IV. The Sociology of Revolutions

The following section contains a selected list of modern books on revolutions in general. Such writing is necessarily very varied indeed. Some of the books listed below are careful studies by trained sociologists; some are the work of cranks with a variety of cutting tools to grind; some, directly in the Marxist tradition, seem to belong here rather than in the preceding section because of their direct preoccupation with the sociology of revolutions. We have been obliged to be fairly narrow in our interpretation of the subject. In a sense almost everything that appears nowadays on social and political problems might be catalogued as dealing at some point with the sociology of revolutions. To take a wide and somewhat random choice of well-known figures, most of the important work of men like Spengler, H. G. Wells, Ortega y Gasset, and A. J. Toynbee touches upon the question of revolutions and social change. But a bibliography as inclusive as this would be pointless or endless. We have, therefore, simply made a choice of general books on the specific subject of the comparative study of revolution.

Brooks Adams, The Theory of Social Revolutions. New York, 1913. One of the earliest predictions of the decline of the West. Should be read with Mr. George Soule’s book below.

Arthur Bauer, Essai sur les révolutions. Paris, 1908. Approaches the problem from the psychology of the individual and his activity in crowds. Has an interesting conceptual scheme of revolutions as a general phenomenon.

C. Delisle Burns, The Principles of Revolution. London, 1920. From the point of view of modern anti-intellectualism, an unrealistic study of “rationalizations.”

L. P. Edwards, The Natural History of Revolutions. Chicago, 1927. Unpretentious, suggestive, tentative. One of the best introductions to the subject available in English. Mr. Edwards does not pretend to do more than sketch the essential problems and indicate possible further work. Admirably free from special pleading.

T. Geiger, Die Masse und ihre Aktion: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der Revolutionen. Stuttgart, 1926. A psychological study, with a Marxist tinge. To a non-German, a bit in the clouds.

H. M. Hyndman, The Evolution of Revolution. London, 1927. By one of the pioneers of Marxist Socialism in England. Not very illuminating nowadays.

G. Lebon, The Psychology of Revolution. English translation. New York, 1913. Lebon’s reputation as a social psychologist has sunk considerably. This is the work of a frightened anti-intellectualist.

Arthur Liebert, Vom Geist der Revolutionen. Berlin, 1919. A brief discussion of the rational and emotional origins of revolution, and an analysis of the crisis period.

Leon de Poncius, Les forces secrètes de la révolution. Paris, 1929. A good example of the kind of writing which attributes modern revolutions to wicked conspirators—in this case Jews and freemasons. For those who do not read French, the works of Mrs. Nesta Webster may be recommended as an adequate sample of this approach. See especially her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, London, 1924, and The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy. New York, 1920.

C. Malaparte, Coup d’état, the Technique of Revolution. English translation, New York, 1932. An annoyingly bright young Italian Fascist intellectual writes on the only way to make a revolution. As narrow and, in a perverted sense, idealistic as any Marxist writing.

E. D. Martin, Farewell to Revolution. New York, 1935. A very able and sensible writer on political and social problems has here allowed his fears to lead him into writing a bad book. Mr. Martin, as his choice of title indicates, is writing a book against revolutions of all sorts. Hastily assembled from inadequate materials. Stands up badly in comparison with L. P. Edwards’s book above.

R. W. Postgate, How to Make a Revolution. New York, 1934. An English Leftist, formerly a Communist and now apparently just Labour, writes rather wistfully about the possibilities of a decent, respectable revolution in Western countries. A good deal of useful discussion of the techniques of modern revolutionary parties of the Left, with touches of very English humor.

Revolution from 1789 to 1906. London, 1920. Mr. Postgate has here made a handy collection of constitutions, bills of rights, manifestoes and similar documents touching the important revolutionary movements of the period.

S. A. Reeves, The Natural Laws of Social Convulsions. New York, 1933. A most ambitious attempt to apply the methods of the physical sciences to the subject. Mr. Reeves is not skeptical enough to be a scientist. He emerges with forty-five “natural” or “cosmic” laws, of which Law XLV is a not unfair example: “Man would rather Die, even in Prolonged Agony, than to Think.” The work of a doctrinaire person on the edge of the lunatic fringe, and much influenced by the position of men like Herbert Spencer, it has none the less a good deal of useful material.

E. Rosenstock-Hüssy, Die europäische Revolutionen. Jena, 1931. Written in what to an American seems the German cloud-cuckoo-land of beautiful and inexact ideas, choosing convenient and rejecting inconvenient facts, something in the tradition of Spengler, but with the kindly hopes of a man of good will. Full of interesting suggestions and flashes of insight, poetic to a prosaic nature. An English version by the author is promised.

S. D. Schmalhausen, Editor, Recovery through Revolution. New York, 1933. Chapters contributed by Louis Fischer, Harold Laski, Carleton Beals, Robert Briffault, G. Salvemini, and others. Rapid narrative accounts of the principal fields of revolutionary activity since the war, Germany, Russia, China, South America, Italy, and Spain.

H. See, Evolution et révolutions. Paris, 1929. A somewhat pedestrian examination of the English, French, and American revolutions, those of the nineteenth century and the Russian revolution. Excellent brief bibliographies for the revolutions discussed.

P. A. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics. Vol. III, Fluctuations of Social Relationships, War and Revolutions. New York, 1937. Mr. Sorokin’s general position is an emotional dislike for the contemporary world, which is, he thinks, about to undergo a worse series of wars and revolutions than any the human race has yet had to put up with. This Volume III has a most imposing set of statistics to show that revolutions have been more or less endemic in Western civilization. Some such conclusion might have been made safely without all these statistics, which in detail are not altogether reliable. They tend to exaggerate the amount of violence and bloodshed since 1900.

G. Soule, The Coming American Revolution. New York, 1934. A thoughtful, temperate book written by one of the more temperate of American “liberals.” The book deals much more widely with the general subject of revolutions than its title would indicate.