Date: Tue, 14 May 96 08:29:32 GMT
Subject: Revolutions



> I think Adam's observation about revolutions not being helpful to
> most people has a point.  In some respects the war of capitalists
> against feudalists, and transformation of F into C looks more like a
> coup.  [That's what they say in Romania about the death of Caociescue
> sp? - it was a coup, not a revolution.]
> 

There are two "types" of bourgeois revolution : from above or from
below.

The English revolution of the 1640's ( Cromwell and all that ) and
the French revolution are the obvious examples of bourgeois 
revolution from below. These were genuinely mass affairs, even if
the end result was to put a different minority in power.

The German and Japanese bourgeois revolutions are the more obvious 
bourgeois revolutions from above. These occur when a section of the
old ruling class realises that in order to compete they have to 
transform themselves into a capitalist class and overturn the old
social relations.

The Romanian revolution was exactly that, a revolution. But it's
what Trotsky called a political revolution ie one that transforms
the state but not the underlying social relations. The classic
example of these are the various revolutions in France between ( 
but not including ) 1789 and 1871.

Adam.



Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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