Introduction: Theories of revolution

On the surface, the twentieth century seems dominated by evolutionary change, as there was considerable material progress through the century. The power structures present at the beginning of the century then diffused globally – capitalism, the nation-state, and (less thoroughly) democracy – but the process did not seem so evolutionary at the time. Two revolutions dominated the first half of the century, launched by the Bolsheviks and Chinese Communists. They inspired further revolutions and counterrevolutions across the globe – including Fascism and the scorched-earth counterinsurgency strategy of the United States. This became a period of rival ideologies sweeping across the globe. The last quarter of the century was then dominated by the unraveling of these revolutions, and (less completely) by the triumph of one ideology.

These were broad trends, transnational, even global. They might be viewed as a punctuated equilibrium, general tendencies being suddenly rechanneled by wars and revolutions. Yet with the collapse of the multinational European empires, trends and disruptions were also partially caged by nation-states, each of which experienced war and revolution (or reform) differently, according to the balance of forces in each one of them. This necessitates a nationalist approach that analyzes each major country separately, and also recognizing the transnational diffusion of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary waves across the globe. I discuss the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary waves spreading from Russia into central Europe in this chapter. I discuss the Chinese revolution in Chapter 13, and I discuss the wave it induced in Volume IV, which will also include my final explanation of modern revolutions.