Social Revolutions

The 20th century revolutionary process had a big impact on the World System and significantly changed its entire configuration. However, there are essential gaps in terms of theoretical approaches, in particular, in terms of the typology of revolutions. Moreover, there is clearly insufficient research related to qualitative and quantitative analysis and consideration of the revolutions of the 20th century in their entirety. This article aims to fill those gaps by pursuing three main goals: (1) comparison of revolutions of the 20th and 19th centuries, highlighting the important characteristics of the former; (2) classification of revolutions of the 20th century; (3) identification of the main revolutionary waves of the 20th century and their essential characteristics.

"Opposing the neoliberal rhetoric of a shining middle-class India, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has, since 2004, called for a New Democratic Revolution. Indian Maoists dismiss parliamentary democracy as a sham insofar as it fails to address the concerns and aspirations of the majority of its citizens, nearly four-fifths of whom live below two dollars a day. In their party programme, Maoists characterize the postcolonial Indian state as ‘reactionary’ and ‘autocratic’ and seek a ‘worker-peasant alliance’ to overthrow ‘imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism’ via an armed revolutionary struggle. The CPI (Maoist) politburo, which constitutes its ideological leadership, is thus supported by an underground People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The party’s long-term objective is to establish a ‘people’s democratic state under the leadership of the proletariat’ that will ‘guarantee real democracy for the vast majority of people while exercising dictatorship over a tiny minority of exploiters’.

The CPI (Maoist) is active mostly in eastern and central India, where human development levels rank among the lowest in the world, forest cover and rugged terrain facilitate guerrilla tactics and protracted low-intensity insurgency, and tribal and lower caste groups are preponderant. According to the Indian prime minister, Maoist rebels pose the greatest internal security threat to India since independence. In reality, however, Maoist cadres are estimated to be anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 in a country of nearly 1.2 billion people, though this number does not include sympathizers and non-combatants. These thinly-spread cadres are concentrated chiefly in what journalists, policymakers, and scholars call the Red Corridor, running from the Nepalese border through the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh. In these areas, regular elections are held, state and non-governmental organizations routinely participate in rural development, and state police and forest officials coexist with armed rebels and their rural supporters. Since 2005-06, the state has deployed paramilitaries to supplement state police forces in combating Maoist guerillas, which has intensified state-sponsored violence and led to widespread human rights abuses, yet it has been incapable of establishing anything akin to a monopoly of legitimate violence. Shared sovereignty is thus the norm, not the exception, as in other insurgent zones in India such as Kashmir and the northeastern frontier. This state of affairs also suggests that the everyday realities of Indian Maoism are somewhat different from its ideological self-image as a vanguardist revolutionary movement."

This dissertation is articulated around a central motivation, focused upon the analysis of the cognitive processes that social actors develop in periods of historic transition. It is aimed at identifying the strategies created by social actors in their endeavour to provide intelligibility to society global changes, whenever the last ones are unfolding. Thus the choice of the Russian Revolution of 1917 as a study case is justified precisely because this revolution has grown as an historic transformation deeply invested by the will-to-know of the social actors.
The dissertation stands on two main theses. The first one considers that the Russian revolutionary process, from February to October 1917, did not witness a clear-cut definition and empowerment of a societal paradigm that was unmistakably dominant. This idea supposes that the autocratic tsarist paradigm collapsed without the simultaneous emergence of a social political model stuffed with consensual and everlasting solutions. It is also argued that most of the social and political challenges, which confronted the Bolsheviks after their seizure of the state apparatus in October, ended by revealing all the flaws and empty gaps in the so-called “Leninist” paradigm. The second thesis of the dissertation considers that this result can be understood only when we take into account the identity processes, of medium and long term, which are embedded in the Russian society. Such processes consist of frontier identities, partially conceived as cognitive reactions to Russia’s semiperipheral position in the world-system and its ambivalent inscription between Europe and Asia, the West and the East. The dissertation strives to show that, in such a country, this kind of ambivalence has shaped the perception of the historic events during the last two centuries, thus conditioning many of the political choices that have been made.

Article based on paper presented as part of Panel 24: ‘Looting, Refusing, Negating, Embodying’ ‘Critical Refusals’ Fourth Biennal Conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society, University of Pennsylvania, 27-29th October 2011

http://www.pdcnet.org/radphilrev/content/radphilrev_2013_0016_0001_0375_0385

http://web.asc.upenn.edu/news/Critical_Refusals_Conference.pdf

Edited version of published paper presented at 'Is Black and Red Dead?' Conference, Centre for the Study of Social and Global and Justice (CSSGJ) University of Nottingham, 7-8 September, 2009

https://socialhistoryportal.org/news/articles/110943

Secular arabic traditions have emphasized the potential of dreams to foretell the future.  Sometimes the prediction is seen as obvious and on other occasions elaborate systems of symbolic translations were consulted such as the tenth century Oneirocriticon of Achmet.
    In Islam, many of the foundations of the Koran were revealed to Muhammad in dreams. Muhammad ordered the practice of adhanthe daily call to prayer from the minarets and a central ritual of Islam to this day after one of his followers dreamed of it. The split of Islam into the conflicting factions of Sunni and Shi'ite was based partly on a dream of Mohammed, which the Sunnis used to justify their rights as his successors.
    The autobiographies of Muslim rulers often contain extensive dream diaries and examples of decisions obstensibly based on dreams.  When the Shah of Iran was deciding whether to seek a loan from Russia, he dreamed that a famous theological figure dressed in primitive Muslim garb approached the Shah and threw at his feet a sack containing gold and silver.  The interpretation of this dream was that the Shah shouldn't make any new loans with unbelievers but should trust that fellow servants of the faith would restore his finances. Sadam Hussein reported dreaming that Allah told him to enter and take back Kuwait just before the first Gulf War. Before the second Gulf War, he reported a dream that a snake came upon his path but he chopped off it’s head with a sword which he interpreted to mean western invaders would be vanquished.
    Because of this emphasis on dreams as foretelling the future rather than arising from the past, Arabs who are having PTSD nightmares of an event occurring each night--such as Kuwiati survivors of the Iraqi invasion or Iraqi survivors of the American invasion--experience even more anxiety over whether this will indeed occur again than dreamers in other cultures.
    The positive side to this emphasis on dreams foretelling the future happens when oppressed people dream of positive outcomes.  These are a source of much inspiration in arab society, while in western traditions they would be dismissed as "wish fulfillment" without the beneficial impact.
    We  collected dreams associated with events of the Arab Spring and discuss how they inspired and guided those taking part, and what dreams right now may have to offer the reshaping of the Arab world.

Dove si dimostra come in tutte le epoche la rivoluzione trovi i suoi strumenti in tutte le classi e si esprima non solo con la guerra sociale ma anche con l'accumulo di conoscenza e risultati teorici che rimangono patrimonio di tutta l'umanità.

19 апреля 2018 г. в рамках VIII Грушинской социологической конференции состоялась секция «Продолжая Кона», посвященная 90-летию со дня рождения академика Игоря Семеновича Кона. Данная секция стала очередным результатом многолетнего сотрудничества Всероссийского центра изучения общественного мнения (ВЦИОМ) и Лаборатории сравнительных социальных исследований НИУ ВШЭ. Непосредственными организаторами мероприятия выступили Илья Ломакин (автор идеи, ЛССИ НИУ ВШЭ) и Анна Кулешова (ВЦИОМ).
 
Секция «Продолжая Кона» изначально рассматривалась в качестве исходной точки для серии мероприятий, посвященных 90-летию со дня рождения ученого, и опиралась на стремление представить доклады, тематически и методологически ориентированные на развитие идей и тем, которыми занимался И.С. Кон. К участию в работе секции были приглашены известные академические исследователи, чьи научные интересы тесно связаны с гендерными вопросами. Основная цель мероприятия — увидеть, чем сегодня живет гендерная социология и смежные области гендерно фокусированного социального анализа, проследив связи современных работ с моментально ставшими классикой трудами академика И.С. Кона.

Presented September 2008, P.I.R.T. Conference, Imperial College,
London

Quantum theory emerged the victor of the last Scientific evolution even though relativity theory had a more progressive view of reality to offer science. As a result, the physical aspects and properties of the gravitational field were never fully explored or exploited and science went through several decades of denial concerning the relevance of general relativity and its physical implications. The only small victory that relativity theory could claim before the 1960s was in cosmology with the expanding universe. The victory was small because the expanding universe was far from the everyday needs of a science more concerned with the atom and the nucleus. Under these circumstances, the theory of relativity had no practical applications in the everyday real world, so its theoretical implications were largely ignored. However, the 1970s brought something of a resurgence of good fortunes and everyday relevance for relativity theory and quantum theorists finally accepted the possibility that unification was the primary goal of physics, albeit a unification based upon the quantum concept of discrete particles rather than the Einsteinian concept of field continuity: According to quantum field theory, the gravity field could be reduced to an exchange of gravitons. But what at first seemed a resurgence of general relativity under the quantum paradigm in the 1970s has slowly evolved into a surge of physical relevance resulting in the emergence of general relativity as a dominating field of research in physics. And the story does not end there. The recent discoveries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy are about to push physics and relativity theory into a Third Scientific Revolution in which a unification with the quantum will be made on relativity’s terms. The quantum will not emerge out of the mathematics as a constraint on the continuous field as Einstein had hoped, but it will emerge as a field constant that limits the continuous field as described by general relativity.

Keywords: Second Scientific Revolution, Third Scientific Revolution, Mach, positivism, Mind, Matter, consciousness, motion of mater, crises, quantum, relativity, curvature, higher dimensions, Einstein, history, paradigm, Standard Model, cosmology, surge, Dark Matter, Dark Energy

The 20th century revolutionary process had a big impact on the World System and significantly changed its entire configuration. However, there are essential gaps in terms of theoretical approaches, in particular, in terms of the typology of revolutions. Moreover, there is clearly insufficient research related to qualitative and quantitative analysis and consideration of the revolutions of the 20th century in their entirety. This article aims to fill those gaps by pursuing three main goals: (1) comparison of revolutions of the 20th and 19th centuries, highlighting the important characteristics of the former; (2) classification of revolutions of the 20th century; (3) identification of the main revolutionary waves of the 20th century and their essential characteristics.

Falling South is the memoir of a twenty one year old man seeking to transcend a deep and unsettling loneliness. Experience the drama as it unfolds in Central America in the mid 1980s, a land of war and revolution, an unwitting, tragic pawn in the last days of the cold war. A poetic and emotional journey, the author juxtaposes and contrasts personal and political revolutions. As you travel south with the author, you will encounter expatriates, revolutionaries, and those neglected by the seismic changes shaping their lives. Falling South is a journey of leaving home and finding it within. Falling South is a genre bending book, synthesizing the best of memoir, travel writing, and political reportage.

The objective of the article is to analyze, from a brief description of the political disputes and the changes of government that marked the process of the Mexican Revolution between 1911 and 1917, the network between local and international dynamics, emphasizing the projection of interests of the major powers at the time, whose agenda in Mexico incorporates determinants imposed by world war 1914-1918.
To discuss the proposed theme they will be referred to two levels of analysis: 1) historical contextualization of the “Age of Empires” between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the end of the First World War, bringing the positions of the US and Germany with regard to Mexico; 2) sizing of the Mexican Revolution in the debate on the left at the time on the characterization and impact of imperialism in international relations and in the revolutionary dynamics of late capitalism countries, taking back nationalists approaches whose influence on later political processes in Latin America seems significant, despite the lack of recognition as a source of research on the period.

La crise zélote est, selon Angold (1984) , « one of the most mysterious episodes in Byzantine History » ; pour Matschke (1994), elle reste une énigme pour les historiens. Si l’on se contente des sources narratives relatant les événements (Cantacuzène, Grégoras), on a l’impression que toute la vie de Thessalonique était comme tétanisée par l’affrontement entre aristocrates et zélotes. En réalité, quantité d’autres sources (discours, lettres, …) montrent que durant la crise, la vie continue. C’est cette vie que le présent article tente de cerner : ces diverses sources révèlent un affrontement politique (cantacuzénistes contre partisans de la Régence), des divisions sociales (riches contre pauvres) et des querelles théologiques (palamites contre antipalamites, orthodoxes contre bogomiles). Dans ce contexte, on suit quelques destinées particulières.

Zealot crisis, says Angold (1984), is "one of the most mysterious episodes in Byzantine History"; for Matschke (1994), it remains an enigma for historians. If one sees only the narrative sources describing the events (Cantacuzino, Gregoras), one gets the impression that the whole life of Thessaloniki was like paralyzed by the confrontation between aristocrats and zealots. In reality, many other sources (speeches, letters …) show that during the crisis, life goes on. It is this life that this article attempts to identify: these sources reveal a political confrontation (cantacuzénistes against supporters of the Regency), social divisions (rich against the poor) and theological disputes (palamites against antipalamites, Orthodox against Bogomil). In this context, we follow some particular destinies.

Comment préserver le corps d'un défunt pendant près de 100 ans? Celui de Lénine trône sur la Place rouge depuis les années 1920. Isabelle Cornaz, notre correspondante à Moscou, lui a rendu visite et révèle tous les secrets de son embaumement. Avec Alexeï Yurchak, chercheur en anthropologie sociale à l’Université de Berkeley.

https://www.rts.ch/play/radio/cqfd/audio/les-secrets-du-corps-de-lenine?id=8534268

Review essay of Negativity and Revolution: Adorno and Political Activism eds. Holloway, J. Matamoros, F. & Tischler, S. (2009) (London: Pluto Press) in Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture Vol. 8, Issue 2 http://logosjournal.com/2011/garland/