Revolutions and Historical Process

Download

The article presents the analysis of the role of revolutions in historical process. It is shown why the revolutions were inevitable in the Modern era and what is their role in societal development as well as why the latter started to mismatch the existing political and social institutions. On the one hand, revolutions are considered as common phenomena for a certain stage of society's development, and on the other hand, the author analyses why and how the role of revolutions considerably changes in different periods of history as well as explains why revolutions from a driving force finally become an expensive and not productive social experiment. He also makes an attempt to elaborate some aspects of the theory of revolution (a revolutionary situation, role of society's ideology and psychology over certain periods etc.).

Keywords: revolution, socialist revolution, world order, balance of power, geopolitics, nuclear arms race, anticolonial movement, the Third world, socialism, capitalism, new principles in international relations, right to self-determination.

Leonid E. Grinin, is a Russian philosopher of history, sociologist, political anthropologist, economist, and a scholar of historical trends and future studies more