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Suray Agung Nugroho

Korean Studies

A Summary on Theda Skocpol’s France, Russia, China: A Structural Analysis of Social


Revolutions

The first thing that interests me is the fact that Skocpol managed to find the common
grounds of three successful social revolutions ever occurred: France (1789), Russia (1917), and
China (1911-1949)—hereafter referred to FRC. The term ‘successful’ in this case refers to the
fact that the mentioned revolutions are the combination of thoroughgoing structural
transformation and massive class upheavals carried out in rapid and fundamental way that
changed the socio-economic and political institutions. In other words, Skocpol’s study was
about an inquiry into the conditions for the occurrence and short-term outcomes of the great
historical social revolutions in FRC by using the comparative historical method. Especially, she
did it by contrasting them with previous revolutions in Japan, Germany and Russia (up to 1904),
and with revolutions in Russia (1905) and Germany (1848) which turned out to be lacking
some factors existed in the FRC Revolutions. So, she mentioned that the absence of conditions
as positively important in FRC was the reasons as to why previous revolutions had failed or had
not occurred in other societies.

Based on the readings, apart from the differences of the three cases of Social
Revolutions, Skocpol elaborated the revolutions through the similarities found in FRC social
revolutions.

1. Social Revolutions in FRC occurred during the phases of modernization in agrarian


bureaucratic societies within. All of these happened during which the world was exposed to the
international fields where economically modern nations abroad started to dominate.

2. In each country, 3 stages of social revolutions were evident. First, it was initiated by the
inability of the central administration and military t keep up with the change. Second, it was
followed by the widespread peasant rebellions. Third, it was followed by the marginal elite
political movement.

3. As a result, each country experienced extreme rationalization and centralization of state


institutions, the removal of traditional landed upper class/landlords, and the elimination of the
landed upper class’ economic & socio-political authority. Thus, peasants in FRC as the
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Suray Agung Nugroho
Korean Studies

majority of the population enjoyed triumph after years of being exploited by the upper class
throus taxes and labor.

4. In short, it was an inherent cause in the sense that FRC social revolution was prone to occur
since each country’s regime (Czarist regime in Russia, Bourbon regime in France, and Manchu
regime in China ) had peculiar characteristics in terms of its vulnerability to social-
revolutionary transformations.

5. In seeing FCR social revolutions, Skocpol did not only emphasize on the role of peasants,
but rather she also asserted the marginal elites called nationalist radicals. In France’s case, they
were non-noble, non-wealthy laywers, professionals or state functionaries. In Russia’s case,
they were university-educated Russians. In China’s case: just like in Russia, early student
generations of university-educated Chinese.

6. Quoting Sameul Huntington’s “a complete revolution....involves....the creation and


institutionalization of a new political order”, Skocpol mentioned that through FRC social
revolutions, a new elite or people came up while the old ones (bourgeoisie of France, Kerensky
of Russia, and Kuomintang in China) lost out. There arose the more highly centralized,
bureaucratized and rationalized state institutions than those that existed prior to the revolutions

Interestingly, although Skocpol set forth the similarities among the three countries, she
also pointed out about similarities shared only by two countries (France and Russia) in his
study.

First, it was about the countries’ inability to mobilize increased resources to respond
the modernity within the agrarian bureaucracy. Second, in the case of France and Russia,
peasants could rebel on their own; meaning they did not need any mobilization from urban
radicals. While in China, a kind of military mobilization was necessary. Third, unlike their
counterparts in France and Russia, Chinese peasants had to undergo a distinct condition of
being attached in two communities: his village and the marketing system to which his vilage
belonged. Thus, unlike peasants in France and Russia who rebelled againts their landlord, the
Chinese did not initiate its revolutions against landlords. Instead, they made some kind of rural
violence or social banditry. As a result, some elites or educated with communist ideology made
a direct link to te peasants which could be described as its uniqueness in China Social
Revolution. While in France and Russia, radical elites did not try to stay close with the peasants.

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Suray Agung Nugroho
Korean Studies

In other words, while France and Russia Social revolution could be seen as peasant
movement, the Chinese tends to be an elite/mass movement.

Along reading Skocpol’s paper, the background of each social revolution in France,
Russia, and China was elaborated. In essence, here are the backgrounds, respectively.

Background of Social Revolution in Russia:

Peasants were forced to go to WWI. Most of the people did not have choice but to go to
war. It somewhat enhanced the already mounting grievances of the young peasant men. As a
consequence, spreading peasant insurrections could not be controlled (1917). On one hand,
Russia depended a lot on foreign loan and capital that it could not say no when WWI broke out
since Russia had become part of the European state system. Thus, its regime (Czarist) could not
refrain nor escape from going to war which led lots of its people and army sent to the field. It
angered the public.

Background of Social Revolution in France:

The French monarchy had to compete with neighboring countries like Austria, Prussia,
and Britain. It went to wars after wars. No gains but kept losing in its resources. While in
domestic issue, it had to tame the resistance of its own people due to the tax problems. All of
this finally opened the door to revolution. Common people demonstrated, and on the other hand,
the army did not want to suppress the popular resistance. All of this led to the resistance against
the Crown right until the Fall of the Bastille.

Background of Social Revolution in China:

Since the span of time of China’s Social Revolutions was long (1911-1949), it was a bit
complicated to tag along. However, as Skocpol indicated that at first stages, Chinese peasants
did not initiate class-based revolts. Instead, rebellions were manifested in rural violence and
social banditry in the midsf ot the decline of Chinese dynasty complicated by the Western and
Japanese economic and military intrusions. Thus, as time went by, peasants impoverishment,
conflicts among local militias, and more importantly, it had something to do with an ideological
issue, i.e. the rise of Communist movement that captured the hearts of mass base of workers
and intra-villages organizations that ultimately drove for power unique in China’s history.

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Suray Agung Nugroho
Korean Studies

An interesting notion that Skocpol suggested was that social revolutions in FRC was
doomed to happen. Especially since the society in FRC itself had been involved in the
modernization (a necesary condition) that lured each country into a single network of societies.
As it became a single network, people became more aware of their own need and thus resented
if it was not met as it should be.

All in all, in the last pages of his paper Skocpol summed up his ideas by first,
emphasizing that apart from the fact that three social revolutions were similar in nature, in
France’s case, no communist party emerged to fully displace the landed wealth, collectivize
agriculture, and direct industrialization. Second, by setting forth a different theory of viewing
the FRC social revolutions, i.e. not focusing on the discontent (as previous theories had), rather
on the mechanisms and dynamics of social control through political and class domination.
Moreover, she also emphasized on the effects of modernization as the cause of revolution.

I had to admit that Skocpol’s writing is quite a hard one. But thanks to reliability, she
wrote what she promised in the first pages so it is manageable to follow and understand it. She
explained the FRC revolutions always in the same manner and sequence in such a way that
readers would not get lost in understanding what she was talking about on each page. I think his
style of comparative story telling is worth-reading.

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