early seventeenth century, Holland developed the famous “linear tactics” by Maurice of Orange (regular, welltrained “rapid-fire” infantry mercenaries on land and teams of hired sailors at sea), as well as the practice of systematic artillery bombardment of fortresses. Socially, it continues the tendency of weakening the military landowners’ class, and politically, it brings to the fore the requirements for the profitability of the economy to provide cash, against the requirement for political centralization of society. At the same time, in the second half of the seventeenth century, there is an alternative associated with the reforms of the Swedish monarch—Gustav Adolf, and the French Prime Minister Colbert: regular mass infantry backed by field artillery. In political terms, the system of recruiting via compulsory service, with uniforms and equipment financed from the treasury, leads to the final liquidation of small political autonomies (principalities, counties, etc.) and, in social terms, it eliminates short-term contractual mercenaries, but results in inflation of the imperial apparatus of fiscal officials, who are interested in further political centralization of society (Roberts, 1979). In terms of world-system analysis, the period under review is a time span when the European world-economy was being transformed into a global framing order. The world-economy is a unique economic dependence system of many political centers.

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In the spatial aspect, it is possible to describe the center-peripheral structure of the world-economy: the “core” of its participants features the highest yield of exchange practices and the highest marketability of the economy, whereas the periphery and the semi-periphery, a lower economic yield and prevalence of natural methods of economic management over commodity ones (Wallerstein, 2004: 85–95). In terms of chronology, we can speak about capital accumulation cycles, wherein the peaks are world-economic hegemonies of those participants who managed to achieve a financial monopoly. For the period in question, the financial monopolization is represented by “the Genoese era” (1557–1627) and “the Dutch era” (1641–1784) (Arrighi, 1994). Both periods correlate with the propagation of examples of the first and second stages of the “military revolution”; and with peaks of political and social results from military reforms within the largest political centers. According to the model by G. Arrighi, formation of financial monopolies is related to the “high finance” sector, i.e. to the emergence of the sector of extremely profitable lending to major empires conducting long-term hostilities by mass semiregular and regular armed forces. Thus, for the historical period under review it is important that the genesis of absolutism in the 16th—first half of the seventeenth century follows rather the “Spanish way” (like in Italy, France and the Holy Roman Empire), or the “Turkish way” (like in Muscovy5 ). Such disparity is due to the fact that the “Spanish way” is compatible with the world-economic “core” (zones of high economic profitability), and the “Turkish way” (with the preservation of the sector of non-property landownership)— with “semi-periphery”, i.e., with zones of low economic profitability. Respectively, in the first case, the source of protest activity of the revolutionary waves is the uprising of merchants (and similar gentry) and mercenaries—“soldiers”, and in the second case-the rebellion of nobles and peasants, as well as “semi-mercenaries”—Cossacks. In turn, the establishment of a regular state in the second half of the seventeenth century—the first half of the eighteenth century, follows either the version of Maurice of Orange (the “Dutch way” with the restriction of the monarchy, as in England), or the version of Gustav Adolf (the “Swedish way” with bureaucratic absolutism, as in France or in the Russian Empire). In both cases, there are social forces that act as the initiators of protest activity. In the first case, these are noble supporters of the absolutist-bureaucratic alternative (such as Jacobites in parliamentary England), and in the second case, noble supporters of the parliamentary alternative (such as participants in Eastern European rokosz, Russian nobility revolts of the “rebel century” and even the “requirement of members of the supreme privy council” in the time of Anna

5

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth century was characterized by an intermediate variant of the “military revolution”: the cavalry was the noble military gentry class (like Turkish thimariots), but there was no mass “official” infantry like janissaries who would act as counterweight to the gentry militia. Instead, the usual practice was to use irregular mercenaries (Cossacks or Lisowczycy). As a result, the King felt the pressure of the nobles’ Sejm (assembly) regarding taxes, whereas the Cossacks conducted protest wars either in order to gain privileges similar to gentry or obtain an “official” allowance from the King (or the Sultan, or the Tsar).

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Ivanovna, in 1730). Resistance to centralizing rule is also found in the representatives of irregular military troops in the struggle for the position of regular recruitment, cancellation of duties or preservation of privileges (for instance, possessional peasants, Cossacks, the “Streltsy”, Janissaries). The very internal motives of protest activities are described and explained in all cases using the model of “agrarian overpopulation” by T. Malthus and “overproduction of elites” by ibn Khaldun, combined in the structural and demographic theory by Goldstone (1991), Turchin (2003), and Nefedov (2005). The variants of the ideological dependence model for the Early Modern Period includes both the propagation of new religious systems and political projects. The Calvinist “struggle for faith” involved a political component. Political projects might include the following claims: “a republic, such as Holland”, “a golden freedom, such as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”, or appeals for a various kind of territorial and political independence (as a rule, un the basis of existing aristocratic or irregular military structures). The organizational dependence in this period is reduced to the practices of class or territorial mobilization, transmitted through the channels of religious communities and institutions of military self-organization. Bearers of religious radicalism or fundamentalism could keep a memory of the practices of organizing protest actions (such as Russian Old Believers or Hungarian Protestants). The “chain” dependence in an explicit form is a rare phenomenon in cases of loss of stability by societies of the Early Modern Period because of poor communication channels outside of the traditional local structures and institutions. Apart from this, the extant sources are rather scanty, and it is often difficult to form some opinion about the influence of news from abroad (if only they were—and of what kind?) on the success of an uprising in a foreign country on the event under consideration. So, the major uprisings of the Early Modern Period until the Reformation and in the early Reformation period demonstrate mainly a structural dependence of both types. As early as the first decades of the sixteenth century, we can see the result of the desire to copy the “Italian/Spanish model” of a “military revolution”. Creating the “peasant republic” in Denmark (in 1500) was a protest reaction to the claims of the landed aristocracy to peasants’ incomes (in the situation of a powerful impulse for the regional economy from the Hanseatic Trade Network). This variant of structural dependence includes the Revolt of the Comuneros in Spain itself (in 1520–1522), where there was a long tradition of city government (Skazkin, 1977: Chap. 27). A response to the proliferation of the “Turkish model” of absolutism was the Gyorgy Doji uprising in Hungary, started as a crusade by the assembled militia of gentry and urban lower classes against Turks (in 1514). This also includes the Sahqulu ¸ uprising in Turkey itself (in 1511), that originally also had a religious coloring (it was a Shiite revolt, instigated by Persia), but later it attracted supporters from among Sunni peasants and the “lower” Ottoman military estate—timariots—and turned into a typical anti-absolutist uprising of that time. In the same vein, in the Slovenian peasant uprising in the Habsburg Empire (in 1515), we can see a structural cause: increases in the tax burden of peasants due to the central authorities’ attempts to reach

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absolutism in the situation of a predominantly natural economy and the ongoing large-scale war with the Ottoman Empire. This also includes the emerging legal riots—rokosz in the Polish Kingdom (since 1531). The Reformation, which started in the 1520s, makes it possible for a researcher to confidently identify the ideological and organizational dependence of protest activities in different societies (about the Reformation see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a] and Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). It is clear that the Lutheran knight and burgher movement and the Lutheran peasant war in the German lands in the first half of the 1520s became an incentive and the ideological model for the religious war in Switzerland (in 1529–1531), from which, more than a decade later, the Protestants were ideologically inspired to start religious wars against the Holy Roman Empire. Neverthless, the structural dependence between, for instance, the Ghent Uprising (in 1539–1540) and the First Schmalkaldic War (in 1546–1547) still existed and was the same as earlier: “the rebellion of city burgher estates against the absolutist fiscal and financial pressure”. Then, until the early seventeenth century, the pattern of protest activity splits into a number of cases in rural societies united by the structural dependence of the “Turkish scenario”, as well as a number of cases in societies of developed urban culture—also united (in addition to the “Spanish scenario”) by clear ideological and organizational ties. The first variant includes the major uprisings of peasants, irregular combatants and “military” lower classes at the turn of the century: the Nalivayko Cossackpeasant war (1594–1596) in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the uprising of peasants and petty timariots under the leadership of Kara Yazici in Turkey (1595– 1603). The second variants include the ninth Huguenot Wars in France (1620–1629) and the revolution in Holland (1566–1648). The long-term impact of the latter on the further revolutionary activities in the Oecumene can hardly be overestimated namely because of the availability of the ideological content which was transferred through years and decades by Protestant organizational diffusion. The English Revolution, the Fronde in France, and the earlier Bohemian Rebellion in the Austrian Empire (1618–1625), and the Hungarian uprisings (1671–1711) shall be considered the ideological result of these events, all of which had a well-marked Protestant component, as well as the Glorious Revolution in England (1688–1689), and even, in reaction, the Jacobite uprisings in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, in the first years of the seventeenth century, there is a new trend: the emergence of “soldiers’ confederations” in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (a kind of “soldiers’ republic” for retired and semi-regular military/mercenary people).6 6

“Soldiers’ Republics or Confederations” in Western and Central Europe were often formed by unpaid soldiers. Such soldiers. “confederations,” that is, unions of armed resistance, demanded their pay and other rights from the king (see e.g. Sysyn, 1985:17). These formations are structurally equivalent to the Cossack formations at the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the seventeenth century, the major wars, which were carried out by absolutist regimes, were conducted to a large extent with the help of mercenaries who, in the situation of irregular payments to troops, sought to create various kinds of political autonomies. In this case, it did not matter whether it was

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Although this new social element was not the bearer of ideas of a universalist nature, like Protestantism, it was highly mobile and it was convenient for agents to transfer slogans, model, and practices. Thanks to the diffusion of ideas of military-estate political representation (the gentry’s right to rocosz and the right of “Lisowczycy” to claim for service), peasant wars, already traditional, reached a new level in terms of political organization, equaling the existing state political structures of the relevant societies. The diffusion of ideas from the Sandomierz rokosz (“The Inkwell War”, 1606–1609) turned the peasant war in Russia into the “Time of Troubles”, and allowed for re-assembling the state on the basis of military and estate representation, 1603–1615. The Cossack wars in Poland, which lasted from 1620 to the 1680s, repeatedly caused not only a structural, but also an ideological and organizational reaction in neighboring Russia (the transfer agents were restless Cossacks /Circassians/ “Lisowczycy”). With regard to the history of Russia, we should highlight the emergence of the phenomenon of ideological and organizational translation, the specific structure of which was carried by a fusion of the Cossacks and the Old Believers. This movement dates back to the early 1670s, the period between the Razin (1670–1671) and the Solovki uprisings (1668–1676). The Razin Uprising was typologically similar to the Cossack wars in Poland: Cossacks demanded to be included in the privileged military class. After the Solovki revolt, schismatics became carriers of ideas of state power being unrighteous, and Cossacks became disseminators of this idea. The first and second Streltsy rebellions (1682, 1698), as well as the Asktrakhan uprising (1705–1706) and even Pugachev’s uprising (1773–1775) involved, one way or another, the Old Believer religious discourse and similar structural and organizational components. In the eighteenth century, with the establishment of “regular” absolutist states, protest activity on the basis of aristocratic institutions, agricultural and religious communities, as well as various “military republics” decreases. The Streltsy rebellions, the Astrakhan uprising and Pugachev’s revolt in Russia are typologically similar to Patrona Halil’s uprising (1730) in Turkey and the Haidamak uprisings in Poland (1734, 1750, 1754, 1768): irregular troops, being in a marginal position under the new conditions, make desperate attempts to restore their status or to definitely destroy the existing system of relations in society. Thus, during the period under consideration, we should identify four long structural waves of protest activities related to external “challenges” of a military and organizational nature, and society’s “response” of world-economic character: (1)

The stage of the “military revolution” under the “Turkish model” (1510– 1655): the Sahkulu ¸ rebellion (Turkey, 1511); the Gyorgy Doji uprising (Hungary, 1514); the Slovenian peasant uprising (1515); the Jelali uprising (Turkey, 1519); the “Cock War” (Poland, 1531); the Matija Gubec revolt (Croatia, 1573); the Banat uprising (Serbia, 1593); the Nalivayko’s uprising (Poland, 1594–1596); the Kara-Yazici uprising (Turkey, 1595–1603); the Time

hired troops or sailors, the Zaporozhian Cossack Army or the pirate Coastal Brotherhood of the Caribbean Sea (Trinidad, Espagnol, Tortuga).

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of Troubles and the Cossack-Peasant War (Russia, 1603–1615); the “soldiers’ confederation” (Poland, 1604); the Sandomierz rokosz (Poland, 1606–1609); “the Cossack wars” (Poland, 1625–1638); the “Cossack and peasant war” (Poland, 1648–1655). The first stage of the “military revolution” under the “Spanish model” (in 1520–1596): the revolt of the comuneros (Spain, 1520–1522); the Lutheran burgher uprising (Germany, 1521); the Protestant peasant war (Germany, 1524– 1526); the religious wars in Switzerland (1529–1531); the Ghent uprising (Flanders, 1539–1540); the “estate uprising” (Czechia, 1547); the First and Second Schmalkaldic Wars (Germany, 1546–1547, 1552–1555); the “eight Huguenot Wars” (France, 1562–1598); the revolution in Holland (1568–1648); the “Cudgel War” (Finland, 1596–1597). The second stage of the “military revolution” following the “Dutch model” (1615–1745): the Bohemian Rebellion (Austria, 1618–1625); the “the ninth Huguenot War” (France, 1620–1629); the Portuguese War of Independence (1637–1668); the English Revolution (1642–1645); the “Fronde” (France, 1648–1653); the Glorious Revolution” (England, 1688–1689); the First and Second Jacobite uprising (England, 1715, 1745). The third stage of the “military revolution” following the “Swedish model” (in 1647–1773): the “Salt Riot” (Russia, 1648–1649); the “Ruina” (Poland, 1657–1687); the “Bred Riot” (Russia, 1650); the “Copper Riot” (Russia, 1662); the Us’ uprising (Russia, 1666); the Solovki uprising (Russia, 1668–1676); the Razin’s uprising (Russia, 1670–1671); the “Stamped Paper Revolt” (France, 1675); the Kuruc uprising (Hungary, 1672–1678); the Tekeli revolt (Hungary, 1678–1691); the “Khovanshchina” (Russia, Moscow uprising of 1682); the Streltsy revolt (Russia, 1698); the Rakoczy uprising (Hungary, 1703–1711); the Astrakhan uprising (1705–1706) and the Bulavin’s uprising (Russia, 1707– 1709); the Patron Halil’s uprising (Turkey, 1730); the four Haidamak uprisings (Poland); the Pugachev uprising (Russia, 1773–1775).

Besides, we can list more than a dozen short revolutionary waves, in which either a short time sequence is observed against the background of political and geographical proximity or the structural, ideological, and organizational relations are combined, i.e., the “domino effect” is evident: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

the Sahkulu ¸ rebellion (Turkey); the Gyorgy Doji uprising (Hungary); the Slovenian peasant uprising; the Jelali uprising (Turkey); the Lutheran burgher uprising (Germany); the Protestant peasant war (Germany); the religious wars in Switzerland; the Ghent uprising (Flanders); the “estate uprising” (Czechia); the First and Second Schmalkaldic Wars (Germany); the “eight Huguenot Wars” (France); the revolution in Holland; the Banat uprising (Serbia); the Nalivayko’s uprising (Poland); the KaraYazici uprising (Turkey); the Time of Troubles and the Cossack-Peasant

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(6) (7) (8) (9)

(10) (11)

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War (Russia); the “soldiers’ confederation” (Poland); the Sandomierz rokosz (Poland); the Bohemian Rebellion (Austria); the “the ninth Huguenot War” (France); the Portuguese War of Independence; the English Revolution; the “Fronde” (France); the “Cossack and peasant war” (Poland); the “Salt Riot” (Russia); the “Ruina” (Poland); the “Bred Riot” (Russia); the “Copper Riot” (Russia); the Us’ uprising (Russia); the Solovki uprising (Russia); the Razin’s uprising (Russia); the Tekeli revolt (Hungary); the “Khovanshchina” (Russia); the Streltsy revolt (Russia); the Rakoczy uprising (Hungary); the Astrakhan uprising and the Bulavin’s uprising (Russia); the Patron Halil’s uprising (Turkey); the four Haidamak uprisings (Poland).

So, if we take into account the territorial proximity, ideological and organizational dependence between the cases of protest activity that span this period, the picture turns out rather motley, and does not allow us to make generalizations. However, the most pronounced and “heavy” structural link between the cases of protest activity of the Early Modern period is military modernization, known in the literature as the “military revolution”. Which sector of the world economy the country was in determined which way its military modernization would go: by the commercial route (Spanish, and then Dutch version), or by the “natural” autocratic route (Turkish, then Swedish version). This influenced the nature of the emerging absolutism in the country. Each particular version of the “military revolution” brought to life typologically different protest forces that took part in riots and uprisings. The text identified four groups of protest forces that have different motivations, and which had varying degrees of success of their revolutionary activity.

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Vladislav Tsygankov is Associate Professor in the Novosibirsk State University, PhD candidate. He has authored or co-authored over 30 scholarly publications including Pseudomodernization: options and significant factors (2011); Empirical testing of “Russian Pseudomodernization” hypothesis (2012); World-system analysis, “hard core” and “protective belt” (2012); Revolutionary waves in the Modern Era: the manufacturing crisis in the world and the industrial revolution in England (2017); Revolutionary waves in the rhythms of global modernization (co-authored, 2019). Research interests include world-system analysis, demographic structural theory, military revolution, macrosociology, modernization theory, revolutionary waves.

The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the 19th Century: Their Causes and Consequences Leonid Grinin

1 About Revolutionary Waves It has long been recognized that revolutions, particularly the most transformative ones, come in waves (Beck, 2011). This was pointed out already in the 1930s (Merriman, 1938) or even earlier. Certain aspects of revolutions became the subjects of study in the decades after (Bailyn, 1967; Godechot, 1965; Palmer, 1954, 1959). But their more systematic and serious analysis has been performed only in the recent decades [e.g., Beck, 2011; Goldstone, 1991, 2001, 2002; Katz, 1997; Kurzman, 2008; Markoff, 1995, 1996; Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 1996; Weyland, 2012, 2014; Zinkina et al., 2017, 2019; see also Lawson, 2016; see also Chapter “The phenomenon and theories of revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume)]. There exist different views on the number of waves of revolutions in modern history starting from the sixteenth century. For example, Rozov and Tsygankov identify up to 26 waves [see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume); see also Rozov et al., 2019: 76–78]. Goldstone (1991, 2001: 145) identified the following ten major waves of revolutions in modern history: 17th Century Crisis (1649–1688) due to the widespread breakdown of agrarian states in the face of population increases; the Atlantic revolutions (1776–1789); the European Revolutions of the 1820s, the 1830s, and 1848–51;

This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254). L. Grinin (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia HSE University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_11

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the anticolonial revolutions (the 1950–1970s); the communist revolutions of 1945– 1979 in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and other developing countries; the Arab Nationalist revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa in 1952–1969; the Islamic revolutions in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan (1970–1980s); and the anticommunist revolutions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (the late 1980–1990s). As to the twentieth century waves, we will discuss them in the next chapter [see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this book)]. The so-called Atlantic wave, the introduced by me wave of the French Revolution of 1789–1798/1799 as well as the Ibero-Latin wave 1808–1826, will be analyzed in Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin 2022b) in this volume. Meanwhile, Colin Beck, basing his count on country/regional data on revolutions from Tilly (1996 [1993]) distinguishes 12 waves of revolutions from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries (Beck, 2011: 195). We consider this number a bit excessive, especially if one accounts only European revolutions; we estimated only 11 waves for this period and three in the twenty-first century1 . The full list can be found in Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume). For the nineteenth century Beck (2011: 196) points out the waves of revolutions of 1830 and the revolutions of 1848. And we completely agree with him on this point. However, instead of the wave of revolutions of the 1820s that we distinguish, he considers only the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829), which was in fact just a part of the larger revolutionary events of the 1820s (see below).2 One can hardly agree with Beck (2011: 196) that the Balkan Crisis of 1875–78 should be considered as a wave of revolutions. Given that all the upheavals took place within the framework of one state, that of the Ottoman Empire, for a world-system event it is obviously narrow. This discrepancy in numbers is in many respects determined by the absence of well-defined criteria for distinguishing revolutionary waves. We are going to analyze theoretical aspects of this phenomenon in more detail in Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) and Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b) in this volume.3 However, we should point that we suggest distinguishing the waves according to the following criteria: (1) the actual link between events within the World System; (2) the number 1 See Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this book). 2 This can be explained by noting that there are no data of revolutions in Italy and Central Europe (Bohemia, Austria, and Germany) in Tilly’s tables. For this reason, among the revolutions of the revolutionary wave of 1848, Beck’s list (2011: 182) contains no revolutions in Italy, Bohemia, Austria, Germany, while at the same time there are little-known ones like the Independence War in Moldova or the Revolution in Wallachia. 3 About the waves of revolutions see also Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022), Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022) and Chapter “The phenomenon and theories of revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c).

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of revolutions should not be very small (minimum 4–5 revolutions if these are revolutions in more or less large countries and more if in smaller countries); (3) one should not consider as a revolutionary wave the events within one state, even a very large and multinational one which rules over a united territory4 ; (4) limited temporal intervals separating the revolutionary events; (5) there can be only one wave within a period. Let us consider these criteria. It is important to note that waves of revolutions are caused by the impact produced by revolutions in some societies on others to which they are connected. These connections may involve geographical proximity, contacts between revolutionary elites, or the sharing of common features characterizing their culture, position or developmental peculiarities, and also by their position within the World System [for related details see Chapters “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b) and “Revolutions of the 21st Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e); on the classification of the causes influencing a revolutionary wave see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022, in this volume)]. To analyze the factors affecting the emergence of waves of revolutions one may also employ the classification developed by Colin Beck (2011). When analyzing the waves of revolutions he presents historical accounts that revolutions and revolutionary waves often stress the commonality of ideological claims and the forces of cultural change across national boundaries as an explanation of their origins (e.g., Bailyn, 1967; Chartier, 1991; Godechot, 1965; Palmer, 1954, 1959; Sewell, 1985, 1996; Sharman, 2003; Wuthnow, 1989) and he also gives sociological explanations that revolutions and revolutionary waves tend to place their origins in cross-national structural processes as, for example, wars, economic pressure, and demographic changes that challenge state stability (e.g., Arrighi et al., 1989; Foran, 2005; Goldfrank, 1979; Goldstone, 1991, 2001; Skocpol, 1979; Tilly, 1996) or when contention diffuses across societies from an initial event (e.g., Katz, 1997; Markoff, 1995, 1996; Tarrow, 1993, 1998). Beck also added that (1) revolutionary waves are transnational events of a state-system as a whole, and (2) revolutionary waves are profoundly cultural events, as they involve alternative ideals of political order. However, this classification has its weak points, since Beck does not pay sufficient attention to the necessity of large triggering world-system events for launching a revolutionary wave (see below).5 One should bear in mind that revolutionary waves form a dimension of the suprasocietal, regional and/or world-system aspects. Various regional and world-system events and their outcomes should coincide for a revolutionary wave to start and 4

As for example, the Ottoman Empire in the period of the Balkan Crisis of 1875–1878 (see above). On the other hand, we can regard events similar to the national-liberation revolutions in the Spanish colonies in Latin America 1808–1826 as a revolutionary wave (see below) because they did not make up a united territory with the metropole. 5 About cultural-ideological, structural, and other reasons for emerging of revolutionary waves as well as the domino-effect see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume).

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evolve. The unfolding of waves often requires a great triggering world-system event (a great or world war, a severe economic crisis involving many countries, a great successful revolution, a collapse/weakening of a large empire or of a coalition center, etc.). For a revolutionary wave to start and evolve there should occur a coincidence of different regional and world-system events and their outcomes [see Chapters “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume)]. In other words, this must be a really great event because ideas by themselves would not suffice to start a revolution no matter how widely they spread. In this respect we disagree with Colin Beck who puts a major emphasis in the matter of spreading revolutionary waves on the impact of world-cultural forms and a reactive contention that stands in contrast to the norms of world culture (Beck, 2011)]. In most cases the major triggering world-system events are quite obvious (e.g. WWI and WWII were such triggering events); yet, sometimes they are not so obvious. However, they should always be present. The revolutionary wave of the 1820s was not caused by a particular event. However, it was associated with serious changes both in the World System in general and in certain countries after 1815. These changes were caused by the French revolution, Napoleonic wars, and the post-war world order. At first glance the Springtime of Nations of 1848–1849 did not have any obvious trigger. However, these revolutions were closely connected with the 1847 economic crisis, rooted in the potato blight, bad harvest and famine conditions that arose in some countries of Western Europe in the preceding years. An important reason for the spread of revolutionary waves was the aspiration of certain revolutionary regimes to export revolutions which was already seen in the eighteenth century [see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f), Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b), and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022); on the ideological impact of revolutions in some countries on others see Arjomand, 1992; Colburn, 1994; Katz, 1997; Halliday, 1999; Goldstone, 2001; Beck, 2011]. Of course, for the success both of particular revolutions and of their waves the international situation is important [see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)]. As several scholars have noted, this can involve either the intervention of neighboring countries to support revolutions, or the absence of conservative powers willing and able to intervene to prevent them. In other words, the spread of revolutionary waves depends in part on the presence or absence of a permissive or favorable context in the world for a revolution (Goldfrank, 1979; Goldstone, 2001; Goodwin & Skocpol, 1989; Wickham-Crowley, 1992). There is often little or almost no interval between revolutionary events. Their synchronicity is amazing, e.g., the waves of European revolutions in 1830–1831, or 1848–1849; also anticommunist revolutions occurred in five countries in 1989— see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022)]. Sometimes the time gap is larger, as during the revolutionary wave of 1905– 1911 discussed by Kurzman (2008) or the wave in 1820–1829. However—and it

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is very important in our opinion—, a revolutionary wave can hardly last for more than ten years if we count from the start of the first revolution to the start of the last revolution. Otherwise, this will not be a wave but a chain of revolutions. Let us point out that Beck admits the same view.6

2 On the Transformations That Created the Conditions for Revolutions The nineteenth century was the century of modernization, transition to new technologies and of a visible transition to a new—industrial—production principle (e.g., Knowles, 1937; Dietz, 1927; Henderson, 1961; Phyllys, 1965; Cipolla, 1976; North, 1981; Stearns, 1993, 1998; Lieberman, 1972; Mokyr, 1985, 1990, 1993, 1999; Mokyr & Foth, 2010; Sabo, 1979; Allen, 2009, 2011; Clark, 2007; Pomeranz, 2000; Goldstone, 2009; Huang, 2002; More, 2000; Bernal, 1965; Philipson, 1962; Benson & Lloyd, 1983; Grinin, 2006, 2007; Grinin & Grinin, 2015, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). It was a century of landmark changes never seen by the world before: increasingly widespread literacy, rapid urbanization, the rise of popular culture, the rise of secularism and liberal individualism, the explosion of newspapers, journals and information, fantastic discoveries in science, and powerful changes in living standards. Such tremendous transformations naturally led to drastic social changes. It is not surprising that the nineteenth century also became known as the “age of revolution” [Hobsbawm, 1996a; on the connection between revolution and modernization see Chapter “Revolution and modernization traps” (Grinin, 2022c, in this volume; see also Lipset, 1959; Cutright, 1963; Moore, 1966; Huntington, 1968; Dahl, 1971; Brunk et al., 1987; Rueschemeyer et al., 1992; Burkhart & Lewis-Beck, 1994; Londregan & Poole, 1996; Epstein et al., 2006; Boix, 2011; Goldstone, 2014; Grinin, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2014, 2017a, 2017b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012b; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2017; Bilyuga et al., 2016].

6

The waves were coded if two or more linked revolutionary situations occurred in two or more societies within a decade of each other (Beck, 2011: 195). But of course, two societies are obviously not enough for a wave. Concerning our criterion for the time gap, it is necessary to mention that we define the gap as the interval between the starting points of the first and the last revolutions of the same wave in different countries, even though the completion of these revolutions may take a long time.

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2.1 The Basic Causes of the Revolutions of the Nineteenth Century In the nineteenth century revolutions and social movements had a number of basic causes. Some of them were associated with increasing national consciousness. These can be characterized as national or national-liberation revolutions. Their major objective was defined by their aspiration to create a proper state for the “nation”. Other revolutions were of the democratic type with liberal slogans aimed at overthrowing monarchical power or its restriction and the creation of a constitutional monarchy or republic with political freedoms [about the typology of revolutions see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. Aside from these major types, some revolutions were also connected with the rights of pretenders to the throne like, for example, the Spanish revolution of 1834–1843. Given the many changes of this period, there were a lot of social movements as well, and some of them would contribute ideas and social mobilization to revolutions. As a rule, revolutionaries built coalitions by engaging various forces with different slogans; that is why social protests were sometimes combined with the demands for national self-determination, changes in political regime and other requirements. Social movements and revolutions were associated with significant changes in technologies (due to the industrial revolution), the economy and social class structure and in the whole way of life. Such rapid changes in the society, generally denoted as modernization, led to serious disproportions in societal development, which created additional conditions for the emergence of revolutions. This is because, as we have already mentioned [see Chapter “Revolution and modernization traps” (Grinin, 2022c, in this volume)], the modernizing societies are mostly authoritarian (either nondemocracies or not democratic enough and lacking stable democratic institutions). The authoritarian societies have a rigid structure and therefore, they are prone to revolutionary destruction. Meanwhile, more democratic societies, where social discontent can be channeled into legitimate forms, hardly experience revolutions. This is one of the reasons why England escaped revolutions in the course of its modernization in the nineteenth century while the continental countries faced a series of revolutionary outbreaks.

2.2 Social Problems and Poverty With respect to the nineteenth centuries, especially its first half, one should point out that for many, industrialization, urbanization and other changes quite often could result in a relative and sometimes absolute deterioration in living standards (see Allen, 2007, 2009, 2011; Clark, 2007; Goldstone, 2007; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015;

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Pamuk & van Zanden, 2010).7 Poverty, sometimes terrifying, unsanitary conditions, etc. were quite common in urban neighborhoods and working class settlements. So while in England the working class, participating in the Chartist movement, raised ‘a knife and fork question’, that is, they sought the opportunity to eat decently (connecting these opportunities with political equality8 ), in other European countries people sometimes had to demand enough bread and other simple food for workers’ families to eat at all. This was all connected with the so-called demographic revolution (Armengaud, 1976; Minghinton, 1976: 85–89; Cipolla, 1976: 15), or rather the first phase of the so-called demographic transition, that is with rapidly growing population numbers, especially of the urban part. There emerged a situation which we denoted as the Marxian trap [see Chapter “Revolution and modernization traps” (Grinin, 2022c, in this volume; Grinin, 2010b, 2012a, 2012b, 2013b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012a)]. It is evident that the declining living standards affected revolutionary sentiments in the second half of the 1840s, when bad crops in some European countries inflated food prices, increasing the number of poor, needy and starving. Against this background, there were riots and confrontations with police, for example, in the early spring of 1847, during the two-day ‘potato revolution’ in Berlin, when many shops were demolished and even windows in the palace of the heir to the throne were broken (Kan, 1948: 38–39).9 The crop failures were followed by a commercial crisis, as families had to reduce their consumption of manufactures to pay for food, that affected industry across Europe. According to Jean Lescure, one of the historians of this crisis, the ‘crisis … was … one of the true causes’ of the revolution (Lescure, 1932[1907]; see also Grinin & Korotayev, 2017). Crop failures and industrial crises also negatively affected the revenues that flowed into the treasury of such countries as Prussia and Austria; this weakened the positions of their governments which needed additional sources of money and taxes and thus, were forced to appeal for help to representative bodies. Pitirim Sorokin, who studied the history and typology of the numerous revolutions in the ancient world (in Greek poleis and the Roman Republic the intense social and political struggle among groups of citizens for power and rights was almost more frequent than quiet periods), mentioned that famine and/or war usually stood at the origins of revolution (Sorokin, 1994). Other researchers also considered the deteriorating economic situation of urban workers in the early period of industrial 7

Modern researchers have come to the conclusion that there was “the paradox of early growth,” which meant that economic growth, expressed as an increase in GDP per capita, produced a marked increase in the wages of workers only after several decades (Pamuk & van Zanden, 2010: 219). 8 ‘This question of universal suffrage was a knife and fork question after all; this question was a bread and cheese question’ (Joseph Rayner Stephens 1838 cited in Ward, 1962: 192). 9 As is well-known, it is Ireland that suffered the most from the potato blight, which struck in 1845 and 1846. The consequences were catastrophic for the country. However, no revolution occurred due to the dramatic depopulation. In 1847–1851 the population of the country reduced, according to some reports, from 8 to 5.5 million because of famine, diseases and migration (see, e.g. Armengaud, 1976; Hobsbawm, 1996a). Bad harvest in Europe led food prices to soar. (Trakhtenberg, 1963: 155). In Denmark, Prussia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Wurttemberg, the 1845 potato yield fell by 20% to 80% from normal levels, while rye and wheat yields also fell by 10–40%.

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capitalism, aggravating the needs of the masses beyond the normal, to be one of the main causes leading to revolutionary crisis [about the pre-revolutionary crisis and revolutionary situation see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)]. During the early development of capitalism there was observed the greater exploitation of workers through increasing the length of the working day, as well as work intensity, fines and fluctuating wages, etc. The other side of this situation was weak consumer purchasing power. Thus, for quite a long time (at least for about two to four decades), the growth of GDP and wages moved in opposite direction (Grinin & Korotayev, 2015: 86), and the usage of cheap labor especially of women and children became one of the forms of a relative reduction of living standards (Pamuk & van Zanden, 2010: 218, 228–229). Poverty thus became a necessary companion of early capitalism and social conflicts became inevitable at this stage of development.

3 Changes in Societies’ Social and Class Structure The analysis presented below aims at showing that in some periods of the nineteenth century (especially in its first half) a general revolutionary situation [as we described it in Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)] emerged in some European countries; in particular there was observed: (1)

(2) (3) (4)

The disintegration of society into disparate, opposing groups. In other words, there were present rigid social, national or class contradictions and conflicts; the psychological situation of confrontation ‘we—they’; a history of confrontation, etc. Contradictions within the elite camp. A wide spread of alternative ideologies as well as the formation and support of anti-government organizations. A simultaneous and gradual decrease of the government’s authority being respected (at least, the lack of the sacred attitude towards it) and the regime itself can seek reforms based on relatively liberal views.

Under the impact of a disaster or military defeat a general revolutionary situation could transform into a particular revolutionary situation and then into a revolution [about these stages see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)]. The main changes in the social structure of many European societies in the nineteenth century were the following: 1.

The declining influence of the former elites: Nobles and big land owners faced challenges to their wealth and influence from those achieving success in a variety of other occupations. This process was manifested to various extents in different countries. At the same time, the prestige and wealth of the clergy declined due to

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the development of science and education, the confiscation of church property by the state in different countries, and the introduction of religious freedom. Thus, the role of the old upper classes diminished or transformed. Yet, the role of the aristocracy and the Church still remained significant for a long time. Between this old and new (bourgeois) elite and the rulers there simultaneously existed a forced symbiosis, since the state and the declining elite needed the money of the nouveaux riches while the latter were hungry for titles, state positions, and remaining prestige and status of “nobility”) and antagonism, based on the bourgeoisie’s envy of the old aristocracy and the aristocracy’s disdain for the newly rich. This sometimes led to the split of elites and the radicalization of a part of the bourgeoisie. The reduction and deterioration of status and situation of craftsmen manufacturing industrial products (spinners, weavers and others, see below). This happened due to the routinization of their labour by industrial factory production. The reduction (sometimes drastic) of the number of peasants. This process started in England long before and intensified in the second half of the eighteenth century (e.g. Hobsbawm, 1996a); it then actively continued across Europe during the nineteenth century. As peasants formed the majority of the population in European countries, the peasant households underwent large transformations. Only a part (sometimes the smallest one) of the peasantry succeeded in becoming capitalist farmers, while the rest of peasant households declined. This division of peasants into farmers, including rich farmers that needed hired agricultural workers, and poor households brought capitalist relations in agriculture with a growing number of new landed proprietors and entrepreneurs, agricultural proletarians and poor tenants (see Hobsbawm, 1996a; Trevelyan, 1959). The crucial process observed in the social structure of society and associated with industrialization was a rapid growth of two leading social classes: the bourgeoisie (composed of entrepreneurs, traders, financiers, owners of ships and vehicles, etc.) and employees who existed on their salary. By the end of the nineteenth century, the latter numbered tens of millions of people in Europe [including more than seven million in England (Hartwell, 1976: 370)]. However, nowhere did they constitute the majority of the population at that time (in England, by the end of the nineteenth century, they accounted for approximately 35–40% of adult population). For example, even at the beginning of the twentieth century in France and Germany the share of wage-workers in agriculture amounted respectively to 42 and 35% of all hired workers; in the service industry, the respective numbers were 27 and 22%; in the industrial sector—31 and 42% (Armengaud, 1976: 36). By the year 1900, the number of those employed in industry and services was approximately equal in England— respectively, 46 and 45% (Hartwell, 1976: 370). However, the significance of the industrial classes was steadily growing. At a certain historical stage, the relations between the above-mentioned classes in many respects determined the direction of societal development since they were closely interrelated. A key

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result was that the urban workforce played one of the main roles in European revolutions.10

3.1 Other Social Strata The social composition of European societies was certainly much more complex than we can describe in this chapter. First, it should be noted that the growth of cities also caused an increase in the number of independent business owners (petty bourgeoisie) who served the townspeople (small traders, masters of various shops, without which city life was impossible). Some of these business owners employed workers. Secondly, there were still a great number of servants who served aristocrats and rich citizens.11 Moreover, it was much harder to ensure living conditions in those times than it is today (cooking, heating a house, washing laundry, etc.—there were no modern devices and facilities for all that, everything was handmade). The petty bourgeoisie was by periods quite a revolutionary-minded social stratum (unlike the servant stratum). Thirdly, the number of intellectuals increased (this stratum was actually formed in the nineteenth century) due to increasing levels of education and culture in cities and especially in capitals, and among them there were established professionals (self-employed lawyers, doctors, writers, journalists, artists, etc.). The number of students also increased. We should also have in mind the civil servants, employees of various financial and other enterprises whose number also increased. Besides, the well-organized financial system, the gold standard together with growing public debt supported a significant stratum of rentiers, that is, people who were not engaged in productive labor, but lived on interest income from their capital.12 The well-to-do part of the social layers mentioned in this paragraph together with the top working class which included the most qualified specialists (mechanics, turners, locksmiths, etc.), junior administrative staff (foremen) at factories, and prosperous farmers formed the emerging European middle class whose number was gradually increasing. For example, in 1851 it amounted to 10–15% of the population in England, among which one and a half million people (7% of the total population) annually earned £ 150 (Hobsbawm, 1996a). In 1871 the new English elite (commercial and professional) was generally small, amounting to about one hundred thousand people (family members not included), or slightly more than three-tenths per cent of the population (Mosse, 1974: 12). Part of these strata (students, intellectuals, and sometimes war officers) often played a great role in revolutions. 10

Not to mention the revolts of workers and craftsmen that were quite frequent in the first half of the nineteenth century especially in France, but also in Germany and other regions (e.g., about the Silesian weavers uprising in 1844 see Jones, 2015: 176; see also Epstein, 1961: 483). 11 From 1851 to 1871 in England their number increased from nine hundred thousand to one million and four hundred thousand (Mosse, 1974: 14), which showed the increase of the welfare of a significant number of Englishmen. 12 In 1851 to 1871 their number in England was about one hundred and seventy thousand people (Mosse, 1974: 14).

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3.2 Why Did Revolutions Become Inevitable? The general revolutionary situation had arisen when the old societal institutions impeded further social advances [see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f) and Chapter “Revolution and modernization traps” (Grinin, 2022c, in this volume)]. The aristocratic privileges, monarch’s absolute power, the claims of the church to complete dominance in social life, and other aspects did not conform to developing industry, science, culture, and the interests of the emerging classes. The contradictions between capitalists and workers seemed to be absolutely antagonistic. As we mentioned, society had no idea yet how to resolve these contradictions in a peaceful way.13 The upper classes and government relied upon police and military force. The revolutionaries spread the idea that revolution is the only means to improve both the situation of society and the condition of the lower classes; the notion of ‘revolution’ had become imbued with messianic promise (see e.g. Chang, 2015: 183). Moreover, in this age of the barricades the romantic revolutionary envisaged doing heroic deeds (Neumann, 1949: 336). The revolutionaries began to organize into secret societies and/or parties aimed at the revolutionary transformation of society.14 This expanded opportunities for an outbreak and spread of revolution. As a result, under a certain turn of events, which usually included governmental crisis caused by financial difficulties, or by a defeat in war, or by huge scandals (or all together); or by great relative deprivation (caused by crop failures, economic crises, etc.) a revolution would break out. As we mentioned [see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume)], starting from the early modern period revolutions became a peculiar form of changing political power or political (socio-political) regimes. This eliminated many obstacles that societies faced and accelerated their development since the far-reaching transformations occurred in all spheres and were aimed at modernization of most aspects of social and economic life (Eisenstadt, 1978). Marx and Engels called revolutions a locomotive of history and its driving force, considering (surely, erroneously) that only revolutions could lead from a society with exploitation to a happy classless society (Marx, 2000 [1850]; Marx & Engels, 1976 [1848]). Revolutions were associated with gaining freedom by societies (although this was hardly so). That is why the nineteenth-century ideologists, social thinkers, and historians often romanticized revolutions and appealed to them (although the attitude toward revolutions was contradictory and ambiguous [see Chapter “The phenomenon and theories of revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume)].

13

See Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f), “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022d), and “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume); see also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019. 14 About the organizations of revolutionaries in the nineteenth century see Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume).

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However, as we have already pointed out in Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022d) and Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a) in this volume, the revolutions came at a price for societies and often led to a different path than the revolutionaries had projected. After all, the revolutionary change of power means a system malfunction, which often comes with unpredictable consequences. Moreover, the larger is the scale of revolution the more probable it is that it will go too far in the matter of transformations performed. If it should bring too much destruction and thus cause a search for a return to a good order, it becomes likely that a monarch or a dictator may come to power sometimes on a wave of a counterrevolutionary reaction or just as a result of fortune, sometimes in the framework of the law of Thermidor [for this law see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)]. This happened many times. The French Revolution (1789– 1794) ended in a military coup headed by Napoleon Bonaparte, which led Europe to fifteen years of long and bloody wars, and as a result to the Bourbon restoration in France, and the creation of the Holy Alliance of Monarchs abroad, which aimed to turn back any revolutions. The Spanish revolutions of 1808–1812, 1820–1823, 1834–1843, 1854–1856, and 1868–1874 one after another ended in reactionary or military coups (and the revolution of 1820–1823 was suppressed with the help of French intervention sanctioned by the Holy Alliance; about revolutions in Spain see Esdaile, 2000; Maisky, 1957). The revolution of 1820 in Portugal ended with the victory of a counter-revolutionary monarchist uprising followed by a ten-year civil war, which, however, resulted in a win of the constitutionalists (Birmingham, 2003). In this respect, the superficial revolutions were more successful, like the revolution of 1830 in France. It overthrew the restored Bourbon dynasty, which had reigned for more than two hundred years and a new king from another dynasty (the House of Orleans branch of the Bourbons). It somewhat reduced the power of the noble aristocracy, which did not learn from the previous revolution, and brought the upper middle class to power. However, this revolution hardly solved any of the fundamental problems of France’s underlying social changes, so eighteen years later a new revolution would break out in the country. “If the 1830 Revolution failed to grant full political emancipation and social justice to the common Frenchman, many revolutionary hopefuls likely told themselves, the next one would surely succeed in doing so” (Chang, 2015: 182). However, the Revolution of 1848 in France, aspiring to found a republic, moreover, a social republic, ended with the replacement of the king by the new emperor, Napoleon III (Napoleon I’s nephew). It is quite remarkable that in terms of social advance, the failed or incomplete revolutions appear more successful since they would induce the authorities to adopt considerable incremental changes, while not provoking counter-revolutionary or more authoritarian outcomes. Such incremental changes were the results of the revolutions of 1848 in Prussia, Germany and Austria (about results of these as well as other revolutions see Deny, 1938; Molok & Yerofeev, 1959; Sperber, 2005). Finally, the revolutionary experience of the first half of the nineteenth century made the European governments and upper classes understand that revolutions should better be avoided by means of social reforms

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[about this see below; see also Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022d, in this book)]. In particular, the important result was that the working class was gradually incorporated into political systems (Jones, 2015: 178), i.e., workers were granted political and electoral rights.

4 The Revolutionary Waves in Europe As we already mentioned, the issue of the time span and number of waves of revolutions in history remains debatable. In the present chapter we speak about three waves. However, it is worth recalling that the wave of the French Revolution (followed by Napoleonic conquests) greatly influenced both later transformations in Europe and the rise of revolutionary mood in it. Also we should point out that in its turn the revolution in Spain in 1808–1812, provoked by the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty by Napoleon and occupation by the French, generated a real and powerful revolutionary wave in the Spanish colonies in Latin America.15 Here the revolutionary wars and transformations lasted until 1826 (and in some places even longer; see Lynch, 1973; Censer, 2016: 56–62; see also Tomas, 1960; Costeloe, 1986; Lavrov, 1991) and led to the emergence of a number of new states, thus opening an eventful period in the history of Latin American states. Since all the new states had been colonies of one kingdom, it remains disputable whether these events constituted a single revolutionary process, as was argued by Soviet researchers (e.g., Alperovich, 1979), or a series of revolutions. To our mind the notion of a wave of revolutions solves this problem. But since the analysis of the Latin-American revolutions is beyond the scope of this chapter we will start with the European wave of revolutions of the 1820s, where Spain also played a considerable role.16

4.1 The First Wave of European Revolutions The first wave of European revolutions can be dated to the 1820s. As we said above, this wave was closely connected with the influence of the previous epoch, including the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and also the Vienna Congress and the post-war world order: the ‘concert of Europe,’ guided by the Holy Alliance of the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian monarchs (see Male, 1938; Grinin et al., 2016; Grinin, 2016a, 2016b). The ideas of the French Revolution of 1789 and

15

We named it Ibero-Latin wave of 1808–1826 [about it as well the wave of the French revolution see Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the sixteenth century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume and above)]. 16 It is worth mentioning that the loss of colonies and the Latin-American revolutions also had a great influence on the causes of the Spanish Revolution of 1820.

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anti-monarchist movements were still very influential. These revolutions and uprisings of the 1820s at their initial stages relied not on the masses, but rather on a narrow segment of conspirators and army officers. Moreover, the revolutionaries often avoided involving people into anti-government actions (like the Decembrists in Russia). But the logic of events sometimes would make them large-scale, as happened with the anti-Turkish uprising in Greece in 1821–1829 (including the Cretan one17 ). Apart from the Greek and unsuccessful Decembrist Revolt of December 1825 in St. Petersburg in Russia, the wave of revolutions and uprisings of the 1820s also includes the already mentioned revolutions in Spain and Portugal,18 revolutionary uprisings in Italy against Austrian domination, and failed revolutionary uprisings in France in 1821–1822. However, only the Greek uprising (due to substantial Russian and British support) developed into a successful revolution. In some measure, one can regard the Portuguese revolution as successful though it opened twenty years of instability, sharp change of political direction, uprisings and armed fight for the throne (Lavisse & Rambaud, 1938: 252–256; Birmingham, 2003; see also Tilly, 1996: 87). During these power struggles in Portugal, a new constitution resulted from a revolutionary event in 1836 which sometimes is called the September Revolution (Lavisse & Rambaud, 1938: 255–256; see also de Sousa, 2018). All of the other insurrections were suppressed, including the Spanish revolution which was crushed by French troops.

4.2 The Second Wave of Revolutions Was Observed in 1830–1831 These were revolutions already of a different type, especially in France, and they gave impetus to the development of revolutionary ideas in other countries. In France, it was a revolution to create a constitutional monarchy with social goals which in many respects was caused by the country’s just-beginning industrialization, which generated social difficulties, as well as by the growing political consciousness of the intelligentsia and workers. The latter were excluded (as wage earners) from the political system that was established in France after the Bourbon Restoration (Jones, 2015: 176). As we have already mentioned, the July revolution overthrew the Bourbon dynasty and enthroned Louis-Philippe I of Orleans as a constitutional monarch, and in some way popularized suffrage. But as it developed, the new regime mostly represented the interests of the nobility and upper middle class without solving social problems. 17

Also there were several Cretan revolts in the nineteenth century (in 1841, 1858, 1866–1869, 1878, 1887–1898) until the Cretan state was established in 1898. During Ottoman rule the largest revolt in Crete took place in 1866–1869 and was called the Great Cretan Revolution [see also Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. 18 These revolutions in Spain and Portugal gave new power to the wars for independence in Latin America and resulted in the formation of a number of new states.

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The revolutionary events in Germany quite obviously were of a socio-political nature; some German states adopted constitutions; these revolutions also contributed to the process of their countries’ modernization. The events in France had an impact on England, reinforcing the movement for parliamentary reform there that culminated in the Reform Act of 1832 (Kertman, 1968; Phillips & Wetherell, 1995; Rudé, 1967; Yerofeev, 1959). They also influenced Italy, where in 1831 revolutionary uprisings occurred in some countries in the central part of the peninsula, but were suppressed by the Austrian army.19 In Belgium and Poland the insurrections were revolutions for national liberation; yet in Belgium, which was industrially a more advanced country, industrialization also had a certain impact on revolutionary sentiments. The uprising in Poland was led by the nobility, primarily, by the aristocracy. The July Revolution in Paris inspired the people of Belgium (Tilly, 1996: 71; Waddington, 1938), who were dissatisfied with the country’s union with the Netherlands under a decision of the Vienna Congress of 1815 [prior to the Napoleonic wars the territory of Belgium belonged to Austria against which the Belgians had raised rebellions and revolutions too; see Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume)]. The Belgians were also displeased with the Dutch government’s policing in respect of the Flemish language, and the Dutch Protestants’ treatment of the Catholic Church, which was perceived as national oppression. Many regarded King William I’s rule as despotic and wanted to limit the powers of the Dutch absolute monarchy and enshrine fundamental civil rights. There were large social problems: high levels of unemployment and industrial unrest among the working classes. On August 25 an uprising broke out in Brussels which quickly spread throughout the country. At the end of September, a four-day battle occurred in the city streets between armed people and Dutch troops. The latter had to retreat and the revolution had won. So, in November the elected National Congress proclaimed the independence of the Kingdom of Belgium. England was interested in the emergence of such a state and, as a result, Belgium’s independence was confirmed by the European states (Waddington, 1938). Under the influence of these revolutionary events, an uprising for independence began in November 1830 in Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. This led to war with Russia, but Russian armies eventually suppressed the revolt.

4.3 The Subsequent—Third—Overwhelming Wave of Revolutions Began in 1848 Although in previous years (1846–1847) serious disturbances and revolutionary actions took place in a number of places along with growing revolutionary demands, as we mentioned above, the synchronicity manifested in the revolutions of 1848 19

They also influenced Spain to some extent, and later contributed to the outbreak of the revolution of 1834–1843, which we spoke about, and to a lesser extent to the revolution of 1836 in Portugal (see above), which established a more democratic constitution.

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was observed in a perfectly salient way.20 This is because prior trends had created a general revolutionary situation across Europe. After the revolution of 1830, there were created new revolutionary organizations under the leadership or under the influence of the Italian revolutionary Guiseppe Mazzini in a number of European countries, such as Young Italy, Young Germany, Young Poland, etc., which were later united into the ‘Young Europe’ (Hobsbawm, 1996a: 172). They were not significant immediately but introduced new international trends in the revolutionary movements across Europe. The constitutional revolution in France in 1830 also greatly increased the polarization in other countries between conservative monarchists and constitutionalists. In Switzerland, the divisions between the more progressive bourgeois and radical cantons and the more conservative and clerical ones grew so great they led to civil war in 1847, which resulted in a new constitutional regime in 1848. The revolutionary wave of 1848 was unique in European history, and, perhaps, in world history as well. No other revolutionary wave, either before or after it, would spread as quickly and sweepingly in different countries, disseminated by the wind of revolutionary changes [on the nature of such phenomena, including the recent Arab spring, see Chapter “On revolutionary waves since the 16th century” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume)]. Judge for yourself. On February 24, the republic was proclaimed in France; by March 2 the southwest of Germany was gripped by revolution, by March 6 it captured Bavaria, by March 11—Berlin (the capital of Prussia), by March 13— Vienna (the capital of the Austrian Empire) and almost immediately all of Hungary; by March 18 it seized Milan, and then the whole of Italy (Hobsbawm, 1996b: 16; see also Jones, 2015: 178). Thus, in the space of three weeks it spread across European countries from France to Hungary, from Sicily to Bucharest, and had aftermaths in Northern Europe and Switzerland. The main revolutionary area covered France, Prussia, the German states and the Austrian Empire, involving both the advanced regions (Austria and Czechia) and backward ones, like Calabria and Transylvania, as well as the Italian states (Hobsbawm, 1996b: 19). However, the revolutions of 1848 began not in Paris. They started 12 January 1848 with the uprising in Palermo, Sicily (Sperber, 2005), at that time part of the Kingdom of Naples. Of course the key event triggering the broader revolutionary wave was the overthrow of King Louis Philippe and the declaration of the Second Republic in France on February 24, 1848. It resulted in the introduction of universal suffrage for males, which was the most radical measure for those times, and which England achieved only by the end of the nineteenth century. It also proclaimed the freedom of the individual, of press, speech, unions, meetings, academic freedom, freedom of conscience, etc. The February revolution in Paris sharply intensified revolutionary sentiments throughout Europe. ‘When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold,’—mentioned the Austrian Chancellor Metternich (quoted in Davies, 1996). 20

In this sense, a comparison suggests itself with the Arab Spring and the events of the year 1989 [Weyland, 2012; Grinin, 2012c; see also Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring: causes, conditions, and driving forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a), and Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)].

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Victor Hugo called Paris the central tunnel shaft of the European revolutionary mines (Hobsbawm, 1996a: 418). We should also quote Engels that ‘France is the land where, more than in other countries, the historical class struggles were each time fought out to a decision’ (Engels, 1968[1885]). As we have seen above, the 1848 revolutions involved Prussia and many smaller German states, Austria and its provinces, as well as a number of Italian states. The revolutionary forces initially achieved great success almost everywhere. Not without reason, these events were called ‘the Springtime of Nations’. The emperors and other monarchs fled from their capitals, agreed to constitutions limiting their power, held elections to the new constitutional bodies that were introduced, and passed new laws, etc. But with the radicalization of revolutionary demands and actions, along with monarchical and conservative forces’ recovery from the first shock and panic, the situation started to change. Firstly, the risk of expanding revolutions united the conservative forces. Secondly, many representatives of the upper and middle classes, liberal intelligentsia and other strata ceased to support revolutionary actions once they understood that the aspirations of the revolutionary left wing and broad popular masses would make the requirements of the revolution endless (see, e.g. Chang, 2015: 183). Thirdly, when voting rights were extended up to universal suffrage, peasants tended to vote for conservative representatives to the new parliaments. Fourthly, a number of revolutions (in Italy, Hungary) were suppressed by foreign troops (in Italy by the Austrian troops, in Hungary by the Russians). The most confrontational mass demonstrations of the working class and urban poor took place in Paris. As we have mentioned above, the economic situation was complicated at that time: the previous period was associated with crop failures, food prices increased, and the unemployment rate was high. After the February Revolution, some improvements were made for workers, including setting up of the so-called national workshops, which provided jobs for a large number of workers. But after the elections the new government began to tighten social policy, and on June 22, having no means, declared the closing of those workshops. This led to the armed workers’ revolt, and the city was riddled with barricades, which became the revolutionary tactics of the armed rebellion just as during the revolution of 1830. Against the insurgents, the government used the new National Guard which consisted of the same workers but with government training and salaries (Traugott, 1985). The uprising was suppressed on June 26 with artillery by General Cavaignac, and mass terror was unleashed against the insurgents and revolutionaries. In December 1848, the nephew of Napoleon I, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, became the French president, who four years later would proclaim himself Emperor Napoleon III as the result of a coup d’état [for some details of this event, the reader can see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f) and Chapter “Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume)]. Thus, the revolution brought France first to the Second Republic, then to the regime of the Second Empire. Following the defeat of the June Workers’ Rebellion in Paris, during the rest of 1848 and 1849 the revolutions in Europe were widely defeated by government troops

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due to the weakness of the revolutionary forces (Senyobos, 1938). Nonetheless, the 1848–1849 events had several important features for the future of revolutions.

5 Nationalist Revolutions in Europe A marked feature of the 1848 revolutions was their effort to realize the idea of nationalism, i.e. that the peoples forming a nation should have their own state, whether that meant unifying states that separated people of the same nation (as in Italy and Germany) or separating new states out of multi-national empires (as in many parts of the Austrian Empire, in Poland, and in the Balkans). Nationalism, national ideas, and national struggles in different countries and regions of Europe had their own peculiarities; nonetheless they had much in common (about nationalism as a historical phenomenon see Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1990; Grinin, 2009, 2010a; see also Tilly, 1986: 55–56). We will examine these similarities and differences below. Europe as the most advanced region in the World System realized different nationalist movements earlier than other parts of the world. Europe proved in the nineteenth century to be very fertile ground for nationalism (Cencer, 2016: 62).

5.1 Nationalism of the Nations Deprived of Their Own State Nationalism is multifaceted. In particular, one can speak about the great power nationalism of large nations, as well as about the nationalism of smaller nations which nevertheless have or desire their own states. However, in this chapter we are particularly interested in the nationalism of nations deprived of a state. We mean here the non-titular nations, as they are sometimes called today, that is, nations deprived of their own national state and incorporated into other states, but having risen to the idea of their own state. The ideological leaders of these nations began to gather supporters (encourage, convince, recruit, and teach) to start the struggle for national freedom, to obtain additional rights, and autonomy or independence from the dominant nations. This agitation often turned from glorifying the past history and national heroes into a revolutionary (national liberation) struggle.

5.2 The Struggle of the Poles and the Irish for Their States First of all, we should mention the Poles and their two uprisings (1830–1831 and 1863–1864) against Russia (they both were defeated; about the case 1830–1831 see above); and the Irish as examples. Their movement for separation from England by all means, including armed uprising and the creation of the Irish Republic, became noticeable since the end of the 1840s (its leader was John Mitchell). The famine of

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1845–1846, the impoverishment of the farmers and mass emigration abroad greatly contributed to the rise of the national movement in Ireland. The fighters for selfgovernment (Home rule) used the tactics of boycott and terror against English landlords (see Tilly, 1996: 138). It should be noted that the struggles of both the Poles and the Irish went on throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and ended in both gaining independence only after World War I [see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)].

5.3 The Position of Nations in the Austrian Empire and the Rise of Their Nationalism It is not without reason that Austria was often called the patchwork empire since the titular nation, the Germans (Austrians) constituted a minority of the population (hardly one fifth) while other peoples constituted the majority but felt oppressed and unequal to varying degrees: the Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Poles, Ukrainians, Croats, and others. Accordingly, they started to fight for their rights and, thus, their national movements began. The rise of national movements took place in the Austrian Empire in 1848–1849. Czechia or Bohemia was one of the most industrially and culturally developed provinces. One hundred and fifty thousand weavers were employed in its cotton-weaving industry and in that period, they would actively participate in the strike movement. In Prague under the influence of the revolution in Austria and especially after the emperor Ferdinand I left revolutionary Vienna in May, the demands for Czechs autonomy increased and the National Guard was formed. Moreover, Czechia became the center of the Austro-Slavic movement. On May 24 the Slavic Congress opened in Prague which gathered representatives of the Slavic peoples of the Empire with the goal of uniting national movements. Finally, the Provisional Government declared that the orders of the Vienna Government should not be recognized. All this alarmed the imperial government, so troops were committed to Prague and in mid-June the revolution was suppressed. Hungary was less developed, but more independent than Czechia. The driving force of the revolution was its nobility. Soon after the news about the February Revolution in Paris, a revolution would start there. The Hungarian National Council declared a whole range of reforms including the abolition of serfdom, corvee and other feudal privileges, as well as the introduction of democratic freedoms. But Hungary’s aspiration for independence and creation of its own army, numbering 200,000 soldiers, led to war with Austria, which went on with varying success. In the spring of 1849, the Hungarian army made certain progress, so the Austrian Emperor had to appeal to the Russian troops, which decisively defeated the Hungarians.21 But 21

National movements also took place among the peoples of the Hungarian part of the Austrian Empire: Croats, Romanians, and others. Moreover, revolutionary Hungary was at war with the Croats (led by Count Jelacic), since it prevented them from achieving independence.

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although their dream of independence did not come true, the Hungarians eventually managed to gain national rights in the following decades. In 1867, after it had been defeated by Prussia, the Austrian Empire was transformed into the Austro-Hungarian empire with the formal equality of the German and Hungarian nations (although, the emperor who united the country came from the German Habsburg dynasty). The Czechs and the Slovaks managed to become independent only after the end of the First World War [when a single state of Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918, but, eventually, at the end of the twentieth century the Czechs and Slovaks were divided. For more information on the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)].

5.4 The National Movements of the Balkan Nations Finally, during the whole nineteenth century, national liberation movements (with a powerful rise of national consciousness) emerged in the European part of the Ottoman Empire, which had subjugated a number of nations: the Greeks, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, and Romanians. During the nineteenth century, Europe and Russia (for the latter along with its geopolitical interests promoted the broader national idea of Pan-Slavism) paid close attention to the uprisings and wars of the Serbians, Bulgarians and other Balkan nations. The April Uprising of 1876 in Bulgaria, followed by the Turkish massacre and suppression of civilians, ultimately became one of the causes of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–1878. Thus, the Balkan node, which was one of the major nodes of tension for unleashing the First World War, bound the European powers during the entire nineteenth century (the Balkan countries are still a stumbling block causing tension among the leading countries). The liberation of the Balkan nations from Turkish rule led to the emergence of a number of new states on the nineteenth-century European map (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania) and also weakened Turkey and raised the question of dividing its other territories among stronger actors. It also increased tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary regarding their influence in the Balkans in the last decades of the nineteenth century and later became one the main causes of the First World War.

5.5 Revolutions and the Formation of Unified States in Germany and Italy 5.5.1

The Formation of the German Empire

In Germany the movement for unification of all the German-speaking lands had grown since the wars with Napoleon (for a history of the German nationalism see

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Schulze, 1991). These ambitions were supported by Prussia’s territorial expansion (in particular, the Kingdom of Prussia received territory in West Germany, which had no contiguous borders with the eastern portion, including North Rhine Westphalia with its rapidly developing industry) as well as by the unification of the German lands into a Customs Union, along with the construction of railways and growing intraGerman trade. The German revolutions of 1848–1849 (which involved Prussia and a number of German monarchies: Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, Hessen-Darmstadt, Saxony, and others) led to the wide establishment of constitutional monarchies along with an extension of electoral rights and freedoms, as well as the elections of new parliamentary bodies. The main hopes for the Revolutions were placed on panGermanism. The revolutionaries sought not only to restrict the monarchs’ power, but also to establish a single German state. As a result of revolutionary successes in March of 1848, such an authority was established as early as in May 1848. It was situated in the city of Frankfurt and is known as the Frankfurt National Assembly. But the Assembly turned out to be fruitless, no one adopted the constitution it established, and eventually, it was dissolved in May 1849, and the remaining members were violently crushed in June 1849. Subsequently, Prussian Chancellor Otto Bismarck observed, hinting at empty talks with the parliament for over a year, ‘Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided––that was the error of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood.’, bearing in mind Prussia’s victories in 1862– 1871. As a result, the German revolution had limited success, but it significantly strengthened the idea of German national unification. That unity was built from above through a strengthening Prussia (whose policy was directed by Chancellor Otto Bismarck), its armed forces (based on the strong industrial advance) and its victorious wars: with Denmark, Austria, and, finally, with France in 1870–1871. Prussia succeeded in uniting Germany and in 1871 turned it into the German Empire, the largest state in Europe. German nationalism began to transform into great-power nationalism, which called for the seizure of colonies, militaristic nationalism, and which began to consider the German people as the highest nation (and under Nazism as a race), a belief that would cost Europe and the world two world wars.

5.5.2

The Unification of Italy Under the Auspices of the Kingdom of Sardinia

The Italian Carbonari started their revolutionary activity in the 1810s against the French occupation regime, and after 1815 they began the struggle against the Austrian Empire, which seized a part of Northern Italy and interfered with the affairs of other Italian states after Napoleon’s defeat. In 1815–1820 both the existing and emerging organizations of the revolutionary conspirators were spread throughout

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Italy. They managed to create a multifaceted and strictly secret revolutionary movement (Bondarchuk, 1970: 86). The Carbonari also used terrorist tactics, as later did the Irish nationalists.22 The uprising of January 1848 at Palermo developed successfully. The insurgents took power in Sicily, which inspired other cities of mainland Italy in the Kingdom of Naples to join the insurrection. Already by the end of January the revolutionaries forced King Ferdinand II to adopt a constitution. As soon as the news of the turmoil in Vienna came, they immediately caused revolutionary unrest in the Italian provinces of Austria (the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom ruled from Milan). The revolution spread to other Italian states: the Papal States, Tuscany (where the Florentine Republic was established), Modena, Parma, and there was also unrest in Piedmont. The supporters of a united Italy considered the Austrian policy in Italy as the major obstacle to its unification; therefore they advocated for the expulsion of the Austrian troops, as well as for the elimination of the Austria-oriented monarchies. Many revolutionaries and patriots considered the unification of all Italian states around the Kingdom of Sardinia (which is also mentioned as either Savoy-Sardinia, PiedmontSardinia, or even the Kingdom of Piedmont with the ruling King Charles Albert) to be possible. When the uprisings of 1848 spread to Italy, Charles Albert’s ambitions coincided with the people’s demands, so he declared war on Austria on March 24, 1848. Initially, this strengthened both the revolutionaries’ positions and the willingness of other Italian states to participate in the war with Austria and to introduce liberal constitutions. However, Piedmont was defeated during the war with Austria, and as a result the revolutions in the Italian states were suppressed by the Austrians or by the troops of their own monarchs (as it happened in the Kingdom of Naples), or as Rome—by the French, who entered Rome after answering the Pope’s call for assistance. However, despite terror and repression, the power of the Italian monarchs after the revolution was weakened while the idea of a united Italy remained strong. Charles Albert’s son, Victor Emmanuel II, continued searching for ways to unite Italy. As a result of the war with Austria in 1859, there rose a powerful unification movement in central Italy supported by France, which, eventually, led to changes of regime in several Italian states. Plebiscites on the integration into Piedmont-Sardinia were held, and absolute majorities in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Romagna voted to join the Kingdom of Piedmont. It was only left to merge with the Kingdom of Naples, which comprised half of the Italian Peninsula, to create the framework for the modern nation of Italy. Here a significant role was played by the expedition of the famous revolutionary and patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi. In May 1860 Garibaldi landed with a thousand men in Sicily in order to fight against the Neapolitan regime to bring Naples and Sicily into the Kingdoms of Sardinia. Despite their extremely weak military forces, the expedition succeeded due to the courage of the Garibaldians, the support of the Sicilians and other residents of the Kingdom, as well as the support of the Sardinian navy and army [about Garibaldi’s and Mazzini’s roles in the unification 22

One should also note that representatives of national movements in different countries actively learned from each other, supported each other, and glorified foreign fighters for national liberation, etc. It was a kind of informal international.

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of Italy see Censer (2016: 67–74)]. The people’s plebiscite in the Kingdom of Naples spoke in favor of joining with Piedmont by an absolute majority of votes. On March 17, 1861, there was declared the Kingdom of Italy, headed by Victor Emmanuel II, the King of Piedmont, and the constitutional order of the Kingdom of Sardinia was extended to the whole of Italy.23

6 The Revolution of 1870–1871 in France The Revolution of 1870–1871 in France was the last large-scale revolution in the developed capitalist countries of Europe. It occurred under the influence of the shameful defeats of the French army by Prussia, as a result of which Napoleon III, the Emperor of France, was captured. The revolution of September 4, 1870 overthrew the Empire and established the Third Republic. Yet, the war would continue. Paris was besieged and the living conditions of the citizens were constantly deteriorating. There was created a numerous National Guard, which eventually became a base of support for the new revolution. As a result of the National Assembly elections, the supporters of the immediate (albeit hard and shameful) peace with Germany came to power. Finally, the siege of Paris was lifted, but the new government, headed by former Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers, began to tighten the screws (it cancelled payments to the soldiers of the National Guard, eliminated a moratorium on debt payment, etc.). All this led to mass protests in the capital while the government forces’ attempts to seize the artillery of the National Guard provoked an uprising, and a new revolutionary body—the Paris Commune (which would exist for just two months)—that took power in Paris. In the situation of radicalization of ideas, a general shortage of food and goods and impoverishment, the Paris Commune’s activity had the character of a communist regime in many respects (debt cancellation, introduction of workers’ control, reduction of salaries to officials, wage equalization, etc.) The Paris Commune was the first genuine communist experiment. Many would reject it while the socialists, especially the most leftist of them, proclaimed it as a model to emulate. That is why the history of the Paris Commune has had such great ideological significance. Yet in just two months the Paris Commune was defeated by government forces, resulting in about 25,000 Communards killed in battle or summarily executed on the streets of Paris (Strang, 2015: 196).

23

In 1870 taking advantage of the defeat of France in the war with Prussia, Victor Emmanuel’s troops occupied the Papal States, in which the Pope’s power was supported by French troops since they suppressed the revolution in the Papal Region and assisted with the defeat of the Republic in Rome in 1849. The latter was declared with the active participation of Garibaldi while Giuseppe Mazzini was one of its three leaders.

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7 The Results of the 1848 Revolution. The Transition of Capitalism to Maturity and Reforms After the revolutions of 1848–1849, there were no revolutionary waves in Europe until 1917–1923, that is until the period associated with the First World War [see the next chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. After 1848–1849, few revolutions broke out in Europe; the French Revolution of 1870–1871 and the 5th Spanish Revolution of 1868–1874 were the exceptions, but in fact, they continued the unfinished transformations from earlier revolutions. Why did the revolutionary waves in Europe reach their apogee by the mid-nineteenth century? Why did there occur no powerful revolutionary waves in Europe for another seventy years? Why, for almost half a century, was the situation relatively peaceful in social terms after the year 1871 in Europe? Below we will try to answer these questions. On the one hand, the Revolutions of 1848, if compared with previous revolutionary events (e.g., the July revolution of 1830 in France), were more large-scale and radical so could have raised profound social problems and overturned the existing social order. The poor people and proletariat, in particular, started to play an active role, and they demanded a social republic that was not acceptable to liberals nor to the bourgeoisie as a whole. On the other hand, capitalism as a socio-economic system was still young. It was far from exhausting itself, and actually, it had not yet discovered its true potential. In fact, the nineteenth century revolutions cleared a path for it by limiting the degree of exploitation, expanding workers’ rights and increasing labor productivity due to the growth of technical equipment.24 The industrial production principle entered the phase of maturity, and the most odious forms of exploitation and inequality faded into the past (for the phases of the industrial production principle, see Grinin, 2006, 2007; Grinin & Grinin, 2015, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). After the revolutions the class structure became more mature. ‘The class system implies that money can help achieve anything’ (Berger, 1986). As a result, a person’s status more and more depended on his financial situation. Money became the main social characteristic, and, therefore, social mobility also increased. But such social division inevitably changed the society’s political and legal structure and brought its democratization. So together with the movement towards democracy, their own social problems, which were characteristic of a mature state, came to the fore. 24

Revolutions limited the increase of an absolute exploitation of workers. There were also social and political obstacles for increasing exploitation. It was prevented, first of all, by the fact that the bourgeoisie was not politically omnipotent like slave-owning aristocracy in the southern United States, or, more over, like top bureaucracy under the communist regime, to perpetuate this situation. Therefore, historically, the controversy was resolved by increasing productivity via mechanization and engineering in production, which was accompanied with the restriction of exploitation and raising the living standards of workers. There appeared more opportunities to restrict exploitation and legally enshrine certain rights for workers since labor became more mechanized and productive, and the amount of surplus product increased. The entrepreneurs started to realize ‘that more effective results could be achieved through saving the worker’s efforts’ (Vialla, 1938: 423; see also: Schumpeter, 1995: 178).

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Although a mature state is a class-corporate state, however, the authorities could hardly constantly support only employers since this would lead to the outbreak of class struggle (about a mature state, see Grinin, 2008). The authorities had to intervene and deal with the most egregious examples as well as to allow workers to establish associations and defend their rights. In brief, the legal and political systems of an industrial society were to somehow support the weaker party. The state frequently selected tactics of the ‘state over the fight’, social maneuvering, or turnarounds, Bonapartism, as well as to take preventive measures in order to maintain social peace [about Bonapartism see Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume)]. This was initially more evident in monarchical countries, where monarchs traditionally sought to ensure that no class would gain excessive privileges. Thus, in Germany under Bismarck all males aged above 25 gained electoral rights, and for the first time in history, there were adopted laws on social guarantees for workers. In liberal countries the latter trend became dominant over time. Eventually, important social reforms and reforms of other kind were implemented almost everywhere. Gradually, the struggle for rights, on the one hand, acquired legal character for the state and society, and on the other, it began to rely on normal, that is, legal and peaceful forms. Thus in the second part of the nineteenth century, having recognized the danger of revolutions, the ruling monarchies, strata and political parties came to the right conclusions: that to prevent revolutions required certain changes beneficial to workers. The middle class also mostly accepted the gradual changes (Richards, 2004: 89). Also, the constantly increasing productivity of production gave the possibility of changing the distribution of income a bit to benefit workers without halting the growth in profits for the capitalists and rulers. That is why in the following decades the social bases for mass revolutions were weakened or even eliminated in developed countries (Hobsbawm, 1996b: 8). As one can note, they were weakened since, firstly, in a number of countries the upper classes and governments conducted serious reforms in order to avoid revolutions in the future. These reforms were associated with the adoption of constitutions and restrictions on the monarch’s power, with extending voting rights and political freedoms, with restricting exploitation of workers and regulation of relations between workers and employers, and increasing opportunities for education, social mobility, etc. Secondly, capitalist modernization led to increasing the wage rates for the employees, and, thus, both their standard of living and the society’s standard of living in general, would improve. The transition to reforms meant that in the developed capitalist countries the bourgeoisie ceased to be a revolutionary class, especially since it mainly received its share of political power. But one should understand that many reforms were strongly opposed, and, therefore, were implemented with delay over decades and only under heavy pressure of the opposition and people. Nonetheless, the presence of parliaments and extending voting rights channeled these confrontations into a quieter course.

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Sewell, Jr., W. H. (1996). Historical events as transformations of structures: Inventing revolution at the Bastille. Theory and Society, 25, 841–881.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00159818. Sharman, J. C. (2003). Culture, strategy, and state-centered explanations of revolution, 1789 and 1989. Social Science History, 27, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0145553200012451. Skocpol, T. (1979). States and social revolutions: A comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge University Press. Sorokin, P. A. (1992). O tak nazyvaemykh faktorakh social’noj evoljutsii. Chelovek. Tsivilizatsija. Obshchestvo. (pp. 521–531) Politizdat. Sorokin, P. A. (1992). Sotsiologija revoljutsii. Chelovek. Tsivilizatsija. Obshchestvo (pp. 266–294). Politizdat. Sorokin, P. A. (1994). Golod i ideologija obshchestva. Obshchedostupnyj uchebnik sotsiologii. Stat’i raznykh let (pp. 367–395) Nauka. Sperber, J. (2005). The European revolutions, 1848–1851 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Stearns, P. N. (1993). Interpreting the industrial revolution. In M. Adams (Ed.), Islamic and European expansion (pp. 199–242). Temple University Press. Stearns, P. N. (Ed.). (1998). The industrial revolution in the world history (2nd ed.). Westview Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement: Social movements and contentious politics. Cambridge University Press. Tilly, C. (1986). Does modernization breed revolution? In J. A. Goldstone (Ed.), Revolutions: Theoretical, comparative, and historical studies (pp. 47–57). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Tilly, C. (1996)[1993]. European revolutions, 1492–1992. Blackwell. Tomas, L. V. (1960). Istoria Latinskoi Ameriki. Inostrannaya Literature. Trakhtenberg, I. (1963). Denezhnye krizisy (1821–1938). Izdatelstvo AN SSSR. Traugott, M. (1985). Armies of the poor: Determinants of working-class participation in the Parisian insurrection of June 1848. Princeton Univ. Press. Trevelyan, J. M. (1959). Sotsialnaya istoriya Anglii. Obzor shesti stoletii ot Chosera do korolevy Viktorii. Inostrannaya literatura. Tsygankov, V. (2022). Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 265–279). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_10. Vialla, A. (1938). Ekonomichaskoe polozhenie Frantsii 1815–1848. In E. Laviss, & A. Rambo (Eds.), Istoria 19 veka. In 8 vols. (Vol. 3, pp. 414–443). OGiZ. Waddington, A. (1938). Vosstanie v Belgii. Belgiyskoe korolevstvo. In E. Laviss, & A. Rambo (Eds.), Istoria 19 veka. In 8 vols. (Vol. 3, pp. 316–345). OGiZ. Ward, J. T. (1962). The factory movement 1830–1855. Palgrave McMillan. Weyland, K. (2012). The Arab Spring: Why the surprising similarities with the revolutionary wave of 1848? Perspectives on Politics, 10(4), 917–934. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592712002873. Weyland, K. (2014). Making waves: Democratic contention in Europe and Latin American since the revolutions of 1848. Cambridge University Press. Wickham-Crowley, T. (1992). Guerrillas and revolution in Latin America. Princeton Univ. Press. Wuthnow, R. (1989). Communities of discourse: Ideology and social structure in the reformation, the enlightenment, and European socialism. Harvard University Press. Yerofeev, N. A. (1959). Zavershenie promyshlennogo perevotota v Anglii. Chartism. In N. A. Smirnov (Ed.), Vsemirnaya istoriya. In 10 vols. (Vol. 6, pp 200–212). Izd-vo sots-ekonom. literatury. Zinkina, J., Christian, D., Grinin, L., Ilyin, I., Andreev, A., Aleshkovski, I., Shulgin, S., & Korotayev, A. (2019). A big history of globalization. The emergence of a global world system. Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05707-7. Zinkina, J., Grinin, L., Ilyin, I., Andreev, A., Aleshkovski, I., Shulgin, S., & Korotayev, A. (2017). Istoricheskaya globalistika (Vol. 2). Moscow Branch of Uchitel Publishing House.

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Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor of the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as a co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology.

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century Leonid Grinin and Anton Grinin

1 General Remarks on the Twentieth-Century Revolutions and Some of Their Characteristics 1.1 The Twentieth Century—The Age of Revolutions Eric Hobsbawm called the nineteenth century the age of revolution (Hobsbawm, 1989, 1996a, 1996b). However, most revolutions occurred later, namely, in the twentieth century. In this context, in the present Chapter we will give only an overview and analysis of the revolutionary processes of the twentieth century. We have identified 82 revolutions, 35 analogues of revolution, and also 29 attempts of revolutions and other revolutionary events (altogether there are 146 events in our Table; see Appendix 1; Appendix 2, Figs. 1 and 4a, b). The definitions of different types of revolutionary events are given below as well as in Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume).1 This research has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 20–61-46004). L. Grinin (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia HSE University, Moscow, Russia A. Grinin Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia 1

Mark R. Beissinger (2017) gives his own calculation of the number of revolutionary episodes in the twentieth century, which are more broadly defined. Of course, the number of episodes greatly surpasses the number of revolutions: in 1900–1949 an average of 2.44 new episodes per year, in 1950–1984 an average of 2.80 new episodes per year, and in 1985–2014 an average of 4.10 new episodes per year [3.47 per year, if we exclude the collapse of communism]. As one may notice, in the second half of the twentieth century the annual number of new episodes increased in comparison with its first half. According to our calculations, the number of revolutionary events © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12

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This chapter also includes two Appendices, which contain a Table with data on the revolutionary events of the twentieth century, as well as diagrams demonstrating the correlations and ratios between different types and subtypes of revolutions as well as other revolutionary events (cf. Williams & Waller, 1995). Let us first consider the countries that managed to avoid revolutions in the twentieth century. There are few of them. Mostly, these are societies that had established democracy in different periods, but all of them already had stable democratic regimes on the eve of the twentieth century. The list includes Northern European countries, Great Britain with its dominions (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), the USA and some developed democratic countries that had already recovered from revolutions or civil wars by that time (France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc.). It may seem surprising, but Japan can be also included in this group although it clearly did not belong to the countries with developed democracy. The reforms conducted after 1945 by the American occupation authorities were actually comparable to a revolution; however, in formal terms, only one revolution did occur in Japan—the one in 1868, although it was disguised as a restoration and therefore can be qualified as an analogue of revolution. In addition, many Third-World countries endured the twentieth century without true revolutions, as most countries in tropical Africa gained their independence only in the second half of the century and suffered more from coups d’état and civil wars than from revolutions.

1.2 Differences Between the Revolutions of the Twentieth and of the Nineteenth Centuries There is no doubt that the twentieth-century revolutions are in many respects similar to the revolutions of the previous century, so it is rather difficult to find qualitative differences between the former and the latter (see, e.g., Dunn, 1989) within the framework of any approach. The Marxian theory does not give a reasonable explanation either (Ibid.). In fact, both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many revolutions aimed against monarchies and had democratic goals. They were generally caused by growing inequality and injustice which resulted in increasing social discontent. Revolutions would often appear as the result of an active struggle for an independent national state or additional rights for a certain nation. Evidently, in many if not the majority of cases the underlying causes were related to various transformations that began in the first half is not much less than those in the second half of the twentieth century (70 and 76, respectively, see Appendix 1, Fig. 1). However, the number of revolutionary years in the first half is noticeably smaller than those in the second half of the twentieth century (214 and 315, respectively—see Appendix 2, Fig. 3a). Yet, in our opinion, this does not indicate a more revolutionary character of the second half of the twentieth century. The matter is in the increased number of states in the world as well as in more accurate statistics for the second half than the first half. The latter fact also explains a considerably increased number of revolutionary episodes in the late twentieth–early twenty-first centuries. Also, while the number of revolutions increases their scale on average diminishes.

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generated by modernization (see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” [Grinin, 2022c, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2011, 2012b, 2013, 2017a).2 Nevertheless, there are essential differences between the revolutions of the two centuries. One can define some trends which came to the forefront or were widely manifested only in the twentieth century. In particular, these were: 1.

2.

2

The growing radical aspiration to establish total social equality together with deliberate elimination of the causes of social inequality. In particular, this was expressed in the growing influence of socialist ideas, including the demand to get rid of private property. The idea of equality before the law, which spread starting from the end of the eighteenth century and in the nineteenth century,3 would now transform into the demand of consumption equality. On the whole, under the public pressure and the example of the USSR, where these ideas were actively implemented, social reforms were partially carried out in democratic countries in order to prevent revolutions (see Fischer, 1987; Grinin, 2010a: 286–290; 2012a: 132–134; see also Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2016). Ultimately, in the twentieth century the slogan of creation of a society with primacy of law even as an ideological construction significantly lost its importance (Hobsbawm, 1986: 28, 31) in comparison with the nineteenth-century revolutions (and some earlier ones; see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). Of course, the logic of revolutions has always led to ignoring and abandoning the rule of law, while the revolutionary laws were in force combined with increasing terror, confiscations, etc. (Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume]; Grinin & Korotayev, 2014, 2016; Grinin et al., 2016; Grinin et al., 2019). Still the trend to move to the “dictatorship of law” and to a rule-of-law state was rather strong. Later it was replaced by the slogans of creating more equal, just societies with equal property rights and distribution which finally led to the dictatorship of the state. The faith in an omnipotent state especially strengthened after World War I since the latter had considerably undermined the former liberal ideas; meanwhile, in the early twentieth century the situation was similar to the nineteenth century in terms of revolutionary ideologies. It should be noted that the republican form of government was quite less common in the nineteenth century, and most of its revolutions were constitutional, that is, they aimed at limiting monarchical power. As for the twentieth century, more revolutions aimed at a complete change of political regime, which also implied the establishment of republican forms (see also Friedrich, 1966).

Here it is relevant to mention Shmuel Eisenstadt’s idea that every society modernizes according to its own cultural essence (Eisenstadt, 1978). 3 Egalitarianism in respect of religion, nationality etc. as well as equal rights and duties (e.g., in taxation, access to education, positions in state services etc.).

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The duration of great revolutions in comparison with the nineteenth century (but not with the earlier periods) increased.4 This was probably caused by: (a) the profound transformations occurring in the twentieth century5 ; (b) the spread of revolutions to the countries with insufficient modernization levels; and (c) the introduction of universal suffrage in societies with weak democratic traditions. Finally, whole revolutionary epochs could start, when the state (or rather the authorities), created by the revolution, expanded the transformations. This can be most vividly exemplified by the early USSR and PRC. In the nineteenth century such long periods of post-revolutionary groundbreaking changes hardly occurred.6 In the twentieth century the revolutionary trend more and more shifted from the World System core to its semi-periphery and even periphery (in the nineteenth century it was not in the core itself, but close to, and this allowed the countries that had experienced revolutions to catch up with the core or actually become a part of the core). As a result, as we have already pointed out in Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this book), in terms of progressive advance the impact of revolutions on historical process had decreased.7 As a result, new types of revolutions emerged and spread widely. This includes, of course, communist revolutions and anti-communist revolutions (the latter resulting from the collapse of communist regimes) as well as power-modernist and others (see below). The increasing role of the state in different spheres also intensified its opportunities to conduct social transformations. As a result, one can distinguish a peculiar type of right-wing revolutions, such as in Italy in the 1920s under Mussolini, and in Nazi Germany and other right-wing totalitarian regimes in Europe.

Of course, this statement needs further verification. Yet, it is worth pointing that the earlier revolutions of the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries were distinguished by their duration and making up whole epochs, like the Reformation in Germany or France, the Dutch, English, and French revolutions; even the American revolution lasted for quite a long period from 1775 to 1787. 5 Therefore the pattern of the twentieth-century revolutions has proved overwhelmingly more destructive than its historical predecessors (Dunn, 1989: xvii). 6 A similar situation was observed during Cromwell’s dictatorship (1649–1658) after the English revolution and to a certain extent during Napoléon’s reign (until about 1807); the latter period was naturally connected with the French revolution. 7 The longer duration of the twentieth-century revolutions is probably related to the peripheral character of many of them. An indirect evidence for this is the long-lasting revolutions that occurred in the periphery and semi-periphery in the nineteenth century, in particular, the wars for independence of the Spanish colonies in Latin America and also some other revolutions (e.g., the popular revolts in Spain in 1834–1843 or in Greece in 1821–1829). Since in the twentieth century revolutions moved far from the World System core, there were many cases when revolutions began not in capitals but in the provinces. Such cases are known as peripheral advance revolutions (see Huntington, 1968; Goldstone, 2014: 27–29), which in the nineteenth century were observed mostly in Latin America.

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Some new societies were involved in advancing historical processes although their development was far behind the World System core (hence, they lagged behind the mainstream historical process) and it was often the world-system process that helped them to achieve a higher level (which they were hardly able to conform). This increased the number of peculiar revolutionary events which can be denoted as revolution analogues: events which are revolutionary in their essence, i.e. speed and depth of socio-political transformations, but use of mass mobilization for such radical changes only after revolutionaries have come to power. To overthrow the previous regime, the revolutionaries do not use mass mobilization with violent conflicts but use other ways to take power (elections, coup d’état etc.; for details see below). On the whole, the nature of revolutionary actions considerably changed. Let us point to the most important aspects: (a) there emerged new means of struggle, including general strikes and nation-wide defiance (yet, some examples of the latter could be observed already in the nineteenth century); (b) barricades as forms of struggle disappeared almost completely (which was connected with changed city planning). On the other hand, guerrilla wars which could last for decades started to play an increasing role (see, e.g., Wickham-Crowley, 1991, 1992; Selden, 1995; McClintock, 1998; Polonsky, 2016). In some cases, revolutionary movements formed de facto states in the areas under their control, as happened in China in the 1930s and 1940s or in a number of Latin American countries (Goldstone, 2001; McClintock, 1998; Selden, 1995; WickhamCrowley, 1991). The role of armed struggle also increased and this would actually mean the creation of insurgent armies and formation of territories that supported them. Probably, this was also defined by a peripheral character of many revolutions and revolutionary movements; in the nineteenth century such a situation was observed in the periphery (in Latin America) and in the semiperiphery (the guerilla against Napoleon in Spain in 1808–1812). In this respect, Garibaldi’s movement in the nineteenth century looks more like an exception while in the twentieth century such movements were organized in many countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. (c) The nature of terrorist acts and attacks changed. Terror against individuals which was spread as a political weapon starting from the Italian Carbonarists, achieved its apogee in the early twentieth century and later became less common. Meanwhile, acts of terror aimed at intimidation of societies in which innocent victims are killed, became a favored tool for a number of revolutions and revolutionary attempts. In what follows we discuss some of the characteristics in detail.

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2 Revolutions, Their Causes and Classification 2.1 Causes of the Twentieth-Century Revolutions The general causes of revolution that were clearly manifested in the twentieth century (as internal crisis, intra-elite and class conflicts, rapid growth of social tensions, nation’s desire for independence, etc.) have been considered in Chapters “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022c) and some others in this volume. We also pointed out the conditions which lead to a revolutionary crisis. However, there were also some points peculiar to the twentieth century. First, more revolutions than before were triggered by wars. They were caused mostly by military defeats but sometimes also by excessive strains on winning countries (as happened in post-World War I Italy and in the United Kingdom with the Irish Revolution of 1916–1923). The connection between revolutions and wars had never been stronger than in the twentieth century (Halliday, 2001: 64; on the relations between revolution and war see Arendt, 2006 [1963]; Skocpol, 1979, 1994; Tilly, 1986; Gurr, 1988; Goldstone, 2001; Walt, 1996, 2001; Graziosi, 2005; see also Bueno de Mesquita et al., 1992; Conge, 1996; see Tilly, 1986: 55 about the impact of rapid military demobilization). Both Russian Revolutions (in 1905 and in 1917) were associated with wars. As a result of the First World War a revolutionary wave swept across Europe and the Middle East, as the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires fractured and collapsed. Numerous revolutions and their analogues of the second half of the 1940s in Europe and Asia were also closely associated with the Second World War, which had completely changed the balance of power as well as the social consciousness in every region and state. Second, a number of revolutions were generated by geopolitical factors, including, of course, the world wars and the defeats of Germany, its allies and Japan. But one should also point out other events: the collapse of colonial empires as nationalist, socialist, and constitutionalist ideologies spread to the developing world, and the transformation of some states into world revolutionary centers that fomented or supported revolutions in other countries where movements adopted their preferred ideology (see Grinin, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c). Third, the possibility of revolutions was accelerated by expanding globalization and world-system impacts (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b] and Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). This became evident in the early twentieth century (and even already in the late nineteenth century). The education of the intellectuals and military officers of colonized nations, inclined to revolutionary ideas, in European countries along with growing relationships between countries and the increasing popularity of Western ideas based on modernization produced revolutionary leaders in many regions who managed to inspire and/or head revolutions or revolutionary movements (this is especially evident

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with respect to the revolutions in Iran in 1905, Turkey in 1908, in China in 1911 as well as in other countries, like in Mexico where the influence of the USA was obvious). Fourth, although in the nineteenth century nationalism was an important cause of revolutions in Europe and Latin America, only in the twentieth century did national liberation revolutions spread across the globe and beyond the countries of European settlement. These included not only the former colonies or semi-colonies where nationalism emerged due to world-system effects, but also countries where nationalism continued to assert itself in Europe––from the Irish Independence revolution and the Basque revolt in Spain to the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia on ethno-nationalist lines. The twentieth century was the century of nationalist revolutions ne plus ultra (there are 35 such revolutions and its analogues in our Table; see App. 4b; besides there are many revolutionary cases in which we pointed out nationalist characteristics as additional ones; about the rise of peripheral countries see Grinin & Korotayev, 2015; about rising nationalism in modern type of states see Grinin, 2008a, 2010a, 2011, 2022c). Fifth, the aspiration to social justice was strengthened and became increasingly widespread. At the same time, there emerged an example of development and modernization in an alternative to liberal constitutional models––the USSR. As a result, a number of communist or left-wing revolutions would break out in different periods and in a number of regions. For example, one of the most famous revolutions of the twentieth century, in Spain (1931–1939, the sixth in this country’s history), had a communist bias, although in 1931 it started as an anti-monarchical and democratic revolution. Besides, a number of societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America tried to take ‘the socialist path of development’ in terms of the political language of the Soviet period. They purposefully organized revolutions and analogous attempts to change political regimes, or in the course of revolutions there would occur an abrupt shift to the left due to various reasons (including the desire to obtain assistance from the USSR). The impact of the Cuban revolution and its export of civilian and military assistance to countries in Latin America and Africa, and of the rise of the People’s Republic of China and Maoism, on the inspiration and support for communist revolutions, rebellions and military movements was really considerable (see below). Sixth, there is an obvious connection between revolutions and state (nation) building (see Graziosi, 2005: 9–10), since the early stages of nation-building can often lead to crises (for our study see Grinin, 2012b; Grinin et al., 2017). This process had a considerable influence on the number of revolutions and analogues, given that in the twentieth century the number of new states rapidly increased.

2.2 Classification of the Twentieth-Century Revolutions Unfortunately, there are no fully developed, satisfactory classifications of revolutions, a fact we have already spoken about (see Chapters “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions”

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(Grinin, 2022a, in this volume); see also Goldstone, 2001; Andreski, 1988; Shultz, 2014, 2016). However, in the context of the present chapter it is reasonable to mention the typological differences which researchers have identified with respect to the twentieth-century revolutions. First, a number of scholars divide revolutions either into classic revolutions and others, or into revolutions in developed countries and in developing countries (von Laue, 1964: 16; Tucker, 1969: 137–138); or into the Western and Eastern/Third World revolutions (Huntington, 1968: 266–273; 1986; Foran, 2005: 1, 18, 24); or into revolutions in European and non-European empires (Hobsbawm, 1996a). These divisions make sense since as we have pointed above, the revolutionary process involved many societies whose developmental level was insufficient and still the world-system impacts and geopolitical shifts would launch revolutions there before they achieve the level which is needed for the emergence of a classic revolutionary situation in the course of development (for details see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b], “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d], “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]; see also Grinin, 2020). Second, as noted above, the liberal ideas and worship of the law priority (law-based society) were less typical for the twentieth-century revolutions. Hence, some scholars like Hobsbawm (1996a) divide them into revolutions of the bourgeois liberalism epoch (the nineteenth century and earlier) and revolutions of the twentieth century, which have different foundations. For the purpose of the present chapter we would like to suggest our own classification of the twentieth-century revolutions according to their objectives and ideology (this classification can amplify our classification suggested in Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]). The classification comprises both new types of revolutions that emerged in the twentieth century and the types observed in the previous epochs. The classification considers both revolutions and their analogues. But one should take into account the complex character of many revolutions; so the pure types of revolutions according to the classification can hardly be traced. So we characterize every revolutionary event according to its kind, type as well as according to additional characteristics (additional type or subtype). All these characteristics are presented in Table on the twentieth-century revolutions (see Appendix 1). It is interesting to observe how these types are distributed in quantitative ratio among all revolutions across the twentieth century. Communist, national, national liberation and democratic revolutions prevail (see Appendix 2, Fig. 4b). Thus, we can distinguish: (1)

democratic revolutions whose objectives are mostly to transform the political system from autocratic to constitutional democracy. Here we define the following sub-types: (1a) anti-monarchic (e.g., the Portuguese revolutions of 1910 and 1974; the revolution in Monaco in 1910) and (1b) anti-dictatorial revolutions differing in some aspects from anti-monarchic. Such revolutions were typical for Latin America. For example, both the revolution in Cuba in 1933–1934 (against the Machado dictatorship) and Castro’s revolution in 1956

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(against the authoritarian government of Batista) were anti-dictatorial revolutions. However, the latter revolution later transformed into a communist one. Many revolutions that started as democratic would change their character, for example, the Russian revolution of 1917–1921 or the Spanish Republican Revolution of 1931–1939.8 Nevertheless, we counted thirteen purely democratic revolutions and eight other revolutionary events (see Appendix 1; Appendix 2, Fig. 4b). social revolutions which in the first place aspire to solve the problems of social injustice (in respect of land use, income distribution, labor rights, etc.) while democratic, political, legal and other transformations are just the tool of solving this major objective (e.g., the Mexican Revolution 1910–1917, the Bolivian Revolution of 1952). communist revolutions directed by the communist doctrine. anti-communist revolutions. To a certain extent they may be considered as democratic. But since anti-communist revolutions must necessarily solve a number of complicated issues, such as returning to private property, economic freedom etc., they are better considered as a peculiar type. This also gives a better explanation why the revolutions of the late twentieth century had a different type of conflict than classic revolutions (see Goldstone et al., 1991: 3). power-modernist revolutions, which support the rise or restoration of the might of the states when the revolutionaries are well aware of the backwardness of their state and try to use revolution as a means to accelerate modernization (like the revolutions in the East of the early twentieth century, e.g., the Nationalist Revolution in China and both revolutions in Turkey: the Young Turk Revolution and the Kemalist Revolution—yet the latter was at the same time the war against Greece occupation and for the Turkish national state); national and national-liberation revolutions are the most numerous among all the revolutions of the twentieth century (see Appendix 2, Fig. 4b). Here we distinguish (6a) national revolutions. Their major objective is creation of a national state (these are mostly revolutions on the ruins of multinational empires like the Austrian-Hungarian and Russian empires; the same occurred during the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s; and (6b) national-liberation revolutions aimed at gaining independence/autonomy.

Let us point that the Spanish revolution was, perhaps, the first case when the upheavals were triggered by the accusation of the authorities in the manipulation with results of elections. Later, especially closer to our time, this motive more frequently comes to the fore. The Spanish revolution also revealed a new type of nationalism which appealed not to the fact that certain nation has no desired rights but to the fact that a certain nation gives disproportionately much in the common pot. In Catalonia and the Basque Country the political, commercial and cultural elites considered that their rights were violated by Madrid and they became “milk cows” for the monarchy (Shubin, 2016). The same ideas live until now in Catalonia. In the late twentieth century the same slogan was used by the Yugoslavian republics (by Slovenia, in particular) and in the USSR (the Baltic republics, Ukraine).

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These revolutions mostly occurred in the societies under colonial dependence that were forced to struggle for independence from metropolises9 ; national-socialist, or right-wing, revolutions combined the ideologies of etatism,10 socialism and national spirit (based on masses and anti-elite sentiments). This is in the first place, the Italian revolution (1922–1926) and the analogue of revolution in Germany (1933–1937, see also below) and also their followers in Europe (see below). Characteristically, they completely rejected democratic slogans (as different from communist revolutions); religious revolutions (about them see Keddie, 1981; Arjomand, 1988; Moghadam, 1989; Ahady, 1991; Moaddel, 1993; Foran, 1993; Skocpol, 1982). As examples here we may mention the Iranian revolution of 1979 (about it see Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” [Filin et al., 2022a]); in Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume), we also point out some examples of religious revolutions at the periphery of the World System, for example, the Taiping Rebellion in China (1850–1864), the Wahhabi movement in Arabia in the late eighteenth–nineteenth centuries; Mahdi uprising in Sudan (1881– 1998). We also show that the Persian (Iranian) Revolution of 1906–1911 was in many respects a religious revolution (at least the clergy played a great role) and also in certain respects the mujahedeen and especially Taliban movements in Afghanistan which emerged after the so-called April revolution of 1978, and reforms conducted by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (see below). In 1991/1992–2002 in Algeria the religious revolution was defeated.11 In Sudan, Islamism strived for power already starting from the 1950s. In 1989, there occurred a military coup and the military also engaged the Islamists from the National Islamic Front as allies (Sergeichev, 2015: 383; Fuller, 2004: 108). The Islamists tried to lay the foundations for the Islamic statehood and impose

Following Crane Brinton, some of them may be called territorial-nationalist revolutions, like the revolution in the North American colonies (Brinton, 1965: 24). Probably, the last revolution of this kind in the twentieth century was the one called in a related documentary the Coconut Revolution on Bougainville Island included in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. The revolution was headed by the so-called Bougainville Revolutionary Army and it started in 1988. In 1997 the insurgents were defeated yet through the mediation of New Zealand the negotiations were continued until in 2001 an agreement was reached, so in 2005 Bougainville Island got autonomy yet the problems with separatism still exist. At the end of 2019, a referendum was held in Bougainville with a choice between greater autonomy within Papua New Guinea and full independence. More than 98% voters voted for independence. 10 The worshipping of a state is vividly expressed by Mussolini in “creating a new political regime” based on the principle “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” (quoted in Graziosi, 2005: 178). As Alain Touraine (1998) notes, almost everywhere the power of money was substituted for the power of a state. 11 Here we can also mention the failed Shia revolt in Iraq in 1991 as well as the Islamist revolutionary rebellions in Syria in 1976–1982. In this country the military engaged the Sunni, mostly the members of Muslim Brothers, who organized several uprising in different places. They stopped after the governmental troops took Syrian city Hama in 1982.

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sharia. But in the end, there occurred a certain cooling of relations between the military and Islamists, which would grow until in 2000 the Islamists were removed from power and faced reprisals (for details about this Islamic project see Sergeichev, 2015; see also Grinin et al., 2019; for an analysis of modern Islamism see also Grinin, 2019a). This can be viewed as a failed analogue of a religious revolution. If we consider the first half of the twentieth century, then we can mention that in the 1920s and 1930s the revolutionary movement in Pakistan (then a part of British India) had an essentially national-religious character since the Indians were divided by religious principle and this led to the emergence of two independent states in the British India territory: India and Pakistan proper (we have already spoken about the intrinsically Islamist movement in Pakistan; see Grinin et al., 2019). Another attempt of a nationalreligious revolution was the Sikh movement in India (mainly in Punjab) which started in the 1970s when discrimination against the Sikhs increased along with the resistance to their autonomy and the proposed creation of the independent state of Khalistan. The Sikh groups committed terrorist attacks against civilians and assassinated Indian PM Indira Gandhi. Other kinds of revolutions, often rather peculiar cases. For example, the cases of political revolutionary struggle and civil war where the major “battle line” lies not in ideological but confessional, ethnic or ethno-confessional markers (when a society is mainly divided according to these attributes). The examples here are: conflict in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1998 (or The Troubles [see Mitchell, 2006; see also McGarry & O’Leary, 1995]) between the Protestants (Unionists/loyalists) and the Catholics (Irish nationalists/republicans) for the constitutional status of Northern Ireland12 ; the Civil war in Lebanon (1975– 1990) where the Muslims opposed the Christian-Maronite minority having an unproportioned representation in Parliament (this was changed in favor of the Muslims). In such revolutions the ethnic and religious bases for revolutionary mobilization was much stronger than in others (Goldstone, 2001: 140). There is a type (with subtype) of revolution connected with confessional factors. One can define the events in the Northern Ireland (1969–1998) as a confessionalpolitical revolution. To the type of “other revolutions” one may also attribute the struggle for the creation of the Israeli state during and after World War II (1943–1948) against Great Britain (which possessed a mandate for the Palestine territories). The struggle was of a hybrid character of an open political movement at all levels and it adopted terror practices. The peculiarity of this struggle is that it can hardly be called national-liberation since the territory did not belong to the Jews; so one can better consider it as an analogue of ethno-political revolution aimed at creating an independent state.13 One can

The Catholics wanted to leave the United Kingdom and join united Ireland; yet, all they achieved was equality in representation and some governmental structures. 13 However, this case is difficult for an unambiguous classification, as in this case the mass mobilization did occur before the change of regime. Perhaps it could be defined as a hybrid religious-national liberation revolution.

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also mention “racial” revolutions (analogues) aimed at a segregated society. A vivid example of an analogue of a “racial” revolution is the events of 1948 in the Union of South Africa when the National party won the election and introduced rather strict laws which started to impose the Apartheid regime in the country (it was finally established in 1961 when the Union gained independence from Great Britain and became the Republic of South Africa). Similar to the racial revolutions are ethno-national ones whose aim is not just gaining independence and/or national state but also creation of the conditions for preferences and advantages for the titular ethnic group/nation in those new states. The examples here are the Singing Revolutions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1991 (and the further politics in these newly emergent states). One should note that here the revolutionaries initially wanted to lift up the titular nations and shift down other (primarily Russian) nations and fix this in their Constitution and electoral laws. However, to a greater or less degree ethno-nationalism existed almost in every post-Soviet state. An extreme example of these revolutions are those ethno-national revolutions where revolutionaries and fighters for independence strive for the purity of the nation via ethnic cleansing (as an example one can recall the organizations of the Ukrainian nationalists—the OUN-UPA—in the period from 1941 to 1944 with their acts of genocide against the Poles, Jews and Russians [see Katchanovski, 2010]; another example is the Croatian Ustashes who promoted genocide against the Serbs in Croatia during the Second World War [see Khodunov, 2016, 2017; Ghibiansky, 2011]; also revolutions and inter-ethnic wars in Yugoslavia starting from 1991 give many examples here). Below we will speak about the revolution in Zanzibar (1964) which brought genocide of the Arabs and this allows attributing this revolution to the ethno-national type. The earliest racial, to be precise class-racial, revolution was the anti-slavery insurrection in Haiti (in the late eighteenth– early nineteenth centuries). For details see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume).

3 The Revolutionary Waves, Lines, and Epochs of the Twentieth Century; the Epochs of Civil Unrest and Dictatorships. The Periods of Revolutionary Transformations. Revolutionary Movements Without Revolutions. The Analogues of Revolutions 3.1 The Waves and Lines of Revolutions Revolutionary Waves. As we have already noted in the previous Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f), it has long been recognized that revolutions

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come in waves (Beck, 2011). We believe the key issue for theorizing revolutionary waves is how best to conceptualize them (Ibid.: 169). So we define and interpret some important statements and terms which we employ in what follows. It is sometimes difficult to interpret revolutionary waves and directions beyond the context of other transformations different from revolutions, but still fitting in their relationship to the general trend of social and political transformations (these are the transition from democracy to dictatorship, military coups, peaceful yet profound changes, long civil and guerrilla wars and many others). So we try to outline the general context of transformations of which revolutions were just a part (and not always the major one). In Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f) and especially in Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022g, in this volume) we suggest distinguishing revolutionary waves according to the following criteria and discuss them in detail: (1) the existence of an objective common cause underlying the events within the World System framework; (2) the number of revolutions should not be small (minimum four-five revolutions if they occur in more or less large and medium-size countries and more revolutions in smaller states); (3) one should not consider as a revolutionary wave the events within one state even if very large and multinational and possessing united territory; (4) the time interval between revolutionary events is limited; and (5) there can be only one wave within a period. In the present chapter we only discuss some aspects of this definition. It is obvious that revolutionary waves are triggered when revolutions in some societies affect other societies, and this is determined by geographical proximity, interactions between revolutionary elites, similarity of existing situation and attractiveness of an example (on the typology of causes of revolutionary uprisings see Chapter “Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History” [Rozov, 2022, in this volume]). Diffusion of a revolutionary wave is also related to common features characterizing culture, the position within the World System14 or peculiarities of the development of particular groups of countries (this can be exemplified by the revolutionary wave in the Arab countries that started in the late 2010s15 ). In any case, the revolutionary waves form a dimension of the supra-societal, regional and/or world-system aspect; and it is just in this context that we should study 14

See Chapters “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f), “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022g), and “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e) in this book. 15 See Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022, in this volume).

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them in the first place. The development of such waves requires a great triggering world-system event—a world war, severe economic crisis involving many countries, a great successful revolution, a collapse/weakening of a large empire or of a coalition center, etc. For a revolutionary wave to start and evolve there should occur a coincidence of different regional and world-system events and their outcomes (see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022g, in this volume]). In most cases the major triggering world-system events are quite obvious; yet, sometimes they are not. In Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume), we showed that the revolutionary wave of the 1820s was associated with serious changes (both in the World System in general and in certain countries) caused by the French revolution, Napoleonic wars, the Vienna Congress and post-war world order. Meanwhile, the Springtime of Nations of 1848–1849 was closely connected with the 1847 economic crisis, stemming from the exceptionally bad harvests and famine during the preceding years. The revolutionary wave of the 1917–1920s was undoubtedly caused by the First World War and its hardships. As for the revolutionary wave of 1905–1911 (in Russia, Iran, Turkey, China and Mexico [about some comparisons between them see David-Fox, 2017]) there seemingly was no single world-system event, although there was a regional one in the rise of Japanese imperial power, which directly impacted both Russia and China. The revolution in Russia, beginning in 1905, could be considered as a such world-system impulse, as a triggering event that shook the world after a long pause in revolutionary events. The events in Russia also directly affected the population of the Eastern countries due to then existing close economic and other relations. For example, thousands of Iranian seasonal workers had jobs at oilfields in Baku and other places.16 As we discussed in Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022f, in this volume), a revolutionary wave, in our opinion, can hardly unfold for more than ten years if we count from the start of the first revolution to the start of the last revolution. Otherwise this will be not a wave but a line of revolutions (see below). As for the mentioned interval (a decade), we define it as the interval between the starting points of revolutions of the same wave in different countries while the completion of a revolution may take rather a long time. Within this ten years’ interval there is often no interval between revolutionary events (their synchronicity is amazing, e.g. in 1989 the anti-communist revolutions occurred in five countries. In general, the European anti-communist revolutions took place within the interval from 1989 to 1991 starting from Yugoslavia, i.e., within three years; but if one considers all revolutions from their start on the ruins of Yugoslavia and USSR then the wave should be prolonged to 1994–1995 and even later17 ). Sometimes the time gap is larger, like the wave of color 16

About world-system events that launched other revolutionary waves see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022g, in this volume). 17 The 2000 Bulldozer Revolution in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (then comprising Serbia and Montenegro) ousted Slobodan Miloševi´c from the position of the President of state. About

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revolutions of the early twenty-first century (in 2000–2009, which is covered in Part 4 of the present volume; see also Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume]). In many respects the duration of a wave and its consequences depends on the triggering world-system event. Thus, the anti-communist revolutions of 1989–1990 in Europe continued in the unification of Germany, the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia and the genesis of new states, and also in inter-ethnic and interstate wars, strengthening of the Western bloc and other processes, whose aftermath is perceived even today. Jack Goldstone (2001: 145) defined the following waves of revolutions in the second part of twentieth century: the anticolonial revolutions of the 1950s through 1970s, propelled by nationalism; the communist revolutions of 1945–1979 in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and other developing countries; the Arab Nationalist revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa in 1952–1969; the Islamic revolutions in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan; and the anti-communist revolutions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. From what we have said above, we can hardly agree to place the anti-colonial revolutions of the 1950s–1970s, the communist revolutions of 1945–1979, and the Islamic revolutions in the category of waves of revolutions. We would better define them as lines or mini-lines of revolutions (see below). The reasons are the following. The duration of such waves would be too long. But even if we disregard this point, the wave launched by World War II in fact includes quite different types of revolutions (anti-monarchical and democratic, antifascist, anticolonial and communist, anti-dictatorial and anti-communist). To be sure, one type of revolution could transform into another and vice versa. But still this was one and the same wave and not several: the anticolonial revolutions started in 1945 and not in the early 1950s. The ‘density’ of revolutions per year and the number of revolutionary years per decade in the 1950s–1970s was much lower than in the 1940s (see Appendix 2, Fig. 1). Besides, there were many analogues of revolutions in these decades. Thus, we distinguish only the wave of 1942–1949 (see Appendix 1, 2, Fig. 5a). It is interesting that this wave was slowly rising in 1942–1943. It was as a revolutionary tide which grew and grew following the weakening of Germany and Japan. Then the antifascist rebellions and revolutions started in 1944–1945 and the wave became huge. Concerning Islamic revolutions we can argue that as they were few in number and, spread over several decades, they did not make a wave but only a revolutionary mini-line. The world-system processes do not usually generate exactly revolutionary waves but start some complex processes of changes involving both revolutions (and their analogues) and other events (such as military and other coups d’état; reduction or abolition of democratic institutions, creating of dictatorship or vice versa such as transition from military dictatorship to civil government) which have certain relations and similarities with revolutions with respect to radical changes and transformations. Sometimes revolutions appear to unleash floods of such related social-political changes and sometimes they become additional or accompanying processes among this revolution see also in Chapters “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a) and “Serbian “Otpor” and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b) in this book.

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others in these aggregative breakthroughs (that was the case in the 1930s, see below). Also one type of processes may transform into another. Thus, a military coup may transform into an analogue of revolution and vice versa; a revolution may change into counterrevolution while legitimate elections may end in the victory of the forces which later revolutionize the society and lead to revolutionary dictatorship.18 And the latter may end with counterrevolution, then military coup d’état and return to legitimate elections. In other words, (in theoretical terms) we often observe not pure but complex phenomena. Within the world-system wave this is always a complex set of transformative processes unfolding in different forms. But one should consider them as a single process of changes. Lines of revolutions. Along with the classification of revolutions that we have presented (based on their major goals) it makes sense to define revolutionary lines. Revolutionary lines demonstrate significant common features in the causes, character, goals and outcomes of revolutions. However, the revolutionary lines do not coincide with waves of revolutions. The wave of revolutions is a more objective notion associated with a group of events relatively close in time (often connected with a certain region and a common world-system event, as noted above). Revolutionary lines are more a theoretical construct, uniting cases with different chronological frameworks and belonging to different waves but sharing an objective background, namely, the common character of these revolutions as well as their outcomes (if the revolutions were successful). So the anticolonial revolutions of the 1950s–1970s, communist revolutions of 1945–1979, and Islamic revolutions mentioned by Goldstone represent examples of different lines of revolutions, since they each have a distinguishing character, type, and goals. A wave of revolutions may generate different revolutionary lines. Thus, we distinguish five revolutionary lines for the period of the 1900–1930s, including the attempts to raise peripheral states and strengthen sovereignty; formation of national states as a result of collapse or weakening of empires; and attempts of communist transformation of the world. Thus, the line of revolutions can be called a group of revolutions, distinguished within a certain period (usually several decades), that take place at different times and in different regions, but which have significant similarities in the goals, common features of revolutions, their results (if the revolutions were successful) and also often directly or indirectly in world-system factors. Lines of revolutions, although they take place over a quite long period of time (several decades), nevertheless belong to the same historical era (the types of revolutions at the same time combine revolutions from many different eras). Although in the present chapter we distinguish between the lines spread in the first and second half of the twentieth century, still some lines (e.g., communist transformations, the rise of peripheral statehood and strengthening of sovereignty) that emerged in the first half of the century actively resumed in its second half.

18

Speaking objectively, counterrevolutions and revolutions sometimes can solve similar tasks. In this respect, the modernization in France under Napoleon III or in Spain under Franco were equally or even more successful than if they had been fulfilled by revolutionary governments.

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3.2 Analogues of Revolutions. The Revolutionary Epochs and Epochs Related to Revolutions Analogues of revolutions. The analogue of revolution denotes political and social events that result in a shift/transformation of political regime and profound transformations in political-social structure which occurs at the first stage (that is during the removal of the existing regime and coming of new forces to power) not through the mobilization of masses and protest actions against the existing government but in some different way: with a peaceful and constitutional coming to power, military coup d’état, conspiracy or palace reshuffle, constitutional coup, (e.g., impeachment of president etc.). An important indicator of the analogue of revolution (and not just reforms, transformations, modernization etc.) is the subsequent mobilization of masses (i.e., mobilization in the course of socio-political transformations). If to apply our classification, it appears that in the twentieth century the ratio between revolutions and their analogues is 2.3:1 (see Appendix 2, Fig. 1). However, it is interesting that before 1930 one cannot find any analogues of revolution. So if we compare revolutions and their analogues after the year 1930 the ratio is 1:0.63. The analogues of revolutions were observed in a number of countries. In particular, in the 1950s and 1960s there occurred several military coups d’état in the Arab world which launched epochs of radical revolutionary changes in these countries (we will return to them below). The German events starting from 1933 can be considered as an analogue of revolution. The events in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) of the 1990s can be also considered as an analogue of revolution since the revolution actually started after the 1994 elections which had been preceded by a public confrontation, general liberalization and changes in election laws (for details see below). Analogues of revolutions overlap in some cases with events described by other scholars as “negotiated revolutions” (Lawson, 2005) or “revolution from above” (Trimberger, 1978), underlining the fact that these events do not fit well with the classical definition of revolution as political change brought about by mass mobilization.19 Revolutionary epoch as a long period of transformations in a society. It is known that profound transformations in different countries often (and even as a rule) do not finish with a single revolution, especially if the latter is defeated. As long as the main problems causing a revolution are not resolved, the peaceful periods (which can be periods of uncertain equilibrium between old and new institutions, of weak democracy or counterrevolutions and dictatorships) can give way to a revolution (sometimes even two or three). In this situation one can speak about a revolutionary epoch. The term refers only to a single society in contrast to the terms “wave of revolutions” and “line of revolutions”. In our opinion, when defining a revolutionary epoch it makes sense to take into account that revolutions of the same epoch are logically and ideologically connected with each other so that every subsequent revolution appears as a new attempt to solve the problems unresolved by the previous ones (like the Russian 19

About analogues of revolutions in general, as well as those of the twenty-first century see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume).

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revolutions of 1905 and 1917) or the subsequent revolution organically follows from the logics of the previous one (as was the case with the Chinese revolutions of 1911, 1925–27 and 1946–1949). This relation, however, is sometimes difficult to establish. Thus, at a first glance one can hardly reveal any relation between the Young Turk Revolution (1908) and the Kemalist revolution (1919–1923). Nevertheless, both revolutions had a common ideological core and goals: the necessity of modernization, democratization and strengthening of the country. About revolutionary epochs in some modern countries, including African ones see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume). A revolutionary epoch in a society may include as the second revolution (or subsequent ones) not a classic revolution but some other events which comprise social transformations but are manifested in different forms or nature. In this case one may speak about revolutionary-transformative epochs. The analogues of revolutions are the closest to revolutions and may have exceptionally profound impact. Thus, for example, after the first phase of the revolutionary epoch in Germany in 1918–1923 the country entered a period of stabilization. However, in 1930 the situation got worse and it was aggravated by the socialist/nationalist tensions inherited from the 1918 Revolution, discontent with the Treaty of Versailles and the economic crisis of the Great Depression. As is known, in 1933 the Nazi party (NSDAP) headed by Hitler came to power. That is how the Nazi revolution started. But since the Nazis came to power as a result of democratic elections and the political regime was changed during Hitler’s rule and in a seemingly democratic way, it seems more appropriate to speak about the analogue of revolution. After Nazism had led to the defeat and the occupation of Germany, the revolutionary epoch seemed to continue in the dramatic (and revolutionary in their essence) transformations conducted by the occupational authorities in the German territories (though these were quite different in the Western and Soviet occupational zones, with a constitutional transformation in the West and a communist one in the East). In this respect, in a broader context, the revolutionary epoch in Germany was completed only in 1949 with establishment of the German states. In some cases the dramatic transformations in societies are conducted in a combined way: through revolutions from below and through transformations from above with impact equal to revolutions. That is how the unified states were created in Germany and Italy in the nineteenth century (see Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f, in this volume]). The result of very long revolutionary epochs in some countries in the twentieth century especially in its second half can be observed in Appendix 2, Fig. 2, ‘Number of revolutionary years per decade’.20 The epochs of disturbances and revolutions. However, after revolution there may be established not a new order (or the former one may be restored) but a period 20

About revolutionary epochs in general, as well as those of the twenty-first century see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume).

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when a country becomes decentralized for a long time so the importance of the central power (if it exists) considerably diminishes, so that the country splits into several territories, states or polities, none of which has the power to dominate the others and unite the country. There starts a period when the strongest reigns, while military and political anarchy flourishes, the time when “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” as Mao Zedong said. Still the revolutionary rhetoric may considerably weaken and be substituted for the rhetoric of the strongest. After 1911 in Persia there was observed a considerable weakening of central power combined with increasing foreign interference (especially during World War I and the Civil War in Russia). Yet, the country would not split. The decentralization and anarchy ended in 1925 when Reza Khan was appointed as the legal monarch of Iran under the name of Reza Shah Pahlavi. However, China would split into a number of units after the revolution of 1911–1913 and Yuan Shikai’s failed attempt to become emperor and his death in 1916. The epoch of disturbances started. It was interrupted by a new revolution of 1925–1927 led by the Kuomintang of China. The revolution swept through China and then the Northern Expedition of Chiang Kai-shek unified the country. After 1928, there was established some order which soon, already in 1931, again gave way to disorders connected with creation of the Communist party in the South and later in 1937—with the war with Japan, expanding civil war with the communists etc. This period lasted until 1949 when the communists finally won the civil war. Thus, from 1911 to 1949 China passed through a long epoch of disturbances and revolutions. The subsequent period from 1949 to about 1969 or even to 1976 may be defined as the period of post-revolutionary transformations (when the winning revolutionary governments conducted transformations that were comprehensive in terms of social destruction and changing the character of daily life. These changes generally lead to the country’s modernization). In the USSR such an epoch of post-revolutionary transformations lasted till about 1937. The periods of counterrevolutionary dictatorships and transformations. A dictatorship may result from different events. A successful revolution often promotes the establishment of a radical dictatorship, which happened more often after communist revolutions. But a revolution (a revolutionary epoch or an epoch of disturbances and revolutions) may end in the victory of conservative forces as well. In this case a right-wing dictatorship may be established which conducts transformations usually aimed at a country’s modernization. Thus the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini in Italy rose as a result of the national-socialist revolution of 1922–1926. Such right-wing post-revolutionary dictatorships are not uncommon. We have given the example of Franco’s dictatorship. A less vivid example is the dictatorship of Salazar in Portugal, who made an attempt to create a corporative state following Mussolini’s example. In Chile the Pinochet dictatorship was the result of the counterrevolutionary coup d’etat of 1973, which stopped the development of what could have become an analogue of communist revolution (an analogue since the ousted president Allende had legally come power via elections). Pinochet’s military government implemented modernizing transformations. To the same type one may attribute the periods/transformations resulting from the activity of the monarchs who were enthroned by revolutions. In the nineteenth century this was Napoleon III, in the

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twentieth century the above-mentioned Reza Pahlavi, who conducted a number of important reforms in Persia (which he suggested referring to as Iran). Revolutionary movements without revolutions. Revolutionary epochs in India and Pakistan. We have already emphasized that the analogues of revolutions imply that to overthrow a regime there are needed neither preceding mobilization of the masses, nor pressure on the government and organization of protest actions are necessary. However, sometimes the mobilization of the masses and various protest actions (claims etc.) do not lead to an overthrow of the government and there are no demands to oust it. In other words, there are claims for meaningful transformations without changing the regime that may manifest in a powerful wave, like the protests and disturbances in 1968 in France, USA and a number of other countries (for a discussion of these events see Boung, 2015). But such movements are often situational and lack progressive ideas (i.e., have no ideology but only voice certain requirements).21 For us it is interesting to consider those long-lasting and powerful movements that ideologically are against revolution. A vivid example here is the Civil disobedience movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in the 1920s–1930s in India which supported the spread of self-governance by nonviolent means. Sometimes the campaigns would be successful so that the colonial authorities conducted certain changes; yet, sometimes they would fail. Among the Indian Muslims there was a movement akin to early Islamism (see Grinin et al., 2019: Chap. 3). Thus, for a long time the revolutionary movement in India did not strive for a classic revolution per se. But still it was a genuine revolutionary movement. It was not accidental that during World War I it began to gain different forms and in some respects it became like a revolution. In particular, a wave of large-scale anti-colonial protests swept through the country in 1942. It received the name The Quit India Movement, or the August Movement; in some historical traditions it is sometimes called the August revolution (Alaev et al., 2010: 402). There were large-scale and vigorous actions whose participants employed methods well beyond the frameworks of non-violence.22 The participants of this movement demanded not reforms but independence. Although the movement had failed to displace the British Raj, it produced a very powerful impact since the international situation was unfavorable for Great Britain. As a result, the British government, which needed to concentrate all its efforts on the war with Germany and Japan, became very worried about potential disturbances in India which could make a dramatic impact on the outcome of the war.23 So the British had to promise India the status of a dominion after the war, 21 The most recent examples—the Yellow Vests movement in France in 2018–2019; the antigovernment protests in Chile in 2019 and Poland in 2020 [see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume)]. These are pure protest movements with mass mobilization. 22 They attacked railway stations and post offices, destroyed railways and lines of communication, exploded bridges etc. More than two thousand protesters were killed and 60 thousands were imprisoned (Alaev et al., 2010: 402). 23 With the help of Japan in 1942 there was even created the Indian National Army (headed by Rash Behari Bose) which established the provisional government in Singapore occupied by Japan. This government declared war on Britain and in 1944 its troops landed in India but were defeated.

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thus, more or less pacifying the revolutionary movement during and after the war; yet, disturbances and religious conflicts remained widespread in India both prior to and after the formal awarding of dominion status. Thus, one may argue that the revolutionary movement in India and Pakistan had developed for over twenty years until it transformed into national-liberation revolution with certain peculiarities. The actual apogee of the revolutionary events was reached in 1942 while the revolution itself occurred only in 1947–1949. To a certain extent that revolution was legitimated, delayed and agreed upon (in the sense that there was an agreement between the British authorities and movement in India). Thus one may have a revolutionary movement for several decades that culminates in orderly revolution (in India’s case, replacement of the colonial government by independent India via a handover of authority); we would argue that this too constitutes a revolutionary epoch. To conclude, we may say that the epochs of disturbances, revolutionary movements, post-revolutionary transformations and other related events considerably complicate the overall picture of revolutionary waves. It is also clear that revolutions are just one of numerous types of socio-political transformations connected with society’s transition from archaic to modern industrial relations or/and from authoritarian to democratic regimes. It is not surprising that within the general modernization movement that involved many countries in the twentieth century there appeared many mixed transitionary transformations within which it is often difficult to distinguish revolutions from other types of societal transformation.24

4 Major Revolutionary Trends and Lines 4.1 The Trends of the Twentieth-Century Revolutions To supplement the above stated ideas we will briefly analyze the changing revolutionary trends of the twentieth century and related characteristics of revolutions. 1.

From Center to Periphery: Building Alternative Directions of Evolutionary Development

As already discussed, in the twentieth century major revolutions hardly occurred in the World System core countries but shifted to the semi-periphery and periphery.25 This has changed the relations between revolutions and the mainstream of historical development (see Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d] and 24

On revolutionary movements without revolutions in general, as well as those of the twenty-first century see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume). 25 In the core, revolutions occurred only in defeated Germany and Austro-Hungary in 1918, in Northern Ireland in 1969 (we do not consider Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece as a part of the “core” until after they joined the EU).

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Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the undeniable superiority of Western societies made the democratic trend to attain similar, constitutional nationstates, generally dominate the goals of revolutions in terms of societies’ future development.26 However, the revolutions of the 1920s–1940s started to form alternative paths of evolutionary development. One can distinguish two such paths. The first direction was associated with the idea that revolutions can help societies leap over stages of evolution and create a new society with a higher developmental level— the communist society. Russia’s communist revolution created an alternative worldsystem developmental center in order to spread this trend throughout the world (Grinin, 2017c). The second direction was the national-socialist/authoritarian type (which included fascist, national-socialist and right-wing nationalist) and which also sometimes aspired to global domination. However, some societies alternated their developmental vectors, shifting from one path to another (in particular, from national socialism/fascism to socialism). There also appeared some less important evolutionary paths, due to the rise of numerous states in the so-called Third World. Thus, the range and number of the twentieth century revolutions can be considered as providing emerging opportunities for significant social-political experiments. 2.

The Failed Idea About a Correlation Between Revolutions and Social Advance

As already mentioned, the expansion of revolutions to the World System semiperiphery and periphery was generally motivated by a desire to find and accelerate the nation’s developmental path; but many such revolutions hardly promoted a World System advance (even in the framework of great revolutions27 ) and only a few created real developmental alternatives (as with Russia 1930–1945 [Grinin, 2017c] and China 1978–2020); others often led to a dead end. The many failed attempts to employ communist revolutions to create a fundamentally new, fair and advanced society, along with the disappointing results of conservative and right-wing revolutions (fascist and religious), disproved the previously popular idea about an indispensable correlation between revolution and progress. This disproof of concept was further exacerbated by the failure of the idea that revolutions ultimately lead to democracy. Many revolutions encountered a situation where democratic forces were weak and receded or were overcome, so that the struggle for power brought either right-wing or left-wing dictatorship (on the correlation between democracy, revolution and dictatorship see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume], as well as Grinin, 2017b). 3. 26

The Growing Number of Analogues of Revolutions

Yet, figuratively speaking, there was also a path of state modernization without liberalization, as was successfully manifested in Japan and later in Turkey. 27 See Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022d), and “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e) in this book.

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There were a considerable number of military coups among the analogues of revolutions. This shows that in a number of countries the role of the military as a revolutionary force was quite significant.28 Yet the transition of power to revolutionary forces in a peaceful manner was also a frequent case; and we have described other analogues of revolutions. Of the 117 revolutions and their analogues in the twentieth century, we count 35 as analogues, i.e. almost 30%, (Appendix 1; Appendix 2, Fig. 1). As we already pointed out, the ratio of revolutions and their analogues is 2.3:1, and in some periods, for example, from 1964 to 1975, the analogues of revolutions even prevailed (Appendix 1; Appendix 2, Fig. 2). 4.

Increasing Number of Revolutions with Considerable Foreign Interference and Disturbances Directly Inspired by Foreign Centers

In the twentieth century, with most revolutions in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries rather than core ones, revolutions were more often subject to considerable foreign intervention, especially by major global powers. Revolutions and civil wars in some countries (Spain, China, Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua) became the scene of geopolitical struggle between the USSR and its ideological rivals, first Germany and later the USA. We have noted above a number of ways that the twentieth-century revolutions differed from those of the nineteenth century. However, when defining the common features of the twentieth-century revolutions one should bear in mind that the revolutions of its first and second halves considerably differ. The revolutions of the first half demonstrate the greatness of revolutions and the latter still play the role of one of the major drivers of historical processes both for certain countries and for the whole world, since they help to find an evolutionary path of societal development in the World System in general. This was a genuine period of “Revolt of the masses,” to use Ortega y Gasset’s term (Ortega y Gasset, 1994). Two of the great social revolutions in history—the Russian and the Chinese—took place in the first half of the century. The revolutionary transformations of the 1920s and 1930s in Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain and Ottoman Turkey also caused dramatic reforms, ending centuries-old monarchies. In the latter half of the century, revolutions more often overthrew colonial, one-party or dictatorial regimes (though some still toppled monarchies, as in Ethiopia and Afghanistan). In addition, revolutions associated with guerilla warfare started spreading widely in Asia from the 1940–1950s and then in Africa (in Latin America guerilla warfare had lasted since the nineteenth century). But it is far from easy to define an exact border between halves of the century. First, the logic of events makes us unevenly divide the twentieth century. We consider its first half to last until the end of World War II, that is to 1944–1945 when the defeat of the Axis countries became clear. Thus, WWII serves as a clear demarcation line in the 28

This is connected with the high social status of the military; they considered themselves as a peculiar and independent social group. But in general, the causes seem rather complicated and need further research. Charles Tilly speaks about “the rise of the military” in the Third World (Tilly, 1992). On the role of military in revolution outcomes see also Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-Violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” (Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume).

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twentieth century. Second, the most vivid events of the second half of the twentieth century have their roots in its first half. This mostly refers to the employment of revolutions as a geopolitical tool or a means to undermine rivals. When analyzing Wickham-Crowley’s approach (1992), Sanderson fairly notes that explaining Third World revolutions is a somewhat different task from explaining earlier historical revolutions (Sanderson, 2010). Indeed, the revolutions in the Third World differ both from the revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and from the revolutions of the first half of the twentieth century in Europe and Russia and revolutions in Asia of the early twentieth century (about anticolonial and anti-dictatorial revolutions in the Third World see Dix, 1984; Dunn, 1989; Shugart, 1989; Goodwin & Skocpol, 1989; Farhi, 1990; Kim, 1991, 1996; Goldstone, Gurr, & Moshiri, 1991; Foran, 1992, 1997; Foran & Goodwin, 1993; Johnson, 1993; Goldstone, 1994, 2001; Snyder, 1999). Certainly, in the second half of the twentieth century the role of revolutions in advancing the historical process generally decreased in comparison with the first half (see Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” [Grinin, 2022d] as well as Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b). This was a positive point since world development would thus take a less dramatic path with a smaller number of victims and with less destructive means applied to advance. As to the scale of revolutions, the first half of the twentieth century seems to be the culmination point in this respect.

4.2 Lines of Revolutions of the First Half of the Twentieth Century Earlier we have introduced the idea of lines of revolutions as revolutions that follow one another in time over larger intervals but have a family lineage and resemblances. Here we identify the major lines of revolutions in the twentieth century. The first line of revolutions: the attempts to raise peripheral statehood and strengthen sovereignty by creating a modern, liberal constitutional nation-state. Here one may attribute the two revolutions in Turkey from 1908 to 1923; in Iran 1905– 1911; China 1911–1913, Mongolia 1911, Mexico 1910–1917 and also the Egyptian revolution of 1919 and the rise of national movement in India. The second line of revolutions: the formation of national states as a result of collapse or weakening of empires.29 These are the revolutions in Austro-Hungary and Germany in 1918 and subsequent years and in the national periphery of the Russian empire.30 The above-mentioned events in Turkey, Egypt and India were also connected with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and weakening of the British 29

As a result there were created Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and other; besides, the borders of the then-existing states were changed. 30 Along with successful revolutions one should also mentioned the failed revolutions and movements: in Ukraine, Caucasian region, and Central Asia.

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Empire. Here one can also attribute the events in Ireland in 1916–1923 (see Coleman, 2013). The third line of revolutions, which also emerged within the revolutionary wave related to WWI: the attempts at communist transformation of the world. Here one can mention in the first place the communist revolution in Russia and attempts at such revolutions in Europe, in particular, in Hungary, Slovakia, Germany in 1919 and 1923, Bulgaria and others; and also a successful revolution in Mongolia in 1921. The attempts at socialist revolutions in different countries were made in the 1930s due to the popularity of communist ideas and the emergence in the USSR of a center for inspiration and support of such revolutions (Comintern). To this line one may attribute the revolution in Spain (at a certain stage). The communist movement achieved the most success in China, where the communist guerilla forces managed to occupy whole areas. One can also mention the so-called uprising of the Nghê.-T˜ınh soviets in Vietnam under the communist leadership in 1930–1931. As we will see below, socialism-based events also took place in Latin America, in particular in Chile and El Salvador. The fourth line of revolutions: national-socialist revolutions. These are the rightwing revolution in Italy; the analogue of such revolution in Germany, the spread of fascist movements in a number of countries (including Slovakia, Croatia, and Great Albania as a result of German and Italian conquests) and the transition to dictatorship caused by revolutions (in Portugal and Spain, see below) and also by the growing right-wing bias of societies (see below). This line results from the impacts and outcomes of World War I, and also from the consequences of economic collapse and difficulties emerging as a result of the split of large political entities with receptive internal markets. In the first decades of the twentieth century nationalism and socialism both became political movements and powerful banners, with tragic consequences for the rest of the century. The fifth line of revolutions: democratic and social transformations, transformations of democracy. Democratic slogans were inherent to almost all revolutions; so this line may comprise many revolutions. For example, the Young Turk Revolution was democratic in its character but with a strong aspiration to military modernization which makes us attribute it to the first line. To a certain extent, the fifth line is a more artificial unification than other lines since there were quite a few pure democratic revolutions and their role is minor. The pure democratic revolutions mostly aimed at changing political regime since in ideological terms the change of regime (overthrow of dictatorship or monarchy, establishment of constitutional monarchy or republic) is a sufficient means to improve life through the election of appropriate legislators. The examples here are the revolutions in Portugal or Monaco that occurred in the same year of 1910,31 that in Greece in 1922 (see below), the analogue of revolution in Thailand (an analogue in the form of a military coup of 1932, the so-called Siamese revolution), and some revolutions 31

The so-called Monégasque Revolution in Monaco led to the establishment of constitutional monarchy. For tiny Monaco the revolution did not bring any serious consequences unlike for Portugal.

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in Latin America.32 The first Russian revolution of 1905–1907 can be attributed to this line since the most important aim (and achievement) of this revolution was the introduction of an elected representative body. Yet, this revolution month by month would obtain the features of a social one. Far from all revolutions brought a successful transition to a stable democracy. On the contrary, as we have already mentioned, the 1920s and 1930s were hardly favorable for democracy so that numerous coups took place that brought personal and party dictatorships to triumph for a while. Thus, a number of revolutions aspiring to create democracy ended with establishment of dictatorship (in Portugal in 1926—the dictatorship of Salazar; in Spain in 1939— Franco). This line also comprises revolutions with a social character. These are in the first place, the revolution in Spain and to a certain extent the revolution in Mexico.

4.3 Lines of Revolutions from the 1940s Through the Second Half of the Twentieth Century The first line of revolutions: communist revolutions and transformations related to them. This includes revolutions and analogues of revolutions starting from 1944 to 1949 in Eastern Europe, the August Revolution in Vietnam, the victory of communists in the civil war in China; revolution in Cuba in 1956–1959 and subsequent revolutionary transformations there. Here one should also attribute the struggle of communists and their victory in South Vietnam and Laos in the 1960s–1976 and the Maoist communist revolutions and movements (in Cambodia, Nepal, Burma and others),33 and also the analogue of revolution in Chile under Salvador Allende and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, the April 1978 revolution (analogue) in Afghanistan, as well as a number of other movements and attempts. The second line of revolutions: national-liberation revolutions and strengthening of peripheral statehood. This line includes not only revolutions but also numerous revolutionary and other movements for independence. They intensified after WWII (the liberation of Indonesia, independence of India and Pakistan) and continued over the period of 1950–1960 and partially in the 1970s. We observe such events (including analogues of revolutions) not only in Africa, but also in the Middle East. The most famous are the Arab-socialist revolutions (or to be more precise, analogues 32

In this region revolutions were often caused by the aspirations to overthrow dictatorships (at that time the revolutions were actually typically military coups) and in a more or less long period of time (from a year to two decades) a subsequent military coup would bring to power another military regime or a dictator. That was the case of the Bolivian national revolution in 1952 (see below). The revolution in Guatemala in 1944 is also a vivid example since the civil war ended here only in 1996 (see below), so this period can be called an epoch of disturbances. 33 There were also many episodes of different struggles with government under Maoist slogans and with support from China (at least for a certain time) with involvement of the Chinese population of different countries in the guerrilla wars (lasting for decades), rebellions and terror attacks in Thailand, Malaysia, in the Philippines and other countries including India. Many thousands of the so-called Naxalites operate in Indian states starting from 1967 up to the present.

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of revolution since they occurred in the form of military coups d’état) in Egypt in 1952, Libya in 1969, and in Syria in 1963–1966. Here one may also attribute the revolutions in Algeria, Mozambique and Angola which gained independence only in the course of long-lasting national-liberation struggles. To this line one may also attribute different movements for independence in different parts of the world, including the USSR and Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The third line of revolutions: anti-communist revolutions. Here one can point out the early revolutions (the rebellions and movements in the GDR in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1970 and 198034 ) and also revolutions in the socialist countries in 1989–1992 (Czechoslovakia, GDR, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Albania, Mongolia and the USSR). Actually, this line may also comprise different movements and processes in different national republics of the USSR and Yugoslavia which, however, mostly refer to the second line. The fourth line of revolutions: democratic and anti-monarchical revolutions with different outcomes. As we already mentioned, although democratic slogans were used in the absolute majority of revolutions there were a few purely democratic revolutions. Here one can mention the April 1960 revolution in Korea (and to a certain extent the Gwangju Uprising in 1980), the People Power (or Yellow) revolution of 1986 and the subsequent revolution in 2000–2001 in the Philippines, the October revolution in Sudan in 1964, and some others. Anti-monarchical revolutions and analogues were also observed: in Zanzibar in 1964, in Iran in 1979, and the analogues of revolution in Afghanistan in 1973, Yemen in 1962, Iraq in 1958 and Ethiopia in 1974 (all four occurred in the form of military coups). But the outcome of revolutions and even their directions were mostly quite different. In Iran, for example, the revolution quickly transformed into a religious one (thus, it is not surprising that it obtained a wide coverage in literature [e.g., Skocpol, 1982; Parsa, 2000; McDaniel, 1991; Aliev, 2004; Milani, 2015]); in Afghanistan the revolution first transformed into a communist and later into a religious revolution. In Zanzibar it obtained a strictly ethnic (anti-Arab) character which led to massacres of the Arab and South Asian civilians.

5 The Waves of Revolutions of the First Half of the Twentieth Century Having laid out the diverse types and the major lines of revolutions in the century, we now present the proper “waves of revolution”––that is, cases showing a fairly rapid and closely linked diffusion of revolutionary impetus.

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In Poland the strike of 1980–1981 and creation of the Independent Self-governing Labour Union ‘Solidarity’ led to the removal of Edward Gierek from power and later to imposing martial law (Bunce, 1989).

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5.1 The First Wave of 1905–1911 This wave included several major revolutions, including the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905, the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Chinese and Mongolian Revolutions of 1911, and the Mexican Revolution of 1910, as well as two minor revolutions in that year (Portugal, Monaco). The Russian revolution of 1905–1907 was of a peculiar character and can be characterized as social-democratic. It took much time to ripen and was triggered by Russia’s military defeat in the war with Japan. Other revolutions of this wave were to a large extent connected with the first line of revolution (rise of peripheral statehood and strengthening of sovereignty) since the revolutions would break out in the East and in the periphery (Mexico), except for minor revolutions of the democratic line (the Portuguese revolution, the revolution in Monaco in 1910). The major causes of these revolutions were a desire for modernization as well as constitutional regimes and related changes and also attempts to eliminate their countries’ dependence on the West (except for Russia which was an imperialist country itself).35 The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 in China (similar in many respects to the Persian revolution) was caused by the painful national humiliation of decades of Western incursions and demands, and aspirations to make China truly independent. This revolution also caused a revolution in Mongolia in 1911 (and declaration of its independence from China) which was supported by the Russian interference. The Young Turk revolution in 1908, organized by revolutionary officers, aimed at restoration of the former greatness of the Ottoman Empire. At this time, revolutionaries in many parts of the world looked to the superiority of European (and American) power; hence European institutions and ideas, as well as their revolutionary history, were taken as models. However, the attempts to introduce constitutional and democratic regimes in Persia, Turkey and China ended in establishing new dictatorships––in Iran a new dynasty came to power; in Turkey a coup d’état was led by Enver Pasha; and in China Yuan Shikai sought to reclaim Imperial rule before the country dissolved into warlord fiefdoms. Eventually, these revolutions did open a path to modernization, but in each case the path was long and fraught with pitfalls. The Ottoman Empire needed another revolution. In Iran and China the revolutions triggered a long epoch of disturbances which in both countries lasted until the mid-1920s, followed by revolutions later in the century. Perhaps the most favorable outcome was observed in Mexico, where although the revolutionary wars of 1910–1920 were extremely bloody and destructive, there emerged a constitutional regime that later provided substantial land reforms and modernization before shifting to a stable one-party regime that peacefully transitioned to democracy at the end of the century [David-Fox, 2017]).

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On the strong religious aspect of Iranian revolution see Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a: Sect. 4, in this volume).

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5.2 The Second Wave of Revolutions in 1917–1923 This wave was related to WWI and led to the emergence of many new states and also to a considerable revision of boundaries. As we have noted, at least two revolutionary lines emerged within this wave and others were reinforced. In the situation of declining or collapsing multinational empires (the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman) there opened a way for a number of national revolutions.36 At that, some of them were actually peaceful and conducted via partially legitimate means (most of all, in the countries where democracy had already proliferated). Thus, in 1918 the revolution in Austria passed with little effort.37 By this time the evolutionary events were already in progress in all parts of Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were also mostly peaceful and relatively legitimate. In Hungary the democratic revolution would transform into a communist one because many prisoners of war who returned from Russia were fascinated with communist ideas and also because Hungary experienced humiliation of territorial losses from the newly emerging states. It is also worth noting that the states that emerged partially or fully on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, and also Rumania) experienced certain problems in introducing democracy and in nation building. In Austria fascist and ultra-right ideas were on the rise and in early 1933 the parliament ceased its activity while Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss set a course for dictatorship, prohibiting the right and left wing and resorting to repression. This eventually led to the revolt of socialists and anarchists in Vienna and other cities in February 1934 and actually to a small-scale civil war between the governmental forces and left forces which caused numerous victims. Only Czechoslovakia was relatively trouble-free, besides, the nationalist movements among the German and Slovakian minorities were considerable. Although the revolution in Germany was not that smooth, there were relatively few bloody incidents (like the defeat of the insurgents in Berlin in January 1919) despite the attempts of the communists to turn it into a more intensive communist revolution. It is interesting that this revolution not only overthrew the major monarch in the country (Kaiser) but also more than 20 other crowned heads. But the process of change could hardly proceed without serious hardships, especially in the context of the peace treaty’s tough terms; and, so, as we said above, it turned into a revolutionary epoch. The situation in Greece and the Ottoman Empire was also serious due to the war between them. The defeat of the Greek troops in Turkey in 1922, and a forced resettlement of the Asia Minor Greeks to their motherland in September 1922 generated a revolution in Greece (whose bulk was formed by the Greek military). The monarchy was overthrown and a republic was established. But there were no other consequences. In Turkey, under the need to repel the Allies and stop their plans to divide 36

There are much information and interesting details on the Russian Revolution of 1917–1921 in Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume). 37 On October 21, 1918 the German-speaking deputies of the Reichsrat declared themselves the temporal national Assembly of German-Austria.

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the country after its defeat in World War I, a revolution (1919–1923) was led by Kemal Atatürk (the title surname was granted to him later on) that led to dramatic transformation of the state and life in Turkey, and to its accelerated modernization following the Western pattern. Profound transformations also occurred in Russia and its periphery (see also Table in Appendix 1, lines 11 etc.), which eventually transformed into the USSR, which provided support for the line of communist revolutions. Almost every participant of World War I paid for it somehow in subsequent political upheaval. The defeated regimes paid first, and collapsed or were overthrown. Yet, several of the winning countries faced grim prospects as well. Ireland would revolt and break away from the United Kingdom, and Italy obviously exerted itself to the utmost and so the economic situation was bad—in 1920–1922 the communists and anarcho-syndicalists scaled up their activities in order to get power. In this situation nationalism and a strong paternalist state seemed a way out. Finally, by stirring up his followers to participate in the armed march to Rome in 1922 the fascists led by Benito Mussolini managed to come to power and create a new government. The fascist (national-socialist) revolution in Italy generated a pattern of similar revolutions which obviously perceived democracy as a burden (Mussolini supported the Ustaša Movement in Croatia, the fascist movement in Albania and in some other places, and was admired by Hitler). On the whole, this second wave of revolutions of the twentieth century led to the emergence of the first communist state, enhanced modernization in some Asian states (including China where revolutionary processes were still in progress) and strengthened dictatorships in new and defeated European countries. It thus created powerful revolutionary movements, many of which continued to influence political trajectories throughout the century by providing alternatives to the constitutional model which had previously dominated revolutions. Thus, the state started to aspire to transform from what Marx called “a night watchman” into a total and all-embracing entity.

5.3 The Flood of Transformations in the 1930s The 1930s can hardly be considered as a revolutionary wave period (though as we said earlier there were many transformative events of different nature). In a certain sense a small-scale wave of revolutions swept Latin America connected with the 1920– 1930s economic crisis (the Great Depression). It is not surprising since these countries severely suffered from trade barriers and the reduced demand for their goods. Here one can mention the so-called revolution in Brazil in 1930 (which we would better call an analogue of revolution), the revolutionary events in Chile in 1931–1932 (where the military dictatorship was overthrown and replaced by a fragile socialist republic),38 38

The events of this period in Chile can be considered as a democratic revolution which failed to transform into a socialist revolution. Yet, here the peculiar features of Latin American revolutions manifested to the full so they were accompanied with military coups and countercoups.

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revolution in Cuba in 1933–1934, and also a number of other events. In 1930 in El Salvador there was a failed communist revolt (the movement originated already in 1927) while in 1926–1934 in Nicaragua the insurgent army of Augusto Sandino organized a guerrilla war against the government and American troops; however, after certain success it ended with disarmament of the insurgents under an agreement with government, subsequent arrest and assassination of Sandino and the establishment of a forty-year dictatorship of the Somoza Dynasty. Additional revolutionary events took place in 1930–1932 in Peru; the economic crisis also generated an antidemocratic coup in Argentina in 1930. While the 1930s may not have seen major revolutions, it was nonetheless a landmark decade in terms of major revolutionary events within ongoing revolutionary epochs. The USSR implemented the radical policies of collectivization, forced stateled industrialization, cultural revolution, and under the guise of increasing class struggle, the flywheel of repression was launched against all societal layers, including purges targeting many members of the Soviet elite. At that, the demonstrated developmental rates (which were the highest in a world overtaken with severe depression) made the USSR an attractive example. In Central, Southern and Eastern Europe the objective social-economic situation pushed many European countries towards strict models of political order and to dictatorships of ‘strong personalities’ (Ponomareva, 2014: 20; about the first socalled backside from democracy see Huntington, 1993; about the role of individuals in history [including their role in revolutions and post-revolutionary epochs] see Grinin, 2008b, 2010b, 2012a). In Italy the fascist regime continued to strengthen and gradually transform the society. In 1926 (after the attempted assassination of Mussolini) the repressions expanded, the opposition parties were banned, and the elections were more and more put under control. A corporate state was established which started to create statecontrolled entities. The society quickly made its way towards totalitarianism, yet, the Italian variant of totalitarianism was just a precursor of the German one. In Germany in the late 1930s, in an analogue of revolution of the nationalist-socialist type, after his election as Chancellor Hitler transformed Germany into a totalitarian ethnoracist imperial state. Then with this fifth column, Germany managed to destabilize situation in Austria and Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia which both served as a pretext and facilitated the conquest. To a certain extent the events of 1938 in Austria and the Sudetenland can be considered also as analogues of revolutions of nationalistsocialist type. In China, the revolutionary epoch continued and intensified, as the Sino-Japanese War merged with the revolutionary civil war. As already pointed, in 1925–1928, Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in uniting China and formed a new government. In the 1920s and 1930s, China became a zone of Soviet activities and of German (and to a certain extent of American) ambitions as well. But in 1931 Japan launched its aggression against China which in 1937 transformed into a full-scale invasion. This enabled the survival of the Chinese Communist Party, as Chiang Kai-shek was forced to halt his effort to destroy the communists in order to repel the Japanese, eventually striking a deal with Mao Zedong to combine forces against the invader.

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Third, revolutionary countries started or continued to actively affect revolutionary preparations in other countries via special organizations and other means. As to Comintern, its attempts to inspire revolutions mostly failed while the Nazi Germany achieved more success. Probably, the most vivid revolutionary event of the 1930s was the Spanish Revolution of 1931–1939. This revolution passed through all possible stages of revolution (about them see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]), including intervention and interference of several other countries, beginning as a social-democratic revolution and ending with a right-wing dictatorship.

6 Waves and Mini-lines of Revolutions of the 1940s and Second Half of the Twentieth Century 6.1 The Third Wave of Revolutions in 1944–1949 The second wave of revolutions after World War I, and especially the continued revolutionary transformations of the 1930s (the rise of fascism and Nazism and the rapid industrialization of the USSR) helped bring about World War II. The cost and defeats of that conflict then launched a third wave of the twentieth century revolutions in 1944–1949 (in India and Israel/Palestine it began around early 1942 and 1943, see Appendix 1). This third wave was predetermined by the outcomes of WWII; that is, by the defeat of Germany, its allies and Japan and the liberation of the countries they had conquered and the subsequent occupation of those territories by the members of the anti-Hitler coalition. Here we should make some preliminary remarks: • Not only revolutions but also other types of events (including the people’s armed resistance) were naturally connected with occupation, resistance, liberation and post-war order39 ; • The revolutionary events involved many societies at different levels of development, and so included classic revolutionary events as well as many revolution analogues and mixed type events; • In the Asian countries the revolutionary events (at least, at their first stages) were national-liberation movements. They could thus start as liberation struggles against the Japanese and then later become anti-colonial revolutions against the metropolis (France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain). • Some revolutions would launch revolutionary epochs (or even epoch of disturbances) that later encompassed civil wars, genocides, and further revolutionary transformations. 39

In 1944–1945 several successful and failed uprisings against the Nazi occupants took place in Europe: the Warsaw Uprising, the Liberation of Paris, the Slovak National Uprising, the Prague uprising, the April insurrection in Italy and some others.

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Thus, for example, the revolutionary epoch in Vietnam lasted for more than 30 years––from 1945 to 1970. The epoch of disturbances in Laos lasted for about 20 years––from late 1950s to 1975––after which a complicated epoch of communist transformations started which also led to the overthrow of the royal power (in 1975) and formation of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. In neighboring Cambodia, the epoch of disturbances started later but lasted for about 40 years. From 1947 the civil war resumed there. In the 1960s, with the outbreak of the second Indochina war, the Vietnamese organized military camps in Cambodia which led to American interference into Cambodian affairs. After the coup of 1970 in Cambodia, a new period of civil war started there which was followed by the revolution of the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979) led by Pol Pot––one of the bloodiest revolutions in history. Then the Vietnamese army took down the Pol Pot regime and installed a new parliamentary regime. The troops were withdrawn only in 1987. The epoch of disturbances in Burma was especially long, it lasted about 75–80 years (1948–2012); perhaps, it continues even till now. After World War II, developing countries around the world were drawn to the Soviet model as a path to rapid modernization and to making a break with the Western imperialist powers. The USSR victory in WWII promoted the spreading of communist ideology. Taking Soviet support, a line of communist revolutions and revolutionary parties was launched in China, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia and other nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, many of which came to fruition (or defeat) only in the 1950s–1980s (as discussed in the next section below). In the Eastern European countries there were no classic revolutions, of course, but the analogues of revolutions. The analogues of revolutions in the five to-be socialist countries of Eastern Europe may be divided into two groups: (1) revolutions that started as antifascist revolts and democratic in their nature but due to the circumstances would later transform into socialist. This transition was facilitated by the Soviet occupation, by the role the communists played in the resistance and also the general left-bias of the society as a result of struggle with fascism. Thus, the communists managed to win the elections (not everywhere) and referendums (yet, not without vote rigging) especially if they had previously gained the key positions; (2) revolutions that broke out during the communists’ attempts to gain power. The former type is characteristic for the countries collaborating with Germany. The second type was characteristic for Czechoslovakia and Poland. Finally, there was one more way to socialism––due to transformations with the help and under a strict control of the Soviet occupation troops (in Northern Korea, German Democratic Republic). In this case, one may hardly speak about revolutions (or even about analogues of revolutions). But since this does not affect the intensity and scale of revolutionary events then such kinds of changes may be called the transformations with revolutionary importance.40

40

Let us also point to the attempts of communist revolutions or the rise of communist movements in other countries where the Soviet troops were absent: in Greece (see below), the communist revolt in the South Korean Jeju Province-island in 1948–1949; the guerrilla communist movement in

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To this type of transformations belong the forced transformations in the countries occupied by the USA (Japan and South Korea and also Western Germany). However, the transformations there were less radical than in socialist countries. With account of the aforesaid we can also distinguish groups of revolutions connected with different aspects of the abovementioned large-scale world-system changes, and also identify characteristics of other events. Revolutions connected with long-lasting armed resistance in the countries occupied by fascists. Here we speak about Yugoslavia and Albania in the first place where thanks to operating guerrilla detachments which later grew into armies, the communists came to power and then conducted revolutionary transformations. Similar situation was observed in Greece where the resistance army headed by communists succeeded to liberate almost the whole country. But the British occupation of Greece hampered the communists from coming to power. As a result, the opposition between communists and royalists turned into a civil war from 1946 to 1949 which ended in the communists’ defeat. So if one speaks about the Greek revolution it should be defined as a national-liberation type with failed transformation into a communist one. In all cases the revolutionary pattern implies peripheral advance (see Huntington, 1968; Goldstone, 2014: 27–29). Revolutions caused by the defeat of Japan. Here one can list the revolution (uprising) in Vietnam in August 1945 and also the transformations of revolutionary importance in North and South Koreas. The struggle with Japan became the turning point for national-liberation struggle in Indonesia and subsequent cataclysms in Burma; and it also laid foundations for the struggle for independence of Malaysia. Finally, it put an end to the civil war in China, because the communists became strong and succeeded to defeat the Kuomintang. In some cases, revolutionary transformation occurred through agreement, as with the British withdrawal from India, though this had been forced upon Britain by massive demonstrations. But whether by revolution or revolution analogues, few nations in Europe or Asia had the same regimes within five years after World War II as they had before the war. Revolutions in Latin America were not connected with the end of war; however, similar processes went on there. In particular, in June 1944 in Guatemala a popular uprising removed the dictator Jorge Ubico, established a democratic regime and conducted a number of reforms including large-scale agrarian reforms. It is considered that this revolution lasted until 1954, when the elected president Jacobo Árbenz was ousted during the military coup inspired by US intelligence agencies who accused Árbenz of being a communist. As a result, the military junta led by Carlos Castillo Armas came to power. Several years later these events eventually provoked a civil war in Guatemala which would last with intervals from 1960 to 1996. So again we see how revolutions initiate long periods of instability and confrontation in society. Other countries were also unstable: for example, in 1948 in Columbia there broke out armed riots (El Bogotazo) which launched a ten years’ civil war (with the participation of Malaya and the Philippines after 1948 and in some other places (there was also the participation of the communists in the civil war in Burma/Myanmar). About the Maoist movements see also below.

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communists). The military coup in Venezuela in 1945, which briefly installed a democratic government, is sometimes called a revolution but although it was supported by the population and led to certain political changes in the country it is hardly a revolution, all the more so since in 1948 there occurred another coup that brought the democracy to an end.

6.2 The 1950s–1980s. Lines of Revolutions and Revolutionary Events Unlike the previous period, i.e. the wave of revolutions in the 1940s, the revolutions and revolutionary events of the 1950s and 1980s were not so frequent (the anti-communist revolutions of the late 1980s are considered as a distinct wave and discussed below). Sometimes there occurred several revolutionary events within a short period, like for example, in the end of the 1970s (the analogue of revolution in Afghanistan in 1978, revolution in Iran in 1979, and that in Nicaragua in 1979).41 Or we can mention national-liberation struggle in the Portuguese colonies: in 1961 it started in Angola, in 1963 it began in Guinea-Bissau, in 1964 it started in Mozambique. But still one can hardly call this period a revolutionary wave since there were not enough revolutions for a true wave (see the definition of a revolutionary wave above in the Sect. 3.1 [point 2]; see also Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” [Grinin, 2022f] and especially Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” [Grinin, 2022g, in this volume]). We define such groups of events as a sort of mini-lines of revolutions (see below). Outside of the anti-colonial revolutions in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, there were only a few true revolutions in these decades (e.g. Bolivia 1952, Cuba 1959, Nicaragua and Iran 1979), and they were widely dispersed in time and space. However, there were many revolution analogues, especially military coups and attempted secessions and revolutions. One reason there were many different kinds of events is that there was more than one world-system factor producing them. The most important world-system factors propelling revolutions and revolutionary events of the period were: the rise of anticolonial movements; the growing national identity of a number of peoples with the spread of radio, television, and literacy; the opposition between the communist and capitalist blocs (and also the intensified international Maoist movement); and the urge towards democracy.

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About these revolutions as well as about the US support of different dictatorship regimes see Midlarsky and Roberts (1991); Goldstone (2001); Halliday (1999); Snyder (1999, 2001); Pastor (2001); Parsa (2000); Dix (1984); Liu (1988); Goodwin and Skocpol (1989); Farhi (1990).

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Revolutions, analogues of revolutions and other revolutionary events in the 1950s– 1980s occurred in many different parts of the world, including Europe.42 Revolutionary events took place in democratic countries as well. In 1968, a whole wave of revolutionary movements without revolutions swept Europe and the USA, as revolutionary student and labor unrest occurred in France, Great Britain, Germany, the USA and other countries, but they did not aim at the ouster of governments and did not lead to them. In the 1960s–1970s there were massive student, race, antinuclear and anti-war demonstrations and protests in the USA. By contrast, the 1980s (until the very end when a new wave of revolutions started) were more peaceful in revolutionary terms than the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Although one can hardly speak about waves of revolutions during this period still we may speak about a sort of mini-lines of revolutions. These are events taking place in different countries and periods–i.e. not simultaneously, but separated by an over decade, yet having common reasons and sometimes even goals and ideologies and producing mutual influence. Such mini-lines can often be traced on a regional scale, in particular we observe them in the Near East, Latin America, and Africa (we may speak about mini-line also in respect of the anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe in the 1950s–1970s). Such mini-lines have certain common civilizational and historical features, genetic roots and geopolitical conditions. Similar to other periods, revolutions should be treated within a general trend with military coups, peaceful coming to power followed by further radical transformations and other analogues of revolutions as well as well as in combination with counterrevolutionary movements which created peculiar developmental epochs (e.g., in Chile after 1973). Here we should point out that the number of military coups exceeds by many times the number of revolutions for most of the post-war period.43 We consider some of the military coups (e.g., in the Arab countries in the 1950s–1960s) as analogues of revolutions since they provoked profound changes and mass mobilization and also relied on the formed and attractive ideology (which is a characteristic of revolutions and their analogues). But most military coups are not analogues of revolutions, but just a change of power or oust of democratic government. Among the latter one can distinguish a peculiar type of military coup which are better defined as counterrevolutionary. These were the ones in Latin America: in Guatemala in 1954, Bolivia in 1964, in Chile in 1973; and also in Europe, for example, in Greece in 1967; in Poland in 1981. We examine some of the major revolutionary lines and mini-lines of this period according to the regions where they developed.

42

At that, the analogue of revolution in Portugal, the so called Carnation Revolution, provided opportunities to stop wars for independence in Angola and Mozambique. This event also launched the transition to democratic rule in a number of countries: Brazil, Greece, and even Spain (see Huntington, 1993). 43 Beissinger (2017) shows that in 1946–1994 the number of military coups surpasses even the number of revolution episodes (not to speak about revolutions) by two-four times. Yet, in the end of the century the number of military coups considerably decreased (for the analysis of military coups in different regions after WWII see Tilly, 1996; Huntington, 1993).

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Eastern Europe: anti-communist revolutions. The first such events were the workers strikes, unrests and even revolts in German Democratic Republic (GDR) in June–July of 1953. The movement started as economic protests but gradually grew into a political movement with demands to oust the government. It spread to the whole GDR and was suppressed by a huge number of Soviet troops. One can hardly define these events as a revolution but this movement probably could have grown into revolution if not for the Soviet troops. The events in October– November 1956 in Hungary better fit the notion of revolution. Here the movement for rehabilitation and renewal of the communist party started under the influence of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and gradually grew into an anti-communist revolution. The new revisionist government of Hungary declared its exit from the Warsaw treaty and addressed the West for help against the USSR. Soon the revolutionaries started to get arms and tried to forcibly take power in Budapest, and there actually started a military revolt that was suppressed by Soviet troops, similarly to the GDR. In the same year, similar but smaller protests took place in Poland (in particular on June 28 in Poznan the workers’ actions were suppressed causing numerous casualties [Williams et al., 1995]). Finally, the events of the so-called Prague spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968 took place against the background of a general rise of protests in Europe.44 The movement escaped the control of the communist reformers and transformed into an antisocialist and antiSoviet revolution. It may be considered as an analogue of revolution and the course of events should have brought profound changes in the country. However, it was crushed by the troops of the Warsaw treaty member-states. This mini-line also includes the upheavals of 1970–1971 in Poland which can hardly be considered as a genuine revolution. However, the events of 1980–1981 in Poland were evidently close to revolution. They ended with imposition of martial law by General Jaruzelski. The Middle East. In the Middle East the revolutionary events were caused by several interrelated factors: national-liberation struggles, the establishment of statehood in the Arab societies (which was weak from the very beginning, so the establishment of borders and sovereignty caused tensions and conflicts [see Grinin et al., 2019: Chap. 2; Grinin & Korotayev, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c]). Probably, the most vivid manifestation of weak statehood could be found in Yemen, which in 1948 entered an epoch of disturbances lasting until 1994, including civil wars and separation into two countries and then reunification, and then in 2011 destabilization returned. Civil war in 1948 was connected with a coup (the king was assassinated and his heir was removed from power) and in 1962 with the overthrow of monarchy. Both events are sometimes called revolutions, yet the former hardly suffices a revolution and the latter is more likely an analogue of revolution. Besides, many countries traditionally interfered in Yemen’s conflicts.

44

In 1968 student protests and strikes were held in Belgrade, yet they would cease by themselves soon.

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An important role was played by the strengthening secular trend and etatism in the Arab world,45 resulting in the choice for political forces between the world mainstream trends (socialism and capitalism) and also the struggle with post-colonialism, imperialism and Zionism (with Israel to be exact). It is significant that there were no classic social revolutionary events in the Middle East in this period except the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. We more often observe analogues of revolutions with the military playing the leading role (Egypt 1952, Iraq 1958 and 1968 [the latter coup completed the establishment of a new regime when the Iraqi Ba’athist political party came to power], Syria 1963–1970 [three coups in 1963, 1966, and 1970; during the first coup the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party came to power, while the second and third coups were the results of the struggle for power until Hafez al-Assad came to power]; the already mentioned coup in Yemen in 1962; in Libya in 1969, in Sudan 1969; in Afghanistan 1973 and 197846 ). The events most close to a revolution type were the national-liberation struggle in Algeria in 1954– 1963 and the so-called October revolution in Sudan in 1964. Another interesting example of national-liberation struggle was the fight of the Palestinians for independence headed by the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat. This struggle intensified from the early 1970s and eventually led to partial victory in the form of the Palestinian autonomy in the 1990s, which then gave way to a schism and divided rule between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in other parts of occupied Palestine. The only classic, yet novel, revolution in this region during these decades was the foundation of the Iranian Islamic Republic through a revolution against the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Pahlevi’s father had come to power in the 1920s, in a coup following the Constitutional Revolution of 1905. Mohammed Reza took over at his father’s abdication, and sought to carry out a program of modernization, including land reforms to undermine the clergy, military modernization to become a major power, and rapid industrialization. However, he depended on deals with foreign powers to develop and pay for Iran’s oil, and this led to an attempt by Parliamentary leader Mohammed Mossadegh to nationalize the oil industry and more widely distribute its revenues. In 1953, with help from America’s CIA, Mossadegh was driven out of power, and the Shah became an even more authoritarian dictator. His corruption, cronyism, deals with foreigners, and economic mismanagement united almost every stratum of Iranian society against him: oil field and professional workers, government bureaucrats, traditional Bazaar merchants, peasants (many of whom were driven to the cities by his land reforms), and the clergy. More radical members of the clergy, students, and workers were drawn to networks of resistance, led by the exiled religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, whose recorded sermons circulated widely. In the late 1970s, the US President Jimmy Carter, who had run on a platform of championing human rights, pressured the Shah, as a leading ally, to show more toleration of dissent. This allowed his opponents to organize large-scale 45

Later, in the 1970s–1980s this movement weakened and was replaced by growing Islamism (see Grinin et al., 2019). 46 Military coups took place in other Middle Eastern countries: Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan, but they cannot be described as analogues of revolutions.

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protest rallies. When these were violently repressed by the Shah’s security forces, Khomeini turned the repression to his advantage by promoting large-scale funeral processions for the “martyrs,” which turned into large anti-regime protests. By 1979, the protests had grown to massive scale and the Shah, who was now quite ill, had lost the will to fight. He left Iran for medical treatment in the U.S., and the weak government he left behind was soon forced to give in to the protestors. Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to lead a revolutionary government that was novel in being led by religious leaders, and making all state decisions subject to veto by the “Supreme Leader” (Khomeini) on the basis of his interpretation of Islamic law. The more resolutely secular and pro-Western Iranians who had been close to the Shah, and even some secular revolutionaries who had joined the revolution against the Shah, were forced to flee as the Ayatollah reshaped Iran into a more religious and intolerant society (Keddie, 1981; Skocpol, 1982; Arjomand, 1988; Moghadam, 1989; Farhi, 1990; Moaddel, 1993; Milani, 2015; more detail about the Iranian revolution see Chapter “Two Experiences of the Islamic ‘Revival’: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” [Filin et al., 2022a, in this book]). The Islamic Republic has not only survived past Khomeini’s death, but has become a major regional power, supporting sympathetic parties in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and becoming a major opponent of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates and the United States. Communist revolutions in Indochina. In 1945 the defeat of Japan opened the way to independence for the countries of Indochina; however, soon they had to struggle for independence from their former imperial power, France. It is worth noting that in contrast with Britain, which decided to peacefully set several colonies and dominions free, France sought to hold on to its colonial possessions, which caused national-liberation struggles in Indochina and Algeria. Besides, the French suppressed independence revolts in Algeria in 1945 and in Madagascar in 1947. However, in some cases the British also suppressed national-liberation rebellions, in particular, in British Malaya and Kenya (Gromyko et al., 1988: 175). Vietnam fought France from 1945 to 1954; a negotiated peace then led to split of Vietnam into the northern communist regime (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and the pro-Western republic of South Vietnam. However, corruption and peasant grievances over landholding (many large French plantations in the rice-paddy regions were simply taken over by local landlords) led to a coup d’etat in 1963 followed by intensifying guerrilla war in Southern Vietnam supported from Hanoi. The United States responded by sending military assistance and then large numbers of American troops to what became a full-scale war that also involved Laos and Cambodia. The war in Vietnam ended in 1976 when Northern Vietnam conquered the Southern part, yet in Laos and Cambodia the revolutionary events went on for another decade. As noted above, the revolution in Cambodia brought to power the genocidal Khmer Rouge communists, who sought to destroy urban and bourgeois life in Cambodia (which they renamed Kampuchea). They were only defeated after a war with Vietnam which they lost. Other revolutions in Asia. We have already mentioned the communist rebellions in British Malaya (the first, from 1948 to 1960, was put down by the British;

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the second from 1968 to 1989, by the government of Malaysia). The communist revolutionary movement continued in Asia. Moreover, starting from the 1960s the Maoist influence on revolutionary processes was perceived in Asia very well. We may also remember the events in Nepal, yet they go beyond the defined period. But with the account of the subject matter of our volume they are quite relevant. In 1996, the guerilla warriors with participation of communists started the so-called Maoist Conflict against the government; the Maoists actively led it being supported by population. Finally, in 2006 the king of Nepal was actually deprived of power (in 2008 the country was proclaimed a republic) and in 2007 signed a ceasefire with the Maoists, who were integrated into the country’s political system. In 2018 communists (Maoists and Marxists) united into a single party. Thus, Nepal is one of the few countries where communists rule. But the Maoist impact was perceived not only in Asia but in other parts of the world as well (see below). Alongside the successful communist revolutions there were a number of failed attempts, e.g. in Indonesia. On the night of September 30 to October 1 of 1965 the communists attempted a coup but the president in office Sukarno made a successful countercoup which led to mass murders and purges taking the lives of hundreds thousands of the president’s political opponents. In this context, we may also mention the communist guerrilla war in the Philippines (guerilla forces were created already during the Japanese occupation) which lasted until 1974. There were also other national liberation movements. For instant the Bengali nationalist uprising in East Pakistan, which led—with Indian intervention—to the secession of East Pakistan from Pakistan, and its independence in 1971 as the new state of Bangladesh. Let us also mention the struggle of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka which lasted from 1983 to 2009 and ended with the Tigers’ defeat. Also one should mention numerous Kurdish rebellions and resistance in the Northern Iraq from the 1940s to the 1960s, none of which produced a Kurdish state, but which did lead to the creation of a semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq in the twenty-first century. We should also observe that there was a democratic revolution in South Korea in 1960. In 1960, massive student and urban protests drove from power President Syngman Rhee who had been the country’s only President since South Korea was formed in 1948. Still, the 1960 revolution is notable as being the first case in Asia of a government being driven from power by non-violent protests following claims of a rigged election, which would later become a common pattern for “color revolutions” from the 1980s to the 2010s. The Korean model was followed in 1986 in the Philippines. There, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos was asked by the US to demonstrate his legitimacy by a national election. He was opposed in a national campaign by Corazon Aquino, the widow of a popular politician that Marcos had assassinated. Aquino was backed by the archbishop of the Philippines, and most voters believed she had won. But when the vote counting was delayed, and then Marcos was declared the winner, non-violent protests arose in Manila and around military bases. This “yellow” revolution (from the color of ribbons worn by protestors) or “People Power Revolution” was joined by a faction of the military, and Marcos was forced to flee, leaving Aquino to become President. The Yellow Revolution—with many images of peaceful crowds swarming

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and immobilizing military installations, and the heartwarming appeal of Ms. Aquino as the courageous victor—became in many respects the harbinger of modern color revolutions. Latin America. In general, the period between 1950 and the 1980s was a time of rather active modernization in Latin America, including industrial development, urbanization, development of modern education systems and other spheres which caused huge social shifts (one should also account that before the 1980s population growth remained strong). However, the tensions in these societies were considerable as well. The traditional disparities in income between the highest and lowest layers remained very large or grew larger, but now with a more educated and connected population, opposition could organize and grow. Socio-political struggles thus dramatically aggravated, bringing clashes between political and ideological forces over whether government would back the rich or support workers and peasants (in certain respects affected by the presence of the world communist camp as well as the impact of the Maoists47 ). The clearest example of large reforms, continuous revolutionary protests and military coups in the 1950s–1970s was Argentina. This period in Argentina can be called the epoch of Perón since the brightest political figures were President Juan Domingo Perón and his wives: Evita and Isabel. The latter served as vice president during her husband’s third term as president from 1973 to 1974 and succeeded him as president upon his death (1974–1976). Perón was one of the leaders of the military coup of 1943 which allowed him to become President in 1946 and perform considerable changes in the Constitution. Against this background his rule until 1955 may be considered with certain reservations as an analogue of revolution. All the more so since his rule ended with his ousting in September 1955 during another military coup which was preceded by anti-Perón civil actions. In the 1950s–1970s in Latin America there occurred many more coups (only in Argentina can one count more than four successful military coups). The number of revolutions was much smaller even if counted together with analogues of revolutions. In Latin America the role of the military is traditionally large so revolutionary events, e.g. involving major land reforms, often had the features of a ‘military revolution’ (Stroganov, 1995: 221), like, for example, the Peruvian revolution of 1968–1975. Among numerous military coups there were a few that resulted from revolutions from above (Ibid.: 225; i.e. analogues of revolutions), like for example, the revolution in Panama on October 11, 1968 led by general Omar Torrijos.48 An important event was the national revolution in Bolivia in 1952 (which was anti-dictatorial, democratic and social in its character). In 1951 the right-wing forces 47

A rather famous example is the communist movement with Maoist bias called “The Shining Path” in Peru which launched a guerrilla war in many regions of the country starting from 1980. In the early 1990s the movement was suppressed but it actually exists until present (about the movement see McClintock, 1998). 48 Let us also note that the positive meaning of the notion of revolution was strongly misused to denote almost every coup and antigovernment actions, like it is in case with the Black Power Revolution (or February revolution) in Trinidad and Tobago in 1970. The above mentioned military coup that ousted Perón was called ‘the liberation revolution’.

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and the military made an attempt to ban from power the president Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro, who had been legally elected from the leftist Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario [MNR]). In 1951 the dictatorship was established but the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement prepared for rebellion (relying on the tin miners and other sympathizing population) in all the country’s major cities (see Thomas, 1960: 400). Ten thousand armed miners came to help the insurgents. During the three days’ fighting the army and repressive apparatus were defeated (Stroganov, 2002: 159). As a result, on April 9, 1952 the dictatorship government fled. The Bolivian national revolutionary government lasted until the coup of November 4, 1964. For the twelve years that the MNR ruled the country, it conducted agrarian and other reforms that affected the course of Bolivian political, economic and social development. The most influential and famous Latin American revolution of this period is the Cuban Revolution, which started in 1956 as an anti-dictatorship revolt but eventually grew into a communist revolution.49 Its success, and its anti-American vector, had a considerable impact on revolutionary movements in other countries. Besides, the USA, in panic, feared intensifying protest actions in the countries with dictatorships (which were quite numerous in Latin America) following the Cuban scenario. In the late 1970s, a similar revolution occurred in Nicaragua. In 1978, the dictator Anastasio Somoza, Jr. under pressure from American President Jimmy Carter lightened the dictatorship (as he did this with respect to the Iranian shah—see above) and this led to intensified protest actions while the Sandinista front (which operated from the early 1960s under the influence of the Cuban revolution) gained the initiative. In 1979, under the pressure of fast-spreading popular protests and military campaigns by the Sandinista guerilla forces, Somoza was ousted and escaped. His vast possessions and other concentrations of wealth were taken over and administered by the new socialist regime. Though the Sandinistas promised a democracy, and (surprisingly) even gave up power after losing one election in 1990, after Sandinist leader Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006 he increasingly eliminated any opposition, and instituted what became essentially one-party rule. In neighboring El Salvador, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front emerged in 1980 with Cuban backing. It incorporated five revolutionary organizations with socialist and communist aims. Active antigovernment actions lasted for more than ten years but finally, in 1992, reconciliation was achieved between the government and the opposition (Midlarsky & Roberts, 1991; see also McClintock, 1998).50 This was a situation of long drawn out revolutionary struggles lasting a decade or more. There were further revolutionary analogues in the 1970s and 1980s. In Chile, the 1970 elections brought to power a leftist government that was headed by the socialist 49

The first attempt of a revolution failed in 1953; however, Batista’s government set the Castro brothers free along with other prisoners, the brothers emigrated and prepared a new attempt of revolution following the peripheral advance model which turned a success. 50 That was not unusual situation for Latin America (since the USA actively interfered with the events) when political forces consolidated against the background of some agreements. That was the case in Columbia.

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Salvador Allende. First, they launched quite radical reforms including nationalization of the largest foreign mining companies. Thus, the country experienced revolutionary transformations (the analogue of revolution). However, as a result of mistakes in economic policy and American activity aimed at undermining the economy, the situation in the country deteriorated and discontent grew. Against this backdrop there occurred a right-wing military coup, sanctioned by the USA, in which the military, led by General Augusto Pinochet, came to power. Pinochet’s rule may be considered as a counterrevolution and in a sense an analogue of rightist revolution since it made rather radical changes to protect private capital. The discontent with Pinochet’s dictatorship, however, led to renewed popular opposition and finally made Pinochet transfer the power to a civil government, so the country returned to democracy in 1988. In the 1970–1980s many revolutionary events accelerated the withdrawal of military dictatorships in a number of countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Paraguay51 and others52 ). It is notable that no more military coups occurred in Latin America.53 Yet there were further US interventions; the first such case occurred in 1983 when the left-wing government of Grenada, which established close trade and military ties with Cuba and USSR, was overthrown. In 1989 American troops entered Panama after a failed attempt to remove the military from power. The 1990s were a halcyon period in respect of revolutions in Latin America. However, just at the end of twentieth century the so-called Bolivarian Revolution started in Venezuela. In fact, it is an analogue of the revolution since it started in 1999 after Hugo Chávez became the president of Venezuela and the new constitution was adopted by popular referendum in 1999. After Chávez’s death, however, his socialist policies were seen to have destroyed Venezuela’s oil industry and bankrupted the economy. It gives us a vivid example of the catastrophic results that can arise from the revolutionary course. The revolutionary epoch in Venezuela has been continuing until now (see also Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” [Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume]). Africa. During the period from 1950 to the 1970s, African countries underwent huge changes, mostly associated with the emergence of independent states and the first steps made on the way to strengthening statehood. However, the weak traditions of statehood, underdeveloped social structure and low education levels of the population predetermined a complicated developmental path for this continent. The history of African countries shows dozens of military coups as well as civil, interethnic and separatist wars. By comparison, the number of true revolutions is quite small, and the number of analogues of revolutions (military coups causing profound changes) is 51

The military coup of 1989 overthrew the thirty-five year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner after which the coup plotters organized general elections. Thus, it was actually an analogue of democratic revolution. 52 It’s worth to mention as an interesting event the overthrowing of the Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier (known as “Baby Doc”) in 1986. A number of protest demonstrations against him were taking place since 1984. This event launched a revolutionary epoch in Haiti, which was complicated by the 2010 Haitian catastrophic earthquake and perhaps this epoch continues till now. 53 Unfortunately, this phenomenon did not completely disappear. For example, in 2009 a military coup occurred in Honduras.

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only a bit larger. Some revolutions are connected with liberation from colonial dependence (the national-liberation wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau which gained independence in 1974–1975). Others occurred in already formed states. Among these were (in chronological order) the August revolution in Congo 1963 (Three Glorious Days); the Zanzibar revolution (1964) which ousted the Arab sultan and Arab rule in general, so later Zanzibar united with Tanganyika, thus, Tanzania would emerge54 ; the October revolution in Sudan 1964 (which we already discussed); the revolution of 1972 in Benin (which actually was an analogue); the May 1972 revolution in Madagascar that opened the period of instability in the island; and the overthrow of emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia in 1974 (which began with a military coup, and hence was an analogue of revolution). The military junta that took power in Ethiopia, known as the Derg, implemented a radical Marxist program that immediately sparked counter-revolutionary rebellions. After the massive famine of 1983–1985, the Soviet Union withdrew its support for the Derg. The rebellions then grew more successful, and in 1991 captured the capital and drove the Derg from power. From 1960 to 1972 there occurred five military coups in Dahomey (Benin) (see Gromyko et al., 1988: 107), the one in 1972 brought the socialist military to power; the new government conducted a number of reforms in the country; yet, the course to democracy was actually canceled. This coup can be regard as an analogue of revolution. A separate category is constituted by the racial revolutions against White rule in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa. In both countries, the transition from White minority rule to universal suffrage and Black majority government occurred through negotiated settlements that followed many years of guerrilla war, labor strikes, and urban protests. Parties expressing the sentiments of the black majority came to power in both countries as a result of a change in the electoral law and victory in elections (respectively, in Zimbabwe in 1980, and in South Africa in 1994). In both cases, there was an insurgency threat and international pressure. But in Southern Rhodesia, the coming to power of the Zimbabwe African National Union led by Robert Mugabe happened, first of all, as a result of the real threat of military defeat of the white regime on part of the rebel army, and only secondly—as a result of strong international pressure. And in South Africa, although resistance to the regime and guerrilla warfare lasted quite a long time, they did not directly threaten the apartheid regime with military defeat. At the same time, international pressure on the apartheid regime was very strong. And it actually became decisive for the admission of the African National Congress to free elections. Therefore, we do not consider both of these events as completely the same type. We classify the events in South Rhodesia as a revolution, and in South Africa as only an analogue of revolution, but in both cases of a racial-social type. It is also worth mentioning the revolutionary events of 1997 in Zaire, as a result of which the president-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who had been in power for more than 30 years, was overthrown. However, these events were very complex, they were 54

The massacres of the Arab population took place during this revolution.

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century

359

associated with old and new interethnic conflicts, civil war and the intervention of neighboring states (McNulty, 1999).55 And after the overthrow of Mobutu, ethnic conflicts led to a new civil war (the Second Congo War), which turned into an African war involving nine states (the so-called Great War of Africa or the Great African War, and sometimes referred to as the African World War).

7 The Last Wave of Revolutions of the Twentieth Century. Anti-communist and National Revolutions of 1989–1996 For decades after 1945 the World System was split depending on the social-political regime. The struggle between capitalism and communism took different forms including hybrid wars (and sometimes hot ones). Yet, the economic competition of the systems was of utmost importance. The socialist countries obviously lagged behind their capitalist rivals. This was especially evident by the example of two German states, the FRG and the GDR, when many citizens of the latter tried by all means (which were mostly illegal) to move to the FRG and West Berlin. As is known, in 1961 this led to construction of a wall between West and East Berlin. In the early 1980s the USSR did not simply lag behind, but exhausted its growth potential. Meanwhile, as the USSR was the core of the socialist camp, its weakening caused the collapse of the whole system. The European “socialist” states, especially Hungary, Rumania, and Poland, became heavily indebted to the Western banks which weakened their dependence on Moscow and increased the influence of the USA and Europe. In 1985 new General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and launched reforms which he meant to create a favorable environment for economic acceleration. However, the fact that he tried to combine this with attempts at democratization was fatal. By the late 1980s, the failed attempts of modernization and democratization against the background of dramatically falling oil prices and increasing shortages led to dramatically weakened influence of the USSR on its smaller allies. Besides, there actually appeared a syndrome of fearing to use violence against the opponents of the regime both in the USSR and in other socialist countries. The weakening of the core of the socialist camp led to a wave of anti-communist revolutions in its periphery resulting in the establishment of young democratic non-socialist regimes in most East European countries. Except for Romania, these were peaceful and bloodless revolutions, often referred to as “velvet” revolutions.

55

In fact, the trigger for events in Zaire was the civil war in neighboring Rwanda between Hutu and Tutsi, the famous Rwandan genocide of 1994. As a result, large numbers of Tutsi refugees came to Zaire, and after the victory in the civil war by the Tutsi forces, the Hutu refugees, who feared revenge from the Tutsi victors fled there. In total, 1.5–2 million people moved to the eastern regions of Zaire, whose arrival provoked an internal conflict in Zaire.

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These revolutions had many common causes: dependence on the USSR which was a burden, the threat of violence which restrained the opposition; a natural weakening of this dependence which changed the balance of power; common problems of socialist regimes (shortage of goods, egalitarianism; advantages of the Western countries, lack of freedom etc. [for studies of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe see Bunce, 1989; Chirot, 1991; Goodwin, 1994, 2001; Huntington, 1993; Lupher, 1996; Goldstone, 1991, 1998; Sanderson, 2010; see also Markoff, 1995, 1996). However, different countries had their peculiar revolutionary course and driving forces and also some causes. For example, in Bulgaria the oppression of the Turks was important. In Romania, due to the country’s large debts and strict austerity efforts the population’s living standards considerably decreased and this combined with various unpopular and strict measures of the Ceaus, escu regime revolutionized the masses. In the East Germany (GDR) the neighboring wealthy and strong West German state, the FRG, which considered the Eastern Germans as potential citizens, defined the direction of the revolution. It is not surprising that after the fall of the regime in the GDR the reunification of two German states occurred almost immediately. Hardly had the GDR government allowed free movement to the neighboring German state when about 2 million citizens of the GDR had visited West Berlin only on November 10–12 (Loshchakova, 2008: 28). The spontaneous demolition of the wall also started, and it was officially destroyed in January 1990. The destruction of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of separation of a single nation marked the victory of the revolution. In Poland the opposition had already been formed around the Labor Union ‘Solidarity’ and the Catholic Church. Though the regime was able to suppress the opposition protests in the early and mid-1980s, with the weakening of repression brought by Gorbachev’s regime in the USSR, the Polish government negotiated elections in which non-communist candidates were allowed to stand. Thus, the fall of the regime there occurred via the expression of the will of the people at the elections to the Sejm (1989) and presidential elections (1990). In Hungary the market reforms that had been underway for a long time had already weakened socialist relations. The regime of János Kádár was rather soft and, according to some analysts, resembled the soft authoritarianism of Franco’s dictatorship on the eve of its decline. Hungary’s transition thus took the Spanish scenario of a transition to democracy after 1975 (Huntington, 1993).56 The movement to democracy was rather vigorous at least after 1987. In Hungary the transition to democracy occurred not through ousting of the old regime but via adoption of parliamentary law which included pluralism of tradeunions, freedom of associations, meetings and press, new election law, and a radical revision of constitution. This distinguished the Hungarian revolution from the radical break with the old regime that happened in the GDR or Czechoslovakia. In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in November 1989 the Civic Forum organized protests and general strike supported by the majority of population. The 56

In 1988 and 1989 the Hungarian leaders closely consulted the Spanish leaders concerning the maintaining of democracy and in April 1989 the Spanish delegation arrived at Budapest as counsellors (Huntington, 1993).

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century

361

communist government headed by Gustáv Husák was forced to surrender power. On December 10 the government of national accord was formed. So the revolution won. In Bulgaria the revolution actually proceeded from above through the resignation of General Secretary Todor Zhivkov at the plenary session of the Bulgarian Communist Party, after which the new government started to change its constitution and political regime (a ‘tender revolution’). The transformation of Bulgaria into a democratic state with a market economy was peculiar since the Bulgarian Communist Party changed its name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party on April 3, 1990, and remained ruling even after Zhivkov’s resignation (Loshchakova, 2008: 26). The discontent in Romania, by contrast, transformed into a violent revolution with bloody incidents both on the government and revolutionaries side including the assassination of the Ceaus, escu couple. So by the end of 1989, this closely linked line of revolutions succeeded in all mentioned countries and carried out the destruction of communist parties, political systems, organization of elections and coming to power of new or modernized political forces. In 1991, as a result of the growing weakness of the central government in the face of powerful nationalist and separatist movements, the USSR itself collapsed, which was followed by changes (and in some places revolutions) in the rest of “socialist” countries such as Mongolia and Albania.57 The collapse of the USSR was a logical outcome of Gorbachev’s failed reforms which also set free the political and social forces that the Soviet regime failed to cope with, including nationalism, a desire for greater freedom, frustration with corruption, uneven access to goods and services and especially the growing shortage of food items and nonfood commodities. The latter was the result of a completely lame economic and financial policy. Nevertheless, if not been pushed, the regime would have endured. Thus, the meeting of Boris Eltsin, Stanislav Shushkevich and Leonid Kravchuk in Belavezhskaya Pushcha (Belarus) in the end of 1991 and the decision to dissolve the Soviet Union and form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) looks as a conspiracy but produced a huge effect so it may be considered that the meeting launched the events equal to an analogue of revolution (for the USSR and the republics it comprised). Besides, in some republics the events resembled revolutions or their analogues. Unlike in East Europe, in the USSR republics (similar to the Yugoslavian republics) the revolutions were primarily nationalist or ethno-nationalist. However, they simultaneously and inevitably became antisocialist since communist ideology had been substituted for national. In particular, this especially refers to the Baltic republics—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—where revolutions were called the Singing Revolution. One may also speak about a revolution in Georgia which became independent in the very end of 1991. Yet, soon military and civil revolts started there and the first president was ousted, so actually, there started a small-scale 57

In 1989, massive pro-democracy student protests also occurred in Beijing in Tiananmen Square, with lesser protests in other cities. However, the conditions for revolution were lacking in China, and the authorities violently suppressed the protests, which thus had no serious consequences.

362

L. Grinin and A. Grinin

civil war. Later, national-liberation revolutions occurred in the Georgian national peripheries—Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia (1992) which grew into rather long and bloody conflicts with Georgia (for detail on events in Georgia, Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” [Khodunov, 2022b, in this volume]). Later military rebellion in Chechnya in 1994–1999 resembled national-liberation movement. In Yugoslavia the impact of the USSR was hardly direct and strong; nevertheless, the wave of separatism overwhelmed this country and led to its split. It is difficult to characterize the Yugoslavian events in terms of the theory of revolutions since there was a chain of independent and complicated episodes during the period from 1989 to 1999. But it is generally true that in the first place these were ethno-national revolutions and then anti-communist.58 In Slovenia and Croatia the revolutions manifested in proclaiming independence in 1991, by action of the governments of those republics supported by the population. In 1991 and 1992, Macedonia and Bosnia/Herzegovina proclaimed independence as well. Certainly, these were not classic revolutions but revolutions from above since the parliament simply declared independence. However, this would launch changes in every separate republic and province provoking chains of violent and later bloody confrontations and armed clashes. In the following years, there would be a series of local uprisings of Croats and Serbs in Bosnia/Herzegovina,59 further declarations of independence by Kosovo,60 and campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” or genocides by Serbian and Croatian forces seeking to seize and pacify disputed territory. After the intervention by NATO against Serbia, the first “color” revolution of the twenty-first century (the “Bulldozer revolution”) happened and swept Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic from power.61 The collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe had major geopolitical consequences. Aside from creating many new and relatively weak states in territories formerly part of the USSR, the sudden end of the cold war had repercussions far from Europe. In Africa and Latin America, dictatorships that had been supported by the United States in the name of combatting communism no longer seemed necessary to support. 58

In 1989 most parts of the population were hardly anti-communist since socialism in Yugoslavia was much more liberal than in other socialist countries. However, during the split of the country into separate states the destruction of socialism started, and eventually the communists remained in power only in Serbia and Montenegro (later they would lose power there as well). 59 For example, the so-called Log Revolution in Croatia in 1990–1995 when the Serbs living in Croatia started struggle for their national rights. The result was the creation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina—the Serbian autonomous territory. Later the military operations of the Croatians destroyed this state entity. 60 In the case of Kosovo one may speak about a national liberation revolution. In Kosovo after the restriction of autonomy in 1989 numerous protest actions started; they actually launched the split process from Yugoslavia. 61 On the problems that led to the revolution in Serbia in 2000, as well as some detail on the revolutionary events in the republics of former Yugoslavia see Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a, in this volume), as well as Khodunov (2016, 2017).

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century

363

∗ ∗ ∗ Thus, the twentieth century started with the world being transformed by the struggle for communism and ended with the world being transformed by anti-communist revolutions. Communism in its anti-market, authoritarian, statebureaucratic form banning private property completely discredited itself. Revolutions played a significant role in the history of the twentieth century, unfolding through multiple waves and different lines of revolution. Reviewing these events, we find that revolutions (as well as its analogues) had deeply diverse outcomes. While some were successful in bringing democracy (e.g. in the Baltics, the Philippines, in several Eastern European countries) more often they launched lengthy epochs of instability and further revolutionary transformations. In some cases, especially in successful and profoundly social revolutions, from Russia and China to Yugoslavia, Ethiopia or Zaire, the results are very expensive while the means to transform a regime turn dangerous, particularly in countries unripe for democracy.62 As a whole, we find that the revolutions of the twentieth century did not push the World System in any single particular direction. Although capitalism of various kinds has become the dominant economic system, and democracy has spread, the world still is characterized by major authoritarian regimes (in China and Russia) confronting liberal constitutional ones (in Europe, North America). The major clear accomplishment of the twentieth century revolutions has been to fully dismantle both traditional empires (e.g., China, Russia, the Ottoman, Austria-Hungary) and colonial ones, giving rise to a large number of new independent states. Yet the majority of those new states have not yet proven stable. Revolutionary movements based on nationalism, aspirations for democracy, religious ideals, and ethnic identity remain widespread, paving the way for further waves and lines of revolution in the twentyfirst century.

Appendix 1

62

It is interesting that failed (defeated) revolutions could turn beneficial for a number of countries since on the one hand, the continuity of regime was not broken, while, on the other hand, it was forced to serious changes. That was the case with 1905–1907 revolution in Russia (for the idea that such revolutions are far less costly for a society see Beissinger, 2017).

1905 1907

1905 1911

1908 1909

1910 1910

1910 1910

1910 1917

1911 1913

1911 1911

1916 1923

1917 1921

1917 19 18

1917 1918

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

End date

1

No. Start date

2

2

5

8

1

3

8

1

1

2

7

3

Estonia

Finland

Russia

Ireland

Mongolia

China

Mexico

Portugal

Monaco

Turkey

Iran

Russia

Duration Country (years)

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Revolutionary events mentioned in the chapter*

Power-modernist

Democratic

Social

Type of revolutionary event

February and October Revolution

Easter Rising

Xinhai Revolution

National

National

Communist

National liberation

National liberation

Power-modernist

Social

Democratic

Monégasque Democratic Revolution

The Young Turk Revolution

Special name

Democratic

Anti-communist

Started as a democratic & anti-monarchic

Anti-monarchic and anti-dynasty

Democratic

Democratic and anti-dictatorial

Anti-monarchic

Anti-monarchic

Democratic

Power-modernist & religious

Democratic & anti-monarchic

Additional characteristics

Form of the analogue of the revolution

The first stage was called the February revolution; after October 25, 1917 it was called the October Revolution

In fact, the fight never stopped

Opened a long epoch of disturbances

Was defeated

Notes

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

(continued)

Russian empire

Russian empire

Chinese empire

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

364 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

1917 1920

1917 1920

1917 1921

1917 1921

1918 1921

1918 1918

1918 1919

1919 1919

1919 1919

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

End date

13

No. Start date

(continued)

1

1

2

1

4

5

5

4

4

Hungary

Slovakia

Germany

Austria

Latvia

Ukraine

Georgia

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Duration Country (years)

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

November Revolution

Special name

Communist

Communist

Democratic

National

National liberation

National liberation

National

National

National

Type of revolutionary event

National

Anti-monarchic, sometimes communist

Anti-communist and democratic

Democratic & anti-Bolshevik

Democratic

Democratic

Additional characteristics

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Was defeated

Opened a long revolutionary epochthat ended in 1949

German Austria

With very active participation of a number of foreign states

Was defeated

Was defeated. Revolution began within the framework of the united Transcaucasian region (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan)

Was defeated. Revolution began within the framework of the united Transcaucasian region (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan)

Was defeated. Revolution began within the framework of the united Transcaucasian region (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan)

Notes

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

(continued)

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Russian empire

Russian empire

Russian empire

Russian empire

Russian empire

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century 365

1919 1919

1919 1923

1919 1923

1921 1921

1921 1947

1922 1922

1922 1926

1923 1923

1923 1923

1925 1927

1930 1930

1930 1930

1930 1930

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

End date

22

No. Start date

(continued)

1

1

1

3

1

1

5

1

27

1

5

5

1

Salvador

Brazil

Argentina

China

Germany

Bulgaria

Italy

Greece

India (British)

Mongolia

Turkey

Egypt

Germany

Duration Country (years)

Attempt of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Attempt of revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary movement without revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

September Revolution

The September Uprising

11 September 1922 Revolution

Kemalist Revolution

Special name

Communist

Social

Right-wing

Power-modernist

Communist

Communist

National-socialist

Democratic

National liberation

Communist

Power-modernist

National liberation

Communist

Type of revolutionary event

Democratic

National

Anti-monarchic

anti-feudal

Democratic

National liberation

Additional characteristics

Military coup

Military coup

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Uprisings in Hamburg and clashes in Saxony

Victory by peaceful means

Mainly peaceful means of struggle were used

Soviet republics in Bremen and Bavaria

Notes

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

(continued)

German Empire

German Empire

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

366 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

1930 1931

1930 1932

1930 1934

1931 1932

1931 1939

1932 1932

1933 1937

1933 1934

1934 1934

1938 1938

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

End date

35

No. Start date

(continued)

1

1

2

5

1

9

2

5

3

2

Austria

Austria

Cuba

Germany

Thailand

Spain

Chile

Nicaragua

Peru

Vietnam

Duration Country (years)

Analogue of revolution

Revolutionary episode

revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Attempt of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event Nghê.-T˜ınh Soviets

Special name

National-socialist

Democratic

democratic

National-socialist

Democratic

Social

Democratic

Social

Communist

Communist

Type of revolutionary event

Social

anti-dictatorial

Ethno-racial

Power-modernist

Anti-monarchic in the beginning

Anti-dictatorial; the attempt of a communist revolution

National liberation

Democratic

Additional characteristics

Seizure of power by the occupying forces of Germany

Elections

Military coup

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Uprising of socialists and anarchists in Vienna and in other cities

Was defeated; Franco dictatorship was established

Defeat

In the provinces of Ngean (Nghê An) and Hachin (On Tinh) (Central Vietnam)

Notes

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century 367

1943 1948

1943 2000* 58

1943 1945

1943 1949

1944 1947

1944 1944

1944 1945

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

2

1

4

7

3

6

1

1942 1942

46

1

Kind of revolutionary event

Albania

Guatemala

Romania

Greece

Yugoslavia

Kurdistan

Israel

India

Special name

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary movement

Analogue of revolution

King Michael’s Coup

Revolutionary Quit India movement Movement

Czechoslovakia Analogue of revolution

Duration Country (years)

1938 1938

End date

45

No. Start date

(continued)

Communist

Social

Communist

National liberation

Communist

National liberation

National

National liberation

National-socialist

Type of revolutionary event

National liberation

Democratic and anti-dictatorial

Episode in the history of the long Indian independence movement

Sudetenland

Notes

The Kurdish movement operates in Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. The fight goes on

A Harnessing the potential combination of the international of peaceful Jewish movement struggle and terrorist acts

Seizure of power with help of Germany

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Anti-monarchic in the Peaceful end process of seizing power with the support of the occupation authorities

Communist

National liberation

Revolts, terror, mass movements

Additional characteristics

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

368 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

1945 1947

1945 1976

1945 1950

1945 1949

1945 1948

1945 1948

55

56

57

58

59

End date

54

No. Start date

(continued)

4

4

5

6

32

3

South Korea

North Korea (DPRK)

Eastern Germany (GDR)

Japan

Vietnam

Bulgaria

Duration Country (years)

See column ‘note’

See column ‘note’

See column ‘note’

See column ‘note’

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

The August Revolution

Special name

Social

Communist

Communist

Social

Communist

Communist

Type of revolutionary event

Democratic

Democratic

National liberation

Anti-monarchic

Additional characteristics

Process of seizing power with the support of the occupation authorities

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Violent external transformations through occupation equal to revolution

Violent external transformations through occupation equal to revolution

Violent external transformations through occupation equal to revolution

Violent external transformations through occupation equal to revolution

Included war with France and the USA, partisan war in the South

Elections, referendum, repression against members of the former regime

Notes

3

3

3

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century 369

1946 1947

1946 1947

1946 1948

1946 1949

1947 1947

1948 1948

61

62

63

64

65

End date

60

No. Start date

(continued)

1

1

4

3

2

2

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Colombia

Madagascar

China

Analogue of revolution

Attempt of revolution

Revolution

Czechoslovakia Analogue of revolution

Poland

Hungary

Duration Country (years)

Bogotazo

Special name

Social

National liberation

Communist

Communist

Communist

Communist

Type of revolutionary event

Additional characteristics

Military coup

Peaceful process of seizing power with the active support of the occupation authorities

Peaceful process of seizing power with the active support of the occupation authorities

Peaceful process of seizing power with the active support of the occupation authorities

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Elections and mass armed actions

Elections and referendum

Elections, legal decisions and repressions

Notes

3

3

3

3

3

3

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

370 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

1948 1948

1948 1948

1948 1953

1948 1955

1948 1949

1952 1952

1952 1964

1953 1953

1954 1962

1956 1956

1956 1959

1956 1956

1958 1963

1960 1960

1961 1975

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

End date

66

No. Start date

(continued)

15

1

6

1

4

1

9

1

13

1

2

8

6

1

1

Angola

South Korea

Iraq

Poland

Cuba

Hungary

Algeria

GDR

Bolivia

Egypt

South Korea

Burma (Myanmar)

Philippines

Malaya

South Africa

Duration Country (years)

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Attempt of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

April Revolution

Special name

National liberation

Democratic

Power-modernist

Anti-communist

Communist

Anti-communist

National liberation

Anti-communist

Social

Power-modernist

Communist

Communist

Communist

Communist

Right-wing

Type of revolutionary event

anti-dictatorial

Anti-dictatorial

Anti-dictatorial

Democratic and anti-dictatorial

Democratic, elections

National liberation

Additional characteristics

Military coup

Military coup

Legislative decision

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Was defeated

In the South Korean island of Jeju Province

The attempt of revolution ended in defeat and led to an endless civil war and turmoil

Was defeated. Guerrilla war

In the form of guerrilla movement

Notes

3

3

3

3

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century 371

1962 1962

1962 1970

1963 1970

1963 1963

1963 1975

1964 1964

1964 1964

1964 1975

1964 1980

1965 1965

1968 1968

1968 1975

1968 1968

1969 1969

1969 1998

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

End date

81

No. Start date

(continued)

30

1

1

8

1

1

17

12

1

1

13

1

8

9

1

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Northern Ireland

Libya

Revolutionary movement

Analogue of revolution

Czechoslovakia Analogue of revolution

Peru

Panama

Indonesia

Zimbabwe

Mozambique

Sudan

Zanzibar

Guinea-Bissau

Congo

Syria

Yemen

Burma (Myanmar)

Duration Country (years)

Prague Spring

October Revolution

Trois Glorieuses

September 26th revolution

Special name

Confessional-political

Power-modernist

Anti-communist

Social

Social

Communist

Racial-social

National liberation

Democratic

Ethno-national

National liberation

National liberation

Power-modernist

Democratic

Power-modernist

Type of revolutionary event

Democratic

Anti-dictatorial

Anti-monarchic

Anti-monarchic

Quasi-communist

Additional characteristics

Military coup

Reforms from above

Military coup

Military coup

Military coup

A series of military coups

Military coup

Military coup

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Part of the UK; resulted as a compromise

An attempt of analogue of revolution

Notes

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

372 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

1

4

1

1

1

5

16

7

15

1

10

1971 1971

1972 1972

98

99

100 1972 1975

101 1973 1973

102 1974 1974

103 1974 1974

104 1975 1979

105 1975 1990

106 1976 1982

107 1978 1992

108 1979 1979

109 1979 1988

1

2

1970 1971

97

4

Nicaragua

Iran

Afghanistan

Syria

Lebanon

Kampuchea

Ethiopia

Portugal

Afghanistan

Madagascar

Benin

Bangladesh

Poland

Chile

Duration Country (years)

1970 1973

End date

96

No. Start date

(continued)

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Analogue of revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

April Revolution

Khmer Rouge

Carnation Revolution

Rotaka

Special name

Social

Religious

Quasi-communist

Religious

Ethno-political

Communist

Anti-monarchical

Democratic

Anti-monarchical

Social

Quasi-communist

National liberation

Anti-communist

Communist

Type of revolutionary event

Anti-dictatorial

Anti-monarchic

Confessional-political

Democratic

Anti-dictatorial

Democratic

Additional characteristics

Military coup

Military coup

Military coup

Military coup

Military coup

Elections

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Series of revolts and armed insurgencies by Sunni Islamists, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood

The militaries came to power; the course to communism was taken

Pinochet’s right-wing dictatorship was established

Notes

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century 373

Paraguay

1

3

12

1

1

1

1

1

117 1989 1989

118 1989 1991

119 1989 2000

120 1989 1989

121 1989 1989

122 1989 1989

123 1989 1989

124 1989 1989

Romania

Poland

GDR

Hungary

Bulgaria

Sudan

USSR

Papua New Guinea

116 1988 2000* 13

1

Philippines

Peru

Sri Lanka

13

113 1980 1992

South Korea

115 1986 1986

1

112 1980 1980

Poland

114 1983 2000* 27

2

111 1980 1981

Salvador

Duration Country (years)

14

End date

110 1979 1992

No. Start date

(continued) Special name

Democratic

Anti-communist

Social

Type of revolutionary event

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Peaceful Revolution

People Power Revolution

Anti-communist

Anti-communist

Anti-communist

Anti-communist

Anti-communist

Religious

Democratic

Democratic

National liberation

Democratic

National liberation

Revolutionary Shining Path Communist episode movement

Revolutionary Gwangju episode Uprising

Attempt of revolution

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Democratic

Democratic

Democratic and nation-uniting

Democratic

Democratic

Anti-communist

Anti-dictatorial

Anti-dictatorial

Social democratic

Anti-dictatorial

Additional characteristics

Military coup

Reform from above

Military coup

Form of the analogue of the revolution

The coup d’etat of December 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha

Movement for independence started in 1975, ended in 2001

The first color revolution

Was defeated in 2009

In Gwangju city

Defeat; agreement with the government

Notes

4

4

4

4

4

4

(continued)

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

374 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

5

1

135 1991 1995

136 1991 1991

Slovenia

Croatia

Macedonia

South Ossetia

Albania

1

1

134 1991 1991

Estonia

140 1992 1992

1

133 1991 1991

Lithuania

1

1

132 1991 1991

Latvia

Georgia

139 1992 1992

1

131 1991 1991

Abkhazia

1

130 1991 1991

Iraq

Mongolia

Algeria

1

129 1991 1991

1

1

128 1990 1990

China

Kosovo

138 1992 1992

1

127 1989 1989

137 1991 2000* 10

11

126 1989 1999

Kind of revolutionary event

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Revolution

Attempt of revolution

Revolution

Revolutionary episode

Revolution

Czechoslovakia Revolution

Duration Country (years)

1

End date

125 1989 1989

No. Start date

(continued)

Ten-Day War

Singing Revolution

Singing Revolution

Singing Revolution

Velvet Revolution

Special name

National

Anti-communist

National

Religious

National

National

National

National

National

National

National

Religious

Anti-communist

Democratic

National liberation

Anti-communist

Type of revolutionary event

National liberation

Democratic

National liberation

Anti-communist

Anti-communist

Anti-communist

Ethno-national, democratic and anti-socialist

Ethno-national, democratic and anti-socialist

Ethno-national, democratic and anti-socialist

Anti-communist

Democratic

Anti-communist

Democratic

Additional characteristics

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Up to 2002, was defeated

Shia revolt

Student protests in Beijing at Tiananmen Square

Notes

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

(continued)

USSR

USSR

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

USSR

USSR

USSR

USSR

Yugoslavia

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century 375

Philippines

146 2000 2000* 1

Revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Analogue of revolution

Revolution

Kind of revolutionary event

Bulldozer Revolution

Special name

Democratic

Democratic

Social

Democratic

Racial-social

National

Type of revolutionary event

Power-modernist

Anti-monarchist

Anti-communist

Additional characteristics

Election

Election

Form of the analogue of the revolution

Up to 2001

Actually Serbia; color revolution

Until present

As a result, the communists came to power in 2017

Notes

4

4

4

Yugoslavia

Waves of Clustered revolutions revolution

*Notes 1. The table shows all the revolutionary events mentioned in the chapter. However, anti-fascist uprisings, as well as military coups and some other events that are not revolutionary in nature, are not included in the table. 2. For all explanations of terms, dates and other things, see the chapter. The table clarifies a number of data that may not be present when describing the events in the chapter. However, if the data in the chapter and the data in the table do not match, the data in the chapter should be considered more accurate. 3. When calculating the duration of revolutionary events, we considered an incomplete year as a full year. 4. The column “Kind of revolutionary event” includes various revolutionary events, such as revolutions, analogues of the revolutions, revolutionary episodes, revolutionary movements without revolution and others. It is important to see that revolutions are only part of a large set of revolutionary events and similar changes. 5. The column “type of revolution” distributes revolutionary events (not only pure revolutions) by their types. Types are determined by the goals and objectives of revolution, their final results, and driving forces. 6. The column “additional characteristics” additionally distributes revolutionary events by type, since many revolutions cannot be unambiguously assigned to only one type. 7. The column “form of the analogue of the revolution” shows in details how analogues of the revolution took place, for example, as a military coup, elections, etc. 8. In the column “waves of revolutions” revolutionary events are numbered according to their affiliation to revolutionary waves. Serial numbers of waves are the same as they are listed in the chapter. However, almost half of revolutions and revolutionary events cannot be attributed to any wave. 9. The “cluster revolution” column marks the revolutions that have occurred in multinational states and which can be attributed to the waves of revolutions. In order to determine the number of revolutions in waves and the strength of waves, it is important to note that usually when the old regime in multinational society collapses, it inevitably causes a series of national revolutions within the framework of former empires and multinational states. It is also important to note that we are not marking the main revolution that caused a group of others in this column. 10. Some revolutionary events in the table end with the year 2000, but in fact they continued into the twenty-first century. In this case, the year 2000 marked with an asterisk. This is done in order to correctly calculate the number of revolutionary years in the twentieth century (see Appendix 2).

Yugoslavia

1

145 2000 2000

Nepal

Venezuela

5

143 1996 2000

South Africa

144 1999 2000* 2

1

142 1994 1994

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Duration Country (years)

6

End date

141 1992 1997

No. Start date

(continued)

376 L. Grinin and A. Grinin

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century

377

Appendix 2 See Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

20 15 10

analogue of revoluon

5

aempt of revoluon revoluon

0

Fig. 1 Number of revolutionary events started per decades 16 14 12 10

analogue of revoluon

8 6

aempt of revoluon

4 2

Fig. 2 Number of revolutionary events started per five years

1995-2000

1990-1995

1985-1990

1980-1985

1975-1980

1965-1970

1970-1975

1955-1960

1960-1965

1950-1955

1940-1945

1945-1950

1935-1940

1925-1930

1930-1935

1920-1925

1915-1920

1905-1910

1910-1915

0

revoluon

378

L. Grinin and A. Grinin

a

90 80 70 aempt of revoluon revoluon

60 50 40

analogue of revoluon

30 20 10 0

b

35

29

30 25 20 15 10

5

3

5

5

4

2

0

c

8 5.57

6 5 4 3

7.12

6.68

7

5.53 4.50

4.82

4.00 3.29 2.50

2.67

2 1 0

Fig. 3 a Number of revolutionary years per decade (the total duration of revolutionary events per decade). b The average duration of revolutionary events in the twentieth century, in years. c The average duration (in years) of the revolutionary event by decades

Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century

a

379

violent external transformaons 3%

aempt of revoluon 13 9% revoluonary movement 4 revoluonary episode 3% 8 5%

analogue of revoluon 35 24%

revoluon 82 56%

b

revoluonary movement without revoluon 1 1%

naonal -liberaon 18 12% power-modernist 9 6%

naonal 17 12%

social 16 11%

quasi-communist

religious 5 3%

2 1%

Others 21 14%

democrac 21 14%

racialsocial 2 1%

right-wing 2 1%

naonal-socialist communist 30 21%

4 3% an-communist 14 10% ethno-polical 1 1%

ethno-naonal 1 1%

an-monarchical 2 1%

confessional-polical 1 1%

Fig. 4 a Distribution of revolutionary events in units and as a percentage of the total. b Distribution of revolutions by types in units and as a percentage of the total

380

L. Grinin and A. Grinin

a 25

23

22

21

20

15

10

8

5

0 1

2

waves

3

4

b 25

2

20

6

3 USSR 15

7

5

Yugoslavia

12

German Empire AustriaHungary

21

10

1 10

5

7 0 1

2

3

4

Waves

Fig. 5 a Number of revolutionary events per wave. b Number of revolutionary events by clusters and waves

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Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016). Revolution and democracy: Sociopolitical systems in the context of modernization. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 10(3), 110– 131. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2019a). Contemporary Islamism: An analysis of its functions and features. Vostok (Oriens), 2, 92–114. https://doi.org/10.31857/S086919080004631-1. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2019b). Islamism and its sociopolitical functions. The Islamic Quarterly, 63(3), 427–452. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2019c). Political aspects of contemporary Islamism. Polis, 6, 81–94. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.06.07. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). The Arab Spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 595–624). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23. Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Tausch, A. (2019). Islamism, Arab Spring, and the future of democracy. World system and world values perspectives. Springer. Gromyko, A., Gryadunov, Y., & Manchhi, P. (1988). Strany Afriki. Politiko-ekonomicheskii spravochnik. Politizdat. Gurr, T. R. (1988). War, revolution, and the growth of the coercive state. Comparative Political Studies, 21, 45–65. Halliday, F. (1999). Revolution and world politics: The rise and fall of the six great power. Duke University Press. Halliday, F. (2001). The world at 2000: Perils and promises. Palgrave. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1986). Revolution. In R. Poter & M. Teich (Eds.), Revolution in history (pp. 5–46). Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1989). The age of empire: 1875–1914. Vintage. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1996a). The age of revolution: Europe, 1789–1848. Vintage. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1996b). The age of capital: 1848–1875. Vintage. Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press. Huntington, S. P. (1986). Revolution and political order. In J. A. Goldstone (Ed.), Revolutions: Theoretical, comparative, and historical studies (pp. 39–47). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. Huntington, S. P. (1993). The third wave: democratization in the late twentieth century. University of Oklahoma Press. Issaev, L., Khokhlova, A., & Korotayev, A. (2022). The Arab Spring in Yemen. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 685–705). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26. Johnson, V. (1993). The structural causes of anticolonial revolutions in Africa. Alternatives, 18, 201–227. Katchanovski, I. (2010). Terrorists or national heroes? Politics of the OUN and the UPA in Ukraine. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, Montreal, 1–3 June 2010. https://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2010/Katchanovski.pdf. Keddie, N. (1981). Roots of revolution: An interpretive history of modern Iran. Yale University Press. Khodunov, A. (2016). Demograficheskaya dinamika Serbii, Chernogorii i Respubliki Serbskoi v kontse XX – nachale XXI v. Est li vozmozhnost ostanovit katastrofu? In L. Grinin, A. V. Korotaev, L. M. Issaev, & K. V. Meshherina (Eds.), Sistemnyi monitoring globalnyh i regionalnyh riskov: Arabskaya vesna v globalnom kontekste (pp. 326–403). Uchitel.

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Khodunov, A (2017) Mezhnatsionalnye otnosheniya i riski destabilizatsii v stranah byvshei Yugoslavii: istoriya i sovremennost. In: Grinin L, Korotaev AV, Issaev LM, Meshherina KV (eds), Sistemnyi monitoring globalnyh i regionalnyh riskov (pp 258–340). Uchitel. Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16. Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Rose Revolution in Georgia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 483–499). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_18. Kim, Q.-Y. (1996). From protest to change of regime: The 4–19 Revolt and the fall of the Rhee regime in South Korea. Social Forces, 74, 11–79. Kim, Q.-Y. (Ed.). (1991). Revolutions in the third world. Brill. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., Malkov S., & Shishkina A. (2022). The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 781–810). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_30. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2022). Egypt’s 2011 revolution: A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 651–683). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25. Kuznetsov, V. (2022). The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring uprisings. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 625–649). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_24. von Laue, T. (1964). Why Lenin? Why Stalin? A reappraisal of the Russian Revolution 1900–1930. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Lawson, G. (2005). Negotiated revolutions: The Czech Republic, South Africa and Chile. Routledge. Liu, M. T. (1988). States and urban revolutions: Explaining the revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Poland. Theory and Society, 17, 179–210. Loshchakova, O. V. (2008). Centralnaya i yugo-vostochnaya Evropa na rubezhe XX–XXI vv. YarGU. Lupher, M. (1996). Power restructuring in China and Russia. Westview. Markoff, J. (1995). The great wave of democracy in historical perspective. Western Societies Occasional Paper no. 34. Cornell University. Markoff, J. (1996). Waves of democracy: Social movements and political change. Pine Forge. McClintock, C. (1998). Revolutionary movements in Latin America: El Salvador’s FMLN and Peru’s Shining Path. US Inst. Peace. McDaniel, T. (1991). Autocracy, modernization, and revolution in Russia and Iran. Princeton Univ. Press. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (1995). Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken images (1st ed.). WileyBlackwell. McNulty, M. (1999). The collapse of Zaïre: Implosion, revolution or external sabotage? The Journal of Modern African Studies, 37(1), 53–82. Midlarsky, M. I., & Roberts, K. (1991). Class, state, and revolution in Central America: Nicaragua and El Salvador compared. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 29, 489–509. Milani, A. (2015). Scripting a revolution: Fate or Fortuna in 1979. Revolution in Iran. In K. M. Baker, & D. Edelstein (Eds.), Scripting revolution. A historical approach to the comparative studies of revolutions (pp. 307–324). Stanford University Press. Mitchell, C. (2006). Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland. Ashgate Publishing. Moaddel, M. (1993). Class, politics, and ideology in the Iranian Revolution. Columbia University Press.

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Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor of the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology. Anton Grinin is a Russian scholar of modern technological trends and future studies, as well as evolutionist and philosopher. He has a Ph.D. in Biology and works as a Research Fellow for Moscow State University, Russia. He is an author of more than 100 publications in Russian and English, including 2 monographs. Awards: Gold Kondratieff Young Scholars Medal, Alexander Belyaev Literature Award. Anton Grinin focuses on the issues of the technological revolution (the Cybernetic revolution) evolving in the current decades of the twenty-first century and the resultant profound transformations in economy and society as well as related economic, political, ethiclegal and other risks, including political revolutions. He also investigates the correlation between the Cybernetic revolution and Kondratieff waves as well as between the Cybernetic revolution and global ageing.

On Revolutionary Waves Since the 16th Century Leonid Grinin

1 Additional Ideas Concerning the Causes of Revolutionary Waves As we already argued in Chapters “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022d) and “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume) and will also discuss below, for a revolutionary wave to emerge there must be (a) a large triggering world-system event which (b) should have a synchronizing effect on a number of countries. In this section we are going to add some ideas about the types and causes of such events.1 A common impetus to revolution in different countries is observed when they are in somewhat similar situations. This similarity stems from both common cultural and historical phenomena (especially in countries having more or less similar cultural, political, and social parameters) and also from the impact of common external factors that could produce a synchronizing effect. This external, especially world-system This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254). L. Grinin (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia HSE University, Moscow, Russia 1

In the chapter we will not touch upon the role of major or world wars or destructive economic crises like the Great Depression, since they were thoroughly discussed in Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume); see also Grinin & Korotayev, 2010b; Grinin & Grinin, 2014; Grinin, 2019a. About the connection between world order and revolutions/counter-revolutions see Armstrong (1993) and Bisley (2004). About the systemic role of the international system in revolutionary processes and in revolutionary waves, including the Arab Spring, see Lawson, 2015; Grinin, 2012a, as well as Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_13

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factor often plays the major part. One may single out two ways in which a critical external situation arises. The first is the emergence of a power vacuum in connection with the weakening of a former great power that previously blocked changes (Chapter “Revolutions of the twenty-first century as a factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e, in this book]; see also Grinin, 2012a, 2012c, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2010a, 2011, 2012a; Grinin et al., 2016). As examples one could mention here the French and British colonies that got their independence after the Second World War in a direct connection with both powers’ weakening [this strengthened the revolutionary wave of the 1940s––see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)], or revolutions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s in connection with the weakening of the USSR against the background of dramatically falling oil prices (we discussed this wave in Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume] as the last wave of revolutions of the twentieth century). The same refers to the rise of national-liberation revolutions in the Spanish domains in Latin America that took place due to the weakening of Spanish power after the wars with Napoleon and the revolution of 1808–1812 (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). The situation of a power vacuum is also essential for understanding of the impact of the French Revolution on the Haitian Revolution (as discussed later in this chapter). The power vacuum emerges in a situation of sharply declining trust in older political forms occurring simultaneously with emerging strong aspirations for radical changes. For the subject of this Chapter it is import Evolution and typology of revolutionsant to note that such a decline of trust together with an aspiration for radical changes involve a whole region and emerges not only under the influence of internal societal transformations but also due to certain aspects of global development. The Reformation and religious wars of the 16th century serve as a good example here (see Chapter “” [Grinin, 2022a, in this volume]; also Grinin, 2018a, 2019b). The power of the Catholic Church and the Pope had brought discredit upon itself, while the Great Geographic Discoveries brought certain results that gave rise to new opportunities and aspirations, manifested in income from precious metals and new ideas about the physical world (see Grinin & Korotayev, 2012b, 2015, 2018; Goldstone, 2009). The second way is the aggravation of emerging contradictions under the influence of global factors. This was characteristic of both the 1848 Springtime of Nations (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]) and the Arab Spring (see Chapter “Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a], Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume]; for more on the situation during the Arab Spring see Beck, 2014; Grinin et al., 2019). It is noteworthy that the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 were tightly connected with the world economic crisis of 1847 (see Grinin & Korotayev, 2010b) as well as with widespread crop failures in 1845–1847 (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]).

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Those crop failures caused processes that were analogous to the modern agflation of 2009–2010, including sharp spikes in food prices, falls in real wages, and anger with government over these disruptions. This factor appears to have greatly contributed to the genesis of sociopolitical explosions (see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces” [Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume]; see also Khodunov & Korotayev, 2012; Grinin, 2012a; Grinin et al., 2016, 2019), and operated as one of the key impetus factors that synchronized the revolutionary wave of the Arab Spring. In a certain sense, crop crises in Russia following the world economic crisis of 1900–1903 also contributed to the revolutionary wave of 1905–1911 (see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]) that started with the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907, which then produced certain repercussions in Persia, Turkey, and China, etc.

2 Which Events Should and Which Should Not Be Considered as Revolutionary Waves? In Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022c) and Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume), see also Grinin, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b2 ), we have briefly described the revolutionary processes during the Modern period starting from the Reformation epoch. Now we can summarize some ideas about revolutionary waves in this period, from the sixteenth to twentyfirst centuries. Let us briefly repeat the criteria described in Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d] and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]. We suggest distinguishing revolutionary waves according to the following criteria: (1) the existence of an objective common cause underlying the events within the World System framework; (2) the number of revolutions should not be small (minimum four-five revolutions if they occur in more or less large and medium-size countries and more revolutions in smaller states3 ); (3) one should not consider as a revolutionary wave the events within one state even if very large and multinational

2

See also Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume). 3 Meanwhile, Beck thinks that to distinguish a wave there must be at least two revolutions, and this is obviously not enough (Beck, 2011: 195). Rozov et al., (2019: 77) also regarded two–three events as a wave.

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and possessing united territory4 ; (4) the time interval between revolutionary events is limited; and (5) there can be only one wave within a period.5 We will constantly address these criteria in this chapter. As we already mentioned in Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume), Beck (2011), following Tilly’s (1996) data, distinguished 12 waves in European countries from the sixteenth to twentieth century. We agree with seven of them (namely, the Calvinist I/Second Reformation from 15666 ; the Revolutions of 1830; the Revolutions of 1848; the Democratic/Constitutional revolutions of the beginning of the twentieth century; the revolutions following World War I; the revolutions following World War II; and the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of communism) and disagree with the other waves (namely, the Calvinist II/Thirty Years’ War from 1618; the Atlantic Revolutions from 1773; the Greek War of Independence of 1821–1831; the Balkan Crisis of 1875; and the wave of Fascism in 1926–1939). Let us consider which of them we reject and why. In Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume), we have already discussed the Greek War of Independence and Balkan Crisis of 1875.7 As to fascism, Beck points out that while it could be considered politically “reactionary”, it did yield at least two revolutionary situations: Portugal’s 1926 coup and the Spanish Civil War (Beck, 2011: 197). At that, it looks strange that among revolutionary events connected with fascism two major events are absent: the revolution in Italy in 1922 and the Nazi analogue of revolution in 1933 in Germany.8 Besides, the link between 4

As, for example, Beck does with respect to the Balkan events of the 1870s (Beck, 2011). Such revolutions in the frame of a large state or empire we denote as a cluster of revolutions in Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin 2022, in this volume). 5 That is why we disagree with Jack Goldstone when he distinguished three waves coinciding with periods: the communist revolutions of 1945–1979 in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Vietnam etc.; the Arab Nationalist revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa in 1952–1969; Islamic revolutions in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s (Goldstone, 2001: 145). See about also Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin 2022, in this volume). 6 I date it starting from 1562, with the beginning of the first French Religion War. In my opinion, not one but two revolutionary waves were connected with the Reformation: the First Reformation wave of 1517–1555 (Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other countries); the second Reformation wave of 1562–1609 (France, Netherlands, and Scotland). See also below. 7 The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) was only a part of larger revolutionary events, which formed the wave of revolutions of the 1820s in Europe (see Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). The Balkan Crisis of 1875–1878 took place within the frame of the Ottoman Empire, i.e. within one state. This does not meet Criterion 4 (one should not consider as a revolutionary wave the events within one state). 8 In Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume), we already explained this by the fact that Beck uncritically used data from Tilly who in his book (Tilly, 1996 [1993]) did not examine revolutionary events either in Germany or in Italy. Respectively, there are no data on revolutions in Italy and Central Europe (Bohemia, Austria, and Germany) in Tilly’s tables. That is why the number of revolutions

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the events in Portugal and Spain is obviously indirect, the events in one country only indirectly and after a large time interval affected the situation in the other country. We can hardly describe the Spanish revolution as the fascist one since it was a counterrevolution that established fascism. The Spanish Civil War resulted from the Spanish revolution; the latter, as we pointed out, had started and developed as a democratic and social one while the Fascist dictatorship became the outcome of the defeat (see about this as well as about the revolution in Italy in 1922 and the Nazi analogue of revolution in 1933 in Germany in Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). If one treats the 1930s as a revolutionary wave then this wave should be connected with the Great Depression capturing a number of Latin American and European countries including Germany and Spain which found different solutions to the challenges.9 [About these revolutions see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. As to the wave of the so-called Atlantic Revolutions dating to the end of the eighteenth century we will speak about them in a special section. But here we must point out that Pugachev’s Rebellion of 1773–1775 in Russia should by no means be attributed to this wave. There was not and could not be any connection between Pugachev’s revolt, the War of Independence in Britain’s North American colonies and the French Revolution. All the more so since Pugachev’s revolt could not be the starting point of the Atlantic Revolutions wave. In what way can the revolt in the Urals region be connected with the Atlantic area? Finally, the Thirty Years War, although it unfolded mostly between Catholic and Protestant states and began with a revolt in Bohemia and other territories of the Habsburg Empire, cannot be considered as a revolutionary wave. Neither is it a revolutionary or religious war to an adequate degree (Wilson, 2010). This was mostly a pan-European war for hegemony where profit outweighed religious preferences (Alexeev, 1993). The Thirty Years War was the legacy of the sixteenth-century European tradition of religious wars. But at the same time, it introduced two new foreign policy principles, which later would be actively employed by the politicians, namely: 1) the maintenance of international ‘balance of power’ through supporting a weaker coalition against a stronger one; and 2) the priority of national interests over other (religious, ideological, etc.) ones. For example, Richelieu formulated and actively implemented both these approaches (Kissinger, 1994). As a result, although being a Catholic state, France supported the weaker coalition of Protestant states in their war against Habsburg Empire that strove for the world supremacy. At that time it was the diminished Habsburgs and disunited Germany which Richelieu (and later Louis XIV) considered as France’s major national objective which would allow control over tiny German principalities. Given the fact that Richelieu was a Catholic cardinal, it was a bold step which had made foreign policy even more cynical than before. Since that time one observes a trend when foreign policy started to develop according to certain stratagems and principles (Grinin et al., 2016: 62–63). in many revolutionary waves in Beck’s calculations and in ours is different even in the waves which we point out as similar ones. 9 The Mussolini revolution should be obviously attributed to Fascism but it started in 1922 and is actually related to the wave associated with WWI, i.e. the previous revolutionary wave.

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On the other hand, it makes sense to consider the first phase of the Reformation starting from 1517 as a revolutionary wave, which we would add to Beck’s tally. Indeed, the religious-revolutionary unrest captured almost all of Germany (yet, with different outcomes) and launched numerous rebellions and revolutions in certain communities and on the national scale among the peasants. The Reformation quickly spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire (to Austria, Czech lands etc.) which was a large region on the scale of the known world and the center of the whole Christian world. It went beyond the boundaries of the Empire and echoed in France, Poland, Lithuania, the Baltic regions, Sweden and later in Britain, thus causing in some places the movement from below while in other places religious revolutions from above. The Reformation gained an exceptionally powerful diffusion in Switzerland where a peculiar ideology was developed. Moreover, it started to spread there as early as in 1518 under the spiritual and practical leadership of Zwingli and caused religious wars. The Reformation here experienced another powerful rise already during Calvin’s leadership. Our criterion (of a decade’s interval between the start of the first and start of the last revolution of a wave) can be applied to this wave. By 1527 the Reformation had spread widely throughout the Holy Roman Empire and then fired Switzerland and started to penetrate France (Johnson, 1955: 387–388). But if we apply our criterion with some reservations to the period under study (since the speed of diffusion was still lower than in later periods) we may add about seven years to include the revolution from above conducted by Henry VIII in England to establish the Anglican Church in 1534. This wave can be determined to have ended with the religious Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which recognized Lutheranism as an official religion and established the right of imperial estates to choose their state religion. In the 1540–1550s, the Calvinist church was finally established in Geneva. French Calvinists, named Huguenots, were tightly connected with Calvin’s Geneva (Elliott, 1974: 116; Johnson, 1955: 274). In regard to the Calvinist I/Second Reformation Wave from 1566, the 1560s also were a decade of revolts (Elliott, 1974: 107). The second Reformation wave of 1562– 1609 was particularly vividly manifested in France, causing several religious wars. The first war broke out in 1562. More than seven civil religious wars occurred between 1562 and 1598 and they alternated with fragile peaceful periods, often broken by disloyalty. The most famous act of such disloyalty was the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572. A relative peace came after the so-called Edict of Nantes 1598 (issued by Henry IV) that recognized freedom of religion.10 The French civil religious wars were the most important events of the second half of the sixteenth century. However, the most famous revolution of this period was the one in the Netherlands, known as the Dutch War of Independence. In the Netherlands the Reformation merged with a national liberation war against Spain. That is why we consider the end of the War of Independence as the end of this wave. It is also important to point out that a fierce opposition between Catholics and Protestants was 10

But later in the seventeenth century the struggle between Catholics (Catholic kings) and Huguenots resumed.

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observed in other places, for example, in Scotland where a vigorous Reformation started in 1559. Later in 1567 the Catholic queen Mary Stuart was deposed and then fled to England in 1568 (Elliott, 1974: 107). Against the background of religious wars in France, an epic struggle exploded between the powerful Catholic empire of Spain and the reformed English kingdom; the apogee of this struggle was the defeat of the Invincible Armada in 1588. For a long time after the Reformation, revolutions nowhere occurred synchronously to an adequate degree to regard them as revolutionary waves.11 This was probably connected with the fact that new bourgeois relations and especially new technologies developed and ripened quite unevenly (Grinin, 2007, 2022d; Grinin & Grinin, 2015, 2016; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015). Thus, revolutions were infrequent phenomena in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, until the French Revolution finally launched a new revolutionary wave. On the whole, in our opinion, starting from the sixteenth century, no more than 14–15 revolutionary waves can be distinguished (see the next paragraph).

3 The System of Revolutionary Waves from the Sixteenth Century to the Present According to the criteria defined above, we can distinguish 14 waves from the start of the Modern period to the present (about the last three waves see the Chapter “Introduction Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events [Goldstone et al., 2022a, to the present monograph]). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 11

The first Reformation wave 1517–1555 The second Reformation wave 1562–1609 The wave of the French Revolution of 1789–1798/1799 The Ibero-Latin wave 1808–1826 The wave of defeated revolutions of the 1820s The liberal-emancipation wave of the 1830s The pan-European wave of 1848–1849 The peripheral wave of constitutional revolutions of 1905–1911 The post-World War I wave of 1917–192312 The post-World War II wave of 1943–1949 The anti-communist wave of 1989–1996

However, it is worth keeping in mind that there was a wave of state collapses in the seventeenth century, the global wave of revolutions and rebellions from 1640 to 1668 according to Jack Goldstone (1991) in different parts of the World System, including China. It is remarkable that some of the seventeenth century’s revolts and revolution-like events (like the Frondes in France in 1648–1649 and anti-Habsburg revolts in Naples in 1648 and Catalonia 1640–1652) were close to the date of the English revolution and to a certain extent connected with the Thirty Years War. 12 As has been mentioned above, it is possible also to treat the 1930s as a revolutionary wave connected with the Great Depression. In this case there would be altogether 15 revolutionary waves.

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The wave of color revolutions of 2000–2009 The Arab spring and its global echo, 2010/2011–2013. The wave of the recent years (since 2018)

Now let us study some revolutionary events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which are especially interesting in terms of the theory of revolutionary waves. In the next two sections we are going to consider the wave of the French Revolution of 1789–1798 and a related issue of the frequently distinguished (e.g., by Godechot, 1965; Goldstone, 2001; Palmer, 1954, 1959; Tilly, 1996; Wuthnow, 1989) Atlantic revolutions of the late eighteenth century.

4 Was There an Atlantic Wave of Revolutions? Many scholars mention the Atlantic revolutionary wave as an indisputable example of such a wave. Is it really an indisputable one? One attributes three revolutions to the Atlantic wave of revolutions: in the United States (1776), in the Netherlands (Dutch Patriot Revolution 1787), and in France (1789), all of them propelled by antimonarchical sentiments (Goldstone, 2001). The general course of events of the American and French Revolutions is widely known (about them see also Chapter “Evolution and typology of revolutions” [Grinin, 2022a]; further details of this event can be found in Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” [Grinin, 2022b, in this volume]; see also Grinin 2018a, 2018b, 2019b13 ). However, it makes sense to briefly dwell on the lesser known yet important related event—the Dutch Patriot Revolution. Dutch Patriot Revolution (1785–1787). It is interesting to point out that it was one of the first revolutions that resulted from defeat in war. With the start of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war (1780–1784), Dutch society divided into the so-called Orangists (supporters of the House of Orange-Nassau and ruling Stadtholder/Statthalter Wilhelm V) and the Patriots. The latter blamed the Statthalter for his pro-English policy that led to war and an infamous defeat, and demanded immediate state transformations. During the 1780s, the Patriot Party mobilized a nation-wide opposition to the Stadtholder for the first time (Tilly, 1996:70; see also Schroeder, 1996: 40). In 1784–1787 the Patriots faced the Stadtholder’s unwillingness to compromise so they started to arm and then pushed out the Orangists to the south of the country. In 13

It is worth noting that the American Revolution presents a good example of how a favorable international situation (in many respects created by diplomatic art of the colonies themselves and also unreasonable foreign policy of England [Rayner, 1964: 324–330]) allows a revolution to defeat a very powerful rival. And this example supports the idea about the importance of favorable international context for a revolution as well as that external influences can change the direction, form, and outcomes of revolutionary movements (Boswell & Chase-Dunn, 2000; Goldfrank, 1979; Goldstone, 2001, 2014; Goodwin & Skopol, 1989; Johnson, 1993; Katz, 1997; Skopol, 1979; WickhamCrowley, 1992; see also Lawson, 2016). However, we agree that for contemporary theorists of revolution the international dynamics in their analysis still remains a residual feature of revolutionary theory (Lawson, 2015).

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1785 the Stadtholder was forced to leave his palace in the Hague and seek shelter in Nimvegen. His power was first reduced and later the provincial states took away his position of inherited stadtholder and chief commander. The Stadtholder appealed for help to his brother-in-law—the Prussian king. In 1787, 26,000 Prussian soldiers entered the republic and cleared the Hague of Patriots and pushed them to the border of northern France. The invaders brought the Stadtholder back to power. We think there are great doubts if it is reasonable to distinguish the above mentioned three revolutions as a wave according to the above-defined criteria. First of all, we believe that three revolutions are an insufficient number for a wave, as we already pointed out above. However, with the account that two of them were large, it perhaps could be considered as a wave. Besides, Beck (2011) adds some other revolutions to this wave, namely the Pugachev Revolt (1773–1775); the Brabant Revolution (1789–1790); the Polish rebellion (1793–1795); the Batavian Revolution (1795–1798); and the Insurrection of United Irishmen (1789–1803). Some researchers also attribute the slave revolt in Haiti to this wave (see, e.g., Ghachem, 201514 ). We will speak about all these revolutions below. However, as we already mentioned, the duration of a wave cannot be more than a decade (from the start of the first revolution to the start of the last), otherwise this will be not a wave but a sort of chain of revolutions. And indeed, the analysis of these events rather indicates a chain or line of revolutions and not a wave (for details about the lines see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume]). But the time gap between the beginning of the American and French Revolutions is just a bit more than ten years so this temporal argument appears not very important. It is more important that to fit our definition, the wave must consist of events that occur in different countries within an interval of several years but (a) have common reasons in the form of an obvious triggering world-system event and (b) similar situations that produce a similar effect. But we do not observe any such triggering world-system event “to launch” this wave. Of course, one may consider the American War of Independence as such an event followed by the agreement signed in 1787, peace with England and the creation of a newly recognized state––the United States of America. This may happen within revolutionary waves. In Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume), we showed that the Revolution of 1905 in Russia became a trigger for revolutions in Persia and other countries. But in such cases there are also needed some general fundamental causes connected both with similar domestic situations in different countries and with the general international situation producing a more or less similar effect on countries. Below we will consider if this was the case in here.

14

He does not use the term Atlantic revolutions but actually speaks about the place of the Haitian revolution within this wave of the 1770s–1790s. Forestalling, let us note that in his opinion, with which we agree, the American Revolution had little discernible effect on the political culture of prerevolutionary Saint-Domingue; it did not provide any model for the unraveling of Haitian revolution (Ghachem, 2015: 156).

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In addition, there emerges an interesting theoretical question: whether within a revolutionary wave a less powerful peripheral revolution (not social but of nationalliberation type) can produce a direct impact, spurring on a much more powerful social and profound revolution in a country of the World System core? Historical examples do not come to mind. Of course, one may recall that the 1848 European revolutions started in January 1848 in Palermo (Sicily) before Paris. But the impact of this event on the revolution in Paris in February was rather modest. It is the latter revolution that can be considered as the first event of the Springtime of Nations (which vigorously revolutionized other countries, as we already pointed out in Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). In any case, only three weeks and not 13 years passed between these events. Other cases support the idea that the first revolution in a revolutionary wave is also the most powerful. In 1830 the revolution started in Paris and it became the first in a wave that later spread to Belgium, Poland and other countries. The most powerful revolution of 1905–1911 (in Russia) was the first and became a trigger for revolutions in Persia and other countries. During the revolutionary wave after WWI the Russian revolution was the first and most powerful one that seriously affected subsequent revolutions [about all cases see Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. Speaking about the impact of the American Revolution, let us point out that it was not direct but only transmitted and presented as an example of a successful revolution (about an indirect influence of the American Revolution on the Dutch Patriotic Revolution see Tilly, 1996: 70). Certainly, the facts of ideological influence of the American Revolution on the French revolutionaries are widely known and the French revolutionaries often stressed it (Francesco, 2013).15 Thus, some French revolutionaries participated in the War of Independence and France was the ally of the American confederation against the British. Although the ideas and new ideology are important for the start of a revolutionary wave they are still not enough in our opinion. There must be some powerful material (social-political) factors. Revolutions are not provoked by ideologies alone. When searching for reasons, one may point out that American colonists and the Dutch had the same rival—Great Britain. But only in the rising USA was the revolution aimed against Great Britain; in the two other cases (in Holland and France) the revolutions were against an “internal enemy”16 . 15

Let us point out that American revolutionaries were greatly affected by the philosophers of the French Enlightenment whose influence on the French Revolution was profound as well (Grinin, 2012b). 16 In Collin Beck’s opinion (Beck, 2011), revolutionary waves are profoundly cultural events, as they involve alternative ideals of political order and they can be best understood as systemic phenomena occurring during periods of rapid world-cultural expansion. He maintains that his theoretical logic is illustrated by the example of the Atlantic Revolutions. However, in our opinion, just the Atlantic Revolutions give no evidence of this. Besides, we must repeat that although the ideological impact as well as an impact of revolutions in some countries on other is important (Arjomand, 1988, Colburn, 1994, Katz, 1997, Halliday, 1999; Goldstone, 2001; Beck, 2011), still these factors alone are insufficient.

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Third, we trace neither common causes for the three revolutions, nor anything common with respect to the cultural or historical unity of the three societies. The French Revolution was caused by the growing self-consciousness of the Third Estate, which became more and more discontented with their unfair position, tax burdens and the privileges of the upper classes. The major reasons for the Dutch Patriot Revolution, as we saw above, were the problems connected with the foreign policy conducted by the Stadthalter. The general conditions of revolutionary outbreaks differed greatly in the three countries. Also, the immediate reasons for these revolutions (the conditions that created pre-revolutionary crises and immediate revolutionary situations17 ) were very different. In Holland this was a lost war, while in France it was bad harvest and famine that agitated the lower classes together with the financial crisis that paralyzed the authorities. In the American colonies the reasons were the aspiration for independence and the repeated introduction of new taxes. Fourth, we do not completely agree to the full that these revolutions were propelled by antimonarchical sentiments. This refers to a full degree only to the French Revolution and to a lesser degree to the Dutch Patriot Revolution.18 As is known, the American insurgents were generally not against the English king, who by that time had small power in comparison with the French king. The colonists’ main demand was “no taxation without representation” and not focused against royal power; in other words, they would have accepted the king if they had own representatives in the Parliament (at least for a while; about the ideological and political discussions among American thinkers on a republican regime and democracy see Bailyn, 1967: 265–269). Thus, one can hardly agree that the American War of Independence and the French Revolution relate to the same wave. We thus cannot speak about the Atlantic wave and at the best we could speak about the Atlantic chain or line of revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century.

5 Instead of the Atlantic Wave—The Wave of the French Revolution Within the framework of the theory of revolutionary waves, everything falls into place only if one considers the American Revolution and the Dutch Patriot Revolution as independent events not included into any revolutionary wave; that is, not to try to trace the Atlantic wave starting from 1776. Instead we suggest considering the events after 1789 as the wave of the French Revolution. What will we see then? First, the wave is launched by an epic event in the history of revolutions that with more grounds can be considered as the triggering world-system event. Second, the impact of this 17

See Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume); see also Grinin, 2020. 18 One should not forget that we speak about the country that was officially called the Dutch Republic, with substantial power in both the provincial assemblies and the General States.

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revolution is realized via quite material factors and at a certain stage it transforms into an export of revolution. Third, the number of revolutions that followed the French Revolution is obviously more than three. The time interval inside this wave completely meets the abovementioned decade period (1789–1798/1799). Finally, the speed of emergence of new revolutions considerably changes. Already just several weeks after the Storming of the Bastille there started two revolutions in the territory of modern Belgium that were undoubtedly affected by the French events, namely the Brabant and Liege revolutions. The Brabant Revolution (1789–1790) was a revolution that occurred in the Austrian Netherlands and aimed at emancipation from Austrian rule (the Belgian provinces had been incorporated into the Habsburg monarchy since 1714). The revolutionary upheavals had started in 1787 and were associated with the Austrian monarchy’s attempts to reform their possessions, and this was considered by the Belgian provinces as a breach of their century-long privileges. They refused to recognize as legal the new taxes imposed by Austrian emperor Joseph II. Undoubtedly, here one may trace a certain influence of the American Revolution on the Brabant revolution.19 But as we will see, the Brabant revolution exploded with peculiar strength just under the impact of the French and not the American Revolution. It happened that in 1789 the opposition between the Emperor and the states of the southern Dutch provinces increased (not without the impact of the beginning of the French Revolution). Finally, in June 1789 the Emperor rejected the Charter that confirmed the right of the provinces and this launched the revolution and open armed fight. The rebelling lands formed their army and in a number of battles defeated the Austrians. Then, in January 1790 they created a confederation of the United Belgian States (Schroeder, 1996: 61). The independent state existed for about a year, but later returning Austrian troops subjugated these territories again to Austria. However, this revolution became a direct precursor of the revolution in Belgium in 1830. The Liege revolution is little known and sometimes called the Happy Revolution; it started on August 18, 1789 also in the territory of modern Belgium under the influence of events in neighboring Brabant and France. The upheavals were against the power of the prince-bishop. Let us point out that these revolutions of 1789 occurred under the influence of Parisian events but without direct export of revolution from France. After the escape of the prince-bishop, a republic was proclaimed in the city. However, later in 1791 with the help of the Austrian army the Republic of Liege was

19

In particular, both the Dutch Act of Abjuration of 1581 and the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 served as models for the Declaration of Independence of Flanders and some other provinces. The name of the new state was also associated with the Niederlanden United Provinces and with the United States of America. It is also worth pointing out the similarity between the events in the North-American colonies and Brabant: the war of independence and refusal to pay taxes originating from certain political traditions. But the burden of new taxation in these countries was certainly incomparable: in Brabant these were really considerable taxes while in America they were minor.

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destroyed and the prince-bishop returned to power.20 So in both Brabant and Liège, reaction had triumphed by mid-1791 (Tilly, 1996: 66). The peculiarity of the wave of the French Revolution is that none of its events can be compared to the French Revolution. The most powerful was the Polish movement. At first it was a national revolution since the country was still independent but on the verge of disappearance but later after the foreign interference it became a nationalliberation one. But the course of events fits well with the notion of a wave: a powerful explosion in France and its impact on neighboring and more distant countries. Let us point out that we attribute to this wave only the events of the period of the French Revolution (just a decade from 1789 to 1799), not including the Napoleonic era.21 The uprising in Poland in 1794 led by Thaddeus Kosciuszko was not only inspired by the example of the unfolding French Revolution. The insurgents hoped for the help of revolutionary France (however, the influence of the American Revolution can also be perceived, since Kosciuszko had participated in the War of Independence).22 In Poland already from 1791 a fierce fight had proceeded between the supporters and opponents of the new constitution that limited the political rights of the Polish nobility (szlachta) and their rights towards peasants, while at the same time expanding the king’s rights (which would do enormous good for Poland). But several elite groups, supported by neighboring powers (Russia and Prussia that did not wish Poland’s reinforcement), lobbied for keeping the szlachta’s rights intact (Dyakov, 1993: 88). Besides, Poland’s policy both internal and external was unrealistic (Schroeder, 1996: 76 etc.). Thus, in Poland the uprisings were caused by sharp contradictions within the elite connected with the attempts at reforming the state regime (much like the divisions in the French Estates connected with attempts to reform the French fiscal system); but when the neighboring states had intervened, the Ko´sciuszko Uprising became a national liberation struggle for preserving a state and using self-determination as the theme for the introduction of some liberal ideas. The French Revolution caused considerable unrest in a number of European countries and territories, which increased with the victories of revolutionary France. It is clear that in those places where revolutionary armies could help oppositions, or all the more where a direct occupation took place, some great transformations would occur mostly leading to the overthrow of monarchies and the establishment of republics, as well as the elimination of feudal burdens and customs (this was especially true in the countries neighboring France: Belgium, Holland, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland). 20

In 1792–1794 there also occurred many events connected with power change in Liege. The Prince-Bishopric of Liège was finally dissolved in 1795 as a result of annexation of Liege by the French revolutionary forces. 21 The wave of transformations that came in the following (Napoleonic) decade was not revolutionary in form, but the results were quite revolutionary since they succeeded in sweeping away many hundreds small and medium monarchies and also created the conditions for the new revolutionary wave because the Spanish revolution (1808–1812), as we already noted, launched a wave of events in Latin America (starting from 1809). 22 One may add that Catherine the Great made a virtue of her struggle with the Polish insurgents just as a fact of her participation in a solidary struggle of the European monarchs against the harmful impact of the French Revolution in Europe.

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But quite a real revolutionary echo of the French Revolution was perceived even in Ireland and Scotland. The aspiration of certain revolutionary regimes to export revolution must be considered as an important reason for the spreading of waves of revolutions. In Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) and also in Chapter “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) and Chapter “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022c, in this volume) we spoke about the export of revolutions which in some cases increased the scale of revolutionary waves (in particular after WWII). A peculiar and probably the first case of a pure export of revolution took place already at the end of the eighteenth century as a result of the military success of the French Republic.23 The most famous case is the abovementioned Batavian Revolution which broke out as a result of the French Republic’s occupation of Holland, which thus became the Batavian Republic and existed until 1806. Among the earliest revolutions provoked by republican France one may also point out the revolution in the so called Rauracian Republic, the first “daughter republic” of France. This republic existed in 1792–1793 in the Prince-Bishopric of Basel in Switzerland. Already in 1790, this Prince-Bishopric faced upheavals resulting from the emergence of revolutionary clubs here. They were initially suppressed with the help of the Austrian army. However, in 1792 the Prince-bishop was deposed. The above-mentioned revolutionary republics (see also about Italian ones below) were not independent states but depended on the French Directory.24 But it is clear that this establishment of a number of states could not rely only on the French armies but required a certain rise of revolutionary sentiments (all the more so since rather radical reforms were to be conducted). One should also consider that the French revolution launched a strong wave of nationalism in Europe (Godechot, 1988; Dunn, 1988). And for such decentralized states as Italy, Germany, and Switzerland the concept of nation appeared inseparable from their centralization. And the latter seemed impossible without revolution which was desired even if it was brought by French bayonets. In fact, to inspire revolutions the French used many tools similar to modern ones (see e.g. Serna, 2013: 14). In Paris during the period of revolution a number of foreigners organized clubs or other organizations spreading revolutionary ideas. Respectively, they would later become centers that would stir revolutionary moods in their native countries. The history of the so called Helvetian republic in Switzerland that was proclaimed in 1798 gives a good example of the link between external and internal events. The reason for the French intervention was the rebellion in the canton of Waadt (present Vaud), organized by the patriots (Frédéric-César de La Harpe and 23

Some episodes of export of revolutions may be found in the history of the Reformation, but there was mostly the export of religious ideas. 24 However, most of revolutionaries did not worry about that. On the contrary, for example, the German revolutionaries wrote that ‘Under your [France’s] protection we will build a daughter republic, the wounds of the war will heal, and we shall bless the hand which you have offered us’ (Heuvel, 2001: 43).

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others) who at the end of the year 1797 addressed Paris, asking the French to send an army. It is natural that the Swiss revolutionaries (the “patriots”) were the members of the Helvetian club that operated in Paris in 1790–1791 and actively supported this intervention and the establishment of a revolutionary state. No appeals of Swiss authorities to France would help as in Switzerland there had been no tyrannies and the republican regime had been established (about the Helvetian republic in Switzerland see Lerner, 2012). The temporary centralization of Switzerland produced a positive impact over time (Hof, 1988). Revolutionary movements in Ireland and Scotland. In Ireland there operated the Society of the United Irishmen, a radical or liberal political organization founded in 1791 in Belfast and allied with Revolutionary France. The revolutionaries launched the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which was agreed upon with the French with the objective of ending the British monarchical rule over Ireland and establishing a sovereign and independent Irish republic. On August 22, 1798 French forces numbering a thousand people landed in Killala situated in County Mayo. The short-lived Irish Republic of 1798 was established and it was more commonly called the Republic of Connacht. It was crushed by English troops. Some 30,000 soldiers and civilians died as a direct consequence of this military action (Tilly, 1996: 137). Far less successful was the revolutionary movement in Scotland (1797) under the leadership of the Society of the United Scotsmen, whose aims were largely similar to those of the Society of the United Irishmen. Revolutionary movement in Italy in 1789–1799. The French Revolution had a strong and quick response in a number of Italian territories, in particular in the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont). Already starting from 1789 this region faced turmoil and there even appeared such appeals as ‘The time has come to overthrow the tyranny following the example of our good neighbours’ (Bondarchuk, 1970: 11). Unrest and revolts occurred in other Italian regions; revolutionary groups and organizations appeared partially under the influence of French emissaries (Martin, 2013) and partially spontaneously. In 1792–1794 large revolutionary plots were discovered in Piedmont, Rome, Lombardy, the Venetian and Genoese republics. With the start of Napoleon’s Italian campaign in 1796, republics started emerging one after another; in some places revolutions would start even before the French army came, while arising in other places with their arrival. In October 1796 the so-called Cispadane Republic was founded in central Italy, and in July 1797 a republic was established in Milan (Lombardy) which incorporated the Cispadane Republic and some other territories. As a result, there emerged a ‘unified and indivisible Cisalpine Republic’ (Ibid. 26). This was another ‘daughter republic’ after the Batavian one (Dalin, 1973: 98). The formation of the Cisalpine Republic inspired great hopes among the German revolutionaries who aspired to create a republic in the Rhineland (Heuvel, 2001: 42– 43). In May a revolt in Genoa failed, and then due to the intervention of Napoleon the millennia-old oligarchic rule of the Genoese patricians was overthrown and the Ligurian Republic was formed. The anti-government revolts in Piedmont in 1796– 1797 failed. However, in February 1798 the Roman republic was proclaimed, and in January 1799 the Parthenopean Republic (on the territory of the Kingdom of Naples).

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The governmental structure of the young republics in many ways reproduced the structure of revolutionary France.

6 The Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution in itself and in connection with the subject of the present chapter is of particular interest. Both the type of this revolution connected with racial exploitation and racial contradiction and its driving forces and objectives (the struggle of slaves against slavery) were unique. This was almost the only successful revolution of slaves.25 At the same time, this revolution was the precursor of the national-liberation struggles in Latin America, which started sometime after that. Let us discuss if this revolution was connected with the French Revolution and could be included into the wave of the French Revolution. Of course, the connection with France was quite direct since Saint-Domingue (as this territory was called at that time) was a French colony (Geggus, 2002, 2010; Klooster, 2009; Lawson, 2015: 299– 300). As to the attribution of this revolution to the wave of the French Revolution the question is that this revolution dates to 1804, so is formally beyond the time span of the wave. But one should take into account that the revolt in the island actually had already started in 1791 (Lawson, 2015: 299). So perhaps we can speak about the Haitian revolutionary epoch from this date and the Haiti’s proclamation of independence(with the massacre that followed it) was only a new revolutionary step though the most famous and important one.26 In any case the impact of the French events was clearly considerable. In particular, a huge impact was produced by the decree of the National Constituent Assembly of May 15, 1791 (according to which the free mulattos borne from free fathers and mothers were granted access to all future colonial representative institutions) and also by the Convention’s decision of 1794 on the abolishment of slavery. In Latin America there were also many emissaries from revolutionary France who actively propagated new ideas (Cox, 1982: 7; see below). We may also consider that with respect to the situation in Saint-Domingue there was a power vacuum (see the discussion of this in Sect. 1 above) because the power of France was weakened (both because of the revolution and because of the sea war with Great Britain). This made a considerable contribution to the victory of revolutionaries. And crucially, the Haitian Revolution, similar to other events like the revolt in Guadelupe in 1802 under the leadership of Louis Delgrès, was directed against Napoleon’s attempts to reinstate slavery throughout the French Empire. As to the type of the Haitian revolution we already pointed out (in Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” [Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this 25

It is worthwhile to cite, “One of the great ironies of Haiti’s longtime absence from the comparative canon of revolutions is that the term ‘revolution’ has long been associated with the ideal of liberation from slavery” (Ghachem, 2015: 148). 26 About revolutionary epochs see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolu tions and Revolutionary Events (Goldstone et al. 2022a) and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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volume]) that it may be referred to the group where the main markers are connected with ethnic, religious, and racial attributes. There are certain grounds for this. The matter is that soon after January 1, 1804 when the independence of Saint-Domingue was proclaimed and the island gained back the old Indian name—Haiti—there took place the so-called 1804 Haiti massacre. This was a deliberate annihilation of the white population of the newly-created Republic of Haiti (the Franco-Haitians) who remained after the Haitian revolution (the massacre lasted for almost three months). It is important to point out that it was not an incident on the part of the insurgents and was conducted by the black population under orders of the head of the newly established revolutionary state—Jean-Jacques Dessalines. In its course from three to five thousand white men, women and children were killed. But it is also important that from the very beginning the revolution had a racial character. The rebelling Blacks and mulattos killed white people while the latter executed thousands of colored people (Girard, 2011: 319–32). So we may conclude that it is probably more correct to define this revolution as a class-racial one. We should note that the events in Haiti were far from unique. Above we mentioned the revolt in Guadelupe in 1802. In the 1790s one can also mention similar events: minor slave revolts in the British Virgin Islands (1790)27 ; the slave revolt in Curaçao (1795);28 and Fedon’s rebellion in Grenada (1795–1796),29 The first two can by no means be defined as revolutions. The last event was closer to a revolution since it was inspired by emissaries from France. These emissaries, responsible for affecting the ideals of the French Revolution and spreading the revolutionary cause in the region, vowed revenge for the killing of Republican soldiers during the attack on St. Lucia. Fedon’s actions were, thus, clearly linked with the French revolutionary cause and though he did not specifically request an extension of the rights of Afro-Grenadians, he obviously saw it as forthcoming under a Republican regime because emancipation was granted to slaves in France’s Caribbean territories between 1791 and 1794 (Cox, 1982: 7; see also Candlin, 2012: ch.1). If we were to consider the Haitian revolution as the last revolution of the wave of the French Revolution, then one should point out that a new wave would start shortly after it, namely the Ibero-Latin wave in 1808. The processes initiated by the French Revolution were accelerated by Napoleon’s achievements and geopolitical changes which eventually led to the collapse of the regime in Spain, and the emergence of a power vacuum in its American colonies that in turn launched the Ibero-Latin wave that finally ended only in the 1830s (see “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” [Grinin, 2022d, in this volume]). 27

This was a minor event that was quickly suppressed. But it is of interest that the idea of freedom that sparkled a powerful flame in France spread to many corners of the world. The revolt was sparked by the rumor that freedom had been granted to slaves in England, but that the planters were withholding knowledge of it. 28 This was a larger rebellion and lasted for several weeks. 29 It was an uprising against British rule of Grenada, predominantly led by free mixed-race Frenchspeakers aspiring to establish the power of the French republic in the island.

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Thus, in the late eighteenth century/early nineteenth century, revolutions acquired a new quality. As we have seen (see chapters “Revolutions and historical process” (Grinin, 2022c) and “Evolution and typology of revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume); see also Grinin, 2022e, 2017, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b), since the modern era, they have become a powerful driving force of the historical process. However, since the end of the eighteenth century, their world-systemic significance has grown. It was from this time that the waves of revolutions, which had rarely happened before, went one after another. In fact, sixty years, from 1789 to 1849, can be considered profoundly revolutionary. Indeed, during this time there were four revolutionary waves! If at the same time sometimes the interval between waves was 15–16 years (as between the liberal-emancipation wave of the 1830s and the pan-European wave of 1848–1849), then the interval between the wave of defeated revolutions of the 1820s and the liberal-emancipation wave of the 1830s is much smaller. If we assume that the national liberation revolution in Greece ended in 1829, then this interval is only a year. Also note that some revolutions can in a certain sense take between two waves as the Haitian Revolution was between the wave of the French Revolution of 1789–1798/1799 and the Ibero-Latin wave 1808–1826. This chapter summarizes the theoretical consideration of the phenomenon of revolutionary waves in history in this monograph. In this chapter, as well as in Chapter “Introduction Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events (Goldstone et al., 2022a), Chapter “The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: their causes and consequences” (Grinin, 2022d), and Chapter “Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume), we have analyzed at different levels of detail 14 revolutionary waves. They were pointed out according to the above mentioned five criteria in paragraph 13.2. This approach made it possible to clarify the chronology of waves, to single out waves that fell out of the attention of researchers (as the wave of the French Revolution of 1789–1798/1799) and to propose to abandon the selection of waves, which in the minds of a number of researchers seem to have already settled down (like the Atlantic Wave). We hope that the research done on revolutionary waves in this collective monograph will give impetus to the development of the theory of revolutionary waves and in any case it will make people re-think long-standing views.30 30

However, this volume contains other approaches to identifying the waves of revolutions and, accordingly, to their number in world history (see Chapter “Typology and principles of dynamics of revolutionary waves in world history” (Rozov, 2022) and “Revolutionary waves of the Early Modern period. Types and phases” (Tsygankov, 2022, in this volume); see also these authors’ monograph (Rozov et al., 2019). Nikolay Rozov et al. make attempts to combine a number of approaches (ones of Goldstone, Tsirel, Beck, etc.) to the systematization of revolutionary waves, while admitting that there is no “single basis” in their approach (Rozov et al., 2019: 70ff.). As an intention, this should be welcomed, but the mechanical combination of revolutionary waves identified by different researchers into a common list does not give a completely successful result. Researchers interpret the concept of revolution too broadly, in fact classifying riots and popular uprisings as revolutions, eventually identifying 26–27 waves (Rozov et al., 2019: 76–78). In our opinion, the resulting list includes events that are clearly not related to waves, for example: 1595–1608—the Eurasian peasant wars (Ottoman Empire, Muscovy); 1648–1650—the Slavic revolts (Ukraine, Poland, Muscovy);

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During the five-hundred-year era of modern history, one can distinguish periods of slowdown and acceleration of the revolutionary process on the basis of the characteristics of revolutionary waves, in particular by how often they occur, how they follow each other—densely or at large intervals (sometimes even several decades). And this view gives grounds to say that we are currently in a period of acceleration of the revolutionary process in the World System (see about this Chapter “Introduction Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events [Goldstone et al. 2022a], Chapter “Revolutions of the twenty-first century as a factor in the World System Reconfiguration” [Grinin, 2022e], and Chapter “Conclusion. How many revolutions will we see in the 21st century?” [Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this book]).

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Grinin, L. E. (2017). Russkaya revolyutsiya i lovushki modernizatsii. Polis. Politicheskie Issledovaniya, 4, 138–155. Grinin, L. (2018a). Revolutions: An insight into a five centuries’ trend. Social Evolution & History, 17(2), 171–204. Grinin, L. (2018b). Revolutions and historical process. Journal of Globalization Studies, 9(2), 126–141. Grinin, L. (2019a). Kondratieff waves, technological paradigms, and the theory of production revolutions. In Grinin & Korotayev (Eds.), Kondratieff waves: Spectrum of opinions. Uchitel. Grinin, L. (2019b). Revolutions in the light of historical process. Social Evolution & History, 18(2), 260–285. Grinin, L. (2020). Slozhilas’ li v Amerike revolyutsionnaya situatsiya. Vek globalizatsii, 3, 31–44. https://doi.org/10.30884/vglob/2020.03.03. Grinin, L. (2022a). Evolution and typology of revolutions. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 173–200). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_6. Grinin, L. (2022b). On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 69–104). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_3. Grinin, L. (2022c). Revolutions and historical process. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 139–171). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_5. Grinin, L. (2022d). The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: Their causes and consequences. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 281–313). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864682_11. Grinin, L. (2022e). Revolutions of the twenty-first century as a factor in the World System Reconfiguration. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 975–998). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_38. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2014). The sixth Kondratieff wave and the cybernetic revolution. In L. Grinin, T. Devezas, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Kondratieff waves. Juglar–Kuznets–Kondratieff. Yearbook (pp. 354–378). ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2015). Ot rubil do nanorobotov. Mir na puti k epokhe samo-upravlyayemykh sistem (istoriya tekhnologiy i opisaniye ikh budushchego). Uchitel. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2016). The cybernetic revolution and the forthcoming epoch of selfregulating systems. Uchitel. Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the twentieth century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change . Springer (pp. 315–388). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2010a). Globalniy krizis v retrospective. Kratkaya istoriya podyemov i krizisov: ot Likurga do Alana Grinspena. LIBROKOM/URSS. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2010b). Will the global crisis lead to global transformations? The coming epoch of new coalitions. Journal of Globalization Studies, 1(2), 166–183. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2011). The coming epoch of new coalitions: Possible scenarios of the near future. World Futures, 67(8), 531–563. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2012a). Does ‘Arab Spring’ mean the beginning of World System reconfiguration? World Futures, 68(7), 471–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2012.697836.

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Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and the “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as co-editor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, theory of revolution, political anthropology, global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology.

Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Wave of Color Revolutions

All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism Eric Selbin

Fall 2019 finds people all around the world engaged in resistance, rebellion, and what some would call revolution. In Latin America a government was toppled in Bolivia, Chile’s president was forced to fire most of his cabinet and announce the re-write of the bureaucratic-authoritarian constitution, Argentines returned a (left) Peronist president to office, and people took to the streets in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, and Venezuela. Across Europe the “yellow vest” movement persisted in France, Serbia passed a year of protests, Russian protesters demanded an end to political crackdowns, Dutch farmers shut down roads, and a week of unrest in Barcelona and other areas of Catalonia related to independence from Spain overshadowed the parliamentary election. New criminal codes and harsher laws brought people out in Indonesia and the “days of rage” in Hong Kong continue against the extradition treaty and increasing authoritarianism. In Lebanon people rose over taxes on cell phone apps and rampant corruption while corruption and jobs have brought people to the streets in Iraq; in Iran it was gas prices and repression. Algeria’s Revolution of Smiles began early in 2019 against the president’s monopoly on power and culminated with demands for a new political system on the 1 November, the 65th anniversary of the Algerian Revolution (about some of the abovementioned events see also Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume).

This revised and expanded version (Selbin, 2019) is reprinted with the kind permission of the good people at SAGE Publications Ltd. and Millennium: Journal of International Studies. My appreciation as well to H. Cordes, D. Ritter, R. Snyder, and not least the truly amazing Millennium editorial team, M. Certo, J. Leigh, and A. Rogstad; thank you. E. Selbin (B) Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_14

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It may not seem intuitive in an age of authoritarian revanchism, though perhaps it should: revolution and the attendant revolutionary imaginations that lead to revolutionary sentiments, and hence revolutionary situations, remain real, ready, and relevant. If the current global wave of authoritarianism is perhaps not what our grandparents’ thought of as dictatorship (fascism or communism), these new revolutions may differ from earlier ones as well. Yet revolution, however it develops and unfolds, remains a recourse for millions angered and disappointed by their rulers. Around the world, the unrealized promises of Western liberal bourgeois democracy, married to global capital, have ushered in a new authoritarian era where billions live one event or threat, real or perceived, away from the imposition of security and order to be “protected.”1 As in the 1930s, freedom and democracy is again under assault from leaders claiming that following their unrestrained authority is the only way to make their country great again. Plus ça change: the “present,” an inevitable amalgam of the past, present and future, is always in transition.2 Through state and capital, elites and their cronies have produced interconnected crises defined by a planet-destroying, militaristic, patriarchal, racially inflected authoritarian capitalism that has generated mind-numbing inequalities and myriad dangers to humanity and the global biome, to amend Goldfrank’s (1996) prophetic formulation.3 The end of state welfare functions where they exist, the destruction of stable employment such as it was, and shifting job futures have created profound economic fear. At the same time, the destruction of vital social bonds such as communal identities, social protections and sense of place have produced deep social dread. People are fearful and unsure and into this space opportunistic politicians and parties have come, proffering putatively populist solutions redolent of past authoritarian solutions. From East and South Asia and Oceania, in the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, across Europe and the Americas, the world is awash in authoritarian politicians winning elections and implementing anti-liberal, ethno-nationalistic, intolerant and non-secular policies and politics. In this age of authoritarian revanchism, the Austerity-Security State reflects a politics often voted into power out of a set of fears stoked by the powerful that ‘the economy’ requires patriarchal, conservative policies in a hostile world inimical to our interests. These are states whose managers (politicians and civil servants who serve at the behest of the wealthy and powerful) have reduced social services and the provision of social goods in the name of ‘stimulating’ the economy. This has increased governments’ reliance on state security apparatuses to surveil and keep popular forces at bay and provide, as necessary to deal with exigencies, some of the very goods and services taken away. 1

Walter Benjamin, writing at a similarly ominous juncture in the late 1930s, argued that the “state of emergency” was the rule, not the exception, and that people needed to create their own states of emergency to create the possibility for and bring about change (Benjamin, 2003: 392; this specific piece was translated by Harry Zohn). 2 In Faulkner’s felicitous formulation, the past “is never dead. It’s not even past” (Faulkner, 1951: 92). 3 This amendation adds “authoritarian” and “global biome”.

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In this formulation, people have become, per Berlant (2011: 1), “too expensive,” and the demand is that they shrink their expectations, their hopes, dreams and desires for themselves and (for those who have them) their children and grandchildren, sacrificed on the altar of state austerity and wealth aggregation to benefit the AusteritySecurity State’s elite and their global partners, the state managers who serve them, and their minions. Such a politics predicated on order and control and the success of the elite is not uncomplicated: Will this revanchist authoritarianism deliver the promised better world—and when? As a result, insecure lie the heads of those who benefit, while those who suffer from the existing conditions, their daily lives still marked by the insecurity and disorder associated with neoliberalism, might reasonably begin to think a bit more insecurity and disorder in pursuit of improving their lot may not be a terrible idea. For millions there is an almost romantic aspect, evoking not the convulsion attending any social change but boundless possibilities; herein lies the power of revolution. In the face of ongoing depredations and degradations as well as elites ill-disposed to their interests, people collectively seek to realize human rights of all stripes, broad and meaningful labour rights, and collective and engaged governance with representation and resources available to all, all of these premised on a radical inclusivity. People harbor dreams and passions for justice, equality and freedom and seek to be the makers of their own lives, of history. Where and when and who will bring revolution into the twenty-first Century?4 Revolutions may no longer necessarily follow the form (or function) of past instances and processes. Yet revolution in a familiar, recognizable sense exists everywhere and anywhere people seek to realize their private dreams and desires in public settings, when they confront the spectacle of their existence rather than passively accept it as they fight for social justice and a better world for themselves and others (about the future revolutions in the twenty-first century see also Chapter “Global Inequality and World Revolutions: Past, Present and Future” (Chase-Dunn & Nagy, 2022), Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022b), Chapter “Revolution Forecasting: Formulation of the Problem” (Shults, 2022), and Chapter “Conclusion: How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume). Some initial comments will situate what follows, specifically with regard to the moment we find ourselves in and what revolution means today, before turning to questions of revolutionary scenarios, the international system, and how we might proceed. A little more than a hundred years after Russia’s 1917 October Revolution, revolution in a recognizable sense (since 1789 France) exists everywhere and anywhere people fight for social justice and a better world. When someone, anyone asks why or why not. When they demand the (im)possible and the impossible. Inevitably, 4

If Bowersock is right that historians cannot resist chronological units, “these units, which rarely have any intrinsic coherence of their own, undoubtedly help us in thinking about the chaotic and unceasing flow of historical events, personalities, ideas, and movements” (Bowersock, 2013: 56). This inevitably involves creating coherent narratives that reflect a beginning, middle, and end structure, with chains of circumstances, causes and effects, and climactic moments.

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what follows reflects my positionality in a variety of ways, perhaps most importantly here as a political sociologist in search of broad patterns and processes (albeit grounded in the material and ideological conditions of people’s everyday lives) who was raised, educated, and located in the global north; much of what I “know” is based on secondary and even tertiary sources.

1 A Brief Historical Interlude We are at a momentous time with regard to revolutions. Recent anniversaries of note abound: the 230th of the French Revolution, haunting our understanding of revolution still; Russia’s 100th, China’s 70th, the Cuban 60th, revolutions in Grenada, Iran, and Nicaragua 40th, and Eastern Europe’s “refolutions” 30th.5 It is 215 years since the underappreciated but crucial Haitian Revolution, just over 170 years since the 1848 Springtime of the European Peoples, and just over 50 years since 1968, these last two perhaps the greatest global revolutionary moments during which arguably no “revolution” was realized. The 1789 French Revolution, with its demands for liberty, equality, and freedom ushered in the nineteenth century and led ineluctably to 1848. Haiti proved that freedom and justice belong to every people everywhere. Mexico was the first great social upheaval of the twentieth Century, China brought world-changing revolution into what some still quaintly call “the Third World,” and Cuba brought the heroic image of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist revolutionaries into the modern world. Some argue that Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries, or Mexico’s modern-day Zapatistas, brought it into the post-modern6 era, while Gilly believes that Bolivia’s 2003 insurrection constituted “the first revolution of the twenty-first century” (Gilly, 2005: 41). If in our lifetimes it is hard to imagine, a century ago Russia’s 1917 revolution was heralded by many around the globe as the future, with its insistence on social justice for all and the collective ownership of the means of production. If Steffens’ (1931: 799) pronouncement that “I have been over into the future, and it works”7 seems regrettable, it captures a sentiment about possibilities that seemed evident at the time. When the revolution was formally put to rest in 1991, few were willing to claim the body, an ignoble end to a revolutionary process that promised to transform the world for the better. A hundred years later the possibilism is all but lost, Putin’s Russia a sad, hollow shell that would look eerily familiar to the Tsars. Yet whatever it became, the Russian revolution’s early years as a moment, a clarion call, a space and a place, echoes yet. 5

For that matter, 100 years ago dozens of soviets blossomed, often in unlikely places, sometimes lasting little more than a few days, all across Europe from Ukraine to Ireland; some 80 years ago, the Spanish Revolution died amidst the carnage of the Spanish civil war. 6 On the Zapatistas, among many, see (Lippens, 2003; McGreal, 2006). Foucault argued this for Iran 1979: see (Mirsepassi-Ashtiani, 1994: 51; Bayat, 2005: 894). 7 A more famous version, “I have seen the future, and it works,” was often used by Steffens and is attributed to him by Winter (1933: 3) to whom he was married.

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In the 1990s and early 2000s it was fashionable to declare revolution dead, a two hundred year run from roughly 1789 to 1989 over (Castañeda, 1993; Fukuyama, 1989, 1993; Goodwin, 2001; Nodia, 2000; Snyder, 1999).8 If we simply observe Mexico’s 1994 Zapatista uprising, the Second Intifada, various “color revolutions,” and dozens of other cases since 2009 in Iran (but also in Georgia, Guinea, Iceland, Moldova, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere), December 2010 in Tunisia, then around the Mediterranean and elsewhere in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, Central, South, and Southwest Asia, such claims seem suspect at best. This is not to suggest recent instances are similar to the “big, large, huge” revolutionary processes associated with 1789–1989. Perhaps, rather, a “little revolutionary age” which may be no less meaningful or powerful for those involved; in Lawson’s compelling formulation, “contemporary revolutions owe more to the legacy of 1905, 1848, and 1776 then they do to 1789 or 1917” (Lawson, 2019: 226); I would add 1968. Today’s wave of emergent authoritarian revanchism may simply mean the time and place for more revolutions is drawing nigh, if not today or tomorrow, soon and for many years to come as people struggle to seize control of the material and ideological conditions of their everyday lives.9 Previous global revolutionary moments (1848 and 1968 but also 1905–1911, 1917–1919, 1989–1991, 2010–2014) were largely marked by the failure of revolutionaries to seize state power; when they did, “triumph” generally degenerated into stultifying bureaucracy, the promises of better times largely unrealized. In post-1848 Europe, fearful elites, anxious to avoid a replay of the chaos of 1789–1848, made peace with allowing an emergent bourgeoisie limited participation in the political process, hoping to bind them to their new benefactors. In this context, the Paris Commune was profoundly unsettling and hence swiftly and brutally dealt with; in innumerable forms it haunted European politics for a century. The Industrial Revolution brought with it workers, whose shared travails gave rise to a communal ethos which in 1914 would prove weak in the face of a fierce nationalism. Such a quick and loose rendition has myriad problems, but the important pieces are 1848 as the advent of a broader (in relatively few European states but with repercussions) polity and politics, the threat of elite repression, and the discovery that collective action was difficult to translate across borders in the face of nationalistic fear- or war-mongering. The 1848 centenary was marked by a tattered, torn world struggling under the dead weight of History. In 1948, the world celebrated the belief that authoritarianism had been defeated; yet today claims that World War II marked any sort of meaningful defeat of authoritarianism globally simply do not hold up to any serious analysis.

8

Guattari (2008: 258) deemed revolution “broken and worn out.” This is not a new concern; see, for example, (Eckstein, 1965; Walton, 1984). 9 About the revolutions mentioned in this section see Chapter “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin, 2022c), Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022), and Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume).

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Nonetheless, 40 years later, a reasonable analyst could discern strengthening ‘democratic’ practices and the seeming end of (bureaucratic-) authoritarian regimes globally. The demise of brutal bureaucratic-authoritarian military regimes in Latin America, 1989–1991 Europe—collapse, revolt, refolution, revolution—and the collapse of the Soviet Union heralded ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama, 1989, 1993); for many the global north liberal bourgeois democracy seemed triumphant. In the U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famously claimed, there was no longer any alternative to neoliberalism—free markets, free trade and global capitalism had “won”; the absence of the political (democracy, human rights) in her analysis was chillingly prescient. Today, neoliberalism is resplendent, its politics marked by a deep desire for stability, control, capitalism and “security” in various guises—human, food, water, energy, climate, health, economic, land, social and the like. Promises by authoritarian inclined politicians to provide these can make ‘democracy’ seem little more than a luxury. Whether this neoliberal, electoral/democratic authoritarianism will prove durable is unclear; the damage is not. As in 1848 and 1968, resistance, rebellion, and revolution seem to be possible, even plausible, everywhere; desire(s) for greater participation and social equality never far off. Whatever the demands—or in some cases, absence of demands—such collective behavior represents a call to be seen and heard, reflecting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “fierce urgency of now” (King, 2004: 234) and the Zapatistas’ compelling question: “is this the democracy you wanted?”10 Leaving their homes in pursuit of their private hopes and dreams as well as collective advancement in public fora, people are acting collectively; if this is not revolution on the grand scale we often associate with the term, it is revolutionary nonetheless. Thus, the term revolution is being (again) bandied about, potent, maddeningly vague, and intoxicating. So, who and where and when and how and what do “they” want and how do we understand them—what are revolutions?

2 On Revolution Beck has recently argued that “the phenomenon of revolution has new life in the social sciences” (Beck, 2018: 134), a position echoed by Abrams (2019).11 Yet most academic formulations remain beholden to Skocpol (1979), doyen of the third generation, for whom state power is sought in pursuit of fast, fundamental transformations of state and class structures to alter societal systems in a contemporaneous and mutually reinforcing fashion. Goldstone weds her structuralist approach to Foran (2005) and others to bring in aspects such as culture and ideology: “revolution is the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilization (whether military or civilian 10

This was posed by the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee General Command (CCRI-CG) in a communiqué sent out January 31, 1994 in which they asked, “Why is everyone so quiet? Is this the democracy you wanted?” often dated February 4, 1994 in the USA. 11 But see (Allison, 2019).

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or both) in the name of social justice, to create new political institutions” (Goldstone, 2014: 4). Revolutions are struggles to rectify injustice, but Holmes offers a salutary reminder: “It is never just rage against injustice that leads to mass uprisings, but also the millenarian belief in something better,” indeed, the premise and promise is that “better must come”12 (Holmes, 2014: 382). Lawson’s fourth generation construes them “as conjunctural amalgams of systemic crisis, structural opening, and collective action, which arise from an intersection of international, economic, political, and symbolic factors” (Lawson, 2016: 106). This is comprehensive and deeper, a powerful academic tool.13 But few people are academics. Revolutions are ‘social facts’ dependent on human consensus and consciousness to imbue them with meaning.14 There is thus a ‘folksonomy’ of revolution, meant to capture a collective, user-generated, nonhierarchical, bottom up taxonomy, produced in no small measure by those seeking to change their worlds but also those resisting. This sort of formulation necessitates a broad definition. Revolution is social upheaval meant to produce striking, broad, meaningful change in the material and ideological conditions of people’s everyday lives. There is a widely held sense that we know revolution when we see it; opening revolution to the everyday seems fruitful. Caution is in order: revolutionary multiplicities extending infinitely in every possible direction and dimension all at once risks rendering the concept an empty signifier. But there is much to explore. Consider the still enigmatic Eastern European “color revolutions,” the currently quiescent saga in Chiapas, India’s Naxalites, various shades of what correctly or not have been broadly (and unhelpfully) construed as “Islamic” revolutions, various anti- and alter-globalization movements, and the range of vaguely related uprisings that started in Tunisia and inspired Egypt, Portugal’s Desperate Generation protests, Greece’s Indignant Citizens Movement, the “Chilean Winter” Education Conflict, Spain’s “Indignant” Movement, and, least importantly, Occupy Wall Street in the U.S. Any of the many protests mentioned in the opening paragraph. If few of these fit our most common notions of revolution, it seems (past) time to blow that up. Foran led the way, persuasively framing Guatemala’s 1944–1954 democratic “Spring,” the brief period when Mohammad Mosaddegh was Iran’s Prime Minister in 1951–1952, Jamaica during Michael Manley’s Premiership (1972–1980), and Chile during the presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973) as revolutionary movements (Foran, 2005: 167–170, 174–181). Similarly, reconceiving the myriad “failed” revolutions of 1848 or 1968 (or 1917–1919, for that matter), despite their Eurocentric nature, forces us to reconsider how we define “failed” revolutions, which, to be fair, is to date essentially all of them, at least in our conventional/traditional sense of the term. 12

Selbin (2010: 13) and Cordes and Selbin (2019: 19–43) invoke Delroy Wilson’s 1971 reggae song Better Must Come (Dynamic Sounds). 13 For a discussion on definitions of revolutions and revolutionary events see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) and Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume). 14 “Social fact” is most famously associated with Emile Durkheim’s “The Rules of the Sociological Method” (Durkheim, 1982: 50–59). Here I am guided by Michael Barnett’s “Social Constructivism” (Barnett, 2011: 163) and Roxanne Doty’s “Imperial Encounters” (Doty, 1996: 2).

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What then of the ephemeral but influential Paris Commune? Igbo women in 1929 in Nigeria. The fleeting anarchist Republic of Baja California in Mexico 1911 which presaged the short-lived 1919–1921 anarchist Ukraine halfway round the globe and the nearly contemporaneous Kronstadt Rebellion of sailors, soldiers, and citizens in nascent Soviet Russia, which managed to last a few days longer than the evanescent twelve-day 1932 “República Socialista de Chile.” Multiracial struggles for justice in the Americas, such as the 1741 New York Conspiracy of AfricanAmerican, “Spanish,” and Irish sailors and dockworkers, and poor whites, proffered a model of the dispossessed working together for common goals. The multi-ethnic latenineteenth-century Farmers’ Alliance across the southern United States demanded fair prices for crops, advocated public control of transportation and communication, set up co-operatives, and called for populist economic policies. In the early twentieth Century in rural Oklahoma in the U.S., there was the multi-ethnic, multiclass, socialist Green Corn Rebellion. All over the world, there are such examples, instances when people struggled for their world, occurrences remarkably few of which we “know” about (intentionally or not, I leave to you), but which become part of radical imaginaries. Drawing on Anderson, Castoriadis, and Taylor, such imaginaries (further limned out below), are meant to capture the real ways in which people imagine, that is, create the world(s) they live in (Anderson, 1991; Castoriadis, 1998; Taylor, 2004). Nor are all such cases “small” or transient: Mexico’s 1994 Zapatista Revolution, Estonia’s 1987–1991 “Singing Revolution,” the Indonesian Revolution of 1998 and the election that year of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela initiating the “Bolivarian Revolution,” 2005’s “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan and the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon, Myanmar’s 2007 “Saffron Revolution,” Iran’s 2009 “Green Revolution,” Latvia’s 2009 “Penguin Revolution” (or its predecessor the “Umbrella Revolution” of 2007) or Iceland’s 2009–2011 “Kitchenware Revolution,” the Second Kyrgyzstan Revolution 2010, 2011 revolutions in Egypt and Yemen inspired by Tunisia’s 2010 revolution, the contemporaneous and ongoing since 2012 Rojava revolution in Northern Syria and Tuareg Rebellion in Northern Mali, Turkey’s 2013 Gezi Park protests, the 2014 Abkhazian Revolution in Georgia, and 2013–2014’s Euromaidan in Ukraine. All these and so many more happened, they mattered, and they will matter for years to come, as sources to inspire revolutionary imaginations. Many of these uprisings, for wont of a better term, have been multi-class, to various degrees multi-ethnic, and in a number of cases multi-religious. They have had many demands and none, explicit goals often immediate and very specific, though in some cases quite broad; perhaps the broadest and most central has been for respect and a radical change in the relations between government, in almost every case an institution of the elite, and the people. Even if they flare up rapidly, fail to catch fire or burn brightly, and fade away just as quickly, they remain in people’s individual memories and perhaps more importantly in the memory and consciousness of peoples. Struggles for justice, dignity, human rights, labor rights and collective and engaged governance with representation and resources available to all, premised on a radical inclusivity beyond anything yet realized, might all be revolutionary. People have been hungry, poor and suffered in many places at many times while

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land, goods and services have been unfairly distributed to the wealthy and powerful, without prompting struggles for socio-political change. When hopes, dreams and desires; anger, resentment and grievance; fears, promises and passions fire revolutionary imaginations and create revolutionary sentiments, revolutionary situations may emerge, and revolution become possible. As people desire greater participation and social equality, their demands—or in some cases, absence of explicit demands— and collective behavior is revolutionary and thus “revolution” is (again) bandied about, potent, maddeningly vague, and intoxicating. Who, where, when, and how and what “they” want not always certain.

3 Revolution in the Austerity-Security Era and Age of Authoritarian Revanchism What does revolution look like today? Looking for beards, bombs and bullets seems of little use, and simply reconceiving the same myriad “failed” revolutions tends to reinforce an unfortunate Eurocentricity/global northism that haunts the field(s). And as suggested earlier, we also need to redefine “failed,” when in so many cases it is too soon to tell, the implications and ramifications yet to be teased out and understood. Suddenly we have literally innumerable cases, from the obvious to the ephemeral, examples all over the world where and when people struggle(d) for their world. These cases are woven into rich, deep tapestries of what is possible, impossible, and (im)possible, radical imaginaries that reflect people’s actions that happened, mattered, and will matter for years to come. These become, in effect, source books of and for revolutionary imaginations. This quick and scattershot run through answers little, but a few conclusions can be drawn, none earth-shaking, all worthy of consideration. Guns still matter, and who has them and what they do with them (where and when) is important. Social media matters, but how, why, when, where and for whom remains unclear. Revolutions will occur; new technologies, social or otherwise, will change surprisingly little about how such revolutionary processes “begin,” proceed and “end,” though notions of beginning and ending are chimeric in this context. If highly visible, especially in the global north, the role and impact of social media has often been exaggerated, in particular relative to other means and methods of information sharing and deeprooted causes of popular discontent. Elections seem to matter less than many people believe they do and may be unheld as easily as they are held—and by the people as well as the state. The anti-government protests and subsequent seemingly broadly popular 2013 coup d’etat in Egypt which ousted a government elected only a year earlier is an interesting if complicated example.15 People still matter; governments and states derive their legitimacy and hence authority from them.

15

My thanks to Jack Goldstone for pointing out this salient example. See Holmes (2019) and Ketchley (2017).

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In one of the most powerful threads across most of these cases, people say “no!”, per Bonefeld and Holloway (2014: 214): “massive, multitudinous No!’s exploding in one country after another.” They add, whether “provoked directly by the implementation of austerity policies (Athens, Madrid)…[or] the plan to destroy a park (Istanbul), the raising of bus prices (São Paolo), or a police shooting (London and more than forty towns in England),” the responses “quickly spill over into a more general scream of refusal” (Bonefeld & Holloway, 2014: 214). People are saying, powerfully and clearly, “no” to situations and a world that seems to be inimical to their interests and desires. This is certainly resistance—powerful, purposive, conscious and intentional; is it revolution? This surge of protest raises one more issue; Holmes’ compelling recovery and validation of Zolberg’s “moments of madness” when people believe that “all is possible.”16 While I have long been leery of typing moments and movements of popular protest as “mad,”17 Holmes astutely invokes the point that “we might dismiss such events as ‘beyond the pale of our scholarly concerns were it not for their ineluctable reality and historical significance.’ If we believe that the recent wave of protests in Egypt and Turkey is at all significant, then it is necessary … to take seriously these moments of madness’ (Holmes, 2014: 382). Mindful of Tarrow’s pairing of Sewell’s “historical ruptures” with Zolberg’s “moments of madness” (Sewell, 2005; Tarrow, 2012; Zolberg, 1972) and Galeano’s evocative description of revolutionary Nicaragua as “el tiempo de hermosa locura” (“the time of beautiful madness”),18 consider French film star Miou-Miou’s recollection of Paris 1968. A teenage upholstery machine operator when the students and workers powerfully (if briefly) united, she said: “I didn’t understand any of it, but it stirred me.” “Ordinary people like me,” she added, “started thinking that somehow our lives might somehow change” (Marcus, 1995: 16). Such processes change the material and ideological conditions of people’s everyday lives so that people can create spaces of (im)possibility where they can imagine a different present and future. Revolution reflects people’s need to dream and desire and seek ways that they might struggle to make a better world for themselves and their children and grandchildren (if they have them) in a construction of intergenerational justice; revolution is the medium. Here we encounter the notion of “revolution of the spirit,” a phrase popularly associated with Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi—a fraught figure now due to her complicity in the repression of the

16

Holmes (2014: 382) cites Zolberg (1972: 183–207). But see Selbin (2010: 192). 18 Rodgers notes that he was unable to find a specific reference but Galeano confirmed it in a personal communication (Rodgers, 2010: 97). A version of it is found in Galeano’s blurb on the back cover of Roger Lancaster’s (1994) “Life is Hard”. Sergio Ramirez, one of five members of Nicaragua’s Government of National Reconstruction (1979–1985) and former Vice-President (1985–1990) confirmed Galeano’s phrase to me in a personal conversation (Austin, Texas, USA, 29 January, 2019). 17

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Rohingya people.19 For Suu Kyi, the “quintessential revolution” is one of the spirit, “the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development (Suu Kyi, 2010: 183). She continues that revolution aimed “merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success” and “the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration” (Suu Kyi, 2010: 183). Calls for “freedom, democracy and human rights” are insufficient; “there has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear” (Suu Kyi, 2010: 183). If she is a flawed messenger, it is an inspiring vision—and a tall order. Historically, a surprising number have taken the risk. State repression has few limits, but it has limitations; revolution knows no bounds, but it is bounded by (im)possibility, by the limits of imagination and the ability to organize. Holloway’s compelling call for changing the world without taking power resonates with Wolin’s analysis of the French 1960s Maoists who “abandoned the goal of seizing political power and instead sought to initiate a democratic revolution in mores, habitudes, sexuality, gender roles, and human sociability in general” (Holloway, 2002a; Wolin, 2010: 5).20 Is this changing the world without taking power? Perhaps following Holloway, revolution is a question not an answer (Holloway, 2002b). The risk in broadening and deepening notions of revolution applies not just to the sorts of strategies and tactics the current emphasis on social technology foregrounds, but also to matters of culture, awareness of agency and evocation of emotion. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly caution about “broadening conflict until, in Hegelian fashion, all politics becomes enmeshed in meaning” (McAdam et al., 1997: 144). If this is a problem, there is no intention to suggest ignoring other, equally (for many scholars, more) fundamental factors such as economics, the state, demographics, and in several senses the environment; food shortages, recessions and the vagaries of the international system and resultant domestic implications are not in and of themselves cultural constructions. Yet people’s ability to conjure up cultural artefacts and connections and manipulate them is critical, not least to our ability to comprehend why revolutions happen here not there, now not then, and among these people and not those. Revolutionary imaginaries are crucial to this enterprise.

19

But, see Stites on pre-revolution Russia’s “avant-garde Utopia, called by some a ‘revolution of the spirit,’ [which] coexisted with, though seldom touched, the Utopian visions of the radical intelligentsia” (Stites, 1989: 6). 20 Wolin’s suggestion they were merely aping their forebearers and not terribly well leads him to declare them reformists, “more evolutionary than revolutionary” (2010: 8) yet effectuating a “sweeping and dramatic transformation of everyday life” (2010: 10). Thus, the question still obtains: did they change the world (or France) without taking power? “Today, many ex-Maoists, having undergone the ‘long march through the institutions,’ have become luminaries of French cultural and political life: philosophers, architects, scholars, and advisors to the Socialist Party” (Wolin, 2010: 15).

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4 Revolutionary Imaginaries: (Re)Imagining Our Worlds and Our Lives Recent academic interest in “imaginaries”—social, cultural, technological, psychological and more—reflect a renewed appreciation for human agency, collective action, ideology, cultural matters and what has been called the “narrative turn.”21 “Imaginaries” reflect people’s creation of an understanding, a sense, of their lives and the meaning of their existence (Castoriadis, 1998); it is the narrative that defines “reality” and binds a society together. More to the point, Taylor (2004: 23) formulates the “social imaginary” as “the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.” These imaginaries are socially and collectively constructed by people in what are essentially daring acts of bricolage, wherein symbols, songs, tales, rituals, dates, places, memory/ies and more are woven together into a sort of legible, working narrative (Selbin, 2010: 75–76), a story of who and what they are, how they came to be, and what they do and will.22 Many matters—the same as those noted above; cultural, economic, ethnic, political, religious, social and more—bind us together or drive us apart, and it is through stories that we manage our world. Per Didion, ‘we tell ourselves stories in order to live’ and it is impossible to understand who we are and what we do (and how) without recourse to story (Didion, 1979: 11).23 Our stories locate us, situate us, and provide us with the essential tools to navigate, mediate, mitigate our world(s) and hence foment change. As Lefebvre argues, a revolution that fails to make a new space. has not realised its full potential; indeed it has failed in that it has not changed life itself, but has merely changed ideological superstructures, institutions or political apparatuses. A social transformation, to be truly revolutionary in character, must manifest a creative capacity in its effects on daily life, on language and on . (Lefebvre, 1996: 54)24

Revolutionary imaginaries are the prerequisite for revolutions. This premise rests on several assumptions. First, that there are stories of revolution (and related phenomena) inscribed in various forms.25 Second, that actors’ conceptions of their actions are articulated as a story, sometimes an old(er), familiar one, sometimes a new one being written. Finally, that these stories, commonly constructed around dramatic events, heroes and martyrs, villains and symbols, become a bond 21

If these imaginaries are imagined (Anderson’s “Imagined Communities”, 1991), they are not imaginary. People’s creativity, verve and élan is how they generate, create, maintain and extend their world. While difficult for interlopers to access, it is imperative we resist overwriting them in our images and into our narrative. 22 But see Khasnabish (2007) and Guidotti-Hernández (2011), who both consider the role of the state in creating imaginaries. 23 Rukeyser goes further: “The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms” (Rukeyser, 1968: 111). 24 He adds, “its impact need not occur at the same rate, or with equal force, in each of these areas”. 25 On stories of revolution, see (Selbin, 2010).

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among a set of people who engage in revolutionary activity. The writing of stories, the telling of stories, the hearing of stories happens most often and most powerfully in the framework of “small worlds” (Brooks et al., 2008) and within a web of redes (networks), per Escobar meant to evince “that life and movements are ineluctably produced in and through relations in a dynamic fashion” (Escobar, 2008: 25). Meaning is made as names, dates, places, grievances and means and methods are woven into a compelling story that builds on and plays off of both people’s fears, anger, resentments and grievances on the one hand and their passions, hopes, dreams and desires on the other. When this story is articulated, heard, and acted upon, possibilities abound, if not today or tomorrow, perhaps sooner than is imagined, and almost certainly someday in some way. One last point. It is past time to move on from the (disturbingly) global north narrative of revolution reflecting insecurities about the roots of “Western civilization” and projecting global north domination as natural and inevitable. This is reinforced by fears such as the “rise of China,” events/processes such as the “Arab Spring” (initially read as a reassuring and validating embrace of “Western,” liberal, democracy), or Russian “aggression.” A broader and deeper understanding, which begins from revolutionary imaginaries, situates revolution in the world.26 Yet studies of revolution in the international context remain sparse, despite the very nearly contemporaneous emergence of the studies of International Relations (IR) and of revolution. Buzan and Little (2000) date IR some 5000 years ago (recognizing the Eurocentrism); 400 years is a common trope, often tied to Westphalia (1648), and occasionally the French Revolution (1789) is invoked.27 Still, the study of IR as a discrete field is most often dated from 1919, after the end of World War I; emerging as a field of inquiry near the start of perhaps humanity’s most revolutionary period (1905–1989 is fulsome), it is little noted in IR and little has changed. At roughly the same time, the first-generation scholars of revolution (Goldstone, 1980) dominated by sociologists (Edwards, 1927; Pettee, 1938; Sorokin, 1925) and historians (Brinton, 1965), focused on description, crowd psychology and naturalistic explanations.28 Panah highlights this, noting that “the history of the twentieth century is dotted with social revolutions” and yet “while revolution has been a favourite subject for historians and sociologists, particularly in the field of comparative study, international relations traditionally approached the subject at best only tangentially”

26

Among myriad obstacles are self-serving, self-justifying narratives despite ostensibly relating “theirs,” albeit through global north eyes, an inelegant invocation of Mohanty (1984) and Said (1979). “We” need to tell “their” story because they are incapable of knowing or doing so; only we can see their imaginary and interpret it. This is deceitful at best and more often pernicious. 27 Among some of the most cited texts intended to prove its antiquity are Sun Tzu’s sixth century BCE thoughts on military strategy, The Art of War and Thucydides’ fifth century The Peloponnesian War, which also conveniently serves to embed IR in Western traditions. 28 About the first-generation scholars of revolution see also Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume).

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(Panah, 2002: 271). Panah invokes Halliday’s conclusion that IR and studies of revolution are marked by “mutual neglect” (Panah, 2002: 271).29 Matters have improved somewhat over the past decade, albeit primarily from scholars of revolution, yet it remains the case that this serves no one well.

5 Small Worlds: Who “Tells” Stories of Revolution and Who “Hears” Them Revolutions were, once upon a time, inscribed, even venerated as rare and momentous occasions, designating great, grand, epic efforts to fundamentally transform all of humanity with an eye to the worth and dignity of every human being. Today, “revolutions” may seem to many scholars (and policymakers, state managers and their employers) as little more than animated rock throwing/graffiti spray-painting, or some groupuscule able to muster a protest in a public place; it may merit a bit more attention if it is in a square with high visibility. Even when they are larger, such movements or moments often seem—or are made to seem by the elites and their government, the media, or those opposed to their struggle—focused on specific grievances with essentially reformist demands that may even be construed as system validating. Such displays or events or even processes hardly seem reminiscent of the sweeping, world-altering dimensions of revolution(s) past, remembered either with trepidation and apprehension as terrors or nostalgically, yearningly, even romantically as seeking to fundamentally transform a given state and society as a mere way station on the way to changing the entire world. Yet what could be more meaningful than changing the small worlds that are our everyday worlds and hence matter most for most of us most of the time? Gilly, considering the 2003 insurrection in Bolivia, reminds us that “a revolution is not something that happens in the State, in its institutions and among its politicians. It comes from below and from outside” (Gilly, 2005: 5230 ). Even more important, in some ways, Gilly contends that when center-stage is taken over—with the violence of their bodies and the rage of their souls – precisely by those who have come from below and outside: those who are always shunted aside, those who take orders, those whom the rulers look down on as a mass of voters, electoral clientele, beasts of burden, survey fodder. It happens when these erupt, give themselves a political goal, organize themselves in accordance with their own decisions and awareness and, with lucidity, reflection and violence, insert their world into the world of 29

Her reference is to Halliday (1990). While she cites Halliday’s work and a few others, “revolution” is absent from “The Oxford Handbook of International Relations” (Reus-Smit & Snidal, 2008) stateof-the-art IR handbook. Until recently, revolution scholars have done little better: factors such as “the international context,” “international allies,” or the global economic system appear far too rarely (but see Foran et al., 2007). Examples that productively work both sides include (Lawson, 2011, 2012, 2019; Ritter 2015); and an early and prescient piece by Beck (2011). From the IR side, see the excellent piece by Sabaratnam (2011). 30 Emphasis in original.

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those who rule, and obtain, as in the present case, what they were demanding. (Gilly, 2005: 52)

Gilly concludes that while it may be more convenient or reassuring in the case of Bolivia “to say that this was not a revolution but rather a big riot, a rebellion, an insurrection which made many mistakes, which had no leading party, which was only for gas and for the sowers of cocoa, a people’s movement, a big uprising and little more,” is to “deny it the name…[and] to deny its protagonists—the Indians, the cholos, the women and men of Bolivia’s subaltern classes—their difficult victory” (Gilly, 2005: 53–54). Think of it, perhaps, as a people’s definition of revolution. If insecurity and disorder are attendant on such efforts in Bolivia and beyond, it is because for those engaged in such struggles the material and ideological conditions of their everyday lives evince neither security nor order or do so at the expense of their dreams and desires. People to whom it may seem that order and security thwarts their chances for reimagining, reworking and reshaping their life. Millions and millions of people seek to better their lives, in many cases bound up in the daily struggle to feed, clothe, provide health care and a home for themselves and their children (if they have them); revolutions are fundamentally struggles to rectify injustice, regardless of the banners people choose to fight under. They identify with the clear and powerful claim of Mexico’s modern-day Zapatistas, the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) that “it is not necessary to conquer the world. It is sufficient with making it new. Us. Today” (EZLN, 1998: 19).

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Goldstone, J. A. (2014). Revolution: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Goodwin, J. (2001). No other way out: States and revolutionary movements, 1945–1991. Cambridge University Press. Grinin, L. (2022a). On revolutionary waves since the 16th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 389–411). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_13 Grinin, L. (2022b). Revolutions of the twenty-first century as a factor in the World System reconfiguration. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 975–998). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_38 Grinin, L. (2022c). The European revolutions and revolutionary waves of the 19th century: Their causes and consequences. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 281–313). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864682_11 Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the Twentieth century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 315–388). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12 Guattari, F. (2008). Molecular Revolution in Brazil. Semiotext(E). Guidotti-Hernández, N. (2011). Unspeakable violence: Remapping U.S. and Mexican national imaginaries. Duke University Press. Halliday, F. (1990). The sixth great power: Revolutions and the international system. Review of International Studies, 16(3), 207–221. Holloway, J. (2002b). Twelve theses on changing the world without taking power the commoner 4. https://libcom.org/library/twelve-theses-on-changing-the-world-without-taking-power Holloway, J. (2002a). Change the world without taking power: The meaning of revolution today. Pluto Press. Holmes, A. A. (2014). On military coups and mad Utopias. South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(2), 380–395. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-2644176 Holmes, A. A. (2019). Coups and revolutions: Mass mobilization, the Egyptian military, and the United States from Mubarak to Sisi. Oxford University Press. Ketchley, N. (2017). Egypt in a time of revolution: Contentious politics and the Arab spring. Cambridge University Press. Khasnabish, A. (2007). Insurgent imaginations. Ephemera, 7(4), 505–525. King, M. L. (2004). I have a dream. In J. Gottheimer (Ed.), Ripples of hope: Great American civil rights speeches (pp. 233–237). Basic Civitas Books. Lancaster, R. (1994). Life is hard: Machismo, danger, and the intimacy of power in Nicaragua. University of California Press. Lawson, G. (2012). The eternal divide? History and international relations. European Journal of International Relations, 18(2), 203–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F1354066110373561 Lawson, G. (2016). Within and beyond the ‘fourth generation’ of revolutionary theory. Sociological Theory, 34(2), 106–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F0735275116649221 Lawson, G. (2011). Halliday’s revenge: Revolutions and international relations. International Affairs, 87(5), 1067–1085. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2011.01021.x Lawson, G. (2019). Anatomies of revolution. Cambridge University Press. Lefebvre, H. (1996). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Blackwell Publishing. Lippens, R. (2003). The imaginary of Zapatista punishment and justice: Speculations on the first postmodern revolution. Punishment and Society, 5(2), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F1462 47450352003 Marcus, G. (1995). The dustbin of history. Harvard University Press.

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McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (1997). Toward an integrated perspective on social movements and revolution. In M. Lichbach & A. Zuckerman (Eds.), Comparative politics: Rationality, culture, and structure (pp. 142–173). Cambridge University Press. McGreal, S. (2006). The Zapatista rebellion as postmodern revolution. Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science, 5(1), 54–64. Mirsepassi-Ashtiani, A. (1994). The crisis of secular politics and the rise of political Islam in Iran. Social Text, 38, 51–84. https://doi.org/10.2307/466504 Mohanty, C. (1984). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary, 2(12), 333–358. https://doi.org/10.2307/302821 Nodia, G. (2000). The end of revolution? Journal of Democracy, 11(1), 164–171. Panah, M. (2002). Social revolution: The elusive emergence of an agenda in international relations. Review of International Studies, 28(2), 271–291. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210502002711 Pettee, G. (1938). The process of revolution. Harper and Brothers. Reus-Smit, C., & Snidal, D. (Eds.). (2008). The Oxford handbook of international relations. Oxford University Press. Ritter, D. (2015). The iron cage of liberalism. Oxford University Press. Rodgers, D. (2010). Searching for the time of beautiful madness. In H. West & P. Raman (Eds.), Enduring socialism: Explorations of revolution and transformation, restoration and continuation (pp. 77–102). Berghahn Books. Rukeyser, M. (1968). The speed of darkness. Random House Publishers. Sabaratnam, M. (2011). IR in dialogue … but can we change the subjects? A typology of decolonizing strategies for the study of world politics. Millennium, 39(3), 781–803. https://doi.org/10. 1177/2F0305829811404270 Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. Vintage Books. Selbin, E. (2019). Resistance and revolution in the age of authoritarian revanchism: The power of revolutionary imaginaries in the austerity-security state era. Millennium, 47(3), 483–496. https:// doi.org/10.1177/2F0305829819838321 Selbin, E. (2010). Revolution, rebellion, resistance: The power of story. Zed Books. Sewell, W. (2005). Logics of history: Social theory and social transformation. University of Chicago Press. Shults, E. (2022). Revolution forecasting—Formulation of the problem. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 1023–1033). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_40 Skocpol, T. (1979). States and social revolution: A comparative analysis of France. Cambridge University Press. Snyder, R. (1999). The end of revolution? The Review of Politics, 61(1), 5–28. https://doi.org/10. 1017/S0034670500028114 Sorokin, P. (1925). The sociology of revolution. Lippincott. Steffens, L. (1931). The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. Harcourt Brace. Stites, R. (1989). Revolutionary dreams: Utopian vision and experimental life in the Russian revolution. Oxford University Press. Suu Kyi, A. S. (Ed.). (2010). Freedom from fear: And other writings. Penguin Books. Tarrow, S. (2012). Strangers at the gates: Movements and states in contentious politics. Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Duke University Press. Walton, J. (1984). Reluctant Rebels: Comparative studies of revolution and underdevelopment. Columbia. Winter, E. (1933). Red virtue. Harcourt Brace. Wolin, R. (2010). The wind from the East: French intellectuals, the cultural revolution, and the legacy of the 1960s. Princeton University Press. Zolberg, A. (1972). Moments of madness. Politics and Society, 2(2), 183–207. https://doi.org/10. 1177/2F003232927200200203

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Eric Selbin is Professor of Political Science and Holder of the Lucy King Brown Chair at Southwestern University, Texas and a Faculty Associate at Observatorio de la Relación Binacional México—E.E.U.U., Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the National University Autonomous of Mexico (UNAM). In 2013 he was appointed a research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and previously served on the faculty of Umeå University in Sweden (2003–2006) and the Tallinn Postgraduate Summer School in Social and Cultural Studies (2012). From 2004 to 2020 he was Co-Editor of the New Millennium Books in International Studies Series and from 2015 to 2020 Associate Editor of International Studies Perspectives; currently he serves on the International Studies Association Publications Board. He is the author of Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance: The Power of Story, which has been translated into Arabic, Farsi, German, Spanish, and Turkish and published in India, Modern Latin American Revolutions, and with Meghana Nayak Decentering International Relations, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on revolution and IR.

The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest Lincoln A. Mitchell

The Color Revolutions receded into history relatively quickly, but their impact was significant. They were a source of academic investigation and policy analysis (see for example: Bunce & Wolchik, 2009; Mitchell, 2012; Stewart, 2009; Way, 2008) and provided a model for opponents of autocracy in other countries. In addition to all occurring in the post-Soviet region, the Color Revolutions shared some important similarities that are worth reviewing briefly. Generally, these were all peaceful events whose proximate cause was a fraudulent election that led to the replacement of a corrupt non-democratic regime with a democratic reform-oriented government. Accordingly, in the years following the Color Revolutions, actually beginning after the Orange Revolution in 2004, the notion of a Color Revolution model emerged (McFaul, 2005).1 This idea gained some traction in Washington, grounded in the belief that the Color Revolutions were replicable and a desirable mode of democratic reform. One key component of the Color Revolution model was the role that youth movements allegedly played in the Color Revolutions. According to the model, groups like Otpor in Serbia, Porá! in Ukraine and Kmara in Georgia were instrumental in mobilizing large numbers of protestors and turning public opinion against the corrupt former regimes anciens régimes (see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and The Color Revolutions’ diffusion (Filin et al., 2022), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), and Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b, in this volume). The perceived important role played by youth groups also 1 McFaul (2005) provides a good overview of this model. However the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia 2000 was a relevant model for Georgia and some other countries [see about this in Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a, in this volume)].

L. A. Mitchell (B) Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, Morningside Heights, New York, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15

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reinforced a western narrative that was particularly powerful in Washington—that only a generation with little personal recollection of or experience with the Soviet system could truly shake off the Soviet legacy and lead their countries to democracy. Another reason many in the West stressed the role of these youth organizations was because these groups were supported either by Western semi-governmental donors such as the U.S. Government funded National Endowment for Democracy, or by US-based philanthropies like the Open Society Institute (OSI). Thus, emphasizing the impact of these youth organizations indirectly drew attention to what the West did to facilitate the Color Revolutions. In fact, the impact of the youth organizations varied from country to country. In Georgia, for example, Kmara was a relatively small organization who, other than writing or painting the word Kmara (Georgian for “enough”) in many public places around the country, played a peripheral role in the Rose Revolution. In Kyrgyzstan no major youth organization had a substantial role in the Tulip Revolution, while in Ukraine, Pora indeed was instrumental in mobilizing people to the streets and in highlighting election fraud and other government misdeeds in the weeks and months around the election.2 Stressing the youth organizations involved in the Color Revolution also sometimes meant that the important role played by the real political leaders was overlooked. This was particularly true in Georgia where a trio of young politicians, all of whom had broken from the party of Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgia’s president at the time, led the Rose Revolution, mobilized demonstrators and earned the support of the Georgian people. Former Parliamentary Chairs Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania, and to an even greater extent, the former Justice Minister turned Chair of the Tbilisi City Council, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the political parties they led, were the major organizational forces behind the Rose Revolution. In Ukraine the duo of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko were the political leaders who, despite having different styles, played absolutely essential roles in the Orange Revolution. In both Georgia and Ukraine, one of the major issues that brought people to the streets in key days of the revolution was ensuring that political leaders like Yushchenko and Saakashvili got into office. In Georgia, despite the initial fraudulent election being for parliament, this led to Shevardnadze resigning prematurely and Saakashvili quickly becoming president largely because his party had won the parliamentary election. In Ukraine, this meant a rerun of the runoff between Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych. Yushchenko won that election and became Ukraine’s president.3 In sum, the Color Revolutions are much better described as contests among political leaders rather than as popular uprisings led by youth movements. Significantly, while the regimes that were overthrown by the Color Revolutions were not democratic, they were also not true dictatorships or authoritarian regimes. 2

For detail about Kyrgyz revolutions see Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume). 3 For detail on Georgian and Ukrainian revolutions see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), and Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022, in this volume).

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Instead they are better understood as semi-democratic regimes characterized by corruption and fraudulent elections, but which also were either unable or unwilling to substantially limit freedoms of media or assembly. These semi-democracies had sufficient political space for political organizing by opposition parties, and for opponents of the regimes in all three countries to communicate their dissatisfaction and to draw attention to the failures and corruption of the government. The Color Revolutions were not cases of dictatorships being overthrown by massive people’s movements. They are, less dramatically, better understood as semi-democratic governments that became increasingly corrupt and weak over time, being ousted by mostly peaceful demonstrators to bring in alternative leaders who had at one time been part of the regime. This is significant because it meant that the opportunities for Color Revolutions have always been limited to countries with similar semi-democratic, but comparatively speaking, relatively free, regimes. This is one of the reasons why efforts to bring Color Revolutions to other countries in the region, notably Belarus and Azerbaijan, where the U.S. attempted (perhaps not entirely whole-heartedly), to foment similar Color Revolutions, have failed. While there are many explanations for that failure, a very important one was that those countries lacked sufficient freedoms for opposition parties to mobilize significant support and for non-governmental news sources to reach significant numbers of voters.4

1 After the Color Revolutions The impact of the Color Revolutions looks quite a bit different in 2021 compared to 2007 or so. In the years immediately following the Color Revolutions in all three countries, it was possible to see these events as significant developments in their countries’ political, and specifically democratic, political evolutions. The Rose, Orange and Tulip Revolutions all promised greater democracy. As late as 2007, it was still possible, although perhaps one needed to squint a bit, to see that as a primary outcome of the Color Revolutions. Today that is no longer the case. By 2009 at the latest, the democratic promise of the Color Revolutions in all three countries had withered (Haring & Cecire, 2013).5 By late 2012, all three Color Revolutionary governments were out of power. Given this, it is tempting to simply classify the Color Revolutions as failures and to minimize their place in the modern 4

See Bunce and Wolchik (2008) who describe the failed attempt to bring a Color Revolution to Azerbaijan in 2005. See also Wilson (2011) who addresses a similar question regarding Belarus. About the failure of revolutionary attempt in Azerbaijan in 2005 see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and The Color Revolutions" (Filin et al., 2022), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2021c) in this book. About the problem of correlation between democracy and revolutions see also Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022) and Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume). 5 For a good overview of this see (Haring & Cecire, 2013).

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history of each of these countries. There is some validity to that approach, but it also misses several crucial points. While the governments that came to power due to the Color Revolutions did not remain in power indefinitely, the Color Revolutions had a lasting impact in each of these countries. Moreover, measuring the success of a revolution, particularly one that it is claimed occurred in the name of electoral democracy, by the number of years in which the revolutionary government stays in power is nonsensical. Alternations of power through elections is a defining characteristic of democracies. Przeworski (1991) made this point very explicitly “democracy is a system in which (incumbent) parties lose elections”. Accordingly, the electoral defeats of Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) in Georgia and of Yulia Tymoshenko in her bid to become president of Ukraine in 2010 may in some respects be indicators of the success of the Color Revolutions, rather than of their failures. Additionally, in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan the Color Revolutions had other impacts that changed political life in those countries. That too is an important measure of the impact of a revolution. In short, all three countries became much freer following the Color Revolutions. That increased freedom lay the groundwork for the electoral processes that led to changes of government. Although the new regimes were unable to avoid falling into the severe corruption, which in Georgia took the form of a kind of crony capitalism, that characterized their predecessors, they nonetheless retained sufficient media freedom and political space to allow recurrent exposure of, and protests against, such corruption. Grouping events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan together under the name Color Revolutions has always been a methodological shorthand that while sometimes useful, can at times obscure more than enlighten. This is the case with regards to post-revolutionary regime development in these three countries. In Kyrgyzstan, the promise of the Tulip Revolution not only eroded relatively quickly, but did so in a way that mirrored previous Kyrgyz governments. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the first President following the Tulip Revolution, quickly proved himself to be a thuggish kleptocrat not much different from his predecessor. The Bakiyev family limited freedoms, stole money and did little to advance democracy in Kyrgyzstan (Pannier, 2009; see Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan”; Ivanov, 2022, in this volume). The post-Color Revolution governments in Georgia and Ukraine had more complex and mixed records. In Georgia, Saakashvili’s government ushered in a period of rapid reform and state building. The post-revolutionary government substantially increased tax revenue, accelerated efforts to reduce bureaucracy and improve the business climate and, most memorably made political war on low level corruption. The Tbilisi police force was fired en masse, postal workers and other government functionaries were told in no uncertain terms that they could no longer shake down ordinary citizens for bribes, teachers were similarly told to change their behavior and in general Georgians no longer had to bribe their way to get anything from the government (Mitchell, 2008).6 The impact of these changes should not be understated, but

6

Mitchell (2008) provides a good description of these first post-Rose Revolution years in Georgia.

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neither should some of the more troubling behaviors of the new government be overlooked. Within a few years, the democratic promise of the Rose Revolution receded. First this occurred as the government cut democratic corners to get reforms done quickly, but gradually this grew to the point where Saakashvili began to shut down media that were critical of the government, and to harass of the opposition. This culminated in November of 2007 when the Georgian government violently dispersed peaceful protesters and ransacked a television station that was supportive of the opposition. During the time they remained in power, until late 2012, the UNM grew into a semi-authoritarian party regime, albeit a particularly slick and media savvy one, where opposition forces were limited, civil society and free media were increasingly repressed, and political life was dominated by one party. During these years, Georgia was not as nasty an authoritarian regime as many of its neighbors, but it was a far cry from being a full democracy in any meaningful sense.7 Nonetheless, in 2012 the UNM lost the national election, coming in second behind the new Georgian Dream coalition. Since then, Georgia has shown some progress toward greater democracy, but still suffers from oversized influence from oligarchs, government corruption, and flawed elections that favor incumbents. In Ukraine, the Orange Revolution did not quickly turn in a non-democratic direction, as did the Color Revolutions in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Instead, the postOrange Revolution government, led by Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, continued, more or less, on a democratic course, although economic problems remained. Additionally, unlike in Georgia, in Ukraine the opposition did not fade away after the revolution. In Georgia, by early 2004 there was no powerful political force that did not support Saakashvili and the UNM. By contrast, in Ukraine the supporters of Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions remained a sizable political force during the years immediately following the events of late 2004. That opposition political force ultimately regained power in a 2010 election won by Yanukovych that was recognized by international observers as, for the most part, democratic. This was different than the Georgian election of 2012. In Ukraine, the 2010 election was a rematch of the close contest of 2004. The outcome was again close, but this time Yanukovych, the less pro-Western and more pro-Moscow candidate, won by a margin of 49–45.5%. In Georgia in 2012, an omnibus opposition coalition, funded by a former Saakashvili ally Bidzina Ivanishvili and led by several other former Saakashvili allies, including Saakasvhili’s former Ambassador to the United Nations Irakli Alasania, two prominent NGO activists Tina Khidasheli and David Usupashvili, who had been involved in making the Rose Revolution, joined the Georgian Dream coalition, which defeated Saakashvili’s party in a landslide with more than 55% of the vote, as the UNM struggled to win even 40% of the votes cast. The speed with which the post-Color Revolution regimes either lost power or strayed away from their democratic promise might suggest that Color Revolutions did not have much of an impact. While it is true that the Color Revolutions did not live up to their initial promise, nor did they usher in a wave of democracy in the 7

Tom de Waal and Lincoln Mitchell have, separately, written extensively on this period.

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post-Soviet states, it would be wrong to overlook the substantial impact they had, particularly in Ukraine and Georgia. In Georgia and Ukraine, the legacy of the Rose and Orange Revolutions were apparent in the 2012–2014 period. In Georgia the UNM government, because of its need to present itself to the world as at least somewhat democratic, was unable to either repress freedoms or harass the opposition enough to stop them from winning the 2012 election. Moreover, the Georgian people had enough faith in elections and in the democratic rhetoric they had heard for years, to summon the courage and patience to change their government through an election. In 2014, when Viktor Yanukovych, in his fourth year of a presidency in which he had consistently sought to roll back the democratic gains of the Orange Revolution, was ousted by demonstrations on the streets of Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine, the Orange Revolution seemed very distant. However, the valuable precedent set by the Orange Revolution that made those events possible is easy to overlook, but it is reasonably apparent. While the Ukrainian people may have voted for Yanukovych in 2010 because of their discontent with the economic failures of the Orange Revolution government, which they blamed on the Orange revolutionary leaders Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, they were not going to stand by as President Yanukovych sought to move Ukraine back to pre-Orange Revolution conditions. The Orange Revolutionaries may not have been great political successes, but they entrenched the norm that Ukraine’s politicians could be held accountable by popular protests. The beliefs, attitudes and strategies that made the Orange Revolution possible reappeared in 2014 and contributed to the ouster of President Yanukovych [for detail see Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022, in this volume)].

2 The International Dimension One of the biggest political stories of the last few years has been the question of the extent and precise nature of Russian meddling in the US presidential election. Most Americans are either in abject denial about this or are very concerned about its impact on our political system. Given that, understanding the international dimension of the Color Revolutions is even more important. This is not to say that the role that the West, particularly the US, played in the Color Revolutions was equivalent to the Kremlin’s intervention in the US election of 2016—it wasn’t. However, the reality that the West played a role in the Color Revolutions, and that Moscow saw this as a problem, cannot be ignored and may even provide some new perspective on recent events in the US. There remains a glaring discrepancy regarding how Western powers and Moscow viewed the Color Revolutions. Western governments, NGOs and even many scholars viewed these events as being primarily about the continuing advance of democracy in the post-Soviet World. From Moscow the Color Revolutions looked very different, more like an increase in Western, specifically American, influence in what had previously been states that had been more sympathetic to Moscow. According to the Western narrative, democracy promotion, through diplomacy, non-governmental

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democracy assistance organizations and other programs aimed at reforming postSoviet states facilitated democratic breakthroughs that would bring reform and democracy to these countries and allow them to chart their own geopolitical course. Moscow’s narrative, which was shared by some on the far left of the American political spectrum, was that these organizations were little more than the twenty-first century version of Cold War era CIA shenanigans and that the US and Europe had worked to replace governments sympathetic to Moscow with ones that would be supportive of American aims in the region and beyond.8,9 There were elements of truth in both these narratives, but neither were entirely accurate. Efforts by the US, through various different means, to bring democracy to these countries were genuine, but that was not the only thing motivating the US in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. The US also naturally wanted to ensure that its influence remained strong in the region, particularly as the post-9/11 security situation meant that areas like the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia and resources like the Manas Air Force Base near Bishkek had become much more important to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, to view the Color Revolutions as little more than American backed coups, as suggested by the Moscow narrative, is a pretty dramatic misreading of history. The US role in the Color Revolutions varied in each country and was considerably stronger in Ukraine than in either Kyrgyzstan or Georgia. In the former, the US, through American democracy assistance organizations as well as George Soros’s Open Society Institute, trained activists, supported demonstrations and provided a great deal of support to election monitoring organizations like ENEMO (European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations). This support, while substantial, does not mean the Orange Revolution was a US creation. The US encouraged and nurtured it, but the US did not create or fabricate the Orange Revolution. Ukrainians were the ones who voted, stood in the cold to demand the votes be counted fairly and built the political organization that allowed Viktor Yushchenko to win the election. In Georgia, the US hand was much lighter, partially because there remained considerable support in Washington for Eduard Shevardnadze even as his government became mired in corruption and poor governance. This was largely due to residual good feelings towards the Georgian President because of his role in helping wind down the Cold War, but also because Shevardnadze had been an ally of American President George W. Bush in the Global War on Terror generally and in the American invasion of Iraq more specifically. Those who believe that the US actively tried to install Saakashvili in power in Georgia have to respond to the question of why the US would want to depose of one of the few foreign leaders who supported the American invasion of Iraq. The illogic of that did not dissuade Putin and others from expressing that view. Despite the tendency by some to overstate the American role in the Color Revolutions and by others to understate it, these events cannot be understood outside the context of American power and American politics. The Color Revolutions occurred 8 9

Finkel and Brudny (2012) describe Moscow’s responses to the Color Revolutions. For an example of a left wing critique of the Color Revolutions see Golinger (2014).

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at a moment when the US was still the unquestioned global hegemon, perhaps for the last time. The cost in life, treasure and influence from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was just beginning to set in. China was clearly ascendant, and Russia a little less so, but they were not yet the threats to American power that they became within a few short years. This made it easy to see American influence on these events as greater than it was because it was a time when the US still could plausibly have a major impact on the domestic politics of a country like Ukraine or Georgia. Nonetheless, today both Russia and China find it useful to denounce any efforts at democratic protest or reform in either post-Soviet states or Hong Kong or Tibet as the result of US intervention to foment color revolutions, with the goal of undermining Soviet alliances or Chinese authority. The impact of the Color Revolutions faded away relatively quickly. By 2010, those who studied or worked on democracy were focused on the Arab Spring. Within a few years, the events themselves seemed less central to the modern history of the three respective countries. Nonetheless, although it may seem difficult to believe now, from about 2003–6 the Color Revolutions were important and played a significant role in US foreign policy. This is important because the Color Revolutions dovetailed almost precisely with President George W. Bush’s Freedom Agenda. They occurred at the precise time when, due mostly to events in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush discovered and embraced democracy and democracy promotion. During these years, Bush supported a rhetorically aggressive form of democracy promotion that moved democracy to a much more central role in US policy making. This brought more attention to the Color Revolutions than they might have otherwise received as they became part of a story the US government wanted to tell about democracy on the advance.10

3 Why the Color Revolutions Still Matter The Color Revolutions are a reminder of another geopolitical moment, one when the idea that the US could facilitate an expansion of democracy or regime change was still plausible, when conflict with Russia was so much in the background that American activities in Kyiv, Tbilisi and Bishkek were not seen through that prism– at least in Washington–and when a good proportion of the American foreign policy establishment believed in the project of democracy promotion. These events are more than just an historical souvenir, but were cause for great hope, particularly in the three countries in questions. Many Georgians, Kyrgyz and Ukrainians believed that the Color Revolutions meant that their country had turned a corner, finally putting its Soviet legacy to rest. The events following the Color Revolutions were not quite that simple.

10

About the role of revolutions (including color ones) as a geopolitical weapon of great powers in history and today see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022) in this book.

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There are some concrete lessons that can be gleaned from reflecting on the Color Revolutions. The first is that political events are not always what they seem at first. The term revolution suggests a sharp break with the past, but in all three of these countries, the ideas of continuity and cycles may be a better way to understand these events and the years surrounding them. In all three cases, the Color Revolutions were part of cycles. In Ukraine, it was the cycle of power shifting between pro-Western and pro-Russian political forces. In the other two countries, the Color Revolutions were part of the cycle of regime formation and collapse. Those phenomena are worthy of study and understanding, but overly stressing the revolutionary nature of the Orange, Tulip and Rose Revolutions obscures that [for more about the falling of these countries in the revolutionary traps see Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume)]. The question of whether or not the Color Revolutions were, in a meaningful sense, revolutions is pertinent to policy, but also to our understanding of political events and developments in the twenty-first century. It is easy to dismiss the Color Revolutions as events to which the word “revolution” was attached as some form political clickbait. This argument is essentially that none of these events, with the possible exception of Georgia, led to enduring and radical change. Additionally, none were driven by a vision or ideology other than ideas like reform and state building that, in the context of the time, were little more than platitudes. That analysis is somehow lacking and does not tell the whole story. It may no longer be useful to expect that revolutions meet the rather stringent criteria of, for example, Skocpol’s (1979) idea of social revolution. “Social revolutions are rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures…basic changes in social structure and in political structure occur together in a mutually reinforcing fashion (Skocpol, 1979)”. This definition would the limit the term to Russia in 1917, China in the 1940s, France in 1789 and a very small number of other cases. If we hold on to such a narrow definition of revolution, the term will very likely be relegated to history rather than political science. In the past thirty years of regime collapse, Color Revolutions, democratic breakthroughs and failed states have all been a much more significant part of the geopolitical landscape than social revolutions in the classical sense. That is unlikely to change in the near future, suggesting that by the standards of the twenty-first century there may indeed have been something revolutionary about what occurred in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, it suggests that we need a fresh understanding of revolution that is applicable to the twenty-first century [see also Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume)]. There will be more revolutions in the future, but like the Color Revolutions they will be complex. Depending on your perspective foreign intervention or foreign efforts to nurture reform will play a role because the nature of communications and globalization today means that politics no longer happens within one country. Like the Color Revolutions, these future revolutions will be incomplete, making enduring changes in some areas, but not others. The Color Revolutions, may not have had a radical and enduring impact in Georgia, Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan, but they force us

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to expand our definitions and deepen our understanding of change and revolution in the post-Cold War world [about the future revolutions and their forms see Chapter “Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty First Century?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a, in this volume)].

References Bunce, V., & Wolchik, S. (2008). Azerbaijan’s 2005 parliamentary elections: A failed attempt at transition. CDDRL Working Papers 89. Bunce, V., & Wolchik, S. (2009). Debating the color revolutions: Getting real about ‘real causes.’ Journal of Democracy, 20(1), 69–73. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.0.0063 Filin, N., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022). Serbian “Otpor” and the color revolutions’ diffusion. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 465–482). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_17 Finkel, E., & Brudny, Y. M. (2012). No more colour! Authoritarian regimes and colour revolutions in Eurasia. Democratization, 19(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2012.641298 Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b) Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 1–33). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century? In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 1035–1059). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3030-86468-2_41 Golinger, E. (2014). Colored revolutions: A new form of regime change, made in the USA. Global Research 05.03.2014. https://www.globalresearch.ca/colored-revolutions-a-new-formof-regime-change-made-in-the-usa/27061 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Grinin, L. (2022). On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 69–104). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_3 Haring, M., & Cecire, M. (2013). Why the color revolutions failed. Foreign Policy 18.03.2013. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/18/why-the-color-revolutions-failed/ Ivanov, Y. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In J. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 517–547). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_20 Khodunov, A. (2022c). The rose revolution in Georgia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 483–499). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_18 Khodunov, A. (2022b). The orange revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions,

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and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 501–515). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19 Khodunov, A. (2022a). The bulldozer revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16 McFaul, M. (2005). Transitions from PostCommunism. Journal of Democracy, 16(3), 5–19. https:// doi.org/10.1353/jod.2005.0049 Mitchell, L. A. (2008). Uncertain democracy: US foreign policy and Georgia’s rose revolution. Penn Press. Mitchell, L. A. (2012). The color revolutions. Penn Press. Pannier, B. (2009). Rethinking Kyrgyzstan’s tulip revolution. Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty 25.09.2009. https://www.rferl.org/a/Rethinking_Kyrgyzstans_Tulip_Revolution/1807335.html Przeworski, A. (1991). Democracy and the market: Political and economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge University Press. Shevsky, D. (2022). Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 851–863). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_32 Skocpol, T. (1979). States and social revolutions. Cambridge University Press. Stewart, S. (2009). Democracy promotion before and after the “color revolutions”. Democratization, 16(4), 645–660. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510340903082978 Way, L. (2008). The real causes of the color revolutions. Journal of Democracy, 19(3), 55–69. Wilson, A. (2011). Belarus: The last dictatorship in Europe. Yale University Press.

Lincoln A. Mitchell is an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His primary research interests include political development in Eurasia, democracy in the USA, the history and politics of San Francisco and baseball. He has written seven book, numerous articles and hundreds of opinion columns on these topics. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and his BA from the University of California Santa Cruz.

The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia Alexander Khodunov

The Serbian revolution of October 5, 2000 was one of the most important political events in turn-of-the-century Europe.1 That day in Belgrade, the Serbian president Slobodan Miloševi´c, who had pursued an isolationist policy, was overthrown by crowds of protesters; shortly thereafter, a new, pro-Western government came to power. Miloševi´c ruled Serbia in an extremely turbulent time, from 1990 to 2000, a period which saw several wars in the former Yugoslavia, including the Kosovo war within Serbia, which led to NATO’s intervention in 1999. Many people blamed Miloševi´c for these wars and the deterioration of living standards, and the Otpor movement was created to overthrow his regime and unite the opposition. It succeeded in 2000. The aims of this chapter are to shed light on the internal and external causes of this revolution, the distinguishing characteristics of Miloševi´c’s regime and the revolutionary movement, and to describe the results of the Serbian revolution and the country’s development thereafter.

1 Internal Causes of the Revolution There were several important internal causes of the Serbian revolution. Untangling internal and external factors is especially difficult in the case of Serbia, as there was

1 At the moment of the revolution Serbia was part of the country known as Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was established in 1992 after the collapse of the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and consisted of two republics—Serbia and Montenegro (Montenegro wasn’t affected by the revolution). From 2003 that country was called State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and in June 2006 it broke up into the separate states of Serbia and Montenegro.

A. Khodunov (B) Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16

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constant external influence on internal processes. For example, economic deterioration was due partly to ineffective management and corruption and partly to external sanctions. Determining the relative strength of these two factors is challenging, perhaps impossible. The internal factors of the revolution, according to many researchers, were great dissatisfaction with the state of the economy, especially compared with the relative prosperity of Tito’s time; the spread of corruption; hyperinflation; war; and distress over the instability in the wider region. Most supporters of the opposition were tired of Miloševi´c’s regime and wanted to end Serbia’s isolation from the rest of Europe and launch the process of joining the European Union, as did most of Eastern Europe. The opposition saw the regime as a harsh, war-prone dictatorship and wanted to bring the country onto a path of more democratic development (Gordy, 2000; Shariy, 2000; Vovk, 2010). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Serbia, like all Eastern European countries, rapidly metamorphosed from a Communist one-party state to one more similar to European democracies. The ruling Communist Party transformed itself into the Socialist Party and declared that it supported all democratic freedoms, including the freedoms of the press and of speech. Some analysts, however, believe that this democratization was superficial, with real power remaining in the hands of the Socialist Party, and that the regime was authoritarian and repressive (Shariy, 2000; Uvalic, 2011). However that may be, it was at this time that opposition parties and opposition media appeared and began critisizing Miloševi´c’s regime, which they perceived as a harsh dictatorship, similar to those of the Communist era. One of the most active opposition parties in the 1990s was the Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokret obnove) whose leader, Vuk Draškovi´c, accused Miloševi´c of a number of political murders of leading politicians and journalists who opposed his regime, and of an attempt to murder Draškovi´c himself (Charnich, 2018). Freedom of the press also suffered. Serbian opposition journalists considered the 1998 law on the press, which prescribed serious punishments, including massive fines, to be extremely harsh by European standards and aimed at suppressing opposition media. About twenty outlets were sanctioned, and several ceased to exist (Stevanovi´c, 2018). People who took part in demonstrations against Miloševi´c in October 2000 were so frustrated by the lack of media freedom that they attacked the building of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) (Insajder, 2018). Under Miloševi´c, economic reforms and privatization proceeded quite slowly and were accompanied by huge growth of corruption and inequality, extreme inflation, a deep economic recession, Yugoslavia’s disintegration, the loss of traditional markets, and the heavy financial burden of military conflicts. The government also tried to maintain its control over the economy. By 2000, thirty of the most influencial politicians, those closest to Miloševi´c, simultaneously served as the directors of major state enterprises (Uvalic, 2011). Many Serbs blamed the economic situation on the ineffectiveness and corruption of Miloševi´c’s autocratic regime (Shariy, 2000), though below we will consider the great pressure caused by external sanctions.

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2 External Influence on the Serbian Revolution For Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, the 1990s were, without a doubt, the most difficult time since the Second World War. The wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia devastated the region, especially Bosnia and Croatia (for details of these events, see Chapter “All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism”). Serbian forces were engaged in these wars, but there was no combat in Serbian territory until 1998, when the Kosovo uprising began. There is no consensus about the causes or even the main events of these wars. Some researchers argue that they were inspired by the West, which sought to undermine Serbia’s influence in the Balkans and encouraged Croatian, Bosnian, and Kosovar leaders to kill and expel Serbs from their territory, so that Serbs were simply defending themselves. Serbian nationalists argue that, faced with such aggression, Serbia under Miloševi´c was doing its best to fulfill its international obligations, respect human rights, and bring peace to the region as quickly as possible. Such researchers contend that events such as the shelling of the Markale market in Sarajevo in 1993 and the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, which are believed to have been committed by Serb forces, were staged in order to accuse Serbs and generate a pretext for NATO’s bombing of their positions (Gus’kova, 2000). A minister of foreign affairs under Miloševi´c, Vladislav Jovanovi´c, said that the president was absolutely innocent, doing all he could to end the wars and signing all of the peace agreements that were proposed by the international community (YouTube, 2017). However, others believe that Serbia bore the greatest responsibility for the wars and that the West was trying to stop it from conquering territories of other states (often too late and ineffectively). They believe that Slobodan Miloševi´c was the leader of the Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia, directly controlling the Yugoslav army and the Serbian forces in Croatia and Bosnia and ordering them to carry out ethnic cleansing and genocide and to destroy a huge amount of property in those two states, which were internationally recognized within their administrative borders by the Badinter Arbitration Commission in November 1991. This second group argues that the number of victims of the Serbian forces was unprecedented in post-war Europe (see, e.g., Hirsch, 1995; Ramet, 1992; Sharp, 1999). Bosnian and Croatian politicians also hold this position. For instance, the former Croatian prime-minister, Hrvoje Šarini´c, who negotiated with Miloševi´c several times as the envoy of the Croatian president, Franjo Tudman, said that Miloševi´c directly controlled the Serbs who created their own state in Croatia, the Republic of Serbian Krajina, and that crimes against Croats in this territory were committed on Miloševi´c’s orders. Šarini´c described Miloševi´c as a very charming and polite man who tried to present himself as a peacemaker during their private meetings. However, there was another side to his personality, according to Šarini´c, who argued that this behavior was intended to convince others that Miloševi´c was absolutely innocent, a defender of the Serb nation, but that he was actually one of the most terrible criminals in world history (Bajruši, 2014).

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Andrija Hebrang, the former Croatian health minister, wrote that rebel Croatian Serbs, helped by the regular Yugoslav People’s Army, commited genocide in Croatia, killing 7263 Croats and other non-Serb civilians, including 3182 women (registered as unarmed civilians by the Croatian Military Medical Centre) and expelling 384,000 of them from the Republic of Serbian Krajina (one third of the Croatian territory). More than 500 Croatian towns and villages were systematically destroyed: in 1991 and 1992, the Serbian army carried out more than 30,000 artillery and air attacks on the most populous Croatian areas. Hospitals alone were attacked 5000 times, with 17 of them partially or completely destroyed. About 30,000 Croats spent time in Serbian concentration camps (Dujmovi´c, 2013). Hebrang believes Miloševi´c organized the agression against Croatia and even tried to kill the Croatian president, Franjo Tudman, by bombing his residence (Dujmovi´c, 2012). Bosnian general Vahid Karaveli´c believes that Miloševi´c ordered Serbian forces commanded by Ratko Mladi´c and supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army and various paramilitary formations to commit genocide in Bosnia 1992–95 through mass killings and deportations of thousands of Bosnian Muslims. The aim of the Serbian president and the Bosnian Serb leaders are said to have been conquering as much territory as possible, ethnically cleansing it, and disrupting the lives of Bosnians, especially in Sarajevo, which was besieged and continually bombed for four years. Fifteen thousand civilians were killed in Sarajevo alone (Karaveli´c, 2008). All of these claims require further research and analysis by independent scientists.2 One of the important external reasons for the revolution was the direct support of the Serbian anti-Miloševi´c revolutionary movement by the West, which aimed to overthrow his regime in part because he was reluctant to cooperate with them in ending the conflict in Kosovo, and in part because of the conduct of Serbian forces in the preceding decades. The most obvious example of international pressure is the NATO bombardment of 1999, one of whose objectives was to force Miloševi´c to resign. The official reason for the bombardment was that Miloševi´c was commiting genocide against Kosovo Albanians. According to Human Rights Watch, Serbian policemen together with the Yugoslav Army attacked a string of towns and villages in Kosovo, and the majority of those killed and injured were civilians. There were about 2000 casualties in 1998, and 300,000 people were expelled from their homes (Bellamy, 2000). This bombardment caused great harm to the Serbian economy and environment, damaging numerous facilities (schools, hospitals, factories, roads …), and killing between 500 and 1800 civilians. After the bombing, Serbia lost control of Kosovo (Cohn, 2002). William Montgomery, the former U.S. ambassador in Serbia, acknowledged that the American administration’s main aim in Serbia was to overthrow Miloševi´c and that a special office was created in Budapest to help Serbian opposition parties and movements (Vrzi´c, 2010). These wars were seen by the pro-Western opposition as a tool for Miloševi´c to consolidate his power and gain control over neighbouring countries. The opposition 2

About the revolutions in the republics of the former Yugoslavia including ones among the Croatian Serbs and in Kosovo see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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opposed the wars and forced mobilisation initiated by the regime in 1991. They saw the wars as one of the causes of Serbia’s political crisis and economic devastation and believed that Miloševi´c intentionally provoked the bombardment in order to present himself as a protector of Serbs from West, leading to the loss of Kosovo (B92, 2006; Telegraf.rs, 2018). Some of the main reasons for the growth of revolutionary moods were shock at the rapid deterioration of living standards, the psychological pressure of the international sanctions and Serbia’s isolation, and the loss of wars despite great sacrifices, which was perceived as a great national humiliation (Timofeev, 2011). As with the question of the Yugoslav wars, there are two schools of thought with regard to the West’s interest in overthrowing Miloševi´c. One group thinks that the leaders of the EU and the United States regarded him as the main factor of instability in Yugoslavia and the initiator of genocide and ethnic cleansing against non-Serbs with the aim of creating a Greater Serbia constituting most of pre-1992 Yugoslavia. In this version, Western politicians and military leaders wanted to stop him from committing war crimes and destabilizing the region and did not seek to undermine Serbia or harm the Serbian people. They argue that in some cases, the West even acted to help Serbs, e.g. by recognizing Serbian autonomy in Bosnia (Republika Srpska). The other group believes that the West had long wanted to destroy Yugoslavia in order to do away with its socialist economic system, prevent its union with Russia, and break it up into small, weak states, which would then become Western protectorates. As Miloševi´c firmly resisted this policy, the Western powers decided to eliminate him (Guskova, 2000; Hoare, 2003).

3 External Economic Reasons of the Revolution Serbia’s economy suffered greatly because of the 1992–1995 sanctions and 1999 NATO bombings, which caused unprecedented economic destruction. The UN sanctions imposed in 1992 were severe and included a full trade embargo, restrictions on air travel and similar measures that led to essentially absolute isolation from the world (Gus’kova, 1999). The sanctions contributed to a disastrous increase in smuggling and illegal activities connected to the war, skyrocketing inflation (the third highest in the world), shortages of basic products, and the shrinking of the GDP by 80% (Uvalic, 2011). Direct damage totaled $45 billion. The sanctions also took a toll in the social sphere, especially in terms of public health. Because of famine and lack of medicine, which were mostly the result of the international blockade, a huge number of people suffered from malnutrition, and morbidity and mortality rates rose significantly. It is estimated that the sanctions and their consequences caused more than 10,000 excess deaths (Gus’kova, 1999). The sanctions, together with the NATO bombing, brought about considerable difficulties with infrastructure and electricity supply, and the fear of their complete collapse as winter approached forced Miloševi´c to hold an early election in October 2000, which he lost (Way, 2008).

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4 The Main Social and Political Forces of the Revolution The revolutionary movement consisted mostly of young, educated people with good living standards. It was not in a coincidence. As Mitchell points out, one key component of the Color Revolution model was the role that youth movements played in it [see Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume; see also Mitchell, 2012)]. The revolution was strongly supported by the opposition political parties, which wanted to overthrow Miloševi´c and to run the country themselves (Gordy, 2000). The Serbian diaspora in the United States was another important force. Many active members of the diaspora were against Miloševi´c’s regime. Many were monarchists and supported the Serbian nationalist opposition, while liberal businessman Milan Pani´c donated $3 million for a project to help the democratic opposition (Koinova, 2009). Within Serbia, however, a large number of businessmen cooperated with the regime, though some of them said that they were forced to do so in order to protect the thousands of employees who would otherwise lose their jobs (Shariy, 2000). The military and security services were considered to be the regime’s main sources of support, though by 2000 their rank and file were mostly indifferent to the president or even opposed him (Antonich, 2005).3

5 Ideology and the Main Goals and Demands of the Revolutionaries The revolutionaries’ key demand was for Miloševi´c’s resignation. They considered him responsible for Serbia’s isolation and believed he was preventing it from choosing the European path that they thought to be natural for the country, dictated by the logics of history. Correspondingly, the opposition forces’ main goals were to create a real parliamentary democracy like those in developed European countries, integrate into the European Union while adopting the best European social, political, and economic standards, and return Serbia to the international organizations from which it was excluded during Miloševi´c’s rule (Insajder, 2018). However, according to Bojan Pajti´c, the former leader of the Democratic party, a big part of the opposition’s supporters were against Miloševi´c not because they blamed him for the wars, but because he lost them (B92, 2015). They believed that Miloševi´c and politicians loyal to him were guilty for the defeat of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia, the loss of significant territories by Republika Srpska as well as the loss of Kosovo (Krymin & Engelgardt, 2001). Thus, Miloševi´c’s Serbian opponents included many supporters 3

As is well known, the position of military and policing branches of government and their bosses is one of the key factor for the victory or defeat of a revolution [see about this, e.g., Chapter “On Theories and Phenomenon of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022) and Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” (Rasler et al., 2022) in this volume; see also Goldstone, 2001, 2014].

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of right-wing and conservative ideas. This might be connected with the fact that the opposition tried to attract conservatives by arguing that Miloševi´c “betrayed” Kosovo and by condemning the NATO aggression (Binnendijk & Marovic, 2006). It is interesting that far-right anticommunist parties and movements, such as the Serbian Radical party and the nationalist movement Obraz (Honor), which want to create an absolute monarchy in Serbia, did not take part in the revolution and hold that although Slobodan Miloševi´c made some mistakes, the governments that followed him were much worse (Obraz, 2018; Srpska radikalna stranka, 2015).

6 Organizers and Leaders of the Serbian Revolution The organization that did the most work to prepare and carry out the Serbian revolution was a youth movement called Otpor (Resistance).4 Otpor received help from Western NGOs, and its members were trained by some European and American instructors in methods of non-violent resistance [see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this book)]. Some other political forces also actively participated in revolution. Montgomery describes how the American government helped bring together various groups to form the united oppositionist bloc. It is important to note that the West tried to convince the Serbian opposition to unite. This was very difficult because the opposition parties had quite different programs and goals, and there was fierce competition for revolutionary leadership. Ultimately, however, in the summer of 2000, before the parliamentary elections, Americans managed to convince the opposition (with the exception of Vuk Draškovi´c) to act together and to choose a common leader. Although the most influ- c, he ential figure in the opposition was the head of the Democratic Party, Zoran Ðindi´ (albeit with difficulty) accepted the leadership of Vojislav Koštunica, the leader of the conservative Democratic Party of Serbia, who was much more popular. This was a key factor in the opposition’s victory in the election (Vrzi´c, 2010). The United States helped the opposition by supplying a reported $41 million. One unofficial estimate puts the figure at about $100 million. The main donors were USAID, Support for East European Democracy (SEED), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and George Soros’s Open Society Institute. The opposition also received money from Norway, Greece, and Japan. But members of Otpor say that the will of the people, not foreign money, was the decisive factor that made Miloševi´c’s overthrow possible. One of the leaders of Otpor, Ivan Marovi´c, said that it was very hard to take money from Americans but that the organization had no choice, since in Serbia only war criminals and businessmen implicated in the wars had serious funds (Aslamova, 2012). 4

By 2000, Otpor had about 70,000 members (71% were under 25 years, most of them were students) and more than 130 units throughout Serbia. After the revolution, in 2003 Otpor got only 2% of vote (Nikolayenko, 2012) and merged into the Democratic Party. For more detail about Otpor and its revolutionary activities in a number of countries see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this book).

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7 Forms of the Revolutionary Activity The opposition’s main tactic was mass mobilization in the form of non-violent demonstrations. The first took place on March 9, 1991, with the most influential opposition parties and leaders taking part; the organizer was Vuk Draškovi´c. In response, Miloševi´c sent about 15,000 policemen and tanks into the streets. The second mass demonstrations, against electoral fraud, took place in 1996/97. Protests led by the opposition lasted for 88 days and student protests for 117. The protests resembled a multi-colored performance, with participants carrying drums and whistles. Miloševi´c, in turn, organized a counterprotest, with people from the provinces gathering in the center of Belgrade and saying that they loved the president. Nonetheless, the pressure forced the government to acknowledge the results of the election and let the opposition take power in many cities and regions. But the most massive popular protest took place in October 2000 (Vesti online, 2012). Creative young members of Otpor worked hard to make the revolution appealing to the youth. For example, at one protest, they rolled around a barrel featuring Miloševi´c’s portrait and the words “collecting money for Miloševi´c’s pension”. At first, the police did not know what to do, but they eventually took the barrel from the protestors and put it in a car. The next day, an opposition TV channel showed this episode, providing merriment for viewers. Otpor made humor and making fun of Miloševi´c through public performances a major part of its strategy, often leaving the police unsure of how to react (Popovic, 2015). Miloševi´c’s police tried to stop the gatherings by arresting members of Otpor, but the movement only grew. The symbol of the revolution was a clenched fist; invented by a member of Otpor, it spread all over the world after 2000. The symbol was similar to one used in the times of the partisan anti-fascist movement in Yugoslavia; the intention was to create the impression that Miloševi´c was a fascist and that the oppositionists were guerillas fighting for the country’s freedom (Aslamova, 2012). The government responded by presenting Otpor as a fascist and terrorist organization, arresting many of its activists, and accusing members of the murder of one of a leader of the Socialist party without evidence. This was despite the fact that Otpor tried to behave in a non-violent way and called for a legitimate election as a way to change the regime (Binnendijk & Marovic, 2006).

8 Relationships Between Various Political Forces Within the Revolutionary Movement These relationships were quite complicated. Otpor acknowledged that it tried to engage people of all political views, monarchists and republicans, left and right, in order to overthrow Miloševi´c, and after the revolution, this heterogeneity immediately began causing conflicts among them (Aslamova, 2012). The revolutionary leaders had -c considerable disagreements on certain important political issues; furthermore, Ðindi´

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had quite a complicated personal relationship with Koštunica, but with the help of the Americans, they succeeded in reaching a consensus for the sake of defeating Miloševi´c (Vrzi´c, 2010).

9 The Regime’s Main Weak Points Ahead of the revolution, key regime figures began joining the opposition, such as the former (1992–98) chief of the General Staff, Momˇcilo Periši´c. Also, many police officers told opposition leaders that they would not carry out government orders to suppress the protests (Binnendijk & Marovic, 2006). This is an indicator of the conflict within the regime’s elite.5 Heavy Western pressure significantly reduced the regime’s financial base and destabilized the state, which struggled to pay employees of the military and security services. In this context, even members of the security services and other agencies who had previously been loyal to the regime decided it would be better to abandon Miloševi´c and support the opposition or simply stop protecting a regime whose days were numbered (Way, 2008). As Jack A. Goldstone wrote, “both Marcos in the Philippines and Milosevic in Serbia believed they could rig victory in elections, and therefore they made the apparent concession of calling elections to justify their authoritarian rule. When, despite their efforts, it was widely perceived that they lost the elections, they then had to fall back on repression to maintain their rule. But because of the perceived electoral losses, military and police resolve to defend the regime was weakened, and repression of popular protests failed, leading to the collapse of the regime” (Goldstone, 2001: 161).

10 The Course of the Revolution Following the election on September 24, 2000, the Federal Electoral Committee declared that no candidate had won a clear majority (Miloševi´c received 40.3% and Koštunica 48.2%), and the second round runoff between the two leading candidates was scheduled to take place on October 8. But the opposition, based on exit polls conducted by its volunteers, argued that Koštunica had won with 52%, with Miloševi´c receiving only 33%, and accused the government of fraud. The head of Koštunica’s - c, called for street protests and a general strike. The campaign office, Zoran Ðindi´ mass protests peaked on October 5, 2000 (Naumov, 2016). They were peaceful and succeeded in overthrowing Miloševi´c, who resigned on October 7. The revolution was called the Bulldozer revolution (Bager revolucija) because one of the protesters, 5

On the role of intra-elite conflict in revolutions see, e.g., Goldstone (2014), as well as Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022) and Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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Ljubisav Ðoki´c, drove a bulldozer into the Radio Television of Serbia building (Vovk, 2010). About 800,000 people took part in the protests, and many of them came to Belgrade from other parts of Serbia. The police tried to use tear gas but with no result (Binnendijk & Marovic, 2006). In general, the police and the army were extremely passive in defending the regime. The police did not stop crowds of people from rushing into the capital. Chief of the General Staff Nebojša Pavkovi´c ignored Miloševi´c’s order to send troops into the city center (Antonich, 2005). Although most members of the General Staff had no sympathy for the protestors, the army did not want to cause bloodshed and civil war (Kosti´c, 2010). Although this revolution is considered to have been non-violent, there were two indisputably violent episodes which happened on the 5th of October: the burning of the Skupština (Parliament) building by groups of young people, and the seizure of key institutions by armed police officers and war veterans (Way, 2008). ˇ cak lost her During the revolution, two people died. Jasmina Jovanoviˇc from Caˇ life in Belgrade after falling under the wheels of a truck, while Momˇcilo Staki´c from Krupanj died because of a heart attack. About 65 persons were injured, mostly during the clashes with the police near the parliament (B92, 2007). Vojislav Koštunica was proclaimed the winner of the election, and he promised that Serbia would soon become a part of the European Union. On the 6th of October Miloševi´c accepted his defeat and resigned (Vovk, 2010).

11 Consequences of the Revolution. The Development of Serbia in Its Wake In the years following the revolution, the regime became much more democratic, freedom of the press and justice increased greatly, and citizens began to enjoy much more political freedom than they did under Miloševi´c (McMahon & Forsythe, 2008). Generally, however, the country was unable to resolve its immense economic, demographic, social, and territorial problems. Indeed, these problems intensified, and even today, some threaten the very future of the country. In the political realm, the diverse coalition that took power began to suffer from serious internal conflicts within just half a year, ultimately splintering in fall 2003. These conflicts were to a great extent caused by the fact that the old political system had been destroyed, and there were serious disagreements about how to create a new system and build relations with Western powers (Miloševi´c, 2003). After that, Serbia was ruled mostly by the modernist Democratic Party (up to 2012), though other, more conservative parties such as the Democratic Party of Serbia and the Socialist Party played significant roles. Although under its constitution Serbia has a parlamentary system, real political power was shown to depend on the forcefulness and charisma of the president or premier. When the president was strong and persistent, power was concentrated in his hands. From 2001 to 2003, the most powerful figure in Serbia

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- c, who attempted political and economic reforms to was the premier, Zoran Ðindi´ bring Serbia closer to the standards of the European Union. - c arrested Miloševi´c and delivered him to the International Criminal In 2001, Ðindi´ Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, receiving foreign aid in exchange. In 2003, - c was assassinated by an ultranationalist police sniper; real power then became Ðindi´ concentrated in the hands of Boris Tadi´c, the president from 2004 to 2012. He tried to join the EU as soon as possible and fulfilled many of the EU’s key demands, such as cooperating with the Hague Tribunal. As a result, in 2009, Serbians were granted a visa-free travel regime with the EU, and in 2012, Serbia became a candidate for EU membership, with membership expected by the mid-2020s. At the same time, it managed to develop good relations with Russia (Radelji´c, 2014; Uvalic, 2011). Although there was clear success in the domain of foreign policy, the country’s economic performance was much more mixed. Before the economic crisis of 2008–09 Serbia’s GDP grew about 5% a year. The privatization process was very rapid (about 1,500 state enterprises were privatized), and average inflation declined to as low as 10% in 2008. During that period, Serbia received a considerable amount of financial aid from the EU (Uvalic, 2011). Foreign direct investments grew steadily (the latter grew from $10 million in 2000 to $4.29 billion in 2006). At the same time, there were some serious economic problems, such as huge deficits and consequent debt, and a flawed privatization, during which many enterprises were sold to criminals and rent-seekers, leading to violations of worker’s rights, non-payment of salaries, etc. (Upchurch & Marinkovi´c, 2011). It should be noted that although some fundamental economic reforms were conducted, other important ones were neglected, leading to serious hardships. For example, neither the state nor most of the domestic owners of enterprises that were sold carried out modernization programs, so facilities’ efficiency remained quite low; this was especially true for industrial enterprises. The private sector did not receive adequate support and grew slowly—from 40% of GDP in 2001 to 60% in 2009. GDP did not grow fast enough to catch up with that of other Eastern European states or even reach the Serbian GDP from before the destabilization of the ‘90s; Serbia’s GDP in 2009 was 72% of its 1989 level, and its industrial production only 52%. Since industrial goods had traditionally been the country’s main exports, this decline led to an increase in the trade deficit. Serbia consumed much more than it produced and depended on revenue from privatization, foreign investment, remittances, and exports to EU countries. This economic model turned out to be extremely vulnerable to the global crisis of 2008– 9, which hit Serbia’s main trading partners in the West hardest of all. Serbia’s GDP shrank by 3.2% in 2009 as other economic indicators also deteriorated (Uvalic, 2011). The economic transition and privatization were greatly complicated by widespread corruption, the skyrocketing debt burden, and rising poverty, inequality, and especially unemployment, which increased to about 2 million by 2012 (see, e.g.. Gus’kova, 2012). A numerous and prosperous middle class, the foundation of political and economic stability and successful development in Western societies, could not appear in such conditions. Serbia’s territorial integrity was also seriously damaged under Tadi´c.

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In June 2006, following a referendum, Montenegro declared its independence, and Serbia lost its outlet to the sea. Kosovo then declared independence in 2008 and was quickly recognized by most Western and Islamic countries. Then-premier Koštunica called the declaration illegal and the leaders of Kosovo “convicted terrorists” (Stahl, 2013). Some experts believe that the European Union calculated that State Union of Serbia and Montenegro was subject to so many internal contradictions that it would inevitably fall apart and that it tried to put off the accession of independence for Montenegro and Kosovo (Whyte, 2006), while other experts believe the secession of Montenegro and Kosovo was provoked by the West in order to further weaken Serbia and gain control over the new small states (Gus’kova, 2017). Demographic development also was very unfavorable. According to the census of 2011, between 2002 and 2011 Serbia’s population shrank by 423,000, mostly as a result of a considerable excess of deaths over births (297,000), but also because of emigration (about 126,000), although this emigration was not as intensive as in the catastrophic 1990s. The population shrank from 7.44 million in 2002 to 7.017 million in 2011 (without refugees from Kosovo and Albanians from Southern Serbia, who boycotted the census). The abortion rate is very high, as well (Khodunov, 2016). Since 2012, the country has been ruled by the Serbian Progressive Party, which grew out of the Serbian Radical Party. In 2008, key figures who were close allies of Vojislav Šešelj created an independent party and started supporting the European Union. Today, the leader of the party and the most powerful Serbian politician is Aleksandar Vuˇci´c; another popular figure in his party is the former president, Tomislav Nikoli´c. Although structural economic reforms under the Serbian Progressive Party have brought about progress in fiscal consolidation, earning praise from some European leaders (Blic, 2015; Pravda, 2016) and the IMF, GDP growth is slow (2.5% in 2016), and fundamental economic problems like the huge ratio of debt to GDP, the ineffectiveness of large state-owned companies, and significant trade and budget deficits persist (Prokopovi´c et al., 2016). There is also continued deterioration in the social and demographic sphere [to cover an average consumer basket, Serbian citizens need 1.53 average monthly salaries (Marinkovi´c, 2016)], and the level of emigration, especially among the youth, is alarmingly high (60,000 people emigrated in 2015 alone, and an unbelievable two thirds of young people want to emigrate) because of lack of hope, joblessness and poverty (Stevanovi´c, 2017). Moreover, some researchers think that Vuˇci´c essentially recognized Kosovo’s independence by signing the Brussels agreement in April 2013, just one year after coming to power (see, e.g., Filimonova, 2013). It is interesting how the revolutionaries themselves see the results of the revolution. - Milivojevi´c, one of the most prominent members of Otpor and now a member Srdan of the Democratic party, considers the Buldozer Revolution to have been a great success due to the fact that it put an end to assassinations of prominent Serbian politicians. At the same time, some of those who had become rich by criminal means by 2000 remained untouched, because no lustration of members of the previous regime was carried out. This, in Milivojevi´c’s estimation, is one of the main problems in post-revolutionary Serbia (Deki´c, 2017).

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It is important that the Bulldozer Revolution of 2000 was the first Color Revolution in a former Communist state and it became a relevant model for other Color revolutions (see, e.g., Beissinger, 2007). So, it is not surprising that, in general, Serbia’s revolution resembled the Color revolutions that took place in former Soviet republics such as Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine6 : the revolutionaries wanted to break radically with the Communist legacy and to bring their countries close to Europe. But the post-revolutionary period in all countries turned out to be much more difficult than people had expected, the results of the revolutions have been mixed, and progress has been relatively slow [see Mitchell, 2012 and Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume)]. A general improvement of the situation in Serbia still has not taken place and is very unlikely to do so in the near future. It can be said unequivocally that the revolution has improved the political and (in its first years) economic situation to a degree and made it possible for Serbs and the Serbian state to establish close relations with other peoples and countries of Europe, but life in Serbia has not improved in other ways, and in some cases it has greatly deteriorated. In addition, the international situation has grown more complex. In the early 2000s, it seemed clear that Serbia’s path forward lay with the European Union. But after the economic crisis of 2009, and particularly the hardships of southern European countries and Greece, it became less obvious that joining the EU would bring benefits. Recently China has made major investments in Serbia’s railways and other infrastructure as part of its “Belt and Road Initiative,” while Turkey has been seeking to spread its influence across the region, and Russia has asserted its long-time friendship for the Serbian nation. Serbia thus is at a crossroads, where in addition to sorting out its domestic economic and political issues, it is unclear whether it should look West or East for support for the future.

References Antonich, S. (2005). Pyatoe oktyabrya i perspektivy demokratizatsii Serbii. In O. Edel’man (Ed.), Serbiya o sebe (pp. 255–282). Evropa. Aslamova, D. (2012). Spetsialisty po bystrym revolyutsiyam: Nash sekret uspeha – sdelat’ sumasshestvie normoy! Komsomol’skaya Pravda 09.04.2012. https://www.kp.ru/daily/25864.5/ 2830948/ B92. (2006). Žrtve Miloševi´cevog režima. B92 15.03.2006. https://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index. php?yyyy=2006&mm=03&dd=15&nav_category=11&nav_id=191686 B92. (2007). Parties, citizens mark October 5. B92 05.10.2007. https://www.b92.net/eng/news/pol itics.php?dd=05&mm=10&nav_category=90&nav_id=44315&yyyy=2007. Accessed January 10, 2019.

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For more detail on Georgian, Kyrgyz, and Ukrainian revolutions see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022a), and Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022) in this volume.

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Alexander Khodunov is a Research Fellow at the Department of the Modern East at the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law (Institute for History and Archives, Russian State University for the Humanities). The author of over 20 academic publications including such articles as “Demographic factors of political stability in Iran (second half of the twentieth—early twenty-first century)” (2015); “The demographic modernization of Iran (from the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the twenty-first century)” (2017); “Interethnic relations and risks of destabilization in the countries of the former Yugoslavia: history and modernity” (2017). Area of expertise: political-demographic dynamics and social processes in the Middle East and Balkans.

Serbian “Otpor” and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion Nikita Filin, Alexander Khodunov, and Vladimir Koklikov

The beginning of the twenty-first century, compared with the last years of the twentieth century, witnessed a significant rise of revolutionary movements throughout the whole world. Of course, there were specific internal factors in every country.1 But it should be noted that in many cases Serbian revolutionaries from the “Otpor” student organization significantly contributed to the success of these movements. This chapter presents an explanation of how and why Otpor intervened in these movements (or even influenced the creation of the revolutionary organizations), and what results this intervention brought about—both the successes (which remain limited) and the failures. CANVAS (Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies), an organization - Popovi´c, made a "success list” formed in 2003 by the former Otpor leader Srda of the revolutions where it had been an active participant. The list includes five 1 On the situation with revolutions in the late twentieth century see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022). On general causes of the Color revolutions see Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a), and Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b) in this volume. About the specific causes of revolutions in specific countries see Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), and Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022, in this book).

N. Filin (B) · A. Khodunov Department of the Modern East, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] V. Koklikov Department of Oriental Languages, Moscow State Linguistic University, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_17

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revolutions (excluding Serbia)—Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, Lebanon 2005, the Maldives 2008, and Egypt 2011. CANVAS activists have also worked in 40 other countries, from Canada to Zimbabwe (CANVAS, n.d.). Some researchers think that the Kyrgyz revolution in 2005 was also influenced by Otpor (Beissinger, 2007). Popovi´c has explained that the main motive for his revolutionary activism was his deep dissatisfaction with President Miloševi´c’s radical retreat from the liberal and free-thinking atmosphere that had been commonplace in Serbia since Tito’s time. Miloševi´c created a regime based on radical nationalism, hate-speech against other nations (e.g. Croatia), the suppression of any kind of freedom and widespread repression of any opposition [on the Serbian 2000 revolution see Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a, in this volume)]. Popovi´c and his friends tried different forms of opposition activism from 1992 onwards, and by 1998 they had created a strong movement, “Otpor”. The main principles of the Otpor activists were non-violent struggle, mobilization, and most importantly, humor. They tried to make their actions amusing, compelling and attractive to the people, especially youth (Henley, 2015). In order to become a substantial and influential organization, Otpor sought to attract people from different social statuses and political beliefs, and encouraged their creativity and personal initiatives. Its members were mostly young people, but their parents and relatives were often influenced by Otpor’s ideas. By constantly working to spread its ideas across different regions and social groups, Otpor was able to create a broad network of activists not only in big cities, but also in provincial towns throughout Serbia. In line with its emphasis on personal initiative, its cells had considerable autonomy in developing their own activities. The organization broadly used branding, especially a clenched fist, as a symbol. It tried to overcome people’s fear of the Miloševi´c regime by different means, especially using humor, creating funny jokes and amusing street-performances. It used local newspapers and TV channels to promote its ideas. Otpor activists also tried to attract the support of the police by giving them flowers and pastries [for more detail on the Serbian color revolution see Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a, in this volume)]. Funds for stickers, leaflets and other items were provided to Otpor by Western NGOs that were interested in toppling Miloševi´c, but this support did not prevent Otpor members from developing their own strategy and repertoire of actions. One of the distinct features of the organization was the absence of a clear leader, which facilitated its work in an authoritarian regime. American social activist Gene Sharp’s ideas about nonviolent activity were especially popular among its members. To learn from others’ experience, the organization contacted Slovak, Bulgarian and Romanian youth activists. Otpor activists did not focus merely on their own organization. One of their most difficult efforts was to unite the Serbian opposition, and they finally succeeded (Nikolayenko, 2012). Miljana (Milja), one of the Otpor leaders, said that the organization played a crucial role in toppling Miloševi´c, and without Otpor the opposition parties could do nothing. But she considers the absence of the strong, developed institutions and NGOs necessary for the creation of a stable democratic regime in Serbia to be a much greater problem than Miloševi´c’s regime (Shariy, 2000). It seems that Milja was absolutely

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right because since 2000 Serbia has not been able to solve the institutional problem. The institutions of democracy are still very weak, the press is not free enough, the level of corruption is one of the highest in Europe, and the people who rule Serbia are in fact representatives of the Miloševi´c regime. Although they have changed their policy from isolationist to pro-European, there are still some authoritarian methods of rule used in the country (Biserko, 2016). Similar problems are observed in all post-communist countries which have experienced “color revolutions”. In most of them, progress towards democratization is only partial, and the democratic breakthrough immediately after the revolution was followed by stagnation or in some cases a setback [(Mitchell, 2012: 115–117); see also Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume)]. In perhaps the worst case, post-revolutionary Egypt returned to even more severe authoritarian rule than had prevailed before the 2011 uprising [(Grinin & Korotayev, 2013, 2016b; Korotayev et al., 2016; see also Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b) and Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume)]. After the Serbian revolution and overthrow of the Miloševi´c regime, Otpor decided to continue its activities by helping other countries to overthrow their repressive regimes. Otpor’s activities during the 2000s and early 2010s were very large-scale and spread to many countries all over the world. The most remarkable cases of successful revolutions Otpor helped with (or influenced through its ideas) were Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Lebanon (2005), Kyrgyzstan (2005) and several Arab countries in the beginning of 2011.2 The revolutions of this type are called modular democratic revolutions, and it was the Serbian revolution that started this revolutionary wave. It should be noted that the American NGOs and, in some cases, the American government itself, helped Otpor greatly in its revolutionary activities in Serbia as well as in other countries. The Serbian revolution was financed largely by the U.S. government, which wanted to overthrow Miloševi´c’s regime. The Serbian opposition, including Otpor, received $41 million from the U.S., which greatly contributed to the success of the revolution. President George W. Bush openly said that he was glad because of the success of the Georgian revolution and said that America wanted to spread similar democratic revolutions to other countries, e.g. to Central Asia [Beissinger, 2007; see also Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this book)]. Each of these revolution took place largely because of the power of the example of successful revolutions that happened before. However, in several countries where non-violent protests occurred, some of the important conditions for such revolutions were absent. Despite massive unrest with hundreds of thousands of protestors in the streets of Tehran, the attempted “Green Revolution” in Iran in the summer of 2

For detail on these revolutions see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), and Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022, in this book).

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2009 was absolutely unsuccessful. The reluctance of opposition leaders to rally the popular opposition, and the loyalty of the militias and revolutionary guard, stymied the widespread non-violent mobilization of the populace [see Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022, in this volume)]. It should be mentioned that after the fall of Miloševi´c, Otpor lost its main purpose, and this fact, along with the estrangement of its leaders from the rank-and-file members led to the rapid weakening of the movement in Serbia. In the December 2003 general election, it received only 60,000 votes, an unexpectedly low result. This fact also contributed to the increase of its activity abroad. CANVAS, led by Srda Popovi´c, and another center—the Center for Non-Violent Resistance (headed by Ivan Marovi´c, Stanko Lazendi´c and Aleksandar Mari´c)—were modelled on the International Centre for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC) in Washington and on Freedom House. Some former Otpor members were closely connected with Western organizations. Lazendi´c and Mari´c were special advisers to Freedom House on Ukrainian youth movements. Ivan Marovi´c cooperated with the ICNC, the film and video production company York Zimmerman Inc., and a leading game developer, BreakAway Ltd., which helped him create a computer game about non-violent strategy (Naumovi´c, 2006). - Popovi´c and his comrades give lessons about non-violent Nowadays, Srda regime change strategies at elite universities—London’s Global University, Harvard, Columbia, New York (Henley, 2015). The people who inspired the organization’s leaders were Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who used exclusively non-violent methods in their struggles. Their source of inspiration was their fight for independence and equality, and also the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Half of CANVAS’s expenditures are for training workshops (whose trainers are former youth movement activists who succeeded in overthrowing their governments) and other activities are provided by its co-founder Slobodan Ðinovi´c, who is the owner of Serbia’s largest private telephone and internet company (Rosenberg, 2011). CANVAS cooperates with several organizations that provide support to non-violent democratic activists, like Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Albert Einstein Institution founded by Gene Sharp, etc. CANVAS wrote a guide to non-violent resistance in which it is explained how to make a revolution, and created a computer game that simulates non-violent fighting against dictatorships (Aslamova, 2012). CANVAS so strongly insists on using only non-violent methods because a study of uprisings from 1900 to 2006 showed that non-violent campaigns succeeded in achieving regime change in 53% cases, while violent campaigns did so only in 26% (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011), and a functioning democracy was created in 42% of these successful cases. A democracy was developed only in 4% of cases where a regime was overthrown using violence [Henley, 2015; see also Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2021a) and Chapter "The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath" (Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume)].

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As of 2012, Otpor, in one way or another, took part in uprisings, unrest, civil demonstrations and revolutions in dozens of countries. This organization was especially active in post-Soviet states that were experiencing a transition from a communist political and economic system to a multi-party system and market economy, and which were developing corrupt and oligarchic states. In these countries, their political systems were very fragile and could not effectively cope with massive protest movements. Because of this, these regimes were an easy target for domestic youth activists that used the experience of the Serbian revolutionaries. It is very important to note that the various Color Revolutions did not only happen because of the actions of Otpor, Western NGOs or the US government. Their assistance was an important factor in these events, as was the example and lessons of the successful experience of Otpor in Serbia. But in each case these revolutions had their own deep causes, primarily dissatisfaction with the current governments and the wish of the young and socially active segment of the population to make their lives better (Beissinger, 2007). Another factor that influenced the emergence of revolutionary situations and, thus, helped to create conditions for overthrowing regimes in some countries (e.g. Tunisia, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan) was a “youth bulge”—a relatively large share of youth in the demographic structure of a population (about the youth bulges in the Arab countries as one of the factors of the Arab Spring see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume)]. North-African countries were clearly in this category. Youths are known to be prone to radical ideas and radical ways of implementing these ideas, especially because in the modern Arab world they do not have their own families until they are 30 years old or older, and because of this they think that they have nothing to lose and are ready to take part in risky activities, such as massive and even violent demonstrations against the regime. But, fortunately many of the Arab youths and their leaders were relatively well-educated and were not willing to use radical and violent protests. Because of this fact, the death toll of the Egyptian revolution in 2011 (about 800 people) was not so high as in bloody Third World revolutions [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011; see also Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)]. It should be noted that peaceful protests were one of Gene Sharp’ key ideas, and North-African youth were ready to protest peacefully. This led to relatively small numbers of casualties in those countries that experienced revolutions that changed regimes without triggering massive civil wars. It should also be noted that Kyrgyzstan fell in these two categories—it had quite a high share of young population and also had an unstable, transitional political system; therefore it was not hard to create a revolutionary situation there. The members of Otpor themselves say that they love to work with young activists (primarily active urban students), not with opposition political parties, because the youth are ready to accept new thoughts and ideas and love risk; they also cannot be scared by the regime due to the absence of a family and career (Aslamova, 2012). It should be noted that the Miloševi´c regime in Serbia was indeed undemocratic and repressive, and its actions caused great problems in the relations between Serbia and neighboring nations (Bosnian Muslims, Croats, Albanians). Thus, its overthrow

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brought about more positive results than negative. But in other countries where Otpor tried to help the opposition in creating a non-violent revolution, the overall situation, political environment and political culture of the population were often different from Serbia, and such a revolution could cause much more harm than benefit for these societies. Nevertheless, this factor was not taken into consideration by Otpor members who worked with opposition movements from all countries regardless of their specific situations. This approach could sometimes bring about unpredictable and even dangerous results, as will be shown below. In some countries there were really tragic outcomes. We examine the most famous successful revolutions below.

1 Georgia—2003. The Rose Revolution. The First Success after Serbia Georgian revolutionary activists received significant help from Otpor. In fact, they had been trained by Otpor members in Belgrade in the spring of 2003. Then, the movement “Kmara!” (“Enough!”) was formed, which played a very important role in subsequent revolutionary events. The founders of "Kmara" admitted that the movement had learned much from Otpor and tried to follow its example. The same clenched fist as in Otpor also appeared on "Kmara" flags. And, just as in the case of Otpor, American-based institutes (National Democratic Institute, the Soros Foundation) helped the Georgian youth movement with money and organization (Beissinger, 2007). After gaining acquaintance with Otpor and its methods, Kmara became much more disciplined and started to use humor, art and fun activities for mobilizing as many people as possible [Laverty, 2008; for more detail on this revolution see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c, in this volume)].

2 Ukraine—2004, The Orange Revolution The Ukrainian revolutionary movement "Pora" (“It’s time”) was formed in spring 2004. It was heavily influenced by Serbian and Georgian organizations. Fourteen leaders of Pora came to Belgrade in order to receive training on revolutionary issues and after that trained their own members in summer camps. Otpor leaders even went to Kiev themselves to give some instructions to Pora. Like in the case of Kmara, the founders of Pora openly admitted that they had learnt about revolutionary activity from their Serbian friends [Beissinger, 2007; for more detail on this color revolution see Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b, in this volume)]. One of the Otpor activists, Siniša Sikman, worked closely with groups of Ukrainian youth in the city of Novi-Sad. They had very different political views, but Sikman succeeded in convincing them to forget about their disagreements and

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work together. He explained to them how to organize a movement, how to work with the crowds in order to avoid chaos, and how to get support from the police. Another activist, Miloš Milenkovi´c, taught them how to escape arrests with the help of opposition journalists, advocates and coordinators of the movement (Aslamova, 2012). There is a widespread opinion in Russia that the Color Revolutions in these countries were prepared beforehand from the outside, in order to weaken Russian influence, create anti-Russian regimes, and integrate them into NATO. In such a way they would be entirely subordinate to the West and would serve Western elites in undermining Russia’s power, while the quality of life and democratic development in these countries would greatly deteriorate, because the people themselves are not absolutely important for the creators of the Color Revolutions (Ivanov, 2016). The book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, written by one of the leading ideologists of the United States’ foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski, seems to support this theory. He wrote that it is very important to bring Ukraine into the EU and NATO, because as long as Ukraine is independent and pro-Western, Russia cannot be a great empire (Sushchenko, 2014). This view of Western intentions is very popular in Russia and in some left Western circles. However, Lincoln Mitchell argues that although there definitely was Western influence in these revolutions (including financial support for opposition groups), it should not be overstated. The West, especially the US, certainly did help local pro-Western NGOs and supported the demonstrations against electoral fraud, and George W. Bush advocated for democracy promotion in post-Soviet countries. But it was the Ukrainian and Georgian people (especially the youth and middle class) who actively took part in the demonstrations, protests and civil activities, and who wished to reform their societies in accordance with Western standards. Also, the scale of Western influence differed considerably—it was not so large in Georgia while quite significant in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the US influenced the revolution through George Soros’ Open Society Institute and other similar organizations, where it trained local activists and helped the opposition with monitoring of elections. In Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, according to Mitchell, US influence was weaker [see Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume)].

3 Lebanon—2005, The Cedar Revolution According to CANVAS itself, their activists trained the revolutionary groups that organized the Lebanese "Cedar Revolution" (CANVAS, n.d.). The Lebanese activists used similar methods as in other post-communist revolutions—gave flowers to the police, built tent cities, created a carnival atmosphere (Beissinger, 2007). It is interesting that this revolution was the most massive—on March 14th 2005 1.2 million Lebanese people of all confessions, or about a quarter of the population, participated in it. The revolution was also inspired by the wish to liberate the country from Syrian

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occupation and by the outrage following the assassination of the prime-minister Rafiq Hariri. As a result of the revolution, the pro-Syrian government resigned and Syrian troops were withdrawn from Lebanon. In this revolution, women were especially active; that was unusual for the Middle East (Stephan, 2010). After the revolution, notwithstanding numerous political and religious problems, Lebanon remains the most economically developed country in the Arab world and one of the most modernized countries in the world in general. Its urbanization level in 2010 was 87%, and its agricultural sector is more developed than in Germany or Italy. Following the change in government, from 2006 to 2010 the country enjoyed very high economic growth (Issaev & Korotayev, 2013).3

4 Kyrgyzstan—2005, The Tulip Revolution The influence of Otpor on the Kyrgyz revolution was mainly indirect. Kyrgyz youth activists traveled to Ukraine before the elections in Kyrgyzstan in December 2004, when the Orange revolution took place, and watched the techniques and the methods that the Ukrainian activists were taught by Otpor. After this journey they created a movement “Kelkel” that was formed on a model of “Pora” and, eventually, “Otpor” (Beissinger, 2007). Though this revolution to some degree was similar to the earlier ones (the presence of a student youth movement, protests against elections that were perceived as stolen), at the same time it differed greatly from them. The youth organization Kelkel actually played a secondary role, and at the beginning of the revolution, in the southern Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad the most numerous protesters were old jobless men, not urban educated youth. In the capital, Bishkek, the role of youth was much more significant (they stormed government buildings), but modern youth organizations also were not very active there (Kelkel itself brought less than 200 students). The Kyrgyz revolution had elements of violence, mass looting and vandalism, unlike other countries’ color revolutions (Tudoriou, 2007). The former president of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev believes that the revolution was organized by some NGOs which enjoyed the support of the US ambassador Stephen Young, in order to seize power, and it resulted in the destruction of the country’s economy [Yuferova, 2014; for more detail about the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan see Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume)].

3

The situation in Lebanon has worsened considerably after the influx of 1.2 million Syrian refugees (20% of the whole Lebanese population) after which the economic growth fell from 10% in 2010 to 1% in 2014, and unemployment skyrocketed to 34%. But this is an obvious external factor, without which the economic growth and social development would probably have been continued at a fast pace (Cherri et al., 2016).

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5 Tunisia—2011, The Jasmine Revolution - Popovi´c stated that his organization had worked with Tunisian youth groups. Srda Tunisian youth activists say that they had received training from Otpor members on how to apply non-violent strategies, and (like Ukrainian and many other activists) used ideas and techniques from Gene Sharp’s book about nonviolent struggle that the Serbs gave them. The Tunisian protesters followed these instructions and did not fight with the police even when they used force (YouTube, 2011). The revolution started when 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire protesting against the police that banned him from selling fruits. The Tunisian (like the Egyptian, and generally Middle Eastern) youth were upset by an extremely high level of corruption (in the case of Tunisia, resident Ben Ali’s wife and her relatives were the most blatantly corrupt), very high unemployment, and an inability to influence political processes because of the sultanistic character of the regime (Goldstone, 2011). Before the revolution, Tunisia was one of the most developed countries in the Arab world and in Africa, whose government paid great attention to social development and equality. Its economy grew very fast, especially manufacturing and modern technology, and the majority of the urban population was middle-class (Podtserob, 2007). Its political system, however, was far from democratic, and the Ben Ali regime, aside from its corruption, ran a highly intrusive police that badgered and humiliated the populace. There was also a substantial lag in economic development in the southern, rural areas of the country. Bouazizi’s act of protest triggered further protests in the southern regions, which then spread to youth and labor organizations whose protests in the cities brought down the regime. Nowadays the socio-economic situation in Tunisia has grown difficult, as unemployment has grown significantly, terrorism has occurred, tourism has declined greatly (But, 2018). Nonetheless, Tunisia’s political system managed to forge compromise out of repeated crises, and alone among the Arab Uprising countries, was able to maintain a democratic government for a decade (for more detail about the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia see Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” [Kuznetsov, 2022] in the present book).

6 Egypt—2011, The January 25 Revolution Otpor members openly acknowledged that they had trained some Egyptian activists and were happy when the revolution ousted the dictatorial president Hosni Mubarak. In a talk with Al-Jazeera, a participant of protests, 22-year-old blogger Mohammed Adel, said: "I was in Serbia where I learned about the organization of non-violent demonstrations and the best methods to counter security service brutality.” When he went back to Egypt at the end of 2009, he brought with him a guide in order to teach the members of the April 6 and Kifaya movements about non-violent revolutionary activities. Already in the beginning of 2011, it yielded impressive results (Vox Europ,

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2011). Otpor trainers succeeded in bringing together Egyptian liberals and Islamists. That was very important for the success of the subsequent revolution (Aslamova, 2012). Otpor also organized workshops in the suburbs of Cairo and shared their experience of mobilizing non-violent protests with the Egyptian youth. Although some analysts believe that the Middle Eastern revolutions were made by America, Mohammed Adel thinks that it was impossible for the USA to force millions of Egyptians to protest, and thinks that the roots of the revolution were in Egyptian society itself, not foreign influence (YouTube, 2011). Other Serbian NGOs, like "Europe Has No Alternative” and its founder Petar Mili´cevi´c, also worked with Egyptian revolutionary youth. Mili´cevi´c taught them how to use social media in order to gain support from young people and organize mass actions. He closely communicated with some of the Egyptian revolutionaries during the 2011 unrest. Gene Sharp praised the Egyptians for their consistent application of the non-violent strategy (Brooks, 2011). The Egyptian youth movement of April 6th borrowed the emblem of clenched fist from Otpor, as did many other Color revolution youth movements [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011; see also Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)] (Fig. 1). The April 6 group, created in April 2008 to support mill workers’ protests in El-Mahalla el-Kubra, wrote a pamphlet "How to Protest Intelligently", in which people were taught to win over the army and the police, to help other protesters, to be united and tolerant and to act without any violence. Muslims and Christians worked together. The protesters not only did not break laws but maintained order in the city: they cleaned Tahrir square, stopped thieves and forced them to give back things that they stole. All of that contributed to a great discipline, and finally to the Fig. 1 Emblem of Serbian youth movement “Otpor”

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success of the revolution (Rosenberg, 2011). But, although CANVAS members taught Egyptian activists, their role in the politics of Egypt very soon became negligible and the Egyptian revolution ended with two authoritarian regimes (Mohamed Morsi and - Popovi´c thinks that the main reason for the lack of success Abdel Fattah el-Sisi). Srda was the long tradition of strong authoritarian rule in that country and the failure of the youth activists to unite all of Mubarak’s opposition around them [Henley, 2015; for more detail about the Egyptian Revolution see Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)].

7 Other Cases of Revolutions and Revolutionary Episodes with the Presence of CANVAS According to CANVAS, this organization is now working in such countries as Venezuela, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Swaziland/Eswatini, Burma/Myanmar, Vietnam, Tunisia, Syria, Sudan etc. The former president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez stated that Otpor “is the main troublemaker in Venezuela” (CANVAS, n.d.). Otpor’s activities in other countries have often been unsuccessful. Zimbabwean oppositionists were the first to seek help from Otpor activists. They met with the Serbs in South Africa to learn how to topple their president Robert Mugabe. But the attempt failed, because the Zimbabwean opposition remained fragmented and could not unite. There was partial success in the case of the Maldives. That country has 1200 islands, and this greatly helped the Maldivian activists to quickly escape from the scanty police. After the unrest, the Maldivian president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was forced to initiate political reforms, and in 2008 the opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed came to power. He gave to the Serbian revolutionaries an island as a present, but in 2012 he was overthrown (Aslamova, 2012). An unsuccessful Color Revolution, the "Green Revolution," took place in Iran in June–July 2009. From 2005, Iranian activists were trained in non-violent methods in Dubai by Ivan Marovi´c from Otpor (Deconstruct E-Zine, 2009). The aforementioned book of Gene Sharp was downloaded in Iran 17,000 times (Henley, 2015). Despite a very large number of protesters (reaching a peak on July 17th of 1–2 million people), the protests were suppressed by the special police and a volunteer militia (Basij). The failure of the Green movement is explained by the fact that the Iranian state had extensive experience in confronting mass protests by 2009. The protestors also lacked strong support from within the elite. Moreover, a great number of Iranians supported the regime, and many of them, like Basij members, were ready to fight for it [see Filin, 2015 and Chapter “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022, in this volume)]. In the former Soviet countries of Belarus and Azerbaijan, the Otpor experience was inspiring to students in the early 2000s. They too communicated with the Otpor members and learned from them different non-violent tactics. But their movements were unsuccessful because in both countries the police were very strong and

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highly loyal to the regime. These governments undermined the opposition’s activities by creating pro-regime youth movements, tarnishing the opposition in the statecontrolled media, and using widespread repression against the activists. The population (including most students) was mainly indifferent to the opposition’s activities and generally supported the regimes that had given them a certain economic stability. Moreover, the youth organizations themselves could not unite [Nikolayenko, 2017; for more detail about Azerbaijan see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c, in this volume)]. Probably the worst outcome of the revolution with the help of Otpor activists - Popovi´c says that the Syrian revolutionary activists were espewas in Syria. Srda cially creative and inventive and took some methods from Serbian and Egyptian experience and developed some methods by themselves. They actively used songs and humor, and had considerable discipline. But after the government began to use force against the protesters and a great number of them were killed, a part of the revolutionary movement started an armed rebellion after several months of peaceful demonstrations, which led to the long-lasting civil war that continues today [Amos, 2011; for more detail on the Syrian Revolution see Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022, in this volume)]. It must be said that the strategy of Otpor and analogous movements (Kmara, Pora) was very similar. They targeted mainly urban youth that were previously indifferent to politics. They formed mainly student movements—95% of the members of Pora were students from 20 Ukrainian universities. These three successful revolutions— in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), and Ukraine (2004)—were so-called "electoral revolutions” because the authoritarian regimes were the most vulnerable at election time, especially if there was a large and influential opposition party and a strong opposition leader. These movements succeeded in uniting the previously divided opposition, bringing many ordinary people onto their side and were able to quickly gather a huge number of young protesters from all over the country immediately after the government announced election results. Independent TV stations, cell phones and the Internet also played a significant role in the revolutions. The youth movements widely used humor against authorities to overcome the widespread fear of the regime. Young musicians and artists created a carnival atmosphere to entertain the protesters. The non-violent tactics and the mobilization of a significant percentage of the people (predominately from the young pro-European generation that was dissatisfied with their conservative/autocratic regimes which could not solve crucial socio-economic problems) were the most important factors for the success of the revolutions. The authoritarian regimes tried to use force to stop the protests, but a great number of the police and even part of ruling elites took the opposition side (Kuzio, 2006), which was crucial to their success in Arab countries where the protests were successful in changing the regime, the situation was quite similar. Independent satellite TV with world-class professionals, e.g. Al-Jazeera, played a great role in mass mobilization. And gathering a great mass of protesters there was especially easy because of the enormous number of unemployed and unmarried (and so, much more radical) urban youth [Korotayev, 2013; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012, 2016a; Grinin et al., 2019; see also Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving

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Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022)], and Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume)]. So, it could be said that the Serbian Otpor spread a great number of effective non-violent methods across youth organizations from different countries and thus launched a chain of successful revolutions in similar post-communist semiauthoritarian states, but with mixed success in some Middle Eastern countries with a great number of frustrated and higher-educated youth who wanted political changes. In such countries as Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, not only the weakness of their regimes, but also a relatively free environment that allowed civil society to develop, made Color revolutions possible. Because of these two factors, the governments could not forcefully crack down on mass demonstrations (Mitchell, 2012: 71). Yet these cases were exceptions; where governments were able to keep their repressive forces united and loyal and use them effectively against protestors, and where the opposition remained divided, Otpor’s guidance did not provide victories. In conclusion, it should be noted that the results of the revolutions in which Otpor took part, even in Serbia, were not as good as was expected by the people that made the respective revolutions. Practically all revolutions at first bring about a political disorder and a slowdown of the economic development, and Color Revolutions (except the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon) were not an exception. Usually, in post-revolutionary countries a stable democracy appears if the economy is quite developed, and the population is modernized and well-educated (like some Eastern European countries). It is very hard to build a modern democracy in a country like Egypt where the economy is not yet developed, and most people do not know about democracy and its advantages because of insufficient education levels and a traditional political culture. In this case it is very likely that the revolutionaries will want to save power for themselves and refuse to act democratically, or will be too weak to confront the old elite, and the society often goes back to an authoritarian regime [Grinin & Korotayev, 2013, 2016b; Grinin et al., 2019; see also Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume)]. Moreover, after Color Revolutions the political and socio-economic situation in several countries remains unstable even now. The consequences of these revolutions varied from country to country, and in general are quite mixed. Georgia succeeded in battling corruption, but the freedom of the press worsened. By 2010 Ukraine had become a freer country, but there is an opinion that under Yanukovich the situation deteriorated, resulting in the Maidan revolution and regime change [for detail see Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022, in this volume)]. In Kyrgyzstan after initial progress by 2010 the country had returned to the low levels of civil liberties observed before 2005 (Mitchell, 2012). In addition, in many countries, economies have grown worse after color revolutions, rather than improving. For example, the economy of Kyrgyzstan after the Tulip revolution has collapsed, with the number of emigrants tripled and inflation reaching 25% (Yuferova, 2014). In Tunisia, GDP per capita remains 22% lower than before the Jasmine Revolution (World Bank, 2020). And in some cases the result of the revolutions has been extremely dangerous, like in Syria that fell into a long bloody civil war. So, it must

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be said that modernized countries with unsustainable semi-democratic regimes were the most vulnerable to the revolutions, while in countries with strong authoritarian regimes in which army and police are loyal to the regime, like Belarus and Iran, the revolutionary attempts were unsuccessful [about the important role of the army and police’s position see Goldstone, 2001, 2014; see also Chapter “The phenomenon and theories of revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) and Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” (Rasler et al., 2022, in this volume)]. And contrary to the hopes of the revolutionaries, the results of even the successful revolutions were usually very far from impressive (see Grinin et al., 2019).

References Akhmedov, V. (2022). The Syrian revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 707–723). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_27 Amos, D. (2011). For some Arab revolutionaries, a Serbian tutor. NPR: National Public Radio 13.12.2011. https://www.npr.org/2011/12/13/143648877/for-some-arab-revolutionariesa-serbian-tutor Aslamova, D. (2012). Noviy tip revolyutsiy i revolyutsionerov. Komsomolskaya pravda 10.04.2012. https://www.kp.ru/daily/25865/2831471 Beissinger, M. R. (2007). Structure and example in modular political phenomena: the diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip revolutions. Perspectives on Politics, 5(2), 259–276. https://doi. org/10.1017/S1537592707070776 Biserko, S. (Ed.). (2016). Ljudska prava u Srbiji 2015. Demokratski deficit – osnova autoritarnosti. Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava. Brooks, C. (2011). Exporting nonviolent revolution, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty 21.02.2011. https://www.rferl.org/a/exporting_nonviolent_r evolution_eastern_europe_mideast/2316231.html But, M. (2018). Transhi MVF destabiliziruyut Tunis i oborachivayutsya poterey prirodnykh resursov. Ekonomika segodnya 10.10.2018. https://rueconomics.ru/352614-transhi-mvf-destab iliziruyut-tunis-i-oborachivayutsya-poterei-prirodnykh-resursov CANVAS = Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies. (n.d.). About us. http://canvas opedia.org/about-us Chenoweth, E., & Stephan, M. J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. Columbia University Press. Cherri, Z., González, P. A., & Delgado, R. C. (2016). The Lebanese–Syrian crisis: Impact of influx of Syrian refugees to an already weak state. Risk Manag Healthc Policy, 9, 165–172. https://doi. org/10.2147/RMHP.S106068 DeConstruct E-Zine. (2009). Otpor now in Iran, courtesy of Uncle Sam. DeConstruct E-Zine 17.06.2009. https://oslobodjenje.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/otpor-now-in-iran-courtesy-of-unc le-sam Filin, N. A. (2015). Neudavshayasya revolyutsiya tsveta islama. Prichiny podyema i upadka Zelenogo dvizheniya v Irane. LENAND/URSS. Filin, N. (2022). The green movement in Iran: 2009–2010. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 571–592). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_22

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Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 1–33). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). On theories and phenomenon of revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 37–68). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_2 Goldstone, J. A. (2001). Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 4, 139–187. Goldstone, J. A. (2011). Understanding the revolutions of 2011: Weakness and resilience in Middle Eastern autocracies. Foreign Affairs, 90(3), 8–16. Goldstone, J. A. (2014). Revolutions: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2013). Demokratiya i revolyutsiya. Istoriya i sovremennost, 2(18), 15–35. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016b). Revolution and democracy: sociopolitical systems in the context of modernisation. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 10(3), 110–131. http://www.cejiss.org/issue-detail/revolution-and-democracy-socio-political-systemsin-the-context-of-modernisation Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016a). MENA region and the possible beginning of world system reconfiguration. In M. M. Erdogdu & B. Christiansen (Eds.), Comparative political and economic perspectives on the MENA region (pp. 28–58). Information Science Reference. https://doi.org/ 10.4018/978-1-4666-9601-3.ch002 Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Tausch, A. (2019). Islamism, Arab Spring, and the future of democracy. In World System and world values perspectives. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-910 77-2 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). The Arab Spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 595–624). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 315–388). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2012). Does ‘Arab Spring’ mean the beginning of world system reconfiguration? World Futures, 68(7), 471–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2012.697836 Henley, J. (2015). Meet Srdja Popovic, the secret architect of global revolution. The Guardian 08.03.2015. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/srdja-popovic-revolu tion-serbian-activist-protest Issaev, L., & Korotayev, A. (2013). Livan: Ray na vulkane. In L. M. Issaev, A. R. Shishkina, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Systemniy monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov: Arabskiy mir posle Arabskoy vesny (pp. 187–213). LENAND/URSS. Ivanov, A. (2016). SSHA berut Rossiyu v kol’tso revolyutsiy. Na razvitie demokratii v postsovetskih stranah Gosdep vydelyaet milliard dollarov. Svobodnaya Pressa 10.02.2016. https://svpressa.ru/ politic/article/142079/ Ivanov, Y. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 517–547). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_20

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Khodunov, A. (2022c). The Rose revolution in Georgia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 483–499). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_18 Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Orange revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 501–515). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19 Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16 Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2011). Egyptian revolution: A demographic structural analysis. Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar, 13, 139–169. https://revistaentelequia.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/ egyptian-revolution-a-demographic-structural-analysis/ Korotayev, A. (2013). Arabskaya vesna. Polit.ru 10.11.2013. https://polit.ru/article/2013/11/10/ara bskaya_vesna Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., Malkov, S., & Shishkina, A. (2022). The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 781–810). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_30 Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2022). Egypt’s 2011 revolution: A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 651–683). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25 Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Shishkina, A. (2016). Egyptian coup of 2013: An ‘econometric’ analysis. Journal of North African Studies, 21(3), 341–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2015.112 4238 Kuzio, T. (2006). Civil society, youth and societal mobilization in democratic revolutions. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 39, 365–386. Kuznetsov, V. (2022). The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring uprisings. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 625–649). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_24 Laverty, N. (2008). The problem of lasting change: Civil society and the colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 16(2), 143–162. https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.2.143-162 Mitchell, L. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15 Mitchell, L. (2012). The color revolutions. University of Pennsylvania Press. Naumovi´c, S. (2006). “Otpor!” kao postmoderni Faust: Društveni pokret novog tipa, tradicija prosve´cenog reformizma i „izborna revolucija“ u Srbiji. Filozofija i Društvo, 31(3), 147–194. Nikolayenko, O. (2012). Origins of the movement’s strategy: The case of the Serbian youth movement Otpor. International Political Science Review, 34(2), 140–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/019 2512112458129 Nikolayenko, O. (2017). Youth movements and elections in Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press. Podtserob, A. B. (2007). Prezident Tunisa Z. A. ben Ali: 20 let u vlasti. Institut Blizhnego Vostoka 02.11.2007. http://www.iimes.ru/?p=6387 Rasler, K., Thompson, W. R., & Bou Nassif, H. (2022). The extent of military involvement in nonviolent, civilian revolts and their aftermath. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev

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(Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 739–779). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_29 Rosenberg, T. (2011). Revolution U. FP=Foreign Policy 17.02.2011. https://foreignpolicy.com/ 2011/02/17/revolution-u-2 Shariy, A. (2000). Serbiya: Posle desyati let strakha. Radio Svoboda 29.11.2000. https://www.svo boda.org/a/24203475.html Shevsky, D. (2022). Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 851–863). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_32 Stephan, R. (2010). Leadership of Lebanese women in the Cedar revolution. In F. Shirazi (Ed.), Muslim women in war and crisis: Representation and reality (pp. 175–197). University of Texas Press. Sushchenko, O. (2014). Zbignev Bzhezinsky o budushchem Rossii i Ukrainy. Geopolitika.ru 16.06.2014. https://www.geopolitica.ru/article/zbignev-bzhezinskiy-o-budushchem-rossii-i-ukr ainy Tudoriou, T. (2007). Rose, orange and tulip: The failed post-Soviet revolutions. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 40(2), 315–342. Vox Europ. (2011). Egypt: The revolution that came from Serbia. Vox Europ 02.03.2011. https:// voxeurop.eu/en/content/article/523241-revolution-came-serbia World Bank. (2020). World development indicators online. World Bank. http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator YouTube. (2011). Does the USA sponsor revolutions? YouTube 09.06.2011. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=lpXbA6yZY-8 Yuferova, Y. (2014). Uzhin s doneseniem. Politicheskiy detektiv iz zhizni pervogo prezidenta Kirgizii Askara Akaeva. Rossiyskaya gazeta – Federal’niy vypusk, 255(6527).

Nikita Filin is the Head of the Department of the Modern East at the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law (Institute for History and Archives, Russian State University of Humanities), Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Central Asian, Caucasian and Volga-Urals Studies (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences). The author of over 80 academic publications including the following monographs Social and Historical Development of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979–2008): State Authority Sustainability (Moscow: RSUH, 2012), Failed Revolution of Islamic Color: Reasons for Rise and Decline of “Green Movement” in Iran (Moscow: Lenand, 2015), The Past and the Present of the Religious Mentorship in Religious Practices of Iranian Shiites (Moscow: Vorobyov, 2017, 240 p., in collaboration with L. RavandiFadai). Area of expertise: the history and modern processes in the Middle East; social, political, and cultural processes in Iran. Alexander Khodunov is a Research Fellow at the Department of the Modern East at the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law (Institute of History and Archives, Russian State University for the Humanities). The author of more than 20 academic publications including the following articles: “Demographic factors of political stability in Iran (second half of the twentieth—early twenty-first century)” (2015); “The demographic modernization of Iran (from the second half of the twentieth to the beginning of the twenty-first century)” (2017); “Interethnic relations and risks of destabilization in the countries of the former Yugoslavia: history and modernity” (2017). Area of expertise: political-demographic dynamics and social processes in the Middle East and Balkans. Vladimir Koklikov is Assistant Professor at the Oriental Languages Department of the Faculty of Translation (Moscow State Linguistic University); Assistant Professor at the Department of

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the Modern East at the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law (Institute for History and Archives, Russian State University of Humanities). The author of over 10 academic publications including: “The Iranian Presidential Election Campaign of 2017: the Decision of the Elite or People’s Choice” (Asia and Africa Today, 2017, No. 10, co-authored with N. Filin) and “The Concept of ‘Islamic Awakening’ as the Foreign Policy Doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the twenty-first Century” (RGHU Bulletin, Political Studies, History, Foreign affairs, 2019, No. 2, co-authored). Area of expertise: history, social and political processes and the way they are reflected in Farsi.

The Rose Revolution in Georgia Alexander Khodunov

The Rose Revolution took place after President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet Minister for Foreign Affairs and leader of Soviet Georgia, who became leader of independent Georgia after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., managed to take his country out of the abyss of civil war but could not ensure its stable development. Ineffective government management and severe corruption depleted post-communist Georgia’s economic and financial resources. The people were frustrated by the territorial losses of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained de facto independence under Russian protection after the Abkhaz and Ossetian ethnic groups rebelled against Georgian rule. After the Rose Revolution, the new government launched a series of fundamental reforms to solve the country’s problems. What factors made the revolution possible, and to what degree these reforms were successful, are some of the questions to which this chapter tries to find an answer. The Georgian Revolution (or the Rose Revolution) took place in November 2003. It was triggered by false claims of victory by Shevardnadze’s Citizens Union of Georgia party in the November 2 parliamentary elections, despite the fact that polling had shown Shevardnadze having only 5% support and exit polls indicated a victory for the united opposition led by Mikheil Saakashvili. During the Revolution, elite military units refused to defend the government, President Shevardnadze resigned from his post, and Saakashvili gained supreme power. It is worth mentioning that earlier in the year, most Georgian citizens did not believe that there was any possibility of revolution (Beissinger, 2007).

A. Khodunov (B) Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_18

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1 Problems in the Development of Soviet and Post-Soviet Georgia It must be said that corruption was one of the most acute problems of Georgian society even when it formed a part of the USSR, at the time of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. The “Georgian Mafia” was a set of criminal organizations, members of which also held influential positions in Georgia’s communist party and government and stateowned factories, which used their positions to mastermind smuggling, extortion, theft and other criminal enterprises all across the Soviet Union and Europe. In 1972, Brezhnev appointed Eduard Shevardnadze as the head of Soviet Georgia to combat corruption. Shevardnadze attempted to solve this problem by imprisoning many people; nevertheless, the corruption level remained very high. The other major problem inherited from the Soviet period was ethnic tensions. Two territories that Stalin had incorporated within Georgia that had large nonGeorgian populations were Abkhazia—where Georgians accounted for about a half of the population and the rest were mainly Abkhazians and South Ossetia—which consisted of roughly two-thirds Ossetians. Both had a special autonomous status under Georgia’s administrative rule (there was one more autonomous region in Georgia—Ajaria with a big Muslim population; about it see below). By the end of the 1980s, the tensions between the central government and the autonomous areas had rapidly grown. As the Soviet Union moved towards dissolution, there were irreconcilable contradictions between Georgian nationalists, who wished to abolish their autonomy, and the Abkhazian and South Ossetian governments, which sought to become fully independent. In October 1990, the nationalist opposition alliance “Round Table—Free Georgia” won the Georgian elections with 54% of the votes. Six months later, on the 9th of April 1991, following a referendum, Georgia’s parliament declared their independence from the Soviet Union. In May 1991, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected as President with 86% of the vote, and started to rule the country by authoritarian methods, including the regions of Abkahazia and South Ossetia, which were claimed by Georgia. However, Gamsakhurdia soon faced multiple uprisings. In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, part of the national guard joined an opposition militia and launched a civil war against the President’s regime. In the two-month civil war, which caused the deaths of 107 people, the anarchy and the uncontrolled situation contributed to a quick rise in all sorts of crime. Armed criminal groups turned into small armies with modern Soviet weapons and constantly robbed helpless civilians. Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Kitovani, Georgian politicians with criminal biographies, led militias that were able to overthrow Gamsakhurdia in January 1992. Discipline in the government troops and the President’s own paramilitaries was catastrophically poor, and looting and vandalism were widespread. Because of the corrupt police, communications between different parts of the country stopped. The disruption at the center allowed Abkhazian and South Ossetian separatist paramilitaries to carry out successful wars of secession. In Abkhazia, about 10,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and the proportion of Georgians declined from 51 to 15%, with 200,000 of them forced to

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leave their homes and move to Georgia. In South Ossetia civilian casualties also were significant; 93 villages were burnt down, the Georgian population left the republic and 90,000 Ossetians escaped to the Russian part of Ossetia. The large number of refugees entering Georgia was an enormous burden for the country’s unstable economy (Kolonitskiy, 2007). The situation was more or less stabilized by 1993 after Shevardnadze’s return to power. Shevardnazde had been appointed Speaker of Georgia’s Parliament in 1992 (a position roughly equivalent to Prime Minister) and was elected President of Georgia when the office was restored in 1995, winning 70% of the vote. Ioseliani and Kitovani were imprisoned and their paramilitary groups ceased to exist. The new President gave some of the leadership positions to his former colleagues from the Soviet period, but that resulted in ineffective governance. Corruption and crime, including drug dealing, continued to pose a great threat to the sustainable development of the country. The internal economic situation was very bad because of hyperinflation, predatory privatization that benefited people close to the President and criminals, and mass impoverishment. Corruption and criminal networks were so deeply incorporated into the Georgian regime, and dominated so much of the country’s life, that Georgia was even considered by some experts to be a failed state (Kukhianidze, 2009). Abkhazia and South Ossetia, though they remained nominally part of Georgia, in fact became de facto independent states, though dependent on Russian recognition and support. However, a third ethnic enclave, the Ajar region, became an autonomous administrative region of Georgia. While Ajaria and its leader Aslan Abashidze benefited from customs and smuggling, they remained loyal to the Georgian regime. Abashidze had virtually no opposition and took 99.2% of the vote in 2001 (Kolonitskiy, 2007). In Shevardnadze’s time as leader of post-Soviet Georgia (1992–2003), the country witnessed a transition from a predominately state-controlled economy to a market economy. Over the years 1990–98, the percentage of all employees working in the public sector decreased from 75.5 to 34.7%. The political system became much more liberal, various NGOs became active in the country, and new media outlets under opposition control, especially the Rustavi-2 TV channel, were founded. But this transition was accompanied by a breakdown of economic links with the former Soviet Union countries and a drastic increase of inequality and poverty, which created great discontent with the regime (Dolidze, 2007).

2 Internal Causes of the Revolution The internal causes of the Rose Revolution of 2003 included the following: 1.

The continuation of corruption under Shevardnadze, which was one of the most serious problems of Georgian society and the main obstacle to its development. In 2003, the country was ranked as 124th out of 133 countries in terms of corruption. 89% of Georgians believed that all or practically all public officials

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were corrupt. Friends and relatives of the President received the most important government positions, which also contributed to corruption (see, e.g., Spirova, 2008). Dissatisfaction with the return of Eduard Shevardnadze and his inability to improve governance. Georgians had hoped that an experienced and elder President could quickly address their social and economic problems, but the situation in the country did not improve in any significant manner. Furthermore, despite many documented cases of corruption committed by state officials, the government did not take any measures to prevent them (Kukhianidze, 2009). The opposition believed that the regime was to blame for the murder of the journalist Giorgi Sinaia, who worked for Rustavi-2, the most active opposition TV-channel, in July 2001. After this, in fall 2001, the police made a raid on the station. Following the raid, young people, the majority of whom were students, organized an anti-government rally which comprised about five to ten thousand participants, with the slogan “Georgia without Shevardnadze” (Nikolayenko, 2017). The continued dominance of organized crime, which caused great tensions in society. Although the influence of criminals under Shevardnadze was slightly reduced, the low-paid police were so demoralized that a large number of police officers were involved in different criminal activities including illegal business and bribery, spreading terror among the public (Kolonitskiy, 2007). Extremely poor economic performance and mass pauperization. Georgia’s economic crisis was especially disastrous when compared with the other former USSR countries. From 1990 to 1994 the country’s GDP shrank by two-thirds; by 2000 the number of people working in industry had fallen to 10% of its 1990 level. The spread of poverty, combined with the corrupt enrichment of the few, meant that economic inequality increased tenfold. As a consequence, unemployment and external migration reached very high levels, while the percentage of the agricultural labour force increased from 26% in 1990 to 51% in 2003 (Salukvadze & Meladze, 2014). The economic collapse also undercut the government: the Georgian budget deficit was 15% of projected revenues in 2003, and by the beginning of the revolution unpaid salaries to public sector employees and unpaid pensions to retired people totaled $120 million. This contributed greatly to grievances and fomented a revolutionary situation (Papava, 2005). In 2001 54% of the population was living below the poverty line. Among the former Soviet countries, only in Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan was the poverty level higher (Kolonitskiy, 2007). The loss of Georgian control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgian refugees fleeing to Georgia.

The immediate catalyst of the revolution was the alleged fraud during the presidential elections in November 2003, e.g. ballot stuffing, multiple voting, and imprecise counting of votes, all of which were among the complaints lodged by international election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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Many Georgians believed that Shevardnadze deliberately organized the fraud to retain power, and resentment of his regime became extremely high (Spirova, 2008).

3 External Influences on the Georgian Revolution The Open Society Institute from the USA and the Otpor movement from Serbia supported the Georgian opposition (on the role of Otpor in the post-2000 color revolutions see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” [Filin et al., 2022] in the present monograph). The Georgian opposition movement named “Kmara!” (“Enough!”), which consisted of about 3000 members, was established with the help of the Otpor. Also, Kmara got considerable financial support from George Soros’s Open Society Institute, and organizational support from the National Democratic Institute. The President of the United States, George W. Bush, fully supported the opposition demonstrations and the revolution (Beissinger, 2007). Otpor leaders visited Tbilisi, and Georgian NGO activists went to Belgrade, with their trips funded by the Open Society Institute. The most prominent figures of the Georgian opposition, Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania, visited Serbia too (Kolonitskiy, 2007). But the US government did not directly help Kmara because it was not sure of the victory of the revolution and did not want to impair its relations with Shevardnadze (Laverty, 2008).1

4 External Economic Factors of the Revolution The Russian economic crisis in 1998 and the crisis in Turkey in 2000 severely affected the Georgian economy, which had enjoyed a moderate recovery in 1995–1997, and, as a result of the crisis, the growth became much slower. State policy mismanagement and structural weaknesses in the financial sector also contributed to the decline (Salukvadze & Meladze, 2014). Real GDP in 2000 was still only 44% of its 1990 level (World Bank, 2020). That decrease of growth (from 11% per year in 1996–97 to just 1.8% in 2000) may have caused renewed grievances among a certain parts of the population. However, it should be noted that the economy recovered again somewhat in 2001–2003: GDP growth reached 4.8% in 2001, 5.5% in 2002 and even 11.1% in 2003, due to the construction of the oil pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (Papava, 2005). Nonetheless, the overall economic climate was mostly unfavorable from 1997 through 2002, so growth remained slow and total GDP was essentially no different in 2002 than it had been a decade earlier. 1

See also Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022) in the present monograph. About the U.S. and Western help and real influence on the Color Revolutions see also Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume).

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5 The Principal Social and Political Forces of the Revolution Although 69% of the population was not satisfied with the regime, the vast majority of Georgians were politically passive and reluctant concerning politics. The old political elite and their children did not support the revolution, while the new younger political elite was the leading force of the political mobilization. Young people represented the principal supportive group during the revolution, comprising not only urban highlyeducated youth but also rural youth who were previously isolated from political life and wished to be engaged in serious activities. Kmara members said that young people from the countryside more actively supported the organization than urban ones. Some intellectuals, artists, writers, and poets also took an active part in the revolutionary movement (Nikolayenko, 2017). Two main opposition parties participated in the Rose Revolution—the United National Movement, headed by Mikheil Saakashvili and the Democrats, headed by Nino Burjanadze.

6 Ideology and the Main Wishes and Demands of the Revolutionaries The ideological basis of the Georgian opposition was the Western model of liberalism. They aimed to implement liberal reforms in all spheres of life so as to Westernize the country and create a modern democracy and a strong, competitive economy. A great number of the leading opposition figures had graduated from American universities. They wanted to redeem the country from Soviet and post-Soviet habits and mentality. Also, the opposition leaders stressed the necessity of patriotism and national unity (Jones, 2006). Mikheil Saakashvili had received a graduate fellowship from the United States State Department, which he used to obtain an LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 1994. He also studied at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and took classes at The George Washington University Law School in 1995. He then worked for the prestigious Norwegian Institute for Human Rights and a private American law firm (Meskhia, 2018) before returning to Georgia to run for Parliament as a member of Shevardnadze’s party. Many other members of the governments formed after the revolution also had close ties with the USA. Tamar Beruchashvili, who was a Minister of Euro-Atlantic Integration in 2004, earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Indiana University at Bloomington in 1996–1998 and during her studies had an internship in Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (RIA Novosti, 2004). Vladimir Gurgenidze, who was the Prime Minister in 2007–2008, completed his undergraduate studies at Middlebury College in Vermont and then received an MBA degree from Goizueta Business School of Emory University in Georgia (USA) in 1993. In the years 1997–2002, he was one of the leaders of the Dutch bank ABN AMRO’s Corporate Finance department (NRegion, 2007).

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The revolutionaries’ goal was to overthrow Shevardnadze and so they accused him of fraud during the parliamentary elections. At first, they sought mainly to develop democracy and to combat corruption in the country by demanding an independent recount of the vote (Saakashvili) or even holding new elections (bloc of Burdjanadze– Zhvania). Soon, however, Saakashvili also started to demand the resignation of the President (Kolonitskiy, 2007).

7 Organizers and Leaders of the Georgian Revolution The student movement Kmara was one of the important organizers of the Georgian revolution. The Georgian Student Movement was founded at Tbilisi State University in 2000. Their first aim was to criticize corruption in Georgian universities, but in the following years they also launched a campaign against the Georgian regime. In 2003 the most active people from this organization formed the movement Kmara together with student groups from other parts of Georgia. This organization, as in case of other color revolution countries, did not have a clear leader, and for these reasons, its branches enjoyed great autonomy. Kmara played the most significant role of any organization in the Rose Revolution (Laverty, 2008). The key leaders of the revolution—former members of the political elite who furthered the student protests and headed the revolutionary demonstrations—were Mikheil Saakashvili, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania. Saakashvili had been Minister of Justice, and Zhvania and Burjanadze had been speakers of parliament, under Shevardnadze (Mitchell, 2012). The main revolutionary leader was Saakashvili, who could mobilize people by his emotional rhetoric, charismatic leadership style and promises of a better life (Jones, 2006). Saakashvili began his political career in cooperation with the government. He was appointed as a chairman of the parliamentary committee for legal and constitutional issues in 1996, and in 1998 he became the head of the parliamentary faction of Shevardnadze’s party, the Citizens Union of Georgia. In January 2000, he occupied the post of Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. On 12 October 2000, Saakashvili became Minister of Justice. In fall 2001, he accused Shevardnadze of corruption and resigned (Meskhia, 2018). In the case of Georgia, the political leaders came to play a much more important role in the revolution than the youth movement [cp. Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a)], Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b) and Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume).

8 The Forms and Patterns of Revolutionary Activity Like Otpor (and under its direct influence), Kmara used different tactics, including painting graffiti, producing TV spots and street actions, in order to attract as many

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people as possible. These activities were carried out from mid-April 2003, six months before the upcoming parliamentary elections, and all across the country. During one of its street performances, Kmara activists stood for 30 min in Tbilisi with their bodies covered in plastic sheeting. In this extraordinary manner, they wanted to show the suffocating nature of Georgia’s political atmosphere. Humor played a considerable role in Kmara’s activism. Famous rock musicians played in big cities for the opposition supporters. Poets, writers, and artists travelled to different Georgian towns aiming to convince people to support the opposition. The small organization asked for help from the politicians, and the opposition leaders brought hundreds of young people to Kmara’s rallies. The state response to opposition activity was rather mild, and detentions of activists were rare and lasted for a short time. Government media portrayed the youth activists as uneducated and rude people. The regime created its own youth movement, but it was practically inactive (Nikolayenko, 2017).

9 The Relationship Between the Different Political Forces of the Revolutionary Movement Kmara was seeking to mobilize the entire opposition against the regime. As a result, a union between Kmara, opposition parties, NGOs and anti-governmental media (mainly Rustavi-2) was created. The opposition leaders managed to avoid conflicts and to unite their supporters around two common goals: the overthrow of the regime and fighting against corruption. The two largest opposition parties both helped Kmara in its activities (Laverty, 2008), especially after the November parliamentary election, when protests grew in response to the alleged election fraud.

10 The Main Weak Points of the Regime 1.

2.

3.

By 2003, the regime had not achieved any sort of credibility among the population, the foreign states, and the Georgian political elite. For example, because of the protests in Tbilisi following the television station raid in 2001, members of the cabinet, including the Minister of the Interior Kaha Targamadze and the head of the Ministry of State Security Vahtang Kutateladze, were forced to resign. These events showed the weakness of the regime and severely undermined the legitimacy of Shevardnadze (Mendkovich, 2012). The revolution achieved early success because of the weakness of the police, which was rather underpaid, and which refused to be loyal to the incumbent in November 2003 (Ibid.). The defection of several of Shevardnadze’s allies who had served in senior posts in his government, including the popular figure of Saakashvili, provided the opposition with skilled and popular leaders (Ibid.).

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5.

6.

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The regime’s control over Georgia, and Shevardnadze’s control over his own government, was rather fragile. The government did not control Abkhazia and South Ossetia at all, and its power in Ajaria was rather nominal. Even in the rest of Georgia, the central power was not strong, and the government had to deal with the influence of powerful criminal syndicates. The President drew his attention only to security and diplomacy. The activity of other ministries was coordinated weakly. Ministers pursued their own policy, and the President tried to navigate between them. Also, Shevardnadze did not have the financial ability to control the state apparatus owing to the grave monetary deficiency (Kolonitskiy, 2007). The regime did not have a strong party that could manage to unite the country. Shevardnadze had created the Citizens Union of Georgia party, but it lacked a clear ideology and was utterly ineffective and corrupted (Spirova, 2008). The regime’s foreign policy also was unclear. The President hesitated between Russia and the West, trying to achieve financial support from both. Many Georgians believed that Shevardnadze had made too many concessions to Russia, e.g. he agreed to retain a Russian military presence in Georgia (Kolonitskiy, 2007).

11 The Course of the Revolutionary Events After the parliamentary elections on the 2nd of November, according to the official results, Shevardnadze’s bloc “For a New Georgia” gained 21.3% of the vote, against only 18.1% received by Saakashvili’s National Movement. The opposition was certain they had won, and that there was a considerable degree of fraud. According to the domestic election observation mission’s tally, the National Movement had 26.2%, while the government’s block got only 18.9%. The OSCE observation mission also noticed significant irregularities during the elections (Nikolayenko, 2017). Serious voting irregularities occurred in areas under the control of Shevardnadze and Abashidze, while in areas where the opposition had control, many people were not included in the electoral rolls and hence not able to vote. From the 8th of November the opposition started a rally in the city square in front of the parliament building, demanding the resignation of Shevardnadze, while the Presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan expressed their support for the incumbent leader. On the 17th of November, thousands of people arrived from Ajaria to support Shevardnadze. The President refused to compromise with the opposition when it was still possible. On the 21st of November Saakashvili entered Tbilisi leading a column of buses. The next day fifty to one hundred thousand people took part in the demonstrations led by the opposition and Saakashvili entered the parliament by force. Shevardnadze left the city, and Burjanadze was declared to be the acting President. The army and police leaders recognized her authority. On the 23rd of November, after a meeting of Shevardnadze, Saakashvili, Zhvania and Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov, the 75-year-old President formally resigned.

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Rustavi-2 TV channel played the crucial role in the events of the revolution, as they openly supported the opposition and showed S. York’s documentary film “Bringing down a Dictator,” about the Serbian revolution, demonstrating a model for Georgia to follow. The television station described these events as the “Rose Revolution” because Saakashvili’s supporters were encouraged to hold roses in their hands as a sign of their peaceful intentions (Kolonitskiy, 2007).

12 The Similarity and the Differences Between the Georgian Revolution and Other Post-Soviet Revolutionary Events According to Beissinger (2007), the Georgian revolution was a typical example of modular revolutions. It was modeled after the Serbian revolution2 and served itself as a model to the next (Ukrainian and Kyrgyz) color revolutions.3 All these revolutions shared several common characteristics, such as a youth activist movement playing a crucial role, the trigger of an accusation that the government had used fraud in order to win national elections, and the army and the police refusing to seriously cope with popular demonstrations. A very different situation, however, occurred in another former Soviet republic and Georgia’s neighbour, Azerbaijan. There, by the year 2005, one could observe the emergence of youth movements like Maqam, Yeni Fikir (“New Thought”) and Yox (“No”). Their leaders were inspired by the success of the Serbian, Georgian and Ukrainian color revolutions, and communicated with youth activists from those countries. In response, the state founded its own much stronger pro-regime organizations, had recourse to repression against leaders of the movements and their relatives, and attempted to convince the population that they were working for Armenia against the state. Also, civil society in Azerbaijan was not so powerful, and the society itself was much more traditionalist than in the countries where the color revolutions had succeeded. As an example, the young people felt that they ought to obey their parents (who mostly supported the government or were indifferent to politics), and women did not actively participate in political life. This hampered the development of the youth organizations, which were very small in number. These organizations were unable to unite among themselves, let alone form strong alliances with other opposition parties. In November 2005, during the protests because of the fraudulent parliamentary elections, the opposition leaders refused to support the youth organizations. After their protests were violently suppressed, they ceased to exist (Nikolayenko, 2017). Also, thanks to the sudden oil boom, the economy of Azerbaijan grew exceptionally fast during the 2000s, especially in 2005 (26.4%) and 2

See Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) and Chapter “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a) in this monograph. 3 See Chapter “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b) and Chapter “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022) in this volume.

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2006 (34.5%). This growth led to a considerable improvement of people’s living standards (Zotin, 2017). The economic prosperity both reduced the discontent with the regime and gave the regime resources to buy support that contributed to the failure of the revolutionaries (for a comparison of revolutions and their outcomes in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan see Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022).

13 Outcomes of the Revolution. Development of Georgia After the Revolution On the 4th of January, 2004, in newly planned elections, 36-year-old Mikheil Saakashvili received 96.2% of the vote and became the Georgian President. OSCE said that those elections were held in a much more democratic manner than the previous ones. In March 2004 there followed parliamentary elections, where the former opposition bloc took 66.2% of the vote, and Burjanadze again became the speaker of the parliament. After a conflict with Saakashvili because of fraudulent elections in the autonomous region of Ajaria, Abashidze left the country, and proSaakashvili forces were elected in Ajaria that led to a strengthening of the central government’s control. The revolutionary leaders promised to eradicate corruption, to develop a real democracy, to unite the country and to gain membership in the EU and NATO. Steps towards a rapprochement with the West were accompanied by anti-Russian rhetoric (Kolonitskiy, 2007). Between 1992 and 2008 Georgia made several attempts to reestablish its government in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but every time Russia immediately sent its airplanes to conduct air strikes, and the Georgians were forced to stop their operations. Saakashvili sought to create a modern and strong army that kept up with Western standards in order to gain control over the seceded territories. The army was reformed and trained with the help of American instructors, military expenditure grew 30-fold, and Georgia’s military budget reached 8% of GDP in 2007. From the spring of 2008, gunfights began between Georgian and Ossetian troops. In July 2008 the fight between them was for the strategic heights around Tskhinvali. On 7 August intensive fighting broke out and Georgians moved towards the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia Tskhinvali trying to storm it. Russia accused Georgia both of aggression against South Ossetia and the attack of the Russian peacekeeping forces on 8 August. It resulted in an outbreak of active fighting between Russian and Georgian troops and the Russians launched a large-scale invasion of Georgia. The Georgian army was completely defeated after five days. The two sides of the conflict interpreted its causes and events in a completely different way. Russia claims that it defended the population of South Ossetia from Georgian aggression and genocide in which the Georgian troops killed two thousand civilians, while the Georgian government denied killing Ossetian civilians and accused Russia of starting the war. After the war, Georgia left the Commonwealth of Independent States (the loose alliance

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of Russia and former Soviet states) and continued its NATO-integration process, to which Russia is opposed (Zygar & Solovyev, 2008). According to Georgian professor of political science Malkhaz Matsaberidze, an overwhelming majority of Georgian people want to normalize Russian-Georgian relations, but the main condition for them is the returning of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia (Charkviani, 2013). After the revolution, Western aid became very important for Georgia’s development. It was significant even before 2003. The USA had cordial relations with Shevardnadze’s government and considered it as an ally in the battle against terrorism. During the period from 1992 to 2003, Georgia received financial aid from the American government amounting to $1 billion. However, in 2008 alone Saakashvili’s government received $4.5 billion from the USA, EU, World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, etc. to help its economy recover from the effects of the Ossetia war. Georgia became the second leading country after Israel in terms of American aid. The aid was directed towards capacity-building, efficient governance, and democracy projects. Also, foreign aid agencies such as USAID helped the country with judicial and structural reform programs (Metreveli, 2016). Despite these successes, the revolutionary coalition, as in Ukraine after its Orange Revolution in 2004, could not sustain its unity and fell apart. Tensions arose at first between Saakashvili and the new Prime Minister Zhvania, but he died soon after the revolution, in 2005. Then Nino Burjanadze in 2008 decided to break with the government and became a radical opponent of the regime. It must be said that the new Georgian regime enjoyed very high support from the population in the first years after the revolution, which allowed it to concentrate all political power in its hands. Progress in democratization was rather mixed. According to Freedom House, Georgia became more democratic by 2007, but, following this, the situation worsened. The presidential and parliamentary elections in 2004 were free and fair, but in 2008 their quality was worse. In November 2007 the opposition organized mass demonstrations in Tbilisi against Saakashvili which turned out to be larger than those in 2003, and these protests were brutally suppressed by the police. Also, the office of the main oppositional TV channel Imedi, which was owned by a businessman (Badri Patarkatsishvili) who was in radical opposition to Saakashvili, was destroyed (Mitchell, 2012). There were also mass rallies by a coalition of opposition parties against the government of Saakashvili in Tbilisi and Batumi (the capital of Ajaria) in 2009 and 2011. In 2009 the mass protests were especially long (more than 100 days). In both cases the protester were driven away by force. Nonetheless, on many fronts there was clear progress. The new government conducted a series of reforms, such as police reform, economic reform, and administrative reform, and had relative success in restoring steady economic growth and the elimination of much petty corruption. GDP tripled in the five years following the Rose Revolution. It is very important to mention that there was a peaceful democratic transition of power through parliamentary elections in October 2012 (Lutsevych, 2013). One of the most significant reasons for the government’s electoral defeat (it took only 40.4% of the votes) was the support of the Georgian Orthodox Church for the opposition coalition “Georgian Dream” (which got 54.9% votes), because generally, the Church was against Saakashvili’s pro-western course as well as his support for

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the religious minorities. The priests openly preached to the believers that they must vote only for the opposition. This was despite constant efforts of the revolutionary government to ingratiate themselves with the Church, e.g. by the provision of financial assistance to it amounting to $117 million out of the state budget (Vladimirov, 2013). It is important to note that the leader of the Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, as well as some of its other leaders, were former Saakashvili allies. Saakashvili was losing his popularity every year. He sought the third term in the 2013 presidential election, which was won by the Georgian Dream’s candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili which was elected with a majority of votes already in the first round. Shortly after the election, Saakashvili left Georgia. Saakashvili is wanted by Georgia’s new government on multiple criminal charges, which he describes as politically motivated. Criminalization and widespread corruption were the key problems of the Georgian state before 2003, but Saakashvili’s government managed to cope with criminal activity and to neutralize the so-called thieves-in-law (kingpins or crime lords)—all of them were either imprisoned or had to escape from Georgia. Corrupt officials were subsequently arrested. To combat crime, the Georgian state took advantage of the methods applied in the West. The crime rate fell substantially, and so did the corruption rate (from 2003 to 2008 Georgia moved from 124 to 67th place according to the Transparency International corruption perception index), and the government succeeded in returning to its budget hundreds of millions of US dollars that were thrown into improving the socio-economic situation (Kukhianidze, 2009). The government realized that these measures alone were not sufficient, and that it was necessary to reform and change institutions. Some steps were taken to reach this goal, e.g. Georgia created a modern system of higher education admissions that excluded the factor of corruption. To be sure, the judicial system still has many problems. The application of strict legislation to petty crimes led to overcrowding of Georgian prisons with young people who committed such crimes. Also, there were cases of power abuse: the new government used the anti-corruption campaign against its political opponents, e.g. former Minister of Internal Affairs Irakli Okruashvili in 2007. It should be noted that Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain highly criminalized, and the Georgian population from these territories was partly expelled (Ibid.). Economic reforms implemented during Saakashvili’s rule were based on liberal principles such as deregulation, debureaucratization, and privatization. The country managed to establish one of the best investment climates in the world, and in 2013 it moved to 9th place in the global rating of conditions for entrepreneurship. The country (except in 2008) enjoyed quite high economic growth, and standards of living improved significantly: the level of car ownership increased twofold, and people started to make their holidays abroad. By the early 2010s, winemaking (the most important branch of the agricultural industry) had enhanced the quality of its products and had started using modern technologies (Zotin, 2013). The new government significantly reduced the number of officials and created an opportunity for talented people to advance their careers in the civil service. This enabled the state to implement quick and successful reforms. The international currency reserves held by Georgia increased by a factor of 12 from 2003 to 2010 (from

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$196 million to $2.264 billion). The successful privatization of state-owned enterprises resulted in a very high rate of economic growth—9.3% a year in 2004–2007. The country even solved its acute energy problem. From 1993 to 2003 most regions of the country did not have a regular supply of electric power. The sector was reformed (e.g. introduction of a system of gradual tariffs and privatization), and by the end of 2005, most people had a 24 h electricity supply. Apart from these economic achievements, the police reforms, which included a ten times wage increase, the selection of the best candidates and the introduction of a system of corruption control within police, were very successful: nowadays 84% of Georgians trust the police (in 2003 it was only 5%). This reformed police force managed to reduce the level of serious crimes such as murder, rape, serious bodily harm and looting by three times, and people are no longer constantly afraid of criminals (Burakova, 2011). Georgia’s new regime also managed to facilitate interaction between citizens and government officials. The healthcare and the social welfare systems have improved considerably; the minimal pension increased from $7 in 2003 to $48 in 2009, and the average wage grew from $59 in 2003 to $359 in 2008. According to Bulgarian economist Simeon Dyankov, the founder of the World Bank’s Doing Business project, during the last 50 years no country except Georgia managed to conduct so many deep and fast reforms in different spheres (Ibid.). Lincoln Mitchell considers that Georgia’s economy “in spite of reforms by the new government, remained largely stagnant” (Mitchell, 2012: 16). But, as has been said, the Georgian economy enjoyed exceptionally high growth before the catastrophic 2008. According to the World Bank, it grew rapidly in 2004–07 (11.9% per year), and the fast growth resumed after 2009, reaching 8% in 2010–12, and continued to be one of the highest in the world. After the victory of the opposition, in 2012–17, the growth rate was significantly lower—at 4.3% per year, but this was still almost two times higher than the world average of 2.3% (World Bank, 2020). But some old economic problems remained, and some new ones appeared. High unemployment (officially it was 16.3% in 2010, but according to a survey it was 31% in 2011) and relatively high inflation (8–10% a year) is still present. The economy became extremely dependent on external trade and foreign investments, which made it much more vulnerable than before. The share of imports in GDP rose from 28.5% in 2003 to 45% in 2010, and the foreign trade deficit remains very high. The difference between those economic sectors linked to the international economy and foreign investment, which grew rapidly, and the traditional and local economy, which continued to lag and employ many in poverty conditions, increased inequality. The uncontrolled imports prevented some national industries from developing and has hurt some areas of agriculture. Some social indicators deteriorated: the number of those killed and injured in car accidents increased by 2.3 times from 2003 to 2010. Medicines are quite expensive and are often of poor quality (Mendkovich, 2012). Georgia remains a poor country (GDP per capita was only $4000 in 2015), more than half of the population is working in the subsistence economy, and about a quarter of the population is living below the poverty line. To enrich itself, the country needs to

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find new markets and to promote its commodities. Ivanishvili’s government started to move gradually away from Saakashvili’s liberal course (Zotin, 2013).4 The Georgian revolution was a protest of the discontented population against political instability, poverty, and corruption. The new liberal government carried out radical reforms in all spheres of the country’s life and, as we see, succeeded in battling the two main problems—corruption and crime, and generated a very high level of economic growth. But, despite evident progress, the regime itself became more authoritarian, some acute economic problems are still present, and economic development became increasingly dependent on external factors. The regime could not regain control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and this situation continues to create tensions in Russia-Georgia relations, as does Georgia’s efforts to join NATO and the EU. On the other hand, the demographic situation (migration and fertility) considerably improved. The fertility rate grew from 1.4 in 2006 to 2.3 in 2015 (UNECE, 2018), and the number of emigrants, which was exceptionally high, has reduced greatly after the Rose revolution (Salukvadze & Meladze, 2014), so the population can eventually begin to grow once more. On balance, the Rose Revolution has been one of the more successful color revolutions in changing the institutions of society and promoting overall economic growth, but there is still a long way to go in achieving the goals of fully consolidated democracy and becoming an upper middle-income society.

References Beissinger, M. R. (2007). Structure and example in modular political phenomena: The diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions. Perspectives on Politics, 5(2), 259–276. https://doi. org/10.1017/S1537592707070776 Burakova, L. (2011). Pochemu u Gruzii poluchilos. United Press. Charkviani, N. (2013). Saakashvili: “My byli stranoy s podnyatoy golovoy”. Golos Ameriki 10.07.2013. https://www.golos-ameriki.ru/a/saakashvili-georgia/1698547.html Dolidze, V. (2007). Vlast i “revolyutsiya” v postsovetskoy Gruzii. Tsentralnaya Aziya i Kavkaz, 2(50), 34–49. Filin, N., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022). Serbian “Otpor” and the color revolutions’ diffusion. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 465–482). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_17 Ivanov, Y. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 517–547). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_20 Jones, S. F. (2006). The rose revolution: A revolution without revolutionaries? Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 19(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557570500501754 Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, 4

For some detail about the events after 2003 see also Chapter “The Color Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume).

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and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16 Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Orange revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 501–515). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19 Kolonitskiy, B. (2007). Postsovetskaya Gruziya. In O. Marganiya & D. Travin (Eds.), SSSR posle raspada (pp. 231–280). Ekonomicheskaya shkola. Kukhianidze, A. (2009). Corruption and organized crime in Georgia before and after the “rose revolution.” Central Asian Survey, 28(2), 215–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/02634930903043709 Laverty, N. (2008). The problem of lasting change: Civil society and the Colored Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 16(2), 143–162. Lutsevych, O. (2013). How to finish a revolution: Civil society and democracy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Chatham House. Mendkovich, N. (2012). Tsena reform, ili Pochemu u Gruzii ne poluchilos’? RISI. Meskhia, N. (2018). Lichnost’ M. N. Saakashvili i ego rol’ v “Revolyutsii roz”. Postsovetskie issledovaniya, 1(7), 674–678. Metreveli, T. (2016). An undisclosed story of roses: Church, state, and nation in contemporary Georgia. Nationalities Papers, 44(5), 694–712. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2016.1200021 Mitchell, L. A. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15 Mitchell, L. (2012). The color revolutions. University of Pennsylvania Press. Nikolayenko, O. (2017). Youth movements and elections in Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press. Nregion. (2007). Operatsiya Finansist, ili rezervniy manevr Mikhaila Saakashvili. NRegion 17.11.2007. http://www.nregion.com/txt.php?i=18366 Papava, V. (2005). Georgia’s macroeconomic situation before and after the Rose Revolution. Problems of Economic Transition, 48(4), 8–17. RIA Novosti. (2004). Tamara Beruchashvili. Biografiya. RIA Novosti 11.11.2004. https://ria.ru/201 41111/1032814615.html Salukvadze, J., & Meladze, G. (2014). Georgia: Migration, the main risk towards a sustainable demographic future. In A. Er˝oss & D. Karácsonyi (Eds.), Discovering migration between Visegrad countries and Eastern partners (pp. 150–169). HAS RCAES Geographical Institute. Spirova, M. (2008). Corruption and democracy. The “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 4(2), 75–90. UNECE = United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. (2018). UNECE statistical database. https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb/en Vladimirov, V. (2013). Kak Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ sdelala vozmozhnym porazhenie Saakashvili. Rodon 25.04.2013. http://www.rodon.org/relig-131125093954 World Bank. (2020). World development indicators online. World Bank. http://web.worldbank.org/ Zotin, A. (2013). Reformy gruzinskogo razliva. Kommersant 07.10.2013. https://www.kommersant. ru/doc/2304015 Zotin, A. (2017). Bogatoye nkeftyanoye proshloye. Kak uglevodorody dvazhdy izmenili Azerbaydzhan. Kommersant 11.03.2017. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3229878 Zygar, M., & Solovyev, B. (2008). Pyatidnevnaya voyna. Kommersant 18.08.2008. https://www. kommersant.ru/doc/1011909

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Alexander Khodunov is a Research Fellow at the Department of the Modern East at the Faculry of History, Political Science and Law (Institute for History and Archives, Russian State University for the Humanities). The author of over 20 academic publications including such articles as “Demographic factors of political stability in Iran (second half of the twentieth—early twentyfirst century)” (2015); “The demographic modernization of Iran (from the second half of the twentieth to the beginning of the twenty-first century)” (2017); “Interethnic relations and risks of destabilization in the countries of the former Yugoslavia: history and modernity” (2017). Area of expertise: political-demographic dynamics and social processes in the Greater Middle East and Balkans.

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine Alexander Khodunov

In late 2004, Ukraine witnessed unprecedented mass demonstrations against electoral fraud. Protesters hoped to bring the country closer to Europe and to combat the problems afflicting it. At the time of the revolution, Ukraine’s political system was week and immature, society was divided into Western and Eastern parts along ethnic and cultural lines and suffered from extreme corruption, favoritism and nepotism, the domination of the economy and politics by oligarchs, a high level of inequality and dissatisfaction. What led to this revolutionary situation, and was the revolution able to unite Ukrainian society and solve its fundamental problems? This chapter attempts to answer these questions.

1 The Development of Post-Soviet Ukraine. Growing Problems After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine faced significant economic problems and failed to modernize its coal and steel industries, leading to stark decreases in production. The results were unemployment, impoverishment, and widespread frustration. Politicians and activists in Western Ukraine wanted to bring the country closer to the European Union and to make it fully independent from Russia, but President Leonid Kuchma, a former Communist, quite reasonably did not want to take only one side, because the other side (Eastern Ukraine) was strongly attracted by Russia (see below). That is why Kuchma did not have a clear policy, and tried to find an equilibrium, so at times drawing closer to the West, at times closer to Russia, depending on the

A. Khodunov (B) Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_19

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potential political benefits. However, it was impossible to balance forever. Regardless, Western Ukrainians still perceived him, negatively, as decidedly pro-Russian (Mitchell, 2012). One of Ukraine’s distinguishing characteristics is its linguistic, religious, and regional diversity. Roughly speaking, the country is divided into two parts—the Ukrainian-speaking West and the Russian-speaking East. They have different histories (the East was part of Russia/the USSR for several centuries, the West for only about 50 years), economies (the West is predominantly agrarian, while the East, especially the Donbass region, is very urbanized and industrialized), ethnic structure (there are a considerable number of Russians in Eastern Ukraine, including migrants from Russia during the Soviet period), religion (the West is Greek Catholic and Orthodox, the East is mostly Orthodox), and political views (the West has traditionally been anti-Soviet and pro-European, the East is pro-Russian, with a certain amount of nostalgia for the Soviet Union). It is interesting that the West is much more politically modern and active; new political thought arrives there from Europe first, then spreads to the capital, while the East has been a very passive region since Soviet times. When the country became independent, Western Ukraine more eagerly accepted the economic reforms and ideas about democracy (Gelman, 2007). With respect to elections, geography is far more important for Ukraine than any social or economic factor: pro-European candidates receive a vast majority of votes in the West, and pro-Russian candidates are unchallenged in the East. For example, Kuchma, who promised to strengthen economic ties with Russia and enhance the status of the Russian language, became president in 1994 mainly thanks to people in Eastern Ukraine. However, a careful analysis shows that Central and Southern Ukraine deserve separate consideration, as well. Culturally, these regions are caught between the East and West, which do their best to influence them. Although the capital, Kiev, is located near the geographical center of the country, it has proven to be much more amenable to political ideas from Western Ukraine (Ibid.). In Western Ukraine, nationalist movements aimed at spreading Ukrainian culture and identity throughout the country have had some success, without accounting for the feelings and rights of Russian minority. The East, meanwhile, is against Ukrainization and wanted to retain its Russian culture and language. These movements have only contributed to the further polarization of the country. In this situation of fragmentation and deep contradictions, Ukrainian governments have been forced to maneuver between Russia and Western Europe (Grinin, 2015). One more important problem of the Ukrainian society was its demographic situation. Between the censuses of 1989 and 2001, the population declined dramatically, from 51.7 to 48.5 million, a 6.3% decrease. The situation was worst in the industrial eastern provinces: the Donetsk region lost 491,000 people, the Lugansk region lost 317,000, the Dnepropetrovsk region lost 312,000, and the Kharkov region lost 280,000. This was the result of rapid natural decrease combined with mass emigration to Russia. In predominantly rural Western Ukraine, where the birth rate was much higher, the population remained practically the same as in 1989 (Tarkhov, 2004).

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2 Internal Causes of the Revolution The internal causes of the revolution of 2004 were: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Widespread corruption and income inequality. Rampant corruption was one of Ukrainian society’s core problems. In 2003, Ukraine ranked 106th out of 133 countries in terms of corruption, and officials who stole money from state institutions were closely connected with the Kuchma regime. Ukrainian revolutionary activists thus hoped that the democratic revolution would help eliminate corruption (Spirova, 2008). Discontent with President Kuchma among a large segment of the population, as he was perceived to be connected with corruption and criminal activities. Kuchma lost his legitimacy among young people when he was implicated in the murder of the opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze, who was killed in September of 2000. This was one of the key reasons for young people’s anger and their political mobilization, which led to the revolution (Kuzio, 2006a). It should be noted that 72% of Ukrainians wanted Kuchma to leave office early, and 53% were in favor of his impeachment. One of the most important factors of such a high level of discontent was the detachment of the elite from the population. Therefore 70% of the population felt they had no influence on the authorities, and 92% felt that their human rights were regularly being violated (Kuzio, 2006b). The opposition’s desire for much faster EU and NATO integration than was seen under Kuchma. The opposition hoped that moving closer to the West would bring a higher standard of living and real democracy to Ukraine, and strengthen its political independence (Mitchell, 2012). Desire for democratization and civil freedom. Ukrainian civil society and NGOs had been steadily gaining strength since the 1990s, and there was demand for a more open and democratic society. The rising influence of the Internet (Ukraine had 6 million Internet users by 2004) and independent newspapers and radio led to more general awareness of mass corruption within the ruling elite (Karatnycky, 2005). The immediate trigger of the revolution was the events that took place during the presidential election in November 2004. The Ukrainian opposition bloc accused the regime of committing gross falsifications and undermining Ukrainian democracy (Laverty, 2008).1

3 External Influence on the Ukrainian Revolution The most obvious influence came from Otpor and Georgian revolutionaries, and the Georgian revolution of 2003 was the main model for Ukrainian opposition groups [see 1

About the general causes of color revolutions see Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) and “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022, in this volume).

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Chapters “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022), “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022b, in this volume)]. The US government gave Ukrainian NGOs about $65 million in order to spread democratic values in Ukraine before the revolution. These NGOs played a major role in the revolutionary events. The movement Pora, which was very active in the revolution, was inspired by similar Georgian and Serbian movements [see Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume)]. Pora activists received training in Belgrade and taught techniques of nonviolent resistance [see Beissinger (2007) and Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this book)]. The example of foreign activists’ successes and passions was very important for Ukrainians. Ukrainian activists did not simply copy the Serbian and Georgian experiences, however, instead developed their own techniques (Nikolayenko, 2017). The US also helped create the infrastructure of the Orange Revolution: Freedom House, which is funded by the American government, organized contacts between Pora activists and Serbian, Slovakian, and Georgian youth organizations. Through the National Democratic Institute, the US provided financial aid to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, which monitored the elections. President Bush wrote to Kuchma that the countries’ relations would suffer if the 2004 presidential election was not free and fair. Meanwhile, Russia’s government and political strategists openly supported Prime Minister Yanukovych (Mitchell, 2012). Director of the National Endowment for Democracy for Eastern and Central Europe Nadia Diuk denied that this organization contributed to the Ukrainian revolution, saying that its influence was modest and focused on monitoring the election, conducting exit polls, and parallel vote tabulation (Laverty, 2008). It can be argued that Western governments and organizations indirectly facilitated the revolution by supporting Ukrainian NGOs that usually opposed the regime because of its authoritarian tendencies. Many experts in Russia believe that the revolution was organized by the US and Western Europe because of Ukraine’s geopolitical significance for Russia, whose influence in Ukraine they wanted to limit. However, Lincoln Mitchell argues that this is an exaggeration and that the Ukrainian people themselves played the main role in the revolution, although US influence was indeed a strong factor in ousting the pro-Russian regime [see Mitchell (2012) and Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume)].

4 The Economic Situation and the Revolution The economic situation in the years leading up to the revolution in Ukraine was mixed. On the one hand, the economy had grown strongly in the previous five years. On the other hand, this growth was only a very partial recovery from the economic collapse that followed the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2004, Ukraine’s GDP per capita was still only 63% of its 1989 level; yet this was a marked improvement from

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the 40% in 1999. Average wages were increasing steadily, and external economic conditions were also very favorable: the economies of the European Union and Russia—Ukraine’s main trading partners—were growing rapidly, as were Ukrainian exports. This dynamic was sustained by the generally favorable trends around the world (Tsirel, 2015). Yet there was still significant poverty in Ukraine, and continuing this recovery was thus of vital importance to the population. In 2003, 86% of Ukrainians perceived the economic situation as very bad or bad, and only 9% believed it was good (Kuzio, 2006b). Anxieties about economic growth focused on corruption, seen as a threat to growth, and on the need to maintain good relations with both Russia and Europe. The economic situation thus was not one of crisis, but rather improvement, which favored regime stability; it was other factors that led to the revolution. However, recent economic growth did contribute to an increase in the number of middle-class citizens, who largely opposed the status quo because of concerns about corruption (Karatnycky, 2005).

5 The Main Social and Political Forces Supporting the Revolution The most significant social and political forces were the Ukrainian middle class, which was decidedly pro-Western and wanted to strengthen the country’s political and economic ties with Europe, and reduce their country’s dependence on Russia. Ukrainian nationalists and inhabitants of Western Ukraine also provided serious support for the revolution, unlike Eastern Ukraine, especially the Donetsk region, which remained more pro-Russian. The percentage of residents who took part in the revolution was eight times higher in Western Ukraine than in other regions (Kudelia, 2014). Young people were three times more active than other age segments (Kuzio, 2006a): about 8% of all Ukrainian 18–29-year-olds participated in the Orange Revolution in Kiev, while 18% protested in their hometowns. Eighty percent of young people voted in the presidential election, with about 60% supporting Yushchenko (Nikolayenko, 2017). Youth were much more active in Western than in Eastern Ukraine because of the higher birthrate (in the L’vov region, 20–29-yearolds accounted for 23% of the population older than 20, compared with 18% in the Donetsk region; see Derzhavniy komitet statistiki Ukrayiny, 2004). This factor may have contributed to the much greater political activity of Western Ukrainian youth. The political forces that supported the revolution were the Western-oriented parliamentary opposition parties Our Ukraine and Motherland (Mitchell, 2012). It must be borne in mind that the corrupt business elite has been exercising a powerful influence on Ukrainian policy since the mid-1990s. The oligarchs control entire sectors of the economy (energy, mining, the chemical industry, steel, etc.) and benefit greatly from the natural-gas trade. They provide funding to political parties (including the Socialist and Communist Parties) but do not have an ideology and simply pursue their own interests. They generally oppose EU integration due to fears that the proposed reforms

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would severely undermine their economic and political positions. The Orange Revolution was directed against the oligarchical system, and a year afterward, the new authorities created the NGO Chestno (Honestly) to monitor parliamentary deputies’ incomes (Åslund, 2014).

6 Ideology and the Revolutionaries’ Goals and Demands The revolutionary movement opposed Kuchma because it saw him as a criminal, and his handpicked heir, Viktor Yanukovych, had a criminal past (Kuzio, 2006a). The main opposition party, Our Ukraine, led by Viktor Yushchenko, had a rightleaning and liberal ideology. It also engaged a moderate nationalist ideology too that sought the strengthening of Ukrainian identity, language, and culture. At the same time Yushchenko rejected radicalism which was sharacteristic of some Ukrainian nationalist movements, because he wanted to attract Russian-speaking voters. Yulia Tymoshenko’s party Motherland was left-wing and populist, while the Socialist Party of Ukraine, which also supported the revolution, had a social-democratic ideology. This was thus an anti-Yanukovych coalition, rather than one of like-minded parties. Moreover, it must be said that the members of the opposition parties (as in in ruling parties) were not bound together by clearly defined ideologies, but were generally clients of their leaders. The revolutionaries’ main goals were the annulment of the results of the second round of the presidential election, which was seen as fraudulent, and the holding of a new election (Gelman, 2007).

7 Organizers and Leaders of the Ukrainian Revolution The main organizer of the Ukrainian revolution was the student movement Pora. It was quite popular among Ukrainian youth, which mostly supported the opposition rather than the regime. Pora was actually divided into two parts: Black Pora, whose members had already participated in protests against Kuchma and did not want to support the opposition parties openly, and Yellow Pora, whose members were mostly students and whose leaders were closely linked to Yushchenko (Laverty, 2008). Black Pora, like Kmara and Otpor, did not have prominent leaders, but Yellow Pora had a clear leader, Vladyslav Kaskiv. Pora relied on financial support from Western European foundations, but also from domestic opposition businessmen, unlike Otpor. The organization grew out of the movement “Ukraine Without Kuchma,” which was created by young people from various NGOs in 2000 (Kuzio, 2006a). The 2004 revolution was led by the head of the Our Ukraine party, Viktor Yushchenko, and by Yulia Tymoshenko, who agreed to support Yushchenko after he promised her the position of prime minister. It should be noted that the opposition leaders had previously been connected with the regime. Yushchenko was Kuchma’s

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prime minister from December 1999 to May 2001.2 His main opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, was the prime minister from November 2002 through the time of the Orange Revolution (Mitchell, 2012).

8 Forms of the Revolutionary Activity The main types of revolutionary activity were demonstrations against the government. The opposition already had some experience of protesting. The murder of Gongadze had provoked its indignation, and up to 50,000 people took part in protests in March 2001 that ended in violent clashes with the police. Members of Our Ukraine carefully analyzed why the previous protests failed and decided that their demonstrations should be non-aggressive and much better attended (Binnenjik & Marovic, 2006). Pora made its main symbol a clock, suggesting that it was time for Kuchma to resign. As was the case with Otpor, Ukrainian youth movements used humor, street performances, and jokes about Yanukovych’s criminal past and his lack of education to overcome widespread fear and apathy. In one such street performance, members of Pora dressed up like prisoners and pretended to campaign for Yanukovych, telling the people that they had been freed for the weekend to agitate for one of their fellows. By that time, the Ukrainian internet was quite well developed, and it abounded with jokes and cartoons mocking the regime and its candidate. Concerts and carnivals were an inseparable part of Ukrainian youth activism, with the country’s most popular rock bands performing for the supporters of the opposition. (Traditional bands and singers played in support of the regime). Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, the singer of the legendary group Okean Elzy, which played for the protesters, even became Yushchenko’s advisor. Music was very effective in mobilizing the youth. Student organizations conducted a student rally with about 30,000 participants that included a free rock concert to support Yushchenko and to demand free and fair elections in October 2004. Teenaged girls gave flowers to Berkut officers in order to decrease the probability of a violent crackdown (Kuzio, 2006a). Pora said that it distributed 40 million leaflets and stickers in 2004. Stickers bore images of such symbols of resistance as Taras Shevchenko and Che Guevara (Nikolayenko, 2017). The core organizational feature of the revolution was the opposition’s uniting around a single candidate (Viktor Yushchenko) in the runoff election, though the Communist Party did not participate (Kuzio, 2006a). Pora succeeded in using various Ukrainian institutions—NGOs, opposition parties, opposition media—to unite the 2

It is worth noting that Yushchenko’s government was the most successful government under Kuchma: for the first time, Ukraine avoided budget deficits (in 2000 and 2001), and a privatization program for large state enterprises was launched. After the disastrous nineties, the country enjoyed fast economic growth (5.9% in 2000 and 9.2% in 2001). The premier became the most popular Ukrainian politician, irking Kuchma, who dismissed Yushchenko (Gelman, 2007). However, it should be mentioned that GDP growth was also very high under Yanukovych’s premiership: 10% in 2003 and 13% in 2004 (Korotayev, 2014).

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opposition forces and mobilize society against the regime. Pora closely cooperated with NGOs that worked to increase electoral participation and monitored them. During the revolution, Pora maintained order among the protesters by preventing drinking and violence (Laverty, 2008). Yellow Pora joined forces with about 300 NGOs to form the New Choice coalition, which aimed to prevent electoral violations. The two sections of Pora sent the most active young people to build a tent city in the center of Kiev after the runoff election; it eventually attracted hundreds of thousands of people of different ages and social status (Kuzio, 2006a). Similarly to what happened in Serbia, the government tried to paint members of Pora as agents of America, extreme nationalists, and even terrorists, but such accusations failed to prevent the youth movement from spreading. The regime also created its own youth movement, Dosyt (Enough), which imitated Pora’s tactics but directed them against Yushchenko, whom it accused of being extremist. However, this organization remained very small and had no significant influence on political developments (Nikolayenko, 2017).

9 The Regime’s Main Weaknesses 1.

2.

3.

Lack of support throughout much of Ukraine. In Kiev, the country’s biggest city and the center of its political system, and in Western Ukraine, the regime’s candidate Yanukovych enjoyed minimal support. Its main base was in the East. Yanukovych was not a skilled speaker and campaigner, unlike the charismatic and self-confident Yushchenko (Mitchell, 2012), and especially Yanukovych lost in this respect to passionate Yulia Tymoshenko. The regime’s lack of credibility. It was perceived by the middle class and the urban educated youth as corrupt, backward, and undemocratic. This perception only grew stronger with time, as the regime committed more and more blunders and misdeeds. For example, instead of experienced and capable politicians, Kuchma brought with him a crew of oligarchs from his hometown Dnepropetrovsk. One of them, Pavlo Lazarenko, in May 2004, was convicted in U.S. by the federal jury in San Francisco of fraud, conspiracy to launder money, money laundering, and transportation of stolen property. He was accused of having stolen from the state and extorted from businesses hundreds of millions of dollars between 1995 and 1997, when he was deputy prime minister and then prime minister (Karatnycky, 2005). Thus, one could agree with A. Åslund’s statement that it was the regime which helped the oligarchs to make their fortune due to their preferential treatment and access to the most important state positions (Åslund, 2006). The fragility of the regime. Because of its historical fragmentation and great regional diversity, Ukraine’s elites were rather fragmented. Its political, business, and oligarchical elites maintained close ties with their own regions and competed for power and property by creating parties and media outlets, but none had enough influence to bring the whole country under its control. This meant

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that Ukrainian political institutions were fragile, as the central government came to be dependent on regional economic forces. Leonid Kuchma was forced to seek a balance with powerful figures from Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk and give them government posts. Largely owing to conflicts within the elite, Ukraine under Kuchma saw precarious governments (with premiers working an average of less than one year), low presidential popularity, a low level of confidence in state institutions, unstable center-region relations, and an immature political system in which parties quickly changed their positions depending on the situation. Kuchma was more of a mediator for rival factions of the elite than a true ruler. This led to a situation in which a strong authoritarian regime was impossible, so citizens enjoyed a degree of political freedom; moreover, what political decisions were made were short-term in nature and incapable of improving the socioeconomic situation in the long run. Kuchma’s choice of Viktor Yanukovych, who hailed from Donetsk, as his favored successor caused discontent among other elite groups. Despite their differences, they decided to unite around Yushchenko (Gelman, 2007). Indecisive and inconsistent foreign policy. The Ukrainian government maneuvered between Russia and the West without a clear plan and constantly modified its political priorities based on the benefits it thought it stood to gain (Grinin, 2015). Lack of a clear state ideology. The Kuchma regime relied on the business elite and the voters of Eastern Ukraine and did not try to create an ideology that could unite the entire country (Ibid.).

10 The Course of the Revolution The revolution began in November 2004, after the second round of the presidential election. As has been mentioned above, there were two major candidates: Viktor Yushchenko, who was openly pro-Western, and Viktor Yanukovych, who enjoyed the support of President Kuchma. Violations were reported even before the first round: the candidates did not receive equal coverage in the mass media, and state employees in Eastern Ukraine were threatened with reprisals if they did not vote for the regime’s favored candidate. The first round did not produce a winner, and a runoff was held on November 21. Widespread electoral fraud was reported, especially in the runoff, and mostly in Eastern Ukraine (Mitchell, 2012: 50–52). According to an independent NGO, about 2.8 million ballots were falsified in favor of Yanukovych. Only 13% of the population believed that the elections were fair (Laverty, 2008). Yushchenko received overwhelming support in the capital and almost every western region, while Yanukovych was the clear favorite in the East. The government declared that Yanukovych had won by a slim margin (49–47%), but the opposition declared that there had been falsifications and called for street demonstrations. Peaceful protests began in the center of Kiev and lasted for several weeks, and the government was forced to let the decision to be made by the Supreme Court of Ukraine. It annulled the

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official run-off results and ordered a repeat of second round ballot. The final re-run ballot was held on 26 December. But before the third runoff, under pressure from the opposition and massive protests against the flawed runoff election, President Kuchma amended the Constitution and electoral legislation in December 2004 to make it possible to hold the runoff anew, and to expand the power of the parliament and prime minister. Four hundred and two deputies voted in favor of this package of bills (Vedomosti, 2004). The result of the new voting was a 52%/44% victory for Yushchenko, who became the president of Ukraine on January 23, 2005 (Mitchell, 2012). About 1,000,000 people attended the largest of the demonstrations (Beissinger, 2007), angered primarily by the reports of electoral fraud. The opposition prepared beforehand to declare the elections fraudulent. One key factor in the success of the revolution was that the opposition managed to make close contacts with a large number of military officers two years before these events; the officers agreed not to use force against protestors under any circumstances. (More than 80% of military officers assessed their standard of living as low, leaving them with little reason to support the regime.) The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was divided, with many employees supporting the revolution, and it cooperated with both sides (Binnenjik & Marovic, 2006). The Supreme Court, as has been already mentioned above, also played a great role in the victory of the revolution, declaring the first run-off election invalid owing to mass fraud and calling for another round (Trifonov, 2014). Thus, in a situation in which voters were roughly equally divided, the regime was fragile, and the security services divided, Kuchma had no effective way to respond to the anger of supporters of the opposition, and youth movements helped organize mass protests that the weak regime was unable to withstand.

11 The Ukrainian Revolution in Comparison with Other Post-Soviet Revolutions and Attempted Revolutions In terms of its nature and results, the Ukrainian revolution was very similar to other revolutions in post-Communist countries like Serbia, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. The circumstances were very similar: a corrupt and weak semi-authoritarian regime was overseeing fraudulent elections that served as the immediate reason for the uprising. The business elite and some prominent figures within the regime refused to support it, and thus undermined its capacity to curb the protests (an obvious sign of a conflict within the elite). The revolutionaries wanted to break with the Communist past, bring their country closer to the West and further from Russian influence, and to express their commitment to democracy. In all of these countries, the revolutions fell short of these expectations, because the subsequent push toward democracy came up against serious challenges. There were even considerable setbacks in this process. A common characteristic of such revolutions was rivalry within the leadership following victory, such as that between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko [Mitchell

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(2012), see about Georgia Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022b, in this volume)]. The Ukrainian revolution differed from others in that the new government managed to arrange for much more democratic elections and much greater press freedom than, for instance, in Georgia or Kyrgyzstan [see Chapters “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022b) and “Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022, in this volume)]. But in all four countries, corruption and oligarchic influence proved stubbornly difficult to change.

12 The Results of the Revolution and Ukraine’s Development After the Revolution Ukraine’s extremely fast economic growth (about 10% in 2003 and 13% in 2004) fell to only 4% in 2005, following the revolution, but rose to 8% in 2006–2007 (incidentally, when Yanukovych became the prime minister). After the global economic crisis of 2008–2009, in which Western European economies closely linked to Ukraine’s suffered greatly, growth was much slower. GDP per capita during this period remained approximately half of Russia’s, although before the revolution Ukraine’s growth had been much faster. The dramatic deterioration of living standards in 2008–2009 played a significant role in the defeat of the Orange coalition and Viktor Yanukovych’s coming to power in February 2010 in the hope that he could revive the economic boom. But the new government was unable to improve the situation, partly because of a second recession in Europe and partly because of populist economic policy. It is important to note that the fast economic growth seen before 2008 led to high expectations. In the event, however, these hopes were not fully realized, causing discontent with the new regime. This, along with other factors like the growth of economic and regional inequality, led to the next Ukrainian revolution in 2013–2014 (Korotayev, 2014). The political situation in post-revolutionary Ukraine was quite unstable. The new government suffered from frequent conflicts and disagreements between the two leaders of the revolution, whose ideologies differed. The cause of these conflicts was President Yushchenko’s cautious and sometimes indecisive policies; while he did not want to implement the ideas of the revolution too quickly, the radical branch of Pora and the forces that supported prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko called for faster and deeper reforms. In September 2005, the Orange coalition fell apart, and Yushchenko’s popularity suffered. In the 2006 parliamentary elections, Tymoshenko’s bloc received 22% of the vote (compared with 7% in 2002), while the president’s Our Ukraine took only 14% (a great decline from 24% in 2002). Amid a governmental crisis, the Party of Regions became much stronger, taking 32% (Laverty, 2008). In August 2006, Yushchenko broke with Tymoshenko and decided to create a coalition with his former rival party, the Party of Regions, and its leader Viktor Yanukovych, who replaced Tymoshenko as prime minister (Mitchell, 2012: 14).

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Under Yushchenko, there was clear progress in the social, demographic3 and political sphere, but it was hampered by instability and government conflicts. The new government increased the power of the prime minister, which helped to strengthen the parliament’s oversight of the executive branch. Press freedom grew, and in 2005, the parliament passed a law that increased election transparency by giving NGOs the right to observe them. But civil society in general found itself marginalized, just as before the revolution (Laverty, 2008). Although Ukraine’s democratization index and its election freedom improved greatly, the problem of corruption remained acute for several years following the Ukrainian revolution, and, according to international organizations, it hardly decreased. Corruption continued to be a part of life for ordinary Ukrainian people and the elite (Spirova, 2008). By the end of Yushchenko’s term, the popularity of the revolutionary president was in the single digits. He paid a great deal of attention to the question of Ukrainian history and identity (declaring, for instance, that the Holodomor was a genocide of the Ukrainian people) but less to the economy and social reforms (Zimin, 2010). Yushchenko lost the 2010 election with the lowest result for an incumbent president in world history—5% (REGNUM, 2010), and Yanukovych took office. During his rule, the country’s development suffered a significant setback: the level of corruption grew (especially within Yanukovych’s circle), and the president became much more authoritarian. Most members of the parliament from virtually all parties, and most senior state officials, were so corrupt that compared with GDP, the amount spent by candidates in presidential or parliamentary campaigns was 2,000 times higher than in the US. High-level corruption was rampant enough to undermine Ukraine’s economic development. Despite Yanukovych’s attempts to suppress Ukrainian democratic institutions, the relative democratization of Ukrainian society after the Orange Revolution was evident from the popularity of political talk shows and the growth of media freedom (Lutsevych, 2013). Extreme corruption, along with Yanukovych’s decision to hold off on signing an Association Agreement with the EU, was an important cause of the next Ukrainian revolution (Åslund, 2014). According to surveys, in the early 2010s, 80–93% of Ukrainians had positive attitudes toward Russia and the Russian people, but nearly half the population (47–50% in Ukraine as a whole and 60% among those aged 18– 29) supported EU integration, including 51% of young people in Eastern Ukraine. They hoped that this would lead to higher living standards (Armandon, 2013). 3

About demographic trends in the 2000s and 2010s see Libanova (2009), World Bank (2018). As in many other Eastern European countries, including Russia, the alarming demographic trend in Ukraine correlated with tobacco and alcohol use among adult men and, to some extent, adult women (Khaltourina & Korotayev, 2008a, 2008b, 2015; Korotayev & Khaltourina, 2008; Korotayev et al., 2018). The post-revolution government decided to increase alcohol prices (Delo.ua, 2009). After significant increases for vodka starting in July 2009, its production fell by almost two-thirds, with illegal production growing much more slowly (Status Quo, 2017), and the mortality situation gradually improved. By 2013, the adult mortality rate had fallen to 292.1 per thousand adult men and 113.8 per thousand adult women (compared with 108.4 and 52.7 in the EU). Life expectancy increased significantly, though as of 2013 it was still much lower than in the EU [66.3 vs. 77.8 years for men and 76.2 vs. 83.4 years for women (World Bank, 2018)], and there is still much to be done.

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In general, it is obvious that although the Orange Revolution was led by clearly pro-Western and democratic forces, they were unable to change the situation significantly. Press and electoral freedom increased, but this was not enough to solve the country’s main problems (corruption among the elite, a fragile and unstable political system, and political polarization of society). The new president unexpectedly agreed to cooperate with old corrupt forces, leading to a dramatic decline in his popularity. After 2010, when Yanukovych came to power, corruption increased drastically, and the democratic transition was reversed. The economic downturn following the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, his poor and corrupt governance, along with his reluctance to continue down the path of EU integration, led to the next Ukrainian revolution [for detail see Chapter “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022, in this volume)]. Demographic progress provides a ray of hope, but immense efforts will be needed before the country’s demographic and economic indicators resemble those of developed states.

References Armandon, E. (2013). Popular assessment of Ukraine’s relations with Russia and the European Union under Yanukovych. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 21(2), 289–308. Åslund, A. (2006). The ancien régime: Kuchma and the oligarchs. In A. Åslund & M. McFaul (Eds.), Revolution in orange: The origins of Ukraine’s democratic breakthrough (pp. 9–28). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Åslund, A. (2014). The Maidan and beyond: Oligarchs, corruption, and European integration. Journal of Democracy, 25(3), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2014.0055 Beissinger, M. R. (2007). Structure and example in modular political phenomena: The diffusion of bulldozer/rose/orange/tulip revolutions. Perspectives on Politics, 5(2), 259–276. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S1537592707070776 Binnenjik, A. L., & Marovic, I. (2006). Power and persuasion: Nonviolent strategies to influence state security forces in Serbia (2000) and Ukraine (2004). Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 39(3), 411–429. Delo.ua – novostnoy portal Ukrayiny. (2009). Timoshenko podnyala tseny na vodku. Delo.ua 24.09.2009. https://delo.ua/business/timoshenko-podnjala-ceny-na-vo-130749 Derzhavniy komitet statistiki Ukrayiny. (2004). Vikoviy sklad naselennya. http://2001.ukrcensus. gov.ua/results/general/age/ Filin, N., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022). Serbian “Otpor” and the color revolutions’ diffusion. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 465–482). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_17 Gelman, V. Y. (2007). Ukraina: fragmentirovannoe prostranstvo. In O. L. Marganiya & D. Y. Travin (Eds.), SSSR posle raspada (pp. 75–140). Ekonomicheskaya shkola. Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 1–33). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Grinin, L. E. (2015). Ukrainskoe gosudarstvo kak nezavershenniy politicheskiy proekt: fragmentarnoe proshloe, krizisnoe nastoyashchee, neyasnoe budushchee. In L. E. Grinin, A. V. Korotayev,

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L. M. Issaev, & A. R. Shishkina (Eds.), Systemniy monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov. Ukrainskiy razlom. Ezhegodnik (pp. 84–126). Uchitel’. Ivanov, Y. (2022). Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 517–547). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/9783-030-86468-2_20 Karatnycky, A. (2005). Ukraine’s orange revolution. Foreign Affairs, 84(2), 35–52. https://doi.org/ 10.2307/20034274 Khaltourina, D. A., & Korotayev, A. V. (2008a). Alcohol and narcotics as factors of the demographic crisis. Sociological Research, 47(3), 18–31. https://doi.org/10.2753/SOR1061-0154470302 Khaltourina, D. A., & Korotayev, A. V. (2008b). Potential for alcohol policy to decrease the mortality crisis in Russia. Evaluation & the Health Professions, 31(3), 272–281. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0163278708320160 Khaltourina, D. A., & Korotayev, A. V. (2015). Effects of specific alcohol control policy measures on alcohol-related mortality in Russia from 1998 to 2013. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 50(5), 588–601. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agv042 Khodunov, A. (2022a). The Bulldozer revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 447–463). Springer. http://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16 Khodunov, A. (2022b). The Rose revolution in Georgia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 483–499). Springer. http://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_18 Korotayev, A. (2014). O vozmozhnykh ekonomiko-psikhologicheskikh faktorakh ukrainskoy revolyutsii 2014 goda. Istoricheskaya psikhologiya i sotsiologiya istorii, 7(1), 56–74. https:// www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=21834710 Korotayev, A., & Khaltourina, D. (2008). The Russian demographic crisis in cross-national perspective. In D. W. Blum (Ed.), Russia and globalization: Identity, security, and society in an era of change (pp. 37–78). Johns Hopkins University Press. Korotayev, A., Khaltourina, D., Meshcherina, K., & Zamiatnina, E. (2018). Distilled spirits overconsumption as the most important factor of excessive adult male mortality in Europe. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 53(6), 742–752. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agy054 Kudelia, S. (2014). The Maidan and beyond: The house that Yanukovych built. Journal of Democracy, 25(3), 19–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2014.0039 Kuzio, T. (2006a). Civil society, youth and societal mobilization in democratic revolutions. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 39(3), 365–386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2006. 06.005 Kuzio, T. (2006b). Everyday Ukrainians and the orange revolution. In A. Åslund & M. McFaul (Eds.), Revolution in orange: The origins of Ukraine’s democratic breakthrough (pp. 45–68). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Laverty, N. (2008). The problem of lasting change: Civil society and the colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 16(2), 143–162. Libanova, E. (2009). Smertnost’ naseleniya Ukrainy v trudoaktivnom vozraste (25–64 goda) (pp. 403–404). Demoskop. http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2009/0403/analit01.php Lutsevych, O. (2013). How to finish a revolution: Civil society and democracy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Chatham House. Mitchell, L. A. (2012). The color revolutions. University of Pennsylvania Press. Mitchell, L. A. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 435–445). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15

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Nikolayenko, O. (2017). Youth movements and elections in Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press. REGNUM. (2010). Yushchenko voydet v mirovuyu istoriyu so svoim rezul’tatom na vyborakh. IA REGNUM 17.01.2010. https://regnum.ru/news/1243308.html Shevsky, D. (2022). Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 851–863). Springer. http://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_32 Spirova, M. (2008). Corruption and democracy. The “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 4(2), 75–90. http://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200812.0004 Status quo – novosti Khar’kova. (2017). Tsena alkogolya. Istoriya voprosa. Status quo 04.11.2017. http://www.sq.com.ua/rus/news/polezno_znat/04.09.2017/kak_dorozhal_alkogol_polezno_znat Tarkhov, S. A. (2004). Itogi perepisi naseleniya Ukrainy 2001 goda (pp. 173–174). Demoskop. http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2004/0173/analit05.php Trifonov, A. S. (2014). “Revolyutsii” v Ukraine (2004) i v Respublike Belarus’ (2006): sravnitel’niy analiz. Istoricheskie, filosofskie, politicheskie i yuridicheskie nauki, kul’turologiya i iskusstvovedenie. Voprosy teorii i praktiki, 10(48), 185–191. Tsirel, S. V. (2015). K istokam revolyutsionnikh sobytiy 2013–2014 gg. In L. E. Grinin, A. V. Korotayev, L. M. Issaev, & A. R. Shishkina (Eds.), Systemniy monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov. Ukrainskiy razlom (pp. 57–83). Uchitel. Vedomosti. (2004). Kuchma izmenil Konstitutsiyu. Vedomosti 08.12.2004. https://www.vedomosti. ru/library/articles/2004/12/08/kuchma-izmenil-konstituciyu World Bank. (2018). World development indicators online. World Bank. http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator Zimin, M. (2010). Ot Yushchenko k Yanukovichu. Baykal’skiye vesti, 30(476).

Alexander Khodunov is a Research Fellow at the Department of the Modern East at the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law (Institute for History and Archives, Russian State University for the Humanities). The author of over 20 academic publications including such articles as “Demographic factors of political stability in Iran (second half of the 20th–early 21st century)” (2015); “The demographic modernization of Iran (from the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century)” (2017); “Interethnic relations and risks of destabilization in the countries of the former Yugoslavia: history and modernity” (2017). Area of expertise: political-demographic dynamics and social processes in the Middle East and Balkans.

Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan Yevgeny Ivanov

1 Color Revolutions in the Post-Soviet Area In recent decades, political scientists have been watching a huge natural experiment launched in the late 1980s. The dissolution of the Soviet Union into a variety of states with different cultural and political systems has allowed to observe a variety of new political trajectories. Southern Europe underwent similar processes earlier (in the 1970s) when decaying authoritarian regimes (e.g., in Portugal, Spain and Greece) crashed down. Samuel Huntington identified these events as the onset of the Third Wave of democratization (Huntington, 1991). Eastern Europe countries continued that wave, as their overthrow of Communist rule managed to promote democratic values too [about the revolutions in the late twentieth century see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume)]. Further east, the former republics of the Soviet Union were exposed to democratization to varying extents. The Baltic states, which were joined to the USSR only in 1939–1940, and thus had their own brief democratic experience between the World Wars, have become European-style democracies (Huntington, 1993: 295). Several countries with poor or no prior democratic background such as Russia and Belarus (let alone Central Asian countries), however, could not manage to establish truly democratic regimes because of economic crises that forced their people to care more about their survival than about political values, a malformed civil society, corruption and deeply-rooted non-democratic practices. The cascade of color revolutions intended to reload democratization in the postSoviet region lifted only a few states to “partly free” status at best (Beissinger, 2006; Lane, 2009; Beacháin & Polese, 2010; Freedom House, 2020). It is customary to count the new wave of color revolutions in Europe as starting with the events Y. Ivanov (B) HSE University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_20

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in Yugoslavia in the fall of 2000 (albeit some scholars go back to the Portuguese “Carnation Revolution” of 1974). That state had communist political legacy, so the political technologies of democracy promotion in post-Soviet area could be tested there. In Yugoslavia, which at that time consisted of Serbia and Montenegro, the first free presidential elections were announced for September 2000. The main rivals were the incumbent leader, Slobodan Milosevic, and the representative of the pro-Western democratic opposition, Vojislav Kostunica. It was officially announced that Kostunica was ahead of Milosevic in the first round of voting but did not receive more than 50% of the vote, thus leaving Milosevic poised to contest a run-off. Yet Kostunica’s supporters strongly objected this decision, believing their candidate had won a clear majority of votes. Milosevic was accused of falsifying the results in his favor (Gordy, 2000; Tucker, 2007), and the opposition began to organize mass protests. The youth wing of the opposition, the “Otpor” movement, was especially active and creative in its protests [see Gordy, 2000; Landry, 2011; Nikolayenko, 2013, as well as Chapters “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a) and “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this volume)]. The demonstrations were mainly peaceful, although there were clashes with the police. Under pressure from protesters, Milosevic resigned and acknowledged Kostunica’s victory (Gordy, 2000; Greenberg, 2014). Consequently, the new president leaned to the West, showing clearly why the US and the EU supported this kind of color revolution. Serbia has become a prime example of the collapse of an authoritarian postcommunist regime. Subsequently, the Serbian scenario was reproduced in Georgia in 2003. There, protests were also triggered by accusations of electoral fraud and falsification of the results (Lane, 2009: 116; Mitchell, 2006, 2012), and the incumbent President, Eduard Shevardnadze, was replaced by the young pro-Western Mikhail Saakashvili [for detail see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022, in this volume)]. Researchers also find numerous parallels between the 2000 “Bulldozer revolution” in Belgrade and the 2004 “Orange revolution” in Kiev (Beissinger, 2007). The main similarities include the electoral agenda, accusations of falsification of results favoring the incumbent, active participation of the youth movement in the first demonstrations, emphasis on nonviolent actions, support for the opposition from Western countries, bright colored symbols, and the promotion of ideas of the revolution via non-state media and social networks [for detail see Chapters “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b) and “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c, in this volume)]. The first wave of color revolutions in the post-Soviet space affected five states— not only Georgia and Ukraine, but also Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Belarus. In Baku and Minsk, the attempts to break the regime ended in nothing [Ambrosio, 2006; Stewart, 2013; Korosteleva, 2014; about Azerbaijan see also Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this volume)]. David Lane also mentions unsuccessful revolts in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the mid-2000s [Lane, 2009: 113], however, those events are not identified as the color revolutions clearly. In the other states, there has been a replacement of the ruling elites. Why exactly did Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan become suitable

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locations for enacting the tactics of color revolutions? The answer to this question will help us to understand the nature of political instability in modern Kyrgyzstan. In terms of its regime characteristics, Kyrgyzstan is similar to the other revolutionary countries of the post-Soviet space—Ukraine and Georgia, as well as Moldova and Armenia, which also experienced street nonviolent revolutions in 2009 and 2018, respectively. All of the countries entered a phase of permanent political instability after the end of the USSR. In Armenia, achieving political stability was hampered by the nationalist struggle for the Azerbaijan-claimed enclave of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh. In Moldova, President Vladimir Voronin struggled to maintain the status-quo in the face of ongoing conflict with the breakaway Moldovan territory of Transnistria. Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan also had underlying territorial cleavages, with Ukraine divided into a more nationalist and pro-Western west and pro-Russian east; Georgia dealing with the seceded ethnic enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; and Kyrgyzstan, as I demonstrate below, is divided into ethnically and culturally distinct northern and southern regions [for details about the events in Moldova and Armenia see Chapters “’Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022) and “The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation” (Derluguian & Hovhannisyan, 2022, in this volume)]. Except for Ukraine, all the states where the color revolutions took place are small in territory and population, and have a poor economic base. The performance of these countries thus lacks any super-profitable resource rent to support the government. At the same time, being free of large monopolies, there is pluralism in the political sphere, with different factions, or clans, having established conflicting group loyalties. Altogether, this adds up to create the conditions for a regime of competitive oligarchy, in which, despite the presence of leaders of a personalist type, the institutions of parliamentarism, clientelism, and partisanship play an important role [Car’ gory, 2019].1

2 The Kyrgyz Republic: Structural Preconditions of Instability Kyrgyzstan is a state where social cleavages largely determine the dynamics and intensity of socio-political processes. The north–south regional cleavage has become the key to the integrity and stability of Kyrgyzstan. Historically the northern and southern territories have existed in parallel political realities. The south, where the sedentary population predominated, was the part of the Kokand Khanate. It was a kind of oriental despotism, distinguished by a rigid political and administrative vertical hierarchy as well as a political culture 1

About the general reasons of the color revolutions see Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) and “Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume).

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where the people were subjects, not citizens. The population of Kokand was blended. In particular, the Kyrgyz population lived alongside Uzbeks and other peoples of Central Asia. For them, Islam was the unifying force. The northern lands were inhabited by nomadic tribes. The dispersal of the bulk of the population across the steppe and a tradition of independent existence made the subordination of the nomadic Kyrgyz to a single political center an extremely difficult task. In addition, Islamic influence had not penetrated deeply in this part of the country. The tribes retained the memory of their roots and their traditional beliefs, customs, and rituals. For example, many still followed pagan Tengrism, which involved worshipping natural phenomena. After the collapse of the USSR, a partial return to traditional life took place in some regions of Kyrgyzstan. In the wake of anomie and crisis, the Kyrgyz people returned to their traditions in order to find a pivot in life. Strengthening family and clan ties helped individuals to survive again. The larger the family, the more powerful its members. At the same time, the inhabitants of the country began to pay more attention to the origins of the politicians who claimed to represent people’s interests. Thus, the rivalry between southern and northern politicians had been intensified. The long rule of the northerner Askar Akayev had caused discontent in the south. This is the reason why Felix Kulov did not become the second president just after Akayev. Kulov lost competition for power to a southerner, Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his closest relatives. Bakiyev’s clan in its turn was overthrown by Rosa Otunbayeva and Almazbek Atambayev, with the latter becoming the next full-term president. He came from the north but balanced between two parts of the country emphasizing his grandfather’s southern ancestry. Nevertheless, Atambayev was betrayed by the southerner Sooronbay Jeenbekov, who recruited many southerners, including members of his family, in government bodies. Finally, Jeenbekov was overthrown by the norther headed by Sadyr Japarov. In addition to the north–south split, there are other macro-factors behind the chronic instability in Kyrgyzstan. In terms of demographics and economics, Kyrgyzstan is a young and poor country. Searching for a better life, young people moved to the larger cities—Bishkek, Osh and Jalal-Abad. The concentration of marginalized youngsters in political and administrative centers allowed political leaders to quickly mobilize their own support groups. This led to the result that the winner in politics was often not the one who wins the elections, but the one who can best defend or challenge the result in street actions.2 The demographic transition in Kyrgyzstan has already begun, but the process of fertility decline may take decades to complete fully. In the meantime, the population continues to grow and to be rather young. By the collapse of the USSR in 1991, 4.5 million people lived in Kyrgyzstan. In 2019, the population had already reached 6.5 million (World Bank, 2019a), an increase of over 40%. Almost every second resident 2

So, in fact, Kyrgyzstan fell into a revolutionary trap. About the falling of some countries in the revolutionary traps see Chapter “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2021a, in this volume).

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of the country is a person aged between 14 and 45 (World Bank, 2019b). The Arab Spring showed clearly what happens in countries where there are so many young people (so called “youth bulges”) with no prospects [about youth bulges in Arab countries as an important factor of the Arab Spring see Chapters “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022) and “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)]. The collapse of the Soviet Union cut off critical resources from the Kyrgyz economy. Regarding poverty, the situation is only getting worse. Austerity has its own consequences. Part of the active young population chooses an “exit” strategy and leaves Kyrgyzstan. This helps to reduce the degree of dissatisfaction within the country since labor migrants are in fact those who could not find a decent job in Kyrgyzstan. Labor migrants also send back remittances to support their families in Kyrgyzstan, which somewhat mitigates the real scale of poverty. So, migration plays an ambiguous role. When host countries (Russia, Turkey and others) do well, providing jobs for Kyrgyz workers, Kyrgyzstan keeps stable. If crises occur there, Kyrgyzstan suffers much more compared to the developed economies. This factor considerably influenced the 2010 and 2020 revolutions. Poverty and stark inequality pushed the Kyrgyz people into the streets, where they could exercise what they believed was the people’s right to rebuke their rulers. People thus acquired real experience of social protests. The flourishing of street democracy was facilitated by the presence of a proper location for mass actions—the capital city, Bishkek and other large cities, where administrative buildings became targets for siege and take-over. In the last 20 years, Bishkek’s population has grown by a quarter, breaking the mark of a million inhabitants, while Osh grew to over a quarter million and Jalal-Abad to 100,000. Thus, many potential protesters are always on the spot. In Kyrgyzstan, horizontal ties are strong. Mostly, this implies clan structures. Western experts have often called Kyrgyzstan “an oasis of democracy.” But the notorious rivalry of clans, and not of political parties, was hidden behind a quasidemocratic façade driven by private interests, not political programs. Clans fight for resources that are distributed among the members of a large network. So, during revolutions, each clan seeks to enter the next stage of the struggle for the redistribution of power and property. In Kyrgyz politics, winning the competition to mobilize more supporters for control of the streets is more important than winning the vote. This will be the case until the Kyrgyz people build durable institutions.3

3

Kyrgyz clans are not entirely unilineal descent groups. Different people can unite in clans. But it is important that the main principles of such units are quasi-kin relations with the strong authority of senior members and with hierarchy of values in favor of clans rather than the whole society.

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3 The March (or Tulip) Revolution of 2005 In October 1990, the Supreme Council of the Kyrgyz SSR—following the examples of the Uzbek SSR and Kazakh SSR—established the post of president. It was one more step to initiate the sovereignty of the constituent republics within the USSR. In fact, this act created the new institutional basis for the further step of secession. Though the Communist Party and KGB still played a great role in handling certain key processes, local Kyrgyz elites prepared to claim more authority. At the time, gaining full-fledged independence and sovereignty was probably not their ultimate goal; nevertheless, representatives of the local establishment sought to benefit from the weakening of the central government and the growing competition in Moscow between Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin for control of the Kremlin. The first Presidential race in the Kyrgyz SSR, in 1990, resulted in a surprising victory. Askar Akayev became the president of the country. Initially, Akayev was not considered a leading candidate to head the republic. He came from an academic career that culminated in his presidency of the Kyrgyz Academy of Science in 1989. Unlike the leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, Askar Akayev was not even a member of Politburo. While he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, this was due to his position in Soviet academia, not because of his political weight. The mass protests that broke out in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 became the third such action in a former Soviet Republic in the three years from 2003 to 2005. In 2003, under pressure from street demonstrations, the ruling elites in Georgia were replaced, and a year later the same happened in Ukraine too. The protests in Kyrgyzstan began just two months after the stabilization of the situation in Ukraine. President Akayev saw the parallels between the emerging turmoil in Bishkek and what had happened during the Rose and Orange revolutions in Tbilisi and Kyiv. He noticed that protesters preferred to pick a flower as a symbol; therefore, they intended to create the image of a peaceful event and, in fact, follow Georgian scenario. The first Kyrgyz rebellion in the post-Soviet period was unofficially labeled the “Tulip Revolution” since it happened in March, the month when yellow tulips usually bloom in Kyrgyzstan, and the first groups of protesters wore yellow clothes. Political discontent arose in Kyrgyzstan a few months before the March Revolution. Elections to the Jogorku Kenesh, the national parliament of Kyrgyzstan, were scheduled for February–March 2005. In addition, the presidential term of Askar Akayev was coming to an end later the same year. Akayev had already extended his term through a referendum two times. Opposition leaders felt that Akayev’s power was weakening and wanted an open competition. Akayev hoped to get ahead of the curve and strengthen his political position. To this purpose, he nominated his eldest son Aydar and eldest daughter Bermet as candidates for the parliamentary elections. At the same time, many opposition candidates were not allowed to participate in these elections. Among them was Roza Otunbayeva, who ran in the same constituency where Bermet Akayeva did. The elections were surrounded by scandals. Askar Akayev was accused of falsification.

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Students in Bishkek complained that they were forced to vote for candidates from Akayev’s faction. This information was disseminated by “Azzatyq” media and the “Freedom House” printing house. They were supported by the OSCE and the European Parliament, which recognized the elections as unfair. After the first round of elections (on February, 24), pickets organized by the youth movement “KelKel” (“Revival”) began. Some activists of this movement were trained by Western NGOs as well as “Otpor” and “Kmara” members in Serbia and Georgia respectively. Some of the leaders of “KelKel” had also taken part in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Still, officially the youth movement was an ally of the party “Ata-Zhurt” (“Fatherland”), represented by Roza Otunbayeva and Omurbek Tekebayev; the latter was one of Akayev’s main competitors in the presidential elections in 2000. This party thus had a number of prominent politicians and an active youth wing, which allowed them to take a leading role in the political struggle during the revolution. In parallel with the peaceful “color” protests in Bishkek, in the south of Kyrgyzstan, where Akayev was unpopular, violent revolts erupted in various cities in early March and grew within the following weeks. In Osh and Jalal-Abad, administrative buildings were seized. The police expelled the protesters from there, but street demonstrations did not stop. The government was losing control of the situation, and the initiative was captured by the opposition. Rosa Otunbayeva was trying to coordinate the actions of the protesters. In the south, many police officers joined the protests, the government lost control, and the region came under the informal control of the opposition. The protests became more active after the announcement declarations of the results of the second round of elections (it was March, 13) to the benefit of regime politicians. The main rally took place on March 24, 2005, in Bishkek. During this demonstration, there was a provocation that led to clashes with the police. Disorders began in the city. Protesters stormed the administrative buildings and freed Felix Kulov, an influential politician and former mayor of Bishkek, who had been convicted on political grounds. That same night, Kulov, Otunbayeva and former prime minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev (who had resigned in 2002 after police shot and killed several peaceful demonstrators in the southern city of Asky) announced the creation of the opposition coordinating council. The next day, while President Akayev and his family fled first to Kazakhstan, then to Russia, the opposition convened the previous members of parliament. The deputies endowed Bakiyev with the temporary powers of the president. Bakiyev then appointed Rosa Otunbayeva as foreign minister because she had connections with political leaders in the West. Felix Kulov became the head of the police and security forces. Unexpectedly, the Central Electoral Committee (CEC) recognized the March parliamentary elections as valid. The new parliament confirmed Bakiyev’s powers, but Omurbek Tekebayev became the speaker of the parliament. Thus, several influential politicians were fighting for power in the country. Tekebayev flew to Moscow to meet with Akayev. The latter formally remained the country’s president, and his proponents organized new demonstrations to support him. Tekebayev arranged an agreement, according to which Akayev resigned his powers and promised not to

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participate in the elections in exchange for security guarantees for himself and his family. Presidential elections were scheduled for July 10. There were two main candidates—Kulov and Bakiyev. Bakiyev was actively pushing out other competitors. However, Kulov was too influential to be oppressed directly. Bakiyev convinced Kulov that their rivalry could split the country. Kulov understood the south will not support him so he approved of Bakiyev’s candidacy in the presidential elections. After becoming president, Bakiyev, obliged by the interpersonal pact, appointed Kulov as the prime minister. This moment can be considered the end of the Tulip Revolution.

3.1 Internal Causes of the 1st Revolution Askar Akayev is often classified as a personalistic autocrat since he alone headed the state for almost a decade and a half. As president, Akayev extended his term in office through a popular referendum, avoiding competitive elections. And shortly before the 2005 revolution, he planned to arrange a political career for his grown-up children. Despite this, Akayev was not a typical autocrat. He did not limit the real powers of parliament, as happened in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and later in Russia. There was no sharp conflict between President Akayev and the Kyrgyz Parliament, as there were in most other post-Soviet countries. For example, Yeltsin clashed with parliament in 1993, Nazarbayev in 1995, and Lukashenko in 1996. All these confrontations ended in favor of the presidents. Yes, in Kyrgyzstan, the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet, known as the “Legendary Parliament,” also took place in 1994. But influential and popular politicians then entered the newly established legislature. Many political parties remained active in the country. And these political parties were not just fake ones or spoilers. Numerous supporters stood behind each of them. However, as we have shown above, there were some strong element of nepotism, electoral fraud and other defects in Akayev’s regime, and, besides, he was unpopular in the South. After the collapse of the USSR, many of the production and supply chains that existed in the Soviet Union, tying together the various republics, broke up. Kyrgyzstan lost most of its industrial base. This prompted Akayev to pursue economic reforms during his Presidency. To implement them, Akayev took external loans. In return, international organizations received freedom within Kyrgyzstan. This is how many NGOs arose in the republic (Temirkulov, 2010). On the one hand, they took on some of the functions that the state could not cope with. On the other hand, NGOs influenced public opinion and formed their own groups of supporters. In addition, under Akayev’s rule, a “wild west capitalism” developed in Kyrgyzstan. Similar processes took place in most post-Soviet economies. There were practically no large enterprises left in the country; instead the economy was based on small and medium-sized businesses. For example, people smuggled in cheap Chinese goods for sale in Kyrgyz shops. As a rule, such businesses were controlled by criminal groups. It all started with the provision of the so-called “roof”, when one group

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protected a business from the racket on the part of others. Then the leaders of the criminal world became the owners of enterprises. As a result, they possessed money, power, resources, and often popular support. Criminal communities expected that after Akayev’s overthrow, they would have a new chance to struggle for the redistribution of assets. In addition, the leaders of criminal groups sponsored many candidates for the parliamentary elections in 2005. Among the criminal leaders were those who wanted to legalize their status and receive parliamentary immunity. Akayev’s electoral fraud, which displaced many of these candidates, forced criminal groups to support the revolutionary uprising. The revolution could never have happened without a social base. That is why demography is an important driver of the Kyrgyz revolutions. Moreover, the demographic factor is complex and breaks down into several components: population growth rates, generational imbalance (the so-called “youth bulge” in particular), internal migration (from South to North) and urbanization, and external migration (especially labor and educational). Since the 2000s, demographic pressures in Kyrgyzstan have been growing considerably (World Bank, 2019a). Despite the uncertainty of the difficult first post-Soviet decade, the population in the country gradually increased. This was influenced by the return of traditional family orientations and the strengthening of the role of religion, primarily Islam. Thanks to the social and medical infrastructure that was inherited from the USSR, the infant mortality rate was not high. It is also very important that by the mid-2000s, a large generation of young people grew up in Kyrgyzstan (in terms of the absolute number and specific weight of the cohort in comparison with others), who had little memory of Soviet everyday life or were not familiar with it at all. These young Kyrgyzstani people are faced with limited prospects within the country. This was exacerbated by slow social mobility. Opportunities to advance were not transparent and available for regular people; it was extremely difficult to get a good education and to find a job with a decent salary. The regime could blow off some steam by letting the youth go abroad to Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Europe, but such opportunities were still rather limited. Russia and Kazakhstan in particular, having just overcome their own tough crises of the late 1990s, were not yet able to host large migration flows, yet were faced with large labor inflows from poor former Soviet republics (World Bank, 2005a, 2005b). The large-scale outburst of emigration from Central Asia to Russia would only happen a couple of years after the 2005 revolution.

3.2 External Influences on the 1st Kyrgyz Revolution Undoubtedly, internal factors played the leading role in the Kyrgyz revolutions. However, the events of March 2005, as well as subsequent revolutions, can be analyzed through the prism of international relations and geopolitics (Foxall, 2018; Laruelle & Peyrouse, 2013; Zabortseva, 2012).

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Kyrgyzstan occupies a strategically advantageous position. The southern territories of the country encircle the Fergana Valley—the heart of Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan shares long borders with China and with Kazakhstan. In addition, Kyrgyzstan is not very far from Russia. The flight from the large Russian city of Novosibirsk to Bishkek takes 2.5 h, and from Moscow only 4 h. Russia deploys several military bases in Kyrgyzstan: an airbase in Kant, a shooting range for anti-submarine weapons by Lake Issyk-Kul, a communications center, and a station for seismic activity monitoring. Also, important routes to Afghanistan lie through Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan was (and still is) a member of the military bloc of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (set up by former Soviet states) and the Eurasian Economic Community. This means that the Kyrgyz-Chinese state border is a common border for all this Community. The quality of goods that are sold in the countries of the Eurasian Union and delivered to the European Union depends on the level of professionalism of the Kyrgyz customs officers (Tarr, 2016). Thus, small Kyrgyzstan is interesting for both Russia and the United States, and for China and its neighbors in the region, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (Bohr, 2004). The internal political situation in Kyrgyzstan can change the balance of power not only in Central Asia, but throughout Eurasia. External influence can be divided into direct intervention and purposeful nonintervention. Direct intervention is a common feature of color revolutions [see McFaul, 2007; Mitchell, 2012, as well as Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022)]. Scholars and experts have repeatedly noted the role of Western, primarily American, NGOs in the overthrow of Askar Akayev (Korosteleva, 2014; Temirkulov, 2010). Moreover, American and European NGOs openly admit that they are involved in political activities around the world to promote the values of liberal democracy. In fact, proAmerican politicians and activists usually act as a group of influencers. This allows the United States to expand its presence in the post-Soviet area. Before the 2005 revolution, Western organizations in Kyrgyzstan financed opposition media and the training of activists [see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022, in this volume)]. In early 2005, Western NGOs helped set the stage for the revolution by heating up media coverage, criticizing the parliamentary elections and demanding revision of the electoral returns, and supporting street demonstrations. Once protests began, however, their role diminished. NGOs were just one of the many backers of protests. The major mass demonstrations, police confrontations and the seizures of administrative buildings were organized by local nonformal leaders, who were able to mobilize large groups of passionate protesters. The attention of the European Union and the United States to the events in Kyrgyzstan, perhaps, was one of the reasons for President Akayev’s reluctance to suppress the protests more violently. In addition to examining cases of direct and indirect intervention, attention should be paid to examples of non-intervention. For example, Russia was and still is an important partner for Kyrgyzstan as well as an influential force in the entire postSoviet area. Russian President Vladimir Putin traditionally considers the countries

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of the former USSR to be a critical sphere of Russian foreign policy interests. Nevertheless, the Kremlin chose not to interfere in the March Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Firstly, at that time, Russia still maintained partnership and even friendly relations with the leaders of the G8 states. Secondly, Russia had limited opportunities for direct intervention. Russia had no political allies at the governmental and parliamentary levels. There were practically no Russian NGOs in Kyrgyzstan. The only feasible option was sending troops. But that could be perceived negatively not only in Kyrgyzstan itself but also in other countries of the post-Soviet region. Thirdly, the Kremlin expected that after the overthrow of Akayev, Russia would have more opportunities to promote pro-Russian politicians. During the last years of his presidency, Akayev pursued a multi-vector foreign policy, developing relations with the United States, Europe, and China. For instance, Akayev ceded disputed territories to China and permitted the US to use the military airbase at Manas. Moscow was worried about the loss of its positions in Kyrgyzstan because military facilities in the country are strategically important to controlling the whole of Central Asia, including Afghanistan. Finally, Kyrgyzstan’s neighbors Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and China did not actively intervene, since they were not interested in the preservation of Akayev’s regime, but in maintaining stability in the whole region. An overly active policy either by Astana (now it is Nur-Sultan) or Tashkent or Beijing could lead to unpredictable consequences. No one wanted escalation because instability in Central Asia offers opportunities for radical Islamists, which could lead to the spread of terrorists from Afghanistan. As it was a common threat to all, interventions that might exacerbate instability were suspended. China mobilized military forces near its border with Kyrgyzstan to prevent accidents. Kazakhstan expressed its readiness to provide asylum to Akayev and his family. Subsequently, Moscow and Astana became mediators in the negotiations between Akayev and the opposition and guaranteed both sides to comply with signed agreements. This facilitated the peaceful transfer of power to Bakiyev and the normalization of the situation in the country.

3.3 Results of the 1st Revolution. Post-Revolutionary Development of the Kyrgyz Republic The Tulip Revolution resembled in some respects other color revolutions in Yugoslavia in 2000, in Georgia in 2003 and in Ukraine in 2004–2005.4 The first Kyrgyz revolution began at the height of an electoral campaign. Among the organizers of the protests, especially in the early stages, were members of NGOs funded by

4

For a comparison of revolutions and their outcomes in Georgia-2003, Ukraine-2004 and Kyrgyzstan-2005 see Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b) and “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c, in this volume).

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the US and European countries. Among other things, Western NGOs formed a favorable information background for themselves. Long before the street actions, these NGOs disseminated information that discredited Askar Akayev and his entourage. Stylistically, the image of the Tulip Revolution was consonant with the images of the previous revolutions. Supporters of various political forces used colors to distinguish their comrades. In the course of the revolution, it was important to create a “correct” picture, to emphasize the nonviolence of these actions. The meme of the distribution of flowers to police officers had already become a classic, referring to even earlier protests that accompanied the third wave of democratization. However, all of this is more related to the perception of the March Revolution. This image is broadcast by the Western mass media emphasizing the success of the color revolutions technologies. Still, the real preconditions for the revolution dealt with more solid grounds—demographic, social, economic, and political. Western NGOs also helped shatter the political regime. Further, the revolution was made by local clans and criminal groups, who were waiting for the moment to begin their struggle for power and property assets. As a result of the unrest, Askar Akayev, along with his family, was forced to leave Kyrgyzstan and de-facto lost his power. The Kyrgyz establishment is based on personal patron-client ties. The departure of the main patron triggers a rapid disintegration of his personal clientele. Some of the elites were purged, while others quickly reoriented to new leaders. In 2005, adaptable politicians began to seek Bakiyev’s favor. However, some northerners supported Felix Kulov and Roza Otunbayeva. Subsequently, the southern-based Bakiyev clan deposed Kulov and monopolized power in the country.

4 The April (or Melon) Revolution of 2010 In July 2009, presidential elections were again held in Kyrgyzstan. The incumbent president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was declared the victor with 76.12% of the popular vote. The northern businessman, ex-prime minister, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev took second place. His announced return was only 8.41% of the votes cast. Citizens expressed dissatisfaction with the results of the election, as they did not believe in Bakiyev’s landslide victory. Observers from the OSCE Commission stated that the electoral rules and procedures had been violated. By that time, however, Bakiyev had come to control the largest faction in parliament. In addition, Bakiyev’s relatives and friends held high positions in his administration. The opposition was under constant pressure. There was thus no power in Kyrgyzstan’s government able to check and balance the President. So, Bakiyev started his second presidential term. One of his first acts was to raise utility tariffs. This caused electricity and heating prices to rise sharply, causing anxiety among the people. Though Kyrgyzstan has warm summers, it is cold there in winter because of its mountains and cyclones from Siberia. Under the USSR, Kyrgyzstan was provided with fossil fuels for heating from Kazakhstan and

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Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan’s own coal mining industry was developed as well. However, in the post-Soviet period Kyrgyzstan’s energy output did not keep up with growing population and urbanization, and by 2010 the government was running out of money for fuel imports. Mismanagement compounded these difficulties: public officials had exploited the Soviet-era power systems and made few investments in their renovation. Citizens’ utility payments were often embezzled by the corrupt bureaucracy. By 2010 the power system was in poor condition and needed a significant renovation. Bakiyev decided to impose higher utility payments to solve the problem and, perhaps, to get some money for his clientele. The energy policy gave a new agenda to the opposition. People stood against the new tariff policy (Bohr, 2010). Citizens all over the country planned to gather in local conventions to discuss the problem. The date for these conventions was set for April 7th 2010. Suddenly many prominent activists and opposition leaders throughout the country were arrested just a day before the conventions were to begin their work. Almazbek Atambayev was detained, among others. These arrests shifted the socioeconomic course of the conventions to politically driven demonstrations. On April 6, in Talas, in northern Kyrgyzstan, protesters seized an administrative building. To get people out of there, the police clashed with the demonstrators. In other places in the country, the clash was perceived as a signal to seek changes. The next day, thousands of rebels flooded the streets of Bishkek. For a short time, they managed to break into the television center and even get on air on national TV. There were protests in other cities across the country. On the evening of the same day, protesters seized the parliament building and the chief prosecutor’s office. This time, however, the police were tough. Military units joined them to prevent mass disorder. It led to tragedy: the military fired on the protesters, while the latter attempted to storm the government building. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds were injured. It was Zhanybek Bakiyev, the president’s brother and head of the state security service, who ordered the national guard to shoot the protesters. He emphasized that he had meant they should target only street fighters with weapons, but the guard made no such distinctions, and showed no mercy. Kurmanbek Bakiyev himself announced the imposition of a curfew in the capital. But it was too late for the decision. Rather than being intimidated by the shootings of protestors, the populace was enraged. Nothing could stop the protesters and looters, who began to plunder and destroy shops in the center of Bishkek. The stunned and puzzled Bakiyev government resigned. The ministers’ loyalty was superficial. Public officials had rapidly switched their allegiance from Akayev to Bakiyev in 2005. The same now happened with Bakiyev in 2010. Bakiyev crossed the line when his regime oppressed demonstrations forcibly. Many people suffered and died; nobody, including some pro-Bakiyev politicians, wanted to be associated with that cruelty. That night the crowd attacked the police stations and prisons. Many opposition leaders were let out from arrest. Roza Otunbayeva announced an interim government, which she headed. Together with Otunbayeva, Almazbek Atambayev and Omurbek Tekebayev entered the interim government as her deputies. They dissolved the current

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convocation of the Jogorku Kenesh (the parliament) since the parliamentary elections 2007 were also held with violations. Bakiyev was suddenly left without loyal members of parliament. Most of the governors resigned under the pressure of the crowd. President Bakiyev then fled to his stronghold in the south of the country. After a week of turmoil, Bakiyev moved to Kazakhstan, where President Nursultan Nazarbayev offered him asylum. Then Bakiyev turned up in Minsk, Belarus under President Lukashenko’s protection. Regardless of Bakiyev’s claims and assertions, he had no chance to return to Kyrgyzstan. The protests went on. A month later, Roza Otunbayeva was appointed as an interim president until the end of 2010. On June 27, a nationwide referendum was held. The citizens of the country confirmed the authority of Otunbayeva and approved a new constitution for Kyrgyzstan. According to the new constitution, the president has no authority to dissolve the parliament, and a person can only be elected President for one six-year term, without the possibility of extending his/her powers.

4.1 Internal Causes of the 2nd Revolution The first years of Bakiyev’s rule were marked by rapid GDP growth. According to the World Bank, Kyrgyzstan’s GDP grew by 3.1%, 8.5%, and 8.4% in 2006–2008 respectively (World Bank, 2009a). Then in 2009, the country’s GDP grew by only 2.8%—a sharp drop and rather low growth for a developing economy with a fastgrowing population. Of course, this was a consequence of the global financial crisis, but in fact the crisis had just exacerbated the country’s fundamental problems, such as the weakness of the industrial sector and the lack of well-paid jobs within the country. In addition, although under Bakiyev the poverty rate declined from 39.9 to 31.7%, this indicator remained extremely high. Almost every third resident of the country was below the poverty line. At the same time, the rapid growth of the population continued, which increased the burden on the social and communal infrastructure—kindergartens, schools, hospitals, power plants and boiler houses, etc. The outdated infrastructure inherited from USSR was not able to cope with the increased demands from the population. As noted above, Bakiyev’s government had no effective proposals to prevent a looming energy crisis: the higher utility tariffs were increased without any immediate results. Politically, Bakiyev also committed a series of actions that caused discontent among both the citizens and the elites. The Bakiyev family clan as well as the people from their clientele monopolized power in the country (Temirkulov, 2010). The core of the clan was known as the “five Bakiyevs”: Kurmanbek was the president, his brother Zhanysh was the head of the state security service, brother Marat was the ambassador to Germany, one more brother, Akhmat was the “shadow” governor of the Jalal-Abad region, and his son Maxim was the head of the Central Development Agency, in charge of investment and innovation.

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By 2009, Bakiyev had torn up his tacit agreements with other representatives of the original anti-Akayev coalition. After the 2005 revolution, the country was effectively led by a tandem of President Bakiyev and Prime Minister Felix Kulov. Conflicts in relations between the two leaders periodically escalated. In January 2007, the parliament did not approve Kulov as prime minister. Then Kulov announced he was joining the opposition. In April 2007, demonstrations against Bakiyev took place and Kulov was charged with organizing riots. As it became clear later, this was part of the bargaining between Bakiyev and Kulov. In 2008, Kulov was appointed to a minor position, and the criminal charges were dropped. Thereafter, Kulov no longer acted as an opponent of Bakiyev in public. However, Kulov represented clans and people from the north of the country. Many of them did not like Kulov’s displacement from the government. The causes of the second revolution are mostly the same as those that triggered the 2005 protest wave. The Bakiyev regime inherited problems from the previous regime, but the new leader failed to propose effective solutions, and, furthermore, worsened the situation. After the dismantling of Askar Akayev’s regime, the political system in Kyrgyzstan had become rickety. Institutionalization still was low, and personalization was very high. However, no matter how influential Bakiyev and his clan were personally, no clan had the reach across both northern and southern regions to keep control of the entire country by themselves. In 2005, the team of the southern leader Bakiyev as President and the northern leader Kulov as Prime Minister had stabilized the country. That stability was undermined when Kulov was pushed aside. By seeking to monopolize power, the Bakiyev clan cornered themselves while arousing the enmity of other influential leaders and groups. One possible solution was to strengthen government institutions, and to rule through them and not just a personal clientele. Although in Kazakhstan and Belarus charismatic leaders emphasized their personal role in the political system, they, however, dealt with political institutions and built a stable vertical structure of power. In Kyrgyzstan politicians relied on their personal networks, which grow extensively not intensively. People tend to switch their loyalty abruptly in patrimonial clientage states. By remaining such a state, Kyrgyzstan’s politics invited rapid shifts in allegiance and instability. Lastly, I would like to add a few words about why the experience of the Tulip Revolution of 2005 mattered very much for all the actors in the Melon Revolution of 2010. Politicians and regular citizens took their lessons from it. Opposition leaders already knew how to coordinate protesters in various parts of the country, and influential figures among the opposition knew the benefits of working together against a detested ruler. Each of them was ready to unite, at least at the first stage of the revolution, to achieve the main goal—the displacement of the incumbent. Otunbayeva had coordinated the collective actions of the protesters in 2005, and other opposition leaders agreed to see her leading the process in 2010 as well. For comparison, the lack of coordination and internal competition for leadership is a constant problem of the opposition in Russia and most other post-Soviet states. Bakiyev had an example too, in the fate of Akayev. Although initially Bakiyev decided to use forceful methods, he was already preparing to leave the country.

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Bakiyev tried to bargain with the opposition to get some guarantees for himself and his clan. He did so because the opposition insisted on pursuing him for criminal conduct; moreover, Bakiyev’s house in Bishkek was burnt and his native village was besieged. To minimize his risks, Bakiyev followed the lessons of Akayev and prepared to leave Kyrgyzstan with his family. Still, Bakiyev acted in a different way. He took a pause in negotiations and then refused his resignation. Bakiyev insisted he was the legitimate ruler, and kept some influence in the south. As for the protesters, they were bold enough to clash with the police and even military forces. In Kyrgyzstan, demonstrators are usually ready to storm administrative buildings. They have done it before many times. This experience was also gained during the Tulip Revolution. For comparison, during the uprising in Belarus in 2020, protesters were maintaining order in the streets and did not dare to seize government offices. Unlike the Kyrgyz protestors, they had neither experience nor proven courage to risk a bloody scenario. It is generally believed that the March Revolution was peaceful, but chaos and looting began on the night after the culmination at Bishkek central square. In 2010, entrepreneurs and residents were prepared for mass plunder. Businesses along with local inhabitants united into defense groups and helped restore order. Living in chronic chaos, it seems that all the Kyrgyz know what to do during a revolt and how to deal with it. Perhaps, it is a key to understand why the Third revolution, when it arose ten years later, proceeded so rapidly and dashingly.

4.2 External Influences on the 2nd Kyrgyz Revolution The Melon Revolution had an international context as well. Despite its openness, the Kyrgyz economy was weakly integrated into the global financial system (Ruziev & Majidov, 2013). Therefore, the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 did not hit the national economy severely. Nevertheless, the indirect consequences were quite significant for Kyrgyzstan’s well-being. To a large extent, Kyrgyzstan depends on ties with Russia, China, the United States, and Kazakhstan. The main source of money inflows into the country were labor migrants’ remittances and loans issued by foreign partners. In 2008, the share of remittances from abroad was 23.8% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP; in 2009, it fell to 20.9% (World Bank, 2009b). This was a significant decline and enough to account for more than half the fall in the annual growth of GDP, which sank from 8.4% in 2008 to 2.9% in 2009 (World Bank, 2009a). The global recession caused troubles in the Russian economy. Thousands of labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan lost their jobs there. Furthermore, the exchange rate rose from 24 rubles per US dollar to 36 rubles per dollar (Bank of Russia, 2010). Although later the exchange rate stabilized and revolved around 29–30 rubles per US dollar, this fall devalued remittances to Kyrgyzstan by 20% in dollar terms. Thus, the global financial environment was turbulent. In addition, Bakiyev had a difficult relationship with Russia, which had previously provided financial assistance to Kyrgyzstan. Under Akayev, Kyrgyzstan developed

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relations with both the United States and China. But Akayev never openly clashed with Russia and allowed both Russia and the US to maintain military bases. Bakiyev, on the other hand, drifted away from Moscow, prioritizing relations with Washington. The George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations were interested in Kyrgyzstan as a springboard for their military operations in Afghanistan, making the Manas airbase a prominent transport node for support of the Afghan campaign. Since Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, relations between Russia and the United States had become more tense. Despite the attempt by the administrations of Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama to reset bilateral relations, the distrust between Russia and the US deepened. The US military presence in the former-Soviet area worried the Kremlin, and Putin saw the color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine as a pattern of U.S. moves to undercut Russia’s regional hegemony. Bakiyev promised several times to close Manas airbase, but he did not do so. Therefore, by the beginning of the second revolution in Kyrgyzstan, although Russia was interested in maintaining stability in the country, Putin was not interested in keeping Bakiyev in power. During the April Revolution, Russia reacted to the situation more clearly than it did five years earlier, positioning itself to maintain influence by backing the opposition to Bakiyev. President Medvedev sent two military detachments to Kyrgyzstan by personal decree. He explained this by the need to strengthen protection of the Russian air base in Kant. Russia also expressed its readiness to provide financial assistance to the interim government of Otunbayeva. Although the Kremlin did not seek to overthrow Bakiyev, Moscow did not support him and indirectly helped the Otunbayeva-Atambayev government to stay in power after the April Revolution. The US chose not to actively intervene in the situation. Western countries believed that Otunbayeva would be the next president, and that she would maintain the status quo in foreign relationships. Since the 2005 revolution, Roza Otunbayeva had kept good contacts with Western leaders, so they supported her candidacy. Although Bakiyev was considered a pro-Western politician, the United States ignored his desire to fight to hold onto power, and offered no support. As Bakiyev feared criminal prosecution for accusations of shooting protesters in Bishkek, and subsequent international investigation, he chose to hide in Belarus rather than in the West.

4.3 Results of the 2nd Revolution. Post-Revolutionary Development of the Kyrgyz Republic Like the Tulip Revolution, the Melon Revolution of 2010 culminated in the complete dismantling of the regime and the ouster of the ruling clan. Bakiyev and his entourage fled from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan, and then to Belarus and other countries. Nevertheless, the Bakiyevs were popular in the south of the country. Kurmanbek Bakiyev repeatedly tried to influence political processes from his asylum in Minsk. But personal connections and personal contact are important in Kyrgyzstan, and as Bakiyev was in exile, his informal connections were limited.

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However, in May–June 2010, the interim government did not actually fully control the territory of Kyrgyzstan. Many southerners did not recognize the authority of the new Otunbayeva-Atambayev regime. The leaders of the revolution were busy arranging their government at the national level and preparing a constitutional referendum and elections. Meanwhile, conflicts arose at the local level. In the south, ethnic Uzbeks led by Qodirjon Botirov supported the interim government. Botirov hoped that the new government would recognize the official status of the Uzbek language, and create better opportunities Uzbeks to be represented in government bodies. In response, Kyrgyz nationalists rallied against Botirov’s intentions. Deeprooted tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, including memories of a massacre in Osh in 1990, flared up with a vigor. On June 10, ethnic fighting began throughout the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions. They quickly developed into large-scale pogroms. The riots continued for several days. The interim government imposed a state of emergency and a curfew. Only with the help of the army and volunteer detachments was it possible to calm the situation. As the 2010 revolution arose in the context of a global financial crises, ethnic clashes were often related to economic problems rather than political ones. Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan had many small and medium-size businesses that irritated local nationalists, especially those from poor villages. The effect of economic crises on xenophobia has been described by many authors (see, for example, Ghosh, 2011; Voigtländer & Voth, 2012; Coluccello & Kretsos, 2015). Arzuu Sheranova says that after the interethnic clashes in 2010 the government deployed the idea of reconciliation between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek people in the south of the country (Sheranova, 2020). Still, she admits that the project of a multiethnic state failed. Uzbeks living in Kyrgyzstan are still treated badly by the more radical Kyrgyz. For the leaders of post-revolutionary Kyrgyzstan, Roza Otunbayeva and Almazbek Atambayev, it was important to gain the support of the people in the south to minimize Bakiyev’s interference and overcome the consequences of the severe ethnic clashes. For example, Atambayev publicly positioned himself as “the president of all Kyrgyzstan citizens.” Perhaps, that is why the president’s genealogy is vague. Though Atambayev comes from the north, when visiting regions in the south the president hinted that one of his grandfathers belonged to the Ichkilik (Southern) tribal union (Ismailbekova, 2018: 204). Atambayev never explained it fully but it is clear he tried to keep ties with both parts of the country. The revolution gave impetus for considerable institutional changes. The new constitution limited the power of the president and increased the role of parliament. The president no longer had the authority to dissolve parliament. At the same time, representatives of one party cannot hold more than 65% of the seats in Jogorku Kenesh. Kyrgyz pluralism began to be better embodied in the constellation of political parties. In the 2010 parliamentary elections, six parties entered the Jogorku Kenesh. A year before his presidential term expired, Atambayev organized another referendum, which formally strengthened the parliament and government, but in practice created opportunities for Atambayev himself to lead the country in a different status (not as the president). Despite the apparent abuse of power, Atambayev, unlike Bakiyev, focused on institutions. He changed the rules for himself, but while the rules

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were in force, Atambayev followed them. Basically, it was a step forward towards a more balanced system. Under Atambayev, relations with Russia improved. First, an updated constitution, proposed by the anti-Bakiyev coalition, underlined the official status of the Russian language in Kyrgyzstan. Second, Atambayev finally broke the agreement with the United States on the rental of the Manas airbase. Third, under Atambayev, Kyrgyzstan joined the Eurasian Union. Thanks to this, the legal procedures for labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan entering Russia and Kazakhstan have been simplified. Up to 600,000 Kyrgyzstan citizens moved to Russia. Therefore, demographic pressure has decreased and the volume of remittances from Russia has grown. Besides, Moscow and Bishkek returned to negotiations on building several new hydroelectric power plants. The new power plants would help to reduce the country’s electricity shortage and make prices lower for consumers. All these measures mitigated the tough post-revolutionary period. The Melon Revolution was an unexpected event for the post-Soviet states. After the first wave of color revolutions in 2003–2005, political leaders restricted external influences on domestic politics. For example, the regulation of international NGOs has been tightened. Moreover, any mass demonstrations quickly attracted the attention of the authorities. Police got new instructions on how to deal with disorders, as autocrats sought to make sure that threats to the stability of the regime were stopped at the very beginning. However, the 2010 revolution was not like the color revolutions of the first wave. The April uprising was more strongly ethnic and economic in origins rather than simply anti-autocratic, partly due to the long-standing regional rivalries and clan system, and partly due to Kyrgyzstan’s economic weakness and the global economic downturn. For example, subsequently protests affected Belarus in 2010 and Russia in 2011–2012, which were supposed to be strongholds of stability. Kyrgyzstan has numerous preconditions for instability compared to Russia and Belarus. That is why the country is fragile against any shocks to which the system is exposed. Thus, the second and third (and possibly future fourth, fifth and so on) revolutions were predetermined to a large extent.5

5 The Third Revolution: A Pattern or an Accident? The recent history of Kyrgyz revolutions could be described by a frequently mentioned quote “Once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time is a pattern”. The March Revolution continued the wave of color revolutions that swept the post-Soviet countries in the 2000s (Mitchell, 2012; Way, 2008). Some regimes, for example, the 5

So, this is a kind of revolutionary trap. About the falling of some countries in revolutionary traps see Chapters “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) and “Revolutions of the 21st Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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Lukashenko regime in Belarus and the Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan, managed to resist, because these leaders succeeded in building a strong vertically integrated set of institutions to wield power (Hale, 2005). Adding to this, regimes such as Putin’s Russia and Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan sought stability by increasing state capacity and looking for a governance model that satisfied both the regime’s goal of maintaining political control and the people’s demands for prosperity (Melville & Mironyuk, 2016). Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan remained more pluralistic polities where elections could trigger political turmoil. In addition, these countries remained open to foreign organizations taking part in home affairs there. While Western NGOs were not the only driving force behind the protests, their actions and support for local leaders and activists seeking greater democracy provided some of the basic infrastructure to launch these color revolutions. Lessons of the first wave were learnt by post-Soviet leaders who restricted the activity of such international NGOs as well as home-based NGOs financed from abroad (Finkel & Brudny, 2014; Kubicek, 2011; Korosteleva, 2014; Polese & Beachain, 2011). President Bakiyev also decided to cooperate with both Russia and the West to equalize external influence (Marat, 2009; Ya¸sar, 2012). However, Kyrgyzstan had too many problems to solve quickly; therefore, the situation in the country has stayed hung up. The April revolt of 2010 in Kyrgyzstan clearly displayed the factors that explain the permanent tensions in the country and its protest dynamics. In a nutshell, these factors embrace the North–South cleavage, competing clan elites, weak state institutions, poor governance, demographic pressure from excess youth, a weak economy with few opportunities that is dependent on migrant remittances, and a lack of social mobility. The 2020 revolution, on the one hand, complements the big picture of the Kyrgyz revolutions, and, on the other hand, raises new questions. The “Third Revolution”, also known as the October Revolution, exposed the weakness of the Kyrgyz state and its institutions (Sullivan, 2021) and once again showed the strength of the regional clans. Yet it also showed new features. As we have observed earlier, the king of the mountain in Kyrgyzstan is not always the one who wins the elections, but the one who wins the street. Almazbek Atambayev remains the only head of Kyrgyzstan in post-Soviet history who left the presidential office after the expiration of his powers as guaranteed by the country’s constitution, which, however, did not save him from subsequent conflicts with his successor. The October revolution ended Sooronbay Jeenbekov’s presidential term just as the previous revolts ended the rule of his predecessors. Nevertheless, unlike Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Jeenbekov was not forced to leave the country. And furthermore, Sooronbay Jeenbekov has been ensured immunity and the right to take part in politics. One more distinction is that the while the revolutions of 2005 and 2010 went under formal slogans manifesting demands for democratization (though sometimes it was sincere), the revolution of 2020 ended with an increase in public demand for a “strong hand” and an authoritarian form of presidential rule. As in many other parts of the world, by 2020 right-wing populism came to the political scene in Kyrgyzstan. Sadyr Japarov is a bright example of such a pro-nationalist leader who pursues the rhetoric of traditionalism. Japarov returned to the political

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struggle at a time when the domestic economy was weakened by the coronavirus crisis, and remittances from labor migrants were reduced due to similar problems in the economies of Russia and Turkey. Moreover, the income of labor migrants in dollar terms also declined due to the depreciation of the Russian ruble (Bank of Russia, 2020) and the Turkish lira. Japarov promised to nationalize large enterprises, especially gold mining companies (Sullivan, 2021), and to create new jobs in the country to get migrants back (Al Jazeera, 2020). Japarov became a leader of Kyrgyz from the north, while people in the south remembered that he took part in 2010 in clashes either heading the anti-Uzbek movement or trying to stop hostilities. Japarov’s rightwing positioning not only ignites inter-ethnic issues within Kyrgyzstan, but could worsen state relations with neighbouring states—Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

5.1 Internal Causes of the 3rd Revolution Of course, the 2020 revolution was to a considerable degree a product of the Covid19 pandemic. The coronavirus crisis has once again shown the weakness of the Kyrgyz state and its low state capacity. Quarantine, the closure of small- and mediumsized businesses, and general economic stagnation caused discontent among citizens almost from the very beginning of the pandemic. President Jeenbekov dismissed Prime Minister Mukhammetkalyy Abylgaziyev, blaming him for failures in the fight against the spread of Covid-19 and corruption scandals. This happened in mid-June. Political managers often refer to the summer as the “off-season” because attention to political processes is less than usual. But Jeenbekov took into account the October elections to the national parliament, so the decision to change the prime minister looked like an attempt to find a scapegoat and throw off the anti-rating ballast before the start of the election campaign. The new head of the Cabinet of Ministers was Kubatbek Boronov, who by that time had already headed the republican headquarters to combat the spread of Covid19, which means that for some time he could inspire citizens with confidence that the state was doing everything possible to help its people. Earlier, Boronov headed the Ministry of Emergency Situations for more than six years. In post-Soviet countries, the heads of this department often have high approval ratings if they manage to position themselves as a disaster liquidator. When Jeenbekov became president, he appointed Boronov first deputy prime minister, bringing a popular politician to his team. Moreover, Boronov comes from the Osh region. Consequently, Jeenbekov increased the representation of the southern clans in the government, while simultaneously enhancing his own apparatus “weight”. As in previous cases, the results of elections—in this case the 2020 parliamentary elections—were a pretext for mass protests. In 2017, after Atambayev had supported the presidential election of his prime minister, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, the influence of Atambayev’s clan waned while that of Jeenbekov became triumphant. To complete the picture, the new president lacked only his own strong and loyal coalition in parliament. Jeenbekov’s team prepared thoroughly for the October parliamentary elections.

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Although 61 seat in the Jogorku Kenesh would allow Jeenbekov to obtain the parliamentary majority, significant decisions, for example, to express no-confidence in the government, amend the Constitution, or overcome the presidential veto, required two-thirds of the parliamentary votes (i.e., 80 out of 120). Since, according to the current law, no party could get more than 65 seats out of 120, Jeenbekov and the pro-presidential party also needed to ally their forces. Jeenbekov used various means to ensure a high return for the pro-presidential party and for allied parties. Using his political resources, Jeenbekov established the rules of the game, under which numerous opposition forces lost their chances to enter the national parliament. First, a 7% threshold was set. Such a limitation immediately cut off numerous small parties. This is one of the highest thresholds in the world. In most European countries, this level ranges from 3 to 5%. A similar electoral threshold was set in neighboring Kazakhstan, but in Russia, after increasing to 7% in 2007, the bar was lowered to 5% by 2016. In addition, in Kyrgyzstan parties need to gain at least 0.7% of the vote in each of the 9 regions of the country, including the two largest cities of Bishkek and Osh. Second, in order to vote, citizens had to go through biometric registration. But about half a million eligible voters of the country, for various reasons, could not do this. Thus, 12% of all voters were deprived of the right to vote. Taken together, these votes would be enough to form the third most mandated faction in the new parliament. Third, the organization of polling stations abroad was sabotaged. In Russia, only 11 of them were opened, which is clearly not enough for the diaspora of many tens of thousands. It can be assumed that the Kyrgyz authorities were afraid of a protest vote: labor and education migrants are those who could not find decent work and opportunities in their homeland, that is, potentially disgruntled voters. In addition, it is more difficult to use the so-called administrative resource (e.g., forcing public employees to support a party or a candidate) in foreign states, since the diasporas are less dependent on the parent state. Fourth, and most notably, the pro-government parties almost openly bought votes and used the administrative resource. Considerable funds by the standards of Kyrgyzstan were spent on the election campaign. Prices ranged from 1–2 thousand soms (national currency) per vote, which is approximately equal to 12–24 U.S. dollars. Technically, all of the above measures worked. The Central Electoral Committee announced that four parties were going to be in the new parliament, and not six, as in the previous assembly. Among them only one represented the opposition— “Butun Kyrgyzstan” (“United Kyrgyzstan”). That party got 13 seats out of 120. The remaining seats were shared by three pro-presidential parties, including the “Birimdik” (“Unity”) party, which is controlled by Asylbek Jeenbekov, the president’s brother, and “Mekenim Kyrgyzstan” (“Kyrgyzstan is My Homeland”), associated with the influential Matraimov family, accused of corruption and the laundering of millions of dollars. Moreover, most of the seats went to representatives of the south

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of the country. Coupled with the strengthening of the Jeenbekov clan, natives of the Osh region, this meant a devastating defeat for the northern clans. This outcome greatly upset the numerous opposition (overall 16 parties were allowed to participate in the elections), which felt defrauded out of any role in the parliament. The very next day after completion of the voting, protesters began to gather in the center of Bishkek. Gradually, people from the surrounding settlements and neighboring regions joined them. Attempts to besiege administrative buildings led to clashes between protesters and police. This eventually caused riots in the capital city (Jones & Heinrich, 2020). During the seizure of the office of the State Committee for National Security, former president Almazbek Atambayev (who had been arrested for his criticism of President Jeenbekov over corruption) and Sadyr Japarov, Bakiyev’s ex-adviser, were freed. Japarov quickly headed the protest (BBC, 2020). A coordinating council formed by six opposition parties proclaimed Japarov prime minister, seeking his legitimacy. Jeenbekov’s position was weakening dramatically. The demands for the president’s resignation were getting louder and tougher. Jeenbekov himself refused to use force to suppress the protests but introduced a state of emergency in Bishkek. Jeenbekov did not recognize Japarov’s new status. But after several unsuccessful attempts, Japarov managed to achieve the approval of the reshuffled cabinet, and to officially become prime minister. The next day Jeenbekov resigned from his presidency. According to the law, the speaker of the parliament, Kanatbek Isaev, was supposed to take the presidential office for some time. However, he refused, transferring this right to Japarov. The meteoric rise of Japarov is the revanche of Kyrgyz from the north of the country. Japarov initially announced a possible revision of the sentence given to Almazbek Atambayev and the need to investigate the crimes of the southern criminal clan of the Matraimovs. Omurbek Babanov was interested in weakening the southerners too. Babanov used to be the leader of the “Respublika” party and fought with Jeenbekov for the presidency in 2017. Babanov is an experienced politician and among the richest people in Kyrgyzstan. Compared to them, Japarov has only his initiative and popularity, which will inevitably decline over time. So he needs powerful allies to run the country. Thus, negotiations and behind-the-scenes agreements were indispensable. Jeenbekov kept his political chances alive as well. Unlike Akayev and Bakiyev, he managed to retreat with no huge political losses and retained the opportunity to return to national politics. By virtue of his resignation, Jeenbekov became quite popular in the south and had presidential experience. Japarov understood this well and rather than enter a ruinous fight, guaranteed immunity to Jeenbekov as the expresident. This can be regarded as a step towards cutting a deal with the moderate southern clans. Japarov wants to be the leader of a united Kyrgyzstan, and not just the leader from the northern part of the country.

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5.2 External Influences on the 3rd Kyrgyz Revolution Although every major electoral campaign in Kyrgyzstan can lead to massive protests, no one expected another revolution in October 2020. Jeenbekov had won election cleanly in 2017, and subsequently defeated Atambayev’s post-election attempts to curtail his power. He thus controlled domestic politics in the country. Shortly before his election, Jeenbekov visited Russia, where he met with Vladimir Putin. He promised the Russian President he would improve cooperation between their two countries and support the Eurasian Union. Putin then approved Jeenbekov’s nomination. In general, Jeenbekov had stable relations with all the key foreign counterparties with interests in Kyrgyzstan—the United States, Russia, China, and Turkey, which strengthened its positions in Central Asia in 2010s. However, the global coronavirus pandemic forced the leaders of major powers in the international arena to pay more attention to home affairs. China was at the epicenter of the epidemic. In 2020 the main goal of the country’s leadership was to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus and quickly restore the economy. In the United States, a heated presidential race was approaching. In Germany, Angela Merkel announced that she would not run for another term. Therefore, the German establishment was preoccupied with the search for a successor as chancellor. Russia has also been engaged in the fight against the spread of the COVID-19. While Russia always takes care about its “Near Abroad”, in 2020 Moscow had multiple other preoccupations in foreign affairs. While its engagement in the civil war in Syria was winding down, Moscow was still engaged in eastern Ukraine. Putin was giving much attention to massive demonstrations in Belarus, where the Kremlin decided to firmly support its ally Aleksandr Lukashenko. One more challenge was the resumption of the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Russia played a critical role both as supporter of Armenia and as peacekeeper. Turkey played a significant role in Nagorno-Karabakh too, though in support of Azerbaijan. Thus, the elections in Kyrgyzstan remained on the periphery of the attention of the world and regional powers. After the mass demonstrations had begun in Bishkek, the representatives of Russia, China and the United States just formally expressed their official desire for peace and stability. Russia did some verbal interventions as well, reminding Jeenbekov that under treaty obligations with Kyrgyzstan, as a member of the CSTO and SCO, Russia has the right to introduce peacekeepers in the event of a large-scale civil conflict in the country. Russia also temporarily suspended financial assistance to Kyrgyzstan, putting pressure on the government to quickly find a solution to stop the protests. The Kremlin is generally suspicious of politicians who come to power through street demonstrations. Moscow had a difficult relationship with both Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. We mentioned earlier Putin’s difficult negotiations with President Bakiyev. Still, as before, Russia did not switch to real intervention in the internal affairs of Kyrgyzstan during the

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revolution. Overall, Russia’s first priority is maintaining the stability of Kyrgyzstan. The second priority is keeping Bishkek in Moscow’s orbit. If newly risen President Japarov strengthens his position within the country, his loyalty is important for Russia. In this case, Japarov would likely receive the necessary recognition of the Kremlin, like the previous leaders of Kyrgyzstan, including Bakiyev.

6 Political Dynamics in Kyrgyzstan: A Comparative Perspective Kyrgyzstan is one of the most dynamic political systems both in post-Soviet Central Asia and among all other republics of the former USSR. In its more than 29 years of independence, Kyrgyzstan has held 8 presidential and 7 parliamentary election campaigns, as well as 10 national referendums. For comparison, in Uzbekistan, the comparable numbers are 6, 6 and 3; in Kazakhstan 6, 8 and 2; in Tajikistan 6, 6 and 4; and in Turkmenistan 4, 6 and 2, respectively. As a result, five heads of state have already been replaced in Kyrgyzstan, not including the interim presidential term of Roza Otunbayeva, while only two presidents have held office in both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. At the same time, in Tashkent and Ashgabat, the change of leader took place not due to a systemic rotation of the elites, but because of the sudden death of the incumbent president. In Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon has been the country’s only president since the end of the civil war in 1997. This stands in great contrast to what we have called the “revolutionary states” in the post-Soviet space: during the same period, six presidents have changed in Ukraine, and five took the office in Georgia, not counting two short periods when Nino Burjanadze wielded the head of state duties as an opposition leader. In addition, since 2005, there have been three true revolutionary changes of power in Kyrgyzstan; and in the one peaceful transfer of power, a tough confrontation ensued between the retired Almazbek Atambayev and his successor as president Sooronbai Jeenbekov. Although in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the transfer of power from Islam Karimov to Shavkat Mirziyoyev and from Saparmurat Niyazov to Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, respectively, provoked an exacerbation of intra-elite conflicts, this did not entail mass riots since the very structure of these regimes did not imply the projection of elite splits on society. Nor do the political institutions and elite tactics of these countries facilitate antagonistic mobilization of citizens for political purposes. In terms of the total number of plebiscites, the intensity of ruling elite rotation and the scale of protest activity, Kyrgyzstan is similar to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, which belong to unstable hybrid regimes. These cases clearly illustrate the division between closed and stable personalist regimes and competitive oligarchies (here oligarchy is used in its original meaning “the power of few”).

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Thus, the very social and political-economic structure of Kyrgyzstan forms a competitive and at the same time extremely unstable system, with harsh competition among clans for the relatively meagre resources available in the Kyrgyz economy. On the one hand, elections create an institutional platform for open competition. On the other hand, electoral competition can develop into street clashes and end in a crisis. Stabilization of Kyrgyzstan is possible via two potential paths. The democratic path implies the strengthening of state and political institutions and the formation of parties that would represent the interests of local informal groups of influence. This scenario is being implemented in Ukraine and Moldova. The authoritarian option includes the rise of one leader or one group, which, using populist and/or coercive methods, liquidates rival groups. This partly happened in Georgia during the last years of Saakashvili’s rule. At this writing, Kyrgyzstan seems, under President Japarov, more likely to follow the latter path.

7 Conclusion For almost 30 years of independence, Kyrgyzstan has become a “country of three revolutions”. While many other post-Soviet countries have had revolutions (Georgia and Ukraine have had even two each), Kyrgyzstan is unique in the frequency of its political upheavals. The 2005 revolution is supposed to be among the typical color revolutions, although in fact the nature of that uprising was not a simple quest for democracy; the “color” technologies (Beissinger, 2006; McFaul, 2007; Wilson, 2006) were superimposed on internal socio-political divisions of region and clan that left lasting cleavages (Ivanov & Isayev, 2019; Lewis, 2008). The first revolution ignited the social base of protest and especially the youth which is a significant factor for mass mobilization (Romanov et al., 2021). This demographic cohort has grown considerably since the collapse of the USSR among all Central Asia republics, but Kyrgyzstan was the only place where this demographic boom was combined with quasi-democratic home politics. Youth frustrations with scarce opportunities for economic and social advance fomented protests led by local leaders who were eager to benefit from overturning president Akayev. The president himself was not ready to oppress the protesters forcibly. Also, he could not count on Russia’s interference then as President Lukashenko did in Belarus in 2006 and 2020 (Ambrosio, 2006). Eventually Askar Akayev decided to leave the country and then resigned. Askar Akayev’s regime was not a consolidated personalist autocracy. In fact, Kyrgyzstan under Akayev was a competitive oligarchy, in which regional clans and criminal groups controlled large spheres. Despite the multiple revolutions, this social framework has not changed, keeping the fertile environment for chronic political instability. Under such a regime, the personal role of an autocrat may periodically increase, as it did under Bakiyev’s rule or as it might happen under current President

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Japarov. Nevertheless, a strengthening of personalism is usually followed by a reaction from the side of local informal leaders who are able to mobilize their supporters and take them to the streets. The main feature of regimes exhibiting this type of competitive oligarchy is that no single force can monopolize power and consolidate it. The various clan and regional forces seek to keep political institutions weak, so that they can use their resources to seek gains. In this country, like in other post-Soviet states, personalities play an important role. For example, parties are not built around shared ideas and goals, but around their leaders. Loyalty is expressed not to abstract institutions, but to concrete people. Therefore, neither the parliament, nor the police, nor the Central Electoral Committee nor any other institutions defend the rule of law as such, but promote the interests of their patrons. The 2010 revolution was a tough and bloody sequel to the first revolution. Despite several protestors being injured and killed, the Tulip Revolution was characterized by a much lower level of violence than the April Revolution. In the latter, not only were the clashes and rioting in Bishkek more violent, following the overthrow of the Bakiyev family there were hostile clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the south of the country. The 2010 revolution followed because the Bakiyev regime failed to solve the problems of Akayev’s Kyrgyzstan. First of all, this concerned the weak state institutions, the high levels of tribalism, nepotism, corruption, growing poverty under pressure of population increase, and Bakiyev’s self-defeating escalation of energy tariffs (Cherniavskiy, 2010; Temirkulov, 2010; Wooden, 2014). The trend towards strengthening Bakiyev’s personal power can be added to that. The April Revolution was exacerbated by the global financial and economic crisis. The crisis led to a reduction in remittances from labor migrants who left the Kyrgyz Republic for Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey (Ruziev & Mjidov, 2013). All in all, people were totally disappointed with Bakiyev’s clan, but they still believed that democracy and power-sharing could be an effective solution. After the second revolution, Kyrgyz local leaders finally realized that politics in the country is born in the “street”. Powerful clans do politics if they can mobilize their proponents in the streets and squares. The very principles of “street democracy”, not a state constitution and law, are determining the rules of the game for the next decade: in case a new president abuses his power, a protest begins almost immediately. Perhaps an understanding of this laid the foundation for a stable presidency of Atambayev, who was able to complete his full term peacefully. The 2020 revolution was the result of previous uprisings. After the March and April revolutions, state and legal institutions have still not been strengthened (Sullivan, 2021). The political elites are split. The schisms are based not on differences in political and ideological views, but on tribalism and clan-based attitudes. Each change of power resulted in the rising of a powerful clan. Because of this, ordinary citizens became disillusioned with the ideas of liberal democracy. This sentiment has been exacerbated during the coronavirus pandemic and the associated economic downturn. After decades of turmoil, the Kyrgyz people were looking for a “strong hand” that could bring order and justice (do not mess it with the law, accountability, and transparency) to the country. The rising wave of such a public demand

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made Sadyr Japarov a leader of the “Third revolution,” and then the new president. Japarov faces a number of extremely difficult challenges. If he fails to cope with them, it is possible that Kyrgyzstan will go down in history as a country of four (or more) revolutions. Acknowledgements This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the HSE University in 2021.

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Yevgeny Ivanov is a Research Fellow and Instructor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks of the HSE University, Moscow. His main academic interests are postSoviet affairs, Eurasian studies, Russian studies, Russian and post-Soviet elites, color revolutions, Central Asia, and the North Caucasus.

‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the days that Followed Mark Tkachuk, Alexei Romanchuk, and Iulia Timotin

1 Contrary to the Scenario: On the ‘Twitter Revolution’ Concept What happened in Chisinau on 7 April 2009 was to be qualified—a few days later— as a new protest phenomenon labeled the “Twitter revolution” (Morozov, 2009; Mungiu-Pippidi & Munteanu, 2009). Observers said another technological height in the engineering of mass unrests was cleared then in Moldova’s capital, to be reproduced shortly thereafter in the ‘Arab spring’ and in Kiev’s Maidan revolution.1 Individual mobilization was spurred by personal texting to mobile telephones newly connected to social networks; this was paired with online-broadcasting of the events on TV and the Internet. All these technologies promised a new mode of mobilization for revolution.

M. Tkachuk · I. Timotin High Anthropological School University, Chis, in˘au, Republic of Moldova A. Romanchuk (B) Cultural Heritage Institute of Moldova Academy of Sciences, Chis, in˘au, Republic of Moldova 1

About the Ukrainian revolution see Chapters “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022) and “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b). About the Arab Spring see Chapters “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022), “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume); Korotayev and Khokhlova (2022). About the role of new informational technologies in revolutions see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022a, in this volume). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_21

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Nevertheless, we believe that something else makes those events in Chisinau different from other “color revolutions”.2 As it turned out later, the role of Twitter and other social networks, and of the personal gadgets of the new generation, were much overestimated by some experts. Many, perhaps, wished to invest those events with elements of innovativeness, post factum, especially if set against the devastated presidential office and burnt down and plundered parliament building that television coverage showed in the background. A German periodical, Frankfurter Rundschau, however, immediately labelled those events a ‘pebble revolution’ (‘pebbles’ meaning flagstones: some still unknown persons supplied these flagstones to the protesters, who used them to throw at the stolid policemen [students of the Police Academy, most of them, rather than special task forces or anti-riot squads]). What is more interesting is the thesis a few experts advanced immediately about a ‘wildcat, spontaneous, unorganized revolution’ that took place. That it was incorrect became obvious almost immediately, when after the devastation of the parliament and the presidential office, all opposition leaders and organizers of the protests unanimously shunned any responsibility for the events, and started talking of some ‘instigators’ (indeed: there was someone to supply the flagstones; on the other hand, a majority of students were brought to the central square of Chisinau on April 7 in an organized way, in groups headed by their teachers, on direct orders from the rectors of Chisinau universities, most of them supporting the opposition). Nevertheless, this thesis, paradoxical as it is, is still alive today and peacefully coexists with the ‘instigators who organized the pogrom’. Yet, what gave this story an extraordinary color was the fact that the protesters in Chisinau were not overturning a ‘post-Soviet regime’, or a ‘quasi-dictatorship’, which was painted with the common post-Soviet caricature features from both Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004. The explosive protest of the opposition was targeted against the power of the political party which, although openly calling itself communist, enjoyed the full support of the Western democracies, and proclaimed—and what is more, followed—a rather steady course towards the European integration of Moldova. On the 5th of April 2009, this party won its third election, having received a majority of 60 seats out of 101. All international observers, again, recognized the democratic character of this vote. For example, here are several typical assessments of the elections, whose outcome was declared the following day, at noon of April 6th: Petros Efthymiou, the head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation and special coordinator of the short-term OSCE observation mission said “… The elections were very good and made me confident of this country’s future”. 2

About the general causes of the color revolutions see Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) and “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022, in this volume). For an analysis of color revolutions in various countries see Chapters “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022), “Color Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022), “Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine” (Shevsky, 2022) and “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b, in this volume).

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David Wilshire, head of the delegation of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly also congratulated “the Moldovan citizens for a calm and democratic day of elections”. Marianne Mikko, head of the delegation of the European Parliament, noted some improvements compared to the parliamentary elections in 2005. Nikolai Vulchanov, head of the long-term OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission, said that the overall evaluation of the parliamentary election in Moldova by the international observers was positive (OBSE, 2009; Vybory, 2009). And then we see a break in the well-known textbook scenario. Contrary to the well-studied experience of ‘velvet’, color, ‘orange’ revolutions, this time it was highly positive, rather than negative evaluation of the election results by international observers that served as a pretext to attack the authorities. Later the same day, 6 April 2009, a few hours after declarations by international observers, several thousand people gathered at the presidential office and blocked traffic in the center of the city. The main claim of the protesters was “The vote was stolen!”. The same day, one of the leaders made his program statement: “We do not need this Parliament, we do not need a President. We have them in Bucharest!”. The following day Moldova had to witness the events which divided the history of this country in the twenty-first century into two dissimilar periods. While hereinafter we use the term ‘Twitter revolution’ to label these events, we do it simply out of the need to use a short and convenient tag, nothing more. We have already marked that this was not a ‘Twitter’ revolution, in fact (see also: Hill & Kramer, 2009). Equally, we have already tried to demonstrate that it was an atypical revolution, to say the least. So, what happened on 7 April 2009, in Moldova? And why did it happen? In the text that follows we will try to set forth the facts and our assessments from which, hopefully, our readers will obtain answers. We shall begin with an overview of the main context of the events and introduce their main participants: political leaders, parties, and social groups.

2 April 7, 2009, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova: What Really Happened? It seems that April 7 is an unfortunate date for Moldova. The infamous “Chisinau pogrom” of 1903 also happened on this date. Now, the protests of the ‘pro-European’ opposition grew into pogroms and outrages on 7 April 2009 too, during which the presidential office and the parliament building were set on fire and ruined. This was a big shock for Moldova and predated the loss of power by the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and brought victory to the so called pro-European parties in the repeat elections held in July of the same year. We use here the phrase ‘so called’ and put ‘pro-European parties’ in inverted commas for the reasons we explained earlier rather clearly (see more details in:

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Romanchuk, 2015b; Tkachuk, 2015; Romanchuk, 2015a). But we will come back to them in the subsequent sections of this chapter. Hence, the countdown to the 7 April events, in fact, must start from this remarkable fact, noted by numerous experts: the opposition to the PCRM governing party had reserved the central square of Chisinau for its demonstrations long before the elections of 5 April, 2009 and proclaimed the vote ‘dishonest’, fake and, therefore, illegal long before the ballot day. The protests on 6 April gathered, by various assessments, upwards of two thousand people or more: some participants estimated 10 and even 15 thousand, which seems to be a very big exaggeration. How many of these were invited to join via Twitter and other social networks—this question is still open. We can assume that this number was not big—about 300 to 400 people. In any case, as the journalist Natalia Morari (who proclaimed herself one of the organizers of the protests) said, in their application to the local authorities asking for permission for a public gathering, they limited the number of participants to fifty persons (Morar, 2009). The protests on 6 April lasted until 21:00 and ended relatively peacefully. Their participants shouted slogans against the PCRM: “Down with the communists!”, “Better dead than a communist!” and so on. On the same day, Vlad Filat—leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPM), which was then a leading opposition party—called a press-conference to state that his party did not recognize the voting results and intended to start mass street protests together with other opposition parties, with the Liberal Party (leaders: Mihai Ghimpu and his nephew Dorin Chirtoaca—mayor of Chisinau then and so far) and the Alliance “Our Moldova” (its leader—ex-mayor of Chisinau Serafim Urecheanu). Consequently, on the following day, 7 April, more than ten thousand people gathered on Chisinau’s central square. These protests grew into mass unrest and riots, leading to devastation of the presidential office and parliament building, and to waving of Romania’s flags on them. The protesters shouted Romanian unionist slogans (e.g., “We are Romanians”, “We do not need this Parliament, we do not need a President. We have them in Bucharest!”, etc.). An important note about that situation was that the police did not undertake any active measures to stop the rioters, instead remaining a sitting target for the flagstones; policemen were the main victims during the day. Only late at night on 7 April, after the majority of protesters had retreated from the square, did the Interior Ministry deploy its special forces there, who dispersed the remaining protesters and detained over a hundred people (as affirmed later by the leaders of the opposition; among these, the police also detained random people). This inactivity of police during the day was later explained by the representatives of the PCRM and personally by V. Voronin: the authorities did not wish to cause any bloodshed. They did not want any victims among children (indeed, the overwhelming majority of protesters were adolescents—students and even schoolchildren). In fact, they suspected that the main goal pursued by the organizers of these riots was to force the authorities into violent actions towards the protesters, to ‘stain’ the authorities with blood. The scenario of ‘color revolutions’, indeed, prescribes this strategy, so

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the Communist party’s fears were rather substantiated. And this nonviolent tactic pursued on the day of 7 April was a significant improvement to the PCRM’s image. In the evening, however, the police did respond more forcefully to the protesters and at least one person died (Valeriu Boboc; though later, the police claimed they were not responsible for his death). The detainees (small fry, most of them) were subjected to severe beatings at the police stations, a fact that stirred very negative reactions both in the country and abroad. The improvement to its image achieved by the PCRM on the day of 7 April was thus dramatically undermined, if not reversed altogether. Sometime later, under insistent recommendations by some of his advisors and under strong external political pressure, V. Voronin pardoned all detainees. The events on 7 April paved the way for the loss of power by the PCRM and began a long-lasting political crisis in the country, which is still continuing as of early 2022. Under these circumstances, the PCRM was forced to organize repeat elections for July. It hoped—not without reason—to repeat its April success, or maybe even beat it. In May, however, the Communists witnessed a new divide inside the party; Marian Lupu, one of the biggest and most popular PCRM leaders (many believed him to be Voronin’s successor) dropped his former comrades to head the then seemingly unimportant Democratic Party (DPM). As became known later, this scheme involving the DPM was backed by a Moldovan oligarch who had been close to Voronin before and who had a very disreputable reputation—Vladimir Plahotniuc. He was to become the real boss of the DPM and of M. Lupu himself. By positioning the DPM as ‘the correct version’ of the PCRM and offering to the voters, in fact, the same platform, the party divided the PCRM’s supporters and drew a significant share of its votes. This marked the beginning of the PCRM’s fall, which lasted for several years. The DPM promised its voters it would strike a coalition with the PCRM, but quite unexpectedly, by December 2009, the DPM had joined the coalition of the socalled ‘pro-European’ parties (LDPM, LP and ‘Our Moldova’ Alliance, listed in the order of their relevance). Together, they built the so-called “Alliance for European Integration” (AEI), which, under changing names and with different (to some degree) compositions, enjoyed exclusive support from the USA and the EU, and governed Moldova during the last eight years. This unconditional support for the AEI by the Western countries (despite its numerous infringements of the law, even the Moldovan Constitution, and despite its utmost corruption) has become the key reason this coalition has remained in power ever since 2010 (for more details: Romanchuk, 2015b; Tkachuk, 2015). In fact, this is what happened on 7 April 2009 and on the days that followed. But why ? Let us discuss this below.

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3 Moldova and Its “New Phanariot” Political Elite: A Few Words of Introduction If one wants to understand well the events of 7 April 2009, one should start from their background. In no small measure, we must consider the process of formation of a political elite in post-Soviet Moldova, which can be called the ‘new Phanariot elite’ (Tkachuk, 2015)—similar to the phenomenon of the earlier (17th—eighteenth centuries) period in the history of the Moldavian Principality, known as the ‘Phanariot regime’.3 When we talk about a ‘new Phanariot’ political elite of the modern Republic of Moldova, we mean, first of all, one of its most essential features—an exclusive focus on foreign political forces. In a certain sense, this ‘new Phanariot’ political elite could also be called a ‘comprador elite’. Without going into details here, however, we see a significant difference between these two terms. By the time of proclamation of its independence, Moldova had come to differ from other ex-Soviet republics, for the restoration syndrome took here a very unexpected form. It was the only republic to proclaim its independence from the USSR as temporary, as a transitory state towards its ultimate unification with the neighboring country of Romania.4 At the same time, the new elite found its moral and political inspiration in the most controversial interbellum period of Romanian history, when Bessarabia (i.e. the modern Republic of Moldova, Cernauti and south-western part of Odessa oblast of Ukraine) was part of Romania. This time of so-called “glorious national unity”, during the interval from June 1941 to August 1944, was marked not only by Romania’s loyal partnership with the Reich, but also by the holocaust unleashed by the dictator Ion Antonescu in Moldova, which cost about 250,000 lives. 3

Phanariots were members of prominent Greek families in Phanar, the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, who traditionally occupied some important positions in the Ottoman Empire including the Moldavian Principality. In the Balkan territories the term Phanariots is used in negative connotations as a “comprador elite” and to suggest a collaboration with the Turks in the period of the Ottomans’ rule. 4 It is worth noting here that the common western media narrative: “The Moldovan Soviet republic, which gained independence in 1991, was carved out of pre-war Romania in 1940, because of the Hitler-Stalin pact” is only a partial truth. For its authors and supporters forget to mention that in 1918, Moldova was annexed by Romania from Russia, which was not accepted and recognized by the latter (and by a majority of the local population). Russia itself seized these lands in 1812 from the Ottoman Empire, which then (as well as during the previous three hundred years) had possessed the Moldovan Principality and many territories between the Prut and the Dniester (the so called rayat—Bender, Akkerman, Hotin). The Romanian state was to emerge in the second half of the nineteenth century, having gained its independence after series of Russian-Turkish wars. Finally, Moldova’s joining the USSR was legitimized by peaceful treaties after World War II,—in the Paris Treaty of 1947, Moreover, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ceased to be effective on 22 June 1941. We think that one must not be selective, in telling the truth. Attempts to quote only some part of the truth, ultimately, are nothing but a lie.

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We should note that this choice of the contemporary Moldovan elite was largely predetermined by its composition. Paradoxically (or in a predictable manner?), the overwhelming majority of them were neither dissidents, nor some intellectual Soviet Frondeurs; rather, it was formed by the former party and Soviet top officials and most loyal pro-Soviet groups of the academic and creative intelligentsia. Until the late 1980s, they had been the most active ‘hardcore’ public employees who had been a voluntary shield against any ‘undermining’ influences from Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania. We should recall, though, that from the late 1960s, the ideology of Ceausescu’s regime had already been reviving many ideas from its interbellum legacy, such as xenophobia, violation of the rights of ethnic minorities – Hungarians, Germans, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Jews, as well as quite explicit territorial claims on Bessarabia [about the problems in Romania and the 1989 revolution see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022)]. Therefore, this newly gained independence was perceived (or, at least, proclaimed) as a temporary and not long-lasting state. At the same time, the statehood of Moldova was regarded as a tool to manage this transformation; consequently, the objectives of the state did not lie in the economic or foreign field, but rather in the cultural and national and symbolic unification of Moldova and Romania. Consequently, altogether this shaped a special standard of selection and mobilization of staff into the new system of political power, which focused on special courtesies from the new metropole, rather than on the issues of internal legitimacy. Practical effects of this policy were to be seen quite soon. The entire symbolic landscape of Moldova had to be rewritten—from adoption of the Romanian anthem, as well as the national flag—distinguished from the Romanian ones by some minor details, to changing the name of the dominant ethnic group and its language. This symbolic overthrow had occupied the entire Moldovan territory of Romanian Bessarabia within its 1918–1940 borders, but led to a bloody conflict at the first attempt to cross the Dniester, i.e., to incorporate that part of Moldova which, except in 1941–1945, had never been part of the Romanian Kingdom. The armed phase of the 1992 conflict, which lasted a few months and cost over 1,000 lives, brought the long coexistence of two Moldovas—the Republic of Moldova and the unrecognized Transnistrian Moldovan Republic. That moment, in fact, marked the real transition of the independent Moldova into the modern history. And to the birth of a two-faced, or rather, multi-faced Moldovan trickster: an endless row of institutional and ideological forms of political camouflage, geopolitical mimicry, and multiple identities.5 Just a mere listing of certain facts can confuse the most experienced analyst. For example, the pro-Romanian Republic of Moldova from the time of its establishment has legally had Moldovan as the national language, whereas the Russian language serves for interethnic communication. Whatever the radical changes of power during the last 26 years, this status had never changed. Thus, sessions of the Parliament run with the help of simultaneous interpretation from Russian into Moldovan and vice versa. All official documents are published in two languages. The new Constitution 5

‘Moldova as a trickster country’, for more details see Tkachuk (2015: 146–160).

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came into force in 1994 and bears no traces of the first declaration of independence, which presented the emergence of Moldova as an act of historical justice, overcoming the consequences of Molotov-Ribbentrop’s Pact, i.e., the transfer of Bessarabia from Romania to the USSR. The fact that there are more Russian speakers in Chisinau than on the whole territory of Transnistria is another discovery. This becomes even more overwhelming when you realize that the Russian-speaking media in Moldova are still more numerous and popular than the Moldovan, and that in most movie theatres movies are screened in Russian, and even the ads are predominantly in Russian. At the same time, two censuses—in 2003 and 2014—show another quite remarkable circumstance. The number of Moldovan citizens who believe themselves Romanian is a peculiar minority, hardly more than 7%. Nonetheless, although the Law on the State Language and the Constitution of 1994 identify Moldovan, not Romanian, as the national language, it is still called Romanian across the whole public space—from the Parliament and Government to schools and universities. Although the pro-Romanian political parties never reached over 10%, even at the peak of their popularity, the symbolic landscape of Moldova remains entirely the same as it was shaped in 1991. That includes the school and university training course on the ‘history of Romanians’, which was denounced by the Council of Europe for its xenophobia on many occasions. Yet, it has been taught, with a short break (2006–2009), until today. Transnistria is equally unpredictable in its authentic role. This separatist region, ‘the margin of the Russian land’, ‘the fort on the Dniester’, enhanced by a Russian contingent of military and peace-keeping troops, still calls itself a Moldovan Republic, with the Moldovan language in the Cyrillic alphabet being one of the three official languages there. At the same time, 60,000 out of its half a million population are citizens of Ukraine, more than 200,000 are citizens of Russia and over 300,000 have Moldovan passports. And quite often, these are the same people. The Transnistrian economy is integrated with the Moldovan economy in a very whimsical way: an absolute majority of Transnistrian businesses access foreign markets as Moldovan enterprises. Moreover: Sheriff, the dominant business group in Transnistria, which keeps under its control all branches of power, has practically no connections with Russia. Instead, it owns real estate and other assets in the EU. And the largest football stadium in the region, also named Sheriff and located in Tiraspol, plays Moldova’s national anthem Limba noastra (‘Our language’) during international championships and flie the Moldovan tricolor flagwaiving. The procedure is the same when the Transnistrian football team (also named Sheriff) plays its, for—as it turns out—it is one of the ‘national Moldovan teams’ and a five-time champion of Moldova. Even the Transnistrian conflict, as a majority of experts recognize, does not fit within the usual definitions and characteristics of inter-state and interethnic conflicts. “Although this conflict is traditionally described as a standoff between the Russianspeaking region and the nationalistic Moldova, the border between Transnistria and Moldova, however, is not a border between the Russian speakers and the Romanian speakers. One third of the Transnistrian population are ethnic Moldovans, and the Russian ethnic group is not much bigger either. The largest Russian-speaking

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minority (from one quarter to one third of the population) lives in Moldova, and in no way can it can be regarded as the Transnistrian “fifth column”. The Russians and the Russian speakers from Moldova do not feel engaged in Transnistria, and many do not even have any sympathies for it, as the sociological polls show. The Transnistrian Moldovans are equally convinced advocates of Transnistrian statehood as the other two thirds of the local population (Russians and Ukrainians). All three languages—Moldovan (Romanian), Russian and Ukrainian are official languages there” (Nemensky, 2007). In other words, it is hard to find another such place in Europe, where—semiotically speaking—the plane of expression (i.e., political institutions, symbols, ideologies) is withdrawn from the plane of content (i.e., real politics, true relation of forces and public interests) by an endless number of peculiar hermeneutic keys and crypt filters. The real polyethnic Moldova, which does not know interethnic conflicts comparable to the ones we know in the modern Ukraine, the Balkans, or the Caucasus, bears no resemblance to its political-institutional embodiments. In this context, it seems important that, despite the changing political parties, regimes and foreign political conditions, Moldova (including Transnistria) remains unchallenged in its essence: the method of selection and elevation into the dominating elites. The higher the status of a government officer or a politician, the bigger is his/her polyvalence in terms of values and administration, and the higher is his/her polymorphism, i.e., the ability to assume diametrically opposed political images and decisions. Moreover, it seems that this method of selection into the Moldovan elite only grows stronger with time. The above explanation will facilitate understanding of everything that happened on 7 April 2009, and especially what happened thereafter.

4 Communist Reformation and European Modernization: Moldova Before the Events of 7 April We have stated that the key element in the prehistory of the 7 April events concerns the modernization process led by the PCRM in Moldova during the previous eight years. This is important because the western media and western experts so often represent the 7 April events as a revolution organized to overturn the ‘anti-democratic communist regime in Europe’s poorest country’. As noted above, we think this is an error (see its comprehensive criticism in Romanchuk & Timotin, 2009; Romanchuk, 2015b; Tkachuk, 2015).6 To start with, the advocates of the thesis about ‘Europe’s poorest country’ practically unanimously ignore the fact that Moldova became the poorest country in Europe only in the 1990s. Subsequently, in 2001–2009, under the PCRM’s rule, Moldova

6

About the correlation between the modernization processes and the increasing of possibility of revolution see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022b).

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saw a strong breakthrough in its development efforts and dramatically improved living standards. Let us examine this in more detail. By 2001, at the end of the first decade of the consistent ‘linguistic-symbolic restoration’ policy conducted by the first Moldovan Government, Moldova’s GDP had fallen by 65%. The National Bank’s reserves did not exceed 222 million USD. The size of the average pension in 2000 was equal to just 7 US dollars, while the average salary in the national economy was 33 US dollars per month. In education and health it was barely half that—a little more than 16 US dollars per month. And, of course, on top of that there was an extraordinary level of corruption and disintegration and degradation of government institutions: Moldova never faced such catastrophe before or after. Against this background, PCRM’s victory in the early elections does not seem a weird exception. What was far more ‘surprising’ was that the communists managed to maintain power and win two more parliamentary elections. This ‘surprising event’, however, has quite sensible explanations. Specifically, a rather sound policy (first of all—economic policy) was pursued by the communist governments. These governments became more professional with time, regardless of political leanings of their members. This fact was obvious enough to many western experts. As Vladimir Sokor, an American expert of Romanian origin (the leading analyst in the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation) noted about the last PCRM Government: “The incumbent government, predominantly of technical experts, is unquestionably Moldova’s most competent and convincing to voters since independence, contrasting with previous governments that were formed on a political basis…. The current government includes only two communist ministers, out of nineteen” (Sokor, 2009). Here are some figures, proudly noted by the experts loyal to the PCRM. Between 2001 and 2009, the country with a population of 3.7 million people (without Transnistria) created about 300,000 jobs. GDP grew within the same period by 267%, or by 3.5 times per capita—from USD 415 to USD 1497. The National Bank’s reserves in foreign currency, within the same period, had grown to USD 1,670,000,000. The size of foreign investments grew more than 6 times. Revenues of the state budget and social insurance budget had grown 5 times compared to 2000. The nominal average salary had grown 8 times, or by more than 270% in real terms. The average salary in the national economy reached USD 300 per month. The size of the average pension, compared to 2000, had grown more than 9 times. Salaries in the public sector had grown 5 times, and in the health sector by 9 times. Salaries of teachers had grown almost 12 times compared to 2000, while budget expenditures allocated for students’ scholarships had grown more than 7 times in the same period. Budget allocations in education had also grown 7 times, and allocations for science by 14 times. Certainly, if the same situation is examined from a different angle, we must pay attention to the large dependence of Moldova’s GDP on remittances from Moldovan labor migrants working abroad (the amount of such remittances had grown 8 times between 2000 and 2008 (Botsan, 2009); respectively, this growth should more or less proportionally reflect the growing number of the labor migrants in the same period). The fact that the average monthly salary is USD 300, in fact, does not adequately

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reflect the real revenues of rather extensive groups of the population (for example, salaries of many university teachers and members of the Academy of Sciences in, 2009, were only slightly more than EUR 100 per month; and they are not any bigger in 2017). As well, the problem of finding a prestigious and better paid job was much harder for young people. Although one may give different evaluations of the economic policy of the PCRM, it is obvious that—compared to the preceding 90s—substantial progress had been achieved. We should particularly emphasize that, despite the ongoing global economic crisis of 2007-2008, by 2009 Moldova had hardly felt it. On the contrary, “The Banker”, a British financial journal, ranked Moldova fifth out of 184 countries according to its World Financial Health Index (Tayler, 2009). Also noteworthy was that from 2002 onwards the PCRM proclaimed and consistently pursued its European integration course (Hill & Kramer, 2009). Until April 2009, this fact was well-known to western media. Specifically, a reporter from “The Guardian,” J. Steele wrote “Moldova’s communists are pro-European” (Steele, 2009). Again, whatever assessment we give to the PCRM’s successes on the way to the European integration, there was no doubt it was progressing in this direction. Besides its rather successful economic policy and European vector, it is quite noteworthy that from 2001 on, the PCRM managed to overcome several political crises. It is important to note that during the long protests involving dozens of thousands of anticommunists in 2001, the authorities never applied any violent actions against the protesters. In a sense, the authorities learnt from this experience the lesson that this should be the only possible attitude towards mass protests in the future. Later, in 2005, the PCRM managed to build the so-called ‘Consensus for European integration’, which integrated them with their recent sworn enemies—the Christian Democrats with their still pro-Romanian attitudes and then, the Social Liberal Party and the moderate Democratic Party. This division of competences between the authorities and the opposition was labeled as a system of ‘political altruism’ (in fact, this model quite well corresponds to what A. Lijphart defined as ‘consociational democracy’, or the ‘large coalition’ model). And this system existed until the communists went into opposition. At last, in 2009, ten days before the elections, the three-party meeting between Vladimir Voronin, Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, as well as Mr. Voronin’s bilateral meeting with Mr. Putin, predetermined another explosive victory for the communists. For they managed to balance the geopolitical asymmetry in the country under their rule. The only question that remained was whether the communists would be ready to win, and to win in such a way as to ensure the international legitimacy of their victory, through free and democratic elections. But even this threat proved to be illusory. The communists were ready to see the same scenario repeat in 2009 as in 2005 or 2002. Like generals always preparing for the last war, they overlooked their main enemy.

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5 Causes and Triggers Behind the 7 April Events: A Tangle of Internal and External Factors As we see, the situation in Moldova on the eve of 7 April did not seem to portend any ‘revolution’. Nevertheless, it happened. What could trigger those events? We will start from a brief overview of the earlier proposed explanations. First of all, of course, we should note that western media, after a momentary hesitation (and some of them immediately) rather unanimously interpreted the 7 April events as a revolution, led by pro-western and liberally-minded young people to overthrow the ‘anti-democratic communist regime in the poorest country of Europe’ (for more details see: Romanchuk, 2015b). ‘Pro-Russian’ was a frequent addition to these characteristics ascribed to the regime. Above, we have already tried to demonstrate the extent to which this view is a distortion of reality. Indeed, the pro-western (and pro-Romanian, at the same time) youth was the main driving force behind the 7 April events. The communist government, however, was nothing like the portrait painted by western media. Rather, this portrait far better depicted the ‘pro-European opposition’ governments that came to replace the communists, the AEI governments, where the percentage of those who had grown up and become very successful back in the Soviet era was much higher (for more details see Romanchuk, 2015b: note 4). Therefore, this ‘explanation’ offered by western media can hardly explain anything. Some western media, however, presented alternative views (Hill & Kramer, 2009), like the following assessment offered by Carrol Patterson, an American economist specializing in Moldova: “I wouldn’t necessarily call it an anti-Communist movement … This really is a generational squeeze. It’s not really the Communists versus the opposition. It’s the grandmothers versus the grandkids” (Barry, 2009). Some scholars pointed to the 2009 global recession and suggested this crisis provoked the 7 April events. Yet if we are to consider this explanation of the crisis, then we must note that, the 2009 financial crisis only slightly impacted Moldova, for—as we said above—Moldova was doing relatively well. Not denying the impact of the global recession on Moldova, we still cannot agree that this impact can be taken for the key trigger of the 7 April, and not even as one of its major triggers. On the contrary, Patterson’s idea, regarding the 7 April as a ‘generational squeeze’, deserves careful attention, and at the same time, also requires some corrections. To start with, it would be wrong to depict the situation in a way that the PCRM was predominantly supported by ‘grandmothers’, while the pro-European opposition’s supporters were mainly ‘grandchildren’. In fact, we can only say that a large proportion of the older generations were among the PCRM’s supporters. The party, however, also enjoyed substantial support among a section of the young, most of them Russian speakers. This support was to be demonstrated even more explicitly after 2009, when it is well traceable by statistics about the number of young people joining the PCRM in 2009–2014. It is true, however, that the bulk of the supporters of the ‘pro-European’ opposition were found among the urban Moldovan-speaking youth, who were born in Chisinau

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or studied in one of its universities (we do not have accurate data, though). This must be connected, first, with the fact that the PCRM had not been able, during its time in power, to address the fundamental problem inherited from the 1990s, specifically: the Ministry of Education, schools and universities with teaching in Moldovan were dominated by Romanian unionists (paradoxical enough, but this includes even the ministers appointed by the PCRM, who adopted a ‘hands-off approach’). In fact, this Moldovan-speaking young people growing up in 2001–2009 were educated as Romanian unionists, often in an aggressively nationalistic spirit. The essence of this ideology absorbed by this growing generation can be formulated as “We are Romanians. Russia occupied us and annexed Bessarabia from Romania, and brought to us numerous misfortunes. The Russians are to be blamed for Moldova’s current problems. The PCRM are Russians”. Second, the PCRM was not able to address the problem of Romanian unionist media. Of course, when we say ‘address’ we do not mean banning or any other sanctions. This never happened under PCRM rule. The point is quite different: the communists preferred the line of least resistance. They simply tried to increase the number of controlled media. They tried to exercise maximum impact on the entire spectrum of non-unionist voters, without trespassing the semantic realms of their radical opponents. At the same time, the country had an equal number of mass media propagating Romanian-unionist ideas (or even a bigger number, even if their capacities were limited to Chisinau and larger cities), or those in strong opposition to the PCRM. This Romanian-unionist media repeatedly used the tactics of total denigration not only of the PCRM, but even mere Moldovan statehood as a political project. The consumers of this mass media lived in a comfortable and non-alternative information ghetto. Any assessments or suggestions from these media were perceived by the unionist voters as the ultimate truth. And although this group of voters was less numerous than the group of those who advocated a strong Moldovan state, the former was much more mobilized, took an intransigent attitude towards the authorities and the statehood project, and were concentrated in the main and most vulnerable place in the country—its capital. Here we must pay attention to the impact of the ‘economic factor’ on the situation. In fact, although the economic situation in Moldova under PCRM rule (2001– 2009) had been obviously improving (quite remarkably), still, the living standard in Moldova was lower than in Russia, Ukraine, Romania and, of course, Europe. Respectively, the people were inclined to largely underestimate the positive changes, took them for granted and, conversely, overestimated the existing deficiencies. In other words, the ‘economic’ factor had psychological overtones. By 2009, Moldovan society was less and less disposed to compare its situation with 2001, and increasingly compared it with living standards abroad. The growing incomes and positive development were commonly taken for granted. By common belief, the appearance of new politicians would not change politics, in the worst case, but would simply replace ‘the picture in the TV set’ (the boring communists) with some new faces. Also noteworthy, the communists fell into a strategic trap. By setting out an ambitious program aimed at European modernization, they gave an unintentional

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clue to the opposition, i.e., a quick and simple way to achieve a satisfying European happiness. A way that did not demand any special effort, except one— the overthrow of the existing power and embracing Europe. Let us remind the reader that Romania became a member of the European Union in 2007 and, regardless of its institutional commitments to Brussels, unleashed a broad anti-Moldovan campaign. In its role as an EU member, Romania insistently refused to sign any agreement with Moldova regarding the borders and the basic political agreements with Moldova. Their motivation was always quite the same: ‘no such agreement is possible between two Koreas and two Germanies’. On the other hand, Romania, as an EU member, stopped its visa-free regime with Moldova, having facilitated, at the same time, the application procedures for Romanian (and thus, European) citizenship for Moldovan citizens. Thus, Romanian unionism, in fact, found a new lease on life. The path toward European modernization was paved and pursued by the communists, though getting sovereign Moldova to qualify and pass EU membership rules seemed lengthy and expensive, and demanded adoption and harmonization of hundreds of laws aligning with aquis communitaire. In fact, this had been the essence of everyday life in the Moldovan Parliament. At the same time, Romanian President Basescu offered fast and simple ways—it was enough for Moldova to join Romania. The ideological unionism that relied on somber values of the interbellum period was becoming a consumerist and almost respectable project. For now, it was offering European freedoms. Even though the disreputable, provocative, and utopian actions of Romania stirred concerns within the EU, the collective forces in Brussels could not stop Bucharest, although each new declaration by Basescu created complications for the EU as a mediator in the Transnistrian settlement. Thus, we must repeat once again: in our opinion, the 7 April events were only possible because the previous three decades led to the formation of two radically opposite and thus intransigent points of view on possible path ways of development for Moldova. The first one, chronologically, is the Romanian unionist one (which, at the same time, became increasingly explicit in its pro-western values). The second one proceeded from the need and the possibility for Moldova to maintain its independent status by taking a balanced position towards Russia and Europe. In fact, the pro-European sympathies of many supporters of the latter have faded in no small measure due to the attitude of the West towards the situation in Moldova after 2009, which was qualified by the PCRM supporters as treason (see Romanchuk, 2011, 2015 for more detail). This explains why the opposition from 2005, which struck a ‘consensus’ with the PCRM, immediately lost its voters and became a political corpse, its political niche being filled by the new Romanian-unionist parties—LP and LDPM. We should also mention, however, that besides the Romanian-unionist opposition, by 2009 the country had seen the emergence of an important opposition camp embracing those who were quite solidary with the ideological platform of the PCRM, but who were disappointed by the party itself. These people were one of the main groups, if not the main group, who voted for the DPM. Their dissatisfaction with the PCRM (whether deserved and to what extent—this question requires special

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examination) also heavily contributed to further developments. These are, overall, the key factors behind that volatile cocktail that exploded on 7 April 2009. Then there is another question, however: how this cocktail could explode, and specifically why in April 2009? What triggered it? First, we may, perhaps, believe the LDPM and LP leaders saying that they had not planned the escalation of a peaceful protest into violance, and that the violence was initiated by some ‘instigators’. Although three years later, during a TV show on ‘Publica’ TV, Mark Tkachuk, one of the PCRM leaders, addressed the following words to Alexandru Tanase (LDPM Chair, now the head of the Constitutional Court): “You have been heating up these aggressive spirits for a number of years. Then you brought these young people out to the central square and told them: there is your enemy! What other instigators are you looking for?” (Tkachuk, 2012). Tanase did not find any words to answer. To emphasize, the ‘Romanian factor’, beyond its lasting effect over the situation in Moldova, also played a direct ‘instigative’ role in the events of 7 April. While the real fuel was ‘pumped’ by President Basescu on the air, literally. He was the first one to label the ongoing developments a ‘revolution’ and was the first one to welcome it. So, in fact, there was no real need to call in some special ‘instigators’. And yet, who were those unknown ‘instigators’? And who backed them? Different answers have been given, sometimes controversially. The PCRM blamed the opposition and neighboring Romania in its specially produced (and rather propagandistic) documentary “Attack on Moldova”. Filip Teodorescu, the Romanian Ambassador in Moldova was declared a persona non grata. The opposition’s reaction was to blame the PCRM and ‘Moscow agents’. The former pro-European opposition, however, has not progressed much in investigating these events in the past eight years of its rule. And this says a lot, given that the 7 April events were well recorded on video (by mass media, participants, and numerous curious citizens, and by special forces), so it is not difficult to identify the instigators. And then it should be straightforward to find their clients and the organizers of the events (even if these ‘instigators’ were used without their knowledge, it is hardly probable that no leads or clues could be found). Therefore, the fact that the events of 7 April are still a mystery after many years of pro-European party rule can be most likely explained by their expressed unwillingness to investigate them. To some extent, it is understandable: as a journalist once wittingly said “can they indict themselves?”. As for the external factor suspected by both sides—first, we can certainly say cui prodest, i.e., who benefited and who did not from the events of 7 April? The PCRM, which won 60 seats (out of 101) in the Parliament and was capable enough to find (or just buy—for this is not a very unusual practice in Moldovan politics) the one missing vote to elect a president, does not seem to be interested in these events. Here we face another mystery: why the PCRM, which chose the tactics of nonviolence on 7 April, and thus—as we noted above—considerably improved its image, allowed this victory to be almost totally cancelled by a stupid action—pointless police atrocities towards the detained protesters? Was this arbitrary actions by Gheorghe Papuc—Minister of

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the Interior at the time—and was it his own independent decision, or was it inspired by somebody else? And then—by whom? Referring to Moscow—as we said above—there was an obvious breakthrough in the talks with the Communist Government over the Transnistrian issue, in late 2008. Reunification of the country, once the PCRM won the elections, had been a common expectation, or at least that Moldova would make significant progress towards its reunification—though obviously, on conditions favoring Russia, to a significant extent. Therefore, the events of 7 April, it seems, were not in Russia’s interests. On the contrary, the obvious beneficiaries of 7 April, ultimately, are the pro-European opposition (which was not [and is not] interested in the unification of Transnistria and Moldova, because in this case, the number of PCRM’s voters would dramatically increase), Romania, the USA and the European Union. Surely, all the above should not be regarded as direct charges against the USA, the EU, or Romania. Particularly as, judging by their reaction, the events of 7 April came as a surprise (a very unpleasant one) for the US Embassy in Moldova as well. As for the Romanian ‘footprint’ in the events of 7 April, that can be seen very well. For both the LDPM, and especially, the LP (and all Romanian unionist movements in Moldova), while in opposition, were lavishly financed by Romania. Romania almost (or better say, at all) does not conceal that the Romanian unionist movement in Moldova is its own project; its top officials (even ex-President T. Basescu) still indulge in declarations about the unavoidable ‘unification of Bessarabia’ in the future. On the very day of 7 April, the server of Moldova’s Presidential Office was exposed to a clear DDoS attack from the territory of Romania. To add, however, the server was simultaneously attacked from the territory of Transnistria. Could it be that, ultimately, the ‘instigators’ of 7 April riots were backed by some transnational corporations, their interests and, respectively, their special forces We leave this question open, however, hoping that time will clear up all mysteries. In any case, the impression is that a few quite different forces came to entwine here, each pursuing its own purposes. The synergy behind the developments on 7 April, 2009 is a product of this entwinement. We should repeat once again: the mere possibility of these events was ultimately and absolutely conditioned by a deep divide in Moldovan society—and, obviously, its political elite—that existed then and exists today. This divide emerged and persists because Moldova turned out to be an ‘apple of discord’ between two worlds: the West and Russia. The prize, which has a rather symbolic value for both sides, has become a stage for a non-symbolic and cruel fight between these two worlds.7

7

About the role of revolutions (including color revolutions) as a geopolitical weapon of great powers in history and today see Chapters “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022a) and “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) in this book.

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6 Moldova After 7 April 2009: Long-Term Outcomes and Consequences (a Conclusion) It is beyond our powers, given limited space, to present here even some of the major consequences of the 7 April events. We will try, however, to briefly outline the main long-term consequences of the 7 April events for Moldova, then talk about the ‘prolonged political crisis’ that is still ongoing (for more details see Romanchuk, 2015b; Tkachuk, 2015). It was best manifested when Thorbjorn Jagland, then Council of Europe General Secretary, publicly declared on 10 August, 2015 that Moldova could become another flashpoint (after Ukraine). In his words: “Over the last six years little has been done to open up the country’s economy and its institutions. Corruption remains endemic and the state is still in the hands of oligarchs, while punishingly low incomes have propelled hundreds of thousands of Moldovans to go abroad in search of a better life” (Jagland, 2015). Is it any better today, some years later? We think not. And it seems some other people share our opinion. Thus, on page 5 of the poll report (IDIS VIITORUL & CBSAXA, 2017) we can see that, on 3 March 2017, 80% of the citizens of Moldova believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction! This indicator is 76% in the 18–29 age group; and 83% in the 30–44 age group. In other words, these are not pensioners! Remarkably, this indicator reaches 80% among the Moldovans/Romanians (as formulated in the poll), in other words—these are not ethnic minorities for comparison, the same indicator among the Russians is a little lower—71%). On the contrary, they are representatives of the dominant majority. Also, of note, this indicator of dissatisfaction with the current authorities is very high among people with higher education—78%—, not just among the marginalized groups. There was then a strong political crisis in 2019. One of the results of this was that in the summer of 2019, Moldovan politician and oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc was forced to flee Moldova after he and his Democratic Party were ousted from power with the support of Russia, the EU, and the US. This may have been the only time that the West and Russia acted in concert in Moldova. Thus, this dissatisfaction with the current authorities embraces all groups of Moldovan society: higher, lower, wealthier, poor, educated, illiterate, Moldovans, and ethnic minorities. This dissatisfaction is, in fact, almost universal. We have an explanation for that. Jagland’s words can be supported by one more observation. Moldova is moving fast on the pathway to institutional and economic demodernization. In Moldova, all active institutions are being quickly replaced by pre-industrial and archaic structures based on medieval relations of prestige and gifts. Such relations are authentic and real institutions of power, while all those stipulated in the Constitution seem formal and ritual. De facto,for some time the country was not administered by the prime-minister, or the president, or the ruling majority, but by the one and only Moldovan oligarch, Vladimir Plahotniuc. Within the current power structures, he played a modest function of the leader of the Democratic

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Party. However, he owned, almost literally, the ruling majority, the government, the Constitutional Court, the security services, and most media sources. This explains why the Constitutional Court, rather than the parliament, so easily revises the Constitution; and the election system is changed against the will of most political parties, and how a billion Euros was stolen from the state budget without any following sanctions; this is why the country saw its first political prisoners, why schools, hospitals, and the Academy of Sciences are shut down, and why about 130 people leave the country every day. The paradox we want to emphasize, however, is that this institutional demodernization and archaization are being implemented by the regime which has been calling itself ‘pro-European’ during its eight years of rule, under the jealous external rule of the collective western powers. After many years of, European, rule, Moldova is now on the edge of political crisis and default, while former European ‘optimists’ have become pessimists, almost overnight. How and why it happened is a subject for a long discussion (to some extent, we discussed it in Romanchuk, 2015b; Tkachuk, 2015). Here, we would like to emphasize once again that all this aftermath was caused by the events of 7 April 2009; these events paved the way to a ‘new feudalization’ of Moldovan society and its political system, and diverted the country’s progress from the European modernization to the Middle Ages.

References Akhmedov, V. (2022). The Syrian revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 707–723). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_27 Barmin, Y. (2022). Revolution in Libya. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 725–738). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_28 Barry, E. (2009). Protests in moldova explode, with help of twitter. New York Times (2009). http:// www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08moldova.html Botsan, I. (2009). Golosovanie moldavan za rubezhom. e-Democracy (2009). http://www.e-democr acy.md/ru/monitoring/politics/comments/20090223/ Filin, N., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022). Serbian “Otpor” and the color revolutions’ diffusion. In J.A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 465– 482). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_17 Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook

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Mark Tkachuk graduated from History Faculty of Moldova State University and completed his Ph.D. at the Institute of History of Material Culture in Saint-Petersburg. He also founded High Anthropological School University in Kishinev, Moldova, and has been its Rector since 1998, and President since 2001. He is also the Chief Editor of Stratum plus Journal of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology since 2000, and is the founder of the Marc Bloch Library of Civilizations in Kishinev. Between March 2001 and May 2014, he pursued an active political career in Moldova as a key figure in the Party of Communists (PCRM) and its main ideologist, was advisor to the President of Moldova on internal policy. He is the author of more than 50 research publications. Alexei Romanchuk is a researcher at the Cultural Heritage Institute of Moldova Academy of Sciences (since 2016). He holds a Master of Anthropology--, and graduated from Moldova State University in 1997. He was also a lecturer since 1999 and senior lecturer in 2007–2015 at the High Anthropological School University in Kishinev, Moldova. He is the author of more than 100 research publications, including 5 monographs, in archaeology, social evolution theory, deep history, and political anthropology. Iulia Timotin graduated from Humanitites University in Moldova in 1997, pursued a Ph.D. in Linguistics at Moldova State University in 1998–2002. She was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at High Anthropological School University in Kishinev, Moldova, in 1999–2015, and an English editor at Stratum plus Journal of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology.

The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010 Nikita Filin

At the beginning of 2011, a wave of mass protests known as the Arab Spring spread across Arab countries resulting in the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and the destabilization of the political situation in Yemen and Syria.1 The massive scale of the protests is commonly attributed to stagnant real incomes for portions of the population, flagrant corruption, spikes in food prices, and high rates of unemployment, especially among educated youth.2 Yet unlike in these Arab states, which witnessed changes of political regimes or serious military confrontations, in 2009 the Iranian government managed to preserve stability and power despite a volatile potential for unrest. Among other factors, the poor state of the economy, after three decades of hobbling sanctions from the United States and its allies, had bred no shortage of discontent. It was the dominance of Shiite Islamic institutions in the Iranian political system that, while itself a source of grievances for some groups, served simultaneously as one of the fundamental guarantors of stability. This dominance was instituted immediately after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when all-encompassing Shiite Islamization overtook the social, political, economic, and cultural life of the country to the point where it deeply infused even the private concerns of its citizens.3 N. Filin (B) Department of the Modern East, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] 1

See Chapters “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov 2022), “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), and “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022, in this volume). 2 About general causes of the Arab Spring revolutions see Chapters “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b) and “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022) in this book. 3 For detail on the Iranian revolution see Chapters “Two Instances of Islamic “Revival”: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_22

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1 The 2009–2010 Protests in Iran Protests erupted following the 12 June 2009presidential election in Iran. The incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, gaining, re-election with more than 62% of the vote. However, two defeated candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi did not accept the voting results, and their supporters took to the streets in protest. These protests have been called “The Green Movement,” owing to the official color of the Mousavi electoral campaign. While the protests spread rapidly throughout many major Iranian cities, they soon came to an end. The only city where the protests were massive and extended was Tehran, the Iranian capital. The people who took to the streets of the major Iranian cities on 13 June 2009 shared a similar vision of events taking place in the country and common objectives for change: they held reformist views and demanded liberalization of the political system. Scholars still argue about composition of the Green Movement and its active participants (for details, refer to: Behdad & Nomani, 2009; Cross, 2010; Harris, 2012). There is a consensus, however, that the leading role in the movement was played by the middle class, which had been developing in Iran since the mid 1990s; even if the precise makeup of that class remains subject to debate (Harris, 2012: 449). The largest protest occurred at the very outset, on 16 June 2009, and seems to have exceeded one million people, a number never reached in subsequent gatherings. Kevan Harris, an American researcher of Iranian origin, was in Iran after the announcement of the election results up to the end of 2009 and carried out an ethnographic analysis of the Green Movement protests. On the basis of newspaper reports, as well as his own estimates of the crowd size and interviews with participants, he concluded that demonstrations peaked in the period from 13 June to 30 July 2009 [varying on different days from several dozens to hundreds of thousands of people (except for 16 June)]. He also identified another seven more dates in the following months when the number of protesters was substantial: 18 September, the Day of solidarity with the Palestinian People (Quds) (tens of thousands of people); 28 September, the beginning of academic year in universities (thousands of people); 4 November, the day of occupation of the US embassy (thousands of people); 7 December, Students day (thousands of people); 21 December, funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri in Qom (hundreds of thousands of people); 27 December, Ashoura (thousands of people); and 11 February 2010, the anniversary of the revolution (thousands of people) (Harris, 2012: 437). This research indicates that, in spite of the mass character of the protest movement, the numbers of protesters and the frequency of public protests experienced a steady decline (an exception being December 2009). It seems that after its initial out burst of popularity, the Green Movement was unable to recruit significant numbers of people and remained largely confined to the same social strata in which it began. The widespread view that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was supported by poorer segments of the Iranian population and Mir-Hossein Mousavi by richer segments is indeed confirmed by the regional pattern of voting, based on data from several polling stations in Tehran. The geography of Tehran, with expensive homes in the (Filin et al., 2022a) and “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin and Grinin 2022) in this monograph.

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north at the foot of the Alborz mountains and low-cost housing in the south, is frequently used as a determiner of social class. It has been considered a given since before the Islamic Revolution in 1978–1979 that the “upper” and “lower” parts of the city correspond to rich and poor classes, respectively. This remains valid today, to a certain extent, despite the fact that the population of Tehran and its outskirts has tripled over the past three decades. It should be said that some researchers object to this classification (Ehsani, 1999: 22–27). In June 2009, a complete list of polling stations was published with official voting figures for each of the four presidential candidates at each station in tabular form. For reasons that remain somewhat unclear, the list does not show the locations of these 45,692 stations (BBC, 2009a). In other words, one can see a general number of votes at all polling stations in Tehran and other provinces, but one cannot identify the location of each polling station. This limits any comprehensive examination of voting on the basis of income or other pertinent criteria. Fortunately, the location of some of the stations was indicated in certain newspapers and blogs, making it possible to provide a relatively objective, if limited, view of voting in different parts of Tehran. While the results should be interpreted with a degree of caution, since Iranian electoral procedures allow a person to vote at any polling station within his or her district, the table below indicates that the low-income outskirts of Tehran voted for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whereas middle and high-income districts voted for Mir-Hossein Mousavi (Harris, 2012: 447). Studies of protesters’ socio-economic background indicate that representatives of the middle class constituted more than three quarters of opposition supporters (Harris, 2012: 447–448). In general, they called for peacefully reforming the Iranian political system without insisting on major change in the religious component of the regime. This apparent adherence to Shiite Islamic religious principles by the majority of the opposition should, however, be taken with a grain of salt (Table 1). One should be extremely cautious in describing members of the Green Movement as a narrow segment of the population. Higher education has made great strides in Iran and allows for large numbers of children from poor families to become educated. While it is true that many join the radical Islamic organization Basij, which has branches in each university, some have become proponents of reforms. What is more, their numbers may have seemed deceptively small because at times protest participants kept their political activism secret from relatives in order to avoid social sanctions from family and neighbors (Harris, 2012: 450–451). Students played a crucial role in the Green Movement, to the point that the Students’ Islamic Association (Anjoman-e-Eslami), headed by the Office for Strengthening Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), may even be regarded as the cradle of the protests. This association is present in all Iranian universities. Its structure in the mid 2000s was as follows: students formed its base, and each was entitled to vote and be elected to the Islamic Association Department Councils. The elected members of these Department Councils then held meetings to elect the Central University Board. The Central Boards of all universities held a general meeting and elected the Islamic Association Central Committee, the Office for Strengthening Unity. Its functions were extensive: from the redistribution of material assistance among students to advancing the interests of students at the highest levels of the Iranian government.

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Table 1 Partial polling station data from Tehran (presidential elections 2009) Name and number of polling station

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Mehdi Karroubi

Mohsen Rezai

Spoiled ballots

Mirdabad (3249) 116 (7.4%)

1359 (87.1%)

35

45

6

Niavaran (166)

276 (14.4%)

1502 (78.4%)

83

43

13

Shahrak-e Garb (2112)

352 (13.7%)

2072 (80.5%)

59

78

13

Str. Kerman (4317)

538 (29.3%)

1204 (65.5%)

13

57

25

Str. Khosh (10 116)

733 (35.8%)

1197 (58.5%)

31

46

39

Mehrabad (9108-6[-7])

921 (41.8%)

1172 (53.2%)

16

54

41

Javadiye (16 219-0)

568 (54.4%)

439 (42.0%)

1

11

26

Javadiye (16 219-1)

618 (65.9%)

283 (30.2%)

3

14

20

Fellah Square (17 239-9)

1350 (77.9%)

327 (18.9%)

5

19

31

High income

Middle income

Low income

Source Harris (2012: 447)

Established after the 1978–1979 Islamic Revolution, the Association was composed of regime loyalists who implemented the ideas of cultural revolution and influenced a number of professors and students (Ravandi-Fadai, 2010: 149). From the beginning of the 1990s, however, things began to change, with advocates of radical reform joining the Association. In the view of Vahid Abedini, a central committee member of the Islamic Association of Tehran, this happened because its vacancies were filled via direct, secret ballot voting by students, thus preventing interference by the authorities (Filin, 2012: 282–283). This was itself apart of a larger trend observed since the mid-1990s: an increased proportion of students with radical reformist views arose in universities across the country. Moreover, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, members holding such views constituted a majority. For example, they believed Mehdi Karroubi to be a conservative and were demanding a radical transformation in society, namely expanding rights and freedoms. The mass student demonstrations of 1999 and 2003 in Tehran largely involved supporters of the Office for Strengthening Unity. The Islamic Association also organized numerous student protests in the 2000s, although they were less intense.

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It should be noted that some Shiite clergy also strongly supported the Green Movement in 2009. They believed that the Islamic Republic had lost its legitimacy because of the harsh and disproportionate response of the authorities to those who demanded a recount. Based on the Jafari Shiite concept, which is prevalent in Iran, an ideal example of the Shiite governance for many people was Ali, the first Shiite Imam who appears to have founded his rule on the basis of tolerance for opposition views. However, the Islamic Republic demonstrated after the elections how political repression can be justified in the name of the law and the defense of Islam. In 1997 Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri had made a statement that questioned the principle of “Velayat-e Faqih”, that is, the ultimate control of government by Shiite clergy. On 26 August 2009, he published a message on his website containing severe criticism of the regime, claiming that the Islamic Republic was no longer a republic nor a governance of Islamic lawyers; it was rather “a military rule” in the light of its performance after elections (Montazeri, 2009). The accusation raised by Montazeri regarding the militarization of the theocratic regime was in line with a message published on the website of Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani. The message said that the Islamic Republic was more like a political system of the Caliphate (known to Shiites for its harsh military power) rather than a regime of “Imamat” based on responsibility and justice, as exemplified by Imam Ali (Bayat-Zanjani, 2009). Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sanei, the leading representative of the reform wing in the Iranian religious establishment, became one of the first religious leaders to express such a view. Sanei praised the street demonstrations on his website: “I hope that a path will be open for continuation of the Iranian people legitimate protest” (Sanei, 2009a). Following the elections and subsequent mass protests, Sanei published a statement on his website warning the regime about state repression and urging it to refrain from “the sin of violence against civil rights to peaceful demonstrations” (Sanei, 2009b). In one of his remarks, also published on his website, Sanei described the public trial of protesters as the instrument of the “repressive” organ of a tyrannical state (Sanei, 2009c). A statement published on the Internet by the Association of Qom Scholars and Teachers (Majma-ye Modarresin va Mohaqqeqin-e Howze-ye Elmiye-ye Qom), an influential Shiite organization founded in May 1999, called the re-election of President Ahmadinejad illegitimate and questioned the Governing Council for its factionalism during the electoral process (Abdo, 2009). In early July 2009, an anonymous 11-page letter appeared on the Internet, in which a group of Shiite religious leaders demanded the immediate dismissal of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah AliKhamenei. Khamenei was accused of transforming the Islamic Republic into a military state ruled by Revolutionary Guard commanders as his personal guard (Slackman & Fathi, 2009). Among other representatives of Shiite clergy that supported the Green Movement were Ayatollahs Seyed Jalaluddin Taheri and Abdul Karim Mousavi Ardebili.

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2 Metaphors, Symbols, Signs, and Slogans of the Green Movement Protests As soon as the election results had been announced, huge numbers of people took to the streets, using the color green as a sign of their protest. The 2009 demonstrations in Iran sowed a revolutionary atmosphere by using signs and symbols along with the trend of slogans chanting in the streets. A hashtag #Iranianelection appeared on the Internet, becoming one of the most popular trends on Iranian Twitter during the week following 12 June 2009. Videos of street protests in various Iranian cities were published on YouTube and became catalysts for more demonstrations, especially after the majority of foreign reporters had been expelled from the country by the Iranian authorities. In the first few days after the announcement of the election results, Iranian crowds peacefully marched in silence holding banners with writing: “Where is my vote?” This slogan was regularly seen on opposition banners. While mass media were spreading information about the harsh measures employed by police and Basij militia forces to disperse the protesters, certain analogies with unrest during the Islamic Revolution of 1978–1979 formed in the public conscience. These were reinforced by the use of ironically altered slogans from that time. These slogans also expressed the alternative political culture that has partially emerged in the country in response to omnipresent Islamic institutions that appeared during and after the Islamic Revolution. Indeed, these slogans (shoar in Farsi)— shouted out in the streets, sent by e-mail, uploaded to YouTube and used in posters— reflect as directly as anything the gradual changes occurring in the conscience of these elements of Iranian society. Of the slogans designed to evoke the 1979 revolution, some were simply repeated (for example, “Allahu Akbar” [God is Supreme]), while others were modified in order to demonstrate unfulfilled promises of the revolution (for example, “Esteqlal, Azadi, Jomhuri-ye Irani” (Independence, Freedom, the Iranian Republic). Printing caricatures of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei, and cartoons about the election results and the Iranian political system, was another way of expressing protest. These caricatures became an integral part of the demonstrations and even the particular slogans shouted by the protesters, and it made no difference whether they were created in Iran or by Western journalists. All of them were used by the protesters during demonstrations to deride their opponents. The Internet was flooded with biting satire that often represented the Iranian leaders in a very offensive manner. Two fingers, raised in the shape of a “V”—the “peace sign”—was one of the major symbols of the Green Movement. It often corresponded to the religious sign “The hand of Fatima” that is honored by Muslims and used as a protective amulet. The protesters tried to demonstrate that the aggression against the Green Movement was comparable to the aggression against Shiite saints (Fig. 1). One more symbol of the protest movement was a raised fist, ascending to the Serbian Otpor youth movement that played a key role in the 2000 Bulldozer Revolution (Fig. 2), although it was less frequent than, for example, in the 2011 protests

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Text: Oh Hossein [the third Shiite Righteous Imam] Mir Hossein [candidate Mousavi]

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Text: The Uprising of Truth Shall Carry On

Fig. 1 Green movement protest posters. Source Iran (2014)

Text: 16 Azar (6 December) The Green Union of the People and the Academy. Against the Black Coup Plotters.

Text: Against Double Oppression, Against the Coup. Source: Iran 2014.

Fig. 2 Green Movement protests posters. Source Iran (2017)

in Egypt [Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011; see also Chapters “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b), The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022), “Egyptian 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022) and “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume)].

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3 Social and Economic Indicators in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2009 In order to obtain an objective view of the causes leading to the 2009 protests in Iran, it is necessary to examine the social, demographic, and economic indicators of the country at that time. Although the Green Movement was a mass phenomenon and had a certain structure, leaders, and ideology, it could not have formed without specific social and economic factors affecting a large swath of society. It is also necessary to analyze the factors that prevented the country from falling into a state of social and political upheaval during the opposition protests in the second half of 2009. After all, it was only a year and a half later that a wave of instability surged through Arab countries, in which protests by opposition groups in some cases led to new governments. By 2009, Iran had experienced a strong GDP performance, low level of extreme poverty, average inequality rating, food consumption amounting to 3,143 kcal per person per day (actually above recommended healthy caloric intake), high average life expectancy (72.8 years), one of the lowest mortality rates in the Middle East region (5.2 deaths per 1000 population) including low infant mortality (20.3 infant deaths per 1000 live births), a high level of urbanization (68.8%), and strong education and literacy performance for the males and females (World Bank, 2017; IMF, 2016). Yet simultaneously there were social and economic factors generating serious resentment among the populace: a significant level of corruption (Transparency International, 2009), high inflation, and high unemployment rates for females and the youth of both sexes (World Bank, 2017; IMF, 2016; SCI, 2017; CBIRI, 2017). In 2009, Iran was suffering from the world financial crisis, which had a devastating effect on the economy and well-being of citizens. Despite a significant number of mass protests in 2009, the situation did not precipitate a revolution. Numerous factors influence the sustainability of an authoritarian political system like Iran’s: the domestic political environment—including community attitudes, the actions of opposition groups, intra-elite relations; and the situation on the international stage—oil prices, economic sanctions, situation in neighboring countries, relations with regional and international powers, etc. No explanation of the frequency and simultaneousness of protests would be complete without taking into consideration another important destabilizing factor. This factor is the population growth dynamic in Arab countries and Iran, especially the growth of groups aged 20–29. As the work of some researchers has demonstrated, an important characteristic of the social and political destabilization in the Arab countries during the 2011 Arab Spring was the fact that they were not stuck in poverty, but well on their way to global middle-income levels and out of the so called “Malthusian trap”—the typical condition for pre-industrial communities, in which an increase in output is not accompanied by an increase in production per capita and improvements to the living conditions of the vast majority of people are rare (e.g., Korotayev et al., 2011: 276; 2014).

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Indicators showing that a country is on its way out of the “Malthusian trap” are as follows: a steady reduction in mortality rates, first of all among children; better provision of food to citizens; improved medicine; and yet a still high birth rate characteristic for traditional communities (between four and six children per woman). In the contemporary Middle East, a high birth rate together with a decline in mortality resulted in the well-known “youth bulge” (for more detail see: Grinin et al., 2008: 84–86; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2014). Thus, an increasing proportion of young people in the population required rapid job creation that turned out to be rather complicated for the broader Middle East region, and resulted in the emergence of considerable forces of protest. Events have confirmed that new social and economic shocks often took place when these states were moving out of the “Malthusian trap”. This phenomenon, which took place in Iran in 2009 and the Arab countries in 2011, has been called “a trap at the escape from the trap” (see, for example, Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2014). In Iran, the “escape” began in the 1950s and resulted in a tripling of the youth population in the thirty years before the Revolution of 1979. Under the Islamic Republic, increases in female education and government support for family planning led to one of the most dramatic fertility declines in history from 1986 to 2000 (Vahidnia, 2007). While this eventually led to a decline in Iran’s youth population, the “demographic momentum” of the huge cohorts of young women born in the 1950s and 1960s meant that Iran’s youth population continued to grow for another two decades even as fertility declined. Indeed, in the thirty years from 1979 to 2009, the youth population in Iran nearly tripled again (see Fig. 3). The most significant factor leading to the 2009 crisis was a considerable growth of the young population aged 20–24 in the beginning of 2000s: from 6.9 million people in 2000 to 9.1 million people in 2005 and 8.99 million people in 2010. In the

Fig. 3 Growth dynamics of youth aged 20–24 in Iran and Egypt, 1950–2010 (with projection to 2020) (in millions of people). Based on UN Population Division 2015 data (UNPD, 2016)

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Fig. 4 Unemployment among Iranian men and women with higher education (% of total population), 2005–2008. Based on ILOSTAT Database 2017 data (ILO, 2017)

mid-2000s, it was necessary for the state to guarantee annually more than 1 million additional jobs as compared with the beginning of the century, a tall order even for highly developed economies. These employment challenges are clear when we view the high youth unemployment rate, especially among women. Figures for unemployment among men and women with higher education in Iran demonstrate that, while there had been little change in unemployment for men with higher education during the 4 years from 2005 to 2008, with growth only from 12.6 to 14.5%, educated women’s unemployment increased by 1.45 times—from 36 to 52.3%. This trend shows both a negative indicator for the country’s economy and availability of additional resources for economic development of Iran in the future. Such a high rate of unemployment among women with higher education could increase, to some extent, the number of opposition demonstrators who were protesting in 2009. After 2009, these dynamics started to decline but at that time maintained a sufficiently high level to be a destabilizing factor of the Iranian socio-political system (Fig. 4).

4 Central Collapse A number of researchers (Goldstone, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2015a, 2015b), having analyzed mass protests in Thailand, Ukraine, Bosnia, and Venezuela in 2013–2014 and then the Arab Spring, formed a hypothesis that destabilization appeared in the countries under consideration based on four conditions: the combination of (1) a middling level of GDP per capita, (2) a significant level of corruption, (3) a politicalcivic regime classified by Freedom House as “partially free”, and (4) center-periphery dissonance.

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The situation in Iran in 2009 fell within the first, second and fourth conditions, but contradicted the third one. In terms of GDP per capita in 2009, based on the World Bank data, Iran ranked 71st, i.e., among “medium-developed countries”. In states with a high literacy rate, citizens expect an effective economy, stable work and well-functioning governmental services. However, the majority of the Iranian population doesn’t feel economic and financial security and is dissatisfied with the existing living standard. Iran in 2009 was ranked 168th, or ninth from the bottom, on the Corruption Perceptions Index maintained by Transparency International. This is a serious destabilizing factor, since the economy bears enormous costs due to corruption that, in turn, hinder development. According to Freedom House, Iran in 2009 (along with previous and subsequent years) was classified as a “non-free” state. In terms of the overall level of freedom Iran received a 6 rating (on the scale where 1 = complete freedom, 7 = complete non-freedom) and the same figure of civil liberties level and political rights level (Freedom House, 2009). A situation of “partial freedom”, which is also defined by the term “unconsolidated democracy”, represents the greatest danger to existing regimes. This is a political system that is located between total authoritarianism and consolidated democracy. A number of researchers with a high degree of scholarly rigor have proved that countries with unconsolidated democracies are at the greatest risk of regime change (Goldstone et al., 2003, 2010), since in these countries there is not only a low level of administrative apparatus, but also a high percentage of citizens who understand governance in authoritarian terms (i.e. have not internalized democratic values) and, for example, may consider revolutionary action a better option for removing an undesirable government than waiting for the next elections. The 2009 presidential election results in Iran clearly demonstrate the existence of a center-periphery dissonance in the country. Tehran not only functions as the capital, but also serves as the residence of numerous Iranian citizens, an overpopulated “Dragon king”, i.e. a city with a disproportionately high number of people, that leads researchers to pay extra attention to processes taking place in this city in analyses intended to cover the entire country. In many instances, modernization and Westernization (two significantly correlated phenomena) take place in different parts of a country unevenly. They are most apparent in big cities, especially in political or economic centers. On the periphery these processes are slower, which is why attitudes in centers are often different from those in the provincial periphery, where they are more conservative or Islamic (in Islamic countries), while in the center they are more modernist or secularist (also in Islamic countries). In such a situation, conservative elites in power are almost always supported by the provinces, but not in the capital. Research shows [Korotayev et al. 2015a, 2015b; see also Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume)] that in at least six cases where unrest has led to regime change from 2011 to 2014, a center-periphery dissonance has been observed. These are Tunisia (2011), Egypt (2013), Venezuela (2014), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014), Thailand (2014) and Ukraine (2014). In these countries, parties that won in recent presidential or

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parliamentary elections obtained far fewer votes in capitals in comparison with the provinces, i.e. won due to peripheral population support. This situation has been called “Central collapse” (Goldstone, 2014; Huntington, 1968). It may start for many reasons, be it economic recession, election results falsification, military defeat, price increase or actions by authorities that negatively affect a large number of citizens. Mass demonstrations follow in the capital; the authorities try to stop the demonstrations, but fail. In response, the disobedience movement becomes more extensive. The army refuses to disperse protesters, and the opposition feels itself empowered to stage a coup d’état. In Iran in 2009, according to official data, for the whole country the winner was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with 62.63% of the vote; while the opposition candidate Mir-Hosein Mousavi received 33.75% votes. Turning to data from the capital Tehran, however, we see that Mir-Hossein Mousavi won 51.83% of the vote (2,166,245 votes), and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received 43.3% (1,809,855 votes) (Szrom & Majidyar, 2009). Unsurprisingly, the Ahmadinejad thus had very little support in Tehran. mass protests against the election results had broad support only in the capital; while in other major Iranian cities they were less intense.

5 Other Factors Related to the Green Movement In general, it can be argued that it was the authoritarian character of the Iranian government that helped the ruling regime remain in power. The government was not only prepared to engage to the fullest its repressive apparatus, but to manipulate and restrict opposition access to social media, which demonstrated a profound knowledge of “the rules of the game” in contrast to other countries of the broader Middle Eastern region. The unrest that took place in Iran after the 2009 presidential elections was different from anything the country had encountered during the 1978–1979 Islamic Revolution. The Green Movement comprised mainly representatives of the urban middle class and students, although a number of lower-to-middle income Iranian citizens could be found among their ranks. In spite of this, the majority of the Iranian population and numerous social groups distanced themselves from the protesters. It is worth emphasizing that the Green Movement maintained its energy for an extended period only in Tehran. In other major cities, the movement’s activities enjoyed only a brief intensity. This further simplified the task of the authorities in suppressing the protests, since the majority of opposition supporters were located in one city, albeit the capital. The intensity and mass character of the Green Movement were at first fueled by the adrenaline momentum carried over from the election campaign, then by feelings of rage and revenge for murdered demonstrators. It was a self-organization of people that lacked a clearly defined structure and contained a sense of community that encouraged continuing protests.

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In spite of the fact that the opposition supporters were extremely active on-line, having created numerous virtual communities, the main coordination of protests took place on the streets of Iranian cities. It was not a Twitter revolution, as it has been called by many protesters, since the majority of Iranians lacked access to the Internet. Moreover, the flow of information over the Internet and creation of new communities often confused people who wished to join the Green Movement. For the first time in the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Iranian opposition brought together more than several hundred thousand people to participate in protests; for the first time, these protests were supported by the political leaders of the opposition; and for the first time, the protesters dared to voice deep and stinging criticism of the authorities. The layer of myths, images, slogans, video and audio information created around the Green Movement crowned the alternative political culture that had begun developing in the mid-1990s. At the same time, the situation in the second half of 2009 showed a preparedness on the part of the Iranian authorities to deal with mass protests, reflected in the mobilization of active supporters of the regime along with the means of suppression available to the government. It is safe to say that during the years prior to 2009, Iranian security services had already gained enormous experience related to mass protests in different parts of the country, especially during the 1999 and 2003 student protests. This amounted to a robust immunity to inroads by the opposition, an immunity lacking in regimes like Tunisia and Egypt in 2010–2011, since there had been no prior mass demonstrations to prepare those governments. Despite the opposition’s defeat, the demands for change were not made in vain, since they contributed to the victory of Hassan Rouhani in the 2013 presidential elections.

6 The Authorities’ Response to the Green Movement Protests The Iranian political system is exceptional, based on both republican and Islamic principles for public management and development, with the latter principles dominating. The president’s power is subordinate to the power of the country’s spiritual leader, who is granted substantial authority to rule the state, including supreme command over the armed forces, the appointment of their Commander-in-Chiefs as well as the heads of leading state agencies: for example, chief magistrates, some members of the Guardian Council, members and heads of the Expediency Council. The president mainly serves as the chief executive. Moreover, his activities are controlled by the Parliament (Majlis) and the Head of the Judiciary. These two institutions can remove the president from office. To become a presidential candidate, one must obtain permission from the Guardian Council, an electoral supervisory body, which has the right to eliminate candidates from all elected bodies and pass laws adopted by the Majlis.

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The Guardian Council is organized as follows: a council composed of six Islamic faqihs (experts in Islamic Law) to be selected from the clerical Shia establishment by the Supreme Leader of Iran, and six jurists to be elected by the Majlis and nominated by the Head of the Judiciary. It was this Council that approved the final results of the presidential elections despite the numerous protests of Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s supporters (SI&P, 2010: 100). The only parties and organizations that can legally function in Iran are those having official programs that do not run counter to the Islamic norms enshrined in the Constitution. Political struggle between various parties or between the opposition and the government, which is a common practice in the West, is not part of the Iranian electoral system. Sustained party life starts only during their election campaigns and fades away again after they are over. Most parties and public associations emerge during elections, and then cease to exert a significant influence on the political system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is how the Iranian Green Movement arose. Initially, it supported Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s campaign during the 2009 presidential elections. Later, it morphed into widespread public protests against the election results, which broke out within the political system where republican institutions were brought under strict Islamic control. This was one of the reasons why the 2009 protests were so weak, since the institutional environment of the Iranian political system did not allow finding significant support for the protesters. By early 2010, the Green Movement became significantly less active due to Iranian authorities successfully resisting these mass protests and gradually reducing the number of protesters via arrests and other measures. The mainstay of the Iranian government in these actions were the special police forces, the Basij organization, and the Ansar-e Hezbollah party supporters. The Basij Resistance Force [Persian: “Mobilization”, full name “Sazman-e Basije Mostaz’afin (The Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed)”] was established in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and is a paramilitary volunteer militia. The organization originally consisted of civilian volunteers who were urged by Khomeini to fight in the Iran—Iraq War. After the war ended, the number of Basij members was reduced to several tens of thousands. The organization was revived after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took up the presidency. The number of Basij members started increasing again and numerous military training drills were held throughout the country. By 2009, its structure varied from one province to another depending on the type and severity of potential threats identified by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij commanders in different regions. There are Basij branch offices in almost every Iranian mosque, large enterprise, university, etc. Its structure resembles the US National Guard, which includes a large number of retired military personnel but they are called up in certain situations only. At the same time, it resembles the USSR pioneer or Komsomol organizations since it involves children in its structure. According to the data provided by the Basij command, the organization has about 13.5 million members including 5 million women and 4.5 million secondary school students (Aryan, 2008). There are several membership categories. The vast majority of people associated with Basij are volunteers and can only be called up in case of

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war or emergency situation. Only about 100 thousand members are routinely active (Alfoneh, 2010). Benefits for members of the Basij include exemption from the 24 months of military service required for Iranian men, reserved spots in universities, and a small stipend (U.S. Department of State, 2012). Members of Basij are more likely than non-members to obtain government positions. The Ansar-e Hezbollah Party (Followers of the Party of God) was established in 1991 and has always opposed any Western influence in Iran. It mostly consists of current Basij members and other religious young people who adhere to antiWestern ideology. The party’s members have always been very well coordinated. In most cases, its actions were perfectly organized (Ravandi-Fadai, 2010). The Ansar-e Hezbollah supporters have often tried to make their case by force. During the protests of 1999 and 2003, Ansar-e Hezbollah actively opposed the reform-oriented students. This organization provoked the 1999 riots, clashing with the student protestors (Filin, 2011). Then in the early 2000s, Islamist attacks on student reformers by Ansar-e Hezbollah supporters occurred in Tehran and the country’s other major cities from time to time. Since the late 1990s, two very different political cultures have been popular among young Iranians—reformist and conservative ones (Rivetti & Cavatorta, 2014: 295). This pattern was revived on a much greater scale during the massive Green Movements protests. The reformist ideology could not spread among the majority of the Iranian population as it runs counter to Islamic conservative ideology, which had almost the same number of active supporters. The state did not need to seek support among the Iranian population, since it had plenty of active supporters of the regime. If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had lost the elections, the Iranian streets would have been flooded with his supporters staging massive demonstrations, too. The state had a ten-year history of mass opposition demonstrations, so it gained sufficient experience in suppressing them and mobilizing regime supporters. By the time the Green Movement protests started, Iranian authorities were well prepared. They also managed to protect the country from the revolutions that happened in Tunisia and Egypt 1.5 years later. However, they did it via mass murder and arrests, destroying hundreds of Iranian’s lives. By the end of 2009, more than 5,000 people (Amnesty International, 2010) had been detained in various cities, including opposition politicians, media representatives, students, teachers, human rights campaigners, military officers, etc. Most of the arrests took place during the first 1.5 months of the protests (BBC, 2009b). Some people were arrested in the streets during demonstrations, in their homes or workplaces. Some were arrested right in the hospitals where they were brought wounded after the clashes. Most were denied legal protection. Many of them were denied medical care and the permission to see their families. Numerous reformist party leaders ended up in prison (Amnesty International, 2010). Most of those arrested were released within weeks or even days but dozens of people were charged with crimes such as incitement of “bloodless coup d’etat” or committing “acts against national security”. More than 80 opposition supporters were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison during the show trials that began in August

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2009. At least six people were sentenced to death (Amnesty International, 2010). Two protesters were executed in January 2010 (YouTube, 2010a). The opposition estimates that 110 Green Movement supporters were killed from June 2009 to March 2010. This number includes all the deaths on the street, in prison, and in hospitals, as well as the two executions listed above. 12% of those who died were women (13 people), and at least 21% were Iranian university students (23 people). There are also two journalists on this list (Sahimi, 2010). The number of Iranians who were injured during clashes with Ansar-e Hezbollah, Basij and the police, as well as the number of people who lost their health in Iranian prisons, cannot be estimated. Videos posted on YouTube showed the egregious brutality of those who were suppressing the protests (YouTube, 2010b). They resorted to using live fire to stop the protesters who ended up seriously injured or dead (YouTube, 2009c). There were several cases when Basij also broke into houses (YouTube, 2009e) and student dormitories (YouTube, 2009d) at night. Some hospital staff also protested because most people with gunshot wounds who were taken to hospitals were either in critical condition or already dead (YouTube, 2009a). Opposition leaders said that prisoners were tortured and raped in prison (Dareini, 2019a). General Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, Iran’s Chief of police, admitted this, saying that prisoners were subjected to physical punishment and rape (Dareini, 2019b). By the end of 2009, 12 officials had appeared before a military tribunal and were charged with abuse; three of them faced murder charges (Amnesty International, 2010). Additionally, authorities tried to take control of the media and the Internet. On June 16, 2009, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance stopped all foreign journalists and correspondents from leaving their offices (Reuters, 2009). The offices of some foreign TV channels, including Al Arabiya, were closed (Radsch, 2009). Al Jazeera accused Iranian authorities of direct media censorship saying some of the newspapers were instructed to change their editorials or their leading headlines (Aljazeera, 2009). Several foreign journalists were arrested but released later. The Association of Iranian Journalists was closed on August 5; searches and inspections were started in its offices (The Free Library, 2009). The Iranian authorities have vast experience in controlling the Internet. They intensified their activities. Iran is known to have one of the most sophisticated web filtering systems in the world, which blocks specific sites. All social media, video hosting services, foreign media websites, and opposition blogs were inaccessible. Some Iranians living abroad were even asked to give up the passwords to their Facebook accounts upon arrival at the Iranian airports (Fassihi, 2009). Iranian intelligence services have established a new branch to fight against cybercrime. They were posting images of demonstrators on their Gerdab (Maelstrom) website, asking people to help them identify those who threaten national security (Gheytanchi, 2010). The Iranian government responded to Iranian cyberspace activity inside and outside the country by creating similar sites to draw and distract visitors’ attention. For example, one of the Iranian special services branches created a Sabz Alavi (Green Alavi) website and announced that they had always been the Prophet Muhammad’s

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true disciples. The opposition sites themselves were subjected to numerous DoS attacks. However, during the period of the Internet censorship in the 1990s and 2000s, many Iranians learned to bypass it using various proxy servers and other tools, such as special software, which had been developed in China to circumvent restrictions on the Chinese Internet. This is why the country was still active in its revolutionary sentiments. Mobile communication was constantly blacked out during the first week of protests in Tehran and other cities. I saw and experienced this myself, first in Isfahan and then in Tehran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters in the latter half of 2009 also took to the streets to support the government’s program. Even though the oppositionists prevailed, Ahmadinejad’s supporters were also making their point. They were holding posters denouncing the opposition and their leaders. The crowd was chanting slogans against the Green Movement’s actions. All public TV channels and newspapers also denounced the supporters of those candidates who had lost the elections. Due to the state propaganda, many Iranians treated those protests very negatively. By early 2010, the authorities managed to stabilize the situation in the country. They demonstrated to the protesters how strong and determined they were through thick and thin, even though they pitched it rather strongly. Moreover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s inauguration and his government’s further activities made it clear to the opposition supporters how futile their efforts were. The Green Movement leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were placed under house arrest on February 14, 2011 (Human Rights Watch, 2013) Probably, that was done in order to prevent the influence of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt on Iran as opposition leaders remained free at large before that despite numerous arrests of protesters. Moreover, the Green Movement was on the decline by 2011. The Iranian authorities did not run a high risk of an increase in public protests after Mousavi and Karroubi had been arrested. They arrested some more opposition supporters during that period (Amnesty International, 2012). That was not repression of actual protests but those measures were rather a reminder about who really had control over the situation in Iran. 110 deaths as a result of these protests is significantly less than the number of deaths recorded by Human Rights Watch during the first week of the Egyptian revolution in 2011—302 cases (232 in Cairo) (Human Rights Watch, 2011). According to Amnesty International, at least 840 people were killed in the 2011 Egyptian protests (6,467 people were wounded) (Amnesty International, 2011). It means that the total number of the Iranian opposition supporter deaths was three times less than in the first week of the Egyptian Arab Spring protests, despite the Green Movement’s massive protests and state repression. This showed how strong the Iranian authorities were. They had massive support within the country. It also demonstrated the weakness of the Green Movement, which was unable to mobilize a significant part of the Iranian population to protest. As for

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Tunisia and Egypt, those governments lacked the internal resources and support to keep control within these countries. In 2011, the Iranian opposition protests largely went online and became a set of online groups that communicated via the Internet.

References Abdo, G. (2009). Shark attack: How Iran’s political crisis might only strengthen the Islamic republic and why Rafsanjani could be the Election’s real winner. Foreign Policy July 08, 2009. https://for eignpolicy.com/2009/07/08/shark-attack/ Akhmedov, V. (2022). The Syrian revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 707–723). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_27 Alfoneh, A. (2010). Iran primer: The Basij resistance force. FrontLine: Tehran bureau, October 21, 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/10/iran-primer-the-basij-res istance-force.html#ixzz1Go4AW26i Aljazeera. (2009). Ahmadinejad “set for Iran victory”. Aljazeera June 13, 2009. http://www.aljaze era.com/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009612195749149733.html Amnesty International. (2010). Iran—Amnesty international report 2010: Human rights in Islamic Republic of Iran. Amnesty International. http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iran/report-2010 Amnesty International. (2011). Egypt rises: Killings, detentions and torture in the ‘25 January revolution’. Amnesty International, May 19, 2011. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE Amnesty International. (2012). Refer to: Iran—Amnesty international report 2012: Human rights in Islamic Republic of Iran. Amnesty International 28.08.2014. http://www.amnesty.org/en/reg ion/iran/report-2012 Aryan, H. (2008). Iran’s Basij force: The mainstay of domestic security. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 07, 2008. http://www.rferl.org/content/Irans_Basij_Force_Mainstay_Of_ Domestic_Security/1357081.html Barmin, Y. (2022). Revolution in Libya. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 725–738). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03086468-2_28 Bayat-Zanjani, A. (2009). Statement by the grand ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani about the situation in the country. Official website of Asadullah Bayat-Zanjani, June 30, 2009. http://bayat.info/ (in Persian) BBC. (2009a). Full text of Guardian Council report on Iran presidential election. BBC Monitoring Middle East, July 18, 2009. https://www.sssup.it/UploadDocs/13486_10_S_Full_text_of_Guar dian_Council_report_on_Iran_presidential_election_13.pdf BBC. (2009b). Refer to: Iran admits 4000 June detentions. BBC News, August 11, 2009. http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8195586.stm Behdad, S., & Nomani, F. (2009). What a revolution!: Thirty years of social class reshuffling in Iran. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 29(1), 84–104. https://doi. org/10.1215/1089201X-2008-046 Cross, K. (2010). Why Iran’s green movement faltered: The limits of information technology in a Rentier state. SAIS Review, 30(2), 169–187. https://doi.org/10.1353/sais.2010.0008 CBIRI (Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran). (2017). Economic time series database. http://www.cbi.ir/section/1372.aspx Dareini, A. (2019a). Pro-reform party blames Iran’s president for abuse. CNSNews.com, August 12, 2009. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pro-reform-party-blames-irans-president-abuse

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Dareini, A. (2019b). Iran’s police chief: Protesters abused in prison. The World Post, September 09, 2009. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/09/irans-police-chief-acknow_n_254969.html Ehsani, K. (1999). Municipal matters: The urbanization of consciousness and political change in Tehran. Middle East Reports, 212, 22–27. https://doi.org/10.2307/3012909 Fassihi, F. (2009). Iranian crackdown goes global. Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2009. http://onl ine.wsj.com/article/SB125978649644673331.html Filin, N. (2011). Dinamika massovykh vystupleniy v Istamskoi Respublike Iran: 1989–2010 gg. Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regionalnykh riskov: Arabskaya vesna (pp. 334–383). URSS. Filin, N. (2012). Socialno-istoricheskoe razvitie Islamskoj Respubliki Iran (1979–2008 gg): Faktory ustojchivosti gosudarstvennoj vlasti. RGGU. Filin, N., Fahmy, S., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022a). Two instances of Islamic “revival”: the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the formation of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 865–883). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_33 Filin, N., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022b). Serbian “Otpor” and the color revolutions’ diffusion. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 465–482). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_17 Freedom House. (2009). Freedom in the world: Iran, 2009. Freedom House. https://iranhrdc.org/ freedom-in-the-world-iran-2009/ Gheytanchi, E. (2010). Symbols, signs, and slogans of the demonstrations in Iran. In Media, power, and politics in the digital age: The 2009 presidential election uprising in Iran (pp. 251–264). Rowman & Littlefield. Goldstone, J. (2014). Protests in Ukraine, Thailand and Venezuela: What unites them? Russia Direct, February 21, 2014. https://russia-direct.org/analysis/protests-ukraine-thailand-and-ven ezuela-what-unites-them Goldstone, J., Bates, R., Epstein, D., Gurr, T., et al. (2010). A global model for forecasting political instability. American Journal of Political Science, 54(1), 190–208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15405907.2009.00426.x Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), New waves of revolutions in the 21st century—Understanding the causes and effects of disruptive political changes (pp. 1–33). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Goldstone, J. A., Gurr, T., Harff, B., Levy, M., et al. (2003). State failure task force report: Phase III findings. Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/ inscr/stfail/ Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 315–388). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). The Arab spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 595–624). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23 Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Malkov, S. (2008) Matematicheskie modeli social’nodemograficheskih ciklov i vyhoda iz “mal’tuzianskoj lovushki”: Nekotorye vozmozhnye napravleniya dal’nejshego razvitiya. Problemy matematicheskoj istorii: Matematicheskoe modelirovanie istoricheskih processov. (pp. 78–118) LIBROKOM/URSS.

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Harris, K. (2012). The Brokered exuberance of the middle class: An ethnographic analysis of Iran’s 2009 green movement. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 17(4), 435–455. https://doi. org/10.17813/maiq.17.4.hm3q725054052k85 Human Rights Watch. (2011). Egypt: Documented death toll from protests tops 300. Human Rights Watch, February 02, 2011. http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/02/08/egypt-documented-death-tollprotests-tops-300 Human Rights Watch. (2013). Refer to: Iran: End house arrests of Mousavi, Karroubi, and Rahnavard. Human Rights Watch, February 14, 2013. http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/14/iranend-house-arrests-mousavi-karroubi-and-rahnavard Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press. ILO (International Labour Organization). (2017). ILOSTAT database. https://ilostat.ilo.org. Accessed January 30, 2017. IMF (International Monetary Fund). (2016). World Economic Outlook (WEO) database. https:// www.imf.org/en/Publications/SPROLLs/world-economic-outlook-databases#sort=%40imfd ate%20descending Iran: the Bloody Summer of 2009 Collection. (2017). Posters of green movement. International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (CD 1). Inventory Number ARCH03453 (in Persian) Iran Green Posters. (2014). Iconic symbols. http://www.irangreenposters.org/vsgallery/ Issaev, L., Khokhlova, A., & Korotayev, L. (2022). The Arab Spring in Yemen. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp.685–705). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26 Khodunov, A. (2022). The Bulldozer revolution in Serbia. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 447–463). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_16 Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Vasiliev, A. (2015a). Quantitative analysis of 2013–2014 revolutionary wave. Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, 8, 119–127. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., & Zinkina, J. (2015b). Center-periphery dissonance as a possible factor of the revolutionary wave of 2013–2014: a cross-national analysis. Cross-Cultural Research, 49(5), 461–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397115595374 Korotayev, A., Malkov, S., & Grinin, L. (2014). A trap at the escape from the trap? Some demographic structural factors of political instability in modernizing social systems. History & Mathematics, 4, 201–267. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2011). Egyptian revolution: A demographic structural analysis. Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar, 13, 139–169. Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2022). Egypt’s 2011 revolution: A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 651–683). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25 Korotayev, A., Zinkina, J., Kobzeva, S., Bozhevolnov, J., Khaltourina, D., Malkov, A., & Malkov, S. (2011). A trap at the escape from the trap? Demographic-structural factors of political instability in Modern Africa and West Asia. Cliodynamics, 2(2), 276–303. https://doi.org/10.21237/C7clio 22217 Kuznetsov, V. (2022). The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring uprisings. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 625–649). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_24 Mitchell, L. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15

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Montazeri, A. (2009). The response of the grand ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri to the letter written by 293 of enlightened thinkers and intellectuals. Official website of Hossein-Ali Montazeri, August 26, 2009. http://www.amontazeri.com/farsi/pop_printer_friendly.asp?TOPIC_ID=219 (in Persian) Radsch, C. (2009). Iran closes Al Arabiya’s offices in Tehran. Al Arabiya News, June 14, 2009. http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/06/14/75922.html Ravandi-Fadai, L. (2010). Politicheskie partii i gruppirovki v Irane. Institut vostokovedeniya RAN. Reuters. (2009). Iran cancels foreign media accreditation. Reuters, June 2009. http://www.reuters. com/article/2009/06/16/idUSEVA639005 Rivetti, P., & Cavatorta, F. (2014). Iranian student activism between authoritarianism and democratization: Patterns of conflict and cooperation between the office for the strengthening of unity and the regime. Democratization, 21(2), 289–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2012.732067 Sahimi, M. (2010). Names of 110 killed in political violence over the past year. Tehran Bureau, January 19, 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/06/martyrs-ofthe-green-movement.html Sanei, Y. (2009a). The statement of the grand ayatollah Yusef Sanei about the situation: “I hope that the way of the Iranian people towards continuation of their legal protest will be open”. Official website of Yusef Sanei June 15, 2009. https://hec.su/fHoM (in Persian). Sanei, Y. (2009b). The statement of the grand ayatollah Yusef Sanei about the situation: “Firmness is a requirement for the success, rather than disillusion with the God’s mercy and a great sin”. Official website of Yusef Sanei, July 03, 2009. https://hec.su/fHpD (in Persian). Sanei, Y. (2009c). Recourse of the grand ayatollah Yusef Sanei to Mohammad Khatami, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Official website of Yusef Sanei, July 03, 2009. https://hec. su/fHpE (in Persian) SCI (Statistical Center of Iran). (2017). Statistical center of Iran. https://www.amar.org.ir. Accessed January 30, 2017. SI&P (Strategic Information and Policies). (2010). Iran: Foreign policy & government guide. Strategic Information and Policies V1. Slackman, M., & Fathi, N. (2009). Clerical leaders defy ayatollah on Iran election. The New York Times (2009). http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html Szrom, C., & Majidyar, A. (2009). 2009 Iranian Presidential Election Results by City. Iran Tracker, June 06, 2009. http://www.irantracker.org/analysis/2009-iranian-presidential-electionresults-city The Free Library. (2009). Press federation slams Iran’s “campaign of intimidation”. The Free Library, August 06, 2009. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Press+federation+slams+Iran’s+%22c ampaign+of+intimidation%22-a01611959111 Transparency International. (2009). Corruption perceptions index 2009 (CPI). Transparency International (2009). http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_2009 Vahidnia, F. (2007). Case study: Fertility decline in Iran. Population and Environment, 28, 259–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11111-007-0050-9 World Bank. (2017). World Bank Open Data. http://data.worldbank.org UNPD [United Nations Population Division]. (2016). World population prospects: The 2015 revision. https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp U.S. Department of State. (2012). Human Rights Reports: Iran (May 24, 2012). U.S. Department of State, May 24, 2012. http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2011/nea/186425.htm YouTube. (2009a). Doctors and nurses are protesting in a major hospital in Tehran—Iran. YouTube.com, June 16, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyirzlCO-FA YouTube. (2009b). Iran riots latest news about Basij shooting yet another move to proof of dictator. YouTube.com, June 17, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBab8HwACZY&list=PLD 0F64293B8B130D2&index=3 YouTube. (2009c). Kooye daneshgah. YouTube.com, June 17, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=7Hu84MihcOU

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YouTube. (2009d). Iran Tehran Basij attacks people’s cars and homes at night… just listen!… (June 2009). YouTube.com, June 21, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38bDy3f2hqQ YouTube. (2010a). Police and Basij attack protesters—Iran Tehran June 14, 2009. YouTube.com, March 03, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDPXVuL1GYo YouTube. (2010b). Tribute to the Martyrs Arash Rahmanipour and Mohammadreza Alizamani— Iran January 28, 2010. YouTube.com, January 28, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Poj YfS5d3ds

Nikita Filin is the Head of the Department of the Modern East at the Faculty of History, Political Science and Law (Institute for History and Archives, Russian State University for the Humanities), Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Central Asian, Caucasian and Volga-Urals Studies (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences). The author of over 80 academic publications including the following monographs Social and Historical Development of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Moscow: RSUH, 2012), Failed Revolution of Islamic Color: Causes of Rise and Decline of “Green Movement” in Iran (Moscow: Lenand, 2015), The Past and the Present of the Religious Mentorship in Religious Practices of Iranian Shiites (Moscow: Vorobyov, 2017, in collaboration with L. Ravandi-Fadai).

Revolutions of the Early 21st Century. The Arab Spring Wave as an Important Revolutionary Turning Point

The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev

1 Introduction: Events of Special Importance? The Arab world (and the MENA region in general) tends to be perceived as a zone of instability where various wars, violent conflicts, and other upheavals are likely.1 The protests and revolutions of 2011, known as the “Arab Spring,” fit quite well into the stormy history of this region (e.g., Grinin & Korotayev, 2016a, 2016b; Korotayev et al., 2016). However, from the 1980s, the region had seemed to settle into a period of stable authoritarianism. After decades of political hibernation (Gardner, 2011), one could hardly fail to be impressed by the unexpectedness and energy of the social explosion, the enormous geographic scope of the Arab Spring “from the Ocean to the Gulf” (e.g., Mirskiy, 2011), the synchronicity of the “color revolutions” and social protests, and the prevalence in 2011 of sociopolitical (rather than interethnic or interconfessional) motifs. The upheavals and protests involved more than a dozen Arab countries, including 1 On the revolutionary events in the MENA region in the 1950s–1990s see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

This chapter is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254). L. Grinin (B) · A. Korotayev HSE University, Moscow, Russia Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23

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some in the Gulf. Large-scale social explosions and revolutions were observed in six countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain).2 In three countries, they led to lengthy civil wars (Syria, Libya and Yemen). In addition, in 2011 most of the other Arab countries (and many of their neighbors) experienced a considerable degree of sociopolitical destabilization.3 What is important is that those events appear to have some features that are definitely new in comparison with earlier events in the Middle East and North Africa. We no longer can hold an impression that the Arabs are only capable of waging anticolonial liberation wars, military coups, rebellions “under the green banner of Islam” (Mirskiy, 2011), or developing Islamist movements of different versions. Gil Yaron (2011: 38), a journalist, expressed this with the following words: “Finally, history is being made in the Middle East.” The article went on to say: “Thomas Friedman, one of the most influential American political commentators, maintained not long ago that the Arab Middle East had not been a place where History was made for more than a century. Up to the early twenty-first century the Arab countries were dominated by feudal structures that suppressed all ideological novelties.4 However, since the start of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt this defect has been mended. In early 2011 there was no lack of facts indicating that History was being made in the Middle East” (Yaron, 2011: 38). Thus, it is hardly surprising that the number of studies of the Arab Spring is very large, and this number continues to grow (e.g., Acemoglu et al., 2017; Al-Hasan et al., 2018; Alpher, 2019; Anderson, 2011; Arampatzi et al., 2018; Aras & Keyman, 2018; Beck, 2014; Gause, 2011; Goldstone 2011a, 2011b; Bellin, 2012; Brynen et al., 2012; Cammett, 2018; Campante & Chor, 2012; Dabashi, 2012; Davis, 2016; Devarajan & Ianchovichina, 2018; Haas, 2018; Haas & Lesch, 2017; Hehir, 2016; Hermida et al., 2014; Hodler, 2018; Lawson, 2015; Levin et al., 2018; Massoud et al., 2019; Moghadam, 2018; Rougier, 2016; Schumacher & Schraeder, 2021; Solomon, 2018).5

2

For more detail see Chapters “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022) in this volume. 3 See, e.g., Goldstone (2011a, 2011b), Beck (2011), Grinin and Korotayev (2011, 2012a, 2012b), Brynen et al. (2012), Weyland (2012), Holmes (2012), Howard and Hussain (2013), Wilson (2013), Korotayev et al. (2013, 2014), Lang and Sterck (2014), Beissinger et al. (2015), Sumiala and Korpiola (2017) etc.; see also Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume). 4 Of course, this is an exaggeration, especially in relation to countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, etc. This shows the level of understanding of Islamic countries, as well as Islamist movements on the part of the media. 5 Some of the abovementioned works (see especially Lawson, 2015) regard the Arab Spring revolutions as a wave of revolutions. In this chapter we do not concentrate on this aspect, because we analyze character, causes and particularities of this revolutionary wave in Chapters “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), “On Revolutionary Waves Since the Sixteenth Century” (Grinin, 2022f), and “Revolutions of the 21st Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e) in this volume.

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2 Revolutions: Causes, Regularities, Conditions, and Driving Forces An analysis of theories of revolution (and sociopolitical destabilization in general) goes outside the scope of this chapter [for this analysis see Chapters “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022c) and “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b, in this volume); see also, e.g., Bilyuga et al., 2016; Goldstone, 2001; Grinin, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019b; Grinin & Korotayev, 2015, 2016b; Grinin et al., 2010, 2014a, 2017; Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2018a, 2018c, 2020, 2021; Lawson, 2016, 2019; Romanov et al., 2021; Sztompka, 1993: 302–305; Tsirel, 2012a6 ]. At this point let us recollect that in this chapter (as well as in this book as a whole7 ) we rely on such definitions of revolution as “a revolution is a collective mobilization that attempts to quickly and forcibly overthrow an existing regime in order to transform political, economic, and symbolic relations” (Lawson, 2019: 5); “any and all instances in which a state or a political regime is overthrown and thereby transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional and/or violent fashion” (Goodwin, 2001: 9); “anti-government (very often illegal) mass actions (mass mobilization) with the following aims: (1) to overthrow or replace the existing government within a certain period of time; (2) to seize power or to provide conditions for coming to power; (3) to make significant changes in the regime, social or political institutions” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2020a: 856); “an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in a society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine existing authorities” (Goldstone, 2001: 142). As one could see, some of the Arab Spring events (especially in Egypt and Tunisia) fit such definitions rather well. The wave of Arab revolutions, revolts, and rebellions (as well as any other similar major unexpectedly starting events) are produced by complex and unique combinations of numerous (objective and subjective, exogenous and endogenous, social and personal) factors. Note that disputes on the causes of such events may continue for centuries [Plato and Aristotle argued over the causes of revolution, or metabolê; see also, e.g., Grinin et al., 2010, 2016]. However, it is

6

See also Chapters “On Theories and Phenomenon of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022c) and “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) in this volume. 7 See in particular Chapters “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b) and “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022c) in this book.

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useful to try to systematize such factors.8 We begin by analyzing the division of factors into internal and external (and, especially, global, world-system ones). It also appears important to consider that the same factors could act as both endogenous and exogenous forces and that global causes may lead to very different outcomes in different social systems. Below we shall try to single out a few conditions that were observed as regards the Arab (and many other) revolutions (see also Grinin et al., 2019: Chap. 5): 1.

8

We start by examining some structural societal features that, when they arise, generate serious economic and social problems. For example, in Russia before the Revolution of 1917 fast demographic growth in conjunction with the strong village community generated an acute deficit of arable land. With respect to the Arab countries a salient role appears to have been played by certain demographic structural factors, like the one of the “youth bulge” (see, e.g., Grinin, 2011; Grinin & Korotayev 2012a, 2012b; Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2014; LaGraffe, 2012; Malik & Awadallah, 2013; Mirkin, 2013). Many researchers regard the rapid growth of the youth share in the population to be a major factor of political instability [see Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume) for more detail]. The role of this factor may be strengthened by economic and distribution disproportions, by certain structural political factors which we shall discuss in more detail below—e.g., “hybrid” political regimes that are neither consistently democratic, nor consistently authoritarian; or nonmonarchic political systems where one person remains in power for a critically long period, and so on. A certain role may be played by disproportions in the education systems [for example, in Egypt, this led to a particularly high proportion of unemployed with university degrees—see Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)]. There is another such aspect connected with societal modernization. The point is that modernizing societies systematically “overgrow” older forms, and its members seek to acquire new forms even if their respective social systems are not ready for them [whereas this readiness (or unpreparedness) often only becomes clear in retrospect]. As a result, modernizing systems frequently find themselves in a sort of “modernization trap”.9

See Chapters “On Theories and Phenomenon of Revolution” (Goldstone et al., 2022c), “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a), “On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), “Revolutions of the 21st Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e), and “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) in this volume. 9 See, e.g., Grinin and Korotayev (2012a). On the connection between modernization [even when it proceeds successfully) and revolution see Chapters “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022), “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022d), and “The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the Nineteenth Century: Their Causes and Consequences” (Grinin,

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Regime rigidity. Revolutions do not happen within consolidated democratic political systems.10 Revolutions are directed against rigid regimes that try to control everything (and, thus, appear to be responsible for everything). Consequently, everything wrong, whether actual or imagined, starts being ascribed to those regimes and their leaders. Any regime has certain defects resulting from the features of its peculiar institutions and personalities. In particular, the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world had certain defects that are typical for almost all authoritarian regimes of the world: corruption, abuse of power by security forces, absence of truly independent courts of law, falsified elections, and so on. It appears almost impossible to eliminate such defects within such systems, especially as they are based on the regime of personal power of a certain political leader, even when the government understands the presence of those defects (see also Grinin et al., 2019: Chap. 5). Decline of governmental authority and intermediate or transitional political structures. In the course of time one frequently observes among people an accumulation of resentments caused by corruption, the economic and/or political preponderance of certain clans and cliques, breaches of justice, nepotism, a growing impossibility to realize one’s life plans, etc. This resentment is never without some substantial grounds. For example, with respect to Egypt, in addition to the aforesaid problems, one may mention that the decades-long State of Emergency created a situation of uncontrolled activities of the security forces, which led to massive use of torture against those opposed to the regime; one may also mention a particularly high level of falsification of results that was recorded for the parliamentary elections that took place in Egypt just two months before the revolution. When social peace and order are based on the power of a specific person rather than institutions (which is typical for authoritarian regimes and dictatorships), the decline of governmental authority below a certain level may make a regime unstable. Thus, social protests could easily topple a personalist regime that loses elite support (especially, against the backdrop of intra-elite conflict). Note that in the absence of sufficient internal cohesion this may lead to a disintegration of the state. The preconditions of revolutions are almost always connected with the growth of dissatisfaction with authorities, on the one hand, and with the weakness (confusion, indecision) of the authorities, on the other. This is one of the most important features of the revolutionary situation [for an analysis of such situations see, e.g., Goldstone, 2014b; Grinin, 2017a; see also Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022d, in this volume)]. And what is important is that the longer the rule of an authoritarian leader, the more likely the loss of authority. As is noted by Sorokin (1992: 278), when the halo of authority evaporates, the population develops significant doubts as to whether the preservation of the regime makes sense. Note that the Arab Spring has provided

2022g) in this volume; see also Grinin 2011, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2014, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019b; Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2011, 2014, 2020, 2021]. 10 About the correlation between revolutions and democracy see Chapters “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022) and “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) in this book.

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additional evidence in support of the finding reported in the State Failure Task Force Report (Goldstone et al., 2000: vii–viii, 18–25) that the non-monarchic regimes with political leaders staying in power for very long periods (more than 14 years) are more unstable. Indeed, all the heads of the Arab states that lost their power as a result of the Arab Spring events (in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen) had stayed in power longer than the period indicated by Goldstone and his colleagues.11 In general, one can hardly ignore the fact that the restriction of the rule of the head of state by two terms that is found in most present-day democracies looks like a rather successful evolutionary finding that appears to be rather congruent with human political psychology (after two terms more and more people tend to “feel tired” even with a very effective political leader, and after 14 years this may reach a critical level). Note also that the analysis of correlates of political instability performed by the State Failure Task Force through a multiple regression analysis indicates that the highest risks of political destabilization are observed with respect to hybrid regimes (that is, those political regimes that combine certain features of autocracies and democracies), whereas both consistently authoritarian and consistently democratic regimes are characterized by a much higher degree of stability [see Goldstone et al., 2000: vii–viii, 18–25; see also Gurr, 1974; Gates et al., 2000; Goldstone, 2014b; Goldstone et al., 2010; Grinin et al., 2016; Korotayev et al., 2013, 2015, 2016; Malkov et al., 2013; Mansfield & Snyder, 1995; Marshall & Cole, 2008, 2012; Slinko et al., 2017; Ulfelder & Lustik, 2007, as well as Chapters “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022) and “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) in this book]. This regularity has become especially salient in the present-day rapidly globalizing world. The point is that, with respect to the present-day non-monarchic modernized societies, democracy is the only accepted (practically without any realistic alternatives) mode of political power legitimization (see, e.g., Furman, 2010: 21; Tsirel, 2012b). This is important from the point of view of both internal and external legitimization (whereas the latter might be more important for a regime when it is stable, however, in the case of a sociopolitical explosion the former, naturally, becomes much more important). The Arab Spring events have demonstrated again that the traditional monarchic mode of legitimization still remains rather effective (see, e.g., Korotayev & Khokhlova, 2022), but in the present-day world it can hardly be returned to those countries where it had been abolished some time ago (however, generally speaking, the constitutional monarchy looks like the most effective and bloodless version of an intermediate phase of democratic transformation). In any case, in the present-day world even the most authoritarian (but non-monarchic) regimes have to use for their legitimization some formally democratic procedures (note, by the way, that even the most consistently authoritarian regime of the present day still positions itself as 11

For example, Ali Abdullah Saleh was in power in Yemen for 34 years; Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was for 30 years, Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya was for 42 years, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia was for 24 years.

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“the Korean Democratic People’s Republic” and that even China’s Communist Party seeks legitimacy from a National People’s Congress).12 Thus, from time to time most non-monarchic authoritarian regimes, in order to bolster their claim to legitimacy, have to conduct elections, which by definition are performed with certain violations of democratic procedures13 (including direct falsifications of election results). The hybrid political regimes tend to have certain civil society institutions. For example, in Egypt under President Mubarak there were a few legal or semi-legal parties and movements, some more or less independent media, a considerable number of NGOs—including even ones concerned with, say, human rights, numerous Internet networks, and so on (e.g., Montada, 2016). The presence of such civil society institutions tends to hamper falsifications of election results, as they help both to detect such falsifications and to diffuse the information on them through independent media (of course, in the present-day world this is first of all the Internet). As a result, within such a context any new elections tend to be accompanied by more and more serious protests. In addition, social networks make it possible to organize specific mass actions of protest [see, e.g., AlSayyad & Guvenc, 2015; Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011; Hänska Ahy, 2016; Howard & Hussain, 2013; Khondker, 2011; Schroeder et al., 2012; Steinert-Threlkeld, 2017; Wolfsfeld et al., 2013].14 Yet, by 2011, in the countries in question only a minority of the population could join such networks (and a very large part of this minority was constituted by rather well-to-do representatives of the middle class). However, as the experience of recent years clearly indicates, these are just those people who tend to react in the most negative way with respect to the facts of salient falsifications of election results; these are just the people who are ready to act as a vanguard of protest movements. Such protest movements may get an especially wide sweep in those modernizing countries that have an especially high proportion of youths in their population [the above mentioned “youth bulge” (see, e.g., Goldstone, 2002)]. As we shall see below, these were the demographic structural characteristics of the Arab countries. 12

Incidentally, in most modern revolutions (with the exception, perhaps, of some revolutions led by communist, ultra-right, or radical Islamist leaders), the demand for freedom and democracy occupies an important, if not the most important, place. And even during the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1978–1979 at least part of the revolutionary forces opposed the authoritarian monarchy and fought for freedom and democracy. For detail on the Iranian revolution see Chapters "Two instances of Islamic “revival”: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the formation of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2022a) and “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) in this book. 13 This is just by definition, as otherwise such regimes would be classified as democratic. 14 We can see very obvious cases when impressions that elections were rigged triggered revolutions. See Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022), “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b), and “Color Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022) in this book.

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Ideological preconditions. Essentially, most revolutions are produced by a combination of protest moods, discontent, hatred, the desire to shift the burden of responsibility for difficulties and hardships onto the government (with which you are completely fed up), on the one hand, and by strong aspiration for new ideas, ideals, relations, etc.—on the other. Revolutions are hardly possible in those social systems where nobody seeks to change them. They are hardly possible in those systems that lack appropriate ideologies, and idealized models of a better life (in such systems one would rather expect riots, mutinies, and so on).

Thus, the genesis of revolution needs serious grievances against the government, inflated expectations and the conviction that it would be possible to make life better, more just, more honest if this were not hampered by the bad (corrupted, criminal, antinational, etc.) government. It is evident that the post-revolution reality tends to correspond very little to pre-revolution expectations; however, this only becomes clear after the victory of the revolution. Inflated expectations (generated in part by the orientation toward more developed countries) create ideological grounds for protests and anti-governmental actions.

3 On External and Internal Factors Contributing to the Revolution Often the question arises about the influence of foreign forces on the revolutions in the Middle East. In some respects, these influences can be traced very clearly.15 But it is important to understand that revolutions are never determined solely by external influence; they are always the result of an internal crisis [for the reasons and conditions for such a crisis in relation to a number of Middle Eastern countries, see, e.g., Goldstone, 2011a, 2014a; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012b, 2014, 2016a; Grinin et al., 2016; Korotayev et al., 2013; Korotayev et al., 2014]. The role of external factors, moreover, is significantly different from country to country, depending on its level of development and features. If revolutions in such states as Egypt and Tunisia were rooted in internal economic and political conflicts, then in a number of other Arab countries, the upheavals were caused by the fact that internal ethno-religious and tribal divisions were spurred into motion. These ethno-religious and tribal divisions in certain Arab countries never really disappeared and gained momentum due to a whole set of factors that included, in addition to the social discontent, the example of other countries, the inspiration of nearby protests and active help from outside. We see this 15 See Chapters “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022c), “Revolutions of the 21st Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022e), and “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022) in this book; see also, e.g., Grinin et al. (2016).

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in Libya, Yemen, and Syria, where external military intervention unleashed a knot of ethno-confessional hostilities [see Chapters “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), “Revolution in Libya” (Barmin, 2022), and “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022) in this book]. The latter were only restrained by sufficiently strong authoritarian regimes. And it was only necessary to overthrow or weaken those regimes in order for chaos to begin in these countries. We consider it necessary to re-emphasize what we noted before: for countries lacking a strong statehood, and with low values of Human Development Index, the idea of revolution is extremely dangerous and can lead to serious destabilization [see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022, in this volume), as well as Grinin et al.‚ 2016; Grinin et al., 2019]. One of the main opportunities for a revolution is the absence of clear mechanisms for the transfer of power within authoritarian regimes. Proceeding from the essence of any authoritarian regime, the transfer of power must follow the classical or Byzantine monarchical principle (to the son or relative or to the appointed successor). However, in modern conditions such attempts obviously contradict the declared principles of democracy. Thus, democratic ideas come into collision with the need for stability; as a result, the process by which power is transferred in authoritarian regimes becomes their vulnerable point. The countries in which the consequences of the Arab Spring have turned out to be the most damaging are predominantly non-monarchies with poorly developed traditions of statehood. This is aggravated by the fact that modern borders have not yet had time to gain a foothold. It is not surprising that in these countries the ruling regimes tried to compensate for the weakness of statehood by quasi-monarchist attempts (Syria, Yemen, and Libya). That is, attempts to transfer power in one way or another by inheritance. This took place even in Egypt, in an attempt to transfer power from Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal.

4 Notes About Causes of the Arab Revolutions Famine, Inflated Expectations, Corruption, or Yearning for Freedom? Some analysts suggest as a major cause of the Arab revolutions extreme deprivation and mass poverty caused by economic stagnation, catastrophic unemployment and food price growth (Al-Arabiya, 2011; al-Lawati‚ 2011; Stangler & Litan, 2011). The selfimmolation acts seem to confirm this. Nevertheless, it appears wrong to interpret events that took place in Egypt, Tunisia, or Bahrain (and, in the Arab countries in general, with some exception of Yemen where the average per capita food consumption did not reach the level recommended by the World Health Organization16 ) as “revolutions of the hungry”. If we take Egypt as an example, we will see that the 16

However, even in Yemen one could not observe any substantial trend of declining living standards in the pre-Arab-Spring period; Hence, even with respect to Yemen‚ such an explanation does not look convincing at all.

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Fig. 1 Food consumption dynamics, kcal per capita per day, 1961–2007 (FAO, 2017b)

percentage of Egyptians who lived at less than one dollar per capita per day (the UN defined level of abject poverty) was at the eve of the revolution extremely low, even compared with the one found in the most developed countries, like the USA or UK [see, e.g., Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume), as well as Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c]. The point that the Arab Spring was in no way a “revolution of the hungry” is supported by data on the dynamics of per capita food consumption in the Middle Eastern countries since 1961 (see Fig. 1). As we see, still in the early 1960s the level of per capita food consumption in all the countries represented in the diagram was below the level recommended by the World Health Organization (2300 kcal per capita per day), whereas in such countries as Iran, Yemen, or Algeria it was critically low. However, in the 1960s and 1970s almost all the countries represented in the diagram achieved impressive results, and already in the early 1980s the level of food consumption in some of them (for example, in Egypt and Syria) exceeded 3000 kcal per capita per day—that is actually the level of clear overeating.17 This is convincingly confirmed by the map in Fig. 2, compiled by the World Food Programme. It is very remarkable that all of the Arab Spring countries (with the single 17

To understand how false is the fashionable interpretation of the Arab Spring as “a revolution of the hungry”, it appears appropriate to mention that the percentage of obesity among the Egyptians by the start of the Arab Spring was one of the highest in the world (e.g., Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b; Martorell et al., 2000). According to Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey (conducted in 2008), 40% of Egyptian women and 18% of men were overweight because of overeating (Egypt Ministry of Health et al., 2009). According to a bit more recent data, these figures equal 22% for males and 48% for females just by the beginning of the protests under a hypocritical slogan “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice!” (Badran & Laher, 2011: 3). And in January 2011 it was difficult to find in the world a population better provided with the bread than the population of Egypt (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b). If anything, the Egyptian 2011 revolution was “a revolution of the fat”. As we have shown earlier, by 2011 a substantial proportion of Egyptians continued getting food subsidies from the government while suffering serious obesity problems (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b; see also Grinin, 2012a; Korotayev & Zinkina, 2015: 413).

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Fig. 2 “HungerMap” 2011, World Food Programme (http://www.wfp.org/content/hunger-map2011)

exception of Yemen) belong to the first category together with the most developed countries of the world, indicating that the problems of hunger were irrelevant for them at the eve of the Arab Spring. And, in general, the level of “pauperization” was not high at all. In addition, in the most important Arab country, in Egypt, the poor were very strongly supported by a very developed and sophisticated system of food subsidies (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b). Actually, in recent decades one could observe in the Arab countries rather steady trends toward an increase in the living standards of the majority of the population, which resulted, e.g., in a spectacular growth of life expectancies (see Fig. 3). Many analysts indicate a high level of corruption as a major cause of the Arab Spring. However, according to Transparency International (2010: 2–3), the overall level of corruption in the Middle East at the verge of the Arab Spring was very similar to the one found all across the countries of the Third World (and the former Soviet Union) in general; in almost all of those countries one finds a level of corruption that is either high or very high. It is quite clear that countries with low levels of corruption are much less liable for major sociopolitical upheavals with a large death toll (Grinberg et al., 2017; Korotayev et al., 2019). For example, there were no such upheavals in those countries in the recent decade. However, in the recent decade it was also true that very many countries with high levels of corruption (China, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Italy, Indonesia, Paraguay and so on) were also characterized by a quite

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Fig. 3 Dynamics of life expectancy at birth (years) in some Arab countries, 1960–2009 (dynamics of life expectancy in Russia is presented for a comparison) (Surinov, 2010: 101; World Bank, 2021)

high level of political stability. This already indicates that we should look for other factors in order to explain the wave of sociopolitical destabilization that engulfed the Middle East in 2011. Note also that the Middle Eastern countries differ among themselves as regards their corruption levels in a rather substantial way (see Fig. 4). For example, such Arab countries as Jordan, Oman, or Bahrain are not classified as highly corrupt by Transparency International, whereas in most countries of this region a rather high level of corruption is observed. However, a relatively low level of corruption has not “saved” Oman, Jordan, and especially Bahrain, from serious sociopolitical upheavals. Generally speaking, serious political upheavals were observed in highly corrupted Libya and Yemen, in Tunisia and Egypt with their medium level of corruption, but also in such countries with a relatively low level of corruption as Bahrain and Oman. This suggests that a high level of corruption can hardly be regarded as the main cause of the Arab Revolutions (though, of course, a high level of corruption that is typical for most Arab countries has made a serious contribution to the genesis of the Arab Spring as well as the previous color revolutions in the 2000s). This makes it possible to agree with those analysts who believe that the dominant role in the Arab Spring was played by political demands: freedom, democracy, and accountability of the authorities (e.g., Khalaf, 2011). This is not contradicted by the fact that the impact force of the Arab Revolutions was constituted by the highly educated unemployed (or inadequately employed) youth. Those people felt insulted by the government and saw the cause of their unsatisfactory situation in the absence of democracy and freedom, and in the defects of the authorities and regimes—the very regimes that achieved an immense expansion of university education (this is

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Fig. 4 Corruption index for some Arab and non-Arab countries of the world, 2010. Note The corruption index is based on the Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International, 2010: 8–14) and is obtained by extracting the basic index out of 10

especially visible with respect to Egypt—Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b). That is why in addition to the demand that is typical for all the revolutions—“Go away!” (Irh.al!), they also demanded such things as free elections, the abolition of emergency rule, freedom, and democracy. On the other hand, it appears possible to speak about a certain excessiveness of some demands directed toward the governments, which had done a lot for the development of education, for economic growth and gains in life expectancy. This excessiveness seems to have been created by inflated expectations, and by demonstration effects produced by the level of living standards in much more developed countries. So there are some causes of the Arab Spring revolutions that are similar to the ones of some other color revolutions (Serbia-2000, Georgia-2003, Ukraine-2004, in some respects—Kyrgyzstan-200518 ), namely: strong desire of democracy and freedom, tiredness from corruption, nepotism etc., a very considerable participation of youth, especially students and graduates, help from the revolutionary organizations (like Otpor)19 and foreign NGOs, widespread use of Internet for mass mobilization (though for understandable reasons in the Arab revolutions the using of social networks such

18

See Chapters “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022), “The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia” (Khodunov, 2022a), “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022c), “The Orange Revolution in Ukraine” (Khodunov, 2022b), and “Color Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan” (Ivanov, 2022) in this book. 19 See Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” (Filin et al., 2022b) in this book.

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as Twitter, Facebook etc. was much wider20 ). However, there were special or new causes in the Arab revolutions. These are: much longer periods of the incumbent duration for the Arab autocrats in comparison with the post-Soviet ones (see above), the Islamist factor,21 and a different economic situation as a whole. Unlike the wave of the 2000s, at the time of the Arab Spring the world economy was in crisis due to the world-wide Great Recession 2008–2011, which included the agflation wave(a steep rise in global food prices) caused mainly by the counter-crisis quantitative easing measures undertaken by the major economic powers [first of all the USA; see about the economic factors below; see also Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022b, in this volume)]. Global Factors and Synchronization of Timing in the Genesis of the Arab Spring. Globalization in general (including a fast diffusion of modern informationcommunication technologies as well as ideas of norms, relationships, and lifestyles that should be regarded as acceptable and desired) played an immense role in the genesis of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave (Beck, 2011; Grinin & Korotayev, 2012b, 2016a). If we look further back in recent history, we will find one synchronization impulse in 1973—this was a sharp increase in world oil prices. A rain of petrodollars poured over the Arab world. Naturally, their primary receivers were the oil exporting countries, but finally every Arab country received some piece of the “oil pie”. For example, both North and South Yemen (in this period Yemen was divided into two countries) received some parts of this pie—through the channels of Arab aid, but also through massive remittances sent back to their countries by Yemeni labor migrants working in the Arab oil exporting countries. This significantly contributed to the acceleration of modernization in all the Arab countries (see Grinin, 2018d). One of the main components of modernization among the Arab countries was constituted by the development of modern health care systems. Petrodollars helped to construct networks of hospitals, maternity wards, clinics, etc. As a result, in the 1970s and 1980s we observe a precipitous decline of death rates in general (see Fig. 5), and infant and child mortality in particular, which against the backdrop of still high birth rates22 led to the explosive growth of the young population (aged especially between 20 and 24) in the Arab Spring countries (Korotayev et al., 2011).

20

This point as well as the next one creates an affinity between the Arab revolutions, on the one hand, and Moldavian and Iranian events in 2009, on the other. See Chapters “‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009: The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed” (Tkachuk et al., 2022) and “The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010” (Filin, 2022) in this book. 21 On this factor in general and its manifestation during the Arab Spring see Grinin (2019a), Grinin and Korotayev (2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2020b) and Grinin et al. (2019). 22 In complete accordance with the demographic transition theory the decline of the birth rates in the Arab world lagged significantly behind the decline of the death rates (see, e.g., Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b).

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Fig. 5 Dynamics of crude death rates (per 1000) in some Arab countries, 1973–1995 (World Bank, 2021)

The 2008 world economic crisis should be regarded as a global factor that became a major destabilization factor in every country of the Arab Spring. It contributed significantly to the synchronization of political upheavals in different countries (including even such prosperous countries as Bahrain). A special role here was played by the “agflation” whose peak was observed in January and February 2011 (see Figs. 6 and 7): The explosive global growth of food prices led to a corresponding growth of protest demonstrations in most countries of the world (see, e.g., Korotayev et al., 2018; Ortmans et al., 2017). Of course, the role of this factor should not be exaggerated (finally, in most countries of the world the growth of protest induced by the agflation wave 2010–2011 did not lead to revolutions); however, in socio-politically misbalanced Arab countries this factor appears to have played a major additional role in the genesis of sociopolitical explosions (see, e.g., Akaev et al., 2012; Johnstone & Mazo, 2011; Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d; Grinin, 2012a; Khodunov & Korotayev, 2012; Ferragina & Canitano, 2014; Demarest, 2015; Grinin, 2012a; Grinin et al., 2016); moreover, it acted as one of the most important impulses of the synchronization of the Arab Spring events. Note also that given the high degree of economic inequality in the Arab countries, this wave pushed a mass of lower-class Arabs (who suddenly, if briefly, found themselves below the poverty line as a result of the explosive food price growth) to join the vanguard force of the Arab revolutions—the highly educated unsettled youth. Naturally, this gave the protests the force that was necessary to topple regimes.

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Fig. 6 World food price dynamics (FAO general monthly food price index, 2002–2004 = 100, inflation adjusted), January 2003–June 2011 (FAO, 2017a)

Fig. 7 World food price dynamics (FAO general monthly food price index, 2002–2004 = 100, inflation adjusted), July 2010–June 2011 (FAO, 2017a)

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A very important role in the synchronization of those events was played by the diffusion of new information technologies (see, e.g., Akaev et al., 2017; AlSayyad & Guvenc, 2015; Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011; Hänska Ahy, 2016; Howard & Hussain, 2013; Khamis & Vaughn, 2014; Khondker, 2011; Schroeder et al., 2012; SteinertThrelkeld, 2017; Wolfsfeld et al., 2013; Vasiliev, 2011). Naturally, one should take into account the point that long before the Arab Spring one could observe in the Arab world the formation of a unified Internet space (see, e.g., Abdulla, 2007) where inhabitants of those Arab countries that had not been reached yet by the Spring 2011 protest wave could communicate freely with the inhabitants of the countries already covered by the “Tsunami of Revolutions” (Vasiliev, 2011) in Standard Arabic comprehensible to all Internet-literate Arabs. Note that if even one of the authors of this chapter (living thousands of kilometers away from Cairo) got through Facebook an invitation to join protests in Cairo on the 25th of January, 2011, then it should be clear that a few millions of Internet-users (both inside and outside Cairo and Egypt) must have received such invitations.23 It should also be noted that during the Arab Spring one could observe the proliferation of not only European know-how, but also of genuinely Middle Eastern inspirations, like the exploitation of the especially favorable opportunities to organize protest meetings and demonstrations on Fridays, the day of mosque assemblies (see, e.g., AlSayyad & Massoumi, 2012; Cherribi, 2017; Droz-Vincent, 2014; Hoffman & Jamal, 2014). A very special role in the synchronization of the Arab Spring events was played by the pan-Arab satellite TV channels—first of all, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya (see, e.g., Tausch, 2011; Khondker, 2011; Sultan, 2013; Cherribi, 2017). It is important to note that in the Arab world, the 2000s observed a sort of media revolution that expressed itself, inter alia, in the emergence of extremely professional high-quality pan-Arab TV channels. Of course, Al-Jazeera is the best known of them, but Al-Arabiya, the Saudi-Emirate analogue of Al-Jazeera, is quite comparable as regards the level of professionalism. With respect to those TV channels one can speak unequivocally about a world level TV journalism that suddenly emerged (and of special importance, of course, is the point that by the eve of the Arab Spring they had become immensely popular in the whole Arab world—including those countries where mass media were under strict state control). Those who in course of the Arab Spring observed broadcasts of those channels in a language comprehensible to the entire Arab world, those who saw the work of the talented TV journalists who broadcast in real time exceptionally vivid images of explosive popular protests, have no doubt that they played an immense role in the genesis of the sociopolitical tsunami of the Arab Spring. It is remarkable that the Arab Spring revolutionary wave produced a much stronger effect inside rather than outside the Arab world—even in those countries that were rather close to the countries of the Arab Spring as regards their demographic structural and political characteristics, but that did not receive continuous streams of vivid images of popular rebellion whose 23

On the role of information technologies in revolutions see Chapters “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) and Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a) in this book; see also Akaev et al. (2017).

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participants shouted out immensely attractive slogans in one’s own language. We believe that a certain role was even played by the brilliant main slogan of the Arab Spring that was born during the first, Tunisian, revolution—al-sha‘b yurid isqat alnizam. In addition to its excellent inflammatory (but only for those who know Arabic) rhythmic structure, it also played its role through its meaning—“the people want to bring down the regime”—thus it was directed not against some particular ruler or regime, but could be used in any Arab country without any modification, so in any Arab country it produced very strong repercussions. And, of course, the “revolutionary tsunami” would not have swept throughout the Arab world if the Tunisian Revolution had not been so swift and relatively bloodless, thus creating a feeling that any “oppressing” Arab regime could be toppled in a similarly swift and bloodless way.

5 Conclusion To summarize, regarding the spread of the Arab Spring wave: (1)

(2)

(3)

Although protests in Algeria began earlier, the already traditional practice of describing the events of the Arab Spring as commencing on December 17, 2010, when young unemployed Mohammed Boazizi committed self-immolation in the provincial Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, seems quite justified. The rising wave of protests following this event resulted in an unexpectedly rapid fall of the Ben Ali regime, primarily because of the coming to the surface of intraelite conflicts between the unprivileged army and the privileged security forces that were under the special care of President Ben Ali. As a result, the army moved to the side of the protesters, which predetermined the rapid fall of the authoritarian regime in Tunisia. An unexpectedly fast (and rather bloodless) fall of the authoritarian regime of Ben Ali in Tunisia prompted the leaders of youth secular movements in Egypt to try to organize (with the wide use of social networks) large-scale protests in that country. Due to the internal stresses accumulated in Egypt [and described in detail in Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume)], this attempt triggered an avalanche that led to the fall of the Mubarak regime. These events then launched a wave of destabilization throughout the Arab world (though harbingers of this wave started manifesting themselves immediately after the rapid victory of the Tunisian revolution). The scale of destabilization in specific countries depended primarily on the extent to which there were present the appropriate conditions, such as the presence of inter-elite conflict, the intermediate nature of the political system, the presence of unprivileged groups (with the exception of “guest workers”), and a high proportion of unemployed young people (especially those with higher education). In some cases

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(especially in Libya and Syria) an important role was played by external destabilizing actors. On the other hand, a strong stabilizing influence in the countries of the Arab Spring was the presence of bloody political turmoil in the recent past; in those countries both the elites and the commoners well remembered that as a result of a powerful destabilization everybody would suffer‚ and so obviously tried to avoid another such destabilization [see Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume) for more detail on such factors; see also Grinin et al., 2016, 2019; Korotayev et al., 2013, 2014; Malkov et al., 2013; Tsirel, 2012b]. Synchronization of the destabilization processes in the Arab Spring was facilitated by the following factors24 : (1)

(2) (3) (4)

the presence of pan-Arab Internet networks, through which Arab revolutionary youth could freely exchange calls for insurrections, share concrete experiences of protest activities, etc.; the presence of pan-Arab TV channels that broadcast vivid images of revolutionary protests throughout the Arab World; the wave of global agflation whose peak fell just on February 2011; and, finally, sharing a similar phase of the modernization transition, in which most Arab countries were located, with its characteristic rapid growth in the number of highly educated (and often unsettled) youth.

Why have revolutions in the Arab countries failed to establish a stable democracy? The fact is that throughout history, revolutions frequently lead to dictatorships even more cruel than the pre-revolutionary regime, and moreover, to the societies’ degradation [see, e.g., Grinin, 2012a, 2013a, 2013b, 2017a, 2017b; Grinin & Korotayev 2016a; Grinin et al., 2016; Gurr, 1988; Huntington, 1968; see also Chapters “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022) and “Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) in this book]. One can speak about the so-called Thermidor Law where a revolutionary tide is followed by a reactionary ebb, which most frequently takes the form of dictatorship [see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022b) in this book]. Certainly, revolutions can stir societies, mobilize new forces, raise urgent issues, and give considerable political experience. They can lead to positive developments. But one can hardly expect that revolutions can suddenly solve the most important political and social problems. Unfortunately, at present the developmental model most commonly follows not the desirable scheme from revolution to democracy 24

See, e.g., Beck (2011), Eltantawy and Wiest (2011), Khondker (2011), Johnstone and Mazo (2011), Korotayev and Zinkina (2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d), Tausch (2011), Vasiliev (2011), Grinin (2012a), Akaev et al. (2012, 2017), Khodunov and Korotayev (2012), Schroeder et al. (2012), Howard and Hussain (2013), Sultan (2013), Wolfsfeld et al. (2013); Ferragina and Canitano (2014), AlSayyad and Guvenc (2015), Demarest (2015), Grinin et al. (2016), Grinin and Korotayev (2012b, 2016a), Hänska Ahy (2016), Steinert-Threlkeld (2017), Cherribi (2017) and Ortmans et al. (2017).

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but the one from revolution to either counter-revolution (as in Egypt, which seems more preferable), or to new revolutions or bloody chaos and civil wars, as arose in Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Moreover, sometimes the chaos unleashed by revolutions leads to the creation of terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS/Daesh). In any case the euphoria of revolution and its initial slogans gave way to deep splits in Arab society, a drop in living standards, and the transformation of peaceful protests into protracted conflicts, civil wars and military interventions. The Arab Spring events thus repeat the lesson that revolution does not necessarily lead to democracy and that the transition to democracy requires a certain level of development, mentality and readiness of a significant part of population. Otherwise, revolutions can even delay the transition to democracy, as we see in many of the Arab countries. The Arab Spring revealed the military-civilian conflicts, international forces and ethno-religious problems which turned the renovation expectations of the Spring into the gloomy reality of winter. We can say that the revolutionary wave of 2010–2011 has only exacerbated the Arab countries’ problems. Tunisia is the only Arab country to have emerged from the Arab Spring with some progress toward democracy intact, but even there progress was threatened by terrorism and economic hardships. With regard to the possibilities of searching for new forms of organizing society, and showing the weakness and faults of the long-standing personalist semi-authoritarian regimes, these revolutions were of great importance for the region. However, the price of such experience was too high.

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Leonid Grinin is Senior Research Professor at Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, as well as Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of the international journals “Social Evolution & History” and “Journal of Globalization Studies”, as well as coeditor of the international yearbooks “Evolution”, “History & Mathematics”, and “Kondratieff Waves”. He is author of more than 600 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Spanish, German, and Chinese. Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He has authored or coauthored over 650 scholarly publications, including 35 monographs.

The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings Vasily Kuznetsov

1 The Ben Ali Regime The political regime in Tunisia over the twenty-three year presidency of Zine alAbidine Ben Ali can be briefly described as authoritarian, bureaucratic and not driven by ideology. In practice, Ben Ali’s authoritarian bureaucratic regime, by prohibiting any political opposition, left him vulnerable to the very success of his socioeconomic strategy. The “Tunisian miracle”1 created both widespread aspirations for a dignified life and a strong civil society that was not content to remain voiceless in the face of Ben Ali’s increasingly corrupt regime. The key elements of the regime that were responsible for the depoliticizing of society were the state bureaucratic apparatus, the ruling party structure, trade unions and the police. These organizations sought to smother Tunisian society to extinguish any opposition to Ben Ali. By the winter of 2010, the membership of the ruling party—the Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD)—included 2.5 million people, i.e. around a third of the country’s entire adult population, making it effectively the central political organization of the nation. Meanwhile, the largest of the permitted registered opposition parties had no more than several hundred members (the Green Party for Progress not more than 500 members, the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) no more than 1500 members). The mere fact that just a small fraction of society was even aware of the existence of the opposition parties testifies to the control of the ruling party over Tunisia’s political life. V. Kuznetsov (B) Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies Under the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Oriental Faculty, State Academic University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia 1

Expression coined by French President Jacques Chirac (Beau & Tuquoi 2011: 14).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_24

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The part that the RCD played in Tunisia was typical for one-party bureaucratic regimes: the party mobilized the masses to support the regime, served as a channel for the development and renewal of the political elite, and provided connectivity between the government and society, although only in a unilateral fashion—“the chief mission of the party is to disseminate the imperatives of the dictator among the general public, to communicate the government propaganda” (Duverger, 2005: 313). Not least, the RCD was entrusted with the key function of legitimizing the existing regime. After all, it was not only the main political party in Tunisia, but the legal successor of the party that had led the country in its struggle for independence and executed national governance for a period of fifty years. The RCD itself thus exemplified Tunisia’s statehood, a symbolism reinforced in the RCD’s physical presence. The RCD was headquartered within the highest building in the capital city of Tunis, a structure that had a certain domineering character as an architectural site, and also housed the party subsidiaries from the provincial townships and featured red national flags on the façade, portraits of the President and banners carrying current political slogans, all obviously designed to clearly indicate where the country’s power brokers were seated.2 It was this legitimizing function of the government party that required it to have a massive footprint.3 And it was because of this function that, as the revolutionary movement was gaining momentum, the slogan “Ben Ali dégage!” was replaced by “RCD dégage!”,4 and disbandment of the RCD became the symbol of the victorious revolution and the hallmark of the eventual dismantling of the old order. The role of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) was somewhat more complicated. On the one hand, its political mission was close to the one assigned to the RCD inasmuch as the deep-rooted traditions of the trade union movement (the UGTT was founded in 1946) were woven into the fabric of the national identity. The regime thus sought to use the UGTT to keep workers loyal to the regime. On the other hand, the UGTT had always held a more independent stance than the national party, and periodically had been a powerful voice for workers protesting for better conditions and wages. Under Ben Ali, the top management and regional leaders of the organization had long been part and parcel of the ruling system,5 however, at the level of local union divisions, democratic traditions and the principle of rotation of 2

Other power centers that were conspicuous against the backdrop of the city’s topography were the police, municipality, and cathedral mosque buildings (Camau & Geisser, 2003: 160–161). 3 It was precisely the support by the party that made Ben Ali a Presidential candidate time and again. It is noteworthy that preparatory efforts to put forward his candidacy for the elections in 2014 (on the sixth mandate) got underway in the summer of 2010 with a statement released by the RCD Central Committee calling for him to continue to rule the country over the next period”, it was then backed by collective letters (Jeune Afrique, 2010). 4 “Ben Ali—Out You Go”, “RCD—Out You Go!”. 5 Thus, for instance, the UGTT Secretary in Sfax retained his post consecutively for 30 years, the Secretary in Gafsa not only held his post for a long time, but also served as a Parliament deputy for six consecutive terms, together with his relatives he formed a holding structure that incorporated a firm to hire manpower and a private security company.

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office had been retained. Naturally, this ultimately led to the growing tensions inside the organization which culminated in the rank and file of the local divisions defying the national leadership to play a mobilizing role in the 2011 revolution (Netterstrøm, 2016). Finally, the third pillar propping up the regime was the police. Over a long time, the state headed by Ben Ali was categorized by his opponents as “the police-ridden state,” with a huge plain-clothes police force and thousands of informers supplementing the uniformed police, although no official reports dealing with the structure of law enforcement bodies were ever published. Michel Camau and Vincent Geisser in a classical work entitled “Le syndrome autoritaire. Politique en Tunisie de Bourguiba à Ben Ali‚” with reference to the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT) wrote that the overall number of all police forces in the country (including the National Guard and Public Order Brigade), as of 2000, was 133,000 persons, i.e. 1 policeman per 70 local residents (for comparison, in 2008 France had less than 1 police officer per 500 inhabitants) (Camau & Geisser, 2003: 204).6 This figure, either being reduced or increased, was later cited in one publication after another. Only after the revolution, the new Minister of Interior Affairs Farhat Rajhi made a statement that in reality the number of the police forces did not exceed 55,000 people, and shortly before, a similar assumption was made by a well-known economist, opponent and human rights activist Mahmoud Ben Romdhane (Ben Romdhane, 2011: 108). This was still an exceptionally large police force relative to the population, and despite this actual disclosure, the myth of a huge and powerful repression mechanism was credibly circulating up until the time of the revolution. It should be mentioned in this connection that relying primarily on the police to maintain order and support the regime, while paying little regard to the military power of the Army, was a characteristic feature of the Tunisian political system that distinguished it from other Arab countries. The relative marginalization of the Army was the result of a consistent policy pursued by the first Tunisian President, Habib Bourguiba. In contrast to many other Arab leaders of the struggle for independence epoch, Bourguiba had no history in the military, and apparently was apprehensive of the possibility that the military might seize power and monopolize the government. In consequence, the numerical strength of the Tunisian military forces was not very impressive (not more than 35,000 of assigned personnel), and the military were de facto banned from any involvement in political affairs. The military were not represented in the Council of Ministers, and moreover, soldiers and officers were subjected to discrimination regarding their voting rights. By 2011, a huge bureaucratic and repressive machinery made up of the RCD, the UGTT, and the Ministry of Interior Affairs (which commanded the police) was involved in controlling the body politic for the regime. The actual leadership, who made political decisions and who were protected by this machinery, comprised about 150 persons who exercised monopolistic control over all of the large business sectors 6

To compare: in France, in 2002, this proportion was 1/265, in Germany—1/296, in Great Britain— 1/380, in Russia—1/129 (Edict of the RF President on the Maximum Number of the Internal Affairs Bodies in the Russian Federation: http://graph.document.kremlin.ru/page.aspx?1;1547225).

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and who were dominated by the Presidential clan and the President’s wife, Leila Trabelsi. Certainly, over the long period of Ben Ali’s rule, an opposition movement was formed in Tunisia, but it was weak and fragmented. It included the Mainstream, Nonsystem and Anti-system opposition factions. The Mainstream faction was represented both by totally loyal Parliamentary parties, such as the Green Party for Progress, a more free-standing Tajdid movement (formerly the Tunisian Communist Party), the non-Parliamentary PDP, and the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties (later renamed Ettakatol). The Non-system opposition was made up of the poorly institutionalized student movement (primarily of left-wing orientation), and multiple human rights activists and parties-in exile, who mostly operated from overseas (including the Congress for the Republic and the Islamic Ennahda party). Lastly, the radical Islamists (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and the extreme left-wing Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (PCOT), whose task was to get ready for the proletarian revolution, constituted the Anti-system opposition. The activities carried out by the opposition evoked an array of responses from the regime. It was eager to put up with the Mainstream opposition and exerted efforts to open the door to Parliament with the golden key—pursuant to the Law on the Partial Budget Financing of Political Parties, their subsidies could be given quite openly. The student movement was also immune from severe persecution, as long as it was confined to the framework of its university campuses, and did not attempt to voice their criticism personally against the President and his relatives. As for the Islamists of all stripes, from moderate to radical, the fight against them was waged in a most resolute and explicit manner, which made them the only victim of the regime known to all.7 It was a more difficult task to deal with the human rights activists. While the government formally hailed its support for human rights, it had set up its own structures and appointed functionaries to those positions designated to ensure the observance of human rights (the High Committee for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, a group of citizen controllers, national ombudsman etc.); at the same time, it curtailed the activities of independent organizations and private individuals who were outspoken in condemning the regime, sometimes charging them with criminal offences.8

2 Conditions Start to Change For a long time, opposition sentiments were shared only by an insignificant part of the local community. Under Bourguiba, whose legacy Ben Ali sought to claim, Tunisia 7

According to the statements made by Ennahda representatives, throughout the years of Ben Ali’s rule, 30,000 members of this movement were sent to jail. 8 A vivid example can be furnished by the case of Communist journalist Fahem Boukadous (Nessma TV Channel) and also of journalist Taoufik Ben Brik, author of the book “Une si douce dictature. Chroniques tunisiennes”.

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was widely praised as the most progressive of the Arab regimes. Within Tunisia, those who were aware of the activities of regime opponents constituted just a small group of people—total censorship over the mass media and the Internet was imposed to keep the opposition silent. This began to change in 2008: “From 2008, we have witnessed that the situation has been changing in various fields. It concerns the appearance of theatrical performances expressing the sense of public discontent, the growing rate of violence at the football matches, where the spectators would often square off against the police, and rap music that conveyed the political message even more strikingly than any speeches made by politicians, and of course, recurrent acts of protest and mobilizations in the south of the country. All of this started after the Redeyef events…”, said the PDP Secretary General Maya Jribi in a conversation with the author.9 The revolt of the Gafsa phosphate Mining Basin workers in Redeyef and other nearby towns, which lasted from January through June 2008, was the first massive manifestation of protest that led to loss of lives,10 and the first major protest since Ben Ali took power in 1987. The revolts eventually included thousands of workers protesting against unemployment and poverty, and was suppressed by security forces using water cannon and live ammunition. However, it never received any broad public support,11 nor was it ever widely commented upon locally.12 Despite the fact that the movement itself was very limited, that it occurred at a geographically remote location, and its demands were of a truly parochial nature, it still succeeded in revealing the weaknesses of the ruling regime: not only corruption and rising unemployment, but the harsh repressive response of the regime also showed a complete lack of the aptitude to engage in a dialogue with the residents. After the Redeyef events, over a period of two years, there was a growing sense of social discontent in evidence, although it was initially devoid of any clear political connotations. It is worthwhile mentioning the rising wave of activity among the football fans,13 protests in Ben Gardane in the summer of 2010, and the general atmosphere of frustration over the hateful government: “Much has changed over the recent two–three years,” said Quannes Hafiane, Director of the Higher Institute of Foreign Languages, University of Carthage, Tunisia. “People have started to tell 9

From the records of personal conversations, June 2011. Four persons died in the course of protests (Amroussia, 2009). For more information on the regional situation, see Al-tashghil (2010). This research was published in the summer of 2010 and was conducted by the UGTT science center. Concurrently, a similar research study dealing with the Sidi Bouzid area was released (the very area where on December 17, 2010, the revolution would begin). 11 The strike, largely organized by the local UGTT section, was supported neither by the regional, nor by the central trade union management. Among the political parties, only the PDP, Ettajdid and the Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party came out on the side of the protestors. 12 Even in the summer of 2011, most Tunisians knew nothing about the Redeyef events. However, the movement evoked a broad response abroad (in Paris, manifestations took place in support of the rioters) (Amroussia, 2009). 13 The statistical data reflecting the formation of football fan clubs is offered by the very fans themselves: 1995-1, 2001-1, 2002-2, 2003-4, 2004-1, 2005-1, 2006-1, 2007-10, 2008-6, 2009-6, 2010-8. 10

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jokes about the government, even over the phone, to come up with criticism of Ben Ali and Leila; we all have been waiting for something…”.14

3 From Protest to Revolution This “something” happened on 17 December 2010, when a young man named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the local administration building in the town of Sidi Bouzid—the capital of the governorate of Sidi Bouzid—located in central Tunisia. Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation was not the first nor an absolutely unique manifestation of protest and despair in modern Tunisia. Back in 1990, the doctors working at the Trauma and Burn Center, Hospital Aziza Othmana, wrote about an “epidemic of self-immolation” in the country (Messadi et al., 1998), and there have been several similar incidents in 2010,15 while each time the case followed the same pattern—a young man or woman at the bottom of the social scale (unemployed or day laborers) attempted to commit suicide after being subjected to social humiliation (Messadi et al., 1998).16 However, the video showing Bouazizi embroiled in flames went viral in the internet, and already on the next day many young people took to the streets of the town to protest. The harsh police response to these protests was captured on cell phones videos that also spread, triggering further protests. Thus this event sparked a revolution. There are a number of theories explaining why Bouazizi’s suicidal act triggered such broad public repercussions, ranging from sociological to psychoanalytic (Benslama, 2011). In the southern areas of the country, where tribal traditions (‘arushiya) were still prevalent, a very popular argument was that the people who had taken to the streets were driven by a sense of tribal solidarity (‘asabiya) with the descendants of aulad Bou ‘Aziz. However, there were no strong tribal structures in existence within the area of Sidi Bouzid governorate, nor in the center or north of Tunisia‚ by the early twenty-first century. A more realistic explanation seems to be that the first people to join the protest movement were the young people degraded to

14

From the records of my personal conversations, June 2011. About the general causes of the Arab Spring which were entirely relevant for Tunisia see Chapters “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022) and “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume). 15 Two more cases became publicly known—in March 2010 in Monastir, and in November 2010 in Metlaoui. 16 Besides, back in 2005, I was told about it by my Tunisian associates. It is worth reminding that M. Bouazizi, a fruit seller, who failed to enter the University and was not recruited into the Army because of his heart problems—tried to commit a suicide following a conflict with a woman police officer, who confiscated his goods and allegedly hit him on the face. However, there are at least a dozen of versions of this story.

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lumpens, who ultimately were moved to greater anger by the cruel measures undertaken by the local police at the protests on the days immediately following Bouaziz’s actions, on December 19th and 24th (TAP, 2011j). Insult was further added to injury by the words of gratitude to the President from local authorities for the “steps to ensure regional development” (TAP, 2011d) (December 23rd) in combination with obscure and confusing pledges to embrace change and modernization (TAP, 2011g). Simultaneously, information about the protests in Sidi Bouzid and their cause was spread through the social media, and shortly afterwards it was transmitted via satellite TV channels, while public officials were incessantly involved in denouncing the “political orchestration” of protests by the young people (20/12, 27/12, 28/12) (TAP, 2011b, 2011e, 2011h). A fresh impetus to push ahead with renewed energy along the path of protest mobilization was given by new acts of self-annihilation: on December 24 in Sidi Bouzid, 24-year-old Hussein Nagi Felhi climbed to the top of a high-voltage electricity pylon and electrocuted himself on the cables shouting his last words: “No for misery, no for unemployment”. On December 28, 34-year old Lotfi Guadri killed herself as well (Tunivisions, 2010). Overall, across the Arab world, there were about forty people who tried to burn themselves to death following Mohamed Bouazizi’s fate. The revolutionary protests that led to Ben Ali’s ouster lasted for a little less than a month—from 19 December 2010 until 14 January 2011. This period can be quite clearly subdivided into two phases—the December and January ones. The protests that took place in December did not seek to bring down the regime, and the protesters were predominantly made up of the unemployed, who articulated socio-economic demands (Kashina, 2011), as well as calling for the acceptance of “national dignity”. The main outcome of the December phase was a wide proliferation of the protest movement, comprising all the regions of the country and winning support from the various strata of society. Apart from that, the tactics that were tested during December included the mobilization of protesters through social media, night-time protests, and ways to survive clashes with the police. The hard core of protests began to change in the early days of January: political demands were heard more and more frequently, and there were more casualties involved. From January 3rd, protests in the towns of Said, Thala, Jendouba, Kasserine, Regueb, and Menzel Bouzaiane were held: the protesters set fire to government buildings and went on a rampage at the police stations. On January 8th, the police started using lethal force against the rioters. This brought major casualties from January 8th to 10th: 21 persons were killed according to official sources, and over 50 according to data released by the trade unions. After that, Thala was the venue of a “protest of old women”—the elderly women participating in this protest were carrying picket signs that ran: “You have killed my sons. There were four of them”.17 In all probability, these developments were perceived in an anxious society as the beginning of a revolution. A growing sense of the urgent need to finally overthrow the regime and to make use of the available possibility overwhelmed the people. 17

From the accounts of witnesses.

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There was a post on Youtube that said “In Thala, tentatively on the 10th, people were engaged in the seizure of a certain government building—most likely the local RCD branch. They stripped a huge portrait of Ben Ali from the façade, and for a few minutes did not know what to do with it. They were looking at each other. At their hands. At the portrait. They were hesitant and scared—you can read it in their faces. At last, they made up their mind and set fire to it. When I saw it, I realized—this is a revolution,” told Maya Jribi.18 Simultaneously, under pressure from their local subsidiaries, the UGTT came out to back the protesters—the general strike announced by UGTT was the final chord of the revolution. The explicitly revolutionary protests started on January 10, but did not occur concurrently throughout the entire country; each day it was echoed in a new location, spreading like waves from the central region to the coast and the capital. The crucial moment was January 12th, when the general strike was due to be held in Sfax, the second largest city in Tunisia. The trade unions managed to bring about 13,000 persons out onto the central city avenue, where they were joined by more and more people—the overall number reached 30,000, according to some estimates. The protesters were led by the chairman of the local UGTT office, representatives of the opposition parties and big business. Several persons died in clashes with the police.19 The official news agency TAP never breathed a single word about the march, but instead covered a protest in support of the President in Sousse. On January 14th, the time was ripe for the capital city. At 9:00 a.m. a delegation of lawyers, who had been on strike since January 6th, gathered in front of the Palace of Justice—around 400 persons. Dressed in long robes, accompanied by ordinary citizens, they proceeded along Bab Souika and Mongi Slim streets to the Bab Bhar square and then along Habib Bourguiba avenue to the Ministry of Interior Affairs edifice—the architectural symbol of cruelty and tyranny—a leisurely stroll along this route would normally take about half an hour: “When we were approaching the cathedral church opposite the French Embassy, I received a call from the chief police officer—with whom we were acquainted in connection with court proceedings—he was panic-stricken: “I beg you, sidi Ahmed, guide your people to walk along the left sidewalk, don’t go on the side of the embassy! Otherwise, I will have to resort to force!” I complied with his request”, lawyer Ahmed Siddique told me. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior Affairs began to be surrounded by other protestors, and soon the entire avenue, Mohammed 5th Square and all adjacent streets were filled with people. Some were carrying blow dryers,20 many people were carrying national flags and chanting the state anthem. “Wizarat al-dakhiliya— wizarah irhabiyyah!”—Ministry of Interior Affairs is the Ministry of Terrorism!” they chanted, “We have come unarmed—don’t kill us!” (Gozlan, 2011: 43), –they 18

From the records of my personal conversations. June 2011. Ibid. 20 Blow dryer is a thinly veiled swipe at Leila Trabelsi, who was considered a former hairdresser. Although this fact from the biography of Carthage’s hostess is widely known, Nicholas Beau believes it is a misjudgment (Beau & Graciet, 2009). 19

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pleaded. There were many slogans heard on that day: “Bi-l-hubz bi-l-maa Ban Ali la!”, “Al-karama al-vataniya!”,21 “Ben Ali Dégage!” were perhaps the most popular. Although in the first ranks of the protestors were the most well-known opposition figures—Maya Jribi, Communist lawyer Radia Nasravi, whose husband Hamma Hammami, the leader of the Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party, was detained once again two days before, and others—not a single party or religious appeal was launched. It was the triumph of the revolution, the moment of absolute solidarity of many hundreds of thousands of people. “I got a call from the Minister of Interior Affairs. He said: “Mrs. Jribi, I have the order to fire at the crowd of people. Take the people away.” How could I take them away? I was lifted on the shoulders of some guys, and I repeated the words of the Minister. As a matter of fact, no one left‚” recalled the PDP Secretary General.22 At 3:00 p.m. the police began to disperse the protestors with tear-gas grenades. Some—in an attempt to demonstrate pacifism—came forward armed only with loaves of bread to face the policemen,23 While others threw stones. It was all over in an hour, and there was not a single person on the avenue. Ben Ali dissolved his government and a state of emergency was declared in the country (TAP, 2011c). It is not certain what might have been the outcome of these events, if the Carthage Palace in Tunis had not been the place where a most crucial conversation for the revolution took place. All the details of such conversation are not fully known to us until now, however, it is most likely that General Rashid Ammar, Chief of Staff of the Army corps, in response to the order to neutralize the protesters by military force, said to the president: “Leave this country! You are water under the bridge”. At 16:40, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the second President of the First Tunisian Republic, who had ruled the nation for twenty-three years, two months and one week, fled the country.

4 Why the Arab Spring Began in Tunisia On a final note, it is worthwhile to make two comments regarding the revolutionary developments described above. First, about the reasons behind it. It is reasonable to assert that there are two approaches to explaining these events. The first—socio-economic one—puts the primary emphasis upon the high level of unemployment among the young people, especially among the qualified personnel with solid educational backgrounds, and also upon the elimination under Ben Ali of the critical social opportunity ladder, which was represented in Tunisia by the higher educational system: “Ben Ali, being scared of the unemployed youth, opened more and more universities, but then turned

21

“Let it be bread and water, but only without Ben Ali!”, “National Dignity!”. From my personal conversations, June 2011. 23 A loaf of bread symbolizes that a shortage of democracy cannot be substituted for by cheap food. 22

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them into parking lots”, Mahmoud Ben Romdhane told me.24 Consequently, the standard of higher education grew sharply lower, while the problem of unemployment got even worse. According to the other version, the main reason for anger with the regime was the political situation in the country: the society had grown tired of the irremovable body politic run by the Ben Ali clan for their benefit, and was eager to see the popular rights and liberties that were constantly mentioned by the President implemented, as those rights were guaranteed by the Constitution and, last but not least, could be vividly seen as exemplified by the West.25 The above two explanations both accurately target factors that contributed to the revolution, and can be further complemented by a third one: the crisis of the system of values. Ben Ali’s regime, while tossing out various ideological themes as it handled separate political issues, was almost completely lacking any overall ideological charge. The discrepancy between the liberal-democratic discourse of the President and the political reality, the authorities making appeals to either Mediterranean or Arab-Muslim identity (Abbassi, 2005) and at the same time resorting to the persecution of the zealous religious believers—all against the background of the thoroughly, if artificially, cultivated national Tunisian patriotism26 —brought about the erosion of any meaningful existence underlying the current social order, which was replaced by the values inherent to consumer society and a permanent sense of shame. Therefore, it gave rise to suicides, arising out of the feeling of being humiliated and harassed, and the demands for “national dignity,” as well as the growing conviction that society needed “justice,” whatever was meant by it. The second comment deals with the reaction of the authorities to the mass protests. There was definitely a complete lack of understanding among the authorities of what was going on, while the response to those protests revealed the regime’s stubbornly demeaning attitude toward the Tunisian people. In the official statements made in December and early January, the stringent rebuttals and threats addressed to the “vandals” and “extremists” (TAP, 2011a) were interspersed with appeals not to follow a string of foreign media outlets and parties financed from abroad (TAP, 2011f), announcements about minor government reshuffles,27 and vague assurances of future socio-economic reforms in the regions. In January, Ben Ali addressed the nation three times. On January 10th he condemned the “terrorist acts” and declared that he would create 300,000 jobs by 2012. Obviously, his treatment of the protestors as terrorists, 24

From my personal conversations. June 2011. Cp. with the same situation in Egypt—see Chapters “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b) and “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev and Zinkina, 2022, in this volume). 25 A typical illustration. A young man, an unemployed graduate of the University of Carthage (generally, a man indifferent to politics) in answer to the question “Why did you get out onto the streets?” said: “We want justice”. “What do you mean?” I asked. “You see, we cannot live here like that, where every policeman can take your passport away from you, and you cannot utter a word”. 26 A notable slogan on the synagogue building in Djerba ran: “Neither Arabs, nor Jews, but Tunisians!”. 27 On 29/12 Minister of Communications was dismissed, 30/12—Governor of Sidi Bouzid, 12/01— Minister of Interior Affairs.

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and his unrealizable economic pledges issued in response to the political demands, left many Tunisians in utter frustration and bewilderment, whereas the Parliament, parties and public organizations loyal to the regime hailed the “balanced approach” with enthusiasm. On January 13th, the President promised not to be a candidate for put the 2014 elections, and to provide full access to the media and worldwide web for the local residents, i.e. de facto act in compliance with the Constitution. He also gave orders to cease firing at the protestors and reduced prices on certain foodstuffs. The youth responded through Facebook with a post: “The sugar price has dropped. Awesome! We are going to perform a depilation all through the night!”28 At last, on January 14th during the day, i.e. exactly a few hours before he fled the country, Ben Ali made a statement about the dissolution of the government and the date scheduled for the next Parliamentary election. All three of his addresses contained pie-in-thesky socio-economic assurances that carried a heavy weight of populism, while the political concessions did not match the scale of popular disturbances underway in the country. Most importantly, the regime was doomed to failure because by January 14th the bulk of the population in both the cities and the countryside no longer believed that Ben Ali had any interest in listening to them or improving their lives. Meanwhile, no force in Tunisia any longer existed that would be willing to go the whole way to keep the regime in place. The protests in support of the President in Sousse, Sbeitla and Tunis (a protest march by taxi drivers) (TAP, 2011i; Gozlan, 2011: 42) had a rent-a-mob character, while the Army was engaged in breaking up fights between the protestors and police (Gozlan, 2011: 40). As the protests grew larger, even the police periodically refused to open fire against the protestors, while the government’s functionaries were not prepared to take the responsibility for the bloodshed. As a result, as of January 14th, the President, who was poorly conscious of what was going on, and his entourage appeared to be totally alone. As in so many revolutions, once the bureaucracy, police, and army were no longer willing to kill or be killed to defend the ruler, he had no choice but to flee.

5 Transitional Governments The immediate fate of the Revolution was, of course, not decided on January 14 itself, but rather in the days that followed. The Tunis Light Metro halted all services on January 15. Suddenly, there were no police officers on the streets and the city was filled with looters brandishing knives and sticks. Strange people with masks covering their faces were driving around in 4 × 4 jeeps, shotguns in hand. Snipers would appear in one area of the city, then in another, shooting at random passers-by: “I was at home with my family. I went out onto the balcony for something when I noticed a strange reflection on the building opposite (I only realized later that it was 28

They were not only making mockery of the government cheese, but alluding to the fact that the shaven did not need a barber (Leila Ben Ali).

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a rifle sight) and then, almost at the same time, a shot rang out. The bullet hit the wall. I threw myself onto the floor and crawled into the room”; “A friend of mine was holding his child in his arms when he was shot by a sniper. The kid’s head was ripped in two,” eyewitnesses recalled.29 Regular citizens started to set up vigilante units in response to the bacchanal of violence in their neighbourhoods. These groups actually replaced the official police for a while and played a key role in normalizing the situation. The situation that developed in Tunisia following January 14 was somewhat unique in that the Revolution had neither a leader nor a clearly defined ideology. What is more, there was no single political force in the country that could fill the power vacuum that had been created. In theory, the army could have taken on that role (similar to what had happened in Egypt), or even the police. But the Tunisian Army was first, apolitical, and second, weak—while the police was seen as the main ally of the fallen regime. In these conditions, the main goal of the political elite was to minimize the damage caused by the overthrow of the government. That same evening, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi declared himself President of Tunisia, citing Article 56 of the Constitution (on the replacement of the president in the event that he or she cannot perform their duties).30 Less than a day later, however, Ghannouchi would relinquish power under heavy pressure from the Tunisian people. Parliamentary speaker Fouad Mebazaa was installed as the new president under Article 57 of the Constitution (on the replacement of the president in the event of his or her sudden resignation or death). This was exactly how Ben Ali had come to power years before, although he introduced amendments to the article to avoid a similar situation from happening in the future: under the amended Article 57, the interim president is obliged to hold elections within 60 days of his or her appointment, and is forbidden from taking part in them. However, as subsequent events demonstrated, neither Mebazaa nor Ghannouchi, who would last only 40 more days as prime minister after handing over presidency, had serious ambitions.31 The very next day, the president announced a general election, guaranteed the freedom of peaceful assembly and dissemination of information, and said that political parties and NGOs could be registered in the country without any encumbrances. Three commissions were also set up: one to investigate corruption, another to investigate crimes committed during the revolution, and a third to draft political reforms.32 A national unity government was formed three days later, and it comprised many of the same faces that had occupied cabinet positions during the Ben Ali era. Opposition members included Secretary-General of the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties (later renamed Ettakatol) Mustapha Ben Jafar (Minister of Health), First 29

From the records of my personal conversations. June 2011. Déclaration de M. Mohamed Ghannouchi à la chaîne "Hannibal TV," 14.01.2011. According to Ali Seriati, the decision was taken jointly by the prime minister and the speakers of the two houses (Gnet, 2011). 31 Back in 2006, U.S. diplomats wrote that Mohamed Ghannouchi, who had been serving as Prime Minister of Tunisia since 1999, was a “career technocrat” who had long wanted to step away from politics, but the opportunity had not ever presented itself. 32 From my personal conversations. March 2011. 30

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Secretary of the Ettajdid Movement Ahmed Brahim (Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research), and President of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) Ahmed Najib Chebbi (Minister of Regional Development)—that is, the leaders of the largest parties that were allowed at the time. A number of positions were also given to representatives of trade unions and human rights organizations, and one to the popular blogger Slim Amamou (he was not given a ministerial position, but was rather made a secretary of state). The government did not last long. Representatives of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) and the Forum for Labour and Liberties were the first to abandon ship (on January 18), which eventually sank on January 27. Neither the very public expulsion of the president, prime minister and all the ministers from the Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD), nor the seizure of RCD property, nor the persecution of Ben Ali and the arrests of his cronies could help save it. The second post-revolution government contained even fewer faces of the Ben Ali era. They were replaced either by technocrats or representatives of public organizations, primarily human rights groups (the Tunisian Human Rights League, the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women and Amnesty International). Chebbi and Brahim kept their posts. The work of both governments was marred by constant protests, demonstrations and strikes, none of which were larger in scale than the so-called Kasbah protests. On the morning of January 23, “Liberation Caravans” started arriving in the capital from the country’s inner regions. Around 3000 people from Sidi Bouzid, Kasserine, Menzel Bouzaiane and other cities demanded that the people refuse to “let their revolution be stolen” by those who had already “stolen their wealth.” (Le Point, 2011b). They were, of course, calling for the resignation of the government and the removal of anyone who used to serve on it. The Chief of staff of the Tunisian Armed Forces, General Rachid Ammar, arrived shortly after the riots began and declared that the Army would stand guard over the revolution, and Ghannouchi promised to resign immediately after the parliamentary elections (Le Point, 2011a). But this did not help, and mass protests swept the capital in the days that followed. The first Kasbah protest fizzled out on January 27 after the announcement that a new government had been formed. The second Kasbah protest was a sit-in. It started almost a month later, on February 20, and lasted until March 3. It too led to the resignation of the government and became a kind of apotheosis of the winter protest movement. The protesters demanded the arrest of all senior officials of the Ben Ali era, the convocation of a Constituent Assembly and the creation of a Council for the Defense of the Revolution (Overblog, 2011). The speeches during the second Kasbah protest were notably more violent in their rhetoric. The difference between the two waves of protest was that the first was a popular uprising, while the second, according to witnesses, was tainted by the presence of the three biggest political forces in the country: the UGTT, the extreme left, and the Islamists. Trade union leaders feared losing popular support. The extreme left remained faithful to the doctrine of revolutionary violence, and the Islamists, who were loathed by the political elites, believed that the only way for them to be able to get a foothold in the corridors of power would be through a radical political transformation.

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On January 27, a crowd of 100,000 people gathered in central Tunis. This was the biggest demonstration since January 14. The police, who had generally been trying to stay out of things until that point, were forced to take action. Five people lost their lives. The prime minister resigned that very same day, saying, “I will not make decisions that may lead to human casualties (Le Nouvel Observateur, 2011). Then, 84-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi was appointed as the new prime minister. Essebsi had previously headed the National Security Service (1963–1965), the Ministry of the Interior (1965–1969), the Ministry of Defense (1969–1970) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1981–1986) under President Habib Bourguiba. The tightening of the Ben Ali regime convinced him to leave politics altogether (he resigned his post as a member of parliament in 1994). He published his memoirs shortly before the Revolution took place (Caïd Essebsi, 2009). In the 1970s, Essebsi defected to the democratic opposition alongside Ahmed Mestiri, which meant he was out of the ruling party for some time. He was seen as an ideal candidate for the post of prime minister. As a politician, he commanded the respect of his colleagues, had a wealth of managerial experience and no ties with the ousted regime. Moreover, his venerable age made him seemingly incapable of usurping power.33 The appointment would be Essebsi’s second coming as a politician. He would go on to become a leader of the anti-Islamist opposition in 2012–2013 and then president in 2014. Essebsi’s main task was to ensure a democratic transition. This meant, first of all, developing all the related legal procedures and, secondly, making sure that the government ran smoothly (and that it remained politically neutral). The new prime minister held his first press conference on March 4, where he spoke, among other things, about the need to adopt a new constitution. He also urged all the ministers in his government to refuse to take part in the upcoming elections. These points were written into law on March 23, when Fouad Mebazaa issued Decree No. 2011–14 “On the Organization of State Power for the Period of Transition.” In theory, Mebazaa’s term in office ended on March 23—the day that presidential elections were to take place. However, the only way that fair elections could take place was to make amendments to the Constitution,to roll back the changes introduced during the Ben Ali regime (unlimited number of presidential terms, etc.). These amendments were supposed to be passed by parliament. Yet, parliament was not actually functioning at the time, as most of its members represented the now defunct RCD. That meant that parliamentary elections had to be held first. But this was out of the question, as the Constitution set an unusually high entry barrier for people to become members of parliament and complicated the process of registering political parties for elections. Moreover, most people did not even know that these parties existed. Add to that the fact that the parties themselves were entirely unprepared for elections (most of them lacked clear policies, structures and financial resources), the electoral commission had not had time to draw up voter lists, and the people 33

It is generally believed that the idea for this appointment came from the president after Essebsi gave an impressive interview on Nessma TV that aired on January 17, 2011, where he talked about the need to create conditions for transitioning to a democracy.

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were calling for the continuation of the revolution and for a complete break with the past. Together, these circumstances forced the authorities to agree to convene the Constituent Assembly and adopt a new Constitution. The Second Tunisian Republic was thus born.

6 New Political Powers Of course, the technical and legal obstacles to holding elections were not the main reason behind the decision taken in March to radically transform the political system in Tunisia. Rather, it was the sudden expansion of the country’s political space. This was initially manifested in the information field, which exploded in the months following the revolution. First, social networks were instrumental in the revolution.34 Then, after the overthrow of Ben Ali, the previously banned opposition internet resources became more influential. And, finally, the traditional media started to focus more on the political life of the country. The general distrust of the traditional media opened the doors for internet outlets to supplant it in many ways— disseminating information and creating content of their own. Young people became increasingly politicized and as a result, were refusing to blindly accept what they were being fed, and paying great attention to the actions of the government. These new information channels succeeded in mobilizing more and more layers of the population to political activity: fewer than half a million people took direct part in the Revolution (that is, just 5% of the population), and in February 2011, the only parties that more than 5% of the Tunisian people were aware of were the RCD, Ennahda and the PDP (TAP, 2011k). By September, 74% of people were more or less certain about where their political preferences lay—several dozen political parties were named by people responding to surveys (with 18 main ones).35 The political parties that were the most active and best developed were the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda; the Congress for the Republic; the PDP; the Forum for Labour and Liberties; the Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (PCOT); Hizb ul-Tahrir and, finally, Ettajdid (which was made up of a dozen or so moderately left-wing parties) and the Left Socialist Party. All these parties existed before the Revolution, and almost all of them had relatively developed structures and funding (the most ramified were Ennahda and the PDP, while the least were the PCOT and Hizb ul-Tahrir).

34

About the role of social networks in the Arab Spring revolutionary wave see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), about the role of information technologies in revolutions in general see Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution” (Grinin, 2022, in this volume). 35 Although 44% admitted that they were not sure (Observatoire tunisien, 2011).

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The most influential of the newly created parties were Afek Tounes (Tunisian Aspirations) and Initiative, which was built on the ruins of the RCD, although neither is nearly as well-known as any of the parties listed in the previous paragraph.36 It is rather difficult to classify Tunisia’s political parties in terms of their ideological affiliation. Almost all of them talked about democracy, justice, respect for human rights, building a socially oriented state (typically of the “Scandinavian type”), Arab and Maghreb unity, etc. Several environmental and right-wing liberal parties were openly marginalized. So too were a number of Arab nationalist parties. Perhaps the only significant point of ideological concern in the run-up to the elections was the question of the role of religion in the future state. Ettajdid and the leftist parties became a haven for Westernized intellectuals, who consistently championed Tunisia’s secular nature (laïcité). This laïcité—a concept rarely used in the political vernacular of Arabic-speaking Tunisia and seen by many in the country as a synonym for atheism—was lauded to the skies by Ettajdid and its supporters and became the central concept that unified the anti-Islamist forces in the Democratic Modernist Pole in June. But the perception of the party as being full of Francophone atheists who were “terribly far from the people” meant that the Democratic Modernist Pole did not gain any kind of foothold among the people. Meanwhile, the Democratic Modernist Pole’s main opponent, Ennahda, appeared entirely ambivalent in its political maneuverings—a criticism that is often levelled at Islamist parties. Despite the fact that the party’s members tried to sell it as something akin to the Justice and Development Party in Turkey (which at the time, before Erdogan’s power grab, was considered a moderate, pro-democratic Islamic party) Ennahda’s “doublespeak” was a constant target of ridicule. Party leaders would say one thing to the press and then something completely different when addressing their followers from the minbars of mosques. Leading Tunisian political commentator Hamadi Redissi has suggested that this dual discourse (modernist and reactionary) reflected the Ennahda party’s dual strategy (peaceful vs. violent), which was carried out through a dual organization (one public and one clandestine) (Redissi et al., 2012: 3). While it is easy enough to agree that there was a certain duality in the party’s discourse, it would be far more worthwhile to look into the reasons why it appeared in the first place. It is likely that Ennahda’s leaders wanted to walk the line between positioning the party as a respectable force and seeking to gain popularity among the entire Islamic electorate in the country—radicals, moderates, conservatives, and those who were simply anti-Western—while at the same time trying to deal with a generational conflict within the party itself (its younger supporters were more radical than its leaders). This dual discourse thus exposed a lack of unity within the party and was a consequence of the uncontrollability of its social base. As for whether or not Ennahda used underground combat units, the later appearance of the Revolutionary Defense League—vigilante youth brigades that emerged to protect the revolution and fight against “anti-Islamic” forces—may suggest that some of the party’s leaders did consider resorting to violence at some point. 36

For more on these parties, see Khémira (2011).

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Ennahda followed a decidedly conservative populist blueprint in its election campaign, rather than an Islamist one. Its leaders talked about human rights, democracy, the inviolability of Tunisia’s achievements with regard to women’s rights, the continuation of the tradition of ijtihad, and the need to develop relations with European partners to the fullest extent possible. The conservative slant consisted in emphasizing the importance of traditional values (the family, marriage, etc.) and Arab-Muslim identity. The party manifesto was also decidedly religious in nature and contained numerous quotes from the Quran. Moreover, its first article states that Islam is the religion of the state of Tunisia. The mention of Islam in the first article of the current Constitution, however, is traditionally interpreted as an indication of the country’s historical and cultural identity. However, Ennahda’s popularity was not down to its successful election campaign. Rather, it was the result of several other factors: sizeable financial opportunities, the party’s image as a victim of the fallen regime, and the ability to ingratiate itself with the electorate (using mosques, organizing aid to the poor, arranging weddings, funerals, etc.). In replacing the now discredited institutions and personnel of the former government, and creating a transitional authority, the major parties agreed on the basic structure: a national assembly that would include representatives of trade unions, NGOs and political parties, and be charged with drawing up a new constitution and setting up new elections. However, different groups diverged in how they viewed the Revolution. The far left believed in the Revolution as a popular movement and were adamant that “its logic should be respected.” Liberal human rights activists and old oppositionists were willing to declare the current authorities illegitimate, but at the same time they were particularly averse to mass actions of any kind—hence the desire to transfer power to a body consisting of tried-and-tested political figures. Finally, the leaders of the Forum for Labour and Liberties sought to “ride” the Revolution and take up the most prominent positions in power. By early February, a compromise of sorts had been found between these three views that led to the creation of the National Council for the Defense of the Revolution (National Council) on February 11, which included 28 organizations. Despite the apparent variety of organizations on the council (with Islamists, nationalists, syndicalists and human rights activists), it was nevertheless predominantly left-leaning. The main aim of the National Council was to achieve a complete break from with the Ben Ali past and complete the Revolution. As such, it demanded the authority to make political decisions, oversee transitional legislation, the government itself and government commissions, and appoint senior officials. But, in the end, its functions were confined to organizing elections to the Constituent Assembly, after which it would be disbanded (Tunisie numerique, 2011). Regional councils for the defense of the Revolution were opened in addition to the National Council and independently of it, appearing spontaneously after January 14—they were often made up of the same self-defense detachments that had watched over the neighborhoods in the initial days following the Revolution.

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Despite all the difficulties in actually getting the National Council up and running, it was theoretically in a position to become the main institution of power in the transitional period (Chaker, 2011). And it would have succeeded if the organizations that made it up pursued similar goals and were ready for decisive action. However, by mid-February, the people were already growing tired of the constant unrest, the lack of security had become a major issue across the country, and the ruling elite made it clear that they were not ready to cooperate with the National Council. A decree on the creation of an independent public organization—the Higher Authority for Realisation of the Objectives of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition (the Higher Authority)—was soon issued (on February 18). The new organization was to supersede the Higher Political Reform Commission headed by eminent lawyer Yadh Ben Achour. At the same time, on February 22, President Mebazaa rejected the proposal of the National Council to issue a decree recognizing the Higher Authority and transferring power to it. However, he soon invited its members to join the Higher Authority. The Higher Authority’s task, according to the decree, was “to study legislative acts relating to political organization, propose reforms, and define the goals of the Revolution as they pertained to the democratic process.37 This effectively made it the supreme legislative body for the remainder of the transitional period—decisions of the Higher Authority were passed on to the president and were made legally enforceable through presidential decrees. The only political forces that refused to compromise were, of course, on the far left. On January 14, almost everyone in the Popular Front declined an invitation to become a part of the Higher Authority. Its members mercilessly levelled accusations against the Higher Authority, claiming that it lacked legitimacy, was not representative of the people, and was legally incompetent. All three charges seem somewhat far-fetched. The Higher Authority was made up of a committee of experts that included 15 lawyers led by Yadh Ben Achour that was responsible for drafting bills, and a council that discussed and adopted these bills. The council initially consisted of 72 people, before being expanded to 155 in April, which is how it stayed until Ennahda left the Higher Authority in June. The 155-strong council included members of 12 political parties, representatives trade unions, the biggest NGOs and individual regions, members of the families of “martyrs of the Revolution,” and 72 “prominent personalities” (human rights defenders, leading scientists, etc.). A schism soon formed within the Higher Authority, between the secular parties on the one hand and Ennahda, supported by the Congress for the Republic, on the other. These parties disagreed on the main issues discussed by the Higher Authority (the date of the elections, the adoption of a law on political parties, party financing), although the Republican Pact turned out to be the main stumbling block. Heavily pushed by Ettajdid, the Republican Pact was supposed to be a kind of framework agreement for all political forces in the country, describing the basic principles of Tunisian statehood and, most importantly, guaranteeing the separation of religion and politics. Ennahda and the Congress for the Republic declared that only the Constituent 37

Author’s archive.

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Assembly could adopt the document and promptly left the Higher Authority. As a result, the signing of the pact lost its meaning and the legitimacy of the Higher Authority suffered somewhat. Summing up what we said earlier about political parties and the bodies of revolutionary power, it should be noted that the evolution of the latter was determined by the opposition of the reformist-minded elites and the revolutionary masses. That said, while the situation was mostly determined by the former during the initial six to eight weeks following the Revolution, the compromise reached in February meant that it was the latter that actually emerged victorious. Democratic transition was thus introduced into the new institutions, although leadership here was hogged by the Higher Authority, and regular people were thus excluded from the political process. From around April, NGOs, trade unions and other political parties were the main outlets for people to engage in the political life of the country.

7 Elections 2011 The Higher Authority’s main task was to develop an entire legislative framework for elections to the Constituent Assembly. A number of issues need to be resolved: when to hold the elections; what voting system to use; what requirements would candidates have to satisfy in order to qualify, and so on. Discussions on these issues were drawn out and heated, and often had nothing to do with politics. These elections were initially supposed to take place on July 24, that is, on the first Sunday exactly six months after the establishment of the Higher Authority. However, by later spring, it was already clear that July 24 was completely unrealistic—primarily for technical reasons. On April 18, just two months after the Higher Authority commenced its work, a presidential decree was issued on the establishment of an independent electoral commission. The commission was supposed to include 16 people who had experience in holding elections and had not participated in the work of the RCD during the past six years. Its members were selected by the Higher Authority from among the candidates put forward by the trade-union organizations of magistrates, lawyers, notaries, journalists, human rights NGOs, university professors, etc.38 The final list of members was published in a special presidential decree on May 20 after a month of deliberations.39 The newly appointed commission was tasked with setting up local and regional electoral commissions, providing them with all the technical means to carry out their functions and, most importantly, draw up voter lists. In late May, the chairman of the commission asked the president to postpone the elections. This was at least in part due to political motivations: as of early summer, the only relatively well-known parties in the country were Ennahda and the PDP, which opposed the delays, arguing that the situation in the country needed to be stabilized 38 39

See Footnote 37. See Footnote 37.

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and suggesting that there was a “possible conspiracy” in the ranks of the Higher Authority. Ennahda even went as far as to suspend its membership in the Higher Authority, a move that was likely prompted by concerns about the party’s dirty laundry being aired in public (Chaker, 2011: 30). The elections were nevertheless postponed, first until October 16, and then until October 23. Deciding on the date of the elections was not the only sticking point, however, as the voting procedure itself was also a source of fierce debate. A decree was eventually issued on May 10. The preamble talked about the determination to break with the old regime “based on arbitrariness and disregard for the will of the people” and loyalty to the principles of the Revolution, which was aimed at establishing “the rule of law based on democracy, freedom, equality, social justice, dignity, pluralism, human rights, and the periodic peaceful change of power.”40 This was perhaps the most complete official description of the goals of the Revolution. The voting requirements and procedures were then described in detail. Elections were to be held in 27 constituencies (two each in the governates of Tunis, Nabeul and Sfax, and one in the rest) in accordance with the electoral lists (50% of the candidates in each constituency were to be women41 ), which could include representatives of political parties, trade unions, public organizations and independent candidates. People who had served in the Ben Ali cabinet (with the exception of those who were not members of the RCD), as well as leaders of the RCD, those who had put forward Ben Ali’s candidacy for the 2014 presidential elections, magistrates, diplomats and regional leaders were not allowed to stand for office. Every person in the country over the age of 18 was eligible to vote, with the exception of military personnel, those serving in the National Guard, and civilians carrying out their military service. In addition, those who had had their property seized following the fall of the regime, as well as convicted criminals and people who had served more than six months in prison, were not allowed to vote. The decree also stated that a system of proportional representation would be used in the elections, which would give those candidates in smaller regions a better chance. The presidential decree was carried out to the letter, although no one could have predicted how the election turned out. Polls taken in September before the elections indicated that there would be an 83% turnout. Moreover, most people had decided who they were going to vote for: 25% said Ennahda; 16% said PDP; 14% said Ettakatol; 8% said the Congress for the Republic; with the remaining parties set to receive 3% of the votes or less.42 None of this was particularly surprising and was more or less in line with what observers had predicted: political analysts had long since been saying that Tunisia is mostly free of serious Islamist sentiments. However, they failed to take into account the fact that, according to those very same polls, almost half of the respondents admitted that they were not 100% sure of their choice. Moreover, they ignored the fact that 40

See Footnote 37. Ennahda turned out to be an ardent supporter of this entirely feminist yet democratic demand. 42 See Footnote 37. 41

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Ennahda’s electorate is not made up exclusively of Islamists. Far from it—there are also conservatives and a significant part of the politically passive population, who saw Ennahda as “the only party that at least does something.” A total of 3,702,627 registered voters went to the polling stations on election day (October 23), with a further 500,000 voting using their ID cards. This amounted to a turnout of just 55%. Ennahda received 37% of the votes; its partner, the Congress for the Republic 8.7%; Ettakatol 7%; the PDP just 3.94%; Initiative 3.19%; the Democratic Modernist Pole 2.79%; Afek Tounes 1.89%; the PCOT 1.57%; and the Free Patriotic Union 1.36%. The Popular Petition came out of nowhere to win 6.74% of the votes; the party is led by London-based millionaire journalist and former Ennahda member Mohamed Hechmi Hamdi, owner of the Al Mustakillah television channel. Islamic forces (Ennahda, Congress for the Republic and Popular Petition) thus won more than 50% of the seats in the Constituent Assembly.43 The success of the Congress for the Republic and Popular Petition can likely be put down to the fact that their rhetoric was from the outset very much in line with that of Ennahda. And the strong showing of Ettakatol can be seen as a consequence of its relentless push since the overthrow of Ben Ali to be seen as “revolutionary” and “anti-West.” Meanwhile, there were several reasons for the crushing defeat of the other major parties: the demonstrative secularism of Ettatjid and its cooperation with left forces; its policy to involve former members of the RCD and attract the bigbusiness PDP; the moderation of these parties; and their desire to turn the revolution into just a series of reforms. The newly elected Constituent Assembly convened in November 2011. In its very first days, the three biggest parties (Ennahda, Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol) managed to isolate the remaining parties and unite as a ruling triumvirate. Moncef Marzouki fulfilled his January promise to become president. Ennahda Secretary General Hamadi Jebali was named Prime Minister, and Mustapha Ben Jafar was made Speaker of the Assembly. A parliamentary system was thus established in Tunisia (with the Constituent Assembly in place of a parliament).

8 Conclusion The events that took place in Tunisia between December 17, 2010 and October 23, 2011 can generally be divided into two main phases: (1) December 17 to February 18; and (2) February 18 to October 23. The first was the phase of uprising, when the main political actor was the street. The street overthrew Ben Ali, achieved the dissolution of parliament and the RCD, and forced the resignation of two Mohamed Ghannouchi governments. The increasingly organized nature of the demonstrators, coupled with 43

The figures were later amended slightly: Ennahda (89 seats); Congress for the Republic (29 seats); Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties (20 seats); Popular Petition (26 seats); PDP (16 seats); Democratic Modernist Pole (5 seats); National Destourian Initiative (5 seats); Afek Tounes (4 seats); and PCOT (3 seats).

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the desire of a number of political forces to lead the Revolution, led to the creation of the National Council for the Defense of the Revolution, a fact that concretized the irreversibility of the political transformation. At the same time, the endless unrest, as well as the conflicts of interest and inconsistency in the actions of those involved in the National Council, combined with the increased political engagement of the moderately minded part of society in general, and the intellectual and political elites in particular, led to the formation of the Higher Authority—a body that personified public compromise and sought to legitimize the democratic transition. The emergence of the Higher Authority marked the beginning of the second phase of the Revolution (February 18–October 23) and can be called the “reformist” phase. The gradual approach taken to the political process during these months resulted in it becoming more predictable and entrenched. Not only did this lull in activity make it possible for the main political forces in the country (parties, NGOs, etc.) to take shape both structurally and ideologically, but it also, more importantly, allowed positive aspirations for the country’s future to replace the previously negative process of “overthrowing the old order”. Political strife continued, however, with radical Salafi Islamists assassinating tourists and government officials, precipitating another crisis in 2013–2014. In response to the public outcry in the face of rising violence, anxieties about the Islamization of the government, and political infighting, four major civil society groups formed the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet to guide the Ennahda-led Constituent Assembly and negotiate the necessary compromises and agreements to complete its work. These groups were the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT); the Tunisian Confederation of Industry Trade and Handicrafts, the Tunisian Human Rights League, and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. Thanks to their perseverance, the Constituent Assembly competed its tasks, the interim government resigned, and new elections were held in 2014, completing the transition to a democratic state. The next year, the Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011”. Tunisia’s first democratically elected president Beji Caid Essebsi died in July 2019. Kais Saied then became Tunisia’s next president after a landslide victory in the presidential election of October 2019. Despite all the difficulties that Tunisia experienced in its revolutionary process, the country’s leaders and society demonstrated an ability to find a peaceful way forward, and to follow the difficult and often risky path towards building a democracy. So, as regards the way toward sustainable democracy, the Tunisian revolution appears to be the most successful among all the Arab Spring revolutions.44 To be sure, the Revolution is not yet over—it may have entered a third phase of autocratic government under the new President Kais Saied, who dissolved parliament in late 2021, claiming an economic emergency required decisive government. It remains to be seen whether Saied will keep power, and end the sole democratic 44

Cp. the Egypt case, see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume).

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outcome of the Arab Spring, or if he will be forced to call new elections and thus restore the Tunisian experiment in democracy. Revolutions, after all, can take decades to unfold, and the forces unleashed in the 2010-2011 uprising remain active.

References Abbassi, D. (2005). Entre Bourguiba at Hannibal: Identité tunisienne et histoire depuis l’independence. Karthala. Amroussia, A. (2009). Tunisie: Le soulèvement des habitants du bassin minier de Gafsa, un premier bilan. Secretariat International, January 13, 2009. http://www.cnt-f.org/international/Tunisie-Lesoulevement-des-habitants-du-bassin-minier-de-Gafsa-un-premier-bilan.html Al-tashghil wa-l-tanmiya bi-wilayat Gafsa: al-waki’ wa-l-afaq. (2010). Tunis. Beau, N., & Graciet, C. (2009). La régente de Carthage: Main basse sur la Tunisie. La Decouverte. Beau, N., & Tuquoi, J.-P. (2011). Notre ami Ben Ali. La Decouverte. Ben Romdhane, M. (2011). Tunisie: Etat, économie et société—Ressources politiques, légitimation et régulations sociales. Publisud. Benslama, F. (2011). Soudain la revolution. Denoel. Caïd Essebsi, B. (2009). Habib Bourguiba Le bon grain et l’ivraie. Sud Editions. Camau, M., & Geisser, V. (2003). Le syndrome autoritaire: Politique en Tunisie de Bourguiba à Ben Ali. Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques. Chaker, H. (2011). Les conseils pour la protection de la revolution. Observatoire tunisien. http:// observatoiretunisien.org/upload/file/HOUKICORR(1).pdf Duverger, M. (2005). Political parties. Akademicheskiy proekt. Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J.A .Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 1–33). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Gnet. (2011). Tunisie/Ali Seriati: Grira a organisé le départ de Ben Ali le 14 janvier. Gnet, November 03, 2011. http://www.gnet.tn/temps-fort/tunisie/ali-seriati-grira-a-organise-le-depart-de-ben-alile-14-janvier/id-menu-325.html Gozlan, M. (2011). Tunisie-Algérie-Maroc: La colère des peoples. Archipel. Grinin, L. (2022). On revolutionary situations, stages of revolution, and some other aspects of the theory of revolution. In J.A.Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 69–104). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864 68-2_3 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In J.A.Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 105–136). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). The Arab spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 595–624). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23 Jeune Afrique. (2010). 2014 se prépare aujourd’hui. Jeune Afrique (2010). http://www.jeuneafri que.com/Article/ARTJAJA2590p019.xml0/ Kashina, A. (2011). “Jasmine revolution” in Tunisia: Socio-political aspect. Observer, 7, 74–82. Kerrou, M. (2011). Les nouveaux acteurs de la revolution et de la transition politique. Observatoire tunisien. http://aihr-resourcescenter.com/administrator/upload/documents/Kerrou(1).pdf

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Khakfaoui, M. S. (2011). Le parti democrate progressiste en la période allant du 15 janvier 2011 jusqu’au 15 septembre 2011. Observatoire tunisien (p. 44). http://observatoiretunisien.org/upl oad/file/Khalfaoui(1).pdf Khémira, C. (2011). La recomposition du Mouvement Destourien. Observatoire tunisien. http://obs ervatoiretunisien.org/upload/file/Khmira(1).pdf Korotayev, A., Zinkina, J. (2022). Egyptian 2011 revolution: A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev. (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 651–683). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25 Le Nouvel Observateur. (2011). La Tunisie change de Premier ministre. Le Nouvel Observateur (2011). http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/les-revolutions-arabes/20110227.OBS8770/la-tun isie-change-de-premier-ministre.html Le Point, Nouheihed, L., & Hammond, A. (2011a). La “caravane de la liberté” dispersée à Tunis. Le Point, January 24, 2011. http://www.lepoint.fr/fil-info-reuters/la-caravane-de-la-liberte-disper see-a-tunis-24-01-2011-131122_240.php Le Point. (2011b). Tunisie—La “caravane de la liberté” sous les fenêtres du Premier ministre Ghannouchi. Le Point, January 23, 2011. http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/tunisie-la-caravane-de-laliberte-sous-les-fenetres-du-premier-ministre-ghannouchi-23-01-2011-131005_24.php Messadi, A., Louati, L., Mahjoub, E., Nouira, R., Dlimi, S., & Braham, F. (1998). Contribution à l’étude des aspects épidèmiologiques des brulures suicidaires en Tunisie: à propos de 94. Annals of Burns and Fire Disasters, 11(1). http://www.medbc.com/annals/review/vol_11/num_1/text/ vol11n1p7.htm Netterstrøm, K. L. (2016). The Tunisian general labor union and the advent of democracy. Middle East Journal, 70(3), 382–398. Observatoire tunisien. (2011). Perception de la transition démocratique en Tunisie. Observatoire tunisien, September 2011. https://www.mo.be/sites/default/files/OpinionWayTunesia.pdf Overblog. (2011). Kasbah (Tunisie): Les exigencies des occupents de la Kasbah. Overblog, February 21, 2011. http://thalasolidaire.over-blog.com/article-kasbah-tunisie-les-exigences-desoccupants-de-la-kasbah-video-21-02-2011-67693772.html Redissi, H., Nouira, A., & Zghal, A. (2012). La Transition Democratique en Tunisie. Etat des lieux. Les thématique. Diwén Editions. TAP. (2011a). Adhésion des partis politiques nationaux aux décisions et initiatives présidentielles annoncées lundi. TAP, March 01, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=30360&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011b). Des précisions d’une source officielle concernant l’incident survenu à Sidi Bouzid. TAP, February 18, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view& id=29327&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011c). Etat d’urgence de 17H00 à 07H00 sur tout le territoire du pays. TAP, March 01, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30525&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011d). Hommage au Chef de l’Etat pour ses mesures en faveur de l’impulsion du processus de développement régional. TAP February 20, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option= com_content&task=view&id=29524&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011e). La Chambre des conseillers dénonce les campagnes médiatiques orchestrées contre la Tunisie. TAP, February 23, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=29767&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011f). Le bureau politique du RCD salue le contenu de l’allocution du Président Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. TAP, March 01, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=30339&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011g). Le Conseil régional du gouvernorat du Kef salue les décisions du Chef de l’Etat. TAP, February 21, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view& id=29625&Itemid=43

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TAP. (2011h). Les organisations nationales dénoncent les pratiques médiatiques anti-déontologiques visant à nuire à l’image de la Tunisie. TAP, February 23, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29756&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011i). Marche imposante, à Sbeïtla, en signe de gratitude au Président Ben Ali pour ses décisions en faveur du développement et de l’emploi. TAP, March 10, 2011. http://www.tap.info. tn/fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30348&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011j). Précisions du Ministère de l’Intérieur sur les incidents de trouble survenus, Vendredi, à Menzel Bouzaïene. TAP, February 20, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=29585&Itemid=43 TAP. (2011k). Un sondage d’opinions politique met en avant une faible notoriété des partis et des hommes politiques tunisiens. TAP, February 9, 2011. http://www.tap.info.tn/fr/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=32272&Itemid=43 Tunisie numerique. (2011). Les 7 points de la déclaration du Conseil National pour la Protection de la Révolution. Tunisie numerique, March 01, 2011. http://www.tunisienumerique.com/les-7points-de-la-declaration-du-conseil-national-pour-la-protection-de-la-revolution/9949 Tunivisions. (2010). Le phénomène du copycat suicide serait-il en train de s’importer chez nous? Tunivisions, December 28, 2010.

Vasily Kuznetsov is Head of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Department of The Institute of Oriental Studies in the Oriental Faculty of The State Academic University for the Humanities. He is author of a number of Analytical Reports for the International Discussion Club “Valdai”, for Russia’s International Affairs Council, author of a monograph on political transformation in postrevolutionary Tunisia written on the basis of his fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2017 as well as about 100 research articles in Russian, English, French, and Arabic. He is interested in the studies of sociopolitical processes, problems of statehood and religion in the contemporary Arab societies. Also, he is involved in several track-two initiatives on the Russian politics in the Middle East.

Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis Andrey Korotayev and Julia Zinkina

1 Introduction Highlighting the events of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, various mass-media have tried to explain what caused the riots. Most explanations followed the same pattern, blaming economic stagnation, poverty, inequality, corruption and unemployment. A typical explanation is that “Egyptians have the same complaints that drove Tunisians onto the streets: surging food prices, poverty, unemployment and authoritarian rule that smothers public protests quickly and often brutally” (e.g., Al-Arabiya, 2011; Al-Lawati, 2011; Stangler & Litan, 2011). Such unanimity incites us to investigate to what extent those accusations reflected Egyptian reality. So we decided to take each of the abovementioned “revolutionary

This chapter has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 18-18-00254). This research was performed according to the Development program of the Interdisciplinary Scientific and Educational School of Lomonosov Moscow State University “Mathematical methods of analysis of complex systems”. This chapter is an extensively re-worked version of the text originally published in Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011). A. Korotayev (B) HSE University, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev · J. Zinkina Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] A. Korotayev Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev · J. Zinkina Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25

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causes” and look into the actual dynamics of the relevant socioeconomic indicators in the years preceding the Egyptian Revolution. 1

2 Economic Stagnation? Let us first consider the dynamics of the most general economic performance indicator, namely GDP, in Mubarak’s epoch (Fig. 1). Evidently, during Mubarak’s reign (1981–2011) the Egyptian economy was developing rather dynamically. The growth by 4.5 times during 30 years was one of the best results among the Third World countries at the time (see, e.g., Korotayev, 2009). Economic growth rates accelerated particularly visibly after July 2004 when the new government managed to attract a group of talented economists who worked out an effective program of economic reforms. These reforms provided for a substantial acceleration of Egyptian economic growth (Boubacar et al., 2010). Regarding Fig. 1, particular attention should be given to the fact that during the world s financial-economic crisis of 2009 Egypt’s GDP did not fall, but continued growing at a rather high rate. Annual economic growth rates slowed down somewhat, from 7.2 to 4.6% (though many countries would dream of achieving a 4.5% rate of economic growth even in non-crisis years!). Nevertheless, the Egyptian government did succeed in preventing any economic collapse. In 2010 Egyptian economic growth rates increased again. It should be noted here that population growth rates were decreasing quite stably in Egypt for many years before the Revolution (Fig. 2). 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 1980

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Fig. 1 GDP production dynamics in Egypt (billions of 2005 dollars, PPP), 1980–2010. Source World Bank (2011) for 1980–2009. Value for 2010 calculated on the basis of data from Boubacar et al. (2010)

1

On factors of Egypt’s 2011 Revolution see also Chapters “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a) and “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces" (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a) in this volume.

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1.92 1.9 1.88 1.86 1.84 1.82 1.8 1.78 2003

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Fig. 2 Relative population growth rates in Egypt, % per year, 2003–2009. Source World Bank (2011)

5500 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1980

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Fig. 3 GDP per capita production dynamics (constant 2005 dollars, PPP), Egypt, 1980–2010. Source World Bank (2011) for 1980–2009. The value for 2010 has been calculated on the basis of data from Boubacar et al. (2010)

It is easy to deduce that the slowdown in demographic growth further contributed to the acceleration in GDP per capita growth, and this is supported by the empirical evidence (Fig. 3). Thus, accusations of Mubarak with “thirty years in power … during which the ruling party failed to achieve any substantial development, on the contrary, led the country to a period of uncertainty and economic stagnation … and diminishing income” (Al-Lawati, 2011; see also Stangler & Litan 2011, etc.) do not appear to be just. The contrary will be much closer to reality, i.e., before Mubarak’s regime collapsed, Egypt was one of the most dynamically developing countries of the Third World. Notably, the new Egyptian government that came to power as a result of the revolution promised that it “would not retreat from economic reform or change the basic economic philosophy the government has followed since it adopted a liberal reform programme in 2004” (Pitchford, 2011), thus admitting that the economic policy of Mubarak’s administration was essentially correct.

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3 Corruption? As regards the corruption level, in the respective map by Transparency International (2010) Egypt looks as follows (Fig. 4). In this map the lighter the color, the lower its perceived corruption level (accordingly, the darker the higher). Clearly, the situation with Egyptian corruption was not brilliant before the Revolution. In comparison with most OECD countries the corruption level in Egypt seems to be very high. However, the same can be attributed to almost all the Third (as well as Second) World countries, against the background of which corruption the level in Egypt does not seem so high. verall, Egypt rated 80th in the world according to corruption level (Transparency International, 2010: 8–14). In other words, there were dozens of much more corrupted countries when the Egyptian Revolution began (see Fig. 5). So, according to Transparency International, the level of corruption in Egypt in 2010 was quite comparable with that in Italy, Greece, China, and India; meanwhile, it was lower than in Argentina, Indonesia, Viet Nam and most post-Soviet countries (including Russia). On the whole, it is obvious that if the Egyptian level of corruption was a sufficient cause for sociopolitical uprisings, revolutions should have been blazing in 2011 in most countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

4 Unemployment? The dynamics of unemployment in Egypt in the 20 years before the Revolution are shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 4 Corruption perceptions index in the world, 2010. Source Transparency International (2010: 2–3)

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10 8 6 4 2

Singapore Sweden Switzerland Germany Japan UK USA France Estonia Slovenia Malaysia Tunisia Italy Cuba Bulgaria China Greece India Egypt Argenna Kazakhstan Algeria Indonesia Vietnam Belarus Syria Bangladesh Ukraine Iran Libya Yemen Russia Tajikistan Kenya Kyrgyzstan Guinea Uzbekistan Sudan Iraq

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Fig. 6 Unemployment level in Egypt, %, 1990–2010. Sources World Bank (2011), CAPMAS (2010a, 2010b: 31) (data for the second quarter of 2009); Abd al-Rahman (2010: 4) (data for the third quarter of 2010)

In the 20 years before the Revolution, Egyptian unemployment was fluctuating at a rather high level (8–12%). However, after the launch of economic reforms in the mid2000s it started to decrease in a rather stable manner. Predictably, there was some increase (though not so pronounced as in most other countries) in unemployment level as a result of the global financial-economic crisis, but in 2010 unemployment went down again. Just before the Revolution the unemployment level in Egypt, in comparison with other countries of the world, was as shown in Fig. 7. As we see, the unemployment level in pre-revolutionary Egypt could not be called “extremely low”, but against the global background Egypt compared rather well. Its unemployment level was less than that in the USA, the EU, France, Poland, Turkey, or Ireland, almost twice lower than in Latvia and Spain, etc. 2

The index is based on Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International, 2010: 8–14) and is obtained by extracting the basic index out of 10.

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Kuwait (2008) Singapore (2010) Norway (2010) China (2010) Austria (2010) Japan (2010) Germany (2010) Russia (2010) Slovenia (2010) Canada (2011) UK (2010) Italy (2010) Finland (2010) Sweden (2010) Belgium (2010) Egypt (2010) USA (2011) Poland (2010) EU (2010) Bulgaria (2010) France (2010) Algeria (2009) Portugal (2010) Hungary (2010) Greece (2010) Columbia (2010) Jordan (2010) Libya (2005) Tunisia (2009) Lithuania (2010) Albania (2010) Ireland (2010) Latvia (2011) Slovakia (2010) Iraq (2009) Croaa (2010) Estonia (2010) Spain (2010) South Africa (2010) Honduras (2007)

30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Fig. 7 Unemployment level in some countries, %, 20103

5 Inequality? The Gini index is most frequently used for measuring the level of economic inequality. After 1991 Egypt had the dynamics of this index shown in Fig. 8. Thus, the Gini inequality index in Egypt was fluctuating around 30–33 points. Let us view how this compared against the global background (see Fig. 9). Obviously, economic inequality in Egypt can be regarded as high only by Scandinavian standards. Compared with the rest of the world, Egyptian economic inequality was very moderate. Out of 145 countries represented in the 2010 Human Development Report, Egypt rated 120th (Klugman, 2010: 152–155). Thus, UNDP observed a lower rate of inequality only in 23 countries, while 119 countries had higher inequality than Egypt, including France, Ireland, Spain, and India, to say nothing of Georgia, USA, China, Russia, and Mexico.

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Data on Iraq are given for 2009, data on Mauritania and Afghanistan are given for 2008. Sources. Egypt: Abd al-Rahman (2010: 4) (data for 3rd quarter of 2010). Russia: Federal State Statistics Agency. Employment and Unemployment (data for December 2010). URL: http://www.gks.ru/bgd/ regl/b10_01/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d12/3-2.htm. Switzerland: State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. Gradual Economic Recovery—Increased Risks for 2011. Bern, 08.06.2010. URL: http://www.seco. admin.ch/aktuell/00277/01164/01980/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=33511. China: Xinhua News Agency. China’s unemployment down to 4.1% at end of Q3. English.xinhuanet.com 201010-22. URL: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-10/22/c_13570193.htm. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, EU, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, UK, USA: European Commission. Eurostat. Your key to European statistics. Brussels: European Commission, 2011. URL: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en& pcode=teilm020&tableSelection=1&plugin=1 (data for September–December 2010). Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia, Columbia, Croatia, Iraq, Jordan, Mauritania, Singapore, South Africa, Tunisia: Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook. Country Comparison: unemployment rate. Washington, DC: CIA, 2011. URL: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankor der/2129rank.html.

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40 30 20 10 0 1991

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Fig. 8 Economic inequality (Gini index) in Egypt, 1990–2005. Source World Bank (2011)

80 70 60 50 40 30 Denmark Japan Sweden Norway Finland Germany Belarus Bulgaria Bangladesh Slovenia Egypt France Albania Tajikistan Ireland Tanzania Spain Algeria Italy United Kingdom New Zealand India Jordan Yemen Viet Nam Iran Israel Senegal United States Georgia Tunisia Morocco China Russia Philippines Uruguay Congo Nepal Kenya Brazil South Africa Hai Botswana Namibia

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Fig. 9 Gini index (economic inequality level) in the world, 2000–2010. Source Klugman (2010: 152–155)4

The relatively low level of economic inequality Egypt is connected with the very specific character of Egyptian poverty which, by the way, is the most frequently cited factor among the causes of the Egyptian Revolution.

6 Poverty? Egyptian poverty is most frequently mentioned among the causes of the Egyptian Revolution. The common notion is that 40% of Egyptians lived below the $2 a day before the Revolution. Remarkably, nobody mentions the Egyptian level of extreme

4

This UNDP issue presents the values of Gini index for the latest year available in the interval 2000–2010.

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Fig. 10 Percentage of people living below $1.25 a day income poverty line, 2000–20086

poverty, i.e. the proportion of people living below $1.25 a day income poverty line.5 This omission is not surprising at all, as Egypt in 2010 was among the best performing countries in the world according to this indicator (see Figs. 10 and 11). In this map Egypt is marked with the same color as, say, Sweden, France, the USA, or Australia, which indicates an almost full eradication of extreme poverty in Egypt. Meanwhile, for dozens of countries extreme poverty still remained, in the 2000s, an acute problem (see Fig. 10). Thus, according to 2005–2008 data there were 13.4% living below the extreme poverty line in Georgia, 15.9% in China, 21.5% in Tajikistan and Viet Nam, 22.6% in the Philippines, 26.2% in South Africa, 29.4% in Indonesia, 41.6% in India, 49.6% in Bangladesh, 54.9% in Haiti, 70.1% in Guinea, 83.7% in Liberia (Klugman, 2010: 161–163). The dynamics of the extreme poverty level in Egypt after 1991 are shown in Fig. 12. Let us note that 2% (more exactly, less than 2%) is the minimum level of extreme poverty recorded by UNDP. Thus, during his stay in power Mubarak managed to eradicate almost completely extreme poverty in Egypt. Indeed, as we have already mentioned, on the eve of the Revolution as regards this indicator Egypt belonged to the group of the best performing countries of the world. 5

$1.25 a day (in purchasing power parity), was adopted as marking the level of “extreme” poverty by 2011 (see, e.g., Klugman, 2010: 161–163). 6 Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_living_on_less_than_1_dollar_ day_2007-2008.png. The map data have been checked for reliability on the basis of Klugman (2010: 161–163) and found full confirmation.

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Slovenia Estonia Egypt Morocco Tunisia Venezuela Armenia Mexico Brazil Peru Bolivia Georgia Sri Lanka China Yemen Kenya Mauritania Tajikistan Viet Nam Philippines South Africa Indonesia Senegal Timor-Leste Ethiopia India Laos Uzbekistan Bangladesh Hai Nepal DRC Chad Nigeria Niger Guinea Mozambique Burundi Liberia

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Fig. 11 Percentage of population living below $1.25 a day income poverty line in some countries, data for 2000–2008. Source Klugman (2010: 161–163) 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1991

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Fig. 12 Share of population living below $1.25 a day income poverty line in Egypt, %, 1991–2005. Source World Bank (2011)

The situation with more moderate poverty (the share of population living below $2 a day7 income poverty line) in Egypt was not, in 2011, quite so brilliant (see Fig. 13). As we can see, by 2011 Egypt was not among the most well-to-do countries in this respect, as about 20%8 of Egyptians lived on less than $2 (but on more than $1.25) a day. Meanwhile, compared to other Third World countries the situation with poverty in pre-revolutionary Egypt was not at all desperate. According to this indicator, Egypt rather belonged to the most successful Third World countries (see Fig. 14). Indeed, on the eve of the Revolution about 20% of the Egyptian population lived on less than $2 a day compared with 36.3% in China, 42.9% in South Africa, 43.4% 7 8

At purchasing power parities. But nothing close to the 40% of the population that many media sources claimed.

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Fig. 13 Percentage of population living below $2 a day income poverty line, 2000–2007 data9

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 S.Korea Slovenia Russia Estonia Croaa Belarus Chile Bulgaria Romania Jordan Malaysia Venezuela Argenna Thailand Tunisia Morocco Kazakhstan Egypt Algeria Moldova Georgia China Sri Lanka Kenya South Africa Armenia Philippines Yemen Viet Nam Mongolia Turkmenistan Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Pakistan Senegal Cambodia Hai India Sierra Leone Uzbekistan Laos Timor-Leste Nepal Bangladesh Nigeria Niger Guinea Liberia

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Fig. 14 Percentage of population living below $2 a day income poverty line, 2000–2007. Source Klugman (2009: 176–178)

in Armenia, 45% in the Philippines, 48.4% in Viet Nam. In a considerable number of countries in the 2000s more than a half of the population lived under the $2 per 9

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_living_on_less_than_$2_per_ day_2009.png. The data presented in this map have been checked for reliability on the basis of Klugman (2009: 176–178) and found full confirmation.

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Fig. 15 Wikipedia illustration to poverty as a major cause of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution10

day poverty line: 50.8% in Tajikistan, 60.3% in Pakistan, 72.1% in Haiti, 75.6% in India, 81.3% in Bangladesh, 87.2% in Guinea, and 94.8% in Liberia. When talking about the poverty level in Egypt it appears reasonable to scrutinize one more image (Fig. 15). This photo is called A poor Cairo neighborhood. However, in Wikipedia this photo is very small, but if you take a closer look at it in a larger scale, “Egyptian poverty” appears to be a very specific thing. This “Poor neighborhood” abounds in satellite dishes, while the Arabic signboard at the left bottom corner shows the direction to the nearest computer and software center. This is very far from what real abject poverty looks like. Let us review photos that we took in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya (see Fig. 16). In the 2000s it was far from the worst Sub-Saharan country in terms of poverty, as not a half, but “only” one-fifth of Kenyans lived on $1.25 a day (Klugman, 2010: 161–163). Still, these photos (taken in 2008 and 2009 together with Darya Khaltourina) vividly illustrate the difference between the extreme poverty of the Third World (living on less than $1.25 a day) and moderate (not desperate!) Egyptian poverty. BBC and CNN news reports covering the events of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution frequently featured some Egyptians complaining that after buying all the necessary food for their families they had no money left to pay their electricity bills. News reporters felt natural sympathy for those Egyptians, and so do we. Still, it is necessary to account for the fact that the truly poor Third World people would never make such 10

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt_Revolution_of_2011#Economic_challenges.

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Fig. 16 What real Third World poverty looks like: slums of Nairobi, Kenya (2008–09)

complaints as they simply do not have electricity installed in their places of living to pay for. Still, poverty problems were not irrelevant to triggering the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Why? A brilliant paper by Egyptian economists Gamal Siam and Hanady Mostafa Abdel Radi showed that in the 2000s the dynamics of Egyptian poverty bore a seemingly paradoxical character. At the peak of the world economic boom in 2007 and early 2008, when Egypt reached 25-year-record economic growth rates of 7.2% per year, the proportion of Egyptians living below the $2 a day poverty line increased significantly from 17.8 to 23%. By contrast, the global financial-economic crisis of 2008– 2009 was accompanied not only by a slowdown in the overall economic growth rate,

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but also by a visible decrease in the proportion of Egyptians living on less than $2 a day—from 23 to 19.5% (Siam & Abdel Rady, 2010). Paradoxical as it may seem, the answer appears to be most logical and obvious as soon as you know it (though not a single economist whom we asked managed to deduce it). Indeed, a characteristic feature (and product) of economic booms (especially the latest ones) is the blowing of price bubbles. On the verge of the global financial-economic crisis there were a lot of such bubbles; Russians best remember the oil price bubble (especially its burst). However, along with the oil price bubble there were lots of others, including a copper bubble, a nickel bubble, a phosphate bubble, etc. Basic food commodities were not an exception, as wheat, rice, maize and other food price bubbles started growing. This was a painful blow to all the poor in the world who spend a major part of their household income on buying food. Egypt strongly depends on food imports,11 so poor Egyptians felt the price growth very perceptibly. The $2 a day income poverty line is calculated by the UN accounting for purchasing power parities (PPP); as a result, several millions Egyptians found themselves below this poverty line. The global financial-economic crisis was accompanied by bubble bursts [the only major “survivor” was the gold price bubble (Akaev et al., 2010, 2012)]. Food price bubbles were not an exception; prices for many food commodities fell significantly during the crisis. As a result, despite some slowdown in economic growth rates, the poor people of Egypt rather benefited from the crisis, and about three million poor Egyptian managed to move above the $2 a day poverty line.12 However, the global economic post-crisis recovery (which relied heavily on central banks’ quantitative easing) led to the blowing of new price bubbles in the world food market, almost reaching or even exceeding the peak levels of 2008 (e.g., Akaev et al., 2012; Demarest, 2015; Ferragina & Canitano, 2014; Johnstone & Mazo, 2011; Khodunov & Korotayev, 2012). Based on the model by Gamal Siam and Hanady Mostafa Abdel Radi, we have to expect that the proportion of Egyptians living below the $2 a day income poverty line should have reached the 2008 level by the start of the Egyptian Revolution (see Figs. 17, 18, 19 and 20). Did these food price dynamics and the respective dynamics of Egypt’s poverty headcount have some influence on the destabilization of the Egyptian sociopolitical system? Definitely, it did. Indeed, although both in spring 2008 and in January 2011 Egypt remained one of the most well-to-do Third World countries in terms of poverty, the fast growth of world food prices (taken that Egypt highly depends on food imports) led to a fast growth in the number of Egyptians living below the internationally recognized poverty line. In both cases more than three million Egyptians fell below the poverty line during a short period (several months). 11

Egypt imports about 60% of its consumed wheat, being one of the leading global importers of this crop (see, e.g., Abdel Aziz & el-Talawi, 2010). 12 However, it should be noted that though food prices fell considerably during the crisis, still they did not reach their pre-bubble level, remaining significantly higher. As a result, the proportion of Egyptians living on less than $2 a day decreased in the second half of 2008—first half of 2009, but did not return to the level of 2007 (Siam & Abdel Rady, 2010).

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29 27 25 23 21 19 17 1990

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In spring 2008 protests against food price increases surged in Egypt. The central event was the strike by spinning and weaving factory workers in the industrial city of al-Mahalla al-Kubra which started on the 6th of April, 2008. The workers, dissent was aimed first and foremost at the decrease of living standards caused by rising food prices. Egyptian bloggers supporting the strikers launched a Facebook group called “April 6 Youth Movement” (Abdelrahman, 2012; Beinin, 2012; Hafez, 2013; Hanna, 2013). It is known that this movement played a crucial role in the Egyptian Revolution 2011. Still more important was the social self-organization of the strike supporters through Facebook, which was first successfully tried in spring 2008 by this youth movement and proved its effectiveness in 2011. Incidentally, Fig. 21 indicates that some external influence also seems to have taken place. We can see that the emblem of the Egyptian “April 6” youth movement is astonishingly similar to the ones of some other youth movements which played an exceptionally important role in organizing other “color revolutions”, such as Serbian “Otpor!” and Georgian “Kmara!”, which led Mikheil Saakashvili to power. Interestingly, “Kmara” is translated from Georgian as “Enough”, the same as Egyptian “Kifaya!” (predecessor of the “April 6” movement) is translated from Arabic [see Chapter “Serbian ‘Otpor’ and the Color Revolutions’ Diffusion” in the present monograph (Filin et al., 2021) for more detail]. In late 2010—early 2011 food prices again reached the same critical level which was observed in spring 2008, and, in our view, this certainly made a contribution to political destabilization in Egypt in January 2011. Still it is fairly obvious that the food price increase is hardly to be recognized as the main cause for the Egyptian events. Indeed, it was a global rather than local phenomenon, and it struck painfully all the poor throughout the Third World, including, say, Latin America, where no wave of revolutions was triggered in 2011. We should also keep in mind that the impact on the poor in Egypt from the spike in world food prices was rather weaker than in most other Third World countries, 13

Sources World Bank (2011) (1991–2005); Siam and Abdel Rady (2010) (2007–2009); for 2010 we use our own estimates based on the model developed by Siam and Abdel Radi.

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Fig. 21 Emblems of some youth movements: top left—Egyptian youth movement «April 6»14 ; top right—Serbian youth movement «Otpor!»15 ; bottom left—Georgian youth movement «Kmara!»16 ; bottom right—Russian youth movement «Oborona»17

since Mubarak’s administration took very serious measures to protect them through the system of subsidies. By 2011, the system of food subsidies in Egypt was divided into two types. The first type was subsidizing the baladi bread. Since 1989 the government kept the price for this type of bread at 5 piastres (1 cent!) per loaf (weighing 130 g). This type of subsidy was universal, i.e. any inhabitant of Egypt had the right to buy 20 loaves of baladi bread every day at the low (subsidized) price in the state cooperative stores (El-Fiqi, 2008). The second type of subsidies was ration cards. These allowed families to purchase every month a certain amount of some basic food commodities (such as sugar, cooking oil, etc.) at a subsidized price. 14

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:April_6_Youth_Movement.jpg. Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Otpor.png. 16 Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Kmara.png. 17 Source http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fal:Logotip_Obopony.jpg. 15

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In the period of rapid growth in world food prices, including wheat prices, Mubarak’s regime made heroic (and successful!) efforts to preserve the price of baladi bread at the same level. Accordingly, even in the midst of the crisis, any Egyptian could still buy 20 loaves (130 g each) of subsidized bread a day for 1 pound (about 20 cents)—more than 2 kg of bread! So even for those who lived on less than $2 per day, starvation was out of the question. What then caused the massive protests in the spring of 2008? Actually, at that time the baladi bread subsidy system in Egypt began to have more and more failures as the bakeries did not use much of the state-subsidized flour for making bread, but re-sold it in the black market, where a sack of flour costs 100 times more than the state price. Accordingly, the bakeries produced significantly less baladi bread, which led to huge queues and strong discontent among the poor. To soothe the strikers, the Egyptian administration took several measures, in particular, public sector workers were promised a wage increase of 30%. Also, several important changes were made to the subsidy system. It was decided that the baladi bread should not be sold in bakeries, but in special shops (separation of production and retail sales in order to reduce queues). The list of products subsidized through ration cards was amended (unpopular products were removed) (AARDO, 2010: 159). However, the most important change was that the government significantly increased the number of beneficiaries of subsidies (from 39.5 million to 63 million people), as the system was expanded to the Egyptians who were born in 1989–2005 (AARDO, 2010: 159). The increased number of ration card beneficiaries led to a substantial increase in government spending on subsidies. Thus, in the 2008/09 fiscal year food subsidies cost the government a total of LE 21.5 billion18 (of which 16 billion was for baladi bread), compared with 10 billion in 2007/08 (AARDO, 2010: 159). Expenditures on food subsidies accounted for 1.4% of GDP in 2005 and for 1.8% in 2008 (Adams et al., 2010: 1). Thus, at the beginning of a new round of world food price increases, 100% of the Egyptian people were provided with cheap subsidized bread and nearly 80% had ration cards and bought sugar, butter, and rice at subsidized prices. Interestingly, at the same time, according to the Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey (conducted in 2008) 40% of Egyptian women and 18% of men were overweight because of overeating (Egypt Ministry of Health, 2009). Accordingly, it is hardly reasonable to state that insufficient subsidies put a significant portion of the population on the brink of starvation (for the dynamics of per capita food consumption in Egypt see Fig. 22). Nevertheless, though the Egyptian system of subsidies mitigated the impact of global food price rises on the poor (Adams et al., 2010: 33), it could not undo its effect completely. Indeed, the system does not cover all necessary food commodities. Besides, the average Egyptian family having a ration card bought at a subsidized price about 60% of its consumed sugar, 73% of oil and 40% of rice (El Nakeeb, 2009).

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The rest of these goods the family had to buy at market prices (which are, of course, much higher than the subsidized ones). We have explored the dynamics of poverty in Egypt at some length because it has so often been mentioned as a major cause of the Egyptian uprising of 2011. But theories of revolution have long recognized that the poor and very poor generally do not play a major role in revolutionary mobilization. Rather, it is the workers, students, small proprietors and craftsmen, and professionals who dominate revolutionary actions. In Egypt, these groups, though they had been making steady economic gains in the decades before the revolution, felt most sharply the impact of rising prices in 2008 and 2010, as the ration cards and subsidies covered less of their normal expenses. Though not poor by global standards, they still saw a clear contrast between the difficulties they suddenly faced in light of the repeated price spikes of 2008 and 2010 and the ostentatious consumption and new construction of luxury residences for the Egyptian elites who were connected to the Mubarak regime, the military, or the international economy.

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7 Structural-Demographic Factors in the Origins of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution Let us first regard the long-term dynamics of per capita calorie intake in Egypt (Fig. 22). It should be noted that the WHO19 -recommended rate of per capita food consumption is 2300–2400 kcal per capita per day (see, e.g., Naiken, 2002). Thus, in Egypt in the early 1960s malnutrition was quite real, and per capita food consumption was lower than the WHO recommended standards. By the mid-1960s Egypt came up to this level but until 1974 could not exceed it. After 1973 per capita food consumption rocketed up sharply, surpassing the threshold of 3000 kcal in 1982 (one year after the assassination of Sadat) and never falling below this level. After that, the majority of Egyptians encountered the problem of overeating rather than malnutrition. All this should be associated with Sadat’s administration launching rather successful economic reforms in 1974 (the so-called Infitah). Thus, we can say that in the 1970s–1980s Egypt managed to escape the socalled Malthusian trap. Recall that the Malthusian trap20 is a rather typical situation for pre-industrial societies, when the growth of output is accompanied by an equal or faster demographic growth, and so does not lead to an increase in per capita output and the improvement of living conditions for the majority of population, which remains close to the bare survival level. In complex pre-industrial societies, the Malthusian trap was one of the main generators of severe political upheavals (up to and including full state breakdowns) (see, e.g., Artzrouni & Komlos, 1985; Goldstone, 1991, 2016; Korotayev & Khaltourina, 2006; Korotayev et al., 2006; Turchin, 2003, 2005; Turchin & Korotayev, 2006; Turchin & Nefedov, 2009; Kögel & Prskawetz, 2001; Komlos & Artzrouni, 1990; Steinmann et al., 1998; Wood, 1998). However, we have shown that the escape from the Malthusian trap somewhat paradoxically (given that a social explosion comes amid long-term trends of improving material conditions of life for most people) can also be systematically (and quite naturally) accompanied by serious social and political upheavals, of which many modern revolutions serve as examples. We have called this phenomenon “a trap at the escape from the trap” (Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b, 2014b). The 2011 Egyptian Revolution can well be considered as an example of this phenomenon (with some rather specific features). Let us first answer a really simple question: What impact could the escape from the Malthusian trap have on life expectancy and mortality? Naturally, when undernourished people solve the problem of starvation and start eating enough, their life expectancy increases and the death rate of the population decreases. This was observed in all the known cases of the escape from the Malthusian trap, and Egypt was no exception (see Figs. 23 and 24). 19

The World Health Organization of the United Nations. In terms of non-linear dynamics it can also be called a low-level equilibrium attractor (see Nelson 1956).

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66 64 62 60 58 56 54 52 50 1970

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16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 1970

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Fig. 24 Crude death rate per 1000 population, Egypt, 1970–1995. Source World Bank (2011)

Thus, the Egyptian escape from the Malthusian trap was accompanied by impressive life expectancy growth, while the death rate was cut in half (!) in just 20 years (1970–1990). In full accordance with the theory of demographic transition (see, e.g., Caldwell et al., 2006; Chesnais, 1992; Dyson, 2013; Gould, 2009; Korotayev et al., 2006; Livi-Bacci, 2012; Reher, 2011) a decrease of birth rates followed, but with the usual significant lag (Fig. 25).

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50

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Mubarak’s administration was well aware of the threat hidden in the growing gap between the declining death rate and stably high birth rate, and almost since the beginning of Mubarak’s reign (1981) it started taking measures aimed at bringing down the birth rate (see, e.g., Fargues, 1997: 117–118). However, only in the second half of the 1980s did the government manage to develop a really efficient program of such measures. This program was implemented by the Egyptian government in collaboration with a USAID program aimed at wide-scale introduction and distribution of family planning (Moreland, 2006). Religious leaders (from al-Azhar sheikhs to local imams) were involved in the program to disseminate (in their fatwahs and sermons) the idea that family planning was not adverse to the Koran; on the contrary, it is good, as having less children makes it easier for the parents to give them a happy childhood and good education (Ali, 1997). This strategy proved effective, as during 5 years (1988–1992) the total fertility rate in Egypt fell from 5 to 4 children per woman. However, until the second half of the 1980s the gap between birth and death rates was still increasing. As a result, population growth in Egypt in the 1970 and 1980s reached explosive levels (the population nearly doubled from 1970 to 1990; Fig. 26) and the growth rate started to decline significantly only in the late 1980s. Naturally, such rapid population growth is bound to create serious structural strains in any system. However, it was not the only force contributing to the emergence of structural strains. Let us view the curve of absolute growth rates of the Egyptian population (see Fig. 27). As we see, the absolute population growth rates reached their maximum in 1985– 1989. Extracting 1985–1989 out of 2010 we obtain 21–25, which is the age of the numerous generation of young Egyptians who came out to Tahrir Square in Cairo in January 2011. Let us move to the next question—how does the escape from the Malthusian trap influence infant and child mortality? Children are most vulnerable to malnutrition, so they benefit most when it is eradicated; besides, in a modernizing country escaping from the Malthusian trap the health system usually develops rapidly, contributing to

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Fig. 26 Population of Egypt, thousands, 1836–199021 1500 1400 1300 1200 1100 1000 900 800 700 1975

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Fig. 27 Dynamics of absolute population growth rates, Egypt, 1975–1992 (thousands of people per year)22

the decline of infant and child mortality in a very significant way. This can be seen in all cases of the escape from the Malthusian trap, including Egypt (see Fig. 28). Thus, while the crude death rate decreased by half during 1975–1995, infant and under-5 child mortality declined by more than two-thirds during the same period. Hence, at the first phase of the demographic transition (that tends to coincide with the escape from the Malthusian trap) when the death rate declines dramatically (Caldwell et al., 2006; Chesnais, 1992; Dyson, 2013; Gould, 2009; Korotayev et al., 2006; Livi-Bacci, 2012; Reher, 2011), the greatest decline occurs in infant and under5 mortality, while birth rates still remain high. Thus, out of 6–7 children borne by a woman, 5–6 children survive up to reproductive age, not 2 or 3 as earlier. This 21 22

The sources for this diagram are described in Korotayev and Khaltourina (2006). Calculated on the basis of the World Bank (2011) data.

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300 250 Infant mortality 200 Under-5 mortality

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Fig. 29 Egyptian “youth bulge”. Dynamics of the proportion of youth cohort (aged 20–24) in the Egyptian population, 1990–202023

leads not only to the demographic explosion, but also to the formation of the “youth bulge”, as the generation of children turns out to be much larger in number than their parents’ generation. This is exactly what happened in Egypt (see Fig. 29). Jack Goldstone notes that “the rapid growth of youth can undermine existing political coalitions, creating instability. Large youth cohorts are often drawn to new ideas and heterodox religions, challenging older forms of authority. In addition, because most young people have fewer responsibilities for families and careers, they are relatively easily mobilized for social or political conflicts. Youth have played a prominent role in political violence throughout recorded history, and the existence of a “youth bulge” (an unusually high proportion of youths 15–24 relative to the total adult population) has historically been associated with times of political 23

Calculated on the bases of the data from the UN Population Division Database (UN Population Division, 2011).

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crisis. Most major revolutions … [including] most twentieth-century revolutions in developing countries—have occurred where exceptionally large youth bulges were present” (Goldstone, 2002: 11–12). Let us now view the dynamics of the number of Egyptians aged 20–24 (see Fig. 30). In absolute numbers the growth of this cohort is really astonishing, as it almost doubled during the 15 years from 1995 to 2010. It is this age group that enters the labor market in more or less developed societies (including Egypt), so even for a fast-growing economy it was virtually impossible to create the millions of additional jobs—especially desirable jobs—necessary to absorb the young labor force. As we have seen above, at the beginning of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution the unemployment level in Egypt was about 9%, which was not very high according to global standards. However, the most important circumstance (caused by the “youth bulge”) is that about half of all the Egyptian unemployed belonged to the 20–24 age cohort (Al-jihaz…, 2010). The total number of the unemployed on the eve of the Egyptian Revolution was about 2.5 million (Abd al-Rahman, 2010: 4). Accordingly, on the eve of the Revolution Egypt had about one million unemployed young people aged 20–24, who made up the main strike force of the Revolution. It is not surprising that Mubarak’s administration “overlooked” this potential for social explosion. Indeed, statistical data righteously claimed that the country was developing very successfully. Economic growth rates were high (even in the crisis years). Poverty and inequality levels were among the lowest in the Third World. Global food prices were rising, but the government was taking serious measures to mitigate their effect on the poorest layers of the population. The unemployment level (in per cent) was less than in many developed countries of the world and, moreover, was declining, and so were population growth rates. What would be the grounds to expect a full-scale social explosion? Of course, the administration had somewhat reliable information on the presence of certain groups of dissident “bloggers”, but

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how could one expect that they would be able to inspire to go to the Tahrir any great masses of people? It was even more difficult to figure out that Mubarak’s regime would be painfully struck by its own modernization successes of the 1980s, which led to the sharp decline of crude death rates, and especially of infant and child mortality, in 1975–1990. Without these successes many young Egyptians vehemently demanding Mubarak’s resignation (or even death) would have been destined to die in early childhood and simply would not have survived to come out to the protests in Tahrir Square. The rate of unemployment in Egypt stayed almost unchanged, but the number of the young doubled. This means that the absolute number of unemployed young people also increased by at least twice (this, incidentally, indicates how risky it could sometimes be to rely on percentages rather than absolute numbers). Moreover, the investigation carried out at the end of 2010 by the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics discovered that at the eve of the Revolution more than 43% of the Egyptian unemployed had university degrees (Al-jihaz…, 2010)! Thus, the main force of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was not only young, but also very highly educated. We suppose that this circumstance stipulated the relative “non-bloodiness” of the revolution, i.e. a relatively small number of victims. Indeed, though the scale of the events was truly colossal and millions of people were involved for weeks, about 800 were killed in the encounters leading up to Mubarak’s departure (mostly by the security forces and criminal elements employed by the security forces, but not by the protesters). Let us remember that during the “bread riots” of 1977 (when low-educated Egyptian urban youth was the main striking force) 800 people were killed just during two days (see, e.g., Hirst, 1977). In this regard the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was closer to the youth uprisings of 1968 type—and “velvet revolutions”—in Europe and North America of the past decades than to violent and bloody (involving dozens and hundreds thousands [if not millions] of the deathtoll) Third World civil wars. However, the Egyptian Revolution 2011 would hardly have acquired its scale if its protest base had been limited to unemployed (or inadequately employed) highlyeducated youth. The youths were supported by millions of Egyptians (of various ages, occupations, and educational levels) who found themselves below the poverty line as a result of world food price growth (despite all the serious countermeasures undertaken by Mubarak’s administration). Together this combination created all the socially explosive material necessary for the revolution.

8 Concluding Remarks However, these were necessary but not sufficient conditions for the Egyptian social explosion. A very important role in the success of the Egyptian Revolution was played by a very strong elite conflict, which is so important for the success of revolutions in general (e.g., Goldstone, 2001) and that was especially important for the success of

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the Arab Revolutions in 2011 [see, e.g., Goldstone, 2011; Korotayev et al., 2013, 2014a; Malkov et al., 2013; Nepstad, 2011, as well as Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume)]. This was mostly the conflict between the military (‘the old guard’) and the economic elite (‘the young guard’)—a group of the leading Egyptian businessmen headed by Gamal Mubarak. The military leaders controlled (and control) not only the Egyptian Armed Forces, but also a major part of the Egyptian economy. And these are not only military factories, but also large pieces of land, various real estate, fuel stations, construction and transportation enterprises, as well as numerous factories that produce not only military production, but also things like TV sets, refrigerators, spaghetti, olive oil, shoe cream and so on. Estimates of the share of the Egyptian economy controlled by the military range between 10 and 40% (Marshall & Stacher, 2012; Nepstad, 2011: 489; Roy, 1992; Tadros, 2012). The military elite was alarmed by the ascent of the ‘young guard’ of leading Egyptian businessmen (under the leadership of Gamal Mubarak) who increasingly controlled the capital intensive and international capitallinked parts of the Egyptian economy, with the support of the Egyptian government. As has been already mentioned, since 2004 the Ahmed Nazif government controlled by this group of economic elites had been implementing rather effective economic reforms that led to both substantial foreign investment and a significant acceleration of economic growth rates in Egypt. Over the past decades, the Egyptian military has not limited its focus to security matters; it has also acquired valuable real estate and numerous industries. By one estimate, the military commands up to 40 per cent of the Egyptian economy. Before the events of 2011, Egyptian officers expressed concern about President Mubarak’s plan to appoint his son Gamal as his successor. If Gamal took office, many believed that he would implement privatization policies that would dismantle the military’s business holdings. (Nepstad, 2011: 489; see also Marshall & Stacher, 2012; Roy, 1992; Tadros, 2012)

Indeed, there were sufficient grounds to expect that in case of Gamal Mubarak’s coming to power the leading Egyptian businessmen from his circle would have established effective control over the generals’ economic empire—and it would be rather easy to justify this by pointing to a (quite real) ineffectiveness of exploitation of the respective economic assets and the necessity to optimize it. The conflicts within Egypt’s elite allow us to understand some events of the Egyptian Revolution that may look mysterious at first glance. For example, throughout the revolution the army quite rigorously guarded all the official buildings, effectively blocking all the attempts by the protesters to seize them. However, already on the first days of the Revolution (on the 28th and 29th of January, 2011) the army let protestors seize, demolish and burn down the headquarters of the National Democratic Party (the ruling party led by Mubarak). However, at a closer inspection one will not find here anything strange—as the real head of this party was Gamal Mubarak; thus, the military elite delivered a very strong blow to its archenemy with the hands of the protestors (see, e.g., Issaev & Shishkina, 2012). Within the context of the still rather fashionable interpretation of the Egyptian events of January and February 2011 as a sort of ‘confrontation between revolutionary popular masses and the repressive authoritarian regime’ one could hardly

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understand the apparently enigmatic (but extremely famous) ‘Battle of the Camel’, when there was an attempt to disperse the Tahrir protesters on the part of a motley crew of cameleers—workers of tourist services operating in the Pyramids area and engaged in renting horses and camels to tourists, The cameleers attacked the protesters while riding camels and horses (which, incidentally, rendered an exotic color to the events of February 2—and to the Egyptian 2011 Revolution, in general). However, if this was indeed ‘the confrontation of popular masses and the repressive authoritarian regime’, why was it necessary for the “authoritarian regime” to employ such strange amateurish figures, and not to use such a simple thing as the professional repressive apparatus? The point is that, already on the 2nd of February, Tahrir protesters confronted not the professional repressive apparatus controlled by the ‘old guard’ (that took the position of friendly neutrality toward the protesters), but the economic elite clique that in order to counteract the protesters (who demanded the removal of the businessmen’s leader) had to employ semi-criminal elements rather than the professional repressive apparatus (see Essam El-Din, 2011; Issaev & Shishkina 2012: 70–73; Issaev & Korotayev, 2014; Korotayev & Issaev, 2014; Korotayev et al., 2016 for more detail). Thus, already in early February 2011 the protesters in Tahrir were countered not by the repressive apparatus of the authoritarian state, but by a clique of the businessmen who were very rich indeed, but who did not control the repressive apparatus—which accounts for a very easy ‘victory of the revolutionary masses’ to a very considerable extent. The second point that secured an unexpectedly fast success for the protestors was the formation of an unexpectedly wide opposition alliance, which united in a single rather coordinated front very diverse forces, including not only all the possible secular opposition groups (liberals, leftists, nationalists and so on), but also Islamists in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular (e.g., Bakr, 2016). Thus, at the end of January 2011, Mubarak faced such a combination of long-, medium- and short-term factors that he had no way to counter them all: (1)

(2)

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The explosive growth of the population of educated youth (caused by both the drop in mortality against the background of still high birth rates in the early years of Mubarak’s rule and the rapid expansion of higher education) led to the emergence of a huge mass of unemployed (or inadequately employed) educated young people concentrated to a high degree in the capital. The rapid and rather bloodless fall of the authoritarian regime of Ben Ali,25 which was brilliantly and talentedly broadcast by Arab satellite channels, provoked the leaders of the already existing liberal secular dissident (mostly youth) groups, structured primarily through the Facebook groups “the April 6 Youth Movement” and “We are all Khaled Said” (see, for example, Ghoneim, 2012), to make a similar attempt in Egypt. It was the educated youth who acted as the strike force that launched mass protests. The second wave of agflation led to a rapid rise in food prices, which contributed to the fact that the masses of Egyptian commoners, who were brought below

25 See Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022, in this volume) for detail.

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the $2 a day poverty level by explosive price growth, joined the initial strike force—the educated and underemployed youth—of the Arab Spring. All this took place against the backdrop of an acute intra-elite conflict that broke out between the military and economic elite (headed by Gamal Mubarak), as a result of which the military elite decided to use popular protests to liquidate (at least, politically) its main opponent, and refused to suppress protests, which ensured their so unexpected and rapid “success”. To this one should add a purely internal (but typologically quite natural for inconsistent autocracies) factor. A very important role in the genesis of the Egyptian protest tsunami was played by a flagrant violation by the Egyptian authorities in November–December 2010 of the informal rules of the game with the Muslim Brotherhood, when as a result of particularly large-scale falsifications the authorities managed to block almost completely the entrance of the Brotherhood’s representatives into the Egyptian parliament. As a result, having deprived the Muslim Brotherhood of the opportunity to conduct its political activities legally, the Egyptian authorities actually “pushed” the Muslim Brotherhood into Tahrir, forcing them to switch from legal (and semi-legal) opposition activities to protest actions. In turn, the joining of the protests by the Muslim Brotherhood (with their colossal practical experience of organizational work) gave the protests an incomparably greater scope and organization.

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Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University in Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Faculty of Global Studies of the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He has authored or coauthored over 650 scholarly publications, including such monographs as Ancient Yemen (Oxford University Press, 1995), World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth (URSS, 2006), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends (URSS, 2006), Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015; with Leonid Grinin), Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (Springer, 2016; with Leonid Grinin), Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy. World System and World Values Perspectives (Springer, 2019; with Leonid Grinin and Arno Tausch). He is a laureate of a Russian Science Support Foundation in ‘The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Nomination (2006); in 2012 he was awarded with the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.

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Julia Zinkina is a research professor at the International Laboratory for Demography and Human Capital of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Moscow. Julia Zinkina is an author of more than 100 scholarly publications including such articles as “Kondratieff Waves in Global Invention Activity” (Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 2011. Vol. 78, pp. 1280–1284), “The origins of dragon-kings and their occurrence in society” (Physica A 391/21 (2012): 5215–5229), “Urbanization Dynamics in Egypt: Factors, Trends, Perspectives” (Arab Studies Quarterly. 2013. Vol. 35, Issue 1, pp. 20–38), “Measuring Globalization: Existing Methods and Their Implications for Teaching Global Studies and Forecasting” (Campus-Wide Information Systems 30/5 (2013): 11–25), Projecting Mozambique’s Demographic Futures (Journal of Futures Studies, December 2014, 19(2): 21–40), Explosive Population Growth in Tropical Africa: Crucial Omission in Development Forecasts (World Futures 70/2 (2014): 120–139), and “On the Structure of the Present-Day Convergence (CampusWide Information Systems 31/2–3 (2014): 139–152). Her sphere of academic interests includes political demography, global history and global networks, as well as social processes in Tropical Africa and the Middle East.

The Arab Spring in Yemen Leonid Issaev, Alina Khokhlova, and Andrey Korotayev

1 Yemen and the Arab Spring Much was written in the world’s mass media expressing serious concerns about Yemen’s future when the Arab Spring came to this country. Most of those fears were based on the possibility of Yemen falling under the control of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). However, the events of 2011–2012 in Yemen proceeded in a very unusual, even extraordinary and, what is more important, a totally different way in comparison with other states of the Arab World. Yemen was different from other Arab countries from the very inception of the Arab Spring (see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). For instance, in the beginning of 2011 Egypt was on the leading edge of the Middle East “economic miracle,” a period of strong economic growth in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and other countries based on major foreign investments, capital-intensive growth projects, and increases in both exports and local production of formerly imported goods (see Korotayev et al., 2012b; Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011a, 2011b). The situation there could be characterized as “a trap on the very exit of the trap”, as Malthusian pressures gave way to concerns about uneven development and over-educated youth. In comparison with Egypt, Yemen was a perfect example of a traditional high-fertility society that L. Issaev (B) · A. Khokhlova · A. Korotayev HSE University, Moscow, Russia L. Issaev Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia A. Korotayev Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia L. Issaev · A. Korotayev RUDN University, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26

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was still far from such a level of socio-economic development. Judging by its socioeconomic and demographic indicators, Yemen has been lagging behind the majority of the Arab countries for several decades (see, e.g., Korotayev et al., 2012a). Thus, it will not be a surprise if some Arab Spring structural preconditions re-appear in this country in the future. Speaking about Yemen, one should start from its rapid population growth, which was record high for the region during the last several decades (see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). Although Yemen’s GDP growth was respectable, at just under 4% per year on the eve of the Arab Spring (2006–2010), its record high population growth, at 3% per year, almost thwarted all GDP growth. Thus, while Egypt—which had a population growth rate of under 2% per year and enjoyed GDP growth well over 5% in the decade before the Arab Spring—saw its GDP/capita rise by one-third in the years 2000–2010,1 in Yemen the total growth in GDP/capita in this decade was only about one-tenth. As a result, by 2011 the situation in Yemen could be characterized as being in the neo-Malthusian trap, which is typical for the early period of a country’s modernization, when rapid population growth and limited economic growth produce only small gains in GDP/capita; and Yemen still remains in this trap.2 In particular, the average per capita calorie intake is still lower than the 2300–2400 kcal level recommended by WHO (WHO, 2012). Yemen’s economic problems often intersected with “the woman question”—in Yemen the female labor force participation rate in all economic spheres except the agriculture is one of the lowest in the world (see Korotayev et al., 2013, 2015). This acts as a powerful constraint on GDP per capita growth. For some time, the country has needed to develop new industries which could involve the female labor force, as this could lead to much needed investment flows into the country. To encourage this process the government must support further reforms to support women’s education after the stabilization of the situation in this country. Such a tendency was already noticeable in Yemen at the eve of the Arab Spring, where the education level of young women was markedly higher than that of the adult female population. Moreover, Yemen is still in the beginning of the urban transition: the urban share of the population is just thirty percent (see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). Together with a rapidly growing population all these problems lead to low labor productivity, especially in agriculture (World Bank, 2020). This low labor productivity then becomes one more factor which hinders the economic development of the country. Finally, the effects of modernization trap also matter. The rapid development of Yemen’s health sector made it possible to achieve a sharp fall of the total death rate, especially infant mortality. It also led to steady increases in life expectancy. These successes were especially pronounced in the second half of 1970s and the first half 1

See Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume). 2 For more detail on the original Malthusian and neo-Malthusian trap see, e.g., Malthus (1978 [1798]), Artzrouni and Komlos (1985), Steinmann and Komlos (1988), Komlos and Artzrouni (1990), Steinmann et al. (1998), Kögel and Prskawetz (2001), Korotayev et al. (2011), Zinkina and Korotayev (2014a, 2014b), Korotayev et al. (2014), Korotayev and Zinkina (2014, 2015).

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of the 1980s, when oil prices were very high. In these years, financial flows from the oil-exporting Arab countries through the official channels of “Arab help,” as well as through remittances from Yemeni labor migrants who left to work in oil-rich Arab countries, predominantly Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies of Arabian Peninsula, raised incomes (see Korotayev et al., 2012a: 51–52). This provided the government with an opportunity to modernize the health sector and led to the introduction of modern health care, which resulted in a sharp increase in life expectancy and falling death rates. The rapid decline in infant mortality led to the emergence of a “youth bulge” (Moller, 1968; Mesquida & Weiner, 1999; Goldstone, 1991, 2002; Korotayev et al., 2010, 2011, 2012a). In other Arab Spring countries, the lack of white-collar jobs for huge numbers of educated youths who attended vastly expanded colleges and universities turned out to be a major factor of destabilization, as in Egypt (see, for instance: Korotayev et al., 2012b). In Yemen, by contrast, the youth bulge had the effect of increasing the recruits to radical Islamist movements and clan militias. However, the peak of the “youth bulge” will take place in Yemen in the 2020s and 2030s (see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). And unlike in Egypt, the process of this youth bulge formation in Yemen is likely to happen even before the country exits from the Malthusian trap. The consequences of this process are likely to be especially harsh amid the growth of unemployment levels and, consequently, the absence of livelihood sources for the youth, particularly those who live in urban areas. These problems will almost certainly continue to trigger some radical tendencies in the youth movements and fuel socio-political tensions in the country. The combination of youth bulge, state corruption, alienation from increasingly authoritarian regimes and other factors,3 along with the example of Tunisia leading the way with its revolution against its President Ben Ali,4 led to upheavals in all the Arab countries. But the outcomes were quite different according to the particular circumstances in each country [see Chapter “The Arab Spring: A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022, in this volume)]. In Yemen, the Arab Spring protests that began in 2011 led first to a peaceful change of government. However, a few years later this led to a massive civil war with foreign intervention that remained stalemated for over half a decade.

2 The Evolution of Conflict in Yemen The Yemen stalemate can be partially explained by Yemen being a less developed, and a still more tribal/clan society with a weaker central state, than other Arab nations. In these circumstances the opposition could not unify and mobilize the country to overthrow the regime, and the regime could not suppress the opposition 3

For a rather full description of those factors see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022, in this volume). 4 See Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022, in this book).

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(see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). Instead of political parties competing to govern, in Yemen personal intrigues and clan divisions dominated. The revolution in Tunisia played the role of the initial igniter of the Arab Spring in Yemen, as in all other Arab countries. As a result of that revolution, the former Tunisian government and parliament were dissolved, and, what is more important, President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled the country [see Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022, in this book)]. Therefore, one could notice the emergence of an “Arab precedent”—the possibility of overthrowing the dictator who had been in power for several decades by popular uprisings (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012a; Grinin et al., 2016). As a result, antigovernment movements were initiated in the entire Arab world, including Yemen. Long before the Arab Spring, one could notice the emergence of a common Internet space for all the Arab countries (see Abdulla, 2007). In this space all educated Arabs who knew Standard Arabic could communicate without country barriers. As a result, during the Arab Spring people from those Arab countries where revolutions were taking place could easily communicate with those whose countries were still politically stable. It was also significant that during the last twenty years another silent media revolution happened in the Arab world, with the emergence of super professional TV satellite channels. Two of those became especially popular in the Arab countries – the Qatar information outlet Al Jazeera, and the Saudi Arabian and UAE channel Al Arabiya. These TV channels gained enormous popularity across the entire Arab world (Korotayev et al., 2012a: 55). As a result, the so-called “Al Jazeera effect” (Tausch, 2011) played a special role in the synchronization of the events during the Arab spring: the Egyptian revolution was broadcast for all the Arab world to see, and so colorfully and even “excitingly” that it resembled a thriller movie, which was watched by all the Arabs with inspiration. An apparently “happy end of the Egyptian fairytale” in the initial broadcasts gave a strong impetus for antigovernment uprisings in all the Arab countries, including Yemen. Looking more precisely at the chronology of antigovernment uprisings, one could easily notice how the resignation of Hosni Mubarak on February, 11, 2011 triggered new protest waves in almost all the countries of the Arab world. For Yemenis who watched the coverage of the Egyptian events on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the emotional and bright images from Tahrir Square played a crucial role in the emergence of the protest wave in their country. However, the Yemenis had more than a few reasons for their own discontent over life conditions. For over several decades the country—which in the time of the Prophet had been the most advanced region of Arabia, the proverbially rich land of Felix (“lucky, fertile”) Arabia—blessed by the seasonal monsoons that made its valleys exceptionally fertile—was relegated to the periphery of the Arab world. It was not by accident that the protesters filled the streets of Yemeni cities with socio-economic demands. Among the most important reasons for that discontent were problems in health and education. Following Nasser’s Arab Socialist Revolution in Egypt, most Arab governments accepted the tasks of providing improved health care and education for their people. But Yemen lagged behind. For instance, in Yemen a national medical

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insurance system is absent. Moreover, many medical services are not available for the majority of the people because of their high prices, and state hospitals are poorly equipped in terms of both their medical technology and the qualifications of medical staff. These problems intersected with those in the education system, which produced neither sufficient numbers of qualified professionals to provide health and educational services, nor prepared Yemeni youth for better jobs, notwithstanding the considerable expansion of higher education achieved by the Ali Abdullah Saleh administration in the years preceding the Arab Spring (World Bank, 2020). The number of pupils in Yemeni school classes could be as high as 120, but only twenty percent of those pupils have an opportunity to get a higher education because of the educational payment rules, which demanded a full, one-time payment fee. For the majority of Yemenis coming up with this sum of money is unbearable. Moreover, most universities lack Master’s degree programs, to say nothing of opportunities to get a Ph.D. degree in the country (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). The physical infrastructure of Yemeni schools and universities also remained rather underdeveloped (notwithstanding substantial improvements of the 2000s). However, the core socio-political problem remains the archaic tribal way of life,5 which still penetrates all spheres of Yemeni society in the North; whereas in the South, which had gone through a wide socio-political modernization before the unification, such a way of life became for its citizens a kind of “historic anachronism”. The Yemeni education and health sectors display some of the clearest instances of the distortions that arise as consequences of the tribal factor. For instance, in small cities and towns the sons and relatives of tribal shaykhs can become school directors, doctors and teachers, although they do not have the appropriate qualifications. Only 40 percent of Yemeni teachers have acquired university degrees, to say nothing about the high levels of clientelism, bribery and corruption that characterize all government sectors (UNESCO, 2020). Nonetheless, the Yemeni government made enough progress in some areas to raise expectations. As has been mentioned above, the medical services in Yemen went through a serious transformation, and due to the introduction of modern drugs and sanitation, during the last decades of the 20th century life expectancy grew substantially and the mortality rate dropped, especially the infant mortality rate. The construction of hospitals and the spread of pharmacies accelerated. In the 2000s, the education sector got the largest part of the national budget. Moreover, more women started to get access to higher education. As a result, popular discontent over the Yemeni education sector can be explained by the “demonstration effect”: after returning back from universities abroad the young Yemenis found a rather underdeveloped education system at home, and the most natural way to explain it was to invoke the corruption factor. This “demonstration effect”, however, had not only an external, but also an internal side: the healthcare system and educational system in the South of Yemen (which had been remodeled 5

On the other hand, it appears necessary to stress that Yemeni tribes are in no way “primitive” sociopolitical structures. In fact, they only emerged in the early Islamic period replacing more ancient South Arabian chiefdoms (Korotayev, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2020).

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during the decades in which South Yemen was identified as a socialist country and received aid from the USSR, Cuba and other Communist countries) were much more modern than those which still exist in the Yemeni North (see, for instance, Issaev, 2012; Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). During the whole first month of antigovernment protests in Yemen, the growth of protest was slow; the extent of Yemeni protestors’ activities was more dependent on the events that happened in Tunisia and Egypt rather than in Yemen itself. The Yemeni opposition’s attention was focused more on what was happening to Ben Ali and Mubarak, rather than on Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh.6 Yemen’s first demonstration took place on January 15, 2011—the day after President Ben Ali of Tunisia fled the country and took refuge in Saudi Arabia. During that demonstration its participants demanded socio-economic reforms—reformation of the healthcare system and educational system, increase of salary rates, etc. The first demonstration lacked the students’ participation—one could notice only 40–100 of them, as most preferred to stay at home because of fear of government punishment (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). The protests restarted on the 18th of January. On the 27th of January, Yemen’s capital Sanaa witnessed protests demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled the country during the previous 33 years. On February 2, 2011, right after Hosni Mubarak addressed the Egyptian nation with a promise not to participate in the forthcoming elections and not to transfer power to his son, under the pressure of mass protests throughout the country (see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012a for detail), a new demonstration began in the Tahrir Square of Sanaa as well as near the Tunisian and Egyptian embassies in Yemen. President Saleh responded with a speech in Yemen’s Parliament that was analogous to the one given by President Mubarak—that he was not going to run for re-election in the new presidential elections or transmit power to his son Ahmad, who was the Commander in Chief of the Republican Guard. On February 2, 2011, massive demonstrations were held in several Yemeni cities. That day was called “The Day of Rage” (Yawm al-Ghad.ab—similar to mass protest days in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain). During those demonstrations, protesters put forward their demands, which included the eradication of corruption and the resignation of President Saleh. More than twenty thousand people took part in those protests (Agence France-Presse, 2011). In the southern city of Aden the national security forces used live ammunition and tear gas to suppress the uprisings. Thousands took to the streets in the capital, Sanaa—both regime supporters and antigovernment protestors. After the “Day of Rage” classes in the capital’s university were terminated practically until the next year. The next wave of the Yemeni opposition protests occurred on February 12, 2011, just the next day after the speech of Egypt’s Vice President Omar Suleiman, in which 6

For the preparation of this chapter we have relied on the following main sources: Day (2012), Issaev (2012), Issaev and Shishkina (2012a, 2012b), Bonnefoy (2014), Brehony (2015), Issaev and Korotayev (2015), Fraihat (2016), Juneau (2016), Brandt (2017), Hill (2017), Ragab (2017), Sharp (2017), Blumi (2018), Palik (2018).

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he announced the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. Starting from this date, the rhetoric of the majority of the protesters became more political (see Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b for detail). Ali Abdallah Saleh had stayed in power for 33 years, starting from June 17, 1978. His reign started with the position of President of the Yemen Arab Republic (from 1978 to 1990, Yemen was split into the pro-Western Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south, with its capital at Aden). After that he became the Chairman of the Yemeni Presidential Council and, finally, after reunification he became the President of the Republic of Yemen. He was the first president of the united country. After the unification of Northern and Southern Yemen in 1990, Saleh came forward with several constitutional amendments (which were put to the referendum on February 24, 2001) to expand and entrench his power as President. Those amendments expanded the presidential term from five to seven years. They also gave the Yemeni president an opportunity to convene new elections after Parliament’s dissolution and removed the President’s jurisdiction limits, which restricted him from issuing decrees that have the force of law when the Parliament does not sit or is dissolved (Sapronova, 2003). During the 1999 and 2006 elections Saleh was reelected for seven-year terms. Moreover, on the eve of the 2011 events Saleh produced another amendment initiative—to cancel presidential term limits altogether, which was not put on referendum because of the Arab Spring (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). On February 8, 2011, two mass actions took place in the southwestern city of Taiz. The first was close to Hurriyyah Square, where the president’s opponents held “Friday of the Beginning” prayers (Jum‘at al-Bidaya). During the praying an unknown person threw a grenade into the crowd, as a result of which one protestor was killed and 87 were injured. At the same time, Saleh’s supporters held “Friday of Peace” (Jum‘at al-Salam) prayers in Taiz, calling for a peaceful dialogue and political reforms initiated by Saleh. Among the slogans one could hear calls like “Yes to security” (Na‘am li-l-aman) or “Yes to development and no to chaos” (Na‘m li-l-tanmiyah wa-la li-l-fawda). After three days President Saleh announced during his speech that he was not going to resign and was ready to leave his seat only after the next elections were held. However, by that time an old conflict between two factions of the Yemeni elite— the Saleh clan and al-Ahmar clan—had already manifested itself. The Ahmars controlled many important, highly-capable formations of the Yemeni armed forces. Just as the Egyptian military elite had used the Arab Spring protests to settle accounts with its main enemy, the circle of internationally-connected business elites led by Gamal Mubarak,7 the Ahmar clan decided to use the popular protests in Yemen to defeat its main enemy, the Saleh clan. To this end, with applause from the gullible international community, the al-Ahmar clan positioned itself as the defender of the “people’s fight for democracy,” against the repression of the “despotic dictatorship” of Ali Abdullah Saleh. On February 26, 2011, several leaders of Yemen’s two largest 7

See Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022, in this volume).

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tribes, Hashid and Bakil, led by the Ahmars, announced their defection to the side of the opposition. In March 2011 Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the Commander of the northern military district and the first armored division (one of the most efficient in the country) announced his withdrawal from President Saleh’s ruling party, the General People’s Congress (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). Following General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar’s defection three other generals and dozens of officers announced that they did not obey the president. In Sanaa, troops of rebel generals were sent by the Ahmars “to protect the demonstrators”; these troops took positions in the central square of the city as well as close to the buildings of the Central Bank, the Ministry of Defense and the Presidential Palace. Several representatives of the General People’s Congress of Yemen, including ministers, withdrew from the party. The defections included minister of tourism Nabil Hassan al-Fakih, who was the head of the Foreign Policy Committee of the House of Representatives and adviser to the Prime Minister Mohammed al-Kubati. He was joined by the head of the state news agency Nasr Taha Mustafa, the permanent representative of Yemen in the League of Arab States (LAS) Abd al-Malik Mansour, and many others. However, President Saleh was not left without any support. On March 21, 2011, he proclaimed the necessity of using the army for the stabilization of the situation in the country (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b), and immediately after that Yemeni Defense Minister major general Muhammad Naser Ahmed Ali addressed the Yemeni people on Al Jazeera TV to say that President Saleh had the backing of the armed forces. The head of the Defense Department promised to give the president protection from any antidemocratic coup attempt, adding that “the armed forces will remain loyal to the oath given to God, the people and the political leadership of President Ali Abdullah Saleh” (Novyje Izvestiya, 2011). However, it should be noted that the Yemen Minister of Defense is in fact a nominal figure who predominantly deals with economic issues. The real control over the army was concentrated in the hands of the Military District Commanders, primarily the Commanders of the North and West Military Districts, and that the Commander of the North District was no one else but the main enemy of Ali Abdullah Saleh—Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. On the other hand, the son of the president, Ahmad Saleh, headed the Republican Guard. In addition, President Saleh’s step-brother was appointed as the Air Force Commander, and his other brothers also occupied leading posts in the army and special services. The President’s nephew, Tarek Muhammad Saleh, was the head of the elite Presidential Guard. Another nephew, Yahya Muhammad Saleh, headed the Central Security Forces and Counter-Terrorism Unit. Still another nephew, Amar Muhammad Saleh, served as National Security Agency Deputy Commander. The conflict between the two most influential clans of Yemen—the Ahmars and the Salehs—without doubt turned out to be a crucial factor of the 2011 political destabilization. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar hoped that he would take the place of President Saleh after his departure from his post, but the president himself was seeking an opportunity to transfer power to his eldest son Ahmad, who would have turned 40

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years old by 2013, which would have given him rights to claim the highest public office (Ryabov, 2011). Besides political interests, one could notice practical economic reasons behind the inter-clan conflict. After the death of the Shaykh Abdullah al-Ahmar the financial interests of Ali Abdullah Saleh and the al-Ahmar clan (first of all, Hamid al-Ahmar’s financial interests) became more and more irreconcilable. For instance, the two largest mobile operators in the country MTN and Sabafon belonged to Saleh and al-Ahmar respectively (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b) and each sought a monopoly at the expense of the other. To reinforce his position, after 2001 President Saleh sought an external ally. To gain support from the United States, he offered President George W. Bush Yemen’s help in the War on Terror, and began persecuting conservative and anti-Western Islamists. This caused the Al-Ahmar clan to suffer even more serious losses. Yemen gradually took up a position as an important ally of the U.S. in Middle East politics. As Russian orientalist Sergey Serebrov noted, this pressed Washington “to look for additional resources to strengthen Saleh’s regime in Yemen by transitioning financial flows into the Saleh regime which previously used to come to Yemen from Saudi Arabia by multiple channels, bypassing the President. The new arrangements deprived the Ahmars (and their political base—the moderately Islamist Islah party) of their usual income flows from Saudi Arabia, which threatened them with further political costs” (Serebrov, 2015: 301). The situation became even worse after Shaykh Abdullah al-Ahmar’s death in 2007. President Saleh did not feel obliged to the Shaykh’s sons, and made it clear that he did not intend to adhere to a generous policy towards al-Ahmar clan, which was highly privileged during the lifetime of Abdullah al-Ahmar. The conflict reached its peak in 2009, when Shaykh Hamid al-Ahmar, as the opposition leader, demanded an urgent National Dialogue session in Yemen in order to remove Saleh from power. However, at that time the president managed to resist. Nevertheless, in 2011 the heightened inter-clan conflict in the wake of the popular protests led to the defection of many tribes of the North to the opposition. This was the result of the tough position of the Hashid tribal confederation leader, Sadiq bin Abdullah bin Hussein bin Nasser al-Ahmar, towards President Saleh. The attempted assassination of Sadiq al-Ahmar on May 2011 can be considered as one of culminating points in the struggle between President Saleh and the head of the tribal confederation (Ryabov, 2011). Two months later, the northern tribes’ representatives announced the creation of the Alliance of Yemeni tribes led by Shaykh Sadiq al-Ahmar. The Alliance was joined by deserters from the regular Yemeni army; they entered the first armored division of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar who hastened to declare his “solidarity with the protesters,” warning that any attack on the opposition by the government would be regarded as an armed intervention in the tribal unions structure (Ahramonline, 2011). However, it was not only the pro-Ahmar tribes who composed the opposition to President Saleh. The Yemeni opposition, like the oppositions in all the other Arab countries, can be characterized as highly heterogeneous, moved by different causes and pursuing different goals (Issaev, 2012; Korotayev et al., 2016). One of

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the structural components of the opposition forces was the Yemeni Socialist Party, which remained from the pre-unification socialist regime in South Yemen. The YSP was initially a pro-Soviet party based on a Scientific Socialist/Communist political platform (Vorobyev, 1978), but it turned to the Social Democratic doctrine in the late 1980s against the background of the crisis in the USSR. The demands of the southerners were largely based on dissatisfaction with the fact that after the country’s unification in 1990 and the 1994 civil war, the more economically and socio-politically developed South was essentially turned into a financial and economic appendage of the North. Since 2010, in the southern regions one could notice an escalation of conflicts with the incumbent regime. That escalation was visible in the increased activities of the opposition-minded elite in the major cities of the South, as well as among the traditional supporters of the YSP. The situation became even more complicated because of the development of the armed separatist movement al-Hirak, which originally pursued mainly the private interests of the leaders of some of the more remote southern provinces (Bahran, 2010).

3 From Protests to Revolution and Civil War The complicated configuration of Yemeni society predetermined the long and internally contradictory course of Yemen’s conflict until it came to armed clashes between opponents and supporters of the President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Yemeni crisis reached its acute phase in April 2011, after several months of swelling protests and defections. Under pressure from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), President Saleh had agreed to step down. However, on April 30th President Saleh followed his practically established tradition of changing his own decisions, and refused to sign the agreement to resign his presidential powers in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution. On that day, the Secretary General of the GCC, Abd al-Latif alZiyani, arrived in Sanaa and failed to convince the President to accept the settlement plan proposed by the Council (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). A month later, on May 31, 2011, the first major clashes between government forces and armed detachments of the Hashid tribal confederation took place. The cause for unleashing an armed confrontation in the elite quarter of Sanaa—al-Khasab—was the complaint of a director of a school where pupils were taking their exams. Armed guards of the al-Ahmar family were stationed nearby the school, which aroused the concern of the school administration and they alerted security services. The clashes began when the army units entered the part of the city where the school was located. The situation became much more complicated after the attempt of the police special forces to seize the house of Shaykh al-Ahmar, the leader of the Hashid tribe, whose guards were able to repel the attack and launched a counter-offensive. During the clashes, 38 people were killed, 24 of whom were representatives of the Hashid tribe (Issaev & Shishkina, 2012b). After a fierce five-day confrontation, the Yemeni capital Sanaa was actually divided into several parts: the city’s southern part was controlled by government

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troops and the security forces of President Saleh, while General Ali Mohsen alAhmar detachments were stationed in the North. West Sanaa was occupied by Hashid tribal detachments, while “peaceful protests” continued in the East. Al-Zubayri Street became a kind of watershed between the western and eastern parts of the city, and one of the largest streets, 60th Street, which was also important because of its strategic location (as it leads to Sanaa airport), was also occupied by demonstrators. The streets that divided the areas were occupied by various factions, the fortifications were reinforced and checkpoints with armed fighters were deployed. The main fighting between the Hashid tribal detachments and government forces that erupted in the area of al-Khasab in North Sanaa was located between the house of the Hashid tribal union leader Shaykh Sadiq al-Ahmar and the Ministry of the Interior building. Moreover, military actions also took place in other cities of the country. In particular, in Taiz, the demonstrators were fired at by the police. Those police actions led to the elimination of a protesters’ camp and the deaths of more than 50 people. In the Yemeni South things grew far more serious. The coast city of Zinjibar was seized by a group of militants who were initially thought to be associated with alQaeda, but later it turned out that they belonged to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army grouping. This paramilitary religious and political organization included militants who during the 1994 civil war had fought for President Saleh against the socialists in the south. In gratitude for that help, members of the group received several leading positions, but this was not enough for them, and that was now long ago. Thus, in May 2011 they decided to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the popular riots which were spreading throughout the country (Lenta, 2011), and they attacked the small military garrison and captured the city. Outraged by this turnabout by a group once loyal to him, President Saleh sent his air force and artillery to strike the rebel’s positions. However, the fighting swelled to include armed tribespeople and went on for months before the rebels were dislodged. On Friday June 3, 2011, an assassination attempt on President Saleh took place during prayers in the Presidential Mosque. The explosion left Saleh with extensive wounds and burns. The President accused the United States of attempting to kill him in order to stage a coup in Yemen (al-Bayan, 2011). The day after the assassination, Saleh left Yemen for Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, landing at a military base in Riyadh; after that he was taken to a military hospital. During his absence of more than three months, Vice President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi had to take the duties of the head of the state as well as the supreme commander of the armed forces (in accordance with Article 116 of the Yemeni Constitution). Previously Vice President Hadi had been proposed and nominated by the GCC to become the interim President of Yemen after the resignation of the President Saleh. Immediately after the departure of the injured president to Saudi Arabia, the oppositionists declared their determination to prevent President Saleh’s return. During the absence of President Saleh from the country, Acting President Hadi began to pursue his own policy aimed at establishing a dialogue with the protesters, starting negotiations with the groups still occupying major streets, conducting

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marches and demonstrations. In addition, he managed to suppress quickly and relatively bloodlessly the military operations; however, they broke out in Yemen again in September 2011. These emerged between various factions dispersed throughout the capital city after the declaration of the forthcoming return of President Saleh and they lasted for three days. On September 18, 2011, armed groups loyal to President Saleh opened fire at pro-Ahmar demonstrators in Sanaa, killing at least 26 people and injuring several hundred (Al Jazeera, 2011). Eyewitnesses reported that the security forces opened fire at the pro-Ahmar activists who were leaving their camps located on Sanaa Change Square near the university and heading to the city center. Before that, the government units fought with the pro-Ahmar forces in the al-Khasab area, where one could find the residence of the Hashid tribe leader Shaykh Sadiq al-Ahmar, who claimed that he gave his men the order not to attack with reciprocal fire (Al Jazeera, 2011). The next day, demonstrators were again subjected to snipers’ fire in the capital as well as in Taiz. The end of the acute phase of confrontation between government forces and oppositionists was largely facilitated by the order of Prime Minister Hadi to stop army units’ attacks. The acute civil unrest in those days could be described by the following data: on the first day of fighting 23 people were killed, on the second 83 were, and the third day witnessed the clashes with the army units—which, however, helped to stop the confrontations. On September 23, 2011, President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned to Yemen after more than three months of treatment in Saudi Arabia. That evening, Yemeni TV began broadcasting President Saleh’s decision to sign a package of documents concerning the transfer of power to the interim government. The signing of the GCC Plan took place on November 23, 2011, in Riyadh with the participation of the Saudi King and representatives of the Yemeni opposition (Rashad, 2011). In accordance with the GCC Plan, the Yemen crisis resolution was to be implemented in two stages: in a “first transition period,” President Saleh would transfer his powers to Vice-President Hadi, and promise to resign following early presidential elections to be held on February 21, 2012. Then would follow a “second transition period” of two years, after which Yemen would hold a new presidential election (UN Peacemaker, 2011). During the first transition period, it was planned to create a Government of National Unity, which was supposed to consist of 50 percent of the representatives of the pro-Saleh National Council and another 50 percent of the anti-Saleh (and mostly pro-Ahmar) National Coalition. Moreover, in accordance with Article 8 of the Plan, legislative decisions in the House of Representatives were to be made only on a consensus basis, otherwise the prerogative of passing a controversial bill was passed on to the Vice President, and, if necessary, to the President himself (UN Peacemaker, 2011). Article 14 of the GCC Plan gave Vice President Hadi the following jurisdictions in the first transition period from November 26, 2011 to February 21, 2012:

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to hold early presidential elections; to perform presidential functions in relation to Parliament; to announce the formation of the national unity government and to administer the oath of office to its members; to interact with the Committee on military affairs in order to achieve security and stability in the country; to conduct foreign affairs within the framework necessary for the Plan implementation; to issue the decrees necessary for the Plan implementation (UN Peacemaker, 2011).

It was also assumed that Hadi would become a consensus candidate for the presidency in the February 2012 election. To secure this, Article 18 prohibited both opposing sides to nominate other candidates for this post. This explains the election results: more than 99% of the votes were given to Hadi in the early presidential elections on February 21, 2012. During the second transition period, Article 19 of the GCC Plan entrusted the elected president and the Government of National Unity with the task of convening a conference to achieve a national dialogue and draft a new constitution. Article 20, which regulated the composition of the Conference, emphasized the need for representation of women in all participating groups. These are the issues put on the Conference agenda: 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

to prepare the Constitution draft, including the convocation of the Constitutional Commission; to develop a system for reform of the new Constitution, including the possibility of submitting constitutional amendments to the Yemeni people through a referendum; to establish a dialogue with the South in order to facilitate the adoption of fair decisions which would guarantee the country’s unity; to review the national issues including prior armed conflicts and seek their resolution; to implement comprehensive reforms aimed at establishing a democratic system, including reforming the state service, judiciary and local government systems; to take measures aimed to achieve national reconciliation and the implementation of justice, as well as measures aimed to prevent violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the future; to take legal and other measures to ensure better protection of vulnerable groups, including children and women; to promote the determination of the priority areas for reconstruction and sustainable development in order to create employment opportunities and improve economic, social and cultural development in Yemen (UN Peacemaker, 2011).

Former President Saleh, however, was not prepared to go quietly. Vice President Hadi was not a member of Hashid or any other major tribe; Saleh therefore thought Hadi would be a weak ruler whom he could influence. However, since early 2012,

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power in Yemen was gradually passing into the hands of al-Ahmar family, represented by the sons of the leader of the Hashid tribal confederation Shaykh Abdullah alAhmar, who had died in 2007. The al-Ahmar family acted in an unofficial coalition with President Hadi, who increasingly emerged from the control of Saleh and strove to become the real leader of the country. They had major allies in the Islamist party Al-Islah and the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood, which rose due to the wave of success of their ideological inspirers in Egypt (Bonnefoy, 2014). But success accompanied this new coalition only as long as the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Egypt; the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi (and the subsequent inter-Arab isolation of the association and its foreign cells) sharply undermined the positions of the new Yemeni leadership. Meanwhile, former President Saleh continued to work with his allies to undermine the transitional government. After the failure of the National Dialogue Conference in early 2014, the main political forces in Yemen focused on two opposing camps—the General People’s Congress, led by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the al-Ahmars’ camp, already led by Sadiq al-Ahmar. Already in 2011, the two forces had found themselves at opposite political poles, beginning to seek allies among the other political actors in Yemen: Al-Islah and the Muslim Brotherhood rallied around al-Ahmar, while the General People’s Congress joined an alliance with the secular Baath Party (Bonnefoy, 2014) and the “Union of Popular Forces”, and also began to pursue a policy of unofficial rapprochement with the Ansar Allah movement. Of particular interest was the secret alliance of Saleh’s General People’s Congress with the Houthi Islamists (Ansar Allah), which a few years before had seemed unthinkable. During the reign of President Saleh, the extreme north of Yemen was considered the most insecure region in the country. The feud between the former regime and the Houthis had deep roots, and President Saleh himself fought against Ansar Allah six times during his reign. However, in early 2014, these two political forces were on the same side of the barricades, acting as a serious counterbalance to the current government in the person of President Hadi and the al-Ahmars. Thus, the struggle was not between secular and Islamist forces, but between different groups of secular forces supported on both sides by various Islamist forces. It was not a coincidence that the al-Ahmars and al-Islah failed to develop good relations with the Houthis. The fact is that with the active assistance of al-Islah in Yemen, the Salafi grouping al-Nusra was created, which was to enter into a confrontation with Ansar Allah. In this case, such a tactic had already occurred in the past, when in the second half of the 2000s the regime used Salafi radicals in the interests of its own domestic policy. This was due primarily to General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who directly led six military operations against the Houthis in the Saada province from 2004 to 2010, and repeatedly resorted to the services of the Salafis in the battles. The al-Ahmars, along with the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood, managed to quarrel with all the leading political forces in the country. The problems of the South of the country (where speeches demanding the re-establishment of an independent state within the boundaries of the former PDRY were ceaseless) were not solved. Moreover, the growing power of the Islamists in Sanaa did not suit the southerners who well remembered 1994 when the North pursued a hegemonic policy toward the

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South based on the ideas of the spiritual leaders of al-Islah (first of all, al-Zindani and al-Daylani) who declared jihad against the “atheists” of the South.8 Therefore, the situation in which power in Yemen gradually began to be monopolized in the hands of the coalition of President Hadi, the al-Ahmars, al-Islah and their allies represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, put their opponents on the defensive, and forced them to go to extreme measures. The counter-coalition of former President Saleh, his allies in the General People’s Congress, the Houthis, and the southerners therefore launched the “Revolution of 21 September” in 2014. Sweeping down from the north in a surprise attack, Houthi forces captured Sanaa, after which the al-Ahmars were forced to leave the country, while the Houthis’ “Ansar Allah”, pursuing their policy of concluding alliances with the Yemeni tribes, as well as members of the General People’s Congress, in fact, established control over Northern Yemen. The next aggravation of this situation occurred on January 17, 2015, when the Houthis arrested the head of the presidential administration, Ahmed bin Mubarak on suspicion of an attempt to falsify the draft constitution of the country. On January 18, after unsuccessful attempts to agree on the release of bin Mubarak, President Hadi convened an emergency meeting of the Yemen Security Council, in which all the law enforcement agencies were instructed to bring troops to the streets of Sanaa on January 19 at 5:00 am Yemeni time. However, “Ansar Allah” learned about the plans of the president the evening before, and appealed to their supporters in the army and security services not to obey Hadi’s orders. The Houthis acted in advance, and in the morning of January 19 surrounded the presidential palace in Sanaa as well as the National Security Bureau. Throughout the day, fighting continued, which then ended in the evening when “Ansar Allah” managed to take control of the territory of the presidential palace and the building of the Bureau of National Security. On January 22, 2015, President Hadi filed a resignation petition and found himself under actual house arrest. Members of the government of Yemen also sent a petition to the President giving their resignation, and on February 6, the Houthi Revolutionary Committee was established as an interim authority in the country. By mid-February, the coalition of Houthis and forces faithful to former President Saleh had established control over virtually all of Northern Yemen and also a part of South Yemen. On February 15, 2015, the Houthis began their assault on the remaining southern stronghold, the city of Aden. On February 21, 2015, Hadi managed to escape from Sanaa to Aden, after being under house arrest for a month. There, he managed to meet with the governors of the southern provinces and make a statement on the withdrawal of his resignation. The revolutionary events of September 21, 2014 to February 6, 2015 brought considerable alarm to the Sunni leaders of Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, and a 8

In 1994, an armed conflict took place between the Yemeni government in Sanaa and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) in Aden headed by Ali Salem al-Bid, which ended with the defeat of the Southerners. During the Civil War, the religious leaders of al-Islah Shaykhs al-Zindani and alDaylani issued fatwas against the residents of the South that justified massive violations of political and economic rights on the part of the northerners as well as the removal of the YSP from government (see, e.g., Day, 2012).

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number of Arab countries, for whom Shi‘a control of Yemen was anathema. The Houthis’ victory thus turned the intra-Yemeni conflict into a regional problem. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that various radical Islamist groups were already operating in Yemen, which alarmed the international community and the Gulf states. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) arose in 2009, but in the early years of the organization’s activities, it was not considered a primary threat to the security of Yemen. However, after the resignation of President Saleh, AQAP harshly intensified its activities, in particular in the oil province of Marib, which in turn was due to both external and internal circumstances. The emergence of the “Islamic State” (ISIS/Daesh) in Syria and Iraq was one major external influence. Various radical Islamist groups saw in Daesh a real power to follow. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which swore allegiance to the Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in February 2015, was no exception. AQAP was also roused to action by the expansion of Houthi control, as the Shià Houthi are considered heretics by AQAP, who see them as incompatible with Al-Qaeda at an existential level. The pressure of the Saudis to strike back and retake control forced President Hadi to abandon his abdication that he signed in January 2015, to transfer de facto his capital to Aden, and to create a new government to fight against Ansar Allah. Saudi Arabia also tried to consolidate the international community in exerting pressure on the Houthis. In particular, Riyadh demanded that its Arab neighbors should support the claims to authority of President Hadi. On March 26, 2015, Saudi air strikes marked the start of the invasion of Yemen by the coalition forces of the Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia within the framework of Operation Decisive Storm. The battle for Aden began between the Houthis, who had just seized the city, and the Saudi coalition. In July 2015, the Houthis were knocked out of the city. By August the Saudi coalition (in which an important military role was played by the UAE from the very beginning) concentrated a powerful mechanized force in the southern Yemeni provinces and, allied with the Yemeni detachments supporting President Hadi, started advancing northward. However, the bloc of Houthis and forces supporting Ali Abdullah Saleh managed to organize a fairly effective rebuff of the Saudi coalition, and the civil war in Yemen took on a protracted character. In general, the “front line” between the two coalitions has remained quite close to the old state border between the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. Note that the Islamists—albeit of different groups—are active participants in both coalitions. The Zaidi Islamists led the Houthis and the northern coalition, while Islamists from the Islah party joined the southern coalition. At the same time, the radical Islamists of al-Qaeda and Daesh proved to be at war with the forces of both coalitions. As the civil war dragged on, antagonisms began to develop within both coalitions. Former President Saleh had expected the Houthis to restore him to the Presidency and then return to their northern homelands. When it became clear that they had no intention of doing so, and instead were planning to remain in Sanaa and rule as much of Yemen as they could hold, Saleh changed course again. In December 2017, he broke with the northern alliance and declared his intention to rejoin with

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President Hadi. This led the Houthis to label Saleh a traitor, and he was killed by a Houthi sniper on December 4, 2017. However (to the surprise of many observers) the Northern Coalition was able to survive even this shock. The antagonisms in the Southern Coalition have worsened to an even greater degree, despite the military assistance that they received from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Yemeni portion of the southern coalition was initially quite heterogeneous. On the one hand, the moderately Islamist and politically conservative al-Ahmars and their al-Islah allies came to this coalition mainly to overthrow the Houthi-GPC regime in Sanaa. On the other hand, the rather secularist Southern Movement (al-H . ir¯ak alJan¯ubiyy) was more interested in achieving the independence of South Yemen under a modernizing secular/socialist regime. The interests of these two groups in just about everything, except for driving the Houthis out of Sanaa, were thus almost completely incompatible. At the same time, the antagonisms worsened even among the external participants of the anti-Houthi coalition. In the summer of 2017, as a result of a sharp deterioration of relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Qatar withdrew from the coalition. On the other hand, relations between Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen are extremely complicated, due to the Emirates pursuing their own policy in Yemen that differs very significantly from that of the Saudis. The most important point is that the Emirates support the Southern Movement, whereas the Saudis rely on the alAhmars/al-Islah block. Meanwhile, on the 4th of April 2017 the Southern Movement formed the Southern Transitional Council and started taking practical steps in order to form an independent state in the South, and in late January 2018 Aden saw open fighting between the forces of the al-Ahmars (that are formally loyal to the President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi) and the forces of the Southern Transitional Council.

4 Endgame? Thus, the situation in Yemen became more and more complicated. Under U.S. President Trump, the United States—which has long held Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to be important allies—gave Saudi Arabia a green light to pursue its war aims in Yemen. Indeed, Trump promised to sell the Saudis advanced weapons for the war, and generally seemed to look favorably on Saudi Arabia’s efforts to project strength and gain influence in the region. This was despite the conflicts that arose between the Saudis and Qatar, where the U.S. has important military facilities. However, now that Trump has been succeeded by President Biden, who seems far more concerned about the humanitarian crisis being created by the Yemen war, it is unclear if unbridled U.S. support for the Southern Coalition will continue. Having just suffered a massive refugee problem from the Syrian civil war, Western nations do not want to see yet another huge flow of war refugees from an even larger country (Syria in 2010 had 21.4 million inhabitants, Yemen had an estimated 28 million in 2018). Western nations are therefore interested in seeking a negotiated settlement as soon as possible, even if that means leaving the Houthis in control of the northern portion of the country. If the United States joins the effort to create a settlement,

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perhaps even putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to stop using US weapons in the war, it may be that a settlement will come sooner. However, it is not always clear who to negotiate with, or to what end, especially as AQAP remains a problem that is not controlled by either side. The Arab Spring protests not only unseated President Saleh; they unleashed and exacerbated all the regional, religious, and clan conflicts that have bedeviled Yemen for the last forty years. It will not be easy to bridge those conflicts and create a stable peace. Acknowledgements This research has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 19-18-00155).

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Leonid Issaev is currently an Associate Professor at the Department for Asian and African Studies and the Deputy Chair of the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks Monitoring at the HSE University, Moscow, Russia. He is also the Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Civilization and Regional Studies of the Institute for African Studies, which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He teaches courses in Islamic political philosophy and political systems and political processes in the Arab world. Alina Khokhlova is a Junior Research Fellow in the Laboratory for Monitoring of Socio-Political Destabilization Risks at the HSE University, Moscow, Russia. Her areas of research include political economy, political regimes, autocracies survival, Islamism and socio-political dynamics in the MENA region. Andrey Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the HSE University, Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Eurasian Center for Big History and System Forecasting of the Institute of Oriental Studies and Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He has authored or co-authored over 650 scholarly publications, including such monographs as Ancient Yemen (Oxford University Press, 1995), World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A CrossCultural Perspective (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth (URSS, 2006), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends (URSS, 2006), Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015), Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (Springer, 2016), Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy. World System and World Values Perspectives (Springer, 2019). He is a laureate of a Russian Science Support Foundation in ‘The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Nomination (2006); in 2012 he was awarded with the Gold Kon-dratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.

The Syrian Revolution Vladimir M. Akhmedov

The Syrian revolution, which began in March 2011, degenerated into a bloody civil war that pushed the country into both a secessionist upheaval and the breakdown of the population’s national identity. Both the duration of the crisis and the complexity of reconciling the various actors in the Syrian conflict stem from a sequence of fundamental factors, which this chapter will analyze (see also Akhmedov, 2019a, 2019b). This chapter stresses that the distinctive feature of the political model in Syria prior to the revolution was its traditional authoritarianism combined with a military committed to maintaining a stable security environment (see George, 2003; Seale, 1988: 420–440). Indeed, civilian-military relations in the Syrian Arab Republic during the last 40 years were mainly dictated by the military’s priorities in the framework of the country’s critical internal and foreign policies (Hinnebusch, 1993; Zisser, 2001: 5–8).1 Control during the current crisis has been largely transferred into the hands of the armed forces, which in effect means the intelligence services (Quilliam, 1999: 27–60). In fact, the intelligence services have determined and continue to shape the future of the regime as well as Syria as a whole (Ziadeh, 2013: 143– 170). Regardless, this regime has sustained itself despite the radicalization of Syria’s conflict and its mutation into an inter-religious struggle.

1 For

more detail about the role of the military in politics see Rubin and Keaney (2002).

V. M. Akhmedov (B) Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_27

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1 The Background and Causes of the Syrian Revolution There were various causes for the emergence of the crisis in Syrian society in 2011: the Assads’ staying in power for too long (taking into account the transfer of power from father to son from his father), corruption, injustice, an increase in the number of educated youth, deterioration of the socio-economic provisions and much more (see, e.g., Grinin et al., 2016).2 But a number of important reasons lay in the very demographic structure of the population of Syria and the existing system of distribution of resources and benefits. The total population of Syria in 2011 was approximately 22 million (Akhmedov, 2010: 152). Among ethnic groups, Arabs accounted for about 85%, Kurds were about 10%, the rest were accounted for by Turkomans, Armenians, people from the North Caucasus (“Circassians”), Syriacs, etc. Among confessional groups, Muslims make up 87%, of which the overwhelming number are Sunnis (more than 70%), whereas other Muslim and para-Muslim confessions are about 14–15%, among which Alawites predominate. Christian confessions. among which Orthodox and Jacobites predominate, make up about 10%, there are also Druze—about 3%. Taking a look at these statistics, there is no doubt that the dominant position of the Sunni Arabs in the ethno-confessional picture of the country is clear, but at the same time the dominant position in politics, the economy and the military structure is occupied by a small group of Alawite Arabs. This suggests a quite logical conclusion that the protest movement must inevitably be led by the Sunni Arabs as representatives of the ethno-confessional majority, which, in fact, happened already at the first stages of the development of the political crisis in 2011. But then the situation was influenced by other factors, including the Kurdish one (see, e.g., Grinin et al., 2016). In addition, by the beginning of the twenty-first century in this country, new profound factors had also manifested themselves, which were also pushing the Syrian society towards cardinal changes. While remaining an ally of the Soviet Union for decades, Syria was a socialist oriented state that adopted the Soviet model of economic planning. The accumulation of financial resources was mainly due to external factors: economic and military support from the USSR, and financial support from the Arab oil exporting countries in the framework of the so-called “Arab solidarity” (which in just five years from 1975 to 1980 provided the country with an inflow of $ 4 billion) secured normal economic growth. In those years, the Syrians developed a strong dependence on foreign capital, due to which, after the fall in oil prices (which led to a reduction in financial assistance within the framework of the “Arab solidarity”) and the collapse of the USSR, the country was unprepared for independent restructuring of its economic model. Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was constantly looking for new external resources 2

About the general causes of Arab Spring’ revolutions see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022) and Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022 in this book).

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capable of ensuring economic growth, but his efforts did not bring tangible results. With the coming to power in 2000 of the young President Bashar al-Assad, the search for a new strategy intensified. The new economic policy envisaged, in particular, a decrease in the state’s role in the regulation of the economy, the introduction of market principles, the rejection of many of the state’s social obligations. As part of this course, government subsidies for bread, rice, corn and other food products were gradually canceled. The social situation deteriorated especially sharply after the cancellation in the early 2000s of fuel subsidies: the sharp rise in fuel prices led to a 4% drop in industrial production and a tangible decline in the standard of living of most Syrians, especially aggravated by the catastrophic drought. The fact that in Syria (unlike other countries of the Arab Spring) before the onset of unrest a real decline in the standard of living of significant segments of the population could be observed, is evidenced by the following point: despite the rapid GDP growth rates observed in the country (as well as in all other Arab states) in the 2000s, Syria was the only country of the Arab Spring where, on the eve of its outbreak, there was a decrease in the average life expectancy of the population (in all the other Arab Spring countries, its steady growth was recorded in the same years) (see, e.g., Grinin et al., 2016). The fact that the old political system did not correspond to the new economic realities became more and more obvious.

2 The Opposition Those who took to the streets of Syria’s cities in March 2011 demanding reforms and liberties were met with surprisingly severe repression, and so came to face the harsh dilemma of whether to halt their peaceful protests or to take up arms. The growing coercion and brutality of the government against the peaceful civilian population compelled many, especially the young, to enlist in the armed struggle (Lesch, 2013: 55–87). Once the Syrian uprising at the end of 2011 began to transform into an armed struggle, the position of the armed opposition, including Islamic militants, began solidifying. At the same time those who took up arms soon enough became dependent on those who could actually supply the arms. Such assistance was made available at the cost of pledging loyalty to the Islamist resistance, manifested by the name of the squadron, and by special behavioural patterns (for instance, following Sharia) in the liberated territories (Akhmedov, 2018b: 49–62). In a context of asymmetric warfare where the regime was using air strikes and artillery to bombard rebel neighbourhoods, and where the resistance was badly in need of additional arms and ammunition, suicide bombers became the only viable means of offsetting the government’s far superior forces on the battlefield. Relying on this type of attack intensified the deployment of Jihadi brigades among the armed resistance, and led to their initial popularity in the liberated neighbourhoods (for more detail about Syrian armed opposition see Akhmedov, 2015: 52–57). Bashar Assad’s

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enlistment of Lebanese, Iraqi, and Iranian mercenaries, which was prompted by the high level of losses among the national military, as well as the lack of combat experience among many of his newly-recruited soldiers, legitimized the involvement of jihadists from other Arab countries in the eyes of some (Lister & Nelson, 2017). An official report issued by the Free Syrian Army in January 2014 indicated that the losses suffered by government forces during the conflict amounted to some 65,000 soldiers (Akhmedov, 2014). It is necessary to note that overall, some 100,000 soldiers and officers had deserted as of February 2013. According to various appraisals, without the assistance of its allies, the regime would have suffered an overwhelming defeat by 2014. In order to remedy the situation, in 2013 the regime began training new armed troops based on militia formations (Bou Nassif, 2015), recruiting foreign mercenaries, and seeking active foreign support.3 Consequently, the National Democratic Forces (NDF), the Quwwat al-Nimr, and the Suqour al-Sham Brigade were formed during that period. Typically, the initiative behind the creation of the mentioned divisions belonged essentially to important Alawite businessmen and retired Syrian intelligence officers close to the regime. At the outset, these regiments were similar to private armies (though they were based on religious or ethnic principles) but reported to the central command. These factors lessened the efficiency of their military operations and their level of trust and support from the population. Nevertheless, these regiments carried out some successful operations against the armed opposition in various regions of the country. Towards the end of 2015, such formations comprised, according to various estimates, some 35,000–40,000 soldiers (Al-Masri, 2017). Still, it was only after the appearance of Russia’s air force (RAF) that the situation began improving. In 2015, under the leadership of Russian and Iranian consultants, the regime began to create its fourth and fifth army corps, which integrated the above-mentioned units and coordinated their activity with air and artillery operations. Notwithstanding those measures, by the fall of 2015 the number of Syrian government soldiers totaled no more than 100,000, while at the beginning of the conflict this figure was closer to 300,000. Most of these losses were not casualties, but rather soldiers who preferred to flee rather than fight to defend the Assad regime. It is not surprising that by October 2015, the Syrian regime controlled no more than 20% of the country’s territory and could not endure without support from abroad. Under such circumstances, Assad had to request assistance from foreign countries. As Assad’s Alawite governing faction identified itself as a Shiite regime, they initially sought support from other Shiite militias. This assistance was essentially made up of Lebanese Hezbollah combat units, who contributed [according to various assessments (e.g., Pollak & Ghaddar, 2016)] some 10,000–14,000 soldiers, as well as Iraqi Shiite al-Abbas militarized brigades (several thousand soldiers) commanded by the elite Iranian Republican Guard Al-Quds, which was under the command of General 3

After the July 2012 bombing (that killed four top security officials in Damascus) and the subsequent assault on Damascus, the regime started to slide. There was a true danger it might lose the capital, which would have amounted to its collapse (extracts from author’s private talks by phone with unofficial Hezbollah representatives. Moscow-Lebanon, July, 2012).

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Qasem Suleimani4 (Akhmedov, 2014). According to sources from the Syrian armed opposition, the general was actually responsible for the defense of Damascus and its outskirts.5 Data regarding the number of Iranian military counsellors and specialists fighting for Assad is rather contradictory and inaccurate. However, many experts consider that their overall number is no greater than 15,000 (Iran Focus, 2017). In recent years, Iran created its own Syrian army, Jeysh Tahrir al-Sham, which numbered up to 5000 soldiers and essentially consisted of Shiite mercenaries from Iran and Afghanistan, some Arab countries, and a small number of Syrians. According to data from the Syrian opposition, there were some 60–62 Shiite militia combat formations operating in the country (Al-Nahhas, 2019; Iran Focus, 2017). Typically, those opposing the regime in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) consisted of deserted soldiers and officers, militia detachments, and numbered no more than 30,000–35,000 soldiers. Yet they often lacked provision of arms and ammunition from their western allies (principally the United States, Great Britain, and France). This made it extremely difficult to confront even the regime’s substantially weakened army, not to mention the Lebanese, Iranian, Iraqi and Afghan Shiite armed units. Indeed, the FSA would have had great difficulty withstanding Syrian government forces without the support of the so-called Islamist armed opposition,6 which in 2013–2015 fluctuated between 70,000 and 80,000 fighters.7 Unlike the FSA and its civil nationalist nature, the Islamists did not require any additional support in funding or arms, both of which were supplied by Arab Gulf monarchies, primarily by Saudi Arabia. The lack of reaction by the international community was notable; it was powerless to counteract the harsh measures adopted by the Syrian regime. Limiting its provision of funds and weapons for fear they would fall into the hands of extreme Islamists, Western aid was both insufficient to combat Syrian government forces, and fractured the political opposition, as contention between the Islamist and nationalist opposition groups made them unable to rally the forces of armed resistance based on a common patriotic stance and political program. Two particularities that rendered the Syrian conflict difficult to resolve were its internationalization and unprecedented duration. But even the internal conflict developed from a string of internal deep-seated processes that covertly matured over several years, and surfaced at a crucial point for the country and its citizens. One crucial element in the makeup of the Syrian uprising was the traditional distinction between the country’s urban and rural environments,8 as well as the role of the uprising in the outlying regions (at least during its early stages). It is well-known that the provincial centers were the breeding grounds of the revolution. This can be 4

Qasem Suleimani was killed during US airstrike in Baghdad in January 2020. Unpublished correspondence. 6 For more about the special role of the Salafiyyun in the Syrian Uprising see Al-Hajj (2013). 7 Unpublished correspondence. 8 For more detail about this issue see Van Dusen (1972). 5

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explained by the fact that the army and the security forces originally lost their influence among the population exactly in those centers. Also important was the sudden socio-economic deterioration among the population in the periphery due to several years of dry spells, as well as the crippling drought of 2010. Consequently, some 1 million bankrupted farmers and unemployed villagers began moving to Syria’s major population centres right before the uprising.9 In addition, the privatization policies adopted by the government in the mid-2000s to replace the welfare policies of “Arab socialism” engendered a sharp polarization among the population, and led to the impoverishment and marginalization of the masses in rural areas. The regime’s policies supporting the Islamic resistance in Palestine and Lebanon invigorated the religiously conservative atmosphere in these depressed rural areas. As a result, the population in these areas was the most receptive to radical initiatives. The role of moderate Islam began to fade, and the population began to perceive the government’s secular policies and ideology in a negative light. This situation proved most fertile for the outbreak of Islamism, and the measures that were adopted by the government in response to the uprising only strengthened its appeal. Such an environment among the population served as the perfect matrix for the proliferation of jihadist ideas, whether they were bred locally or imported from abroad [see also Chapter “Two instances of Islamic ‘revival’: the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the formation of the ‘Islamic State’ in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2021, in this volume)]. Representatives from this group of the population settled in the outskirts of Syria’s major cities over several years and served as a catalyst for the Syrian uprising. The most radical representatives of this new urban periphery established their own modus vivendi and demanded the overthrow of the regime. The Syrian crisis brought some new social forces to the political stage and exposed an array of serious social contradictions, as well as clannishness and religious and ethnic conflicts that had been concealed and muted by the regime. The Syrian community began fragmenting in light of the escalation of the crisis, and in the process the overall pro-Islamic disposition in the country increased (see, Van Dam, 1981: 169; Wedeen, 2015: 272). As a result, the Syrian nationalist movement, though inspired by the Arab Spring,10 took on some radical religious traits, and its secular composition practically vanished. Many social groups at the forefront of the armed struggle began perceiving the governing regime as collaborating with Iran, Israel, and other influential neighboring powers, with the goal of subjecting and subordinating Syria to foreign dominance. This position became the motivation behind the struggle to overthrow the Assad regime. 9

The data was received by the author during personal discussions with various representatives from the Syrian opposition from 2011 to 2017. 10 See Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022), and Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022) in the present monograph for the discussion of general preconditions, factors, and driving forces of this major revolutionary wave of the twenty-first century.

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In 2012, according to various assessments, there were some 1200 armed Islamist units in Syria, most with a few dozen to a few hundred fighters—some moderate, others radical (Lund, 2013: 152; Raialyoum, 2016). By the end of 2016, the number of units had shrunk substantially. Some were totally annihilated in combat, while others dissolved on their own and ceased to exist as independent combat units. Others were assimilated by greater forces such as the Islamic State, Jaysh al-Islam, Jaysh Fath. al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham, Suqur al-Sham, Feilaq al-Sham, the FSA, and others. New regiments surfaced in early 2015–2016, which essentially comprised former joint military headquarters and units, including Jaysh al-Nasr (a division of the Free Syrian Army), which consists of al-Jabhah al-Shamiyyah, Jaysh al-Izza, the Falcons of al-Ghab, and 13 more units, as well as the New Syrian Army (essentially based on Kurdish resistance units), and others. Due to the brittle situation on the Syrian front and the fast-changing political discourse regarding the country, it was rather difficult to determine the exact number of armed units representing the Syrian opposition. However, most experts believed that there were some 100–120 active armed opposition units in Syria (including ISIS and al-Nusra) that comprised no less than 70,000 professional and heavily armed soldiers (Itani, 2014: 3–5; Raialyoum, 2016). Notwithstanding the opposition’s transformation of its social matrix, ideological concept, political orientation, and major goals and challenges, it must be noted that it has practically remained unaffected with regard to its key parameters from the time of its formation in the first half of 2012; that is, it has remained largely Sunni, strongly Islamist, and united mainly in its insistence on removing Assad from power (Al-Masri, 2017). The backbone of many of the Islamic armed opposition units consists of Salafis, and a good part of them remain faithful (to varying degrees) to the jihadist ideology. The most evident jihadist group is Jabhat al-Nusra. Most of these formations supported the creation of an Islamic State based on Sharia law in Syria. Such an approach complicated the position that these movements and units adopted in their relationship with the foreign Syrian opposition. Most of these factions, including those that cooperated with the FSA, experienced a certain lack of confidence with regard to the Syrian opposition that was actually operating abroad, most of which were more secular nationalist in their outlook. Indeed, any attempt by the opposition from abroad to impose its influence was greeted with suspicion. This circumstance complicated the opposition’s mutual relationships with the FSA and the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. Efforts by Western powers to assemble and unify leaders of the external and internal opposition to Assad invariably ended in discord and failure. The Islamist component of the Syrian uprising has undergone a major transformation in recent years, especially with regard to the unique makeup of the Syrian revolution. The near complete territorial defeat of ISIS, and the disrepute its tactics produced, provided the possibility that support for the Islamist groups and their agenda might fade away with the cessation of hostilities and the country’s return to peace; this cannot be excluded since much of the motivation for supporting Jihadists

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is the civil war.11 Even though at present moderate Islam in Syria has almost disappeared, we should not exclude that in the event of a peace settlement, and the implementation of certain specific political prerequisites, moderate Islam may actually have a positive impact on the Syrian community and supplement the creation of a new social ideology.

3 Foreign Intervention Following the failure of the Geneva I Conference on Syria (June 2012), as well as Geneva II (January 2014), and Geneva III (February–March 2016), an interesting trend appeared among the Syrian conflict’s major foreign armed players. This trend was expressed by a shift in priorities regarding relations with Assad and the armed Islamist opposition in the context of mutual efforts towards the inception of a road map for Syrian reconciliation. This primarily regards the pivotal shift by the US and several of its major allies in Western Europe, and the Middle East. Inspired by the military achievements and the growing political influence of the armed Islamists in Syria, the West and certain allies leaned towards prioritizing the liquidation of Syria’s militant Islamists, followed by Assad’s overthrow. At the same time, other nations stepped up their support for the regime. A salient example is Iran, which played a major role in preserving the current Syrian regime. In January 2012, the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic Iran provided Syria with a multi-billion-dollar credit line, which allowed it to pay the salaries of its soldiers. Iran also provided Syria with several thousand soldiers from the Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as counsellors and specialists from the elite al-Quds brigades, and Shiite militias from Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran’s interest in Syria has a long history. Iran always considered Damascus to be a vital component in the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut-Gaza axis of resistance aiming to restrain Israel’s influence and spread its own authority in the region by supporting Shiite communities in a number of Arab countries in the region. Iran’s authority in Syria increased substantially when Bashar al-Assad assumed Syria’s presidency in June 2000, as well as during his subsequent major reforms to Syria’s military structures from 2004–2005. The pinnacle of Iran’s infiltration in Syria was reached in 2007–2009. It was exactly during this period that Iran signed a series of profitable financial contracts with the new Syrian administration, as well as an agreement on military cooperation. This allowed Iran to infiltrate practically all of Syria’s economic and state institutions and to influence the disposition and views of the Syrian ruling elite. 11

On ISIS see Chapter “Two instances of Islamic “revival”: the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the formation of the ‘Islamic State’ in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s” (Filin et al., 2021, in this volume).

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With the expansion of Syria’s armed resistance, its subsequent descent into civil war, and the internationalization of its armed conflict, Iran perceived a threat to its own interests and intensified its military presence by recruiting al-Quds, the Shiite militia, and most of all, the Lebanese Hezbollah. Tehran also had plans to send to Syria some 100,000 soldiers from the Basij brigades and regular military units from the Iranian armed forces. This leads us to believe that Iran could perceive Syria as a trump card in a wider geopolitical game. At the same time, however, we should not overlook Iran’s interests in Syria, which Tehran has considered a major foothold for the expansion of its authority in the region.12 The conflict in Syria and its surroundings changed radically with the involvement of Russia’s Aerospace Forces (RAF). In less than a year, the territory under Assad’s control grew to 35–40% of the country’s territory.13 Moscow became a key partner in the Syrian conflict, a situation that the US, Europe, Turkey, Israel and neighbouring countries have been forced to acknowledge. Notwithstanding the traditionally friendly relations between Moscow and Tehran, the involvement of Russia’s military forces in Syria and Moscow’s growing authority in the development of a new international relations framework has been justifiably perceived with some apprehension by Iran and Turkey. Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia believe that their interests in both Syria and the Middle East in general are threatened by Moscow’s course of action when it comes to preserving Syria’s territorial sovereignty, key Syrian state institutions, and its ceasefire. This also applies to Russia’s insistence on the gradual withdrawal of all foreign armed troops from Syria in order to provide the Syrian population with the possibility to fashion their own future in a peaceful environment under a new transitional government. The “liberation” of Aleppo—the stronghold of Syria’s armed opposition—was the result of Russia’s armed involvement in the Syrian conflict from the fall of 2015. This was essential for a December 2016 draft agreement between Russia, Turkey, and a substantial part of the detachments that comprise Syria’s opposition (some 60,000 armed soldiers). The essence of these agreements consisted of designing a plan to reach a peaceful Syrian solution. Subsequent meetings in Astana in 2017 included the governments of Syria and Iran (Issaev et al., 2018). However, the primary contribution for the design of a number of mechanisms guaranteeing the ceasefire and a peaceful resolution was made through the contact of Russia’s military officers with the Syrian armed opposition. This resulted in the signature of critical agreements establishing the willingness of certain troops (between 50,000 and 60,000 soldiers) to support the Russia-Turkey agreement conditional on some specific terms regarding a ceasefire in Syria and the implementation of a political settlement through the creation of a transitional government that would 12

For more detail about the role of Iran see Clawson (2018). The mentioned data was substantiated during the author’s personal discussions with various representatives of the Syrian opposition in February–March 2017.

13

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include the participation of the political opposition. Representatives of nine units of the armed opposition joined the meeting in Astana, while some four additional units assumed a wait-and-see attitude and sent their observers to the conference. The delegation from the Islamic armed opposition was headed by one of its leaders (Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham), Mohammed Alloush. However, the draft documents from the meeting were certainly far from ideal. Notably, the ceasefire zone did not cover the entirety of Syria’s districts. Further, the agreement did not include the major militant squadrons prohibited in Russia (Islamic State and al-Nusra). Additionally, the parties must still identify who will verify the ceasefire and by which methods, as well as determine which areas fall under whose responsibility in the said process, their respective authorities and roles, and so on. The recognized skepticism that prevails among the armed opposition with regard to the intentions of the ruling regime and Iran must also be surmounted. Notwithstanding the above, the consistent efforts of Moscow, Ankara, and Tehran, as well as the succession of conferences organized in Astana—Nur-Sultan, have all fostered a positive basis for pursuing dialogue that may lead to a Syrian reconciliation within a larger international format. From the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2019, the situation in the armed confrontations in Syria and the areas around it has changed dramatically. The ongoing hostilities were notable for the unpredictability of the finale and could have pushed a new process in the development of the Syrian crisis. The complexity of the situation was determined, in our opinion, by a number of important and multi-level circumstances. First, the Syrian conflict has been developing since 2017 according to a different paradigm. Conventionally, it can be designated as the “post-terrorist” stage in the Syrian uprising. After the decisive victory over terrorism in the face of ISIS, a new situation began to emerge in the country. It definitely influenced the mindset of the main participants in the conflict and determined their behavioral stereotype. It is noteworthy that the victory over ISIS enhanced the merit of the Russian military, which was able to resolve this issue. However, there are still the “notorious” al-Nusra and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. At the same time, in a number of key areas of the country—the suburbs of Idlib and Aleppo—this terrorist structure was gradually losing its former leading position and social base of support. The Turkish military could finally decide its fate, which, in pursuance of the Astana agreements, should put a final end to these terrorist structures. Another question was how soon this could happen? Since, according to some sources, after a series of defeats, the Tahrir al-Sham detachments had to find refuge in northern Syria in the Syrian-Turkish border areas. It cannot be excluded that they could still be used by Turkey, the United States and other external actors in a major political game on the Syrian conflict field. But in general, the “post-terrorist” stage of the Syrian uprising has already been fixed. This circumstance forced both local and a number of regional parties to the conflict to take a new approach to the Syrian crisis and to consider the additional parameters of its political settlement (Akhmedov, 2019c).

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For a part of the Syrian opposition, the new stage marked a return to the original goals of the Syrian uprising. This is a struggle with the unrighteous (from their point of view) regime. In addition, the Syrian authorities themselves gave them many different reasons for accusations of excessive violence. On the other hand, after the victory over ISIS, Russia and the United States have become not so much allies in the fight against terrorism as rivals in the struggle for Syria. The US strategy on Syria has changed, and the appetites of the American administration have increased. The essence of the new US strategy is focused on limiting the extent of Moscow’s influence in Syria and not allowing it to take control of new strategically important areas of the country, diminishing Russia’s role as an impartial arbiter in Geneva and thus depriving it of the ability to influence the key political decisions on Syria. Practical confirmations of the new US strategy on Syria were the actions of the American military in Syria since the beginning of 2018 in relation to the FSA and the Russian military. At the same time, Moscow was subjected to unprecedented criticism and pressure from US allies in the EU and NATO. Despite the fact that Ankara was trying to carefully carry out the duties assigned to it, it often has had to maneuver between the United States, Russia and Iran in order to comply with the agreements reached earlier with these countries (Akhmedov, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c). The fact that the guarantors of the “tripartite security agreement” (“de-escalation zones”) ultimately failed to take advantage of the chance presented to them on legal grounds to wholly eliminate the Syrian opposition should not be ignored. Paradoxically, in fact, some detachments of the armed opposition managed to consolidate their positions in a number of Syrian regions, especially those who were in the area of Turkish responsibility. It is known that Ankara actively recruited the FSA detachments in its Operation Euphrates Shield, and while threatening to disrupt the agreements, Turkey sought to expand its zone of influence further into northern Syria, occupying strategically important areas like Afrin, in the provinces of Idlib where the detachments of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Tahrir Suriya were based.14 In this regard, it was impossible to clearly dismiss the likelihood of a large-scale conflict that might start in the Daraa region during the struggle for southern Syria, and cover other areas of the country and neighbouring states. Thus, according to some sources, since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Israel has inflicted over 80 air and land strikes on Syrian territory.15 Operation “Sky Wars” in February 2018, in which the Air Force of Israel attacked Iranian drone bases in Syria and the air defense forces of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), only confirmed all the danger and unpredictability of the situation. The successes of the SAA in Eastern Ghouta and the plans for the advancement of government troops to the south did not leave the opposition the choice to strike first, 14 15

For more detail on the Islamist military opposition in Syria see Akhmedov (2019a). For more detail about Syrian-Israeli military balance see Cordesman (2000).

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in order to try to preserve the balance of forces (Akhmedov, 2018c; Lund, 2016). In this case, US interests could be affected at their base at al-Tanf. In the spring of 2018, the Pentagon dispatched an additional 200 combat personnel to the area. The United States under President Trump actually increased its military presence in Syria. The US military, one way or another, controlled 10 regions of Syria, and was deployed at 2 Air Force bases and 8 strongholds, which were formally under the control of order protection units and were well represented in areas east and northeast of the Euphrates. At the same time, the United States controlled up to 80% of Syrian oil (Akhmedov, 2018b: 148). If Moscow succeeded in establishing control over the Syrian military, the Russian Federation would in fact have carried out a transitional period, which remained only to be formalized by political agreements at the international level. Since, regardless of who will rule Syria tomorrow, the real mechanism of power will remain in the hands of the Syrian army and special services, with strong positions there Moscow would be able to influence the adoption of any political decision important to it at any level of the Syrian power pyramid. Therefore, developing new security parameters within which Moscow could legally establish its primacy in Syria is currently Russia’s chief focus (for more about allegedly Russia-initiated massive reshuffles in the Syrian secret services and army see Al-Nahhas, 2019). Indeed, today much depends on how Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States and Israel will develop agreements on the security system in Syria. As is known, this is happening against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the country, which further complicates the task. After the announcement by US President Trump, on December 19, 2018, of his intention to withdraw American troops from Syria, the situation in the country changed. A so-called “power vacuum” was being created, which could be filled with various kinds of jihadist, extremist and takfirist organizations. This circumstance, of course, cannot suit the United States and its coalition allies. Today, the US military is trying, under the pretext of fighting Islamist terrorism, to force its allies to play a more active role as part of the military presence in the Middle East. They see this plan as a kind of compromise between America’s desire to withdraw troops from as many local conflict zones as possible, and America’s aspirations to maintain stability with only a minimal presence there. While the US is trying to carry out this maneuver, the situation in Syria itself remains difficult and the prospect of resolving the crisis is very vague.

4 The Syrian Challenge: Instability Without End? The weakness of the Assad regime, the many divisions among the opposition, and the multi-sided foreign interventions noted above further complicate the situation in the country, and postpone the implementation of the agreements reached earlier in Astana and Sochi on a peaceful transition in Syria.

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The acute issues of organizing the transition period and the formation of state institutions with new content should of course be decided by the Syrians themselves through a wide-ranging social contract, under which the parties would be able to make very serious compromises and take on serious warranty obligations. A possible outcome of this transition would be the adoption of a new constitution and the creation of a constituent assembly that will elect representatives to the transitional authorities. However, it should be borne in mind that the 10-year-old Syrian crisis seriously deformed the Syrian society, including changing the confessional balance in Syria’s population, which undoubtedly will affect the course of future political processes in the country. The peculiarity of the Syrian conflict and the complexity of its resolution is rooted not only in its unprecedented duration compared with the uprisings in other Arab countries, but in the deep and varied divisions that have arisen in Syrian society. Moreover, the geostrategic position of Syria, which forms a crucial wedge in the Eastern Mediterranean, bordering Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel and housing Russia’s only Mediterranean naval base, invites foreign meddling. The Syrian crisis brought new social forces to the political foreground, exposing the entire spectrum of acute social contradictions and clan, confessional, ethnic conflicts that had been cleverly disguised and muffled by the regime of Hafez alAssad. A previously outwardly unified Syrian society began to rapidly fracture in the conditions of aggravating crisis, creating openings for seriously radicalizing Islamist sentiments in the country and the Middle East region as a whole. On the eve of the revolution, Syrian society was already divided along confessional and ethnic lines. It consisted of four major religious and ethnic groups—Sunni Arabs, Alawites,16 Kurds, and Christians. The confessional and ethnic composition was as follows: 65% were Sunni Arabs; 15% were Kurds (mostly Sunni); 10% were Alawites, 5% were Christians, 3% were Druze and other local religions, 1% were Ismaili Shiites, and just under 1% were Twelver Shiites. From this point of view, Syria was not very different from neighboring Lebanon, where the principle of “political confessionalism” was at the heart of the country’s governance (for more about the evolution of the confessional map of Syria see Akhmedov, 2018a). The regime’s underestimation of the true confessional and ethnic situation in the country, an error also repeated by foreign players, against the background of a worsening economic situation, played a fatal role in the Syrian events and their transformation into a deeply divisive religious and ethnic armed conflict. The conflict also reshaped Syria’s demography. By the spring of 2017, from 7 to 9 million people had moved outside the country. About 6 million people were in a state of constant internal migration. The total population of Syria has decreased to 16 million people. The above data only reflect the general trend and require more precise verification. At this time, the Syrian authorities have ceased to publish detailed statistical data on the composition and number of its population (Balanche, 2014: 29; Phillips, 2015: 57).

16

For more about the role of Alawites in Syria see Faksh (1984).

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At the same time, the Syrian authorities transferred part of the statistical materials to the UN information structure (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). In turn, the Syrian opposition created a special body in Turkey—the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU)—where it sent its data on the state of the local population and refugees. There were also organizations such as Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and other human rights groups, which kept the opposition’s statistics and used their sources. This situation made it difficult to obtain more or less objective data on the real situation of the local population and its indicators. One thing that is undoubtedly clear is that the war that has been going on for nine years has already led to serious changes in the confessional map of Syria. The transformation of the religious and ethnic composition of Syria was driven by high mortality, both among the military and civil population, large-scale emigration, and the internal displacement of the population. As the Sunni Arab population was most impacted by emigration, a number of minorities were able to increase their population share in both absolute and relative terms. Of the total number of Syrian emigrants by 2017, 80% (about 5.5 million people) were Sunni Arabs. In addition, the most intense fighting was conducted in the territory where Sunni Arabs traditionally lived, along the heavily populated spine of the country from Damascus to Aleppo. The civil war also had a very negative impact on the Syrian Christians, possibly because, unlike the Alawites and the Druze, they did not have their own territorial enclave separate from most of the fighting. By the end of 2017, the total share of Christians who had left the country was about 10%. Roughly the same fraction of the Kurdish population also left Syria in 2015. They mostly found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan. Alawites,17 Druze, Ismailis and Shi‘a left the country least of all. At the end of 2017, 80% of the territory was under the control of Assad’s government. About 75% of the total population of Syria lived there. The territories occupied by the armed forces of the Syrian resistance (the north-west of the country, the southern regions, etc.) were not attractive and did not serve to draw the population, who could not feel safe there due to the constantly ongoing hostilities. It is curious that in the zones of control of the Syrian authorities, only 42% of the population were Sunni Arab. This was because the Alawite and Druz regions largely retained their populations, and Kurds seeking to flee ISIS entered the areas of government control. At the same time, in the areas occupied by the armed opposition, Sunni-Arabs constituted 87% of the population. In this regard, when formulating the principles of a Syrian settlement, it is desirable to take into account the nature of the transformation of the confessional and ethnic map of Syria. Before the revolution, President Assad’s Alawite minority group held a dominant position, despite being only 10% of the population, while 80% of the population was Sunni (Arabs and Kurds). The civil war, however, has intensified Sunni extremism and Kurdish nationalism. This makes any government settlement difficult 17

See Footnote 16.

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that does not change the balance of power among Syria’s ethnic and confessional groups. In addition, any power in Syria during the transitional period and in the near future will inevitably be faced with the question of restoring the country’s economy, which has been virtually destroyed as a result of civil war and foreign intervention in the Syrian conflict. By 2017, a single economy had ceased to exist in Syria. As a result of the ongoing fighting, more than 6 million Syrians in economically active age groups had emigrated from the country and left the production cycle of the Syrian economy. Oil production almost stopped, gas production decreased, thousands of factories were destroyed, agriculture and the transport system were severely damaged, tourism stopped completely, exports stopped, imports decreased, and GDP fell to less than a quarter of 2010 GDP. As a result, the restoration of the Syrian economy, relying on its own resources, may turn out to be a practically insoluble task, which for many years will leave Syria at risk of becoming a failed state with a constantly growing external debt. The main condition for the successful start of the recovery process is of course the cessation of hostilities and the achievement of a stable and lasting peace in the country. This will not only require the assent of all the various Syrian opposition forces, but also for all the foreign armed forces in the country to depart or agree to peace terms. Still, it cannot be ruled out that even if peace is established, a more inclusive regime is formed, and economic recovery begins, Syria will see in the future a series of military coups and revolutions, as there is nothing worse than unsolved problems aggravated by the years of war and the bitterness of the losses that affected every Syrian family. The Syrians themselves will have to heal these wounds, even as they rebuild their country.

References Akhmedov, V. (2010). Sovremennaya Syria. Istoriya. Politica. Economica. IV RAN. Akhmedov, V. (2014). Kto vouyet w Siriy? Institute for the Study of Israel and the Middle East. http://www.iimes.ru/?p=20322 Akhmedov, V. (2015). Rol Islamskogo Factora v Obshestvenno-Politicheskom Razvityii Arabskih Stran Bliznego Vostoka i ego Evoluytsiya v Usloviyah Syriyskogo Vostaniya (90-e nachalo XXI vv.). Institute for the Near East. Akhmedov, V. (2018a). Evolutsiya Confessionalnoy Karty Sirii. IIMES. Akhmedov, V. (2018b). Syriyskoe Vostanie: Istoria, Politica, Ideologia. Institute of Oriental Studies. Akhmedov, V. (2018c). Vostochnaya Ghuta – Perelomnay Tochka v Siriyskoy Voyne. Journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, 1(1), 135–140. Akhmedov, V. (2019a). “Islamistskiy phenomen” Syriiskogo Vosstaniay. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. Akhmedov, V. (2019b). Syrian crisis. Special Report. Roundtable on Syria. https://doc-research. org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DOC-expert-speaks-at-a-roundtable-on-Syria.pdf

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Akhmedov, V. (2019c). Turetskiy Vybor. Journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, 2(8), 214–221. Al-Hajj, A. (2013). Al-Salafiyyah wa-l-Salafiyyun fi Suriya: min al-Islah ila al-Jihad. Al-Jazeera Net. 20.05.2013. Al-Masri, A. (2017). Analysis: The fifth corps and the state of the Syrian army. Syria Deeply. 11.01.2017. https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/articles/2017/01/11/analysis-the-fifthcorps-and-the-state-of-the-syrian-army Al-Nahhas, S. (2019). Al-Mamluk wa-Qadat al-Istikhbarat al-Judud: Rusiya Tanal Hissat al-Asad. Almodononline. 08.07.2019. https://bit.ly/2JpNnfM Balanche, F. (2014). Communautarisme en Syrie: Lorsque le mythe devient réalité. Confluences Méditerranée, 89, 29–44. Bou Nassif, H. (2015). ‘Second-Class’: The grievances of Sunni officers in the Syrian armed forces. Journal of Strategic Studies, 38(5), 626–649. Clawson, P. (2018). Iran’s vulnerabilities to U.S. sanctions (Part 1): Finding the weak spots. Washington Institute. Cordesman, A. (2000). Israel and Syria: The new strategic and military realities after the death of Hafez Assad. CSIS. Faksh, M. (1984). The Alawi community of Syria: A new dominant political force. Middle Eastern Studies, 20(2), 43–67. Filin, N., Fahmy, S., Khodunov, A., & Koklikov, V. (2022). Two instances of Islamic “revival”: the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the formation of the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 865–883). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_33. George, A. (2003). Syria: Neither bread nor freedom. Zed Books. Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 1–33). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Grinin, L., Issaev, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016). Revolyutsii i nestabilnost na Blizhnem Vostoke (2nd ed.). Uchitel. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Arab Spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 595–624). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23 Hinnebush, R. (1993). State and civil society in Syria. Middle East Journal, 47(2), 243–257. Iran Focus. (2017). Iranian revolutionary guards corps gets increased power. Iran Focus. 24.01.2017. https://www.iranfocus.com/en/wpen/economy/31178-iranian-revolutionary-guardscorps-gets-increased-power/ Issaev, L., Korotayev, A., & Mardasov, A. (2018). Metamorphoses of intra-Syria negotiation process. Mirovaya Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 62(3), 20–28. http://doi.org/10.20542/ 0131-2227-2018-62-3-20-28 Itani, F. (2014). Losing Syria and Iraq to Jihadists. Atlantic Council. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., Malkov, S., & Shishkina, A. (2022). The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: The new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 781–810). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_30 Lesch, D. (2013). Syria: The fall of the house of Assad. Yale University Press. Lister, C., & Nelson, D. (2017). All the president’s militias: Assad’s militiafication of Syria. Middle East Institute. Lund, A. (2013). Struggling to adapt: The Muslim brotherhood in a New Syria. Carnegie Endowment. Lund, A. (2016). Showdown in East Ghouta. Carnegie Middle East Center.

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Phillips, C. (2015). Sectarianism and conflict in Syria. Third World Quarterly, 36(2), 357–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1015788 Pollak, N., & Ghaddar, H. (2016). A transformative experience: Understanding Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Quilliam, N. (1999). Syria and the new world order. Ithaca Press. Raialyoum. (2016). Al-juyush “tatanasakh” ‘ala jabahat al-qital al-Suriyyah. Raialyoum. 29.06.2016. http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=466451 Rubin, B., & Keaney, T. (Eds.). (2002). Armed forces in the Middle East. Politics and strategy. Frank Cass. Seale, P. (1988). Asad of Syria. The struggle for the Middle East. Taurus. Van Dam, N. (1981). The struggle for power in Syria. Sectarianism, regionalism and tribalism in politics, 1961–1980. Croom Helm. Van Dusen, M. (1972). Political integration and regionalism in Syria. The Middle East Journal, 26(2), 123–136. Wedeen, L. (2015). Ambiguities of domination: Politics. Rhetoric and symbols in contemporary Syria. Chicago University Press. Ziadeh, R. (2013). Al-Sulta wa-l-Istikhbarat fi Suriya. Riad El-Rayyes Books. Zisser, E. (2001). The Syrian army: Between the domestic and external fronts. Middle East Review of International Affairs, 5(1), 1–12.

Vladimir Akhmedov is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences specializing in modern history of the Arab countries. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University. He has served in Russian diplomatic missions in Arab countries and traveled extensively in the Middle East. He worked as a professor in the Military University, Russian Ministry of Defense (2001–2003), in the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (2004–2007). He is an author and editor of 22 books and more than 400 scholarly articles on contemporary Arab politics and international relations in the Middle East.

Revolution in Libya Yury Barmin

1 Internal and External Causes of the Libyan Revolution 1.1 Structural Economic Problems On the eve of the revolution that started unfolding on February 15, 2011, on the surface Libya compared favorably with its neighbors Egypt and Tunisia, which were already engulfed in unrest.1 By 2010 Libya had a higher per capita income, at $16,430, as the GDP had almost quadrupled to $93.2 billion from 1998 to 2009. Libyans also enjoyed a 95% literacy rate for men and a 74 year life expectancy (Crisis Group, 2011). Dominated by the massive oil industry, the Libyan economy was doing fairly well against the backdrop of economic hardships experienced by neighboring countries. Oil accounted for 65% of the country’s GDP and 98% of the government’s revenues in 2010 (African Development Bank, 2012). The oil industry being the driver of the Libyan economy in fact helped the country overcome the tumultuous years of the financial crisis of 2008–2009, during which Libya’s export earnings doubled while allowing it to increase international reserves up to $101 billion in 2010 (Khan & Mezran, 2013). While the economy was seemingly doing well, the oil boom did not bring benefits throughout society. Instead, the underlying structural problems that affected the population had steadily accumulated by 2011, and were showing on the local level. 1 On revolutions in these countries see Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), and Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a, in this volume).

Y. Barmin (B) Moscow Policy Group, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_28

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The private sector of the Libyan economy fell prey to the state-dominated energy sector. In fact, the government heavily regulated the economy in such a way that the emergence of a strong private sector outside the service industry was impossible. Libya has traditionally relied on the public sector to create employment: in the mid-2000s over 70% of the formal workforce was absorbed by the public sector while the private sector only employed 4% of the labor force (World Bank, 2006). The rest of the population relied on informal work. Around 60% of the country’s oil revenue went towards wages in the public sector, according to Libyan analysts.2 What is more important, Libya was a classic example of an Arab country with a youth “bulge”3 which resulted in high unemployment rates among young people. While the pre-revolution unemployment rate reached 14% in Libya, unemployment among the country’s youth amounted to a staggering 30%. This disparity was impossible to even out due to structural flaws in the economy. With so much of the economy tied up in oil production and government jobs, there was no large or expanding private sector to provide opportunities. Moreover, the training that the younger generation received did not match the skills needed in the labor market. This is the reason why the Libyan government heavily relied on the expatriate population both for highand low-skilled positions, which further propelled unemployment. At the same time, neither the government nor the private sector could provide adequate employment for the vastly increased volume of recent university graduates (the same problem was acute in Tunisia and Egypt). The Libyan economy’s core structural flaw was evidenced by the fact that the energy sector contributed 65% of Libya’s GDP but employed only 3% of the formal workforce. State-operated public services, including healthcare and education, employed 51% of the workforce, but contributed only 9% to the country’s GDP. Another problem that faced Libyans working in the public sector were low wages that were fixed under Law 15 of 1981, and which for the most part remained frozen up until the revolution in 2011 (Otman & Karlberg, 2007: 132). This forced many Libyans to work more than one job at a time, with their main employment being in the public sector while also working side jobs in the private or informal (shadow) sectors of the economy. The lifting of international sanctions against Libya in 2003–2004 led to the revitalization of the country’s oil industry but did not translate into economic opportunities for the population. Among other things, the problem of housing shortages was never seriously tackled by Gaddafi and by 2011 an additional 540,000 housing units needed to be introduced (Crisis Group, 2011). All factors considered, the Gaddafi regime was running a backward economy in Libya that failed to create opportunities for the younger generation, let alone fulfill their dream that their country could become a new Dubai (Stephen, 2015). Economic frustrations, however, were just part of a mosaic of factors, including tribal rivalries, the example of rebellion in Tunisia and

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Estimates provided by Abdul Rahman Al Ageli. See Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b, in this volume) for more detail.

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Egypt, the narrow clientelism of Gaddafi’s regime, and Gaddafi’s lengthy and erratic rule, that led to revolution and civil war.

1.2 Tribal Geography Though Libya has a modern oil sector, much of its social organization (including the military) is based on tribal ties. Thus, as the Libyan revolution was unfolding in 2011, two opposite views were expressed with regard to the importance of the tribal factor in shaping the conflict. Some described the revolt as a tribal civil war and argued that the outcome would be determined by tribal loyalties, while others dismissed this view by arguing that the revolution had originated in Libya’s urban centers where the tribal factor played little role (El-Doufani, 2011). Both of these points of view oversimplified the multifaceted nature of the conflict. Out of the 140 tribes in Libya, only about 30 are influential. Tribes are an important factor outside large urban centers, and this is the reason why tribes, sub-tribes and extended families were seen as an important stabilizing factor in the post-revolution period. In the July 2012 elections most of the elected independent candidates represented the interests of individual cities, tribes and families. Tribal dynamics in Libya have always been an integral part of the country’s political landscape. Gaddafi’s rule, however, exploited them and ultimately exacerbated the pre-existing rivalries among Libyan tribes. Under Muammar Gaddafi tribal networks went from being marginalized to reduce their influence on politics to being partially co-opted against the backdrop of deliberate weakening of state institutions by the regime. The transformation of Libya into an oil power further strengthened the clientelistic character of the regime in which some of the tribes loyal to the leader, first of all Gaddafi’s own Qadhadhfah tribe, and also Warfallah as well as Magarha, formed the backbone of the regime’s security institutions. They had materially benefitted from their loyalty to Gaddaafi and ultimately ended up throwing their weight behind him after the February 17 revolution (2011). This explains why many districts dominated by pro-Gaddafi tribes in Libyan cities, such as “Number 2” and “Dollar” districts in Tripoli dominated by Warfallah as well as Qadhadhfah-dominated Fatah neighborhoods in Sabha, put up a strong resistance to revolt even when the outcome of the conflict was already clear (Lacher, 2012). Rebel attempts to rally the support of tribes traditionally allied with the Gaddafi regime ultimately failed. Even after the fall of Tripoli the remains of tribal loyalists were still fighting against the rebel movement in their strongholds of Bani Walid, Fezzan and Sirte. Some tribal leaders with a different degree of loyalty to Gaddafi withdrew their support for the regime, but even individual withdrawals of commitment to the regime from Warfallah (Varvelli, 2013) did not affect the general loyalty of the tribe to the regime. The tribal factor in the Libyan Revolution did not have a uniform effect across the country and was most visible in the east, in Cyrenaica, where tribal structures were best preserved. Given Libya’s geography and the large swathes of desert separating urban centers, Cyrenaica was often overlooked by the Gaddafi government. The two

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major cities of the country, Tripoli (the national capital) in the west and Benghazi in the east, were connected by just one highway leaving the east almost isolated. Cyrenaica was also traditionally under Gaddafi’s suspicion, due to the historic animosity between Gaddafi’s own tribe of Qadhadhfah and some of the larger tribes in the east (Blundy & Lycett, 1987: 34), as well as from the fact that the region was the seat of the Senussi monarchy that Gaddafi overthrew in 1969. Coupled with poor development in Cyrenaica4 the tribal factor became an amplifier that helped rebel sentiment catch on throughout the country’s east, both in large cities and in rural areas. Often-times, however, the tribal factor just added another layer to a pre-existing conflict. Some analysts note that tribal rivalry in Libya is deeply rooted in historic memory. For instance, Ibrahim Freihat argues that the Zintan tribe of Tripolitania considered its tribal neighbor the Rayayneh to have been Gaddafi loyalists as well as collaborators with Italian colonists in the 1940s, which in the post-Gaddafi period became ground for reprisals against the Rayayneh (Fraihat, 2016).

1.3 Arab Spring Momentum The Arab Spring momentum in North Africa that was introduced by the revolution in Tunisia and later in Egypt evidently produced a domino effect in Libya at least to some extent, although there is no consensus on that among scholars. The fall of President Ben Ali in Tunisia on January 14 did impact public sentiment in Libya, and also factored into Muammar Gaddafi’s preemptive tactical action as he sought to ride out the wave of growing discontent over economic hardships in the country. While Libya did not suffer any significant protests in January 2011, Gaddafi produced several statements that clearly indicated his concern over events in neighboring countries. First, on January 16, he made a speech expressing his support for President Ben Ali and calling on Tunisians to “bring him back” (BBC, 2011). Later, on January 26, Gaddafi made a speech in which he expressed discontent with the housing shortage in the country and invited the youth to take what rightfully belonged to them, which resulted in hundreds of Libyans occupying empty housing units. This was seen as Gaddafi’s attempt to hijack the grievances of Libyans by presenting them as his own cause and this was a strong enough indication that the situation in Libya was slowly unraveling.

4

One of the facts often cited to illustrate Cyrenaica’s run-down state under the Gaddafi regime is the fact that Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city of one million people, had only one sewage treatment plant built in the seventies, while most waste used to be flushed straight into the sea or the city’s lake (see Time, 2011).

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2 Socio-political Base of the Revolution and Its Drivers Youth played a key role in bringing about the revolution and was a distinct demographic of the uprising (as in many revolutions in the twenty-first century5 ). Most of them came from the middle and lower classes of the society, and many of them struggled to find adequate employment. The spontaneous unrest of the first days of the revolution was by and large led by this demographic group. In the absence of political parties and formalized opposition structures during the Gaddafi era, the revolt did not gravitate to any specific group with a political agenda. After the initial protest revolutionaries moved on to set up committees and political structures in towns and cities to deal with the day-to-day functioning of the state, which brought to the fore more technocrats and defecting government officials. The National Transitional Council was set up to oversee a transition towards a democratic form of governance on February 26. The NTC’s main bodies that acted as a de-facto government were led by technocrats and defected politicians from the General People’s Committee, the executive branch of the Gaddafi government. These included Mustafa Abdel Jalil, former justice minister, and Mahmoud Jibril, former head of the National Planning Council, who were both part of the softer reformist-minded circles close to Gaddafi’s son Saif Al Islam. Libyan expatriates who returned to the country as the revolution was unfolding joined the NTC, as well as representatives of newly formed city councils from Cyrenaica and rebel-held cities in the west of the country. Defectors from the regime-associated institutions also presented a distinct group of opposition members who made up a prominent part of the revolt’s leadership. Some of the defectors included members of the government, military and security personnel as well as diplomats, such as Foreign Affairs Secretary Musa Kusa and UN Ambassador Abdel-Rahman Shalgam. A majority of defections came from the eastern part of the country. Given the fact that political parties were banned in Libya, a number of political organizations led by Libyans existed only outside the country. On the eve of the revolution and during the civil war they increased their activity in support of the revolt. While the likes of the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya and the Libyan League for Human Rights did not play any major role in the revolution, they became its staunch supporters. The Islamic current in Libya, although deeply suppressed by the Gaddafi regime during his reign, was split during the revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood, whose members had been historically persecuted by the Gaddafi government or were in exile, had no significance in Libya at the time of the revolution. It was largely ignored until Saif Al Islam’s initiatives to build dialogue with Libyan Islamist groups in order to co-opt and neutralize them. Without any tangible presence on Libyan soil during 5

See, e.g., Chapter “The ‘Color’ Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-violent Protest” (Mitchell, 2022, in this volume).

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the revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood had no role to play but came out strongly against the regime (Ashour, 2012). The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)—an organization that first emerged in the 1970s and was battle-hardened in Afghanistan, and which led a low-level insurgency in eastern Libya in the 1990s— had a more significant role to play in the Libyan Revolution. LIFG was the only force in Libya that had had prior success in rallying support against Gaddafi, for which it was disbanded and its leaders imprisoned. Despite the dialogue that had begun between LIFG and Saif Al Islam in the mid-2000s, the organization threw its weight behind the revolution and brought an abundance of insurgency techniques into the rebel movement (Ashour, 2015). Various groups and theologians of the conservative Salafi-leaning Islamists, which had been allowed to grow under the Gaddafi regime, on the contrary opposed the revolution and were in fact used by the government to produce religious legitimization of the regime.

3 The Timeline of the Libyan Revolution The initial protest gained momentum around a call for demonstrations by the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition exiled in London. The organization called on Libyans to take to the streets to celebrate the Day of Rage on February 17, 2011, the date originally associated with another anti-Gaddafi protest in 2006 (Asharq Al Awsat, 2011). Gaddafi’s reaction to the announcement was two-faceted: he released twelve political prisoners trying to take a conciliatory stance, but also sent the special forces commander to Benghazi who ultimately stirred more anger among local activists. The subsequent arrest of a well-known young human rights activist, Fathi Tebril, who represented families of over a thousand political prisoners massacred in Tripoli’s prison in 1996, became the trigger that sparked a protest in Benghazi on February 15, two days before the originally planned rally (Anderson, 2011). Clashes between security forces and demonstrators that were at first non-lethal turned deadly on February 17 with over 230 people killed by the security forces, who in the days to follow also targeted funeral processions that drew thousands of locals in Benghazi (HRW, 2011). The take-over of the barracks of the elite Khamis Brigade by protesters after a three-day siege on February 20, which was aided by the recently defected Interior Minister and Gaddafi’s close associate Abdel Fatah Younis, became a turning point in the revolution and ended Tripoli’s control over Benghazi. The protest quickly spread throughout Cyrenaica to major urban centers along the coast: Tobruk, Derna, Al Bayda as well as Brega, the second largest oil production facility in the country (Schemm, 2011). By February 22, when it was clear that the government had lost control of Cyrenaica, protests started seeping into Tripolitania with occasional clashes in Tripoli, Misrata and Zawiyah; the latter hosts Libya’s second-largest oil refinery. Misrata along with Benghazi became one of the major centers of resistance, especially given the fact that it was located in Tripolitania. After the take-over of the city, rebels set up

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the Misrata City Council and Military Council to organize their defense and service provision. The City Council also sent a representative to the NTC, thus joining the Cyrenaica-based opposition (Abbas, 2011). In early March, Gaddafi began a counter-offensive. In the East, Gaddafi’s troops laid siege to the rebel-held town of Misrata, and crushed the local opposition movement around Zawiyah near Tripoli on March 11, after two weeks of fierce resistance (Walt, 2011). Loyalist forces in the West also started pushing back against poorlyequipped rebels in Bin Jawad, a town close to Gaddafi’s native Sirte, and by March 19 had reached Benghazi, re-capturing towns along the coast (Raghavan, 2011). The assault on Benghazi threatened to become a massacre, but it was short-lived as the French and US governments, authorized by the UN Security Council under UN resolution 1973, started their military operation (Operation Odyssey Dawn) targeting Gaddafi’s forces outside Benghazi (Murphy, 2011) and allowing the rebels to regain control of Cyrenaica’s cities. On March 17, just before Gaddafi’s counter-offensive had established itself at Benghazi, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 after weeks of deliberations. The resolution established a no-fly zone over Libya as well as gave Security Council members the authority to use “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya (United Nations Security Council, 2011). The international intervention first led by the US and later under NATO command prevented the fall of Benghazi into Gaddafi’s hands, which would have choked the rebel movement. The intervention threw the loyalists back and gave the rebels time to regroup, but the fighting in Cyrenaica remained stalemated from late March well into July, with back and forth territorial exchanges between the Gaddafi forces and rebels. On July 15, 2011, the rebel forces—largely aided by Qatari shipments of weapons and military advisors (Black et al., 2011)—finally broke through and permanently dislodged the loyalist forces from their strongholds and forced them to retreat to Sirte. The Gadaffi regime’s siege of Misrata had left the city with almost no supplies, but by late March NATO’s assistance at sea established a connection between Benghazi and Misrata resulting in arms and food deliveries (Chivers, 2011). After unsuccessful attempts to capture the Misratan port in April, the regime completely withdrew from the area by May 15 ending the three-month siege. The liberation of Misrata meant that Tripoli, Gaddafi’s stronghold, was no longer safe, as it was threatened from Misrata and the Nafusa Mountains, which had given refuge to rebels who had fled from Zawiyah. Throughout the summer, several attempts at negotiations were made, including ones proposed by the African Union, Russia and the European powers, however, all of them yielded no results, not least because in late August rebel groups from the Nafusa Mountains successfully pushed back against Gaddafi forces, first recapturing Zawiyah on August 20 and advancing towards Tripoli (Price, 2011). Forces from Misrata and Nafusa opened three fronts around Tripoli, essentially encircling the city. On August 22, rebels captured Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli Bab Al Aziziyah, however, the Libyan leader was not there (Fahim, 2011). Throughout September rebels were clearing the remaining loyalist strongholds in Sebha, coastal Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad. Gaddafi’s native Sirte remained the last loyalist city which

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rebels hoped to take under their control by negotiating with the Qadhadhfah tribe. However, when these attempts failed an offensive was launched and by October 16 there were only two Gaddafi loyalist holdouts left in Sirte (El Gamal & Gaynor, 2011). Four days later a NATO airstrike outside Sirte targeted a fleeing military convoy that carried Muammar Gaddafi. Wounded by rebels who captured him, Gaddafi died on the way to a hospital in Misrata. On October 23, the NTC declared the liberation of Libya and announced its transition plan. The UN Security Council voted to end the mandate permitting the military campaign in Libya while leaving the sanctions and arms embargo in place on October 27 (CNN, 2011).

4 Key Demands of the Opposition Given the spontaneous nature of the protests that originated in Benghazi and spread to various locations across the country, demands by the opposition also varied across the localities. However, one demand that was universally shared in Libya was the departure of Muammar Gaddafi from power. The demand meant, however, not only the removal of an individual from power but the deconstruction of the regime and the government that were uniquely based on his personality. Absence of agency for the Libyan people in the political life of the country and the lack of political parties in the country meant that there was no clear opposition ideological ground per se behind the revolt. It is illustrated by the fact that one of the demands voiced during the protests in Benghazi was the return to the 1951 constitution that Gaddafi abolished upon coming to power in 1969. In some locations across Cyrenaica protesters were carrying an Idris-era Libyan flag (The Economist, 2011), which highlights that what initially emerged as a spontaneous revolt at first had no clear-cut vision for the future. A month and a half into the revolution, on March 29, the National Transitional Council issued its “Vision of a Democratic Libya”, an eight-point document that laid out its aspirations for a new Libya. The document summed up the demands of the revolution to Gaddafi and called for the drafting of a national constitution that would establish “legal, political, civil, legislative, executive and judicial institutions (The Interim National Council, 2011).” The introduction of state institutions that have a clear mandate and establishing the rule of law in Libya were the main demands declared by the revolution. While the document called for the creation of a state modeled on the principles of constitutional democracies, it was much less clear on the role of religion, stipulating that the state would derive “strength from our strong religious beliefs in peace, truth, justice and equality” and would respect “the sanctity of religious doctrine.”

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5 Explaining the Longevity of Gaddafi’s Resistance The weakness of state institutions and of the Libyan army became a double-edged sword for Gaddafi. The Libyan state allowed little public participation in governance despite the fact every Libyan had to participate in the work of congresses that worked out plans and demands to the government and passed them upwards to the General People’s Congress. Only 10% of the population opted to participate in this mechanism regularly and 70% found it ineffective (Obeidi, 2001: 159). Absent political parties and real popular agency in governance, the only effective mechanism of mobilizing the population and co-opting it was often times through tribes. This allowed Gaddafi to have enough tribal leaders with vested interests in his regime that were ready to throw their weight behind him even during the revolution, simply because their survival depended on the survival of Muammar Gaddafi. On the other hand, a civil society vacuum in Libya during the Gaddafi era drove the pre-existing antagonisms down to the tribal and ethnic levels, deep into the society. This argument could be extrapolated historically, interpreting the 1969 revolution as the revenge of central Libyan tribes against the eastern Cyrenaica tribes from which the Sanussi monarchy had come. In other words, the cementation and instrumentalization of tribal divides by Gaddafi created an added complexity to the Libyan civil war but allowed him to survive through the early stages of the revolution. A similar argument could be applied to assess the role of the Libyan military in the survival of the regime during the revolution. Throughout the forty-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi the Libyan army was deliberately kept weak and divided in order to prevent a coup from happening, which created a great deal of animosity within the army ranks towards the Libyan leadership. Regular forces, whose power had been routed during the 1980s war with Chad, comprised an estimated 25,000 ground forces but were chronically under-equipped and poorly trained. However, the core of the Libyan security apparatus was formed around revolutionary committees and elite units that were better equipped and controlled either by loyal individuals from the three staunchly pro-Gaddafi tribes or by his own sons. The four loyal brigades, including the elite 32nd Armored Brigade led by Gaddafi’s son Khamis, had an estimated 10,000 servicemen. Arguably the absence of a strong unified army in Libya that could act as a buffer between the regime and protesters allowed Gaddafi to use the engineered split in the security sector to his benefit. The nexus of tribal loyalties and elite army units led to the emergence of a loyal force but it also drove the regular army away from the regime, particularly in Benghazi, which ultimately contributed to the fall of the cradle of the revolution (Joffe, 2011).

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6 Libyan Revolution in the Context of the Arab Spring Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were what many experts called revolutions in liberalized autocracies, where regimes allowed the emergence of civil society institutions that later played a key role in directing the course of the events (Brumberg, 2011). In the case of Libya, however, there was no regime-led liberalization going on even despite the attempts undertaken by Gaddafi’s second son Saif Al Islam in the mid-2000s. Libya was a highly personalized autocracy where the entire political system revolved around Muammar Gaddafi even though he had no formal role to play inside the political process. According to George Joffe, liberalized autocracies in Tunisia and Egypt set up conditions for their demise by allowing social movements to develop under international political pressure, which eventually grew into “movements of political contention, (Joffe, 2011)” which was never the case in Libya where the autonomous public space was never authorized to take off.6 The splits in the Libyan military and the regional and tribal divisions in Libya generated different dynamics in the revolutionary process than in Tunisia or Egypt. In Tunisia, the regular army was little used and remained in its barracks rather than defend the corrupt ben Ali regime; the protestors thus mainly had to deal with the regime’s police forces, which were not able to put down the massive urban protests. In Egypt the military was strong and cohesive, but estranged from President Mubarak’s by the latter’s plans to put his son, not a military officer, next in line of succession. The military thus first stood aside when urban protestors confronted the police, and then protected the protestors. But before long, the military flexed its unity and superior organization and managed, through a popular counter-revolutionary coup, to take control of the government. In Libya, the military was divided between the loyalist tribal and family-led units who fought for the regime, and the regular military, much of it based in the east or associated with rival tribes, who defected to the rebellion. The defection of a part of the Libyan army gave a momentum to the protest movement, and had there been no defections happening in Benghazi in February 2011, the protest could have arguably choked. In Egypt and Tunisia, where state institutions existed prior to and separate from the state leaders, revolutionary groups could mobilize to contest for control of the state, and after the overthrow of Mubarak and ben Ali political parties could mobilize supporters to contend for power. By contrast, in Libya state institutions were extremely weak and wholly wrapped up in the personal regime of Muammar Gaddafi. 6

On the revolutions of the Arab Spring, their common features and peculiarities see Grinin et al. (2016), Grinin et al. (2019), as well as Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022), Chapter “The Syrian Revolution” (Akhmedov, 2022), Chapter “The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath” (Rasler & Thompson, 2022), Chapter “The Arab Spring. A Quantitative Analysis” (Korotayev et al., 2022a) and Chapter “Global Echo of the Arab Spring” (Korotayev et al., 2022b, in this volume).

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When Gaddafi was overthrown, the result was that rival military and tribal groups fought for control of territory, particularly the oil-producing regions, while state institutions remained weak and largely ineffectual. While the opposition may have aspired to create a “color revolution” to establish a constitutional, democratic state, their efforts were frustrated by the lack of any viable state institutions, and the absence of political parties and civil society organizations, with which to build toward that outcome.7 To this date, June 2021, the national government in Tripoli (the Government of National Accord or GNA) still controls only about half the country, while the military warlord Khalifa Haftar, chief of the self-styled Libyan National Army, controls much of Cyrenaica. International actors have gotten engaged again, but this time it is not the U.S. or NATO (who withdrew almost immediately after Gaddafi’s death). Rather, it is Russia and Turkey, who are seeking influence by backing different sides and helping to prolong the civil war that has divided the country. Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are backing Haftar, while Turkey and Qatar are supporting the GNA. But so far, they have only created a standoff, with periodic offensives and cease-fires, but little progress toward peace or a truly national government.

References Abbas, M. (2011). Libya’s Misrata begins to repair wreckage of war. Reuters. 27.05.2011. https:// af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE74Q1SI20110527 African Development Bank. (2012). African economic outlook: Libya. African Development Bank Akhmedov, V. (2022). The Syrian revolution. In J. A. Goldstone, L. E. Grinin, & A. V. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 707–723). Springer. http://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_27 Anderson, J. (2011). Sons of the revolution. New Yorker. 09.05.2011. https://www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2011/05/09/sons-of-the-revolution Asharq Al Awsat. (2011). Gaddafi ready for Libya’s “Day of Rage”. Asharq Al Awsat. 09.02.2011. https://eng-archive.aawsat.com/theaawsat/news-middle-east/gaddafi-readyfor-libyas-day-of-rage Ashour, O. (2012). Libya’s Muslim brotherhood faces the future. Brookings. 09.03.2012. https:// www.brookings.edu/opinions/libyas-muslim-brotherhood-faces-the-future/ Ashour, O. (2015). Between ISIS and a failed state: The saga of Libyan Islamists. Brookings Institution. BBC. (2011). Tunisia seeks to form unity cabinet after Ben Ali fall. BBC. 16.01.2011. http://www. bbc.com/news/world-africa-12201042 Black, I., McGreal, C., & Sherwood, H. (2011). Libyan rebels supplied with anti-tank weapons by Qatar. The Guardian. 15.04.2011. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/14/libyanrebels-supplied-weapons-qatar 7

On the possible long-term negative consequences of democratic revolutions in unprepared for democracy countries see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a), Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “Revolutions and Historical Process” (Grinin, 2022), and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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Blundy, D., & Lycett, A. (1987). Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution. Little Brown. Brumberg, D. (2011). Sustaining mechanics of Arab autocracies. Foreign Policy. 19.12.2011. http:// foreignpolicy.com/2011/12/19/sustaining-mechanics-of-arab-autocracies/ Chivers, C. J. (2011). With help from NATO, Libyan rebels gain ground. The New York Times. 09.05.2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/world/africa/10libya.html CNN. (2011). U.N. ends mandate for NATO mission in Libya. CNN. 28.10.2011. https://edition. cnn.com/2011/10/27/world/africa/un-libya/index.html Crisis Group. (2011). Popular protest in North Africa and the Middle East (V): Making sense of Libya. Middle East/North Africa Report N°107. El Gamal, R., & Gaynor, T. (2011). Libya forces corner Gaddafi loyalists in Sirte. Reuters. 10.10.2011. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-idUSL5E7KT4YC20111010 El-Doufani, M. (2011). Libya crisis: What role do tribal loyalties play? BBC. 21.02.2011. http:// www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12528996 Fahim, K. (2011). Libyans rejoice in a castle filled with guns and the trappings of power. The New York Times. 23.08.2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/world/africa/24compound.html Fraihat, I. (2016). Unfinished revolutions. Yale University Press. Goldstone, J. A., Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Introduction. Changing yet persistent: Revolutions and revolutionary events. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 1–33). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_1 Grinin, L. (2022). Revolutions and historical process. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 139–171). Springer. http://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-86468-2_5 Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2022). Revolutionary waves and lines of the 20th century. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp 315–388). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_12 Grinin, L., Issaev, L., & Korotayev, A. (2016). Revolyutsii i nestabil’nost’ na Blizhnem Vostoke (2nd ed.). Uchitel. Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022a). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In: J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 105– 136). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_4 Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022b). The Arab spring: Causes, conditions, and driving forces. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 595–624). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_23 Grinin, L., Korotayev, A., & Tausch, A. (2019). Islamism, Arab Spring, and the future of democracy. World system and world values perspectives. Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91077-2 HRW. (2011). Libya: Governments should demand end to unlawful killings. Human Rights Watch. 20.02.2011. https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/02/20/libya-governments-should-demandend-unlawful-killings Issaev, L., Khokhlova, A., & Korotayev, L. (2022). The Arab Spring in Yemen. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp.685–705). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_26 Joffe, G. (2011). The Arab Spring in North Africa: Origins and prospects. The Journal of North African Studies, 16(4), 507–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2011.630881 Khan, M., & Mezran, K. (2013). The Libyan economy after the revolution: Still no clear vision. Atlantic Council. Korotayev, A., Issaev, L., Malkov, S., & Shishkina, A. (2022). The Arab Spring. A quantitative analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the

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21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 781–810). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_30 Korotayev, A., Shishkina, A., & Khokhlova, A. (2022). Global echo of the Arab Spring. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 813– 849). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_31 Korotayev, A., & Zinkina, J. (2022). Egypt’s 2011 revolution. A demographic structural analysis. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 651–683). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_25 Kuznetsov, V. (2022). The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the birth of the Arab Spring uprisings. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 625–649). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_24 Lacher, L. (2012). Families, tribes and cities in the Libyan revolution. Middle East Policy, 18(4), 140–154. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2011.00516.x Mitchell, L. A. (2022). The “color” revolutions. Successes and limitations of non-violent protest. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 435–445). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_15 Murphy, D. (2011). French jets hit Qaddafi forces as civilians flee Libya’s rebel capital, Benghazi. CS Monitor. 19.03.2011. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0319/Fre nch-jets-hit-Qaddafi-forces-as-civilians-flee-Libya-s-rebel-capital-Benghazi Obeidi, A. (2001). Political culture in Libya. Routledge. Otman, A., & Karlberg, E. (2007). The Libyan economy: Economic diversification and international repositioning. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46463-8 Price, M. (2011). Libya conflict: Rebels take two key coastal cities. BBC. 20.08.2011. http://www. bbc.com/news/world-africa-14599156 Raghavan, S. (2011). Libyan rebels’ stronghold becomes ghostly war zone. The Washington Post. 20.03.2011. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/gaddafis-forces-enter-benghazi/2011/ 03/19/ABjlL5u_story.html?utm_term=.a5077e90b9af Rasler, K., & Thompson, W. R. (2022). The extent of military involvement in non-violent, civilian revolts and their aftermath. In J. A. Goldstone, L. Grinin, & A. Korotayev (Eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 739–779). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-864682_29 Schemm, P. (2011). Turmoil rocks Libya’s oil sector, slashing output. The Washington Post. 26.02.2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/26/AR2011 022602772.html Stephen, C. (2015). Libya’s Arab Spring: The revolution that ate its children. The Guardian. 16.02.2015. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/libyas-arab-spring-therevolution-that-ate-its-children The Economist. (2011). Building a new Libya. The Economist. 24.02.2011. https://www.econom ist.com/node/18239900 The Interim National Council. (2011). A vision of a democratic Libya. Aljazeera. 29.03.2011. https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Documents/2011/3/29/201132911392394381 1The%20Interim%20Transitional%20National%20Council%20Statement.pdf Time. (2011). Dispatch from Libya: Why Benghazi rebelled. Time. 03.03.2011. http://content.time. com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2045328_2045338_2056521,00.html United Nations Security Council. (2011). Security council approves ‘No-Fly Zone’ over Libya, authorizing ‘All Necessary Measures’ to protect civilians, by vote of 10 in favor with 5 abstentions. Security Council 6498th Meeting. 17.03.2011

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Yury Barmin is an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council covering the Middle East and North Africa, and Moscow’s policy towards the region including its strategy in Syria and Libya. Yury also works as a risk consultant whose work focuses on issues related to the Middle East and Russia’s positioning there. He holds an M.Phil. in International Relations from the Univer-sity of Cambridge and his dissertation looked into the failed Arab Spring protests in Bahrain and Kuwait. He is interested in political dynamics of Libya, the politics of the Gulf and the ties that exist between Russia’s North Caucasus and the GCC Monarchies.

The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, and Hicham Bou Nassif

1 Military Involvement As part of what has come to be known as the Arab Spring, three Middle Eastern autocrats lost their long-held political positions in Tunisia (Ben Ali), Egypt (Mubarak), and Yemen (al Saleh) as a result of nonviolent popular revolts.1 From 2010–2012, in fact, a quarter of all autocrats who left office did so in the context of a mass revolt (Kendall-Taylor & Frantz, 2014). More recent cases involve Omar Hassan al-Bashir (Sudan) and Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria) in 2019.2 Not only did these 1 This paper was initially written in 2012 (and subsequently updated) for a Michigan State University conference on the Arab Spring organized by Michael Colaresi. Thanks to Jack Snyder and Jack Goldstone for their comments and editorial intervention. Other cases of the Arab Spring that followed different (less than successful) trajectories are: Bahrain, Libya, and Syria. Foreign military interventions played a key role in toppling these regimes, one of which (Bahrain) resulted in regime maintenance, while the other two devolved into civil wars (Brownlee et al., 2015). 2 On the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen see Chapter “The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022b), Chapter “The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings” (Kuznetsov, 2022), Chapter “Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis” (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2022), and Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022, in this volume). On the recent revolutions in Sudan and Algeria see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022, in this book).

K. Rasler (B) · W. R. Thompson Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected] W. R. Thompson e-mail: [email protected] H. Bou Nassif Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. A. Goldstone et al. (eds.), Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century, Societies and Political Orders in Transition, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_29

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leadership changes occur, but a rewriting of the institutional rules of the political systems occurred as well. Like other cases of successful nonviolent civilian revolts,3 do they matter in the long run? Do they lead to less autocracy and more civilian rule? Or, do they eventually lead to disappointing outcomes associated with greater autocracy? The empirical record suggests that there is a great deal of variation in the possible outcomes of these campaigns. Recent empirical research that relies on crossnational data has demonstrated that nonviolent mass revolts have been associated with a greater rate of success in achieving democratic outcomes than violent campaigns (such as mass insurgencies). We argue, however, that the long-term outcomes of these nonviolent protest campaigns are complicated and yield more mixed results.4 One reason for this is that behind the scenes of most nonviolent protest campaigns lurks the question of what the military will do. For instance, the name for the Georgian Rose Revolution is attributed to a last-minute decision to have civilian protesters carry long stem roses to show the military units defending the legislative building that the civilians were unarmed [on the Georgian Revolution see Chapter “The Rose Revolution in Georgia” (Khodunov, 2022, in this volume)]. Flowers in gun barrels often demonstrate some implicit military acceptance of civilian dissent, even if only at the lower ranks. But the problem remains that considerable uncertainty often characterizes civil-military relations as protest campaigns turn into explicit threats to the survival of an autocratic incumbent regime. Not surprisingly, autocrats attempt to prolong their rule by using police and security forces to repress popular protests. Sometimes, they also call out the military to defend their threatened regimes. Sometimes, the military obliges and sometimes it does not. Armed forces can choose to remain neutral bystanders.5 Or, they can intervene at the end of an intensifying protest campaign, remove the targeted ruler, and retain control of the state. Occasionally, the military will fragment into opposing factions. Regardless of what it actually decides to do, the military always has the potential to intervene on behalf of, or against, the political status quo, and for that reason it has the capacity to be a significant veto player in nonviolent civilian revolts. We contend that the more significant and overt the military role in internal revolts, regardless of who their action is intended to benefit and including nonviolent civilian resistance campaigns, the less likely post-revolutionary politics will be as democratic 3

Protest campaigns are also referred to as protest waves, nonviolent civilian resistance revolts, strategic nonviolent popular revolts and/or mass revolts. The prevailing definition is that a nonviolent resistance campaign exhibits observable, continuous political tactics (without the use of arms or terrorism) for political objectives. Such tactics include demonstrations, boycotts, and strikes. Campaigns can be short (a matter of days or weeks) or long (months or years), with an identifiable leadership. Protest campaigns do not involve random or spontaneous mass action (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011 for more details). On the point that the terms “nonviolent resistance campaigns” and “non-violent revolutions” denote the same phenomena and can be regarded as synonyms see Chapter “Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy” (Grinin & Korotayev, 2022a). 4 The greater historical success of nonviolent protests in establishing democratic regimes has been shown for cross-national data by Chenoweth and Stephan (2011). Scholars who have demonstrated more mixed results usually pursue fine grained, over time case studies (Brownlee et al., 2015). 5 Shama (2019) reminds us that quiet acquiescence on the part of the military can work just as well in overthrowing an autocratic regime.

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as they might have been otherwise. Military interventions do not always lead to autocratic outcomes, but they are more likely to do so because the military usually prefers corporate interests, political order and stability over wide participation in politics.6 If the military has been a major player in the political system, it will act to preserve its corporate and political interests regardless of who takes power.7 To the extent that it is heavily involved in the political transition, its preferences are more likely to be translated into the structure of the ensuing political system. Besides the military, we also acknowledge that other factors play an important role, such as the scale and scope of protest campaigns. Some research shows that broad based campaigns (large numbers of protesters across political, economic and social sectors) are not only more likely to be successful in bringing down regimes but also associated with more democratic outcomes in their aftermath (Ackerman & Karatnycky, 2005; Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011: 61). We believe that such an outcome is certainly not guaranteed, because there is always the potential that a small and narrow group will emerge to dominate the revolutionary process either during or after the ousting of an incumbent group. Nonetheless, we maintain that for the most part, post-revolutionary regimes tend to resemble the organization of the group(s) responsible for overthrowing the old regime. This is especially true if a revolutionary party, religious group, or military leadership is at the head of the revolution. This paper addresses how these two conflicting principles—nonviolent civilian protest and military involvement—have worked out in the past and how they might play out in the future. Nonviolent, civilian revolts usually encompass a mix of both— civilian protests of varying size and scope and military involvement of various kinds. They are not normally complementary, but one or the other plays an important role in determining whether political systems transition to more democratic or autocratic outcomes. How and to what extent they play a role is determined through an investigation of 36 nonviolent, civilian revolts that brought about successful regime change since 1945. In each case, we measure, albeit crudely, the breadth of civilian participation and the nature of the military involvement. These indicators are then compared with democratization levels five and ten years after the nonviolent, civilian revolt. We hypothesize that higher levels of military involvement during these revolts will lead to less democracy, while nonviolent revolts that involve broad-based coalitions of civilian protesters with lesser military involvement will lead to more democracy.

6

On the other hand, one should never assume that military organizations are motivated by corporate instincts. When they are highly integrated into a country’s economic or ideological subsystem (see, for instance, Korotayev et al., 2015) other sources of motivation may be more likely. 7 The major exceptions are situations in which the military seeks to withdraw from a period of what is perceived as an excessive involvement in the political system—a “return-to-the-barracks” syndrome.

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2 Theoretical and Empirical Research on the Outcomes of Nonviolent Protest Campaigns Most of the research that shows there is a positive association between successful protest campaigns and long-term democratization comes from cross-national quantitative studies that compare nonviolent and violent civilian campaigns. Unlike nonviolent campaigns, violent insurgencies reflect a state of rebellion where dissidents are committed to changing the status quo through tactics of armed force in the context of civil wars and secessionist movements. The evidence that nonviolent protest campaigns are associated with long term democratization relative to violent campaigns is quite robust across different measures of democracy, control variables, cases and methodologies. For instance, after examining every regime transition from 1972 to 2005, Ackerman and Karatnycky (2005) find that those transitions that involved mainly nonviolent mass actions experienced higher levels of freedom (derived from Freedom House measures) in the long run than those actions that involved violent oppositions. Meanwhile, Johnstad (2010) follows up this study with statistical tests that relied not only on Freedom House measures but also data from Polity IV and The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy. While controlling for economic growth, Johnstad shows that Freedom House, Polity IV and the Economist data all agree that transitions associated with major violence from opposition groups were less likely to result in long-term high quality democracy than transitions associated with nonviolent mass actions. Stradiotto and Guo (2010) tackle this same question from a different theoretical and statistical angle. Using regression and hazard rate models, they ask whether a certain type of democratic transition mode will result in higher levels of democracy and endure the longest over ten years. Theoretically, they identify four types of transitions: conversion (elite led democratic reforms); cooperative (democratic reforms-based pacts between government and opposition groups); collapse (violent revolution-led reforms) and foreign intervention (externally imposed democratic reforms). Of these four types, “cooperative transitions” are mostly closely associated with nonviolent protest campaigns as the political process is marked by cycles of protests (strikes, demonstrations) and repression that lead to political compromise and reforms. Cooperative transitions are “opposition-led transitions” where political outsiders successfully mobilize mass support to dislodge incumbent elites from their political positions. Cooperative transitions are usually associated with opposition groups and incumbents that are relatively equal in power, which contributes to bargaining and negotiation since neither side can be assured of victory through the use of violence. Consequently, these transitions are likely to lead to greater democratization through agreements about electoral rules, civilian-military relations, and the participation of new political actors. Utilizing the Political Regime Dataset originally created by Gasiorowski, Stradiotto and Guo identify regime changes in 57 countries from 1973 to 1995 as well as measure country-year democracy (Polity IV) scores for each. They control for

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region, type of institutional arrangement, prior regime type and democratic history, and finally income level. Their dependent variable of post-transition democratic levels is measured at three time intervals: as an average of 3, 6 and 10 years. Their regression results show that, as hypothesized, “cooperative” transitions are strongly associated with higher democratic quality scores across all three time periods, while the remaining transition modes failed to have any significant effect across the same intervals. To examine the longevity of democracy, Stradiotto and Guo estimate hazard rate models which get at the question of democratic survival rates; their results show that cooperative transitions were associated with a statistically significant 96% lower risk of democratic death than other transition modes. Next, Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) produced a new dataset, NAVCO (Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes), documenting 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns (102 of which were nonviolent) from 1900 to 2006. Controlling for the duration of these conflicts as well as the level of democracy at the end of these conflicts, they demonstrate that nonviolent campaigns were more likely to have a higher level of post-conflict democracy (as determined by various Polity IV measures) than violent ones, measured five years after the conflict ended. Utilizing Chenoweth and Stephan’s (2011) NAVCO dataset, Celestino and Gleditsch (2013) conduct a more sophisticated country-year analysis that included all nonviolent and violent cases with Polity IV measures of transitions from autocratic regimes to democracy, as well as transitions from one autocratic regime or coalition to another autocratic regime, from 1900 to 2004. They hypothesized that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to be associated with transitions from autocratic regimes to democracy, while violent campaigns would be associated with a transition from autocracy to another autocracy. They control for national income level, regime age, and the proportion of neighboring states were democratic. The last variable is based on prior research that shows transitions to democracy are more likely when autocracies have a high share of democratic neighbors. Equally important, Celestino and Gleditsch (2013) lay out several causal mechanisms that account for why nonviolent campaigns will be associated with transitions to democracy, which have direct relevance for our study below. Nonviolent campaigns that bring together large numbers of participants across economic, political and social segments of society can bring down regimes by encouraging elite defections, forcing major governmental reforms, and escalating the scale and scope of the protests that result from backfire effects of state repression. In the aftermath of leadership changes, nonviolent campaigns are likely to produce greater democratization because the distribution of power is dispersed among many actors inside and outside of the government. Since there are many centers of political power among diverse actors engaged in the protests, political groups are likely to support power sharing arrangements that both reduce autocratic tendencies and support democratic practices. In short, nonviolent campaigns in comparison to violent ones are more likely to bring down regimes as well as foster democracy in the long run. As for violent campaigns, Celestino and Gleditsch (2013) argue that they are both more likely to fail in bringing down regimes and more likely to increase autocratization in the long run. Since violent campaigns tend to occur in the periphery

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and involve smaller numbers of dissidents, states are more successful in defeating them through repression and military resources. Moreover, states that repress violent campaigns are likely to become more autocratic over time as those states centralize their authority through their defeat of armed opposition groups and the repression and/or marginalization of peaceful dissidents. In a nutshell, Celestino and Gleditsch’s empirical analyses (2013) show that nonviolent campaigns do indeed have a strong statistical impact, making transitions to democracy more likely, while violent campaigns have less association with long term democracy but a significant long-term impact by raising the likelihood of later autocracy. An additional key finding is that nonviolent campaigns increase the probability of a democratic transition even more when there is a heavy presence of neighboring democratic states. Additional research by Bayer et al. (2016) argues that democratic regimes that come into being as a result of a nonviolent resistance campaign are less prone to democratic breakdown when compared with democracies that were the result of violent resistance or those which were installed without any kind of resistance movement. They maintain that nonviolent protest campaigns produce a civic political culture that has stabilizing effects on the subsequent democratic regime. This civic culture creates constraints and incentives that encourage compromise and cooperation among various constituent interests, which insures democratic longevity in the post-transition period. Nonviolent protest campaigns thereby reduce political polarization and power struggles among political actors. Finally, nonviolent protest campaigns avoid the problems associated with the demobilization of armed groups and prior human rights violations that often complicate the transition process associated with violent campaigns. Bayer et al. (2016) therefore test the hypothesis that democratic regimes that experienced nonviolent protest campaigns during their transition phases will survive longer than democratic regimes that did not experience such campaigns. Relying on two cross-national datasets, the NAVCO (2.0) version and Ulfelder’s political regimes data, Bayer et al. (2016) combined information on the duration of democratic regimes with information on the presence of nonviolent protest campaigns during these transitions from 1955 to 2010 time period. They conducted hazard rate models for 112 democratic regimes, out of which 69 experienced a democratic breakdown, with the remaining 43 regimes being without a breakdown by the end of the time period. They controlled for GDP levels, military legacies, previous instability, population size, urbanization and the presence of neighboring democracies. Their hazard rate models demonstrate that nonviolent campaigns were associated with a statistically significant positive effect on the duration of democratic regimes. Bayer et al. (2016) concluded that there is a “democratic dividend of nonviolent resistance” that increases the success rates for both transitions to democracy and their longevity.8

8

In addition, Kim (2017) examines the relationship between mass revolts and the emergence of electoral authoritarianism. In contrast to the emphasis on democratization, Kim investigates the extent to which closed authoritarian regimes transition to what he calls electoral authoritarianism.

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Recently, Kim and Kroeger (2019) examined the relationship between anti-regime protests (both violent and nonviolent) and democratic transitions in all authoritarian regimes from 1950 to 2007. They argue that there are four pathways to these outcomes as a result of mass revolts. One way is through the direct overthrow of an autocracy with the subsequent installation of a democratic regime. A second causal pathway is that mass revolts coerce incumbents into democratic reforms by threatening their survival. A third avenue is that mass revolts bring about elite splits which promote negotiated democratic reforms. Finally, such revolts encourage leadership change within the existing autocratic regime. Collecting a sample of 3200 observations for 233 authoritarian governments, Kim and Kroger estimate a CRE (correlated random effects) probit model on democratic transitions and anti-regime protests.9 They control for the effects of civil society strength, the history of recent national multiparty elections, the size of the military, GDP per capita, and the regional presence of other democracies. Their empirical evidence shows that anti-regime protests overall increase the probability of autocratic regime breakdowns. Moreover, nonviolent protests are associated with democratic transitions while violent protests are more likely to lead to autocratic transitions. While their empirical results corroborate Celestino and Gleditsch’s (2013) earlier findings, Kim and Kroeger also find evidence for Celestino and Gleditsch’s four causal mechanisms that link nonviolent protests and increased democratization.

3 The Problem of Comparing Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns This body of empirical quantitative research is impressive, but we believe that comparing nonviolent protest campaigns with violent ones in determining the probability of long-term democratization is misleading. We suggest that there are significant conceptual differences between violent and nonviolent campaigns and any comparisons between the two will in all likelihood increase the probability of finding empirical results that associate nonviolent protest campaigns with long term democratization trends, while violent ones will not have them. In fact, Celestino and Gleditsch (2013: 390) make the case for us. They show that nonviolent and violent campaigns have significant differences in that violent campaigns (civil wars, insurgencies, revolutions) tend to be fought in the periphery and often involve groups that are ethnically distinct from the groups that dominate the political system. On the other hand, nonviolent campaigns are frequently urban phenomena which are typically broad based across economic, political and social sectors. In addition, violent campaigns are frequently small guerrilla-type affairs and rest on a small recruitment base. In contrast, successful nonviolent campaigns are 9

They operationalize democratic transitions as one of two conditions: (a) an autocratic regime collapses or (b) a democratic regime is installed. Their anti-regime protests variable is obtained from the 2013 NAVCO dataset.

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highly dependent on a large number of participants who create a bandwagon effect over time. Regimes are less likely to repress large-scale nonviolent actions given their concerns about generating backfire effects and increasing the probability of police/security/military defections or fragmentation. On the other hand, states are very likely to repress and justify the use of repression when they are faced with violent campaigns. Hence, a key intervening influence here is state repression which is likely to influence the long-term trajectories of both democratization and autocracy levels. States’ reluctance to use repression increases the probability that nonviolent protest campaigns are likely to be successful in comparison to violent campaigns. And, states’ greater willingness to employ repression against armed insurgents is likely to generate spillover effects associated with greater state centralization and the political marginalization of opposition groups. Moreover, states’ military advantages over violent insurgents are likely to produce campaign failures. Therefore, instead of comparing nonviolent with violent campaigns, we recommend that successful nonviolent protest campaigns be compared by themselves. In their path breaking book, “The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform”, Brownlee et al. (2015) do exactly that. They compare three states whose leaders were brought down as a result of nonviolent protest campaigns in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen during 2011.10 Although they explain what brought about mass protests and leadership changes in these cases, their later chapters are especially pertinent because the authors trace the reasons for why democratic breakthroughs were unsuccessful in two of these cases (Egypt and Yemen) from 2011–2012. The authors challenge the earlier quantitative studies that suggest the primary explanations for post-transition democratization can be attributed solely to the role of opposition groups and political insiders during and after nonviolent protest campaigns. Specifically, Brownlee et al. (2015) dispute the claims that nonviolent protest campaigns alone insure that negotiation, compromise and dispersed power among groups will produce post-transition democracies. Instead, they believe that two pre-existing structural factors are critical for consolidating democracy: strong state institutions and pluralistic civic societies. While Yemen lacked both of these qualities, which explains its failed democratization, Tunisia and Egypt had strong state institutions and strong enough civic societies to pressure armed forces to defect from the executive and compel incumbents to comply with popular demands for democratic elections. Despite these advantages, Egypt’s pre-existing civic society was dominated by Islamic religious institutions that provided Islamic parties with enormous resources to mobilize their voters in the founding election. The result was an imbalance between Egypt’s Islamic forces and secular groups within the new government. As the new government moved to solidify Islamic power in government institutions, secular groups protested and the military intervened with a coup. 10

They also compare these three cases with Libya’s regime breakdown which is associated with foreign military intervention. We concentrate on the results of Brownlee et al.’s (2015) analysis for Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen because all three experienced mass protest campaigns and leadership changes with post-regime changes. However, see Holmes and Koehler (2020) for an argument opposed to comparing the Egyptian and Tunisian cases.

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Tunisia, however, had a stronger (more pluralistic) pre-existing civic society that reflected a mix of powerful actors among labor unions, professionals’ and women’s organizations, as well as religious and other secular institutions—all of which were able to mobilize large voting blocs in the founding election. The result was a new government with cross-cutting cleavages among key constituencies. Consequently, democracy was far more durable in Tunisia than in Egypt. Of course, this story of comparative durability remains very much in play. The takeaway from Brownlee et al. (2015)’s research on nonviolent protest campaigns, regime breakdown, and democratic transition and consolidation in the Arab Spring cases is that structural factors in society are more important to the survival of democracy than the characteristics of the campaigns themselves. We agree with their views, because another important structural factor involves the historical propensity of the military to insert itself in politics, especially during broad-based protest campaigns, which we believe also critically influences the trajectory toward or away from democratization.

4 The Role of Military Intervention During and After Nonviolent Protest Campaigns Despite the success of nonviolent protesters in some countries in the Arab Spring, nonviolent, civilian resistance campaigns overthrow governments less frequently than we realize. And, in cases where it does happen, protesters often deserve less credit for the political changes that occur in the aftermath. Behind the scenes, the military is a critical player in the downfall or survival of autocratic regimes (Bellin, 2012; Droz-Vincent, 2014; Lutterbeck, 2013; Pion-Berlin et al., 2014). Although sometimes soldiers may march in the streets or direct their tanks at a presidential palace, the military frequently plays a more covert role. Of course, the military has demonstrated that it has the capacity to overthrow regimes without civilian assistance. In these cases, military rebellion may be sufficient to cause the overthrow of dictators (and non-dictators). But, when large scale civilian resistance campaigns emerge and popular demands shift from narrow reforms to broader ones advancing government resignations, the military may be the pivotal player that actually brings about the removal of rulers. If the military pledges its support to a threatened regime, autocrats are more likely to remain intransigent and in office. If the military withdraws its support from a threatened regime, autocrats are more likely to be forced to capitulate. One prominent student of revolution (Goldstone, 2011) summarizes revolutionary prospects in the following way: For a revolution to succeed, a number of factors have to come together. The government must appear so irremediably unjust or inept that it is widely viewed as a threat to the country’s future; elites (especially in the military) must be alienated from the state and no longer willing to defend it; a broad-based section of the population, spanning ethnic and religious groups and socioeconomic classes, must mobilize; and international powers must either refuse to

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step in to defend the government or constrain it from using maximum force to defend itself. Revolutions rarely triumph because these conditions rarely coincide……

Barany (2011: 24, 32–33) stresses the role of the military even more and, in the process, advances both a generic and a specific Middle Eastern generalization: No institution matters more to a state’s survival than its military and no revolution within a state can succeed without the support or at least the acquiescence of its armed forces. This is not to say that the army’s backing is sufficient to make a successful revolution; indeed, revolutions require so many political, social, and economic forces to line up just right, and at just the right moment, that revolutions rarely succeed. But support from a preponderance of the armed forces is surely a necessary condition for revolutionary success. How a military responds to a revolution is the most reliable predictor of that revolution’s outcome. When the army decides not to back the regime (Tunisia, Egypt), the regime is most likely doomed. Where the soldiers opt to stick with the status quo (Bahrain, Syria), the regime survives. Where the armed forces are divided (Libya, Yemen), the result is determined by other factors such as foreign intervention, the strength of the opposition forces, and the old regime’s resolve to persevere.

Thus, for all the very real dramas going on in the street and liberally captured by the media for global consumption, some of the real drama is not captured by the television cameras. Nonviolent, civilian overthrows of governments are rarer than is typically thought to be the case. What are more common are the interactions between civilian protests and the loss of military support.11 It follows that what happens after the regime falls is not solely a function of the demands of the civilian protestors. What the military wants is also likely to matter.12 We can state this a bit more strongly. The more the military is involved in government overthrows, the more likely they will become critical veto actors in determining the shape and direction that new regimes will take (Tusalem, 2014). Nonetheless, strong military involvement does not guarantee some form of continued autocracy even though military institutions value order and stability. Governmental reforms will depend on a variety of factors including negotiations with civilian politicians, the nature of state-military-civic society interactions, and the degree to which military commanders can control their own troops. The military can choose to ally with civilian politicians and parties that support the existing state or it may choose to respond to civilian demands for military intervention.13 In the event of a regime downfall, a provisional, transitional junta may 11

We choose to highlight military support and defection but it is true that other sources of regime support can be important as well. The more general process, sometimes called the “authoritarian bargain” (Haggard & Kaufman, 1995; but see also O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986; Schock, 2005), is summarized by Teorell (2010: 153) as: “ authoritarian regimes..[,] forged on the basis of certain support groups, … are mostly hurt either when those groups defect from the regime or when dissension spreads among them.”. 12 For this reason, military intervention at the end of a revolutionary situation is sometimes referred to as an “endgame coup” (Koehler & Albrecht, 2021). Albrecht and Koehler (2020) caution that modelers should be careful to differentiate the revolutionary situation from the final endgame coup. The problem with this advice is that the two processes are inter-related and interact with one another. 13 Militaries will be motivated to defect in the context of mass protests for a variety of interests associated with corporate, institutional and economic interests or international pressures or perceptions

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represent a coalition of civilian and military actors which determines if and how much political reforms take place. Alternatively, the military may take on the transitional responsibilities exclusively, either for a brief period or for an extended one. And, in some cases, military transitional regimes can transition further to civilian regimes led by a former high-ranking military figure who has been elected to office. In addition, how militaries interact with civilians depends in part on what type of political role the military has played in the immediate past. For instance, after a prolonged period of military rule, the military may choose to surrender its political power voluntarily because its leaders have not ruled more successfully than their civilian predecessors. This sentiment is especially likely if there has been politicaleconomic deterioration in the country during military rule. Lastly, the military may step down if staying in power threatens to irreparably damage the military as an institution, should internal disputes about how best to proceed threaten to fragment its command and control. Transition outcomes are also dependent on the type of civilian-military relations that prevailed prior to the overthrow (Brownlee et al., 2015). Militaries can be highly professional, politically neutral organizations with little or no involvement in politics. The other extreme is that the armed forces—usually in the aftermath of a radical regime change effected by the military—are highly politicized and become one of the main pillars supporting the new regime. In between these two ends of the continuum are situations in which the military has a privileged position in society, acts as a major player in the economy and/or regime, but where rulers may have created various types of coup-proofing arrangements. The latter include situations where the regular military is supervised by ideological commissars or controlled by an ethnic minority that also controls the state. Or, the military may be out-gunned by national guards, party militias, or units controlled by members of the ruler’s family. In some cases, the regular military is simply not allowed to possess live ammunition. Thus, when one invokes the “military,” we must recognize that military institutions and civil-military arrangements do not come in one convenient category. As noted by Barany (2011), strong and relatively autonomous military institutions are most likely to act as a unified organization, as seen in Egypt, where the militaries decided not to defend the incumbent ruler. Weak and penetrated (e.g. ethnically dominated) military institutions are less likely to act or, if they do, they tend to support the incumbent regime, as in Syria. And, when these militaries act against the regime, it is more likely to be in a fragmented or non-hierarchical way—along the lines witnessed in Libya and Yemen. Despite these variations and whether the military acts as a unified or fragmented actor, we are interested more broadly in the extent of the military’s involvement in situations where civil resistance campaigns threaten the survival of national rulers. We argue that the more heavily involved the military is during the campaign, the

of state strength. See Brooks (2013), Nepstad (2013), Pion-Berlin et al. (2014), Lee (2015), Barany and Albrecht and Oh (2016) for most recent works. In addition, see Brooks (forthcoming) for an extensive review of the literature on why militaries defected in the context of the Arab Spring.

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more likely it is that its involvement will work against future democratization.14 Our reasoning is based on the logic that democratization proceeds most readily in environments that facilitate its emergence and maintenance. Income inequalities, low economic development, social cleavages and illiteracy fail to facilitate democratization.15 Likewise, political systems in which the military are salient political actors also fail to support democratization (Tusalem, 2014). Military politicians and military organizations in general have interests that are unlikely to prioritize democratization largely because it is not as salient as external defense, institutional welfare, domestic order and stability and personal ambitions. One last consideration is that military actors that are highly salient are also likely to reside in settings which hinder democratization processes. These settings are usually less developed and devoid of strong civic associations which can support oppositional mobilization. As societies become more economically developed and complex, the political salience of the military tends to recede.16 Nor do we wish to underestimate the role of civilian protesters in bringing down national rulers. Without broad-based protest campaigns involving dissidents demanding political change, we find it unlikely that incumbent regimes will step down. Protest campaigns create political opportunities that increase the probabilities that regimes are likely to fall. However, we argue that protest campaigns do not deserve all of the credit for regime changes. In fact, we believe that protest campaigns fail more often than they succeed. Other factors play important roles as well. For instance, protesters may not have the stamina or the willingness to sustain a large protest campaign beyond a few days. Regime rulers that are targeted may not be vulnerable due to strong alliances within and outside their ruling cliques. So long as they have access to adequate coercive forces to repress civilian protesters, rulers can survive and outlast protest campaigns. Although scholars of nonviolent protest are well aware of the significance of the military’s role, our impression is that they are inclined to acknowledge it but 14

On the phenomenon of democratizing coups, see Varol (2012), Powell (2014), Marinov and Goemans (2014), Tansey (2016), Thyne and Powell (2016), and Holmes and Koehler (2020). 15 See, for instance, Lipset, Ruschemeyer et al. (1992), or Londegran and Poole (1996) for different interpretations of this relationship. Another school of thought argues that democracies can emerge but are unlikely to be sustained in political systems characterized by low levels of gross product per capita (Przeworski et al., 2000). But economic development, of course, is not the only factor in the set of variables considered to be impediments to democratization in more recent years. Teorell (2010: 145) lists Muslim population, country size, oil, trade volume, economic fluctuations, socioeconomic modernization, and economic freedom as the most robust determinants for third wave democracies. He also lists another ten variables that were less than robust. 16 The partial exception to this generalization is a period of extreme emergency in which the military are critical defenders of societies at war. Military preferences can become integral to the national political economy and these types of settings can help retired military elites be elected to public office after the emergency conditions fade from view. Alternatively, military officers may be motivated to change the civilian leadership to avert defeat as in Germany just prior to and during World War II or as in Japan in the 1930s. But none of these situations resemble the settings in which military organizations come to govern political systems.

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are unwilling to grant it any autonomous status.17 To do so would detract from the efficacy of nonviolent protest and its implications for civilian/civil society and political power. Instead, they tend to treat the military’s actions as a response to the tactics of protestors (nonviolent protests are less likely to provoke a military response, while violent protests invite it). We argue that the military’s choices are instead an important independent factor in the outcomes of successful, as well as unsuccessful, protests. At the same time, we do not want to exaggerate the relative role of the military. We acknowledge that during the course of a protest campaign the military is part of a complex set of interactions between domestic and in some cases international actors. Hence, the military is not necessarily the only factor that determines the events during and after protest campaigns. Accordingly, we propose to compare the relative strength of civilian protest with the role of the military in the outcomes of successful, nonviolent, regime transitions. We are not examining the factors that led to successful overthrows. Rather, we are interested in post-success outcomes. More specifically, whether or to what extent these transitions lead to more or less democratic political systems is the main question. Our argument is simple. The most salient political actors that bring about government transition will have a strong influence on the subsequent changes in that regime. We expect that democratic political changes are more likely to occur in the aftermath of protest campaigns that are broad in both their scale and scope of participation. We also expect that this outcome is less likely to happen in the event that the military plays a significant role during the course of the protest campaign. Although we are agnostic about whether broad based protest campaigns or military involvement has a greater theoretical impact than the other, we do suspect that the extent of military involvement will have a stronger influence. Some 70 years ago, Chorley (1943/73: 20) wrote that The rule then emerges clearly that governments…. which are in full control of their armed forces and are in a position to use them to full effect have a decisive superiority which no rebel force can hope to overcome.

On civilian uprisings, she (Chorley, 1943/73: 40) also wrote that The spontaneous mass uprising.. goes forward by the sheer impetus of its own tremendous weight. …. It has the qualities of the rising flood-tide or the mountain avalanche. At the same time it has the defects of these qualities. The tide turns from flood to ebb and the avalanche expends itself perhaps before any objective of real importance has been swept out of its track. Unless the spontaneous mass uprising can be captured and directed by competent leadership, it will end in failure. It may topple over a weak …[regime] but it will be unable to hold its gains.

Chorley may have been overly pessimistic about mass uprisings but her point is that deploying armed forces against rebels is more likely to be successful than 17

For instance, both Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) and Nepstad (2011) have binary variables for military participation (yes/no) in their nonviolent protest cases. Despite the fact that Chenoweth and Stephan call regime loyalty shifts to be the most significant factor in predicting successful outcomes in protest campaigns, they still emphasize the role of the civilian protestors. We prefer to move beyond a dummy variable approach and to give the military role more prominence. Basically, we are arguing that one of their central variables deserves even more centrality.

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are the chances of mass uprisings to prevail, all other things being equal. We use a similar logic for expecting military involvement in nonviolent transitions to be at least as significant as the breadth of the popular revolt. There is no reason, of course, why both of them cannot be significant or why they cannot generate contradictory influences on what happens after governments fall. One problem with examining successful, nonviolent, protest movements is a small sample size which restricts the degrees of freedom necessary for multiple variables to be examined simultaneously. Nonetheless, we believe that there are several rival hypotheses that need to be considered as well. One is the nature of the regime. Regime overthrows tend to involve autocracies that become less autocratic subsequently. We maintain that different types of autocracies will have different proclivities toward greater democratization. Geddes (1999a: 136), for instance, finds that military regimes have a 31% likelihood of becoming more stable and democratic while personalist regimes have only a 16% likelihood. The type of regime under attack, therefore, is a possible intervening variable.18 At the same time, the distribution of wealth in political systems can play a role in influencing greater democratization. Systems with higher average income levels are better able to sustain democratization, even if low average levels do not necessarily deter attempts to democratize (Przeworski et al., 2000). The Cold War is another possible intervening variable (Nepstad, 2011). Superpowers frequently supported military regimes (and their domestic intervention in mass uprisings) in order to uphold a global and local status quo. Therefore, the question is whether military involvement in nonviolent protest campaigns and more autocratic post-transition regimes were more likely to occur during the Cold War than afterwards (e.g., post-1988). Finally, different regions will also have variable tendencies toward supporting democratization efforts. Europe, for instance, possesses a number of states that are already highly democratic and has relatively strong international organizations (the European Union, NATO) that can be used to encourage democratization. Moreover, valued NATO membership can be withheld if a new regime fails to meet certain regional expectations of democratization. Beyond Europe, other regions are more autocratic than democratic and hence, they lack the organizational vehicles that can promote favored outcomes. We believe that a state in the Middle East is more likely to remain autocratic after a protest campaign than one that is located in Europe. In short, regional influences may be an important factor on regime changes.

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On this possibility, see also Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003).

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5 Research Design and Methodology 5.1 Sample Our cross-national sample for nonviolent protest campaigns that had successful outcomes is derived from Nepstad’s list (2011: xv) which yielded 20 cases between 1978 and 2005.19 We then supplemented this list with an additional 16 successful cases that are found in Chenoweth and Stephan’s (2011: 233–236) list of nonviolent campaigns. Despite the reliance on two data lists, there is a great deal of agreement between Nepstad and Chenoweth and Stephan on what nonviolent protest campaigns represent. Nepstad defines her cases as citizen uprisings or civilian resistance against local regimes and rulers. These revolts involve mostly nonviolent tactics, such as demonstrations, protests, boycotts and strikes. Because these cases yielded successful overthrows of sitting governments, Nepstad refers to them as “nonviolent revolutions”. However, we prefer Chenoweth and Stephan’s concept of “nonviolent civil resistance campaigns,” because it avoids the question of just what a “revolutionary outcome” actually means and it avoids entangling the causes of outcomes from those that bring about civil resistance campaigns in the first place.20 For Chenoweth and Stephan (2011:14), a nonviolent civil resistance campaign is “a series of observable, continual, purposive mass tactics in pursuit of a political objective.” These campaigns can last days or years; they are likely to have leadership; they have relatively clear beginnings and endings; and they involve political actions that involve non-institutional (and frequently illegal) anti-regime tactics (e.g., boycotts, sit-ins, protests, strikes, and demonstrations).21 Fortunately, Nepstad’s 20 cases that formed the original core of our sample are also found in Chenoweth and Stephan’s list of nonviolent civil resistance campaigns. Since we are only interested in nonviolent civil resistance campaigns that lead to changes in governments, we found an additional 16 post-1945 cases in the Chenoweth-Stephan list that are compatible with our original 20 cases. Despite their agreement about the criteria for nonviolent civil resistance campaigns, Nepstad and Chenoweth and Stephan diverge a little on how they define whether these campaigns were successful. Nepstad (2011: xiii) employs a very simple 19

Bolivia was a Nepstad case, but was later dropped from the analysis due to an inability to find figures for the number of participants involved in the protest campaign. We are still pursuing this information in order to add Bolivia to the sample. Meanwhile, Nepstad also listed Burma (2007), Armenia (2008), Tunisia (2011) and Egypt (2011), but these cases were excluded due to the lack of Polity IV data on regime changes for five and ten years later. 20 Moreover, the traditional notion of revolution is that major social, political and economic upheavals occur in the aftermath of a regime overthrow (Goldstone, 1991; Skocpol, 1979; Tilly, 1978). We prefer to avoid this confusion. 21 Chenoweth’s notion of a civil resistance campaign is very similar to Tarrow (1998) and Almeida’s (2008) “protest wave” concept in which a broad based coalition of non-governmental actors participate in largely nonviolent demonstrations, strikes, protests and boycotts in a heightened and sustained period of political activity. It is also reminiscent of Beissinger’s concept of “mobilizational cycle” (Beissinger, 2002).

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criterion: success is the removal of an existing regime or ruler. Chenoweth and Stephan (2011: 14) maintain that a campaign is successful if it meets two criteria: (a) the campaign achieves its stated goals within a year of its peak activities, and (b) the campaign has a discernible effect on an outcome and the outcome is a direct result of the campaign (e.g. regime change). Despite these differences, Nepstad’s cases of success are identical to Chenoweth and Stephan’s coding for success in these 20 overlapping cases. Therefore, our sample is composed of 36 cases of nonviolent civil resistance campaigns that had successful outcomes, all of which were associated with regime change. In this situation, we adhere to Nepstad’s definition of success.22 We list these 36 cases in Table 1.23 Our sample includes cases as early as 1958 and as late as 2005. Ten of the 36 cases began in 1989 and ended by 1992, and six of these cases are associated with popular revolts against Soviet-supported non-democratic governments in Eastern Europe. The bar chart in Fig. 1 shows that almost half of the 36 cases occurred in Europe with South America providing the next highest number of cases with 7 campaigns. Africa, Asia and the Middle East provide the remaining 13 cases.24

5.2 Five and Ten Year Post-campaign Democratization Levels We are interested in whether regimes become more democratic after governments are brought down by civilian protests. A straightforward approach is to ask how democratic a post-regime transition is shortly after an overthrow (five years) and then a little longer down the road (ten years). The two dependent variables in this analysis are derived from Polity II scores denoting the level of democratization in each location where a protest campaign occurred. The Polity II scores are obtained from Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) which were derived from the Polity IV dataset at http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm. We identify the democratization level in each location for a protest campaign five years after the campaign has ended for a short term observation on the democratization score. The ten year postcampaign Polity II score for each case reflects a potentially longer term effect on 22

Some of Chenoweth and Stephan’s successful cases were ignored because to bring them into our study would create incompatibilities with the type of events Nepstad selected. 23 Sources utilized are identified in the appendix table. 24 We do not claim that our cases capture every case of possible interest. We know of at least one case (Sudan, 1964; ironically, the first Middle Eastern nonviolent civilian revolution) that is overlooked by Chenoweth and Shepherd and that is too early for Nepstad. However, we thought it best to proceed with the two data bases already created to encompass nonviolent, civilian overthrows. We also wanted to make use of the Chenoweth and Shepherd “peak membership” indicator. Our approach leaves somewhat open the question of whether we are working with a sample or the universe of cases since 1945. We believe it approximates the universe of appropriate cases. For detail on many cases in Table 1 see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).

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Table 1 Nonviolent protest campaigns with successful outcomes, 1974–2005 Begin year

End year

1958

1958

Campaign name if available

Location

1960

1960

Student revolution

South Korea

1974

1974

Carnation revolution

Portugal

1974

1974

1977

1979

Iranian revolution

Iran

1977

1981

Pro-democracy movement

Argentina

1981

1989

Solidarity

Poland

1983

1989

1983

1986

1984

1994

Anti-Apartheid

South Africa

1984

1985

Diretas Ja

Brazil

1984

1985

Uruguay

1985

1985

Haiti

1985

1985

1989

1989

Singing revolution

Estonia

1989

1989

Pro-democracy movement

Latvia

1989

1991

Pro-democracy movement/Sajudis

Lithuania

1989

1992

1989

1989

Velvet revolution

Czechoslovakia

1989

1989

Pro-democracy movement

East Germany

1989

1989

Pro-democracy movement

Hungary

1989

1992

People against violence

Slovakia

1989

1990

1989

1989

1991

1993

1997

1998

Indonesia

1999

2000

Croatia

2000

2000

Serbia

2000

2000

2001

2004

Orange revolution

Ukraine

2001

2001

Second people power movement

Philippines

2001

2001

2003

2003

Rose revolution

Georgia

2005

2005

Cedar revolution

Lebanon

2005

2005

Tulip revolution

Kyrgyzstan

2005

2005

Venezuela

Greece

Chile Philippines

Sudan

Mali

Slovenia Bulgaria Active voices

Madagascar

Peru

Zambia

Source From Nepstad (2011) and Supplemented by Chenoweth

Thailand

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18

Fig. 1 Protest campaigns by region variable measures

16 14 Frequency

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 No. of Cases

Africa

Asia

Europe

Middle East

South America

5

6

16

2

7

Table 2 Variation of key variables in OLS regression models Extent of Peak Five year Ten year GDP military membership post-campaign post-campaign per defection democratization democratization capita

Democratic neighborhood

Mean

2.92

347,431

6.44

6.65

5131

402

Median

2.00

150,000

7.50

8.00

5158

333

Maximum

5.00

200,000

10.00

10.00

10,820 1

Minimum

0.00

2500

−5.20

−5.40

665

Std. dev

1.53

500,196

3.87

4.22

3028

299

(36)

(36)

(31)

(36)

(31)

Observations (36)

0

democratization. The variation of these two variables can be found in Table 2. We find that on a cross-national basis these two post-campaign democratization variables are correlated at 0.96 despite losing 5 cases in the ten year post-campaign sample (i.e., Ukraine 2001; Georgia 2003; Lebanon 2005; Kyrgyzstan 2005; Thailand 2005). Ideally, we would have preferred to calculate a change in the democratization level for each location, comparing the pre-campaign level with the post-campaign democratization levels five and ten years later. Unfortunately, changes in these cross-national democratization variables show little variation because the within-country differences are quite small. Hence, the restricted variance for the overall democratization change variables undermines our regression models. Nonetheless, we did correlate, on a cross-national basis, a democratization variable that is based on the democratization scores for each location one year prior to a protest campaign with our two indicators for five and ten year post-campaign democratization levels. We found that the correlations between these variables are quite low. For instance, the correlation between the democratization variable one year prior to the protest campaign with the democratization variable five years after the campaign is 0.17, while the correlation between the pre and ten year post-campaign democratization variables is 0.18. These

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757

low correlations indicate that on an absolute level, there are significant differences in the democratization scores prior to and after the successful protest campaigns cross-nationally. In short, there is movement in the democratization levels five and ten years later across the sample.

5.3 Extent of Military Defection This independent variable is an ordinal measure of the degree of disloyalty among the armed forces and varies between 0 and 5, with 5 representing the highest level of military defection. Each of the 36 protest campaigns were studied to determine which value was most appropriate for each case. The variable itself reflects the following scale25 : Degree of military disloyalty 0

Willing, enthusiastic regime supporters or not apparently involved in any discernible way

1

Unwilling regime supporters

2

Neutral (e.g. stood by without resisting or running away)

3

Actively helped dissidents (e.g. giving arms, informing them of troop plans)

4

Actively sided with the dissidents against the regime (using military force) or refused to defend the regime when ordered to do so

5

Take over the government and arrange the removal of the incumbent

25

Russell (1974: 74) presents a three part disloyalty scale. There is a 0–4 degree of disloyalty scale, a 0–4 time at which disloyal scale, and a 0–4 proportion of armed forces disloyal at a particular time scale. Russell advocates multiplying each separate scale score to obtain a composite score. We experimented with this three-scale approach but ultimately decided that only the first scale was useful for our problem. In our sample, there was little variation on the disloyal timing scale (usually toward the end of the protest period) and not too much more variation on the proportion disloyal scale. Multiplying the three scales created a range of scores that did not really provide us with the kind of information we needed. Relying exclusively on the first disloyalty scale, however, did give us information on the military role. We did elongate the scale slightly from 0–4 to 0–5 and adjusted some of the categorical description at each level to better suit our sample.

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K. Rasler et al.

5.4 Peak Membership Peak membership is an important variable, because Chenoweth and Stephan (2011: 39–45) maintain that in the context of nonviolent protest campaigns large participation levels are highly correlated with successful outcomes for several reasons. First, excessively large mass mobilizations indicate that a broad segment of society is engaged and this diversity makes it harder for governments to repress the public without generating a backlash effect that escalates the scale and scope of future protests. Hence, governments are careful about adopting indiscriminate repressive violence to demobilize protesters. The unintended consequence is that bystanders join the protesters as the perceived costs of protesting declines. Another reason that peak membership is likely to be highly correlated with success is the presence of dense and overlapping social networks that sustain participation, encourage innovative tactical diversity, and insure a unified opposition around shared goals and strategies. Consequently, mass participation and nonviolent disruptive action enhance the leverage that the public has vis-à-vis governmental adversaries by directly pressuring institutional allies and third parties to withdraw their support and bring about governmental reforms. We obtain a peak membership count variable from Chenoweth and Stephan’s (2011) dataset. Peak membership is determined by the highest number of participants reported to have been engaged in protest activity at any single time during the course of the campaign.26 Chenoweth and Stephan rely on estimated counts provided by numerous encyclopedic and open sources to generate these participation figures.27 Table 2 shows that the variation from the low to high levels of peak membership is skewed to the larger sizes. Hence, logged peak membership will be used for the subsequent regression models.

5.5 Economic Development, Authoritarian Regime Types, the Cold War and Regional Effects Previous research also shows that transitions to democracy are likely to be influenced by several other variables. For instance, higher income countries are likely to be positively associated with greater changes in democratization than poorer ones; certain types of authoritarian regimes (e.g., military governments) are more likely to transition to democracies while other types (e.g., single party and personalist governments) are less likely (Geddes, 1999a); and finally, governments could have been less likely to shift toward greater democratization during the Cold War. We also need to consider regional influences since 44% of our sample is derived from European cases. 26

For several cases that had missing values or were underestimated in the Chenoweth dataset, we looked at additional historical sources to find estimated counts of peak membership for Slovenia, Sudan, East Germany (underestimated), and Venezuela. 27 For more detailed information, please refer to Chenoweth’s online appendix at: https://wesfiles. wesleyan.edu/home/echenoweth/.../WCRWAppendix.

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Economic development will be measured as the real GDP per capita in the year prior to each case of a protest campaign.28 Type of authoritarian government is operationalized as a single party, military or personalist government based on Geddes’ definition. Each type is represented in the regression models below as dummy variables.29 The government designations were applied to those locations in the year prior to each protest campaign case. The Cold War is represented as a dummy variable which is coded 1 for those protest campaigns that began before 1989 and 0 for the remaining cases. Finally, the European cases in the sample were represented as 1, while the others are designated as 0’s. We also include a measure for the neighborhood effects of democracy. When states reside in highly democratic regions, we expect that governments will transition to democracy successfully. We rely on a measure used by Celestino and Gleditsch (2013) that calculates the proportion of neighboring states that are democracies within 500 km of a state’s borders.

6 Bivariate Correlations Among Independent and Dependent Variables Unfortunately, the limited sample size makes it impossible to estimate our key variables of interest while controlling for income, regime type, the Cold War and region in a single regression model. One possible solution would be to expand the sample to include other types of internal revolts or include cases that had both successful and unsuccessful outcomes. For instance, we could expand the sample to include violent as well as nonviolent episodes of internal revolt that were associated with successful outcomes. However, most of the violent cases that we observe in the Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) data involve low intensity asymmetrical or guerrilla warfare which we believe are not equivalent to protest campaigns. Participants in protest campaigns are usually demonstrating peacefully and if violence occurs, it is the outcome of clashes between local security forces and the participants, as the government tries to demobilize the protesters. In cases of asymmetrical warfare, rebels are recruited and 28

Gross domestic product per capita data are taken mainly from Angus Maddison’s dataset (Statistics on World Population, GDP, and Per Capita GDP, 1–2008 AD. Maddison’s data are found at http://www.ggdcnet/maddison/Maddison.htm. Maddison does not make data available for Haiti and East Germany. For Haiti, we substituted a value expressed in 2005 US dollars found at www. ers.usda.gov/data.../HistoricalRealPerCapitaIIncomeValues.xls. Sleifer (2006: 52) reports that East Germany’s GDP per capita in 1990 was about half of West Germany’s GDP per capita. Thus, we used the Maddison value for West Germany divided by 2. 29 We rely on Geddes’ (1999a, 1999b) autocracy type codings found in the International Studies Compendium Project data collection. For a listing of the data, see http://www.isadiseussn.com/ view/0/datasets.html. We realize that there are shortcomings associated with the Geddes codings, mainly dealing with missing information on certain types of regimes (see Hadenius & Teorell, 2007) but we did not encounter many problems with our small sample (for instance, we have only one monarchy) and supplemented the Geddes information when necessary.

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organized along military lines with the intention of waging war against the government, colonial or foreign occupation forces. Although both situations are instances of internal revolts, we do not think that the presence or absence of violence is enough to make them comparable. Another possible way to extend the sample would be to include protest campaigns that ended in failure. If our research question centered on why some campaigns were more successful than others, this would be a viable strategy. However, we are interested in comparing the impact of success on future levels of governmental change, e.g., greater democratization. Since we assume that failed protest campaigns are less likely to produce governmental changes, we prefer to focus on the successful campaigns. The downside to maintaining cross-national equivalence is dealing with a small sample size, especially when the key variables under investigation—peak membership and extent of military defection—are likely to be correlated with other variables that we would like to control for. Hence, our ability to estimate a single regression model is severely hampered. Therefore, we will opt for a simple strategy that involves estimating several regression models for both the short and long term democratization level. This means that in some of our models, one of our independent variables of interest is not likely to be estimated in the presence of another highly collinear control variable. Table 3 provides the bivariate correlations among the post-five year democratization dependent variable, and the independent variables of extent of military defection, peak membership and the remaining control variables.

7 OLS Regression Models We estimate two ordinary least square regression models for the five and ten year postcampaign democratization dependent variables and our key variables of interest— extent of military defection and logged peak membership. We will also estimate similar regression models that exclude one of these key variables in the event that one of them is highly collinear with the control variables of income, regime type, region, proportion of democracies in the neighborhood and Cold War. In addition to our key independent variables of extent of military defection and logged peak membership, we introduce dummy variables to control for three outliers (Iran, Haiti and South Korea).30 (a) Y1 (Five Year Post-Campaign Democratization Level) = β0 + β1 (Extent of Military Defection)t + β2 (Logged Peak Membership)t + β3 (Iran)t 30

We estimate control variables such as GDP per capita, Democratic Neighbors, European region, Single Party and Personalist Regimes and Cold War in separate models due to their collinearity with key independent variables. The variables in Equations (a) and (b) appear in every model.

0.02 −0.05

−0.38

−0.20

0.13

0.27

0.35

−0.28

Single party

Europe

Cold war

−0.03

−0.12

0.68

−0.15

0.14

Personalist

−0.28

−0.16

0.17

−0.15

0.16

Dem neighbors

0.07

Military regime

1.00

0.49

GDP/pc

−0.21

1.00

−0.15

Logged membership

0.07

−0.23

1.00

Military defection

L. membership

Defection

Five year dem

Five year democracy

0.19

0.41

0.30

−0.32

0.25

0.30

1.00

GDP per cap

0.45

−0.08

−0.19

−0.23

−0.17

1.00

Military regime

Table 3 Bivariate correlations between five year democracy and independent variables (N = 31)

−0.13

0.33

0.21

−0.20

1.00

Prop. dem neighbors

0.09

−0.28

−0.10

1.00

Personalist

−0.25

0.49

1.00

Single party

−0.38

1.00

Europe

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K. Rasler et al.

+ β4 (Haiti)t + β5 (South Korea)t + ε0 (b) Y1 (Ten Year Post-Campaign Democratization Level) = β0 + β1 (Extent of Military Defection)t + β2 (Logged Peak Membership)t + β3 (Iran)t + β4 (Haiti)t + β5 (South Korea)t + ε0

.

Figure 2 demonstrates the outlier problems in the bivariate scatterplots between the independent variables and the five year post-campaign democratization variable. While the bivariate correlation between logged peak membership and the five year post-campaign democratization variable is −0.07 in the presence of these three outliers, this correlation becomes 0.23 when we exclude the outliers.31 We are reluctant to drop at least two of these outliers (Haiti and South Korea), because these cases behave according to our hypothesized relationships. In both cases, the extent of defection is high (5 in Haiti and 4 in South Korea), while the democratization levels for both the five and ten year post-campaign periods are among the lowest in the sample. Nonetheless, their extreme scores may bias the regression outcomes in favor of the defection variable. The Iranian case, however, is distinctly different. While defection level has a middling value (3), peak membership participation is the highest in the sample. Meanwhile, the Iranian democratization levels for both five and ten year post-campaign periods are among the lowest scores in the sample. Hence, the Iranian case does not behave according to our theoretical expectations. Since we have a small sample, deleting cases may undermine the validity of our findings. Therefore, we have opted to fit these cases with a dummy variable as a conservative strategy.

8 Results The OLS regression estimates are provided in Table 5. In the short term (the 5 year post-campaign democratization outcome), logged peak membership is statistically significant and in the correct positive direction in five of the six models with the exception of Model I where the proportion of democratic neighbors is present. Meanwhile, the extent of military defection is not statistically related to democratization level in the four models in which it appears but in all cases it is negatively signed as expected. As for the remaining variables, Table 5 shows that GDP per capita has a strong positive relationship to the democratization outcome (see Model II); that single party 31

This outlier problem is also present when the dependent variable is the ten year post-campaign democratization level. In this situation, the correlation between logged peak membership and the Y variable is −0.01 while the correlation is 0.14 in the absence of the three outliers.

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10 5 0 -5

Post-Campaign Democratization Level

Five Year Post-Campaign Democratization by Military Defection

0

1

2

Iran

South Korea

3

4

Haiti 5

Extent of Military Defection

10 5 0

Haiti

-5

Post-Campaign Democratization Level

Five Year Post-Campaign Democratization by Logged Peak Membership

8

10

Iran

South Korea 12

14

16

Logged Peak Membership

Fig. 2 Scatterplots of five year post-campaign democratization level by military defection and peak membership (N = 36)

regimes and Europe are also positive and significantly related to democratization level (see Models III and IV); that personalist authoritarian regimes have a weak but negative effect on democratization (Model V); and finally, that the Cold War is unexpectedly positively but weakly related to democratization (Model III). The Cold War estimate is problematic because the bivariate correlations show that Cold War cases are negatively related to the two dependent variables. The bivariate scatter plots also indicate that the mean level of democratization is lower for the Cold War cases, and a bivariate regression model also shows that the Cold War is negatively related to both democratization variables. Yet, in a multivariate regression model, the estimates are positive. We believe that the small samples, the outliers, and the

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degree of correlation between Cold War and the defection variables have combined to produce a biased estimate with the wrong sign. Table 6 presents the results for a ten year look at democratization levels. In this case, extent of military defection is strongly and negatively related to democratization in two of the regression models (Models I and VI). Meanwhile, peak membership is positive but weakly related in all of the six models. These results reverse the pattern that we observe in the five year post-campaign democratization level. Meanwhile, GDP per capita continues to have a strong positive relationship to democratization. Unlike the five year democratization outcome results, personalist regime has a strong negative influence on democratization (Model V). The Cold War coefficient is estimated in the wrong direction and depicts the same problem for the earlier regression model in Table 4. Considering the small sample sizes in both Tables 5 and 6, we are less interested in the level of statistical significance than we are about understanding the nature of the impact of the independent variables on post-campaign democratization variables. Hence, we derive the predictive probability estimates based on our earlier models and we include the results for the statistically significant coefficients in Table 7. We expect to observe that the shift from the baseline estimate of our two dependent variables will be negative for extent of military defection as hypothesized, while we expect that there will be a positive shift from the baseline estimate of the dependent variables in the presence of logged peak membership. Meanwhile, the remaining variables are also expected to have a positive increase in the dependent variables with the exception of personalist regime which is expected to be negatively related. These directional relationships are indeed reflected in the Clarify-derived results. In the short term, we observe that GDP per capita has the strongest impact on democratization five years after a protest campaign with a 26% increase, followed by peak membership with a 16% increase, single party regime with a 14% increase and finally, the Europe cases were associated with an 11% increase. As for the longer term influence of the independent variables on democratization level ten years after a protest campaign, Table 7 shows a very different pattern. In this situation, peak membership is not included since its regression coefficient across six models failed to be statistically significant. Meanwhile, extent of military defection leads to a strong 20% decline in democratization, which is a strong contrast to its lack of statistical significance for the five year democratization variable. GDP per capita continues to exert the same influence on democratization ten years after in comparison to its influence for the five-year democratization level. Lastly, personalist regimes are associated with a 26% decline in the long term level of democratization. Although the samples are small, which may decrease the reliability of the findings, we believe that in this cross-national study, the results have important implications. For instance, a large broad based coalition of protesters has an impact on increasing democratization levels within five years of a protest campaign. However, this outcome appears to be mitigated by the role that the military plays in the longer post-campaign period. The findings suggest that despite shifts in democratization levels in the short term, the role of the military is more important in the longer term. In other words, short term gains achieved by nonviolent civil resistance campaigns may be offset

−0.25

0.13

−0.20

Cold war

0.01

0.04 −0.11

−0.43

0.29

0.40

−0.11

0.74

−0.21

Personalist

Europe

0.09

−0.21

0.22

Single party

−0.29

−0.17

0.23

Dem neighbors

0.07

Military regime

1.00

−0.34

0.50

GDP/pc

1.00

−0.15

−0.38

−0.01

Logged membership

L. membership

1.00

Military defection

Defection

Ten year dem

Ten year democracy

0.22

0.50

0.34

−0.33

0.28

0.33

1.00

GDP per cap

0.43

−0.09

−0.23

−0.28

−0.21

1.00

Military regime

Table 4 Bivariate correlations between ten year democracy and independent variables (N = 26)

−0.21

0.28

0.21

−0.25

1.00

Prop. dem neighbors

0.00

−0.31

−0.17

1.00

Personalist

−0.37

0.56

1.00

Single party

−0.24

1.00

Europe

The Extent of Military Involvement in Nonviolent … 765

0.296

0.212

–

1.434

Defection level

Logged peak

Membership

GDP per capita

Dem neighbors

−0.111

1.795

−12.892**

–

−12.554**

Cold war

Iran outlier

Haiti outlier

−12.789**

–

–

Personalist

1.676 −9.944** 1.687

2.075

−11.639**

2.081

–

–

–

1.773

−10.530**

–

–

–

0.632

Single party

1.219*

–

–

0.174

0.390**

0.209

–

–

–

0.103-03

0.294-03**

0.162

0.363**

0.199

Model III Coefficient

European

1.272

−0.107

0.282

Military

−0.028

Model II Coefficient

Coefficient

Variable

Model I

Table 5 Estimates of OLS models for five year post-campaign democratization level Model IV

1.746

−11.013**

1.807

−12.934**

–

–

0.643

1.275**

–

–

–

0.173

0.362**

–

Coefficient

Model V

1.866

−10.482**

1.839

−13.584**

–

0.739

−1.154

–

–

–

–

0.177

0.369**

–

Coefficient

Model VI

1.887 (continued)

−11.190**

1.924

−13.669**

0.682

0.621

–

–

–

–

–

0.181

0.352**

0.207

−0.300

Coefficient

766 K. Rasler et al.

31

F-statistic

N

36

30.330**

1.578

0.834

Model III

36

26.160**

1.681

0.812

2.292

2.663

1.735

−11.911**

Coefficient

Note Standard errors are reported below coefficients. *p