On Generations of the Theories of Revolution in the Light of the History of Sociology: Preliminary Correlation

Revolutions are the great earthquakes of human history, sudden and violent shifts that topple governments and redraw the map of society. For centuries, thinkers have tried to understand why these storms happen. They have asked whether it is the hunger of the poor, the weakness of a king, or the pressure of a changing world that sparks the fire. This question belongs to the field of sociology, the study of how people live together in groups and how those groups change over time. Sociologists do not just watch history; they try to find the hidden rules that govern it. But the tools they use to look for these rules have changed as the world itself has changed. Just as a new lens can reveal details invisible to an old one, new ways of thinking about society have led to new ways of understanding why revolutions occur.

A team of researchers at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Russia has set out to trace the history of these ideas. They wanted to see if the way scholars explain revolutions follows the same path as the development of sociology itself. Their work suggests a clear pattern: the theories we have about revolutions are not just random guesses, but are deeply tied to the era in which the scholars lived and the specific questions their field of study was asking at the time. By looking at the last hundred years, they found that the history of revolution theory moves in distinct waves, or generations, and each wave rises and falls in step with the major shifts in sociological thought.

The story begins in the 1920s and 1930s, a time when sociology was just becoming a formal science in the United States. The first generation of revolution researchers, working during this period, treated revolutions almost like natural phenomena, similar to how a biologist might study a disease. They looked at events like the French and Russian revolutions and concluded that these disasters happened because the state itself was weak. They believed that if the government lost its money, its legitimacy, or the support of its intellectuals, the system would simply collapse. This approach relied on the idea that revolutions were the result of a breakdown in order, rather than a deliberate plan by a specific group of people. It was a time when the focus was on the structure of society and the visible cracks in the system.

As the world moved into the 1940s and 1950s, the focus of sociology shifted toward how societies function as systems and how they change during modernization. This gave rise to the second generation of revolution theory. Scholars in this era argued that revolutions were not caused by a weak state, but by the stress of rapid change. They suggested that when a society modernizes too quickly—when people move to cities, when economies grow, or when populations explode—it creates a gap between what people expect and what they actually have. This feeling of being deprived, even if things are getting better, creates a psychological pressure that eventually bursts into violence. This generation also saw the rise of the idea that revolutions were a sign of a society struggling to adapt to new times, a view that dominated the field through the 1960s and 1970s.

By the mid-1970s, the conversation changed again. The third generation of researchers felt that the previous focus on individual feelings or general modernization was missing the bigger picture. They turned their attention back to the state, but this time they looked at it as a powerful actor with its own interests, rather than just a fragile vessel. They argued that revolutions often happen when the government is caught between powerful external forces, like wars or economic pressure, and internal conflicts between different social groups. This approach, which emphasized the role of the military, the elites, and the specific history of a country, brought a more structural view to the table. It suggested that revolutions were not just about angry people, but about the complex alignment of forces within a nation and its relationship with the rest of the world.

The fourth generation, emerging in the 1990s and 2000s, added another layer to the story. As the world became more connected through trade and communication, scholars realized that revolutions could not be understood by looking at one country in isolation. They began to study how revolutions spread across borders, creating waves that swept through regions. This generation focused on the role of culture, ideas, and international networks. They saw that a revolution in one place could inspire people in another, and that the global economy played a huge role in who succeeded and who failed. This period coincided with a time when sociology itself was becoming more global, moving away from a focus solely on Western nations to include the experiences of the entire world.

Now, the researchers argue, we are entering a fifth generation. This new wave of thought is taking shape in the 21st century, driven by the reality of a highly complex and interconnected world. The scholars of this generation are using massive amounts of data to track revolutions, looking for patterns that were too small to see before. They are paying close attention to how the global system itself shapes these events, noting that revolutions are increasingly happening in the poorer, more distant parts of the world rather than in the wealthy centers. They are also studying how digital technology and global crises, like the economic crash of 2008, influence the timing and spread of uprisings. This new approach treats the world as a single, tangled web where a shock in one part can ripple out to cause a revolution in another.

The main finding of this paper is that these shifts in how we understand revolutions are not accidental. They happen in lockstep with the evolution of sociology itself. When the field of sociology was focused on the state, the first generation of revolution theories focused on the state. When sociology began to study the stress of modernization, the second generation focused on that stress. When sociology turned to global systems and data, the fifth generation did the same. The researchers suggest that every group of scholars is shaped by the intellectual tools and the big questions of their time. They are not just observing history; they are observing it through the lens of their own discipline's development.

This connection matters because it helps us understand why our ideas about revolutions change. It shows that our theories are not just about the events themselves, but about the context in which we study them. By recognizing that each generation of researchers has its own blind spots and its own strengths, we can better understand the full picture of why societies change. The paper does not claim to have found the single, final answer to why revolutions happen. Instead, it shows that our understanding is a living thing, growing and shifting just like the societies we study. As the world becomes more complex and connected, our theories will continue to evolve, offering new ways to see the old storms of human history.