No More Learning

The empirical record supports this assessment. Revolutionary states often seek at least cordial relations with potentially threatening regimes, if only to buy time until they can secure their internal positions. Thus, Robert Pastor argues, the Sanclinistas sought a modus vivendi with the United States after gaining power in Nicaragua, a goal that Castro had recommended to them and one that many U. S. leaders endorsed. Nevertheless, Nicaragua and the United States quickly entered a spiral of hostility that eventually led to the contra war. 20 Domestic politics clearly affects the foreign policies of revolu-
tionary states, but it cannot adequately explain the relationship between revolution and war. 21
The Revolutionary Personality
A third approach focuses on the personality traits of revolutionary lead- ers. 22Its proponents argue that the leaders of revolutions tend to be self-con- fident, ruthless individuals who have risen to power precisely because such personal trai? s are valuable assets in a revolutionary situation. These traits
19 Lenin told tlhe Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, "For a long time we are condemned merely to heal wounds. " Quoted in William Henry Chamberlin, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1921 (1935; reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 2:446.
22 Works in thns genre include E. Victor Wolfenstein, The Revolutionary Personality: Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971); Bruce Mazlish, The Revolution- ary Ascetic: Evolution of a Political Type (New York: Basic Books, 1976); Robert Jay Lifton, Rev- olutionary Immortality: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968); and Mostafa Rejai and Kay Phillips, World Revolutionary Leaders (New Brunswick, N. J. : Rutgers University Press, 1983). For summaries, see Thomas H. Greene, Comparative Revolutionary Movements: The Search for Theory and Justice, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N. J. : Prentice-Hall, 1984), chap. 4; and Hagopian, Phenomenon ofRevolution, JI8-JJ.
20 Pastor, Condemned to Repetition, esp. 191.
21 Not surprisingly, efforts to test the hypotheses linking domestic conflict with involve- ment in war have been inconclusive. See Levy, "Causes of Wars," 273-74.
[10]
? Introduction
allegedly make these individuals difficult to deter and prone to reckless OJ[' aggressive foreign policies, because they are attracted to violence, con- vinced of their own infallibility, and driven to perform new acts of revolu- tionary heroism. 23
This approach is perhaps most evident in biographies and other popular accounts; to date, most scholarship on the "revolutionary personality" has ignored issues of foreign policy. 24 Given the inability of this approach to ex- plain war, this omission is perhaps not surprising. The main difficulty is the lack of a strong theoretical connection between personality traits and for- eign policy preferences. Even if we knew that a leader possessed a "revolu- tionary personality" (whatever that may be), we would be able to deduce very little about that person's choices when facing a specific decision for war or peace. For example, although Maximilien Robespierre fit the classic profile of a revolutionary leader, he opposed the French declaration of war in 1792. Moreover, members of the same revolutionary elite often disagree about foreign policy, as Lenin and the Politburo did about the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk or the conduct of the war with f'oland, or as Iran's leaders did
over the export of Islamic fundamentalism versus the benefits of improving ties with the West. 25
In addition, the popular stereotype of revolutionary leaders is inconsis- tent: the same leaders are sometimes portrayed as simultaneously both irra- tional and fanatical, on one hand, and disciplined, calculating, and crafty, on the other. Thus, this approach seems especially limited as an explanation for why revolutionary states are so prone to war.
Each of these three perspectives provides some insight into the behavior of revolutionary states and their relations with other powers. Nonetheless, they all err in focusing exclusively on the revolutionary state rather than on the larger setting in which foreign policy is made: war is seen as following more or less directly from the characteristics of the revolutionary regime.
23 Robert C. Tucker suggests that the organizational milieu of revolutionary and extremist organizations is "favorable for the emergence in leadership positions of individuals of a type that may be called the 'warfare personality. ' " The Soviet Political Mind (New York: W. W. Nor- ton, 1971), 4o-46; and see also Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 1:44; Henry Kissinger, "Do- mestic Structure and Foreign Policy," in his American Foreign Policy, expanded ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), J<r-"41; John H. Kautsky, "Revolutionary and Managerial Elites in Mod- ernizing Regimes," Comparative Politics 1, no. 4 (1969); and Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills, Calif. : Sage, 1977), 162.
24 An exception is Arthur Schlesinger's explanation of the Cold War as due in part to Stalin's paranoid personality: "Origins of the Cold War," Foreign Affairs 46, no. 1 (1967), 46-50. For a recent version of this argument, see John Lewis Gaddis, "The Tragedy of Cold War His- tory," Diplomatic History 17, no. 1 (1993), 4-7.
25 See Georges Michon, Robespierre et Ia guerre revolutionnaire, 1791-1792 (Paris: Marcel Ri- viere, 1937), 51-55; Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin (New York: Harper Colophon, 1964), 22o-22, 392-93; and David Menashri, Iran: A Decade of War and Revolution (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1990), 151-52, 37? 2, 395-96.
[11]
? Revolution and War
But decisions to go to war are not made in a vacuum. War is ultimately a re- sponse to problems that arise between two or more states. Understanding revolution and war thus requires an international-political perspective: in- stead of focusing primarily on the revolutionary state itself, we should con- sider how revolutions will affect the relationship between that state and the other members of the system:. A systemic approach is needed, therefore, par- ticularly if we want to understand why revolutions often lead both sides to regard the other as a threat and to favor the use of force. Before I turn to the task of providing such an approach, however, a brief discussion of research design is in order.
REsEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES
I define a "revolution" as the destruction of an existing state by members of its own society, followed by the creation of a new political order. 26
? A revolution is more than just a rearrangement of the administrative ap- paratus or the replacement of one set of rulers by other members of the old elite. Instead, a revolution creates a fundamentally new state based on dif- ferent values, myths, social classes, political institutions, and conceptions of the political community. By shaping national identities and setting the pa- rameters of subsequent political activity, a revolution establishes the basic nature of a polity. 27
Revolutions may be divided into two basic types: first, mass revolutions (or "revolutions from below"), and second, elite revolutions (or "revolutions from above"). In a mass revolution, the old regime is swept away in an explosion of political participation by individuals or groups that were marginalized or ex- cluded under the old order. In an elite revolution, by contrast, the old regime is challenged and eventually replaced by a movement whose leaders were
26 The term "state," as used here, refers to the administrative and coercive agencies pos- sessing legitimate iiluthority over a particular territorial area. For similar conceptions of rev- olution, see Franz Borkenau, "State and Revolution in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War, and the Sparuish Civil War," Sociological Review 29, no. 1 (1937); John M. Dun,n Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), xi; Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 264? 5; and George Pettee, "The Process of Revolution," in Why Revolution? Theories and Analyses, ed. Clifford T. Paynton and Robert Blackey (Cam- bridge, Mass. : Schenkman, 1971), 34-35. For alternative definitions and the historical evolu- tion of the term, see Eugene Kamenka, "The Concept of a Political Revolution," in Nomos VIII: Revolution, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (New York: Atherton, 1966), 122-35; Stanislaw An- drewski, Wars, Revolutions, Dictatorships (London: Frank Cass, 1992), chap. 2; and Peter C. Sederberg, Fires Within: Political Violence and Revolutionary Change (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 54-55?
27 See Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1976), 262? 6.
[12]
? Introduction
themselves part of the old regime-normally military and civil bureaucrats who become convinced that the old order can no longer defend vital national interests. 28 As discussed at greater length in chapter 2, elite revolutions tend to be less violent and entail less extensive social transformations than mass revo- lutions and their international consequences are usually less dangerous.
In this book I will examine principally mass revolutions, although I have also included one clear case of an elite revolution for purposes of compari- son. This focus is appropriate both because mass revolutions are more com- mon and because their international effects are usually more worrisome. In order to derive the greatest practical benefit from our results, it makes sense to concentrate on the category of events that is both most frequent and most likely to cause trouble.
The definition of revolution used here excludes both simple coups d'etat (where one elite faction replaces another) and pure national liberation movements (where a colonized group establishes an independent state by expelling a foreign ruler). 29 1t also excludes most civil wars, unless the vic- torious faction eventually imposes a new political order on its society. Be- cause the definition I am using is fairly restrictive, the universe of cases is small. It is much smaller, for example, than those resulting from the defini- tions of Peter Calvert or Zeev Maoz, who conceive of revolution as any vio- lent regime change and whose universe of cases numbers well over a hundred. 3 0 On the other hand, it is slightly broader than the definition used by Theda Skocpol, for whom revolutions are "rapid, basic transformations of a society's state and class structures . . . accomplished and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below. "31 If we adopt the definition
28 See Ellen Kay Trimberger, Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru (New Brunswick, N. J. : Transaction Books, 1978).
29 Owing to the similarities between national liberation movements and revolutionary or- ganizations, successful wars of national liberation and successful revolutions are likely to generate similar international effects. I include the American Revolution (which can also be thought of as a national liberation movement) because it had far-reaching social effects and because contemporaries saw it as presenting a new model for social and political life.
30 Peter Calvert defines "revolution" as "a change in government at a clearly defined point in time by the use of armed force," and Maoz defines "revolutionary regime change" as "a violent domestic struggle (of magnitudes ranging from a brief coup d'etat to an all-out civil war) result- ing in a change of government over a relatively short time interval. " A Study of Revolution (Ox- ford: Oarendon Press, 1970), 4 and app. A; and see Maoz, "Joining the Club of Nations," 205.
ll ThefirstsentenceofThedaSkocpol'sbookproclaims,"Socialrevolutionshavebeenrare but momentous events in world history," and she notes that "this conception of social revo- lution . . . identifies a complex object of explanation of which there have been relatively few historical instances. " She offers a list of additional cases in her conclusion (Mexico, Yu- goslavia, Bolivia, Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Ethiopia), but some of these examples may not fit her own definition. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Com- parative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 3-5, 287; and see Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, 193; and Aya, Rethinking Revolutions and Collective Violence, 70.
? ? Revolution and War
above, however, the potential universe of revolutions includes the English, French, American, Russian, Mexican, Turkish, Chinese, Cuban, Ethiopian, Nicaraguan, and Iranian revolutions. This list is not exhaustive-even for the modem era alone-but I believe it is sufficiently representative of a larger universe so that the irldusion of other cases would not undermine my fundamental results. 3 2
The bulk of this book consists of seven case studies. In chapters 3, 4 and 5, I examine the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions, while chapter 6 contains shorter studies of the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese revolutions. These cases were chosen with several aims in mind. First, al- though the precise nature of the revolutionary process differs from case to case, all seven are widely recognized as revolutionary events (the French, Russian, Iranian, Chinese, and Mexican revolutions were all mass revolu- tions, the Turkish was an elite revolution, and the American somewhere in between). Picking relatively uncontroversial examples of revolution may reduce controversy over whether the cases chosen were appropriate for testing the theory.
Second, the timing, geographic location, and ideological orientation of each case varies considerably from the others. The French and American revolutions were based on liberal principles (at least initially), the Russian and Chinese revolutions brought Marxist movements to power, the Iranian rested on a radical interpretation of Twelver Shiism, and the Turkish and
. Mexican were shaped by nationalist ideologies. Moreover, the states' inter- national positions and immediate prior histories were distinct as well. By applying the theory to a diverse set of revolutions rather than a set of very similar cases, we can gain greater confidence in its range. 33
Third, although each of these revolutions led to greater security competi- tion between the new regime and several other powers (and sometimes be- tween other powers as well), open warfare occurred in only four of them. By comparing these four with the cases where war was avoided, we can try to discern why war follows some revolutions but not others. 34
Finally, each of these cases constitutes a critical event in modem world history. Both contemporaries and subsequent historians have regarded them as having far-reaching implications; other things being equal, we pre- fer to study significant events rather than trivial ones. There is also a large
32 Needless to say, this claim could be challenged by future research.
33 AdamPrzeworskiandHenryTeunetermthisapproacha"mostsimilarsystems"design; see The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (New York: John Wiley, 1970), . 34-39?
34 This is essentially Mill's "Method of Difference": one compares cases where the out- comes were different in order to identify the causal factor that accounts for the change. See John Stuart Mill, "Two Methods of Comparison," in Comparative Perspectives: Theories and Methods, ed. Amitai Etzioni and Frederic L. Dubow (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970).
? ? ? Introduction
secondary literature on these seven revolutions, which facilitates the re- searcher's task considerably.
Taken together, these cases permit three basic comparisons. 35 ln order to demonstrate that revolutions do increase the level of security competition, I first compare the foreign relations of each country before and after its revo- lution. This procedure in effect uses the old regime as a control case in order to isolate the independent impact of the revolution on foreign policy. The old regime is an ideal candidate for comparison, insofar as it shares many characteristics (such as size, geographic location, population, etc. ) with the revolutionary state. If one can show that the revolution altered the country's foreign policy or international position-and especially the level of security
competition-one can plausibly infer that the revolution was at least partly responsible for the change. To do this, I ask whether, other things being equal, the level of security competition would have been higher or lower had the old regime survived. If the answer is "lower," then the revolution probably exerted an independent causal effect. 36
To test the specific theory that explains why revolutions exert this effect, I next "process trace" the relationship between each revolutionary state and its main foreign interlocutors for at least ten years after the revolution. This method is especially appropriate because the universe of cases is too small for a statistical analysis and the number of independent variables too large for a rigorous application of John Stuart Mill's "method of difference. " This tech- nique is also appropriate because my theory focuses on the ways revolutions shape the perceptions of the relevant actors. Process tracing allows the analyst
35 Basic works on case study methodology include Arend Lijphart, "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method," American Political Science Review 65, no. 4 (1971); Alexander L. George, "Case Srudies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focussed Com- parison," in Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy, ed. Paul Gordon Lauren (New York: Free Press, 1979); Alexander L. George and Timothy J. McKeown, "Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decisionmaking," in Advances in Information Processing in Or- ganizations, ed. Robert F. Coulam and Richard A. Smith, vol. 2 (Greenwich, Conn. : JAI Press, 1985); Harry G. Eckstein, "Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in Polsby and Green- stein, Handbook ofPolitical Science, vol. 7: Strategies of Inquiry; David Collier, "The Compara- tive Method," in Political Science: The State of the Discipline, ed. Ada W. Finifter (Washington, D. C. : American Political Science Association, 1993); and Gary King, Robert 0. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, De5igning Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
36 Such an inference gains strength if our case selection allows us to control for potentially omitted variables, which might be correlated with both the independent and dependent vari- ables. For example, defeat in war might be correlated with the occurrence of revolution and with subsequent increases in security competition, which could lead us to overstate the im- pact of the former on the latter. But if the level of security competition increases whether the revolution was preceded by military defeat or not, then the inference that revolution has an independent causal effect becomes more credible. This particular possibility is not a problem here; although the Turkish and Russian revolutions followed major military defeats, the French, American, Mexican, and Iranian ones did not.
? ? ? Revolution and War
to "get inside" the case (where one may find multiple opportunities to test the theory's predictions) and to evaluate the separate causal links that connect the explanatory variables with the predicted outcomes. 37
Finally, to explain why only some revolutions lead to war, I compare the French, Russian, Iranian, and Chinese revolutions against the American, Mexican, and Turkish cases. Although the results are not definitive, this comparison suggests that the absence of open warfare was due to the rela- tively high level of defense dominance that characterized the latter three revolutions. Not only was the danger of contagion either nonexistent or greatly muted (in part because these revolutions were not seen as especially infectious) but each of these revolutions occurred in geopolitical circum- stances that discouraged the use of force. Thus, although each regime faced intense crises on one or more occasions, they all managed to avoid the final plunge into war.
Two caveats should be noted before we proceed. First, inferences about the causal effects of a revolution may be biased if there is a reciprocal rela- tionship between the domestic and international effects of revolution. We are more likely to regard a revolution as significant if it has large interna- tional repercussions, but these same repercussions may have a powerful im- pact on internal developments as well. Had France avoided war in 1792, for example, Louis XVI might have kept his throne (and his head) and the more radical aspects of the revolution been averted. If this had occurred, what we now regard as the "French Revolution" might be viewed as an important but not "revolutionary" event and would not be included in this book. In other words, because the dependent variable (war) may affect the scope and importance of a revolution, thereby shaping its prominence in our historical accounts, there is the danger that our universe of revolutions is slanted in favor of the argument I am advancing here. 38 Although the observable evi- dence is quite strong, it thus ought to be regarded with some caution.
Second, in this book I focus on the direct diplomatic and strategic conse- quences of revolution, especially the relationship between revolution and
37 On "process tracing," see George and McKeown, "Case Studies and Theory Develop- ment," 34-41; Stephen Van Evera, "What Are Case Studies? How Should They Be Per- formed? " memorandum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993; Bruce Russett, "International Behavior Research: Case Studies and Cumulation," in his Power and Commu- nity in World Politics (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1974), 17-18: and Charles Ragin and David Zaret, "Theory and Method in Comparative Research: Two Strategies," Social Forces 61, no. 3 (1983), 748. Even advocates of statistical approaches concede that many theories can be tested only through a relatively small number of case studies, because the amount of research needed to obtain valid measures of key variables "precludes, for all practical purposes, the examination of many randomly selected cases. " See Barbara Geddes, "How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics," Political Analy- sis 2 (1990), 141-43.
38 This is an example of "endogeneity bias.
" See King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, 185-96.
? [16]
? Introduction
war, and I do not devote much attention to their long-term, indirect impact on culture, norms, or notions of political legitimacy. Thus, although I do consider whether revolutionary states are able to export their revolution to other societies, I address the question of whether other states were under- mined by contagion (or subversion) rather than whether a revolution af- fected other societies through a more gradual spread of norms or beliefs. The latter question is obviously important, but it is not a central part of this study. 39
The remainder of this book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 presents my theoretical argument in detail and lays out the explanatory propositions that I evaluate in the rest of the book. Chapters J, 4, and 5 are case studies of the French, Bolshevik, and Iranian revolutions, covering roughly a ten-year period from the fall of each old regime. In chapter 6 I briefly analyze four additional cases-the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese revolu- tions-which I use to refine my central argument and to consider why some revolutions do not lead to war. Finally, chapter 7 summarizes the results of the historical cases, describes their theoretical and practical implications, and highlights their future relevance, stressing in particular the recent trans- formation of the former Soviet empire.
39 Works that address these issues include Joseph Klaits and Michael H. Haltzel, eds. , The Global Ramifications of the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Geoffrey Best, ed. , The Permanent Revolution: The French Revolution and Its Legacy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Keith Baker, Colin Lucas, Franr;ois Furet, and Mona Ozouf, eds. , The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, 4 vols. (New York: Pergamon, 1987--94); and E. H. Carr, The Soviet Impact on the Western World (New York: Macmillan, 1947).
? ? ? [2]
A Theory of Revolution and War
"Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary move-
ment. "
-V. I. Lenin
Why do revolutions intensify security competition among states and markedly increase the danger of war? My explanation is laid out in three steps. I begin by setting aside the subject of revolution to consider how states interact in the international system, focusing on those factors that account for security competition and war. To this end, I offer a simple theory of interna- tional politics, which I call balance-of-threat theory. I then analyze the revo- lutionary pl! 'ocess in some detail, in order to identify how revolutions affect the states in which they occur. Next, I bring these two lines of analysis to-
gether and show how revolutions affect international politics. Specifically, revolutions alter the main elements of threat identified by balance-of-threat theory, thereby encouraging states to favor the use of force. I conclude with specific predictions and set the stage for the subsequent case studies.
BALANCE-OF-THREAT THEORY
Like all realist theories, balance-of-threat theory begins by recognizing that states dwell in an anarchic environment in which no agency or institu- tion exists to protect them from each other. Security is thus the highest aim of states, and foreign policy decisions will be strongly influenced by how national leaders perceive the external environment and by how different strategies are expected to affect their relative positions. 1
1 See my Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), and "Testing Theories of Alliance Formation: The Case of Southwest Asia," International Organization 42, no. 2 (1988), and "Alliances, Threats, and U. S. Grand Strategy: A Reply to Kaufman and Labs," Se- curity Studies 1, no. 3 (1992).
? ? [t8]
? A Theory ofRevolution and War
Where neorealist balance-of-power theory predicts that states will re- spond primarily to changes in the distribution of capabilities, however, bal- ance-of-threat theory argues that states are actually more sensitive to threats, which are a function of several different components. The first is aggregate power: other things being equal, the greater a state's total resources (such as population, industrial and military capability, raw material endowment, etc. ), the greater the threat it can pose to others. The level of threat is also af- fected by perceptions of intent: if a state is believed to be unusually aggres- sive, potential victims will be more willing to use force to reduce its power, to moderate its aggressive aims, or to eliminate it entirely. Finally, the level
of threat is also affected by the offense-defense balance: states will be less se- cure when it is easy for them to harm one another and when the means for doing so are easy to acquire. Furthermore, incentives to use force increase when the offense has the advantage, because the expected cost to the at- tacker will decline and the expected benefits of aggression will increase. Of- fensive power is usually defined in terms of specific military capabilities (that is, whether the present state of military technology favors attacking or defending), but political factors can be equally important. In particular, the ability to undermine a foreign government through propaganda or subver- sion can be an especially potent form of offensive power, because it allows one state to "conquer" others at little or no cost to itself. In general, the greater a state's offensive power is, the greater the threat it will pose to oth-
ers and the greater their incentive to try to contain or reduce the danger. 2 By incorporating the other factors that will shape a state's estimates of its level of security, balance-of-threat theory provides a more complete and ac- curate account of the forces that influence state behavior. 3 The question, therefore, is whether revolutions affect the balance of threats in ways that increase the intensity of international conflict and raise the danger of war. To begin to answer that question, let us consider the nature of the revolution-
ary process in a bit more detail.
THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
The main object of revolutionary struggle is control of the state. 4 A revo- lutionary situation exists when control of the government becomes "the ob-
2 See George Quester, Offense and Defense in the International System (New York: Wiley, 1977); Robert Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," World Politics 30, no. 2 (1978); Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War, vol. 1: The Structure of Power and the Roots of War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).
3 In earlier presentations of balance-of-threat theory, I included geographic proximity as another element of threat. Because a state's geographic location is not affected by a revolu- tion, I have omitted it from this discussion, although I would expect states to be more sensi- tive to revolutions near their own borders than to ones at a distance.
4 Lenin once remarked, "The key question of every revolution is undoubtedly the question
? ? Revolution and War
ject of effective, competing, mutually exclusive claims on the part of two or more distinct polities. " A revolutionary outcome occurs when the challengers are able to defeat the old regime and erect a new and fundamentally differ- ent politican order. 5
The specific process by which a revolution occurs will vary, but nearly all revolutions exhibit certain common features. First, revolutions become possi- ble when the administrative and coercive capacities of the state have been weakened by a combination of internal and external challenges. 6 Second, rev- olutions feature an explosion of political activity. In a mass revolution, this ac- tivity is conducted by individuals who were marginalized or excluded under the old regime. In an elite revolution, the movement is led by dissident mem- bers of the old regime (usually military bureaucrats) who become convinced that a revolution is necessary to protect the nation from foreign domination and whose positions grant them access to capabilities (such as the armed forces) that are needed to challenge the old regime? In either type, this explo- sion of participation takes the form of illegal methods and activities, because the institutions and principles of the old regime offer no legitimate outlet for them. 8 Third, revolutions alter the language of political discourse and foster the development of new symbols and social customs. 9 Fourth, revolutions also alter the principles by which leaders are chosen. In most cases, the new rulers will be drawn from groups that were formerly barred from power while excluding prominent members of the old regime. Thus, revolutions in- evitably involve a redefinition of the political community.
Finally, revolutions are usually characterized by violence. Force is often needed in order to oust the old regime, and even when it collapses withoufr
of state power. Which class holds power decides everything. " Selected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 197<r71), 2:276.
5 See Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: Random House, 1978), esp. 191;andPeterAman,n "Revolution:ARedefinition,"inWhyRevolution? TheoriesandAnaly- ses, ed. Clifford Paynton and Robert Blackey (Cambridge, Mass. : Schenkman, 1971), 58-59.
6 Thus, Theda Skocpol refers to prerevolutionary governments as "old regime states in cri- sis. " States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). State power may decline for a variety of reasons. The demand for resources may exceed the ability of existing institutions to provide them (as in France), the coercive apparatus may dissolve after a military defeat (as in Russia), or the le- gitimacy of the existing order may be challenged on moral grounds (as in Iran).
7 See Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale Univer- sity Press, 1968), 266; and Ellen Kay Trimberger, Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru (New Brunswick, N. J. : Transaction Books, 1978).
8 A. S. Cohan writes that "in a revolution, one system of legality is substituted for another. " Theories of Revolution: An Introduction (New York: Wiley, 1975), 25; see also Lyford P. Edwards, The Natural History of Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 107-12.
9 Thus, revolutionary states ordinarily adopt new names, flags, anthems, and social practices, such as the French revolutionary calendar or the reimposition of the women's chador in Iran.
? [20]
? A Theory ofRevolution and War
a fight, there are likely to be violent struggles among competing revolution- ary factions. 10 The issues at stake are enormous, because the process of re- defining a political community places everyone at risk. Until a new order is in place, no one is safe from exclusion, and the temptation to use force to en- hance's one's position is difficult to resist. The possibility that winners will take all and losers will lose everything heightens the level of suspicion and insecurity. Fears of plots and conspiracies abound. Disagreements over spe- cific policies can become. life-or-death struggles, if they are seen as reflecting an inadequate commitment to the revolutionary cause.
In sum, revolutions are deadly serious contests for extremely high stakes.
The collapse of the old regime places all members of society on shaky ground. Conflicts can be resolved only by tests of strength, and no one's in- terests or safety are assured. As a result, revolutions are usually violent and destructive, especially when they involve the replacement of the existing elite by previously excluded members of society. 1 1
Capabilities
Owing to the features just described, revolution usually reduces a state's capabilities in the short term. The demise of the old regime hinders any ef- forts to mobilize resources for war (at least until the new regime acquires the institutional capacity to tax and allocate resources), and the armed forces will be severely disrupted if they have not collapsed completely. In the ab- sence of a viable central authority, previously suppressed groups may assert new claims, and certain regions or groups may try to gain their indepen- dence, thereby adding to the new regime's burdens and reducing its overall capabilities.
In addition, many revolutionary elites will be poorly prepared for run- ning a government or managing its diplomacy, and key members of the old regime are likely to flee the country or to be purged by the new
10 The estimated death tolls confirm the ubiquity of violence in modern revolutions: France, at least 35,000 dead; Russia, 500,00;0 China, 1 million; Cuba, 5,000; Iran, 17,00;0 Mex- ico 250,000; Nicaragua, between JO,ooo and 50,000. These estimates are based on Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980 (Beverly Hills, Calif. : Sage, 1986); and Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Terror in the French Revolution
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935).
11 As noted in chapter 1, these characteristics are most apparent in mass revolutions. The level of violence is usually lower in an elite revolution, because the revolutionaries typically seek less radical goals, the old regime usually collapses more rapidly, and the new leaders al- ready control elements of a new state apparatus and can establish their authority more easily. See Ellen Kay Trimberger, "A Theory of Elite Revolutions," Studies in Comparative International Development 7, no. 3 ( 1972); and Erik Allardt, "Revolutionary Ideologies as Agents of Structural and Cultural Change," in Social Science and the New Societies, ed. Nancy Hammond (East Lans- ing: Social Science Research Bureau, Michigan State University, 1973), 154.
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? ? Revolution and War
regime. 12Thus, the new regime may lack experienced diplomats, trainedl commanders, and disciplined armies, unless it has also fought a civil war and therefore controls a military establishment of its own. In the latter case, however, its strength will be sapped by the destruction caused by the civil war. Uncertainty about the future cripples economic activity and en- courages the flight of capital and expertise, reducing the capabilities of the new state even more.
The damage produced by a revolution is often temporary, and its mag- nitude is difficult to estimate in any case. By definition, successful revolu- tionary organizations are good at mobilizing social power and directing it toward specific political ends. Although a revolution harms a state's power in the short term, therefore, it is likely to improve it in the long run. 13 Measuring the precise impact of a revolution on the balance of power will be especially difficult, however, if the new order is based on a radically different model of social and political organization. Thus, while a revolution may appear to create an inviting window of opportunity, afr the time it is unclear how large the window is and how long it is going to remain open.
Revolutionary Ideologies, State Preferences, and Elite Perceptions
In a revolution, the old ruling elite is replaced by individuals committed to different goals and infused with a radically different worldview. W hen a revolutionary movement takes power, therefore, its ideology shapes both the preferences of the new regime and its perceptions of the external erwi- ronment. Unfortunately, most revolutionary ideologies contain ideas and themes that can create (or exacerbate) conflicts of interest and magnify per- ceptions of threat.
Successful revolutions are rare, because even weak and corrupt states usually control far greater resources than their internal opponents. States have better access to the means of violence and can use these tools to moni- tor, suppress; or coopt potential challengers. 14 lt is not surprising, therefore,
12 As Lenin once admitted, the Bolsheviks "really did not know how to rule. " Quoted in John Dunn, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis ofa Political Phenomenon (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 18-19, 47; see also William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution 1917-1921 (1935; reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 1:)51.
13 See Theda Skocpol, "Social Revolutions and Mass Military Mobilization," World Politics 40, no. 2 (1988), and Ted Robert Gurr, "War, Revolution, and the Growth of the Coercive State," Comparative Political Studies 21, no. 1 (1988).
14 Indeed, some writers assert that revolution is impossible so long as the armed forces re- tain their loyalty and cohesion. See Katherine C. Chorley, Armies and the Art ofRevolution (London: Faber and Faber, 1943); Jonathan R. Adelman, Revolution, Armies, and War: A Politi-
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that most revolutionary movements are rapidly extinguished, and would- be revolutionaries often end up in prison, in exile, or dead. Indeed, it is per- haps more surprising that revolutions ever succeed.
The inherent difficulty of overthrowing an existing state is compounded by the familiar problems of collective action. 15 Because some of the benefits from a revolution are indivisible (once provided, they are available to all), individual citizens can profit from a revolution even if they do nothing to help bring it about. Moreover, each individual's contribution is too small to determine the outcome, so a rational actor would inevitably choose a "free ride" rather than incur the risks and costs of joining a revolutionary move- ment. Indeed, if people were motivated solely by self-interest and guided by an accurate assessment of costs and benefits, then the lack of willing partic- ipants would make revolutions impossible. 16
A number of scholars have suggested that revolutionary movements can overcome the free-rider problem by offering positive inducements or threatening negative sanctions. 17 Yet this explanation is only partly satis- fying. Although specific incentives such as food or protection may help convince uncommitted individuals to support a revolutionary move- ment, they do not explain either why individuals will risk their lives to expand the movement or how an organization gets started in the first place, before it was able to provide these benefits. Given the high proba- bility of failure and the risks that revolutionaries face, the payoffs would have to be enormous for joining a revolutionary movement to be a ratio-
? cal History (Boulder, Colo. : Lynne Rienner, 1985); Anthony James Joes, From the Barrel of a Gun: Armies and Revolutions (Washington, D. C. : Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986); and John Ellis, Armies in Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974).
15 See Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods lind the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); and Russell Hardin, Collective Action (Wash- ington, D. C. : Johns Hopkins University Press / Resources for the Future, 1982).
16 Applicationsofcollective-goodstheorytotheproblemofrevolutionincludeGordonTul- lock, "The Paradox of Revolution," Public Choice 11 (fall 1971); Philip G. Roeder, "Rational Revolution: Extensions of the 'By-Product' Model of Revolutionary Involvement," Western Political Quarterly 35, no. 1 (1982); Morris Silver, "Political Revolution and Repression: An Economic Approach," Public Choice 17 (spring 1974); Samuel L. Popkin, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Revolution in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Michael Taylor, "RaJtionality and Revolutionary Collective Action," in Rationality and Revolu- tion, ed. Michael Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); James DeNardo, Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1985); Edward N. Muller and Karl-Dieter Opp, "Rational Choice and Rebellious Collective Action," AmericanPoliticalScienceReviewSo, no. 2 (1986); and Mark I. Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
17 See Jeffrey Race, "Toward an Exchange Theory of Revolution," in Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia, ed. John Wilson Lewis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974); Joel S. Migdal, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution: Pressures toward Political and Social Change in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); and the references in n. 16 above.
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nal choice. 18 And testimony from several revolutionary leaders suggests that they did not expect to be rewarded at all. 19 According to Che Gue- vara, who lost his life trying to foment revolution in Bolivia, "Each guer- rilla must be prepared to die, not to defend an ideal, but to transform it into reality. " 20 So the puzzle remains: how do revolutionary movements convince potential members to bear the costs and risks of this activity, and how do revolutionaries sustain their commitment through pro- longed, difficult, and uncertain struggles? 21
Part of the answer lies in the possibility that participation in a revolution is motivated as much by moral commitments as by narrow self-interest. For those who believe that abolishing the present order is a moral imperative, individual benefits are secondary or irrelevant. 22More fundamentally, per- ceptions of costs and benefits ultimately rest on subjective beliefs about the consequences of different choices. If individuals believe that a revolution is possible and will bring them great benefits-irrespective of the actual pos- sibilities-they will be more likely to support it, particularly if they are also convinced that success requires their participation. 32 Revolutionary move-
18 As Charles Tilly notes, "why and how . . . the group committed from the start to funda- mental transformation of the structure of power . . . forms remains one of the mysteries of our time. " From Mobilization to Revolu tion, 203.
19 That revolutionaries are often surprised to gain power suggests that they were not mo- tivated by prospects of futUre gain. Lenin told a socialist youth group in January 1917, "We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution," and the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega admitted that as late as July 1979, he did not expect to see the revolution succeed in Nicaragua. Ayatollah Khomeini was reportedly surprised by the speed with which the shah's regime collapsed as well. Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 1:131, 323; Robert Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), xiv; and Marvin Zonis, "A Theory of Revolution from Ac- counts of the Revolution," World Politics 35, no. 4 (1983), 602.
20 Quoted in Robert Blackey, Revolutions and Revolutionists: A Comprehensive Guide to the Lit- erature (Santa Barbara, Calif.