Towards a descriptive category of communist revolutions.
Date
1973
Authors
Pillar, Raymond Eric
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Abstract
The project of this paper was to sift the historical data of all Communist Revolutions in an effort to make generalizations. These generalizations were then used to form a descriptive category of Communist Revolutions.
This entailed a thorough examination of the terms employed initially. The approach used as a systems analytical model. The source of the model was Chalmers Johnson's book Revolutionary Change. Refinements to this model came from the Harry Eckstein's Internal War especially the essay by Arnold Feldman entitled "Violence and Volatility: The Likelihood of Revolutions".
The systems analytical perspective was employed as an organizing tool. The historical data was processed through the modified model and the results were then compared. This comparison suggested several generalizations. After a consideration of the generalizations a tentative descriptive category of Communist Revolutions was presented.
There was no effort to predict the future of Communist Revolutions, rather a general description was the goal. The value of this description will be realized when other similar categorizations are made of the other types of revolutions. These will aid the study of comparative revolutions in the quest for a general theory of revolution.
A secondary effort of this paper was the exercise of applying a systems analytical model in an effort to judge the usefulness of this type of approach. Systems analysis appeared to be most useful in arriving at descriptions of meaningful similarities. It was least effective in outlining substantial differences.