What is The Connection Between Revolution And Violence?

Zaahid Munshi Professor Kowalski Mosaics IIMay 3rd, 2018 Final ExamSection I- Synthesis Essay (50%)  Between revolution and ideology? In your answer make sure to sketch out briefly what in your mind, constitutes a revolution. (HINT: Is revolution modem?) Please use specific examples, ideas, and concepts from the course material to support your answer. The modern concept of revolution has a comparatively short history. As recently as in sixteenth century this was an astronomic term meaning ‘rotation, return to origin’, which is the opposite of the current connotation of a radical change.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the French revolution of 1789 are perhaps the two key events in the world social and political history to which we owe the modern understanding of the term.

Within the framework of social and political sciences, I would say that revolution is a rapid and radical transformation of political and social order of a given society. In its basic form, it is almost always accompanied by violence.Importantly, from the purely sociopolitical use of term, the understanding of revolution as a rapid and radical transformation which makes the return to the previous order of things impossible, has spread over other spheres of human activity.

We can talk about Neolithic revolution, industrial revolution, sexual revolution, digital revolution – not implying an actual coup d’état and violent actions against the opponents. For instance, the industrial revolution, according to Marx, ‘was precipitated by the discovery of the steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole series of other mechanical devices.

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These machines, which were very expensive and hence could be bought only by big capitalists, altered the whole mode of production’ (Marx 1847 [2005]), spread over other industries, and consequently transformed the whole set of social relations – without yet provoking actual armed revolts from the part of the disadvantaged proletariat. Yet, even the industrial revolution was accompanied by violence against those of the workers who were not able to adapt; and, following Marx, it can be argued that the dehumanization of labor, a direct consequence of the industrial revolution, was a form of violence as well. Political history provides even more illustrative examples of the necessary connection between revolution and violence. For instance, the French Revolution is marked by different forms of violence: the execution of the king, the Jacobine Terror, persecution of the nobility, wars with the neighboring states.

Almost the same pattern can be traced in the Russian Revolution of 1917: there, again, was the execution of the royal family, the civil war, the war against foreign invaders, and violent persecutions of the opponents that culminated in the Great Purges of 1937. It can be added that some more recent changes of political regimes, such as the end of the Soviet rule in the countries of the Eastern Bloc in 1989, were relatively peaceful, especially compared to the examples given above; still, these events are referred to as revolutions. I believe that this, indeed very recent move from violence to non-violence in bringing about fundamental political and social change, is a very optimistic evidence of the world becoming a less violent place overall. However, it remains to be seen whether this pattern will be followed all around the globe.The reason for revolutions being so indissolubly connected with violence is the irreconcilability of the opponents’ world views. In this respect, I believe that revolutions are instruments in the wars of ideologies.

It is in force of connection with ideologies that tend to encompass all aspects of social, political, and even personal lives that revolutions bring about such fundamental changes. In my opinion, modern-type revolutions did not come before various ideologies began to coexist within one society. The earlier manifestations of violence, like local insurrections or rebellions, usually pursued specific goals such as lowering of taxes or distribution of bread. They did not aim at changing the general social structures or creating a new world order. On the contrary, the big revolutions of the last three-four centuries tried to do just that.This profound connection between revolution, violence, and ideology is a product of modern era that was born around seventeenth century, in the Age of Reason. Its foundations being laid by the rationalist philosophy of René Descartes, this epoch embraced rationality as the base of all things, also state power which was earlier believed to be given by God.

Secularization of power created a situation where several conflicting opinions about the governance could coexist; and, without a higher authority to refer to, equally compelling ideologies began to clash, using revolutions as their violent instruments of coming to life. Section 2. Question 2. Arendt contends that totalitarianism needs the transformation of ‘classes’ into ‘masses’ in order to achieve complete power. What does she mean by this? Why does this feature of totalitarianism mark a departure from other forms of autocratic rule? Would you describe totalitarianism as a particularly modem system? In Chapter 10 ‘A Classless Society’ of her classic book ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, Hannah Arendt passes from providing historical notes on the preludes of totalitarianism to analyzing totalitarianism itself.

For her, the distinction between class system and classless society consisting of mass men is crucial. Classes, for Arendt, are interest-based entities which give their members a sense of social belonging; their interests are promoted and defended in conventional politics. Masses, on the other hand, have long been neglected by the establishment; they are formed of very numerous yet rather indifferent people who are not bound together by a common interest and don’t have any experience in public politics. Arendt uses these differences to explain why totalitarianism needs a classless society to achieve total power.First, political innocence of the mass man makes him susceptible to the straightforward totalitarian propaganda which, according to Arendt, would be lost on the more experienced member of a class.

Second, the mass man does not care for the establishment that has never cared for him; so, when a totalitarian movement calls for social destruction, the mass man welcomes it unlike the class man who puts his hopes in the maintenance of the existing order. Third, unlike the members of classes or other horizontal organizations, the mass man is characterized by ‘his isolation and lack of normal social relationships’. He does not share with the other members of the mass any common interests, and the sense of belonging is alien to him. Instead, there is a certain vacuum in his life which is easily filled by the totalitarian ideology. Interestingly, Arendt points out that this vacuum and the absence of social ties can result from historical coincidence as well as be the consequence of a conscious politics. For instance, she believes that such phenomena of the Stalinist rule as the Stakhanovite movement, dekulakization, the Ukrainian famine, and the Great Purges of 1937 were orchestrated to break connections between people and atomize society.

Arendt claims that total loyalty demanded by a totalitarian regime can only be expected of an isolated man. Thus, when she talks about transforming classes into masses, she means that total control is only possible when there is no more solidarity between people, when common interests and other forms of connection cease to exist, and the resulting emptiness is filled with totalitarian ideology.Another crucial aspect of a mass is its vastness. Arendt underlines the importance of sheer numbers of victims which are necessary for a full-fledged totalitarian regime. The relatively small population in Poland, Franco’s Spain and even Mussolini’s Italy did not allow the local dictators ‘for total domination and its inherent great losses in population’.Arendt relates the rise of the mass man and, consequently, totalitarianism to two features of the modern world.

First, this is the particular construction of modern society which leaves huge numbers of people outside social structures and favors the rule of the few which is apathetically tolerated, but not actively supported, by the majority. Second, the specific historical conjuncture has added to the creation of a mass man in continental Europe: the first World War, the fall of empires, economic depression resulted in a certain ‘negative solidarity,’ a feeling of bitterness and despair that created the void later filled by the totalitarian ideologies. At the same time, the snowballing growth of the world population and rapid development of media – newspapers and radio – created more people to control and more means to influence them through.

In this respect, totalitarianism is definitely a modern phenomenon that could hardly be imagined in other eras.However, analyzing the content of the totalitarian appeals, one may notice that nostalgia and the idea of revitalizing the glorious past is often present in totalitarian discourses (especially in the German one). An ambiguous attitude to the idea of progress, control of population, and the ideal of absolute loyalty do not correspond to a common idea of modernity and modernization; therefore, in this particular respect, I would rather think of totalitarianism as of an anti-modernist ideology.

References

1. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace and Co.Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (2004) [1848].
2. Manifesto of the Communist Party (visited April 30, 2018)