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