Revolutions and the Imperatives of State Power
| Date | 01 December 1980 |
| Published date | 01 December 1980 |
| Author | David Lehmann |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1980.tb01266.x |
| Subject Matter | Review Articles |
REVIEW ARTICLES
REVOLUTIONS AND THE
IMPERATIVES
OF
STATE POWER
DAVID LEHMANN
Cambridge
Univcrsi/y
THE
comparative study of grand historical processes by social scientists in search of
empirically founded generalizations is far from new-it goes back at least as far as
Montesquieu. But is has become newly fashionable in the last twelve years since
Barrington Moore revived it in his
Sociul
Origins
ojDictatorship
and
Democracy.
I
That
remarkable book inspired many people of the younger generation who had been
mistaught Weber and Marx and who had been bored
to
tears by the pigeon-holing
which, for structural functional sociology and its offspring modernization theory.
passed for the analysis of historical processes. In part, the depth of Barrington Moore’s
influence derived simply from the use he made of new historical research where other
sociologists were content to fob
off
the reader with undergraduate history textbooks.
But it was a paradoxical book-superficially, at least-for while his message was a
liberal one, his method was firmly rooted
in
Marxism: classes do exist. they
do
make
history; the concepts of bourgeois and socialist revolution
do
stand in meaningful
opposition to each other. Moore’s recent book, the most elaborate plea
for
a
,ju.str
niilieu
in political philosophy that
I
have ever come across, contains a similar
paradox: while his philosophical argument is against revolution, though not against
radical social change in defence of liberty, and in favour of
a
minimum of authority
relations as a guarantee of liberty, the interpolated historical sections on the history of
the German working class are distinctly Marxist in their choice of issues and their
analysis.
Although many students of development read
Social
Origins,
it
is sad but instructive
to note that among those who sought an ‘unorthodox’
or
‘critical’ approach
to
their
subject, the unscholarly but pungent theses of Gunder Frank had more influence than
the more scholarly but theoretically complex approach of Moore. Frank, after all.
pointed his finger firmly to a way ahead even if the path itself turned out to be
hazardous; Moore only provided
a
slightly damaged compass and a map written in a
nineteenth century German dialect with which the student had
to
grope his
or
her way
through the complexities of history.
It is indeed to Theda Skocpol that we owe a masterly early arti~le,~ which dissected
Sociul
Origins.
and tried to sort out its theses and difficulties. We now have the final
product of her work on the comparative study of revolutions in a book that surpasses
Barrington Moore, Jr..
Thr
Sociul
0rigin.c
of
Dic/u/orship
und
Drmocrucj.
(Harmondsworth.
Barrington Moore. Jr.,
Injustice:
The
Sociul
Buses
o/
Obedience
und
Revolt (London.
Thedn Skocpol,
‘A
critical review
of
Barrington Moore’s “Social origins
oC
dictatorship and
Penguin. 1967).
Macmillan. 1978).
democracy”’.
Politic.\
und
Sucirly.
4
(1973). 1-34.
Puliticnl Studio,
Vol.
XXVIII,
No.
4
(622-625)
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