Should this content perhaps be moved to, e.g., Revolution (politics) to distinguish it from orbital revolution and other sorts of revolving motions? Then this page can be made into a disambiguating page. -- April
- It's not just a political thing though, really. And when I hear the word "revolution", I think of this meaning. I don't know, though. Hm. -- Tzartzam
- This is still an issue: if it were to be a disambiguation, what would the article on political and social revolutions be called? -- Sam
I modified the opening definition in order to accomodate the difference between the industrial revolution and the French revolution, although maybe my change isn't so eloquent. It is going to be hard to come up with a good definition that allows for both kinds of revolutions, and if you add in the Glorious Revolution it gets really tricky.
I also deleted this:
- or overthrow of a government in a relatively short period of time.
which I think more properly characterizes a coup d'etat. Whatever the opening definition is, a revolution is more than a coup. Slrubenstein
- Doesn't a coup have to replace the government with another government, or take it over? A revolution does not necessarily do this. From Coup d'état:
- A coup d'état ... is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system. The term is French for "a sudden stroke, or blow, of state policy".. (emphasis mine) -- Sam
See also Talk:Coup d'état. --FvdP
Like a coup, a revolution installs a new government. Unlike a coup, the new government is meant to direct, or a result of, much more sweeping changes. The passage I deleted was too narrow. Slrubenstein
- I'm trying to rewrite. This will look a lot like a verbose disambiguation page, but I think that's ok. Not all revolutions install governments -- an anarchist revolution would destory it. -- Sam
- Go ahead -- but beware of tense confusion. You write that "not all revolutions (present tense) install governments" Name me one revolution, current or past, that has not installed a government. You write "an anarchist revolution would destroy it" Fair enough -- but here you use the conditional or subjunctive. Has there ever been an anarchist revolution that did not end with some government? The article should not speculate about what might happen in the future, it should stick to what has happened in the past. Of course, if you want to state that anarchists propose revolutions that would not result in a new government, that is fine; just distinguish between what has happened versus what might happen.
- However, I think you are missing the distinction between state and government. The Revolutions do not just change governments, they change the state -- and revolutions can get rid of the state and replace it with a new state, or with no state (anarchism).
- In any event, my new definition in the article itself does not claim that all revolutions produce governments. My only point was that the sentence I deleted described a coup d'etat, not a revolution. The former definition did not describe getting rid of the state, merely the government. Slrubenstein
- I take your points (and I took the liberty of indenting your paragraphs so as not to confuse :). I am rewriting and adding much clarification (hopefully!). I'm going to start with dictionary.com's definition (cited) simply because I couldn't state it better. Hopefully someone will replace that quote with better words. -- Sam
- Sounds good. But I think the long term solution is to divide the article into three parts: discussion of actual revolutions; discussion of theories of revolution (e.g. theories by such people as Marx about why revolutions "should" occur); and theories about revolutions and revolutionary thinkers. I doubt that there is one good definition; I suspect different definitions themselves reflect different theoretical or historical points of view. A good article will not try to come up with one reductive definition of revolution, but discuss different people's definitions of revolution, at least at some point , eventually.... Slrubenstein
- Oh, yes, eventually it will :) Let's keep developing it and see where we get. -- Sam
We could do with more on the communist view of revolution. Do Chinese communists speak of "The Revolution" as something happening now? Did the Russians? -- Sam
- I think the revolutions of 1917 and 1848 II think?) were communist revolutions, in that they were led by the Communist Party with the entention of instituting a communist society. Marxian theory claims that such a revolution must go through various stages; that 1917 was but the first stage does not make it any less a communist revolution. The stages that follow (e.g. the dictatorship of the proletariat, the whithering away of the state) are not, according to this view, new revolutions but rather parts of the same revolution. Trotsky also called this the permanent revolution in that it Marxians believe it will be the last revolution. Slrubenstein
- yep, that's what we need more of :) And Trotsky spoke of the "World Communist Revolution", as opposed to Stalin's "socialism in one country".
- It is difficult in what we call them, though; 1917 was not just the work of the communists, and it was later taken over by the Bolsheviks (not representative of the "communists", amongst whom anarchists like Kropotkin would've counted themselves at the time). -- Sam
- By communists, I thought I had specified "Communist Party." I do not think that anyone believes that only members of the Republican Party believe America should be a republic, or only members of the Democrat Party believe that AMerica should be a democracy. I didn't think, similarly, that anyone thought that the Communist Party was the only "communist" group around. Slrubenstein
- Of course, but the terms bring up difficulties when we label these revolutions. We should be careful about how we do so -- to call the Russian Revolution a communist revolution could be misleading, even if qualified, since non-communists were involved, but the 'communists' we've specified won the power struggle, and so they take the credit afterwards. -- Sam
- But isn't this true of all revolutions? Slrubenstein
...those [Cubans] who think that they are on their way to a communist utopia...
I wrote that, but I'm not happy about how patronising it sounds. Please edit! -- Sam
Aside from Mao's rheotic, in what way was the Cultural Revolution a "cultural" revolution? The French Revolution and the Industrial revolution certain changed the cultures of France, England, and other places. And the Cultural Revolution was largely a tactic in a power struggle between Mao and what he considered more conservative elements within the Communist Party... Slrubenstein --- The bolshevic took power in a coup and then a civil war. The revolution was not communist.
The Cultural Revolution was was the first of many planned cultural revolutions completely sever China from its history. Mao wanted to destroy the vestiges of a 5000 year old culture so that communist impulses would not be tainted with the oppression of Imperial China.The notion nearly wrecked China and transformed the lives and culture of roughly 850 million.It was largely the working out of Maoist ideaology not largely a tactic to consolidated power.Two16 17:04 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)
- Well, maybve this is one way to see it. I do not think that what anybody wants, let along a major political figure like Mao, is so simple or transparent. Another way to look at it was that after the Great Leap Forward (certainly an attempt to change China's culture), Mao was afraid of Deng's power and sought to undermine it. I don't see how, empirically, one can say that it is merely a working out of ideology and not also a political tactic.
- In any event, let's say that the above account were true -- why not call eht French Revolution a "cultural revolution" too? By the above account, the two belong in the same category. Ditto the Mexican Revolution. Slrubenstein
- I think we're stumbling into the difference between a coup and a revolution. The French and Russian revolutions were political in aim, but their influence was obviously much more extensive. Likewise the English Civil War. Political and social revolutions are about concious change in the structure of society, including government and social and economic institutions. -- Sam
Major difference is that the Cultural Revolution was created by the political power structures after political power had been obtained--thats why they are
called cultural. This revolution needs to be distinguished from other revolutions.
Please do not put words into my mouth. A closer reading of my post:
It was largely the working out of Maoist ideaology not largely a tactic to consolidated power.
shows that you did not read my post closely. Yes Mao was afraid of his political enemies. If you are not afraid of the secret police in your country, order Mao's little red book online today.Then you could see that madness as an implementation of ideology. Mao wanted 8 or 9 cultural revolutions because he was interested in total transformation of China not simply holding political power. The Great Leap Forward was an indusrial strategy, which had it not been such an abysmal failure, would have changed China's culture as a side effect. But it is not a cultural revolution. Jan Wong, born in China now Canadain, senior reporter for business daily The Globe and Mail has written about her experiences in the youth brigades.
On an other point about the Russian Revolution which I don't wish to get lost:
The bolshevic took power in a coup and then a civil war. The revolution itself was not communist. Its the difference between October and November.
- I did not "put words in your mouth," I "disagreed" with you. And trust me, just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they did not hear you (or read what you wrote). It really is possible for someone to have read everything you wrote, and still disagree with you. Slrubenstein
--- Well Well Well Slru I wrote:
It was largely the working out of Maoist ideaology not largely a tactic to consolidated power.
And you wrote:
I don't see how, empirically, one can say that it is merely a working out of ideology and not also a political tactic.
I did not use the word "merely". That is "words in my mouth" because it completely misrepresents what I wrote.The use of "merely" produces a dismissable sentence. You are not following the words or you are deliberately misreprenting what I wrote. Either way it is intellectually dishonest to post. It could be so easy to slow down, read, reread to make sure you got it, think, reread, rethink, write, read, think, rewrite and only then post. And probably you need to check the definition of "disagreed". Two16 01:55 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)
- yes, you are certainly correct that you did not use the word merely; that is my interpretation (not of your view per se, but of the argument itself).
- But to be clear, I disagree that "It was largely the working out of Maoist ideaology not largely a tactic to consolidated power." Also, by "disagree" I mean that my views do not correspond with yours, and that Ihave a different opinion. If you operate under a different conception of "disagree" by all means let me know and I will try to be agreeable! Slrubenstein
What slipperry sophistry you have! Perhaps you should confine yourself to the words on the page and not on what you project an arguement to be.Slru, you wrote:
...you did not use the word merely; that is my interpretation (not of your view per se, but of the argument itself).
Well if that is true, why didn't you write that! The way to disagree is to meet the arguement. If you don't meet the arguement you can't be disagreeing. What you are doing is some other word. Meaningless doesn't quite fit. If you can't meet an arguement head on what are you doing here? Trolling! If you misrepresent what I wrote you are intellectually dishonest. If you continue trying to head an arguement off at the pass like a cowboy, based your shoddy reading or deliberate misrepresentation, you will keep us away from improving the article.
Have whatever opinion you like : the article must move towards accurracy and neutral point of view (npov) Perhaps you could read something and not simply hold opinions. Enough after the fact sophistry. Disagreemet is is useful. There are ways to do that and you probably have the skills to do it. So please do it. 64.229.12.145 17:37 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)Two16
- You seemed more concerned with the definition of disagreement than with the process of dialectic. I guess that is twice today I have misunderstood you -- I think we are now even. In any event, here is my attempt:
- In the 1959 Lushan meeting of the Central Committee P'eng Ten-huai criticized Mao's Great Leap Forward, initiated the year before, as plagued by mismanagement and "petit-gourgeois fanaticism." Unwilling to admit to any mistakes, especially from the left, Mao formed an alliance with Liu Shao-sh'i and Deng Xiaoping, in which he granted them day to day control over the country in return for framing P'eng (accusing him of being a right opportunist). Among their reforms was a partial retreat from collectivism. By 1962 Mao could not avoid dealing with the very problems with the Great Leap Forward P'eng pointed out, and in 1963 he initiated the Social Education Movement. Mao admited to some mistakes, while generally defending the Great Leap forward. One great irony of the Social Education Movement is that it called for grassroots action, yet was directed from the very top (Mao).
- There was a conflict at this point between Mao and Liu over how to manage or salvage the Great Leap Forward and perhaps the revolution itself (expressed in Liu's ten points and Mao's twenty-four points). As with many other revolutions, the question was, could the Party or the government provide a space for debate and difference, or would it descend into Jacobinism? P'eng's fate foreshadowed what was to come. Mao wanted to break Liu's position in the Party. Since the Social Education Movement failed to do this, Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution. It began with an article by a Shanghai journalist that criticized a local play. According to the article, the play was a veiled criticism of Mao for having engineered P'eng's fall. In a feint, Mao called on another political rival, the mayor of Beijing, to censure the journalist, whereupon Mao had a pretext for dismissing the mayor and a host of other officials.
- Was Mao sincerely motivated by a desire to propell the revolution, or by a desire to stifle all dissent and political opposition within the party? It is my opinion that it is largely the latter, legitimized through the language of the former. Slrubenstein
Looking at what Mao says and paying attention also to the dates you will get some idea of the depth of his ideology. He was an ideologue; yet he also had the flexible mind of inspired military genius. He was playing for keeps for sure. Everybody knew what Mao thought because of the propaganda.
So how dangerous was being publicly identified as a reactionary person or class by Chairman Mao, Hero of The Long March? Roughly speaking the people were with Mao and the result was the Cultural Revolution. It nearly wrecked China and created The Lost Generation. It got very out of hand. It was also the outcome of his strategy of revolution.
Time to hear from Mao:
The imperialists and domestic reactionaries will certainly not take their defeat Iying down and they will struggle to the last ditch. After there is peace and order throughout the country, they will still engage in sabotage and create disturbances in various ways and will try every day and every minute to stage a come-back. This is inevitable and beyond all doubt, and under no circumstances must we relax our vigilance.
Opening address at the Pirst Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (September 21. 1949).
As for the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organize the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you don't hit it, it won't fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of it self.
The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan (August 13, 1945), Selected Works, Vol.IV, p. 19.
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 28.
Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle" (August 14, 1949), Selected Works, Vol.IV, p. 428.
In class society everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.
On Practice (July 1937), Selected Works, Vol.I, p. 296.
Those folks had no idea that the were being programmed to be a weapon in class struggle. But Mao knew. He planned it. The notion that Mao was largely consolidating power misses the point that he unleash a revolution that went out of control. A revolution that he planned.
Slru: Maybe its time to get that Little Red Book so that you might have an opinion worth offering on 20th Century Chinese History. Mao studied the philosophy of war and if you want to understand the Mao or the Cultural Revolution you must do the same.
I wonder, could you tell me when the Cultural Revolution took place?
64.229.11.123 Two16
- Since you wonder -- really, I am surprised you didn't know -- 1966, with the publication of the Shanghai article (and Mao's political maneuverings afterwards). The issue here is not what Mao wrote; the issue is, what is the relationship between words, institutions, and actions in history? The task of historians and other scholars is to interpret this complex relationship, not to reduce it to repeating some quotes. You claim that we know what Mao thought because of his propaganda; I "diasgree." We know what Mao wrote to a particular audience, but what people write, even what they say, is not identical with what they think, and certainly not with all that they think (see reader response theory). Mao wrote other things; he said things that he did not write down, and he thought things that he neither wrote nor said. Also, what he wrote could have been intended to have, and could actually have had, a variety of effects and meanings. Also, even if these quotes illustrate what Mao wanted people to think Mao thought, they do not illustrate what people themselves thought. Did people have no idea they were being "programmed?" Maybe, maybe not -- you can't tell from the evidence you present. the fact that things got out of control indicates that people weren't really effectively programmed. The Cultural Revolution involved more than Mao's stated intentions; it involved how people understood these statements and intentions, and also how people acted on their own intentions (as you say, no longer under Mao's control). You see, historical interpretation requires a lot more than repeating quotes.
- I have nothing more to say on this topic because frankly I see that you are not worth talking to.
- for others, to get back to the main point, I still question placing "sexul revolution" and "The Cultural Revolution" under one category (cultural revolutions) while placing "The French Revolution" and "the Mexican Revolution" under a different category (political/ socio-political revoultions). Bothe the sexual and the Cultural revolutions were also political, and both the French and Mexican revolutions were also cultural. We need to rethink these categories. Slrubenstein
Slru can you stop building straw man arguements out of my posts? If you can't understand an arguement I wrote or what its implications might be, ask.
I asked you if you knew when the Cultural Revolution was, because the first first date you mention in your attempt is 1959 and the last date is 1963. You don't actually mention Cultural Revolution in your at all. May be if you go find out when it ended, or really anything at all about it, you might understand how laughable you are.
The Cultural Revolution is name given by sinologists to a time in the history of Communist China, only a fool would try to classify this time period in with revolutions in cultures like the advent of the birth control pill.
If a man incites atrocity in accordance with his voluminous words over decades, we can probably say that we know what he thought. Thats what the quotes from Mao did.
Mao wrote and radio speechified to a huge audience of hundreds of millions of people. Calling that many people a particular audience is a gross misrepesentation: don't act the Red Queen.
Slru what am I going to do? You can't do a dialectic, how will you learn to do the pentalectic?
The thing that would help you most to clear out the cobwebs from your mind, is Aristoles Four Causes. I am afraid you mistake word use, for thinking.
Its a good thing you are so stupid, because a glimmer of intelligence would render your stupidity too painful for you to bear.
Why dont you type something stupid like:There are 4 genders, male, female, boy, and girl. like you did on another page.
And you have some nerve to write "...frankly I see that you are not worth talking to." when the history will reveal to whoever takes the time, who is not worth taking to. What kind of boo do you have around here? and how long can you expect to keep it if the community reads the sorry posts here in talk revolution? You can't even follow simple sentences let alone subtle arguements. You are a waste of time. I hope the community takes the time to find out. You have left another long, multipost trail of stupidity in black and beige. 64.229.181.27 20:37 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC) Two16