States and Social Revolutions : A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China

Rating:
Summary: A pioneering work for political sociology
Review: A new way of studying political sociology was first initiated when Skocpol's "States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China" was published in the 1970s.

Skocpol's discussion in the book is based on Marxist class struggle revolution, combined with the consensus theories which explain revolution as response to disequilibum of social system. In the very beginning, Skocpol attended on a fundamental question on most revolutions happened in old-regimes: Why revolution occurred in predominantly agrarian countries? (refer to "Old-Regime State in Crisis") He clearly stated a logical development from the three cases. Revolutionary crises developed when the old-regime states became unable to meet the challenges of evolving international situations. Disintegration of centralized administrative and military machinaries had therefore provided the sole unified bulwark of social and political order. Skocpol concluded that in most cases the pre-revolution states were fully established imperial states. They had a proto-bureaucratic: some officers, especially at higher levels, were functionally specialized. State not in a position to control directly over local agrarian socioeconomic relationship. Before social revolutions could occur, the administrative and military power of these states had to break down. Finally, the old regimes to their downfall were not due to internal conditions alone. Intensifying military competition with nation-state abroad that possessed relatively much greater and more flexible power based on economic breakthroughs to capitalist industrialization or agriculture and commerce. Success in meeting this foreign competition depended on the ability of the monarchy suddenly to mobilize extraordinary resources from the society and to implement in the process reforms requiring structural transformations. France, Russia and China did mobilize to meet foreign competition in the nineteenth century, but avoiding social-revolutionary transformations.

It preserve a way to address a deeper analysis on the role of peasantry in the revolutions (refer to "Agrarian Structures and Peasant Insurrections"). Peasant revolts or mobilization for guerrilla warfare played a pivotal role in each revolutionary process. In agrarian countries where peasants are the major producing class. From Skocpol's point of view, without peasant revolts, urban radicalism in predominantly agrarian countries has not in the end been able to accomplish socio-revolutionary transformations. Peasant revolts against landlords were a necessary ingredient in France, Russia and China revolutions, whereas successful revolts by urban workers were not. According to Skocpol,the revolts weakened mainstays of the socioeconomic and political orders of the old regime. Together the extensiveness and anti-landlord focus of the revolutionary peasant revolts created decisive constraints at the societal level on the range of sociopolitical options available to elite contending for national power. Peasants participated in these revolutions without being converted to radical visions of a desired new national society, and without becoming a nationally organized class-for-themselves. Instead, Skocpol thought that they struggled for concrete goals-typically involving access to more land, or freedom from claims on their surplus. Political and cultural marginality and relative socioeconomic immobility, bears the burden of varying combination of taxes, rents, usurious interest rates, and discriminatory prices, peasants always have grounds for rebellion against landlords, states agents, and merchants who exploit them.

Skocpol then exploited the transformation process of the peasantry from local levels into a collective force capable of striking out against its oppressors by answering first, the relation of peasantry to the field of power which surrounds it, and second, class structure. For the first question, Skocpol did a great job by analyzing the degrees and kinds of solidarity of peasant communities, the degrees of peasant autonomy from direct day-to-day supervision and control by landlords and their agents, and finally the relaxation of state coercive sanctions against peasants revolts. He answered the second question from the view point of relations of direct producer to one another, to their tools and to the land in the immediate process of production, and relations by which an unpaid-for part of the product is extracted from the direct producers by a class of non-producers.

In the last part of the book, Skocpol asked what would be followed the revolution. (refer to "What Changed and How: A Focus on State Building") He answered this with flying color as well. He provided his idea with couple elements. First, the changes after revolution. According to Skocpol, the pre-revolutionary landed upper class was no longer exclusively privileged in society and politics. Second, new authority and emergent political leaderships were challenged by disunity and counterrevolutionary attempts at home, and by military invasions from abroad, to build new state organizations to consolidate the revolutions. Third, Skocpol pointed out that peasant and urban worker were more directly incorporated into national politics and state-run project after the revolution. Forth, Skocpol believed that new state leadership acted as state builders rather than as representatives of classes. Fifth, the old-regime states had once broken apart, fundamental political and class conflicts were set in motion, not to be resolved until new administrative and military organizations were consolidated in the place of the old. Revolts from below directly attacked the property and privileges of dominant classes, thus accomplishing changes in class relations. Last but not least, political ideologies probably functions nothing, but served the political reality and aim of leaders.

I apologize for focusing too much on the contents of the book. However, why I do it is because we can understand his contribution only if we go deeply into his ideas. Skocpol did a great job here. I gain a lot from reading "States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China". The book is a must for both politics and sociology students, or those have interest in the field.

Rating:
Summary: Logical Fallacies & the Problem of Mid-Level Theory
Review: Four the past several weeks, I have been attempting to obtain copies of reviews of States & Social Revolutions that would have been written at the time of the book's initial publication. In fact, I had hoped that I could find whole books dedicated to rebutting much of the flawed argument that Skocpol puts forth in this book. I could find neither. But first, let me state my case against Skocpol.

First, there exists the problem of mid-level political theory. There is deep level theory, mid level theory, and what I deem specific political commentary. In deep level theory, one can make certain broad, rather common arguments: when states come under external military pressure, it impacts their economy. On the specific level, one could comment on how a specific war impacted a specific economy. But in the mid level, the arguments become tenuous. This happens when a scholar attempts to take a handful of countries, and to claim that a rather specific series of events (X, Y, Z) impacted those countries, took place in those countries, and had the same results in those countries. This is mid-level theory (in my understanding), and it is often highly flawed.

Skocpol advances three test cases to "prove" her argument. Indeed, she writes as though her book is empirically proving a mathematical equation to be true. This is one of the more superficial (though irritating) aspects of the book. Notwithstanding her penchant for a heavy-handed egotistical tone of writing, her argument is still tenuous. Her three test cases are France, Russia, and China. Essentially, Skocpol argues that all of these countries were impacted by their international situation and/or conflict. In France, the external actor was Britain's military might and the situation was exacerbated by France's poor geographic position. In Russia, the actor was WWI. In China, the Sino-Japanese war. These external situations necessitated governmental reforms in all three nations; reforms that would allow the nation to deal with threatening international conditions. Such reforms would deal with agricultural production, taxation, gathering of a military, etc. According to Skocpol, one of the key causes of a social revolution is that the elite classes in the countries where the revolution occurs will be antagonistic to the government's attempts at reform. When this antagonism reaches a hilt, social cohesion and coercion mechanisms fail, and the peasants revolt.

The first aspect of Sxocpol's argument is a sound one. In all three cases, there was international pressure and the government attempted reforms. As the argument progresses, it becomes quite weak. In France, the nobility were - as Skopol's claim requires - antagonistic to government efforts for reform, this did result in a breakdown in social cohesion and in coercion mechanisms. In China, the same held true. In Russia, however, the government reforms were accepted by the nobility. (STRIKE ONE).

According to Skocpol's logic, a rejection of governmental reforms by the nobility should result in a social revolution. In France, this happened. In Russia, there was no rejection by the noble class, but a revolution too place nonetheless. (STRIKE TWO). In China, there was no peasant revolt, yet Skocpol uses China as a case to prove her argument. (STRIKE THREE).

The argumentation in the book is poor. France is Skocpol's best case. But furthermore, it is instructive to note that Skocpol focuses exclusively on states, classes, governments---- but never on individual people. Her model is a very deterministic one: If conditions X, Y, and Z are present, there will be a social revolution. This is poor logic. She excludes any social/cultural factors that may have led to revolutions in any of her test cases. A great example is the case of Russia. Skocpol ignores Czar Nicholas' personal incompetence, and the difference between his ruling style and that of his predecessors. Furthermore, she ignores Russia's rapid industrialization and the power of a growing working class culture/shared identity/etc.

I reccomend this book to everyone interested in politics, if only because it will give you some good historical grounding for the periods and cases studied, and because it is always fun to deconstruct the "standard work".

Rating:
Summary: Logical Fallacies & the Problem of Mid-Level Theory
Review: Four the past several weeks, I have been attempting to obtain copies of reviews of States & Social Revolutions that would have been written at the time of the book's initial publication. In fact, I had hoped that I could find whole books dedicated to rebutting much of the flawed argument that Skocpol puts forth in this book. I could find neither. But first, let me state my case against Skocpol.

First, there exists the problem of mid-level political theory. There is deep level theory, mid level theory, and what I deem specific political commentary. In deep level theory, one can make certain broad, rather common arguments: when states come under external military pressure, it impacts their economy. On the specific level, one could comment on how a specific war impacted a specific economy. But in the mid level, the arguments become tenuous. This happens when a scholar attempts to take a handful of countries, and to claim that a rather specific series of events (X, Y, Z) impacted those countries, took place in those countries, and had the same results in those countries. This is mid-level theory (in my understanding), and it is often highly flawed.

Skocpol advances three test cases to "prove" her argument. Indeed, she writes as though her book is empirically proving a mathematical equation to be true. This is one of the more superficial (though irritating) aspects of the book. Notwithstanding her penchant for a heavy-handed egotistical tone of writing, her argument is still tenuous. Her three test cases are France, Russia, and China. Essentially, Skocpol argues that all of these countries were impacted by their international situation and/or conflict. In France, the external actor was Britain's military might and the situation was exacerbated by France's poor geographic position. In Russia, the actor was WWI. In China, the Sino-Japanese war. These external situations necessitated governmental reforms in all three nations; reforms that would allow the nation to deal with threatening international conditions. Such reforms would deal with agricultural production, taxation, gathering of a military, etc. According to Skocpol, one of the key causes of a social revolution is that the elite classes in the countries where the revolution occurs will be antagonistic to the government's attempts at reform. When this antagonism reaches a hilt, social cohesion and coercion mechanisms fail, and the peasants revolt.

The first aspect of Sxocpol's argument is a sound one. In all three cases, there was international pressure and the government attempted reforms. As the argument progresses, it becomes quite weak. In France, the nobility were - as Skopol's claim requires - antagonistic to government efforts for reform, this did result in a breakdown in social cohesion and in coercion mechanisms. In China, the same held true. In Russia, however, the government reforms were accepted by the nobility. (STRIKE ONE).

According to Skocpol's logic, a rejection of governmental reforms by the nobility should result in a social revolution. In France, this happened. In Russia, there was no rejection by the noble class, but a revolution too place nonetheless. (STRIKE TWO). In China, there was no peasant revolt, yet Skocpol uses China as a case to prove her argument. (STRIKE THREE).

The argumentation in the book is poor. France is Skocpol's best case. But furthermore, it is instructive to note that Skocpol focuses exclusively on states, classes, governments---- but never on individual people. Her model is a very deterministic one: If conditions X, Y, and Z are present, there will be a social revolution. This is poor logic. She excludes any social/cultural factors that may have led to revolutions in any of her test cases. A great example is the case of Russia. Skocpol ignores Czar Nicholas' personal incompetence, and the difference between his ruling style and that of his predecessors. Furthermore, she ignores Russia's rapid industrialization and the power of a growing working class culture/shared identity/etc.

I reccomend this book to everyone interested in politics, if only because it will give you some good historical grounding for the periods and cases studied, and because it is always fun to deconstruct the "standard work".

Rating:
Summary: a response to Over-rated
Review: Milan3 introduced a very excellent further reading in the review. Morre Barrington's work, of course is more original for political sociology as he is Skocpol's teacher. However, at least to me, Skocpol's comparative study is more interesting and more easy to read for new comers. Surely, no single book can cover all elements in such a wide field. "people" seems essential and important in studying political sociology, but not just a minor detail. I agree to Michael Springfield, Skocpol already expresses her views convincingly and with conviction, especially on "people"'s role in revolution. anyway, I enjoy discussing with Milan3 and Michael Springfield here and thank you!

Rating:
Summary: Over-rated
Review: Skocpol's "comparative analysis" leaves out only one minor detail: people. It seems never to occur to her that social revolutions are ultimately the consequence of human agency--that is, people taking history into their own hands. Marx's famous dictum from the opening of the "Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napolean" that "men make their own history, but they do not make it exactly as they choose," is lost on Skocpol. Rather, such phenomena as socio-economic classes, states, political institutions, etc., exist for her as if they were variables in Euclidian geometry. By comparison, Stalin could pass for Kant, if not Hegel, and Althusser might as well be Lukacs. If you care about this subject, look to Barrington Moore, Jr., E. P. Thompson, and more recent studies of each ofthe three revolutions Skocpol compares.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This is clearly Skocpol's best work. She expresses her views convincingly and with conviction. I highly recomend this book.