Coups d’étatand revolutions
It should also be made clear that not every use of violence (or the
threat of it) in order to change the political system can sensibly be
called a revolution. The term revolution (associated with the idea of a
wheel turning and hence things being turned ‘upside down’) may be
helpfully reserved for occasions when major changes in the nature of
politics and society take place. An examination of the historical record
suggests that such events are relatively rare, whilst the use of force
(or its threat) to change the government is much more commonplace.
In the absence of an established tradition of election or inheritance
of top offices within the state, violence has been the usual way to
power. In the ancient world, the Emperor of Rome was frequently the
most successful general of his day, his bodyguard – the Praetorian
Guard – effectively controlling succession. In much of Africa, Asia
and Latin America, in the twentieth century, a similar state of affairs
has been found, with the army constituting perhaps the most
effective route to political power (Huntington, 1957; Finer, 1976) as
we discuss in Chapter 6.
In contrast, full revolutions can be seen as rarer and more
fundamental changes in the political system in which new social
groups achieve power and the state carries out new tasks in a different
way, perhaps with a different claim to legitimacy. Writers such as
Crane Brinton (1965) and Lyford Edwards (1927) have perceptively
analysed major revolutionary episodes such as the English Civil War
and the French and Russian revolutions, and suggested that they tend
to go through a series of distinctive phases.
Paradoxically the old regime often collapses in a relatively bloodless
triumph of popular forces following a loss of legitimacy and a manifest
failure to cope with the economic, political or military demands put
upon it. This is followed, after a honeymoon period, by confusion and
conflict amongst the revolutionary forces. In face of real or imaginary
counter-revolutionary reaction, extremist forces then often take
control, launching a reign of terror, not only against declared counter-
revolutionaries, but also against moderate reformers. Such a situation
may then be resolved by power being taken by a tyrant (Cromwell,
Napoleon, Lenin/Stalin) who leads a post-revolutionary regime which
may draw upon the pre-revolutionary tradition, as well as claiming
descent from the revolution itself.120 PROCESSES