Rethinking Revolutions: Integrating Origins, Processes, and Outcomes

Jack A. Goldstone

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he myth of revolutions treats them as sudden detonations of popular energy and social change. Dramatic acts on a particular day t he fall of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789 and the midnight storming of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd) on 24 October 1917 have come to symbolize the French and Russian revolutions. When most people think of revolutions, they think of a rapid series of events, taking a matter of weeks or months, during which old regimes fall, new regimes are constructed, and the population accepts (or is forced to accept) the new order. Studies of revolution have also tended to focus on the explosive moments of revolution and to dwell mainly on the conditions that led to such explosions.1 This emphasis has led to the state-centered theories of revolution, in which the onset of revolution is viewed mainly as a problem of state collapse, to be explained by structural vulnerabilities in certain kinds of states.2 To the extent that such works examined the processes and outcomes of revolutions, these were treated mainly as contests over state power, growing more extreme and resulting in stronger, more authoritarian rule by regimes that had to become tough to seize and hold state power in the face of numerous domestic and international opponents.3 These theories have been challenged by the unfolding of the color revolutions that began in the 1980s: the yellow revolution in the Philippines, the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia, the orange revolution in Ukraine, the rose revolution in Georgia, the cedar revolution in Lebanon, and the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Along with the anticommunist revolutions in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria, these events seemed to follow a novel path.4 They unfolded as a series of moderate confrontations between crowds engaged in peaceful demonstrations and powerful authoritarian states that lost the confidence to defend themselves. The latter conceded power to the opposition or negotiated a change of regime, leading to new governments that were in direct contradiction to the pattern most
1. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Jack A. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Goldstone, Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory, Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 13987; Misagh Parsa, States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 19451991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); John Foran, Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 2. Goodwin, No Other Way Out, chap. 2. 3. See especially Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions ; Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion. 4. Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchick, International Diffusion and Postcommunist Electoral Revolutions, Communist and Postcommunist Studies 39 (2006): 283304; Michael McFaul, Transitions from Postcommunism, Journal of Democracy 16, no. 3 (2005): 519.

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often noted by state-centered theories weaker and more democratic than the party-based authoritarian systems they replaced. 5 These differences have led some scholars to question whether these events were in fact revolutions at all, or perhaps some new species of event 6 refolutions or electoral revolutions. In fact, the causes of these color revolutions were much the same as noted in the statecentered theory for prior revolutions: (1) a fiscal or economic deterioration that undermines state authority; (2) divided elites that split over how, and whether, the current regime can resolve the crisis; (3) sufficient popular grievances directed against the state to enable significant mass mobilization of either urban or rural populations to oppose the government; and (4) the coalescence of diverse opposition groups around an ideology of opposition that justifies and encourages rejection of state authority.7 What differentiates these color revolutions from the more explosively violent and autocracy-producing revolutions must therefore not be a fundamental difference in causes but something crucial in the processes through which they unfolded and the conditions and actions that produced their distinctive weak/liberal state outcomes. Yet we lack a theory of revolutionary processes and outcomes of sufficient depth and variety to identify crucial elements or turning points in the process of revolutions that would explain these divergent outcomes. The best-developed theory of revolutionary processes remains the classic natural history approach.8 Yet these scholars looked at only a few cases and sought to identify a uniform course of events leading to a similar outcome, rather than to develop a typology of trajectories or account for key differences in outcomes. Interestingly, the color revolutions were not the first revolutions to exhibit this behavior. The Netherlands revolution against Spain
5. One could add to this list the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1905, the electoral rejection of the Pinochet regime in Chile in 1988, the protests that brought down the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia in 1998, and the negotiated ending of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994. The Mosaddeq revolution in Iran in 1953 and the Allende victory in Chile in 1973 could also have become early color revolutions, but they were rapidly overturned by U.S.-supported military coups.

(1566), the British Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution (1776), the Japanese Meiji Restoration of 1868, and the Chinese Republican Revolution of 1911 are usually seen as anomalous events by scholars of revolution, often treated as not truly revolutions at all because they lacked the terrorizing violence and authoritarian outcomes of more typical major revolutions. Though the Netherland and American revolutions involved lengthy wars against their colonial masters, and the Meiji Restoration involved a substantial civil war between regional armies and the military forces of the central government, none of these events involved serious or systematic violence by revolutionaries against the elites of the old regime. Moreover, all of these events resulted in regime changes from authoritarian monarchies to less authoritarian and often weaker regimes: a republic in the Netherlands that was more as the title proclaimed a Union of Provinces than a centralized state; a constitutional monarchy in Britain with a strong but often divided Parliament dependent on local interests; a weak confederation of states as the United States; an oligarchic parliamentary regime in Japan; and a weak republican government in China that was soon dominated by warlords. In several respects, these events were thus similar to the color revolutions of recent years, suggesting not so much an entirely new phenomenon in the past two decades as the reemergence of a formerly rare but not unknown pattern of revolution. In this essay, I offer a more complex description of revolutionary processes, with twelve possible stages. These twelve stages are not intended to demarcate a universal or inevitable sequence. Rather, they are components of the revolutionary processes that usually occur in various revolutions. But some stages may be missing in certain cases, and these components may occur in varied combinations and sequences

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6. Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152. On refolutions, see Timothy Garton Ash, The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (Cambridge, UK: Granta, 1989). On electoral revolutions, see Bunce and Wolchick, International Diffusion.

7. Parsa, States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions ; Goldstone, Toward a Fourth Generation; Foran, Taking Power. 8. Lyford Edwards, The Natural History of Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Crane Brinton, Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1965).

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and to different degrees and with different content. I contend that what differentiates the color-type or democratic revolutions old and new f rom the more typical major revolution is precisely their characteristic combinations of these components.
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Twelve Components That Constitute Revolutionary Processes

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The following components may be seen as elements that constitute the revolutionary process. Differences in their combination and character either absent or present and with varying degrees of severity or intensity distinguish various revolutionary trajectories. They are analytically separated, although in actual revolutions they often overlap. Sometimes events seem to move backward and then forward, as revolutions move from one component to the next, then return and repeat earlier components before moving forward. Often these components or their intensity can be discerned only after the process is well along or complete. The list of components is as follows:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Elite defection and the formation of opposition Polarization and coalition building Mass mobilization Initial regime change Further polarization Counterrevolution Civil war International war Radical regime change and terror Revolutionary moderation Renewed radicalism and terror Regime consolidation

matter greatly for developments after the old regime falls. These lead up to stage 4, the initial regime change. Usually, the initial regime change occurs before all the tensions and contradictions in the opposition coalition have been resolved. Then stages 5 9 form another suite of connected events, as these stages often occur together or in tight sequence as a cluster of events, again mutually reinforcing one another. Only when radicalism, counterrevolution, and civil and international wars have ended has the revolution reached a stage of moderation and stability. Even that stage is not the end, however, as many revolutions experience a further stage of renewed radicalism; only when that fire burns out does the revolution settle down into a conservative or stable consolidation, in which the main goals of the regime are simply to prosper and remain in power. The following sections discuss each of these stages in more detail, with examples from the history of revolutions to show how variation in these components can shape the process and outcomes of revolutions.
The Character of the Revolutionary Suite: Elite Defection, Polarization, and Mass Mobilization

In most historical cases of revolution, stages 1, 2, and 3 form a suite of changes that develop before the overthrow of the old regime, with all three going on at the same time and reinforcing one another. However, the intensity and character of these conditions can vary considerably. For example, polarization and coalition building may lead to considerable domestic unity if the polarization is mainly against a foreign colonial power, rather than against a domestic class or elite. The mass mobilization may involve mainly the middle class or have a dominant lower-class base (peasants or urban workers). The character and intensity of these three components will

Rulers depend on the support of elites military officers, state bureaucrats, nobles, religious leaders, politicians, intellectuals, and professionals (i.e., lawyers, doctors, engineers, professors, and managers). When people are distressed by government actions (or inaction in the face of hardships), and express their anger through riots, peasant revolts, workers strikes, demonstrations, and other acts of disorder, it is elite responses that determine whether such actions will spread and grow into revolution. Riots, peasant revolts, and strikes have occurred often throughout history, but they only rarely give rise to revolutions. Such actions are usually put down by the armed forces of the government before they threaten the existing social and political order. As long as the military and police remain loyal, well disciplined, and competently commanded, and the states officials can provide them with money and effective administration, popular disorders which may be costly and disruptive and may even lead

to changes in policy w ill not succeed in overturning regimes. To overturn a government, an organized opposition must exist that is capable of persuading the military to desert the regime or of raising an alternative force capable of engaging the military. The opposition leaders must also find a way to combine the anger of various groups, each pursuing its own protests and grievances, into a national movement against the regime. This inevitably requires the skills of elites who can formulate a persuasive vision of a better society, undermine the credibility of the existing rulers, and organize sufficiently large-scale popular protests, or sufficiently strong armed forces of their own, that then can challenge the government. Thus the potential for a truly revolutionary process arises only when skilled and influential members of society start criticizing the regime, calling for change, and seeking followers who will help them promote their new vision of society. But when elites look for followers, their choices depend on their inclinations and the social structure of their society. In most traditional and developing countries, the vast bulk of the population has been poor peasants or workers (miners and urban crafts and construction workers). Mobilizing these groups is thus essential for a meaningful challenge to the regime. While more moderate or conservative leaders may shy away from rousing these groups, other elites are likely either to seek to mobilize and organize these elements of society or to pressure the regime by using the uprisings of peasants or workers. This was the pattern of the classic social revolutions in France, Russia, and China, as well as more recent revolutions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Elite mobilization of, or reliance on, lower-class uprisings, however, injects into the revolution strong demands for class-based redistributive change as part of the revolutionary program. While an uprising is the most common starting point for revolution, it is not the only one. In countries with a large middle class and organized working class, as with middle-income countries, it may be possible to mobilize mainly urban groups workers, students, businesspeople, professionals, and white-collar workers to

protest against mismanagement, corruption, or economic failures by the regime and to focus more on democracy and fairer economic opportunities than on redistribution of assets. This kind of mobilization appears to have been the dominant pattern in the modern color revolutions and in the anomalous historical cases aswell. In some cases, this choice of mobilization is an option for elites, rather than a structural necessity. In the 1560s in the Netherlands, 1688 in England, the 1770s in the American colonies, and certainly Japan in the 1860s, China in 1900 1910, and the Philippines in the 1980s, large reservoirs of agrarian poverty and discontent existed outside the major cities. In China and the Philippines prior mobilization of the rural poor had been done for redistributive ends (the Taiping and Nien rebellions in China, the New Peoples Army in the Philippines). Yet revolutionary leaders in all these cases chose to distance themselves from class-based redistributive claims and focus on nationalist-based mobilization against unpopular leaders who were viewed as threats to their own countries: the Spanish monarchy in Holland, the Catholic King James II in England, the erratic King George III in the American colonies, the ineffective shogun in Japan, the Manchu dowager empress in China, and the corrupt Marcos crony regime in the Philippines. In this respect, the leaders of the anti-Soviet and anticommunist revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Socialist Republics acted similarly, focusing nationalist passions on unpopular leaders who were identified with Russian leadership or with domination of their ruling Communist parties. Thus a key factor differentiating the classic social revolutions from the color-type revolutions is whether any of the defecting or opposition elite seek to inject a substantial class-based component into their efforts at antiregime mobilization. While this seems almost unavoidable in most societies with large impoverished peasant and worker populations, it becomes more of a choice in societies that also have significant commercial or emerging industrial centers (as in the Netherlands, England, the United States, late-nineteenth-century Japan, early-twentiethcentury China, and the Philippines) and is the more likely pattern in already substantially

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urban industrializing countries, as in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Of course, a revolutionary movement generally consists of quite different groups pressed into tactical coalitions or even acting separately against the regime.9 Even in times of crisis, different elites and groups are affected in varying ways, and many may wish for minor reform or slow change, while others seek more rapid or dramatic shifts in policy or personnel. Yet rulers who respond to a crisis weakly and ineffectively whether by persisting with their course, changing course frequently and wildly, or simply turning on their critics and opponents can alienate more and more past supporters. This process pushes varied groups together, leading to a polarization of many diverse elements against the regime. Sometimes elites with very different views for example, business and religious elites or military and professional elites reach out to one another to form antiregime coalitions. At other times, events perhaps a military or financial crisis, particularly corrupt or violent acts by the government, or the prospect of foreign intervention force elites into one anothers arms, as they recognize that they must act together if they are to survive a crisis and bring about change. As one famous revolutionary, Benjamin Franklin, told the signers of Americas Declaration of Independence (leaders who represented large and small states, northern industrialists, and southern plantation owners), advising them to put aside their differences and cooperate if they were going to challenge the King of England for control of the United States: We must hang together, gentlemen . . . else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.10 The character of the various groups and elites involved in the revolutionary opposition has crucial implications for the revolutionary process. Where the groups supporting the revolution include both moderate elements focused on broad nationalist goals or mainly urban/ liberal aims for political change and class-based groups seeking more radical destruction of,

and/or redistribution from, elite groups, the Brintonian process of splits and radicalization among the revolutionaries after the fall of the old regime is likely to occur. By contrast, where elites advocating class-based opposition are absent or weak in the main revolutionary coalition, and class-based mobilization is not a major source of revolutionary action, a different set of processes and outcomes is likely to be seen. One might ask, if revolutions can take the form of nationalist mobilization that narrowly targets an unpopular leader, rather than classbased mobilization that targets a broader elite for attack and redistribution, then why do so many anticolonial regimes exhibit the explosive and violent character of classic social revolutions, rather than the pattern of the color revolutions lack of a strong class-based character? One may point to Algeria in the 1960s and Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s as nationalist revolutions that nonetheless took on a highly radical, violent, and authoritarian character. The answer, I believe, lies in the regimes pattern of elite defection, polarization, and mass mobilizationi ncluding elite choices. Algeria and Vietnam, if not Cambodia, had sufficient urban centers and organized workers to have staged urban nationalist revolutions in fact the Algerian revolution began in that fashion, as did the Vietnamese revolution against France in 1945. Yet in both countries, the French response was to retake the cities by force and drive the opposition into the countryside or underground. The brutality of the French military response dealt with the initial threat but did not win support. On the contrary, it polarized the countries around opposition to the colonial regime and provoked more radical responses by the opposition elites. In Vietnam, the revolutionary leadership, always with a strong communist component, turned to rural peasant-based mobilization to raise the forces needed to challenge the French. Those elites who cooperated with the French (or later the Americans) over the decades-long struggle that followed became a class target for destruction
9. Misagh Parsa, Theories of Collective Actions and the Iranian Revolution, Sociological Forum 3 (1988): 447 1; Goodwin, No Other Way Out. 10. QuoteWorld.org, www.quoteworld.org/quotes/ 4954 (accessed 5 September 2008).

and redistribution. In Algeria, revolutionary leaders made the substantial numbers of Algerians of French origins (the pieds-noirs), as well as those elites who worked with the French, collective targets. While the communists remained a minor influence in Algeria, nativist hatred of the colonizing elite functioned as a source of violent mobilization against all those identified with the foreign regime. In Cambodia, while there was insufficient development of the urban/working sector to provide a basis for mass mobilization without a strong peasant component, that mobilization could still have followed a more nationalist pattern aimed at overthrowing the U.S.-imposed Lon Nol regime and restoring exiled King Sihanouk. Yet the communist leaders of the revolutionary movement, not satisfied with such a modest target, wanted instead a major class enemy; thus their development of the notion of a pure Khmer race of farmers that had been exploited allowed them to classify all urban workers, anyone with western education, and all Chinese, Vietnamese, Christians, and other nonpure Khmers as class enemies to be destroyed. Still, most of the extreme radical violence in revolutions does not occur in these early stages of elite defection, polarization against the regime, and mass mobilization. To understand why such violence develops in some revolutions but not others, one needs to return to the unfolding of the stages of the revolutionary process.
Initial Regime Change

One striking element of the initial regime change in revolutions is how often it comes unexpectedly, even if there have been years of previous elite or guerrilla opposition. Rulers frequently underestimate their opponents or overestimate their own strength and importance (including the loyalty or power of their internal and external allies). Rulers often fail to see how close their own supporters are to deserting them or how much of the populace resents their rule. Even if they have been fighting against rural guerrillas, urban crowds, or dissident elites for months or years, they may dismiss this threat and be truly surprised when, after taking some step that reveals loss of control or outraging yet another key group of supporters, they find

themselves standing alone, almost helpless, surrounded by enemies and bereft of defenders. In such conditions, rulers may flee, simply leaving the reins of government to their opponents, or in some cases negotiate their departure from the scene. The departure (or sometimes capture and execution) of a widely feared and hated ruler often unleashes celebrations. The immediate aftermath of destruction of the old regime is sometimes called a honeymoon period, in which relief and happiness are the dominant emotions in the country. Dancing in the streets, the ceremonial pulling down of symbols of the old regime, and proclamations of pride and loyalty to the nation and hope for the future are the order of the day. People may embrace, addressing one another as comrades and citizens and brothers or sisters. All kinds of behaviors that had been suppressed under the old regime may burst forth in the new air of freedom. Yet order must be restored and a nation put back on its feet after the loss of its government. Only rarely is it the case that the enemies of the old regime are so united, and the former allies and beneficiaries of the old ruler so ready to give up their power and privileges, that no further conflicts will ensue. More commonly, in a matter of months after the fall of the old regime, the revolutionary forces start to bicker among themselves over the shape of the new government, the distribution of power and wealth, foreign relations, the conduct of the economy, control of the military, and dozens of other issues of government. These disputes often start a renewed process of polarization between the new revolutionary government and its critics.
Further Polarization

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This stage, and its interweaving with the components that follow, marks the crucial turning point in the revolutionary process. Although the potential for further polarization after the fall of the old regime depends on the nature of the revolutionary coalition, and so is in part dependent on the character of stages 1 3, the degree to which that potential is realized depends on further events and responses to those events by revolutionary leaders. Whether at the end of a lengthy guerrilla war or as the result of a sudden capitulation

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in the face of public demonstrations, when a revolutionary regime takes power rarely is the revolutionary movement of one mind on how to proceed. Even in cases such as Fidel Castros takeover in Cuba and Mao Tse-tungs victory in China, the revolutionary forces had made compromises with or benefited from the actions of groups not under their control, such as urban professionals and sugar workers in Cuba and small and middling landlords in China. Moreover, the revolutionary leadership itself often comes from disparate groups with different views on the degree and pace of change needed to set the nation on a proper course. In some cases, the revolutionary coalition was brought together by the more radical leaders suppressing or disguising their ultimate goals.11 Thus in Iran Ayatollah Ruholla K homeini made common cause with liberal professionals, women, students, and others to overthrow the shah, guarding the degree to which his planned Islamic Republic would subordinate republican freedoms to Islamic rule. Similarly, in Cuba and Nicaragua the Castroist and Sandinist forces initially were broadly inclusive of capitalists and private businesspeople, minimizing the degree to which their Communist beliefs would eventually lead them to side with workers and peasants against private property owners. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia originally presented itself mainly as a nationalist party and gained support from many whose main goal was simply the restoration of their king. In other cases, the revolutionary coalition included diverse groups that simply set aside their strong differences in pursuit of a common goal. For example, in the American colonies the revolutionary leaders included both committed democrats in favor of state autonomy and federalists who wanted a strong central government. In France in 1789, liberal aristocrats, reformist clerics, and radical members of the Third Estate jointly pursued the goal of restricting royal authority and changing the system of taxation bounded by privilege that fiscally weakened the state. In Ukraine in 1989, regime opponents included both anticommunists who, although Russian, wanted to reform the corrupt and economically ineffective party-based regime, and

Ukrainian nationalists who wanted to create a new Ukrainian state. In assessing what determines how far polarization in this stage goes, three factors are crucial: first, how extreme are the differences that exist within the coalition of revolutionary groups? Second, what circumstances accentuate these differences and give leverage to different factions in the revolutionary leadership? Third, how crucial to the survival of the revolution and the revolutionary state is it for one group to triumph? Interestingly, one factor that does not appear to matter is whether the more radical groups begin with a leading or subordinate role. In the Russian Revolution, for example, the radical Bolsheviks played a modest role among the revolutionary groups that sought the end of the czars regime, with the moderate Constitutional Democrats playing the leading role. In the French Revolution, the Jacobins had not even organized themselves in July 1789. By contrast, in the Cuban and Chinese Communist revolutions, the dominant leaders from the earliest stages of revolution were precisely those who would adopt a radical communist program and purge more moderate associates. Yet in all four cases, the revolutions shifted sharply in a more radical direction after the change in regime. It is striking that in all of the cases both older and more recent that follow the pattern of the color revolutions, the differences within the revolutionary coalition may have led to weakness and division in the new regime, but they did not progress to violent conflict between moderate and radical groups and a triumph of the radicals. The most important reason for this is likely the factor that was noted before: in the color-type revolutions, elite or popular groups that aimed to destroy or redistribute the assets of an entire class or ruling group did not form an important element in the revolutionary opposition. Yet this factor alone is not a sufficient basis for explaining the less radical character of these revolutions, for even in the classical social revolutions the main radical leaders and groups initially played a minor or subordinate role. Regarding the French and Russian revolutions, were one not to look back knowing the
11. Parsa, States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions.

outcome, but look forward from July 1789 or February 1917, one would say that radical groups did not play a leading role in the revolutionary opposition. Peasant and urban revolts were important in these cases, but French peasants and the Petrograd soviets did not seek radical goals at this time, and the eventually dominant radical leaders the Jacobins and Bolsheviks were virtually absent. Even in Iran in 1979, most of the regime opponents in the broad revolutionary coalition that included students, bazaar merchants, liberal professionals, women, urban workers, and the Marxist Mujahideen were seeking nationalist and democratic goals, not the triumph of radical Islam. Thus we need to look for the circumstances that intensify the splits and empower the radicals in such cases. Usually, these emerge from any of the following four components that often arise in revolutions: counterrevolution, civil war, international war, and revolutionary terror. These can give rise to intensified polarization, a shift in strength from moderate to more radical groups, the adoption of extreme measures and authoritarian state building.
The Postrevolutionary Suite: Counterrevolution, Civil and International Wars, and Terror, then Moderation, Renewed Radicalism, and Conservative Consolidation

Crane Brinton laid out a process of revolution that has become the standard view of revolutionary sequences.12 After a honeymoon period and an initial regime of moderates, there follows conflict with emerging radicals. The victory of the radicals then leads to a reign of terror in which radical policies are forced through and implemented by coercion, moderates are purged from the government, and domestic enemies of the revolution are vigorously attacked. The radicals efforts to overthrow common patterns of authority lead to counterrevolutionary movements both inside and outside the country, provoking civil and international wars. These wars allow military commanders to rise to the heights of power and to take leadership of the revolution. These military commanders, needing to end disorder and restore national strength, suppress the radicals. Eventually, often
12. Brinton, Anatomy of Revolution.

with the help of returning moderates, a stable and bureaucratic government emerges to lead the nation. Many of the revolutionary ideals and acts may be preserved, but the new regime now seeks to live alongside other nations and put its citizens to ordinary work, rather than devote itself to making and spreading revolution. This framework was based on Brintons analysis of the English Puritan, American, French, and Russian revolutions. It was fairly accurate in describing the course of those revolutions. However, it did not take account of events such as the Chinese Communist Revolution, with its commitment to permanent revolution and recurrent eruptions of radicalism, or of the many Third World revolutions of the twentieth century f rom Mexico to Nicaragua w ith their more common pattern of external threat or intervention but few international wars. What we find when we expand our view is that events after the initial change of regime are far more complex and variable than Brintons schema allowed. In fact, the sequencing of counterrevolution, wars, radicalism, and terror is quite varied. Moreover, in many revolutions the initial consolidation after a period of terror or war is not the end of the story. Rather, revolutionaries who feel the revolution has not gone far enough or is stagnating may seek to bring a second phase of radical policy to revive the spirit and action of their revolution. Here, we look first at the cases that Brinton discussed and find that even these were more complex than his formal schema. We then look at additional cases for further insights into the full range of post-regime change events. In America, there really was no victory of the radicals or reign of terror. In part this was because the revolutionaries, however divided they may have been between federalists and democrats, eschewed any groups that sought to target elites or classes for attack. But it is also the case that conflicts between federalists and democrats were able to play themselves out in relative security, as there were no major counterrevolutionary threats from within, nor were there major military threats from abroad after 1781 for another thirty-one years. Internally, there was disorder under the confederation that

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threatened the new revolutionary regime, but that was addressed in an orderly fashion by the Constitutional Convention and the construction of a stronger national government. Yet consolidation under the Virginian presidents from 1800 to 1824 was not the end of political change. America did experience a more radical movement to recapture the revolutionary spirit and democratize the government, but it occurred a generation after the revolution, with the rise of the Jacksonian Democrats in the 1820s. In the English, French, and Russian revolutions, there were periods of dominant radicalism, counterrevolution, civil and international wars, and terror. Yet their sequencing was highly varied. There were as many instances in which wars and mass uprisings made the radicals as there were in which it was radicals who made the wars. In England, while Parliament tried to work out arrangements to limit the kings power, two major events exacerbated elite divisions. First, class-based uprisings in Ireland in 1641, and to a lesser degree in England, forced Parliament to consider raising an army, with the main question being whether it should be under the control of Parliament or the king. Second, in 1642 the king decided to leave London and call an army to him at Nottingham; that left those in the opposition who were most concerned to limit royal power no choice but to arm and fight. It was only after several years of civil war that the radicals the New Model Army took leadership of the revolution, executed the king, purged Parliament, declared England a commonwealth, and went to war abroad. In France, again it was popular uprisings, then the threat of war, that brought forth and empowered the radicals. The rural uprisings of the Great Fear were what helped provoke the National Assemblys attack on noble rights in August 1789. Yet even these radical measures were taken in an orderly fashion and by the great majority of delegates. It was only with the string of initial defeats in the war against Austria and Prussia in spring 1792 that the moderates wholly lost control of the Assembly. The expansion of the war to include England, Holland, and Spain the next year led to mass conscription and taxation, along with the institutions of the Revolutionary Tribunal and Committee of

Public Safety. But these measures, along with a campaign against conservative clerics, provoked counterrevolution, which in turn increased the intensity of the Revolutionary terror. Only with the defeat of the Austrians and the ebbing of the foreign threat in 1794 did the radicals lose their grip on power, as a more moderate leadership closed down the Jacobins, used the army against the Paris crowds, and tried to consolidate the revolution. Increased military threats external and internal were thus the key factors leading to radical power and terror. Still, war brought radicals to power only in the early 1790s; Napoleons later wars helped to consolidate a more moderate revolutionary regime that proclaimed the rights of man yet welcomed nobles and re-created a system of rank and privileges. The relationships among war, radicalism, and terror were thus variable and contingent. In Russia, the Bolsheviks would never have come to power without the continued losses taken by Russia in World War I. The Bolsheviks opportunity arose when the moderate revolutionary government under Aleksandr Kerensky chose to continue the war, and the Kerensky regimes military failures fatally undermined its authority. Yet even though war brought the radical Bolsheviks to power, in Russia, too, war did not always furnish the justification for radicalism and terror. The Bolsheviks were absolutely brutal in pursuit of the civil war (1918 21) to defend their regime against Russian conservatives leading a counterrevolution. Yet the immediate result was a return to moderation in the 1920s under the New Economic Policy. It was only in the 1930s that Stalinist terror arose, with purges and radical land seizures that resulted in the deaths of millions. This second radical phase lasted until the onset of World War II; only after the war did a more conservative consolidation occur. In short, the relationships among the triumph of radical policies, counterrevolution, civil and international war, and terror are complex and variable. A look at the following cases further demonstrates this complexity: Mexico in 1910 34, Iran in 1979 2008, and China in 1949 80. The Mexican Revolution began with the overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Daz by forces led by the moderate reformer Francisco Madero

but supported by more radical groups and their leaders, including Emiliano Zapata and Francisco (Pancho) Villa. Zapata was a member of the landowning elite, but he supported peasant claims for land against the expanding claims of railway, mining, and commercial farming interests, especially claims by foreigners. Villa and other northern leaders had the support of agricultural and industrial workers who expected better terms under a government that would stand up to foreign interests and wealthy capitalists. However, once Madero took office, he broke with Zapata by failing to vigorously pursue land reforms. Maderos weak government and continued popular uprisings led General Victoriano Huerta to stage a counterrevolution, murdering Madero and seizing power. Zapata and Villa responded by raising armies to overthrow Huerta, promising radical change. Although they succeeded in defeating Huerta, they were frustrated in their pursuit of change by moderate forces raised w ith U.S. support by the Constitutionalists led by Venustiano Carranza and lvaro Obregn. Carranza became president in 1917, Obregn in 1920, and the Constitutionalist minister Plutarco Elas Calles held the presidency from 1924 to 1928. But these years were tumultuous: Zapata and Villa were killed by government forces, and both Carranza and Obregn were assassinated by rebels. Moreover, the Constitutionalists modernizing probusiness and pro-U.S. regime, which sought to restrict the power of the Catholic Church and minimized land reforms, provoked yet another popular uprising, the Cristero rebellion, which took three years to repress. From 1928 to 1934, three officials held the presidency, but they remained subordinate to Calles, who dominated the government even while out of office. Thus from 1910 to 1934, the sequence of events was loosely as follows: a revolutionary civil war that defeated Daz was followed by the moderate Madero regime. Madero then broke with his more radical supporters, producing first a counterrevolution by Huerta and then another civil war led by radical leaders who defeated Huerta. Yet Huertas defeat produced not peace but another civil war between radicals and moderates, won by the Constitutionalists. Although economically moderate, the Consti-

tutionalists killed their radical opponents and started a major attack on the Catholic Church. This provoked yet another civil war, followed by an interlude of moderate stability overseen by Calles. One might have expected from Brintons model that the Mexican Revolution would then finally settle into a consolidation phase, yet that was not the case. The election of Lzaro Crdenas as president in 1934 led to a renewed phase of radicalism, at least in policy. Crdenas felt that the revolution had stopped short in its goals, and he surprised everyone by turning on Calles and pushing through massive land reforms, nationalizing foreign-owned oil companies and railways, and entrenching the Party of the Mexican Revolution (later known as the PRI), through strong ties to labor and peasant organizations and domination of local government. Only after this second radical phase did a more conservative consolidation of the revolutionary regime occur. The Iranian revolution against the shah in 1979 appeared to be a typical Brintonian revolution: following a defection by clerical and then bureaucratic and business elites, a broad coalition overthrew the shahs government. At the outset of the revolution, these groups shared influence: Khomeini even argued that clerics should not seek office, and Abu al-Hassan Bani Sadr, a professional educated in France, became the republics first president. However, when Iraq declared war on Iran in 1980, a power struggle arose between Bani Sadr and the clerics, who feared a secular government would result if the president won a military victory. Khomeini turned on Bani Sadr, impeaching him from office and executing many of his close friends (Bani Sadr himself only escaped by fleeing to France). Khomeini then led the transformation of the new Iranian regime into a government dominated by clerics in office, with a radical militia the Revolutionary Guards who increasingly harassed and punished those who opposed the regime or failed to accept the strict practice of Islamic law. With Khomeinis death, and the election of more pragmatic and moderate clerics as presidents (Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 1989 1997; and Mohammad K hatami, 19972005), it seemed that the Iranian revolution was en route

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to a stage of consolidation. Yet here, too, a second radical phase arose. Arguing that the Iranian revolution had lost its way and not done enough for the poor and devout, a former revolutionary radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005. Ahmadinejad has supported radical elements in the Iranian government, overseen stepped-up attempts to enforce Islamic law, and promoted a more aggressive and ideological foreign policy, supporting Shia and antiIsrael movements in the Middle East. The unfolding of the Chinese Communist Revolution, too, was distinguished by recurrent episodes of radicalism and moderation. Immediately after taking power in 1949, after a lengthy civil war against the Nationalists, Maos Communist Party launched an extensive land reform and a terror campaign against counterrevolutionaries, who included landlords and anyone formerly associated with the Nationalist regime or foreign companies. This campaign continued through Chinas involvement in the Korean War, which ended in 1953. Yet the Korean War was followed by a period of moderation, marked by the first Five-Year Plan for economic development. This plan was a success and even included a period of greater political openness, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, in 1956 57. Yet this was immediately followed by another radical phase. In 1958, Mao began an anti-rightist campaign of renewed terror against suspected counterrevolutionaries, and launched the radical economic policy of the Great Leap Forward. These plans were a failure, however, undermining both industry and agriculture and producing tremendous famines. In 1962, with the failures of the Great Leap apparent, Maos role was diminished and a period of economic recovery was overseen by the moderate Communist leaders Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi. This moderate phase was brief, however, as in 1966 Mao launched a renewed radical movement, the Cultural Revolution. Anxious that the revolution was becoming too attached to material progress and losing sight of its Communist ideals, Mao aimed to inspire the younger generation to take action to pursue radical egalitarian policies and punish anyone who seemed to deviate ideologically from Maos Communist line. Liu and Deng were disgraced and imprisoned. This phase lasted until Maos death in

1976. There then followed a struggle between radicals who followed Mao and his fidelity to revolutionary ideology and moderates who supported Deng and his desire to downplay ideology in favor of taking measures to bring material progress. In this struggle, the radicals were suppressed, and a series of market- oriented reforms were undertaken by Deng and his protgs. In short, a close look at both Brintons classic revolutions and several other cases of violent social revolution shows complex patterns of conflict, radicalism, and terror. The rise of radicals, and their terror against their opponents, most often follows civil or international wars. This was the case with the New Model Army in England, the Jacobins in France, the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Zapata/Villa ascendancy in Mexico, the rise of clerical rule in Iran, and Maos first campaign against counterrevolutionaries in China. Yet wars can also bring exhaustion and be followed by efforts at moderate economic recovery, as with the Bolsheviks New Economic Policy (1921 28) following the Russian civil war, Maos first Five-Year Plan and Hundred Flowers movement after the Korean War, and the more moderate presidents in Iran chosen at the end of the Iraq war. These cases also revealed another pattern, unseen by Brinton: a renewed phase of radicalism, often two or three decades after the initial change in regime. This phase occurred in revolutions that were not overturned but had begun to be consolidated or had taken a turn toward moderation. Brought on by the election or seizure of power by more radical groups seeking to renew revolutionary enthusiasm and eliminate their enemies, this phase could be mild or quite severe. Examples include the Jacksonian movement and presidency in the United States, the Stalinist collectivization and purges in Russia, the Cultural Revolution in China, the Crdenas presidency in Mexico, and the Ahmadinejad presidency in Iran. In these cases it was only after this phase of renewed radicalism that stable consolidation of the regime occurred.
What Made the Color Revolutions So Peaceful?

The variety of patterns of radicalism, terror, counterrevolution, and war encountered in the preceding cases makes it all the more important to ask, what made the color revolutions so peace-

ful? Yet these examples also allow this question to be answered in terms of varying trajectories of revolution defined by the different character and sequence of the components of the revolutionary process. Three characteristics seem to distinguish the color revolutions and their similar historical predecessors: 1. In the prerevolutionary stages of elite defection, polarization, and mass mobilization the goals of the revolutionary leaders do not include class-based or ideological attacks on ruling elites but are limited to nationalist and democratic aims, and do not include a major mobilization of peasants or traditional urban workers but instead rests mainly on mobilizing organized labor (miners, industrial workers), urban business, professional, student, and white-collar groups or (as with the Japanese Meiji Restoration and the Nether land and American revolutions) organized regional militias or local military forces. In most recent cases, this form of revolutionary coalition arises because the middleincome states in which they occur are predomi nantly urban/industrial rather than agrarian, and/or economic inequality is moderate. Classbased redistributive goals are thus less relevant. This is in contrast to monarchical, imperial, or hacienda-type regimes or colonies where there are vast income and status gaps among average peasants or workers and even local elites, so that class-based mobilization is relatively easy. As Seymour Martin Lipset wrote regarding the American colonies: American social structure did not possess those great gaps that are found between the common people and their government in more hierarchical colonies and states.13 In other cases, where there is potential for peasant or traditional urban worker class-based mobilization as in the Philippines in the 1980s and England in the 1680s this character arises because the main revolutionary opposition consciously distances itself from popular protest and discourages class-based mobilization. Two important points need to be made: First, these features are not simply a restate13. Seymour Martin Lipset, The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 92. 14. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions ; Goodwin, No Other Way Out.

ment of the well-known distinction between political and social revolutions, in which it is asserted that the former aim only to change regimes, while the latter aim to change class structures.14 Rather, the distinction is between revolutions that, after taking power, experience a lengthy period of moderate but weak government, as opposed to revolutions that experience sharp divisions, counterrevolution, radicalization, terror, and increasingly centralized and authoritarian rule. Several revolutions that did not have primarily a class base, such as the English Puritan Revolution of the 1640s and the Iranian revolution of the 1970s, nonetheless developed ideologically driven radicalization, terror, and centralization. Second, some modern revolutionary movements that did have primarily a class base, such as the antiapartheid movement in South Africa that brought Nelson Mandela to power, did not produce radical terror by the new revolutionary regime. Instead, the antiapartheid revolution unfolded like a color revolution, with a constitutional and democratic regime, despite the clear potential for the black revolutionary movement to launch a radical attack on white elites after taking power. Thus the absence of sharp social inequality is not a necessary condition for a color-type revolutionary process; decisions by revolutionary elites on how to define their goals and how to mobilize their followers can consciously downplay class-based goals. If those revolutionary leaders are able to take power based on such nonclass mobilization a s with Mandela in South Africa and Corazon Aquino in the Philippines they can win further support for their approach and discredit more radical factions aiming at class-based warfare.15 At the same time, even if the process of elite defection, polarization, and mobilization eschews class-based mobilization and goals in favor of stressing nationalist and democratic goals, that is not a sufficient condition by itself to assure a color-type revolutionary process. Many radicalizing revolutions in fact began in this way, with class-based mobilization either ab-

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15. Parsa, States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions. Parsa makes this point clearly with regard to the 1986 revolution in the Philippines.

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sent or playing a minor role: for example, the English Puritan Revolution, the Russian Revolution (which, although initially brought about by worker strikes in February 1917, did not see calls for peasants to seize land and workers to seize power until Lenin returned from exile in April), the Iranian revolution of 1979, or the Algerian revolution of 1962. Thus another key turning point in the revolutionary process also needs to be considered: 2. The revolutionary process is not marked by a lengthy or severe revolutionary war. Revolutionary wars whether civil or internationalh ave the potential to radicalize the course of a revolution. Color revolutions usually take power either after an orderly and wellregulated military conflict or, more commonly, through electoral contests and urban protests to support the outcome of those contests against the old regimes reluctance to accept change and leave power. The absence of the extreme pressures caused by international or civil war denies the radicals an opportunity to mobilize their supporters and press for more radical measures. Where a war of independence is fought by existing military forces under the leadership of established prerevolutionary local elites, as was the case in the Japanese Meiji Restoration and the American Revolution, it is not likely to give substantial leverage to radicals. Yet when the pressures of fighting for survival go beyond what existing forces can manage, and a substantially new or greatly expanded military organization needs to be conscripted, organized, and financed, these exigencies place great stress on revolutionary movements. They may panic at the thought of internal traitors and purge them; they may be driven to radical measures to raise troops or funds (such as seizures of church property or elite assets); or they may need to indoctrinate the population and troops with radical ideas to instill the will to fight. Moreover, if moderates oversee military failures, these can greatly discredit them and open the way for radicals to present themselves as patriots and national saviors. Revolutionary warswhether guerrilla wars to take power or civil or international wars that arise shortly after the fall of the old regime are frequently the factors that split co-

alitions, give opportunity and leverage to radicals, and justify more extreme measures by revolutionaries to secure the resources and loyalty needed to survive. Wars intensify the search for domestic enemies, inure leaders and followers to the violence that then spills into revolutionary terror, and force revolutionary governments to become more centralized and authoritarian. Yet as we have seen, while wars often have been crucial to launching episodes of radical dominance, wars also have given rise to periods of exhaustion and moderation. Certain periods of radical violence such as Stalins purges and Maos Cultural Revolution were not instigated by wars. Thus one more factor needs attention in the revolutionary process: 3. Divisions in the revolutionary coalition after winning power remain contained, rather than polarize into fiercely divided radical and moderate groups. Because color revolutions are initiated with a minimal attention to class-based goals of radical attacks on a particular group or class, and avoid the pressures of revolutionary wars that both give radicals the opportunity to seize power and lead governments to more extreme and authoritarian measures, they generally avoid an extreme polarization among elites after the revolutions. The elites may factionalize and fight bitterly for power a s did the Federalists and Democrats in the new United States and the Yushchenko and Tymoshenko blocs in Ukraine after the orange revolution. Yet such differences are generally over the means to achieve more limited goals, such as economic growth policy or government organization, rather than over such fundamentals as whether to collectivize property or have a capitalist versus a socialist system. These differences often have the effect of producing an extended period up to a decade or two i n which the new revolutionary government appears weak and focused mainly on sorting out its internal policies, as opposed to the ruthless and powerful authoritarian regimes that typically emerge from radicalizing revolutions. In radicalizing revolutions, the revolutionary coalition whether from the outset or because of war pressures has both leaders who wish to focus mainly on nationalist goals and others who are more committed to an ideologi-

cally defined form of government. Moreover, the latter have gained a dominant role in setting policies at times and indoctrinated many in their goals. This means that even after initial victories over the old regime or counterrevolutionary foes, at home or abroad, the potential remains for the reemergence of radical fervor and further episodes of radicalization and terror. While moderates may gain an upper hand after a successful war or an economic setback reduces the leverage of the radicals, the latter may seize or engineer a later opportunity to reassert themselves. Radicalizing revolutions thus not only suffer an initial episode of radicalism and revolutionary terror but are prone to experience later phases of renewed radicalism, when ideologically fervent leaders are able to raise popular support or attack more moderate leaders for failing to live up to the ideals of the revolution or leading it astray.
Two Types of Revolutions and a Newly Dominant Form

This essay has argued for a new typology of revolutions, dividing them, depending on the process and outcomes they produce, into color revolutions and radicalizing revolutions. Color revolutions tend to occur in societies with substantial urban and commercial sectors, organized labor, and moderate social and economic inequality. In color revolutions, defecting elites seek to mobilize mainly urban, student, white-collar, mining, professional, and business supporters (and in some cases independent farmers) for nationalist and usually democratic goals, eschewing class-based mobilization and attacks on entire elite groups. These revolutions do not involve the creation of new armies for civil or revolutionary wars (although in some cases they may involve mobilization or expansion of existing militias under established local elites). They therefore do not generally induce the kind of extreme measures that provoke counterrevolution or result in episodes of radical supremacy and terror. Instead, the overthrow of the old regime is generally accomplished by a combination of strikes, urban demonstrations, and electoral campaigns, although

in some cases violent confrontations with the forces of the old regime do occur. More important, once the new regime takes power, it does not experience polarization or radicalization or engage in terror or civil war. Rather, it is likely to experience sustained but moderate political competition over policies and government organization and thus to remain a somewhat weak or fragile democracy until political and economic policies stabilize and promote growth. Radical revolutions, by contrast, most commonly occur in countries with great status and economic inequality. Some of the revolutionary leaders either from the outset or as the revolution unfolds seek to position themselves as leaders of radical class-based or ideology-based movements that target entire groups of elites or the population for attack. Civil or international wars provide opportunities that empower these radicals to attack their domestic enemies and push through extreme policies for the redistributive or ideological restructuring of society. Periods of radical ascendancy, which can recur as late as two or three decades after the fall of the old regime, usually lead to more centralized and authoritarian rule. Historically, radical revolutions have been the most common form, especially with the spread of communist ideology in the late twentieth century. Color revolutions have been rarer, owing mainly to the paucity of middle-income countries with moderate inequality seeking to throw off authoritarian rulers, but also to the limited appeal of color revolutions as a model to emulate. As we have entered the twenty-first century, it is clear this balance is changing. Color revolutions seem likely to take over as the dominant form of revolution, spreading beyond the Eastern European and former Soviet countries that popularized the concept.16 More countries are achieving an income and inequality profile where class-based mobilization has diminishing appeal. In addition, the model of electoral revolution, in which oppositions rely on the deference that even authoritarian leaders increasingly show to global norms of legitimation by elections, and the international apparatus

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16. Bunce and Wolchick, International Diffusion.

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of election monitoring and support to contest rigged results to challenge authoritarian leaders, is more viable and widely available thanks to the spread of nongovernmental organizations and international norms that support elections worldwide. Finally, the success of and global acclaim for leaders of color revolutions such as Mandela and Aquino despite the struggles of the governments they have left in their wake as well as the attention and success of the anticommunist color revolutions, have provided attractive models to emulate. In the future, it seems likely that if revolutionary movements arise to overturn the remaining authoritarian governments in China, Iran, Cuba, Egypt, and sub-Saharan Africa, they are more likely to be color-type revolutions than radicalizing revolutions. Even in Egypt and Algeria, where anxiety has arisen over whether the electoral triumphs of Islamic parties will lead to Iranian-type radicalism, such an outcome seems unlikely. The Islamic revolution in Iran could not have occurred without a broad coalition of liberals, students, women, business, and labor supporters; the Islamic clerics and their supporters among the peasants and urban poor only gained leverage first in the hostage confrontation with the United States and then especially in the war with Iraq. If not for that international war, it is not evident that the Islamic forces would have taken control of the revolution. If an Egyptian or Algerian nationalist democratic movement seeks to overturn its countrys autocracy, a radicalizing revolution is unlikely, unless the conflict with the authorities involves a guerrilla struggle or regime repression that eliminates or undermines moderate opposition leaders and gives leverage to radicals (although, unfortunately, there is some evidence that such trends are occurring).17 In sum, revolutions in the future seem more likely to produce weak democracies rather than radical authoritarian regimes. This is good news for those hoping that peaceful revolutions will be the wave of the future. Yet it also suggests

that more research needs to be done to learn how these weak democracies can best be helped to find their footing and to avoid the kind of confrontations and conflicts that could yet produce more radicalized patterns of change.

17. Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Schwedler has shown the dominance of moderate politics in Middle Eastern states where moderates are forced to compete openly with moderate parties for support.