So Why Radicalization?

Theda Skocpol defines social revolutions as “rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures…accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below” (4). During its course, a social revolution may experience a period of radicalization in which the initial revolutionary regime is overthrown by a more radical one that implements policies which overturn most aspects of the Old Regime and replaces them with extremist new ones. These policies result in a period of widespread Terror during which the state detains and or executes mass numbers of people for crimes that may or may not have been committed. To account for radicalization, which occurred in both France and Russia, one must begin by identifying two fundamental variables. The first, the initial revolutionary seizure of power by a non-radical group, occurred in France October of 1791 and in Russia February of 1917. The second, the failure of radical polities to appease a large majority of the masses, had begun to play out in France by 1793 and in Russia by November of 1917. By tracing the effects of these variables over time, the phenomenon of radicalization can then be explained.

Two prevailing theories that attempt to account for radicalization are the modernization theory, championed by Samuel Huntington, and the aggregate-psychological theory, posited by Ted Gurr. In the modernization theory, Huntington states that a “revolution becomes more radical as larger and larger masses of the population are brought into the political scales” (41). Huntington argues this empowers radical groups by spurring their popularity and in turn allows them to create “a new political order” under their rule (41). Yet, as the cases of France and Russia w...

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..., in both Russia and France, seized complete control of the state in order to maximize their power and implement their policies. Furthermore, fear of losing this newly gained power to resistance forces that disapproved of their politics, turned the Bolsheviks and the Jacobins to eliminate all threats, culminating in a period of widespread Terror within each country.

Works Cited

Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Huntington, Samuel P., and Jack A. Goldstone. Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.

Pipes, Richard. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.