The Psychology of Revolution | Page 9

no affinity with rational logic.
Political revolutions may result from beliefs established in the minds of
men, but many other causes produce them. The word discontent sums
them up. As soon as discontent is generalised a party is formed which
often becomes strong enough to struggle against the Government.
Discontent must generally have been accumulating for a long time in
order to produce its effects. For this reason a revolution does not
always represent a phenomenon in process of termination followed by
another which is commencing but rather a continuous phenomenon,
having somewhat accelerated its evolution. All the modern revolutions,
however, have been abrupt movements, entailing the instantaneous
overthrow of governments. Such, for example, were the Brazilian,
Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese revolutions.
To the contrary of what might be supposed, the very conservative
peoples are addicted to the most violent revolutions. Being
conservative, they are not able to evolve slowly, or to adapt themselves
to variations of environment, so that when the discrepancy becomes too
extreme they are bound to adapt themselves suddenly. This sudden
evolution constitutes a revolution.
Peoples able to adapt themselves progressively do not always escape
revolution. It was only by means of a revolution that the English, in
1688, were able to terminate the struggle which had dragged on for a

century between the monarchy, which sought to make itself absolute,
and the nation, which claimed the right to govern itself through the
medium of its representatives.
The great revolutions have usually commenced from the top, not from
the bottom; but once the people is unchained it is to the people that
revolution owes its might.
It is obvious that revolutions have never taken place, and will never
take place, save with the aid of an important fraction of the army.
Royalty did not disappear in France on the day when Louis XVI. was
guillotined, but at the precise moment when his mutinous troops
refused to defend him.
It is more particularly by mental contagion that armies become
disaffected, being indifferent enough at heart to the established order of
things. As soon as the coalition of a few officers had succeeded in
overthrowing the Turkish Government the Greek officers thought to
imitate them and to change their government, although there was no
analogy between the two regimes.
A military movement may overthrow a government--and in the Spanish
republics the Government is hardly ever destroyed by any other
means--but if the revolution is to be productive of great results it must
always be based upon general discontent and general hopes.
Unless it is universal and excessive, discontent alone is not sufficient to
bring about a revolution. It is easy to lead a handful of men to pillage,
destroy, and massacre, but to raise a whole people, or any great portion
of that people, calls for the continuous or repeated action of leaders.
These exaggerate the discontent; they persuade the discontented that
the government is the sole cause of all the trouble, especially of the
prevailing dearth, and assure men that the new system proposed by
them will engender an age of felicity. These ideas germinate,
propagating themselves by suggestion and contagion, and the moment
arrives when the revolution is ripe.
In this fashion the Christian Revolution and the French Revolution

were prepared. That the latter was effected in a few years, while the
first required many, was due to the fact that the French Revolution
promptly had an armed force at its disposal, while Christianity was
long in winning material power. In the beginning its only adepts were
the lowly, the poor, and the slaves, filled with enthusiasm by the
prospect of seeing their miserable life transformed into an eternity of
delight. By a phenomenon of contagion from below, of which history
affords us more than one example, the doctrine finally invaded the
upper strata of the nation, but it was a long time before an emperor
considered the new faith sufficiently widespread to be adopted as the
official religion.
4. The Results of Political Revolutions.
When a political party is triumphant it naturally seeks to organise
society in accordance with its interests. The organisation will differ
accordingly as the revolution has been effected by the soldiers, the
Radicals, or the Conservatives, &c.
The new laws and institutions will depend on the interests of the
triumphant party and of the classes which have assisted it--the clergy
for instance.
If the revolution has triumphed only after a violent struggle, as was the
case with the French Revolution, the victors will reject at one sweep
the whole arsenal of the old law. The supporters of the fallen regime
will be persecuted, exiled, or exterminated.
The maximum of violence in these persecutions is attained when the
triumphant party is defending a belief in addition to its material
interests. Then the conquered need