Chapter XI: Part 11

It is even more tempting to try to fit these revolutions into something like a philosophy of history. But the philosophy of history is almost bound to lead into the kind of prophetic activity we have already firmly forsworn. It may be that mankind is now in the midst of a universal “time of troubles” from which it will emerge into some kind of universal authoritarian order. It may be that the democratic revolutionary tradition is no longer a living and effective one. It may be that the revolutions we have studied could only have taken place in societies in which “progress” was made a concrete thing by opportunities for economic expansion which cannot recur in our contemporary world, with no more frontiers and no more big families. It may even be that the Marxists are right, and that imperialistic capitalism is now digging its own grave, preparing the inevitable if long-delayed world revolution of the proletariat. There are many possibilities, as to which it is almost true that one man’s guess is as good as another’s. Certainly a conscientious effort to study four great revolutions in the modern world as a scientist might cannot end in anything as ambitious and as unscientific as social prognosis.

We need not, however, end on a note of blank skepticism. It would seem that there are, from the study of these revolutions, three major conclusions to be drawn: first, that, in spite of their undeniable and dramatic differences, they do present certain simple uniformities of the kind we have tried to bring together under our conceptual scheme of the fever; second, that they point sharply to the necessity of studying men’s deeds and men’s words without assuming that there is always a logical connection between the two, since throughout their courses, and especially at their crises, they frequently exhibit men saying one thing and doing another; third, that they indicate that in general many things men do, many human habits, sentiments, dispositions, cannot be changed at all rapidly, that the attempt made by the extremists to change them by law, terror, and exhortation fails, that the convalescence brings them back not greatly altered.

As to what the experience of a great revolution does to the society that experiences it, we cannot conclude here too widely without trespassing on wider fields of history and sociology. Yet it does seem that the patient emerges stronger in some respects from the conquered fever, immunized in this way and that from attacks that might be more serious. It is an observable fact that in all our societies there was a certain flourishing, a peak of varied cultural achievements, after the revolutions. Certainly we may not moralize too much about the stupidities and cruelties of revolutions, may not lift up our hands in horror. It is quite possible that wider study would show that feeble and decadent societies do not undergo revolutions, that revolutions are, perversely, a sign of strength and youth in societies.

Certainly one quiet person emerges from his study, not indeed untouched by a good deal of horror and disgust, but moved also with admiration for a deep and unfathomable strength in men which, because of the softer connotations of the word, he is reluctant to call spiritual. Montaigne saw and felt it long ago: “I see not one action, or three, or a hundred, but a commonly accepted state of morality so unnatural, especially as regards inhumanity and treachery, which are to me the worst of all sins, that I have not the heart to think of them without horror; and they excite my wonder almost as much as my detestation. _The practice of these egregious villainies has as much the mark of strength and vigor of soul as of error and disorder._”

Berkman the anarchist, who loathes the Russian revolution, tells a story which may represent merely his own bias, but which may none the less serve as a brief symbolical epilogue to this study. Berkman says he asked a good Bolshevik acquaintance during the period of attempted complete communization under Lenin why the famous Moscow cabmen, the izvoschiks, who continued in diminished numbers to flit about Moscow and to get enormous sums in paper roubles for their services, were not nationalized like practically everything else. The Bolshevik replied, “We found that if you don’t feed human beings they continue to live somehow. But if you don’t feed the horses, the stupid beasts die. That’s why we don’t nationalize the cabmen.” That is not an altogether cheerful story, and in some ways one may regret the human capacity to live without eating. But clearly if we were as stupid--or as sensible--as horses we should have no revolutions.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX

The following bibliography is not intended to be a scholarly one. It does not even include all the somewhat varied sources which have gone into this study of revolutions. It is intended solely as a guide to individuals or groups who may wish to attempt the difficult but rewarding study of revolutions. As such, it is merely suggestive, but it is complete enough so that anyone using all the leads these books and their bibliographies offer would soon find himself very completely immersed in the subject.

_I. Historical Writing on the Four Revolutions_

The first part of this bibliography aims to introduce the reader to some of the best-known historical writing about the four revolutions with which we are here concerned. Some of the later and not yet tested writing on these periods will also be included. But here least of all could anything like completeness be attempted. A full bibliography of French history alone from 1750 to 1815 would list books enough to fill a library; at a guess, including pamphlets and articles in periodicals, there would be well over three hundred thousand titles. Writings on the Russian revolution are already almost as numerous, and even more varied. The reader will simply find in these books an opportunity to check the supply of facts from which we have attempted to discover uniformities in the course of our revolutions.

A. ENGLAND

Eduard Bernstein, _Cromwell and Communism_. London, 1930. A belated but useful translation of the famous revisionist’s _Sozialismus und Demokratie in der grossen englischen Revolution_ which appeared in German before the war. This is a necessary correction to the purely political and conventional interests of Gardiner, and even of Firth.

L. F. Brown, _The Political Activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men in England during the Interregnum_. Washington, 1912.

C. H. Firth, _Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England_. 3rd edition. London, 1924. The great work of our generation on Cromwell.

S. R. Gardiner, _A History of England, 1603-1642_; _A History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649_; _A History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1656_. Various editions and volumes. The whole work is usually in some 17 volumes. This is the “classic” history of the period, written in the last half of the nineteenth century. It is a sound but rather dull political history, but it does not touch at all on much that would interest us in the fields of economic, social, and intellectual history.

G. P. Gooch, _English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_. 2nd edition with notes and appendices by H. J. Laski. Cambridge, England, 1927. Indispensable.

H. J. C. Grierson, _Cross Currents in English Literature of the Seventeenth Century_. London, 1929. Excellent intellectual history.

T. C. Pease, _The Leveller Movement_. Washington, 1916. A very useful monograph, especially as a corrective to Bernstein’s socialistic view of Lilburne and the Levelers.

L. von Ranke, _A History of England principally in the Seventeenth Century_. English translation, London, 1875. Another classic of narrative history.

G. M. Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_. New York, 1930. Perhaps the best of our modern manuals, though distinctly in the traditions of pleasant British liberalism, which are always a bit shocked by the facts of revolution. This book has a convenient bibliography.

B. AMERICA

C. W. Alvord, _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics_. 2 vols. Cleveland, 1917. An important monograph opening up an important field neglected in earlier studies of the American revolution.

C. M. Andrews, _Colonial Background of the American Revolution_. New Haven, 1924.

C. L. Becker, _The Eve of the Revolution_ (Vol. 11 of the _Chronicles of America_). New Haven, 1921. _The Declaration of Independence._ New York, 1922. Both these books bring to the study of political change a rare and thorough knowledge of how men think and feel.

G. L. Beer, _British Colonial Policy, 1754-1756_. New York, 1907. The last volume of a thorough monographic treatment of the old British Empire, especially with respect to matters of trade and taxation.

B. Faÿ, _The Revolutionary Spirit in France and in the United States_. English translation, New York, 1927. Extremely valuable for the study of ideas.

J. F. Jameson, _The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement_. Princeton, 1926. Suggestive, and in many ways a pioneer essay. But a long and thorough monograph with the same title would be useful. Recent Marxist attempts to do something of the sort have not amounted to much.

J. C. Miller, _Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda_. Boston, 1936. One of the best studies of revolutionary propaganda and technique available for any revolution.

A. M. Schlesinger, _Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution_. New York, 1918. This monograph brought the realistic study of the American revolution a tremendous leap forward.

G. O. Trevelyan, _The American Revolution. George III and Charles James Fox_, the concluding part of _The American Revolution_. Bound with the above in a uniform edition of 6 vols., New York, 1920-1922. This is a “classic” with the overtones of being dated which the word often carries. Written by a distinguished Whig historian, it is more favorable to American “rights” in the War of Independence than most of the foregoing American books. It seems to our generation to omit very important economic and social considerations.

M. C. Tyler, _The Literary History of the American Revolution_. 2 vols. New York, 1897. Also a “classic” but not by any means dated.

C. H. Van Tyne, _A History of the Founding of the American Republic_. 2 vols. Boston, 1922, 1929. A standard work of professional historical scholarship.

C. FRANCE

A. Aulard, _The French Revolution: A Political History_. English translation. 4 vols., New York, 1910. The best example of official Republican history of the great revolution, by one who was in some ways a spiritual descendant of the Girondins. Leftist and anti-clerical bias.

C. Brinton, _A Decade of Revolution, 1789-1799_. New York, 1934.

G. Bruun, _Europe and the French Imperium, 1799-1814_. New York, 1938. This book and the preceding one, volumes 12 and 13 of _The Rise of Modern Europe_, edited by W. L. Langer, provide a critical bibliographical guide to the period of the French revolution, and incorporate the important modern research in the field.

A. Cochin, _Les sociétés de pensée et la démocratie_. Paris, 1921. Essential to the study of the work of pressure groups in the preparation of the revolution. Conservative bias.

P. Gaxotte, _The French Revolution_. English translation, New York, 1932. Perhaps the most sensible of modern works written avowedly from a point of view far to the Right--Royalist, in fact. But since almost all Americans get their knowledge of the French revolution from conventional anti-clerical Republican professors of the Third Republic, Gaxotte’s work is recommended as an antidote.

A. Lichtenberger, _Le socialisme et la révolution française_. Paris, 1899.

A. Mathiez, _The French Revolution_. English translation, New York, 1928. _La vie chère et le mouvement social sous la Terreur._ Paris, 1927. Mathiez was the heir of the Mountain as Aulard was of the Gironde. Mathiez is a reliable investigator of facts, and he was interested in the kind of facts we are now interested in. His generalizations are ruled by an extremely innocent version of the doctrine of economic interpretation of history. Although he indignantly denied he was partisan, he clearly belongs rather far to the Left.

D. Mornet, _Les origines intellectuelles de la révolution française_. Paris, 1933. Most of the necessary material implied in the title, conveniently assembled. Mornet has conventional French Republican notions about the role of the _philosophes_ in the preparation of the revolution. Excellent bibliography.

F. Rocquain, _The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution_. English translation, abridged, London, 1894. An attempt to lessen attention on the writings of the _philosophes_ and turn it to concrete quarrels and grievances in the last years of the old regime.

H. A. Taine, _The Origins of Contemporary France_. English translation, 6 vols., New York, 1876-1894. The classic attack on the revolution and all its works, written by a disappointed liberal and French patriot after the War of 1870. Still a mine of information, though its particular bias is no longer shared by many in the modern world.

D. RUSSIA

The total output of books on Russia since 1917 is enormous, and little of it measures up to the more rigorous standards academic historians like to impose. It is suggested that an intelligent reader of the following would not, however, be hopelessly misinformed about the movement, and could attempt to integrate his knowledge of what has been going on in Russia with what has gone on in other modern revolutions.

W. R. Batsell, _Soviet Rule in Russia_. New York, 1929. A clear, factual analysis of the machinery of government. The recent constitutional changes do not seriously alter Batsell’s picture.

W. H. Chamberlin, _The Russian Revolution_. 2 vols., New York, 1935. A careful piece of work, written by an American with a command of Russian sources. Chamberlin is not a Communist, but save to more rigid Marxists, his work will appear reasonably detached. Good bibliography.

Eugene Lyons, _Assignment in Utopia_. New York, 1937. Lyons is an American radical whose long residence as a newspaper correspondent in Russia turned him against Stalin’s rule. When allowance is made for this bias, the book remains the best account in English of “Thermidor in Russia”--though see under Trotsky below.

James Mavor, _The Russian Revolution_. New York, 1928. A brief account.

L. Trotsky, _The History of the Russian Revolution_. English translation, 3 vols., New York, 1936 (also a single-volume edition). This will probably be Trotsky’s masterpiece. A vivid narrative, heightened by excursions into Marxist interpretation, mostly very keen and even sensible. Chamberlin and Trotsky, read together, make the best introduction possible to the study of the Russian revolution. Trotsky’s _The Revolution Betrayed_, New York, 1937, is a bitter and interesting attack on the present regime in Russia, which he himself has christened “Thermidorean.”

S. and B. Webb, _Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation?_, 2 vols., New York, 1936. For American readers, this is probably the best and most persuasive defense of the present regime in Russia, and may be recommended as an antidote to the writings of disenchanted liberals and angry Trotskyites. But it is a very soft and academic book, and the Webbs are surely at least as much doctrinaires as others who have written on Russia.

_II. The Wisdom of the Ages_

The formal study of revolutions as a part of the science of sociology is a very recent thing. But revolutions are not new, nor is serious thinking on revolutions new. From Plato and Aristotle on one can collect a very valuable set of remarks on different phases of revolution, mostly from books not primarily concerned with revolutions. We have not here attempted to do more than give a random sample of what might be done with this sort of thing. Most of the men we have chosen to cite below were not purely intellectuals in anything like the modern sense, and it would seem that, unsystematic though this section of our bibliography is, it contains more wisdom about revolutions than our fourth section, in which we list a few contemporary works formally concerned with the sociology of revolutions. Most contemporary writers on matters sociological are of course intellectuals.

Plato, _The Republic_, especially Books VIII and IX.

Aristotle, _Politics_. Book V is the famous discussion of revolutions, but the whole work, and especially Book II, is almost as pertinent.

Polybius, _History_. Book VI contains the well-known account of the reasons for Roman political stability, which by contrast throws a good deal of light on our subject, political instability.

Thucydides, _History_. Book III, 82.2 begins one of the best clinical reports ever written on what we have called the crisis of revolutions.

Machiavelli, _Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius_. Almost every chapter contains something of use for the student of revolution. Book I, Chapters XXV and XXVI, are especially recommended for the light they throw on differences between revolutions like those of England and France and those of contemporary Turkey or Italy.

Sainte-Beuve, “Le Cardinal de Retz,” in _Causeries du Lundi_, vol. 5, especially the passage beginning “ces pages de ses Mémoires qu’on pourrait intituler: _Comment les révolutions commencent_.” The interested reader may well wish to follow this up by reading De Retz’s own memoirs, which are easily available in numerous editions in French. There is an English version in Everyman’s Library.

Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_. This by no means dispassionate work none the less contains a good deal that no student of revolutions can neglect.

Bagehot, _Physics and Politics_. This book, together with Maine’s _Ancient Law_, sets forth a point of view about social change which denies the possibility of achieving large-scale reforms by revolution. Like the work of Burke, which they supplement and clarify, they must be met and understood before the objective study of revolutions can be carried very far.

Pareto, _The Mind and Society_. This is a study of general sociology, almost all parts of which are germane to our purposes in this book. Chapters IX and X deal especially with the problem of social stability and instability, but are hard to understand without reference to the rest of the work. A careful study of L. J. Henderson, _Pareto’s General Sociology: A Physiologist’s Interpretation_ (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1935) will help get around this difficulty. Pareto is cited here as in a sense summing up, clarifying and codifying views about revolution contained in this section of our bibliography. All such views--neither “anti-intellectualist” nor “conservative” adequately describes them--are anathema to most Marxists and “liberals” in present-day America. But they have been held so long and so firmly by men who were not altogether fools nor villains that the least the liberal can do is examine them.

Le Play, _L’organisation de la famille_; also the volumes of _Les ouvriers européens_. Le Play and his school merit our attention for much the same reason as does Polybius. Le Play studied the family with great care, and came to certain conclusions about the persistence of certain sentiments and actions among men which no student of attempted social change can afford to neglect.

F. S. Oliver, _The Endless Adventure_. Oliver was a conservatively minded Englishman who in this volume wrote about one of the least revolutionary of statesmen, Robert Walpole. Again it is useful to us because if we do not understand social stability we cannot hope to understand social instability. Walpole himself is as perfect an example of the man fitted to preserve an old society as Lenin is of the man fitted to guide a new society.

_III. The Marxists_

There is no doubt that Marx and his followers have made great contributions to our understanding of revolutions--contributions almost as great as those they have made to the making of revolutions. We cannot, however, regard even the best Marxist writing as an altogether satisfactory approach to the scientific study of revolutions. Indeed their use of the sacred word “science” resembles in many ways the use made of the same word by the disciples of Mary Baker Eddy. Marxist thought is a mixture of useful and genuinely objective observations properly framed as uniformities, and of prophecies, moral exhortations, theological and philosophical speculation, and other elements we may loosely call propaganda. The concept of the class struggle, for instance, belongs to the first sort; in itself, it is a fruitful notion, and one which has enriched sociology, in spite of the exaggerations and simplicities with which it has been applied by many Marxists. The notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat belongs in a sense to both sorts; it is a useful lead in the study of past revolutions, but it is also in Marxist hands an ideal, a goal, a prophecy. Finally, the notion of the classless society is almost wholly a bit of theology or, more specifically, eschatology.

In any given work by a Marxist, the disentanglement of what we may call the _scientific_ elements from what we may call, with an equal desire to use good rather than bad words, the _moralistic_ elements is almost as difficult as a similar operation on the work of the classical economists. In each case it has to be made separately. We need here only caution against certain of the more specific forms in which Marxist moral fervor and good intentions may be found distorting their work as scientists.

First there is pure fervor, writing obviously intended for the faithful, writing which from its very form is clearly a kind of rhapsody. Then there is writing definitely aimed at achieving a specific revolutionary end, writing closely aimed at action, writing not even meant by the writer to be detached and objective. There is the much-too-simple application of formulas and clichés to specific situations. Much of this writing is sincere and earnest, and the writers really believe that they are applying scientific methods to sociological problems. The narrow application of the economic interpretation of history is a very frequent example of this kind of thing. All human action is by the more innocent Marxists interpreted as the logical application of economic interests to a concrete situation. It must be said in fairness to Marx, Engels, and their greater followers that they are not themselves usually guilty of such unrealistic simplification.

Finally, current Marxist writing is confused by the number of sects that have developed within the movement, each one claiming to be orthodox. Of the sect which in a _de facto_ way can most clearly claim orthodoxy, that established in power in Russia today, one may say that it represents a kind of hardening of doctrine, a fixation of theory into dogma which may in the long run permit a good deal more actual open-mindedness and experiment than is now possible. In the meantime official Marxism has become a conservative and established belief--which may well explain why in America good rebels like Mr. Max Eastman and subtle but conscientious theorists like Mr. Kenneth Burke are so worried over its inadequacies; have, indeed, begun a more radical “revisionism” than any yet attempted.

The literature is enormous, and we do not intend to do more than list below a few general elementary discussions of Marxism, and a few of the more important works of the great men in the tradition. We have deliberately chosen, wherever possible, works in which the concrete discussion of actual revolutions is more important than pure theory.

M. M. Bober, _Karl Marx’s Interpretation of History_. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1927.

Max Eastman, _Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution_. New York, 1927.

Sidney Hook, _Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx_. New York, 1933.

H. J. Laski, _Communism_. New York, 1927.

A. D. Lindsay, _Karl Marx’s Capital: an introductory essay_. New ed. Oxford, 1937.

V. Pareto, _Les systèmes socialistes_. Paris, 1902.

[E. Burns], _A Handbook of Marxism_. New York, 1935. This is one of the most useful of the various collections of bits of the writings of the great Marxists. It includes some of the most important work of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, _The Communist Manifesto_. Edited by D. Ryazanoff. London, 1930. The rich notes in this full-sized volume expand the brief original Manifesto into a critical commentary on Marxism.

Of Marx the following is a suggested beginning, neglecting entirely the ponderous _Capital: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_, _Revolution and Counter-Revolution, or Germany in 1848_, _Civil War in France_ (sometimes called the _Paris Commune_) and _The Poverty of Philosophy_.

Of Engels: _The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844_, _Landmarks of Scientific Socialism_ (Anti-Dühring).

Of Lenin: _Imperialism_, _The State and Revolution_. (Both of these are in a handy single volume issued by the Vanguard Press, New York, 1926.)

_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.

INDEX

Abbott, Professor W. C., 29

Abortive revolution, 33, 34

Adams, John, 156

Adams, Sam, 53, 59, 104, 116, 124, 135, 297

_Agreement of the People, The_, 198

Albemarle, 250, 261

All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 207

All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 207

American Civil War, 33

American Revolution, 34, 50, 84, 88, 100, 106, 155, 165, 195, 216, 229

Anabaptists, 154

Antinomians, 154

Antonov-Ovseënko, 127

Arnold, Matthew, 57

Articles of Confederation, the, 253

Asceticism, 227

Assembly of Notables, the, 89

Babeuf, 215

Bacon, 27

Bagehot, 131

Bailly, 124, 134

Barebone, Praise-God, 214

Bastille Day, 92, 97, 98, 102, 289

Baxter, 120

Beaumarchais, 82

Bentham, Jeremy, 27, 235

Berkman, Alexander, 301

Bitzenko, Madame, 127

Blake, Admiral, 232, 250

Bolsheviks, 122, 128, 166, 180, 221, 268

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 247

Boston Massacre, 88

Boston Port Bill, 43

Boston Tea Party, 46, 88, 104

Brest-Litovsk, 127

Brissot, 124, 157

Brissotins, 157

Brusilov, 123

Bunker Hill, 97

Burke, Edmund, 47

Cabarrus, Teresia de, 261

Cagliostro, 77

Camus, 124

Career open to talent, 75

Carlyle, 57

Carrier, 137

Cassandra, 81

Catherine the Great, 216

Cavaliers, 68

Ceremonial, 214, 235

Chamberlin, W. H., 198, 204, 210, 238

Charles I, 50, 51, 84, 106, 109

Charles II, 259

Chase, Stuart, 27

Chaucer, 29

Cheka, 133, 137, 207

Chicherin, 116, 127

Chkheidze, 170

Cicero, 31

Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the, 172

Class struggle, 64, 71, 79, 222, 240

Cochin, A., 53, 98

Coleridge, 193

Comité de surété générale, 207

Comités révolutionnaires, 207

Committee of Public Safety, 206

Committees of Correspondence, 104

Communist party, the, 182, 188

Compromisists, 123, 159, 170

Comsomol, 227

Conceptual scheme, 17, 23, 25, 244, 292

Concord, 97, 289

Condorcet, 124, 133, 176

Conservative revolution, 32

Continental Congress, 89, 156

Convention, the, 207

Criminals and revolution, 139, 209

Cromwell, 69, 125, 137, 143, 189, 190, 191, 245, 247, 251

Danton, 124, 157, 197, 201, 284

Desmoulins, 124

Diaz, Porfirio, 36

Dictatorship, 34, 200, 248

Digby, 172

Diggers, 126, 152, 204

Disorder, endemic, 38

Downing, 250, 261

Du Barry, Madame, 77

Dubois, Abbé, 77

Dzerzhinsky, Felix, 127, 133

Economic change, 276

Economic motivation, 47, 70, 79, 129, 223, 239

Economic prosperity, 41

Economic want, 41, 43

Edwards, Lyford P., 55

Eliot, Sir John, 85

Emigration, 260

English Revolution, 40, 50, 72, 84, 85, 100, 106, 151, 164,
195, 197, 202, 214, 245, 259, 263

_Enragés_, the, 205

Episcopalians, 151

Equilibrium, 24, 33, 295

Essex, 69, 116

Estates-General, the, 90

Everard, Robert, 126

Falkland, 172, 176

February Revolution, 92, 103, 122, 289

Feuillants, 153, 165, 169

Fifth Monarchy Men, 152

Figaro, 82

Force, use of, 106

Ford, Henry, 75

Foreign war, role of, 175, 238

Fouché, 192, 251, 256, 261

Fourier, 15

France, Anatole, 213

Freemasons, 53

French Revolution, 40, 48, 84, 89, 107, 117, 165, 185, 194,
199, 201, 215, 245, 255, 258, 262

French revolutionary calendar, 215

Freud, 46

Friends of Peace, 170

Gage, 88, 107

_Gaspee_, the, 88

George III, 51, 100, 109

Gironde, 157

Girondins, the, 153, 169

Gogol, 275

Gooch, Professor G. P., 60, 204

Goodwin, John, 203

Gorki, 216, 219, 250

Gottschalk, Professor L. R., 134

Grand Duke Michael, 94

Grand Remonstrance, 87

Graydon, Alexander, 122

Grierson, Professor, 59, 195

Guchkov, 126

Gwyn, Nell, 261

Hampden, John, 40, 69, 87, 116

Hancock, John, 47, 116

Hare, John, 204

Haselrig, 87

_Heads of the Proposals, The_, 198

Hébert, 116, 201

_Hébertistes_, 205

Henderson, Professor L. J., 19

Henry, Patrick, 95, 145

d’Herbois, Collot, 137

Historical method, 21, 22

Holles, Denzil, 86, 87, 148, 177

Holmby House, 155, 197

Homosexuality, 281

House of Commons, five members of, 87

Hutchinson, Governor, 121

Hutchinson, Mrs. Lucy, 72

Hutton, Barbara, 287

Hyde, 172

Idealism and revolution, 217

Idealists and revolution, 142, 190

Ideas, role of, 63

Independents, 54, 140, 152, 172, 180, 202

Induction, 17

Industrial Revolution, 35

Ireton, 125, 252

Jacobins, 117, 123, 129, 165, 168, 180, 188, 194, 212,
219, 221, 234

James I, 49

Jameson, J. F., 121, 223

Jefferson, 101, 190, 284

Joffe, 127

Johnson, Mrs. Francis, 225

“July Days,” 168

Kadets, 123, 149, 153, 159, 289

Kalinin, 127

Kamenev, 126, 127

_Kapital, Das_, 129, 221, 284

Karakhan, 127

Kerensky, 92, 103, 116, 126, 159, 168, 170, 176, 189

Kimbolton, Lord, 87

Konavalov, 116, 134

Kornilov, 160

Ku Klux Klan, 185

Lafayette, 65, 67, 90, 112, 116, 124, 128, 132, 148, 157

Lameths, the, 124, 157

Laud, 84

Lavoisier, 124

Law, John, 47

Leaders, revolutionary, 124

League of the Militant Godless, 257

Lenin, 115, 116, 126, 144, 160, 189, 190, 191, 199, 219,
226, 235, 246, 252, 284, 297

Lenthall, 95

Le Play, 279

Lerner, Max, 15

Levellers, 152, 199

Lewis, Sinclair, 75

Lilburne, John, 62, 125, 140

Linde, Fedor, 148

Long Parliament, 86, 97, 106

Louis XV, 49

Louis XVI, 107, 109

Ludlow, 125

Lunacharsky, 145, 160

Lunatic fringe, 139

Lvov, Prince, 126, 159

Lyons, Eugene, 265, 267

Machiavelli, 27

Machinery of government, 238

Madison, 175

Maitland, F. W., 193

Malesherbes, 52

Marat, 116, 124, 134, 197, 201, 235

Marie Antoinette, 287

Marston Moor, 151

Marten, Henry, 141

Martin, E. D., 272

Marx, Karl, 39, 115, 224, 235, 254, 296

Marxists, 28, 46, 61, 129, 167, 176, 221, 224, 275, 300

Mathiez, Albert, 252

Maximum, Law of the, 209

Mencken, H. L., 225

Mensheviks, 123, 149, 159

Mercier, L. S., 78

Merriman, Professor R. B., 48

Military Revolution Committee, 197

Militia Order, 189

Miliukov, 116, 123, 126, 148, 159

Mill, 57

Millenarians, 204, 234

Miller, J. C., 136

Milton, John, 72, 116, 284

Minorities, role of, 182

Mirabeau, 91, 95, 99, 124, 133, 157, 176, 189

Molasses Act, 45

Molière, 131

Monge, 124

Montaigne, 301

Morison, Professor S. E., 125

Morley, Christopher, 29

Morris, 57

Mounier, 157

Mountain, 157

Muir, Ramsay, 42

Napoleon, 107, 250

Narodniks, 159

Naseby, 151

National Assembly, 91

Nationalism, 232, 254

Nationalistic revolution, 34

Natural law, 61

Navigation Act, 44, 45

Necker, 52, 90, 98, 102

New Economic Policy, 265

Newman, 57

New Model Army, 120, 152, 154, 164, 172, 182, 187

Nicholas II, 93, 109

October revolution, 160, 171, 197

Order Number One, 173

d’Orléans, Duc, 102, 124, 134

Paine, Thomas, 116, 130

Pareto, V., 24, 27, 75

Parliament, Short, 86

Paris Commune of 1871, 33

Pâris-Duverney, 47, 77

Parlements, 89

Parliament of Saints, 199

Peasantry, 73

_Peggy Stewart_, the, 88

Pétion, 157

Petition of Right, 85

Petrovsky, 238

Pettee, Dr. George, 46

Philosophes, 58, 60

Pitt, William, 225

Plato, 81

Plebiscites, 186, 289

Poincaré, H., 21

Pokrovsky, 127

Presbyterians, 120, 140, 152, 165, 172

Pressure groups, 52, 53, 54, 99, 185

Preston Pans, 155

Pride’s Purge, 155, 171

Proletariat, 73, 74

Propaganda, 27, 62, 168

Protopopov, 66

Puritans, 129, 139, 224

Pym, 87, 116, 176

Quebec Act, 45, 88

Rasputin, 78

Religious symbolism, 236

Renaming, 214

Revolution, abortive, 33, 34;
American, 34, 50, 84, 88, 100, 106, 155, 165, 195, 216, 229;
conservative, 32;
criminals and, 139, 209;
definitions of, 35;
English, 40, 50, 72, 84, 85, 100, 106, 151, 164, 195,
197, 202, 214, 245, 259, 263;
February, 92, 103, 122, 289;
French, 40, 48, 84, 89, 107, 117, 165, 185, 194, 199,
201, 215, 245, 255, 258, 262;
idealism and, 217;
idealists and, 142, 190;
nationalistic, 34;
October, 160, 171, 197;
Russian, 40, 51, 84, 85, 92, 100, 108, 158, 165, 184,
194, 197, 199, 202, 216, 246, 256, 265;
territorial, 33

Revolutions of 1848, 33

Revolutionary proselyters, 232

Revolutionist, clichés about, 114

Richelieu, 260

Rivarol, 73

Robespierre, 124, 142, 157, 189, 190, 191, 197, 201,
245, 252, 283, 297

Rogers, John, 126

Roland, Madame, 72, 124

Root-and-Branch Bill, 172

Rousseau, 63

Ruling class, 64, 278

Rump, 155, 199, 207, 245

Russian revolution, 40, 51, 84, 85, 92, 100, 108, 158,
165, 184, 194, 197, 199, 202, 216, 246, 256, 265

Sade, Marquis de, 138

Sainte-Beuve, 131

St. Huruge, Marquis de, 133

St. Simon, Comte de, 215

Schlesinger, Professor Arthur M., 44, 156

Scientific method, 16, 30

Self-denying ordinance, 172

Sexby, Edward, 125, 233

Shaftesbury, 250

Shays’s Rebellion, 270

Shelley, 115, 133

Ship Money, 54

Short Parliament, 86

Siéyès, 62

Signers of Declaration of Independence, 124

Smith, Adam, 46

Social change, 278

Socialist-Revolutionary party, 123, 149, 159

Sociétés de pensée, 53

Society for Encouraging Trade and Commerce with
the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 104

Sokolov, N. D., 174

Sons of Liberty, 84, 104, 121, 188, 212

Sovereignty, problem of, 161

Spencer, H., 15

Stalin, 127, 168, 216, 219, 236, 246, 247, 250, 257,
266, 269

Stamp Act, 42, 44, 45

_Stewart_, the _Peggy_, 88

Stoddard, Lothrop, 128

Stolypin, 52

Strachey, Lytton, 203

Strafford, 51, 84, 97

Strode, 87

Sukharevka Market, 209

Sverdlov, 127

Taine, 73

Talleyrand, 116, 133, 261

Tallien, 263

Talma, 77

Tammany Hall, 185

Tawney, R. H., 226

Tax reform, 45

Tennyson, 57

Tereschenko, 126, 134

Theophrastus, 29, 131

Théot, Catherine, 205

Third Estate, 90

Thucydides, 27, 294

Tocqueville, A. de, 273

Townshend, 88

Trevelyan, Professor G. M., 202

Trotsky, 44, 100, 103, 126, 130, 144, 160, 183, 185,
192, 194, 219, 246, 252, 283, 285

Trudoviks, 159

Tseretelli, 145, 170

Turgenev, 58

Turgot, 45, 52

Uniformities, 36, 96, 105, 167, 201, 206, 244, 247,
271, 274, 286, 299

Valentine, 86

Vallée, Rudy, 75

Vane, Sir Harry, 116, 250

Vergniaud, 145

Violence, role of, 92, 138, 179, 212, 237

Voltaire, 77

Washington, George, 45, 69, 116, 137, 247

Washington, Laurence, 223

Watteau, 77

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 227, 265

Weber, Max, 226

Webster, Mrs. Nesta, 67

Wells, H. G., 178

Westminster Assembly, 153

Winstanley, 125, 126

Wordsworth, 111

Zinoviev, 145

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Punctuation has been made consistent.