Social Revolutions and Mass Military Mobilization
Author(s): Theda Skocpol
Source: World Politics, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jan., 1988), pp. 147-168
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MASS MILITARY
MOBILIZATION
By THEDA SKOCPOL*
T
HE changes in the stateorderwhich a revolutionproduces are
no less importantthan the changes in the social order."' Franz
Borkenau's insight,published in 1937, has become the centraltheme of
more recentcomparativestudies."A completerevolution,"writesSamuel P. Huntingtonin Political Orderin ChangingSocieties,"involves ...
the creationand institutionalization
of a new politicalorder,"into which
an "explosion" of popular participationin national affairsis channeled.2
Similarly,in my Statesand Social Revolutions:A ComparativeAnalysisof
France,Russia,and China, I argue thatin "each New Regime, therewas
much greaterpopular incorporationinto the state-runaffairsof the nation. And the new state organizationsforged during the Revolutions
were more centralizedand rationalizedthan thoseof the Old Regime."3
Huntingtonhas developed his argumentsabout revolutionaryaccomplishmentsin criticaldialogue with liberal-mindedmodernizationtheorists,while I have developed mine in criticaldialogue withMarxian class
analysts.Modernizationtheoristsand Marxiansboth analyze revolutionary transformationsprimarilyin relation to long-termsocioeconomic
change. These scholarsalso highlightthe contributionsof certainrevolutionsto liberalismor to democraticsocialism thatis, to "democracy"
understoodin oppositionto authoritarianstatepower.
The classical Marxist vision on revolutionaryaccomplishmentswas
unblinkinglyoptimistic.Accordingto thisview, "bourgeoisrevolutions"
* This essayis a revisedversionof a paper originallypresentedat the thematicpanel, "Attackingthe Leviathan: Statesand Social Conflicts,"at the Annual Meetingof the American
Political Science Associationin Washington,DC, September3, i984. During the processof
revision,I benefitedfromcommentsand criticismsby the membersof the i986-87 Harvard
CFIA Seminar on InternationalInstitutionsand Cooperation,and by the membersof the
i986-87 Workshopon Politicsand Social Organizationin the Harvard Departmentof SociGoodwin, Marta Gil, and JohnHall were especiallyhelpful.
ology.The suggestionsof Jeff
Borkenau,"Stateand Revolutionin theParisCommune,theRussianRevolution,and the
Spanish Civil War," SociologicalReview29 (JanuaryI937), 41-75, at 41.
Huntington,Political Orderin ChangingSocieties(New Haven: Yale UniversityPress,
2
i968), 266. Chapter 5 in its entirety is also relevant.
3 See Theda Skocpol,Statesand Social Revolutions:
A
AnalysisofFrance,Russia,
Comparative
and China (New York and Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,I979), i6i.
148
WORLD POLITICS
clear away obstaclesto capitalisteconomicdevelopmentand lay the basis
for historicallyprogressivebut sociallylimitedformsof liberal democracy."Proletarianrevolutions,"in turn,createtheconditionsforclassless
economiesand foruniversalsocial and politicaldemocracy,accompanied
by the progressive"witheringaway of thestate."The firstmodern social
revolutionto be accomplishedin thename of Marxism,the Russian Revolution of 1917, obviouslybelied thisvision,however,forit establisheda
communistdictatorshipthat ruled in the name of the proletariatwhile
actuallyexploitingworkersforpurposesof crash industrialization,and
imposinga brutal"internalcolonialism"on the peasantmajority.4
Reacting to the Stalinistdenouementof the Russian Revolution,liberal-mindedtheoristsoperatingwithinthebroad frameworkof modernization theoryhave offeredtheirown view of the accomplishmentsof
revolutions.Theoristsas disparateas S. N. Eisenstadtand Michael Walzer agree thattheonlysalutaryrevolutionshave been the mildestonesof preexistingsothe least violentand the least suddenlytransformative
cial and politicalrelations.5In contrastto such supposedlyliberal revolutionsas the French and the English,the more severeand thoroughgoing
revolutionsboomeranged to produce totalitariandictatorships more
penetratingauthoritarianregimes ratherthandemocratizationas these
modernizationtheoristsunderstandit.
Modernizationtheorists,
moreover,tendto view thepoliticalaspectsof
and probablytemporaryaberrationsin the
the revolutionsas inefficient
course of socioeconomicdevelopment.An ideologicallycommittedvanguard may riseto central-state
power and perhapsstaythere through
the mobilizationand manipulationof grass rootspoliticalorganizations
such as militias,workplace councils,or neighborhoodsurveillancecommittees.From the perspectiveof modernizationtheorists,however,this
kind of revolutionarypoliticalmobilization known eitheras "the terror" or as totalitarianism,
dependingon whetherit is a phase or an institutionalizedoutcomein anygivenrevolution is bothmorallyreprehenfor dealing with the practicaltasks that
sible and technicallyinefficient
moderngovernmentsmustface.
Convergingon what mightbe called a realistperspective,analystslike
conclusionsabout the poHuntingtonand myselfhave reacheddifferent
liticalaccomplishmentsof revolutions.In therealistview,a special sortof
democratization understoodnot as an extensionof politicalliberalism
4 This characterization
comes fromAlvinGouldner,"Stalinism:A Studyof InternalColonialism,"in PoliticalPowerand Social Theory(researchannual edited by Maurice Zeitlin) I
(i980)
(Greenwich,CT: JAI Press),209-59.
of Societies(New York: Free Press, I978);
5Eisenstadt, Revolutionand the Transformation
No. 5 (Spring I979), 30-44.
Walzer, "A Theoryof Revolution,"MarxistPerspectives,
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
149
or the realizationof democraticsocialism,but as an enhancementof popular involvementin nationalpoliticallife-accompaniestherevolutionary
strengthening
of centralizednationalstatesdirectedby authoritarianexecutivesor politicalparties.
Brieflyput, this happens because during revolutionaryinterregnums
competitionamong elitesforcoerciveand authoritativecontrolspurscertainleadershipgroupsto mobilizepreviouslypoliticallyexcluded popular
forcesby means of bothmaterialand ideologicalincentives.Popular participationis especiallysoughtin the forgingof organizationsthatcan be
used to subdue less "radical" contenders.New stateorganizations armies, administrations,committeesof surveillance,and so forth are at
once authoritarianand unprecedentedlymass-mobilizing.In some revolutions,especiallythose involvingprolongedguerrillawars, this process
works itselfout prior to the formalseizure of national-statepower; in
others,especiallythosein which inter-elitestrugglesare foughtout in urban streetbattles,it tends to occur duringand afterthatseizure. Either
way, the logic of state-buildingthroughwhichsocial revolutionsare sucand popular mocessfullyaccomplishedpromotesbothauthoritarianism
bilization.
In the realistview, moreover,the strengthenedpoliticaland stateortransformations
ders thatemergefromsocial-revolutionary
may perform
more effectively
than did
some kinds of tasksveryeffectively-certainly
the old regimes theydisplaced. But which tasks? Perhaps because we
have argued with the modernizationand Marxian theorists,Huntington
and I tend to explore the accomplishmentsof revolutionaryregimesin
such areas as maintainingpolitical order during the course of socioeconomic transformation,
enforcingindividual or collective property
rights,and promotingstate-ledindustrialization.Yet I would argue that
the task which revolutionizedregimesin the modern world have performedbest is the mobilizationof citizen supportacross class lines for
protractedinternationalwarfare.
reasonwhythisshould be true:the typesof
There is a straightforward
organizationsformedand the politicaltiesforgedbetweenrevolutionary
vanguardsand supporters(in thecourseofdefeatingotherelitesand consolidatingthenew regime'sstatecontrols)can readilybe convertedto the
tasks of mobilizing resources,includingdedicated officersand soldiers,
forinternationalwarfare.Guerrillaarmiesand theirsupportsystemsare
an obvious case in point.So are urban militiasand committeesof surveillance, which seem to have served as splendid agencies for militaryrecruitmentfromthe French Revolutionto the Iranian. Moreover,if revolutionaryleaders can find ways to link a war against foreignersto
150
WORLD POLITICS
domesticpower struggles,theymay be able to tap into broad nationalist
feelings as well as exploitclass and politicaldivisions in orderto motivatesupportersto fightand die on behalfof the new regime.Talented
membersof familiesthatsupportedtheold regimecan oftenbe recruited
to therevolutionary-nationalist
cause,along withenthusiastsfromamong
thosewho had previouslybeen excluded fromnationalpolitics.
Whetherwe in the liberal-democratic
West like to acknowledge it or
not, the authoritarianregimesbroughtto power throughrevolutionary
transformations fromtheFrench Revolutionof thelate i 8thcenturyto
the Iranian Revolutionof the present- have been democratizingin the
mass-mobilizingsense. The best evidence of thishas been the enhanced
abilityof such revolutionizedregimesto conduct humanly costlywars
with a special fusionof popular zeal, meritocraticprofessionalism,and
centralcoordination.Whateverthecapacitiesof revolutionaryregimesto
cope with tasksof economicdevelopment(and the historicalrecordsuggests that those capacitiesare questionable),theyseem to excel at motivatingtheirpopulationsto make supremesacrificesforthenationin war.
That is no mean accomplishmentin view of the factthatthe prerevolutionarypolitiesin questionexcluded mostof the people fromsymbolicor
practicalparticipationin nationalpolitics.
In the remainderof thisbriefessay,I will illustratethe plausibilityof
theseargumentsbysurveyingtwo groupsof social revolutionsin modern
world history.First, I will examine the classic social revolutionsthat
statesof Bourbon France, Romatransformedthe imperial-monarchical
nov Russia, and Manchu China, probingtheiraccomplishmentsin relation to the expectationsof the liberal,Marxian, and realistperspectives
just outlined.Then I will discussa numberof the nation-buildingsocial
revolutionsthathave transformed
postcolonialand neocolonialcountries
in the 20thcentury.I shall pay special attentionto the ways in which the
geopoliticalcontextsof particularrevolutionshave facilitatedor discouraged the channelingof popular politicalparticipationinto defensiveand
aggressive wars. Whether "communist"or not, I argue, revolutionary
eliteshave been able to build thestrongeststatesin thosecountrieswhose
geopolitical circumstancesallowed or required the emerging new regimes to become engaged in protractedand labor-intensiveinternational
warfare.
Can one make rigorous statementsabout the geopolitical circumstancesthataffectrevolutionsin progress,and thatare in turnaffectedby
them? Revolutionaryoutbreaksdo seem to make wars more likelybecause domesticconflictstendto spilloverto involveforeignpartners,and
because revolutionscreate perceivedthreatsand opportunitiesforother
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
151
states.Beyond this,however,no glib generalizationsare possible; forexample, more sweeping revolutionsdo not automaticallygenerategreater
wars or strongereffortsat foreignintervention.As we are about to see,
the geopoliticalcontextsof social revolutionsin the modern world have
of domesticstate-buildingstrugvaried greatly;so have the intersections
gles with internationalthreatsor conflicts.At this point in the development of knowledge about these matters,the best way to proceed is
throughexploratoryanalysesand comparisonsof a wide range of historical cases.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS AND WAR-MAKING IN FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND CHINA
The word "revolution"did not take on its modern connotationof a
fundamental sociopolitical change accompanied by violent upheavals
frombelow until the French Revolutionof the late i8th century.6This
etymologicalfactappropriatelysignalsthe realitythatthe French Revolution(unlike the English,Dutch, and American)was a social revolution,
in whichclass-basedrevoltsfrombelow,especiallypeasantrevoltsagainst
in the class structurealong
landlords,propelledsudden transformations
in
the
structuresof state power.
with permanentlycentralizingchanges
In Statesand Social Revolutions,I group the French Revolutionforcom-
from1917 tothe1930s and
parativeanalysiswiththeRussianRevolution
with the Chinese RevolutionfromI9I I to the I960s. The French Revolution,I argue, was neitherprimarily"bourgeois" in the Marxist sense
nor "liberal" in the modernizationsense. Nor was the Russian Revolution "proletarian"in the Marxistsense.Rather,theFrench,Russian,and
Chinese revolutions,despiteimportantvariations,displayedstrikingsimilaritiesof context,cause, process,and outcomes.
All threeclassic social revolutionsoccurredin large, previouslyindependent, predominantlyagrarian monarchicalstatesthat found themselves pressuredmilitarilyby economicallymore developed competitors
caused
on the internationalscene. Social revolutionswere sufficiently
and
administrative
military
semi-bureaucratic
the
centralized,
when (a)
organizationsof theold regimesdisintegrateddue to combinationsof internationalpressuresand disputesbetween monarchsand landed commercial upper classes, and (b) widespread peasant revolts took place
against landlords. After more or less protractedstrugglesby political
forcestryingto consolidatenew stateorganizations,all threerevolutions
6 Karl Griewank,"The Emergenceof the Conceptof Revolution,"in Bruce Mazlish, ArthurD. Kaledin, and David B. Ralston,eds., Revolution:A Reader(New York: Macmillan,
'97'),
I3-I7.
152
WORLD POLITICS
resultedin more centralizedand mass-mobilizingnational states,more
powerfulin relationto all domesticsocialgroups,and also more powerful
than the prerevolutionary
regimeshad been in relationto foreigncompetitors.In particular,all threesocial revolutionsmarkedlyraised their
nations'capacitiesto wage humanlycostlywars.7
The differencesin the outcomesand accomplishmentsof the French,
as
Russian, and Chinese revolutionsare not well explained by referring,
a Marxistanalystwould do, to thegreaterroleof bourgeoisclass forcesin
ofproletarianrevoltsto the
theFrench case or to theunique contributions
urban strugglesof 1917 in Russia. Nor can one explain the different
outthe
modernization
theorists
that
the
comes, as
do, by suggesting
milder,
less violent, and less thoroughgoingthe revolutionaryconflictsand
changes,and the briefertherule of an ideologicalvanguard,the more efficientand liberal-democraticthe revolutionaryoutcome. None of these
revolutionshad a liberal-democratic
outcome,and none of themresulted
in a socialistdemocracy.Instead,the differencesin the essentiallymassmobilizing and authoritarianoutcomes and accomplishmentsof the
French,Russian,and Chinese revolutionsare in large partattributableto
the internationalgeopoliticalcontextsin which the conflictsof theserevolutionsplayed themselvesout. They are also attributableto the political
relationshipsestablished,duringand immediatelyafterthe revolutionary
interregnums,between state-buildingleadershipsand rebellious lower
classes. One featurethatthesethreesocial revolutionshave in common is
thatall of themenhanced nationalcapacitiesto wage humanlycostlyforeign wars.
The French Revolutionhas typicallybeen characterizedas a modernizing liberal-democraticrevolutionor as a bourgeois,capitalistrevolution. In termsof economics,it is difficultif not impossibleto show that
the French Revolutionwas necessaryforthe "economic modernization"
or "capitalistdevelopment"ofFrance: theabsolutistold regimehad been
facilitatingcommercializationand pettyindustryjust as much as postrevolutionaryregimesdid.8Politically,moreover,analyststend to forget
that the end resultof the French Revolutionwas not any formof liberalism, but Napoleon's nationalistdictatorship,which leftthe enduring
legacyof a highlycentralizedand bureaucraticFrench statewitha recurrenttendencyto seek nationalglorythroughmilitaryexploits.
7 Thoroughelaborationand documentation
ofthisconclusionappearsin JonathanR. Adelman,Revolution,
Armies,and War:A PoliticalHistory(Boulder,CO: Lynne RiennerPublishers,I 985), chaps. 3- II .
8 For fullerdiscussionand references,
see Skocpol (fn.3), I74-77.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
153
The politicalphases of theFrench Revolutionfrom1789 throughi 8oo
certainlyincluded attemptsto institutionalizecivil libertiesand electoral
democracy,as well as the importantlegalization of undivided private
propertyrightsforpeasantsand bourgeoisalike. Moreover,the factthat
societyratherthan a
the French Revolutioncreateda private-propertied
thataspiredto manage thenationaleconomydirectlyleftopen
party-state
politicalarrangespace forthe eventualemergenceof liberal-democratic
mentsin France. At the time of the Revolutionitself,however,democratizationwas more emphaticallyand enduringlyfurtheredthrough"careersopen to talent"in the militaryofficercorps,throughmass military
pressingof the state'sfiscal
conscription,and throughthe more efficient
demands on all citizens.
From a European continentalperspective,the most strikingand consequential accomplishmentof the French Revolution was its abilityto
launch highlymobile armies of motivatedcitizen-soldiers,coordinated
withenhanced deploymentof artilleryforces.The Jacobinsfrom1792 to
1794 began the process of amalgamating political commissionersand
militiaswiththeremnantsof theroyalstandingarmies.9Even
sans-culotte
thoughtheydid notfinda way to stabilizetheir"Republic ofVirtue,"the
Montagnard Jacobinsfended offthe most pressingdomesticand interthreats.Yet theirfall was not the end of
national counterrevolutionary
militarymass-mobilizationin France. Napoleon consolidateda conservativebureaucraticregimeand came to termswithprivatepropertyholders (includingthe peasant smallholders)and withthe Church (including
the local priestsso influentialwiththepeasantry).Then he expanded the
processof French militarymobilization,deployingcitizen armies of an
unprecedentedsize and a capacityforrapid maneuver.'0The enhanced
popular politicalparticipationand the messianicsense of French nationalism and democraticmissionunleashedby the Revolutionwere thusdirectedoutward. Before theireventualexhaustionin the unconquerable
vastness of Russia, French citizen armies redrew the political map of
modernEurope in irreversiblewaysand inspiredtheemergenceof other
European nationalismsin response.
Russia and China both experiencedthoroughgoingsocial revolutionary transformationsthat resulted in the rule of communist-directed
9 S. F. Scott,"The RegenerationoftheLine ArmyDuring theFrenchRevolution,"Journal
ofModemnHistory42 (SeptemberI970), 307-30.
l Adelman (fn.7), chap. 3; Theodore Ropp, Warin theModernWorld,rev.ed. (New York:
rev.ed. (New York: Free
Collier Books, i962), chap. 4; AlfredVagts,AHistoiyofMilitarism,
Press, I959), chap. 4; JohnEllis, Armiesin Revolution(New York: OxfordUniversityPress,
I974),
chap. 4.
154
WORLD POLITICS
party-states.
These social revolutionsoccurredunderLeninistpartyleadershipsin the modernindustrialera, when themodel of a state-managed
economy was available; and both occurred in countries more hardpressed geopoliticallythan late i8th-centuryFrance had been. The authoritarianand mass-mobilizingenergiesof the immediate postrevolutionary regimes, both in Soviet Russia and Communist China, were
mainlydirectednot to imperialmilitaryconquestsas in France, but to the
promotionof national economic development,which was deemed to be
the key to national independencein a world dominatedby major industrial powers. Even so, in due course both of the new regimes demonstratedgreatlyenhanced capacities (compared to the prerevolutionary
era) forsuccessfullywaging internationalwar.
From themodernizationperspective,theRussian and theChinese revolutionswere tyrannicaland antidemocratic:theywere more violentand
than the French Revolution,and ideological vanguards
transformative
stayed in power both in Russia and in China. (By contrast,the Montagnard perpetratorsof the Terror fellfrompower in France.) The Soviet
regime,however,throughthe Stalinist"revolutionfromabove," became
more coerciveand inegalitarianthandid theChinese Communistregime
after I949. Modernization theorycannot explain the contrastsbetween
the Russian and Chinese new regimes.The civil war interregnumof the
Chinese Revolution,stretchingfrom19 II to I949, was much more proand
tractedthan the briefRussian revolutionarycivil war of I9I7-I92I;
in practice,the Soviet regime probablybuilt directlyupon more structuresand policiesfromRussia's tsaristpast thantheChinese Communist
regime did on China's Confucian-imperialpast. Nor do the contrasting
outcomesmake sensefroma Marxian perspective:theRusrevolutionary
sian Revolutionwas politicallybased on the urban industrialproletariat,
and thus should have resultedin practicescloser to socialistideals than
the peasant-basedChinese Revolution.
The somewhat less murderousand less authoritarianfeaturesof the
Chinese CommuniststateafterI949- at least fromthe point of view of
local peasant communities- can be attributedto the guerrillamode by
which theChinese CommunistPartycame to power.The partycould not
achieve national statepower directlyin the cities;instead,it found itself
faced with the necessityof waging rural guerrillawarfareagainst both
the Japaneseinvadersand its Kuomintangcompetitorsfordomesticpoliticalcontrol.Nationalistappeals helped the Chinese communistsin the
early I940S to attracteducated middle-classcitizensto theircause. Attention to the pressingmaterialand self-defenseneeds of the peasantryin
North China also allowed the communiststo gain sufficient
access to the
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
155
villages to reorganize poor and middle-classpeasants into associations
thatwould supportthe Red Armieseconomicallyand militarily."I
AfterI949, the Chinese communistswere able, by buildingupon their
preexistingpoliticalrelationswithmuch ofthepeasantry,to carryout agriculturalcollectivizationwith less brutalitythan the Bolsheviks.12Simultaneously,the relativelyfavorablegeopoliticalcontextof postrevolutionary China, situated in a world of nuclear superpower balance
between the Soviet Union and the United States,allowed the Chinese
communiststo place less emphasis upon creatinga heavy industrialcapacity for mechanized militaryforcesthan theymight otherwisehave
done. Their limited resources sufficed,however, to establish an independentChinese nuclearcapacity,symbolofmajor-powerstatusin the
post-WorldWar II era.'3
CommunistChina was able to pursueeconomic developmentpolicies
thatstressedlightindustriesand ruraldevelopmentas well as some heavy
industries.Meanwhile, the partycould also infusepeasant-based,guerrilla-stylemilitarypracticesinheritedfromthe revolutionarycivil war
in theKorean War and
intostandingforcesthatcould interveneeffectively
make limitedforaysagainst India and Vietnam. As JonathanAdelman
has argued,performanceof the People's LiberationArmyin the Korean
War battlesof 1950-51 was "simplyoutstanding"compared to the "disastrous" Kuomintang militaryperformanceagainst the Japanesein the
and 1940s. 4 The Revolution,Adelman concludes,had "created a
1930S
whole new Chinese army."''l
By contrast,the Soviet regime consolidated under Stalin's auspices
took a much more brutalstancetowardthepeasantmajority.Essentially,
it substitutedan autocraticdictatorshipfora mass-mobilizingrevolutionary regime. The Bolsheviks originally claimed state power in 1917
throughpoliticaland verylimitedmilitarymaneuveringsin thecitiesand
towns of Russia, and theyinitiallyabstained fromeffortsat nationalist
militarymobilization.Most of the Russian populace acquiesced in their
rule simplybecause oftheexhaustionbroughtbyImperialRussia's defeat
in World War I. The Russian revolutionary
civilwar of 1917 to 1921 was
1 Mark Selden, The Yenan Wayin Revolutionary
China (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press,I97i); Ellis (fn. io), chap. 4.
12Thomas P. Bernstein,
"Leadershipand Mass Mobilisationin theSovietand Chinese CollectivisationCampaigns of I929-30 and I955-56: A Comparison,"China Quarterly3I (JulySeptemberi967), I-47. BernsteincharacterizesChinese collectivizationtechniquesas "persuasive" in contrastto the more "coercive"Soviet practices.Subsequent to collectivization,
however,theChinese"Great Leap Forward"did devolveintoconsiderablecoercionbycadres
againstpeasants.
3Franz Schurmann,The Logic of WorldPower(New York: Pantheon,I974), partII.
4 Adelman (fn.7), I39.
I Ibid., I44.
WORLD POLITICS
156
won by the deploymentof urban guards and conventionallystructured
standingarmies.Peasants were involvedonlyas reluctantlycoerced conscripts.'6The one major foreignadventureof the fledglingBolshevikregime,theinvasionof Poland in I920, ended in militarydefeat.In fact,the
new Russian regimewas fortunatethatWorld War I had defeatedor exhausteditsmajor foreignopponents.For new-bornSoviet Russia did not
conformto the patternof most other social revolutions:its central authoritieswere not in a good positionto channel mass politicalparticipation into internationalwarfare.Instead, theyturnedtoward deepening
internalwarfare againstthe peasantryand among elites.
AfterI92I, the Bolshevikregimelacked organized politicaltiesto the
peasant villages, which had made theirown autonomous local revolutionsagainstlandlordsin I9I7 and i9i8. Stalin roseto power in the I920S
and I930S by convincingmanycadres in the Soviet party-state
thatRussian "socialism" would have to be built"in one country"thatwas isolated
and threatenedeconomicallyand militarilyby Westernindustrialpowers. The crash programof heavyindustrializationwas alleged to be necessarynot onlyto build Marxian socialism,but also to prepareRussia for
land-based militarywarfare.The peasantrybecame a domesticobstacle
to Stalinistpolicies when it refusedto provideeconomic surplusesat exploitativerates.Stalin's subsequentbureaucraticand terroristicdrive to
force peasant communitiesinto centrallycontrolledagriculturalcollectivessucceeded onlyat a terriblecostin human livesand agriculturalproin urban and officialRussia helped
ductivity;the politicalreverberations
of
the
Soviet
elite
in
the 1930s. The Stalinistconsolito spur his purges
dation of thenew regimewas thusinitiallya productof conflictsbetween
an urban-basedparty-stateand the peasantry,played out in a geopolitically threateningenvironment- thoughnotin an environmentin which
directnationalmobilizationforinternationalwar was eithernecessaryor
possi'ble.17
It is significantthatStalinism
evolved into a popular mass-mobilizing
regimeas a resultof the travailsof World War 11.18When the invading
Nazis conducted themselveswith greatbrutalityagainst the Slav populationstheyconquered,StalinistRussia finallyhad to mobilize fora total
internationalwar. Despite thesetbacksof thefirstfewmonths,the Soviet
,6
Ellis (fn. io), chap. 5.
'7Background forthisanalysisof Stalin's"revolutionfromabove" comes especiallyfrom
Bernstein(fn. I2); Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharinand the BolshevikRevolution(New York:
Knopf, I973); and Moshe Lewin, Russian Peasantsand Soviet Power, trans. Irene Nove
(Evanston:NorthwesternUniversityPress,i968).
discussionof thedifferent
phasesof nationalistmobilizationin Russia and
,8 An insightful
Russiaand China:
China appears in William G. Rosenbergand MarilynYoung, Transforming
Century(New York: OxfordUniversityPress,i982).
Revolutionary
Strugglein theTwentieth
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
157
Union met the militarychallengesof World War II much more effectivelythan tsaristRussia had met the exigenciesof World War 1.9 The
Soviet people and armed forcesfoughtback withconsiderableefficiency
and amazing zeal in thefaceof terriblecasualties.For thefirsttimesince
1917, Soviet rulerswere able to use Russian nationalismto bolstertheir
leadership.Stalin did not hesitateto revivemany symbolsof Russian national identityfromprerevolutionary
times,and he also restoredprerogativesof rank and expertisein themilitary.2oIt is thereforenot surprising
that,when World War II ended in victoryfortheU.S.S.R. and theAllies,
the Soviet rulers' domestic legitimacy as well as the country'sglobal
great-powerstatus had been enhancedsignificantly.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS IN DEPENDENT COUNTRIES:
GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXTS AND THE POSSIBILITIES FOR MILITARIZATION
In the classic social revolutionsof France, Russia, and China, long-establishedmonarchicalstateswere transformedinto mass-mobilizingnationalregimes;mostothersocial revolutionsin the modernera, however,
have occurred in smaller,dependentcountries.21In some, such as Vietnam and thePortuguesecoloniesof Africa,which had been colonized by
transformations
foreignimperialpowers,social-revolutionary
were part
of the processof national liberationfromcolonialism.In others,such as
Cuba, Mexico, Iran, and Nicaragua, neopatrimonialdictatorshipswere
caughtin webs of great-powerrivalrieswithinthe capitalistworld economy and the global geopoliticalsystem.Social revolutionsin thesecountrieshave forgedstrongerstatesthatare markedlymore nationalistand
mass-incorporatingthan the previous regimes and other countries in
their respectiveregions. Still, the new regimes have remained minor
powers on the world scene.
of1977-1979,
Withtheexception
oftheIranianRevolution
whichwas
primarilycarried out through urban demonstrationsand strikes,all
third-worldsocial revolutionshave depended on at least a modicum of
peasantsupportfortheirsuccess.In mostinstances,bothpeasantsand city
dwellerswere mobilized forguerrillawarfareby nationalistrevolutionary elites; only in the Mexican and Bolivian revolutionswere peasant
Adelman (fn.7), chaps.4-7.
Alf Edeen, "The Civil Service:Its Compositionand Status,"in CyrilE. Black, ed., The
Transformation
of RussianSociety(Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, i960), 274-9I;
see
'9
20
esp. 286-87.
For useful overviews,see Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Warsof the TwentiethCentury(New
York: Harper & Row, i969), chaps. I, 4-6; JohnDunn,ModernRevolutions
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,I972), chaps.2, 4-8.
21
158
WORLD POLITICS
communitiesable to rebel on theirown as did the French and Russian
peasant communities.22 Most third-worldsocial revolutionshave been
played out as militarystrugglesamong leadershipscontendingto create
or redefinethe missions of national states.And these revolutionshave
happened in settingsso penetratedbyforeigninfluences- economic,military,and cultural- thatsocial-revolutionary
transformations
have been
as much about the definitionof autonomous identitieson the international scene as theyhave been about the forgingof new politicalties between indigenousrevolutionariesand theirmass constituents.
Consequently,the variousinternationalcontextsin which third-world
revolutionshave occurred become crucial in conditioningthe new regimes thathave emergedfromthem.One basic aspectoftheinternational
situationis therelationshipbetweena countryundergoingrevolutionand
thegreatpowers,whatevertheymaybe in a givenphase of world history.
Military,economic,and culturalaspectsof such relationsall need to be
considered in our analysis.The regionalcontextof each revolutionalso
matters:What have been the possibilitiesformilitaryconflictswith immediate neighbors?Have revolutionizedthird-worldnations faced invasions by third-worldneighbors,or have theybeen able to invade their
neighborswithoutautomaticallyinvolvinggreat powers in the conflict?
As I will illustratein the remainderof thissection,attentionto internationalcontextscan help us to explainat leastas much about thestructures
new regimesin the thirdworld
and orientationsof social-revolutionary
as analysesof theirclass basis or propositionsabout the inherentlogic of
modernization and the violence and disruptivenessof various revolutions.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS IN THE SHADOW OF A GREAT POWER
A great power can use actual or threatenendmilitaryinterventionto
near its borders, as the Soviet
prevent revolutionarytransformations
Union has done in postwarEasternEurope and as the United Statesused
to do in Central America. Shortof that,major politicaltransformations
of any kind thatproceed in a greatpower's sphereof militarydominance
are invariablyprofoundlyinfluencedby possibilitiesforrebellionor accommodation.Throughout the 20th century,social revolutionsin Centraland Latin America,iftheyhappened at all, have been affectedby the
actionsand inactionsof the United Statesas the hegemonicpower in the
hemisphere. These revolutionshave also been affectedby the global
Alternativemodes of peasant involvementin social revolutionsare analyzed in Theda
Politics14 (April 1982), 351Skocpol, "What Makes Peasants Revolutionary?"Comparative
7522
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
159
power balances of theirday. The cases of Mexico, Cuba, Bolivia, and the
still-unfoldingrevolutionin Nicaragua suggest a number of ways in
whichthegreatpowershave influencedtheshape ofthenew regimesthat
emerged fromsocial-revolutionary
interregnums.
In one sense,the most "benign" example of U.S. influenceis demonstratedin relationto Mexico: the social revolutiontherewas originally
allowed to proceed,and was eventuallyconsolidatedintoa regimethatis
electoraldemocracyand a sina unique hybridbetweena Western-style
gle-partyauthoritarianregime.23Still,we should note that unlike most
othersocial-revolutionary
regimesin the modern world, thatof Mexico
has neverbeen able to engage in mass mobilizationforinternationalwarhas been restrictedto state-ledeconomic
fare. Nationalist self-assertion
in periodssuchas the 1930S and 1940s, when
development,
particularly
the United Stateswas distractedby largerdomesticor world crises.Popular politicalparticipationhas been managed bya corporatist,
patronagethatpreservesorderin economicallyinefficient
orientedparty-state
ways.
thrustof the Mexican Revolutionwas
Originally,the anti-imperialist
directed primarilyagainst the European powers that were heavily involved in the economic and militaryaffairsof the prerevolutionaryregime of PorfirioDiaz; yet relationswith the United States increasingly
The Mexican Revolution
figuredin successivephases of the revolution.24
couldnothavebrokenoutat all in i9i0-i9
I
had notthenorthern
forces
opposed to PorfirioDiaz been able to move back and forthacrossthe U.S.
border,countingon tacitAmericansupportin an era when theEuropean
greatpowers were the primetargetsof Mexican nationalists.In addition,
if the United States had been able and willing to launch sustainedantirevolutionaryinterventions,the Revolution could not have continued
afterthe defeatsof Francisco Madero and General Victoriano Huerta
made it potentiallysocially radical. Some scatteredU.S. interventions
were launched,but theywere so minorthattheironly consequence was
to provoke Mexican resentment.World War I and the presidencyof
Woodrow Wilson broughttheseAmerican counterrevolutionary
efforts
to an end and gave theMexicans space to begin the processof consolidatHuntington(fn. 2), 3I5-24, discussesthe postrevolutionary
Mexican regime.See also
Nora Hamilton,The LimitsofStateAutonomy:
Post-Revolutionary
Mexico(Princeton:Princeton UniversityPress,i982), and RogerD. Hansen, The PoliticsofMexicanDevelopment(Baltimore:The JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,1971).
24 On the Mexican Revolutionand its relations
withforeignstates,see Wolf (fn.2I), chap.
i; Dunn (fn.2I), chap. 2; FriedrichKatz, The SecretWarin Mexico:Europe,theUnitedStates,
and theMexicanRevolution(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,i98i); Walter Goldfrank,
"World System,State Structure,and the Onset of the Mexican Revolution,"Politicsand Society5 (No. 4, I975), 4 I7-39; and JohnWomack,Jr.,Zapata and theMexicanRevolution(New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, i969).
160
WORLD POLITICS
ing a new regime under populist and nationalistauspices. During the
I930s and World War II, U.S. abstentionfromunusual levels of meddling in Mexican affairswas again importantin allowing Lazaro Cardenas to complete constructionof a populist,single-party"democracy"
nationalistclout to expropriateU.S. oil companies.25
with sufficient
Due to the basic geopoliticalcontext,therewas neverany question of
a new regimedevoted to mass mobilizationformilitarypurposesat any
point during the Mexican Revolution.Full-scale war with the United
States would obviouslyhave been fatalto any revolutionaryleadership,
and attemptsto exportrevolutionto thesouthwould probablyhave provoked theire of thenortherncolossus.Given some breathingspace bythe
United States,Mexican revolutionary
nationalistschose insteadto ritualize mass mobilizationintothesubordinateincorporationof peasant communes and workers' unions into the ruling InstitutionalRevolutionary
Party. They produced what is perhaps the most nonmartialnationalist
in the
transformation
regimeever to emergefroma social-revolutionary
modernworld. They also produceda patronage-oriented
that
party-state
over theyears,requirhas become steadilymore economicallyinefficient
ing a constantflowof graftto buyoffelitefactionsand to co-optpopular
leaders.26
The othermajor social revolutionrighton America'sdoorstep,theCuban Revolutionof I959, culminatedin a new regimeremarkablyadept at
mobilizing human resourcesfor militaryadventuresacross the globe.
The failureof the United States to preventor overthrowFidel Castro's
triumphover the Batistadictatorshiphelped to accountforthisoutcome.
But the global superpowerrivalryof the United States and the Soviet
Union was also a crucialingredient,forSoviet willingnessto protectand
bankroll the new regime gave Cuban "anti-imperialists"a leverage
against the United Statesthatwould have been unimaginableto the earlier Mexican revolutionaries.
Once establishedin power,Castro could assertCuban nationalautonomy against the overwhelmingU.S. economic and cultural presence.
Having done so, he could thenprotecthis rule fromU.S.-sponsoredoverthrowonly by allyinghimselfdomesticallywith the Cuban Communist
withthe SovietUnion. Subsequently,Cuba has
Partyand internationally
become economicallyand militarilyso dependenton Moscow thatit finds
itselfservingSoviet intereststhroughoutthe thirdworld.27Cubans are
Hamilton (fn.23), chaps.4-7.
Hansen (fn.23); Susan Eckstein,The Poverty
ofRevolution:The Stateand theUrbanPoor
in Mexico(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,I977).
27 Kosmos Tsokhas, "The PoliticalEconomyof Cuban Dependence on the SovietUnion,"
Theoryand Society9 (March I 980),3 I 9-62.
25
26
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
161
trainedand mobilized forforeignservicebothas militaryadvisorsand as
educated civilian technicians,which is a way in which Castro can partiallyrepay the Soviets. In addition,it is an opportunityfora small, dependentrevolutionarynationto createenhancedmobilityfortrainedcitizens.28 It also allows Cuba to exertconsiderablemilitaryand ideological
influenceon the world scene- an amazing featfor such a tinycountry
located only ninetymiles froma hostilesuperpower.
The weakest and poorestsouthernneighborsof the United States to
experience social revolutionshave been Bolivia in I952-I964 and Nicaragua since I979. These two cases demonstrateoppositeeffectsofU.S. determinationto counterradicalchangein contextswheretheSovietUnion
could not or would not do as much as it did forCastro's Cuba.
In Bolivia, spontaneouspopular revoltsby peasant communitiesand
tin miners initiallyexpropriatedmajor owners,both domesticand foreign, and threatenedto createa nationalistnew regimethatwas not unAfterinternationaltinpricescolder the influenceof theUnited States.29
lapsed, however,the new Bolivian authoritiesaccepted internationalaid,
includinghelp fromthe United States,to rebuilda professionalmilitary
apparatus.In due course,the refurbishedmilitarytook over,establishing
Bolivian governmentswhich,while notattemptingto reversethepeasant
land expropriationsof 1952, have followedboth domestic-economicand
foreignpolicies thatare amenable to American interests.In essence,the
United Statesused a combinationof benignneglectand cleverlytargeted
foreignaid to deradicalize theBolivian Revolution.A numberof circumstances facilitatedAmerican containmentpolicies. Bolivian revolutionaries in 1952 had no foreignwars to fight,and popular radicalism(led by
Trotskyistcadres) remained focusedon internalclass struggles.What is
more, Bolivian revolutionarieswere not reacting to or capitalizing
upon a bitterprior historyof direct Yankee militaryinterventions,
which was the case in Cuba and Nicaragua.
In Nicaragua as in Cuba, U.S. authoritiesinitiallyacquiesced in the
overthrowof a corruptand domesticallyweakened patrimonialdictator
even though he had originallybeen installed under U.S. sponsorship.
Then, again as in Cuba, a dialecticgot underwaybetweena revolutionary
radicalization couched in anti-Americanrhetoricand increasingefforts
28 Susan Eckstein,"Structural
and IdeologicalBases ofCuba's OverseasPrograms,"Politics
and Societyii (No. i, i982), 95-121.
29 My accountof the Bolivian case draws upon Huntington(fn.2), 325-34;
RobertJ.Alexander, The Bolivian National Revolution(New Brunswick,NJ: RutgersUniversityPress,
1958); Bert Useem, "The Bolivian Revolutionand Workers'Control,"Politicsand Society9
(No. 4, i980), 447-69;and JonathanKelleyand Lawrence Klein,Revolutionand theRebirthof
Inequality(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress,i98i).
162
WORLD POLITICS
by U.S. authoritiesto roll back or overthrowthe revolution.3o
American
effortsbecame more determined and sustained
counterrevolutionary
afterRonald Reagan was electedPresidentin i980. At first,theyseemed
to make some headway when economicshortagesand domesticunrestin
the face of an unpopularmilitarydrafttended to undercutthe Sandinistas' legitimacyas leadersof a popular guerrillamovementagainstthe Somoza regime. Because of domestic political constraints,however, the
United Stateshas been unable to invade SandinistaNicaragua, having to
rely instead on economic pressuresand the financingof Nicaraguan
counterrevolutionary
fighters;but the latterhave proved to be neither
nor politicallyadept.
militarilyefficient
Predictably in the light of the historyof foreigneffortsto subvert
emergingrevolutionary
regimesin such ways theseU.S. measureshave
simply provided the Sandinistas with excuses for economic shortages.
More importantly,
theU.S. efforts
have nourishedsustainedbutnot overwhelming counterrevolutionary
militarythreats,which have actually
helped the Sandinistasto consolidatea mass-mobilizingauthoritarianregime throughnationalistappeals and an unprecedentedmilitarybuildup. In short,U.S. policies since i980, declaredlyaimed at "democratizing" Nicaragua, have had theoppositeeffect;theyhave underminedelementsof pluralismin a postrevolutionary
regimeand enhanced the nationalistcredentialsof themoreauthoritarianNicaraguan Leninists.Still,
as of thiswritingin 1987, it remainspossiblethatshiftsin American policy may stop thisprocessof militarizationshortof full-scalewar in CentralAmerica.
MILITARIZED
THIRD-WORLD
UNDER COMMUNISM
REVOLUTIONS
AND ISLAM
Far removed fromthe areas of the New World that are close to the
United States,the Vietnameseand Iranian revolutionsare two instances
in which great-powerrivalries,along with geographicaldistance,have
made it possibleforrevolutionary
regimesto take a standagainst"American imperialism"withoutbeing overthrownby U.S. militaryintervention. What is more, Vietnam and Iran in the mid-20th century,like
France in the late i8th, are examples of the awesome power of socialrevolutionaryregimesto wage humanlycostlywars and to transformregional politicalpatternsand internationalbalances of power. Both revo3"My accountofNicaragua drawsupon WalterLaFeber,InevitableRevolutions:
The United
Statesin CentralAmerica(New York: W. W. Norton, i983); ShirleyChristian,Nicaragua:
Revolutionin theFamily(New York: VintageBooks, i986); and Lawrence Shaefer,"Nicaraguan-United States BilateralRelations:The ProblemswithinRevolutionand Reconstruction" (Senior honorsthesis,Universityof Chicago, i984).
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
163
lutions demonstratethis,even thoughone is a "communist"revolution
and the other"Islamic" and thusmilitantlyanticommunist.
Analystsof agrarianclass struggleshave stressedthatthe Vietnamese
Revolution was grounded in peasant supportin both the northernand
southernpartsof the country.3'But attemptsto explain the overall logic
of thisrevolutionin termsof the social conditionsof eitherthe northern
or the southernpeasantryhave inevitablymissed the othermain ingredientin the revolution'ssuccess.From theFrench colonial period on, educated Vietnamesefoundthe CommunistPartyof Vietnam and the various movementsassociatedwithit to be the most effectiveand persistent
instrumentsof resistanceto foreigndomination firstby the French
colonialists,thenbytheJapaneseoccupiersduringWorld War II, thenby
the returningFrench,and finallyby the United States.The Vietnamese
communists were their country'smost uncompromisingnationalists;
theywere willing,when conditionsrequired or allowed, to wage guerrilla warfarethroughpeasant mobilization.32By contrast,foreignoccupiersand theirVietnamesecollaboratorsworked fromthecitiesoutward,
especiallyin thesouth,which had been thecenterof French colonial control.
Geopolitically,the Vietnamese communistsbenefitedfrom the distance the French and American forceshad to traverseto confrontthem,
fromthe availabilityof sanctuariesin Laos and Cambodia, and (afterthe
partialvictoryin the north)fromtheirabilityto receivesuppliesthrough
China fromboth China and the Soviet Union. Had the United States
been able or willingto use nuclearweapons in the SoutheastAsian theatre,or had the Soviet Union and China not temporarilycooperated to
help the Vietnamese,it seems doubtfulthatthe Vietnamese Revolution
could have reunifiedthe country,notwithstandingthe extraordinary
willingnessof northernand many southernVietnamese to die fighting
the U.S. forces.
Since the defeatof the United Statesin southernVietnam,the Hanoi
regime has faced difficulteconomic conditions;it seems to tackle such
problems with much less efficiencyand zeal than it tackled the antiimperialistwars fromthe 1940S to the 1970s. As theunquestionablydominant militarypower in its region,the Vietnamesestatehas invaded and
occupied Cambodia and engaged in occasionalbattleswitha now-hostile
China. Vietnam continuesto relyon Soviet help to counterbalanceU.S.
31See, forinstance,Wolf (fn.21), chap. 4. For a discussionof alternative
perspectiveson the
Vietnamesepeasantry,see Skocpol (fn.22).
32 Dunn (fn.21),
chap. 5; Huynh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese
Communism,
I925-I945 (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell UniversityPress,i982);
JohnT. McAlister,Jr.,Vietnam:The OriginsofRevolution(New York: Knopf,i969).
164
WORLD POLITICS
hostilityand the armed power of China. But, what is perhaps more importantnow thatVietnam is indeed "the Prussia of SoutheastAsia," the
Vietnamesecommunistsstillfindit possibleto legitimatetheirleadership
throughnever-endingmobilizationof theirpeople fornational military
efforts.The Chinese threat,Cambodian resistance,and American opposition to the normalization of Vietnam's gains have provided just the
kind of internationallythreateningcontextthat the Vietnamese communists,afterso manyyearsof warfare,findmostcongenial to theirdomesticpoliticalstyle.
The militantShi'a clericsof Iran,who seem to be so different
fromthe
Vietnamesecommunists,are anothermass-mobilizingand state-building
revolutionaryelite thathas been helped immenselyby a facilitatinggeopoliticalcontextand protractedinternationalwarfare.33
The Iranian Revolution is stillin progress,and it is thereforetoo earlyto characterizeits
outcome in any definitiveway. Nevertheless,the processof thisremarkable upheaval has already dramatized the appropriatenessof viewing
contemporarysocial revolutionsas promotingideologicallyreconstructed
national identitiesinvolvingthe sudden incorporationof formerlyexcluded popular groups into state-directedprojects.Moreover,this revolution shows thatmass mobilizationforwar, aggressiveas well as defensive, is an especially congenial state-directedproject for revolutionary
leaders.
From both Marxian and modernizationperspectives,the Iranian Revolution, especially the consolidation of state power by the Ayatollah
Khomeini and the Islamic Republican Partysince the overthrowof the
Shah in 1979, has been a puzzle. Marxistanalystshave been reluctantto
call thisa "social revolution"because class conflictsand transformations
of economic propertyrightshave not definedthe main termsof struggle
or the patternsof sociopoliticalchange. Modernization theorists,meanwhile,have been surprisedat thecapacityof the untrainedand traditionist Islamic clericsto consolidatetheirrule; these theoristsexpected that,
after a brief "terror,"such noncommunistand ideologically fanatical
leaders would give way to technicallytrainedbureaucratsifnot to liberaldemocratic politicians.
In fact,from1979 throughi982, the Islamic Republican Partyin Iran
reconstructed
stateorganizationsto embodydirectcontrols
systematically
by Shi'a clerics. Step by step, all other leading political forces liberal
33 The followingdiscussiondraws on Theda Skocpol,"RentierStateand Shi'a Islam in the
Iranian Revolution,"Theoryand Societyi i (No. 3, i982), 265-84. It also reliesheavilyon R. K.
Iran: Challengeand Responsein theMiddle East (Baltimore: The
Ramazani, Revolutionary
JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,i986), and Shaul Bakhash,The ReignoftheAyatollahs:Iran
and theIslamicRevolution(New York: Basic Books), i984.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
165
Westernizers,the Mujhahedeen, the Tudeh Party,and technocratsand
professionalmilitaryofficersloyalto Abolhassan Bani-Sadr-were eliminated fromwhat had once been the all-encompassingrevolutionaryalliance. The partydid thisby deployingand combiningthe classic ingredientsforsuccessfulrevolutionarystatebuilding.
For one thing,the Islamic Republicanclericsshareda commitmentto
a politicalideologythatgave themunlimitedwarrantto rule exclusively
in thename ofall theShi'a believers.Khomeini had developed a militanttraditionalistreadingof Shi'a beliefs,calling on the clericsthemselvesto
govern in place of secular Iranian rulerscorruptedby Western cultural
imperialism.The Islamic Republican ConstitutionforIran officiallyenshrinedsuch clericalsupervisionoverall affairsof state;concretepolitical
organizations,including the Islamic Republican Party that dominated
the Majlis (parliament),also embodied thisorientation.
Moreover,the Islamic Republican clericsand theirdevout nonclerical
associates did not hesitateto organize, mobilize, and manipulate mass
popular support, including the unemployed as well as workers and
lower-middle-classpeople in Teheran and othercities.Islamic judges supervised neighborhoodsurveillancebodies; Islamic militantsorganized
revolutionary
guards forpolice and militaryduties;and consumerrations
and welfarebenefitsfortheneedywere dispensedthroughneighborhood
mosques. Iranians neverbeforeinvolvedin nationalpoliticallifebecame
directlyenergized throughsuch organization; those with doubts were
subjectedto peer controlsas well as to elitesupervision.With thesemeans
of mass-based power at theirdisposal,the Islamic Republican Partyhad
littletroubleeliminatingliberaland leftistcompetitorsfrompublic political life.
Right after the Shah's overthrow,ideologically committed Islamic
cadres, backed by mass organizations,reconstructedmajor public institutionsin Iranian national life.Not only special committeesof revolutionaryjustice,but also traditionallyeducated clerical judges took over
the criminaland civil legal system,reorientingit to proceduraland substantivenorms in line with theirunderstandingof the Koran. The next
particularlyschools
targetswere Western-orientedculturalinstitutions,
and universities.These were firstclosed and then purged, turned into
bastions of Islamic education and revolutionarypropaganda. Civil state
bureaucracies were similarlypurged and transformed;and so, in due
course,were the remnantsof the Shah's militaryforces,particularlythe
army.
I have just summarized took place not
The kinds of transformations
automaticallybut throughhard-foughtpolitical,bureaucratic,and street
166
WORLD POLITICS
strugglesthat pittedotherelites alternativewould-be consolidatorsof
theIranian Revolution againstthemilitantclericsand theirsupporters.
As these struggleswithinIran unfolded,the emergingclerical authoritarianismrepeatedlybenefitedfrominternationalconditionsand happeningsthatallowed themto deploytheirideologicaland organizational
resourcesto maximum advantage.
Overall, theversionof theIranian Revolutionthattheclericssoughtto
institutionalizehas been virulentlyanti-Western,and definedespecially
in oppositionto "U.S. imperialism."Oppositionto Sovietimperialismhas
also been a consistenttheme.Fortunatelyfortheclerics,thefiscalbasis of
the Iranian stateafteras well as beforethe revolutionlies in the exportof
oil, for which an internationalmarket has continued to exist.34A geopoliticalgivenis coterminouswiththiseconomicgiven:neithertheSoviet
Union nor theUnited Stateshas been in a positionto intervenemilitarily
against the Iranian Revolution,in part because Iran lies between their
two spheresof directcontrol.It is also fortunateforIran's radical clerics
thatthe United Stateshas acted in ways thatwere symbolicallyprovocative while not being materiallyor militarilypowerfulenough to control
eventsin Iran. The admissionof the deposed Shah to the United States,
the subsequent seizure of the American embassy by pro-Khomeini
of theU.S. authoritiesto free
youths,and theensuingunsuccessfulefforts
the American hostages,all created an excellentpolitical matrix within
Iran for the clericsto discreditas pro-Americana whole series of their
secular competitorsforstatepower.
Then, in the autumnof ig80, thesecularist-Islamicregimeof Saddam
Hussein in neighboringIraq attackedrevolutionary
Iran; since theIraqis
perceivedKhomeini's regimeas weak and internallydisorganized,they
revexpectedit to fall.What happened withtheJacobinsin i 8th-century
in
At
France
then
itself
Iran.
olutionary
repeated
revolutionary
first,the
foreigninvadersmade headway,forthe remnantsof the Shah's military,
particularlythe army,were indeed disorganized at the command level.
But revolutionaryIslamic guards poured out to the fronts,and the Iraqi
offensivesbegan to come up againstfanaticallydogged resistance.Islamic
fundamentalistsand Iranian secular nationalistspulled together,however grudgingly,to resistthe common enemy.
Domestic Iranian power struggleshave not stopped during the war
with Iraq. During the finalmonthsof his attemptto survivewithinthe
Khomeini regime,PresidentBani-Sadr tried to use the newly essential
34Ramazani(fn.33), chaps. 13-14; Shaul Bakhash,The PoliticsofOil and Revolutionin IIan
(Washington,DC: StaffPaper,The BrookingsInstitution,
i982); and "Oil RevenueLiftsIranian Economy,"The New YorkTimes,Friday,July9, i982, pp. Di, D4.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
AND MOBILIZATION
167
regulararmyto build up secular-technocratic
leverageagainstclerical
rule.But he and hisfollowers,
alongwithmanyarmyofficers,
weredefeatedand removed.Thereafter,
duringi98i and intoi982, despitesetbacksin thewar due to theinitiallackofcoordination
betweenrevolua new Islamicmilitary
tionaryguardsand regulararmyforces,
loyalto
forIran.35It was able to
theclericalregimewas graduallysynthesized
combineregularstrategic
planningforbattleswiththeuse of suchuntacticsas humanwavesof martyrs
conventional
willingto clear Iraqi
minefieldswiththeirbodies.Byearlyi982, theIranianshad succeeded
in drivingtheIraqisoutoftheircountry;
thelatterhavebeenon thedeclericalregimeinIranhasdoggedly
fensive
eversince,as theconsolidated
pursuedthewarin thenameofitstransnationalist
ideologicalvision.
willprobably
settledownintosome
In theend,theIranianRevolution
thatcoexists,
howeveruneasauthoritarianism
sortofIslamic-nationalist
The
Iranian
armies
are
with
its
ily,
neighbors.
unlikelyto overrunthe
armiestemporarily
overMiddleEast thewaytheFrenchrevolutionary
ranmuchofcontinental
Europe.Iranis stilla third-world
nation;on the
whocan inhibititswildestaspirations.
globalscene,it facessuperpowers
have alreadydisproved
Iran's militaryaccomplishments
Nevertheless,
of
modernization
theorists
that
a regimerun by antithe expectation
WesternShi'a clericswouldnotbe viablein thecontemporary
world.By
and reconstructing
statepowerthroughideologically
coconsolidating
and bydirecting
ordinatedmassmobilization,
popularzeal againsta faraway superpowerand channelingit intoa war againsta less populous
neighboring
state,the IslamicRepublicansof Iran have provenonce
are lessaboutclassstruggles
or "moderniagain thatsocialrevolutions
ofnewlyassertive
nazation"thanaboutstatebuildingand theforging
tionalidentitiesin a modernworldthatremainsculturally
pluralistic
moreinterdependent.
evenas itinexorably
becomeseconomically
CONCLUSION
ofrevolutions
mustattendto
If,as Franz Borkenauargued,students
aboutthe
"changesin thestateorder,"muchremainsto be understood
kindsofpoliticaltransformation
thatrevolutions
haveaccomplished
and
to whichtheirenhancedstatecapacitieshavebeendirected
theactivities
rather
withvaryingdegreesofsuccess.In thisessay,whichis suggestive
I
that
thanconclusive,havespeculated manysocial-revolutionary
regimes
into prohave excelledat channelingenhancedpopularparticipation
35Ramazani(fn.33), chap. 5; William F. Hickman,Ravagedand Reborn:The IranianArmy,
i982).
1982 (Washington,DC: StaffPaper,The BrookingsInstitution,
168
WORLD POLITICS
tractedinternationalwarfare.Because of the ways revolutionaryleaders
mobilize popular supportin the course of strugglesforstatepower, the
emergingregimescan tackle mobilizationforwar betterthan any other
task, including the promotionof national economic development.The
full realization of this revolutionarypotentialforbuilding strongstates
depends on threateningbut not overwhelming geopolitical circumstances.
The fullexplorationof thesenotionswill requiremore precisetheorizing and more systematiccomparativeresearch,going well beyondthehistoricalillustrationsofferedhere. Yet furtherinvestigationsof war-making as a proclivityof social-revolutionary
regimescould hardlybe more
timely.The image of teen-ageIranians blowing themselvesup on Iraqi
land minesas a way to heaven should remindus thatthepassionsof i6thto i8th-centuryEurope have yetto play themselvesout fullyin the third
world of the 20th century.These passions will not oftenembody themselves in social-revolutionary
but when they do and
transformations,
when geopolitical circumstancesunleash internationalconflictsand do
not proscribetheoutbreakofwar we can expectaspirationsforequality
and dignity,both withinnationsand on the internationalstage,to flow
again and again into militarymass mobilization. Arguably,this is the
mission thatrevolutionizedregimesperformbest. In the face of serious
(but not overwhelming)foreignthreats,theyexcel at motivatingthe formerlyexcluded to die forthegloryof theirnational states.