What is the anatomy of a modern revolution?
Uploaded by sarahsarah on Jul 31, 2002
A revolution is a general and fundamental change in the political order when the mass of people rejects its government and the way things are run and is the result of failure to introduce gradual form. The people come together and there is a dramatic violent and forceful movement to change the way society is structured. A revolution itself is successful when one political, social and economic system has been replaced with an alternative that will bring about the necessary changes needed to remove the major sources of discontent and to improve life.
The first stage of a revolution is the development of a revolutionary situation. It is characterised by increasingly widespread opposition to the existing government, which has lost effective control of the nation. The people then try to attack their government; this attack sometimes involves strikes, assassinations, demonstrations and riots. The government usually responds to these acts with a refusal to grant reform.
From this, the accumulated anger inside the people explodes and the result is the overthrow of the old order. This always involves some form of military action in the capital, including taking over government buildings and occupying key transport and communication centres. There is not always only one group wanting to take power but a number of groups with quite different programs usually emerge.
When the new government has taken power, it usually introduces policies that are very different from those of the previous government. People are asked to make sacrifices in order to ensure the changes work out. The relationships between classes and groups in society are affected, and a new group seeking dominance for itself usually pushes down a previously dominant class. However, many problems inherited from the previous government limit the extent of its reform.
Next may be the most violent phase of the struggle - the consolidation of power. Loyalty to the new government is usually expected and demanded but allies of the old government may attempt to overthrow the new revolutionary government, to reinstate those who used to enjoy power and privilege and to restore the old order totally.
The new government and their new system is never a complete fulfilment of the new and better society it was intended to establish, because that one group gaining power means the defeat of all other possible alternatives. But the intolerable system and lifestyle of the past, instilled in the people’s minds the thought that any change...