Throughout history, societies across the globe have changed and evolved to become what we know them as today. Sometimes this change happens gradually over time, but other times, it happens quickly and radically, and leaves a massive impact on everyone effected. When this occurs, it’s known as a revolution, and can completely flip a government or populace upside down. Today, I’m going to be exploring something known as Crane Brinton’s Theory of Revolution, and just how it affects modern revolutionary acts.
What is his theory?
Now before we begin, it is important to clarify just who Crane Brinton was, and what his theory is about. Crane Brinton was a 20th century historian from America who studied France. He was the writer of many works, but his most famous is known as The Anatomy of Revolution. Inside of it, it explains what causes revolutions and what the stages are of it. His theory uses the metaphor of a revolution being like a fever, for it goes through stages from being mild, to strong, to being resolved. The first stage is known as the preliminary stage, or the incubation stage, where there is usually economic crisis, class separation, intellectual opposition, a sense of government injustice, and is typically caused by military victory, weak leaders, or a lack of reform. The next stage is known as the moderate stage, where a single person or a small group of activists begin to spread their message and protest, but it is mainly controlled and there is not much violence or riots.
Crane Brinton
Then comes what would be the climax of the fever when you would feel the worse, known as the Crisis stage, where radicals take control, and violence, riots, and mayhem takes a population and chaos breaks loose. Then, eventually things calm down in the Resolution Stage, where your fever would be on the road to recovery. When this happens, the radicals are taken out of power, a more stable government force comes back into play, war or immediate peace insues, and things go pretty much back to the way they were. Yet, as more revolutions occur, this theory doesn’t always seem to hold its ground as well as it did back in the day. So, I’ve decided to ask the question, how does his theory hold up with other revolutions outside of France?
Research of the Topic
The Anatomy of Revolution was written in 1938, and then was revised in 1965, and was considered at the time to be quite the valid theory. Yet, now that much time has passed, does his theory still hold up, and how much does it apply to revolutions outside of France. To figure this out, I have researched 3 revolutions that have occurred throughout history; The Latin American Revolutions, The Haitian Revolution, and The Industrial Revolution. I chose these three because they each were caused by quite different circumstances and occurred/were resolved in unique ways.
First up are the Latin American Revolutions, also known as the Latin American Wars of Independence. These were a series of revolts that occurred between the 18th and 19th century which were caused by a suppressed independence of the people in Latin America (Central America/South America). It started when Napoleon Bonaparte took control of much of the area and set up spanish colonies. Over time, the indigenous people became displeased with how their countries were being run, and started to revolt. It first started with Mexico, but the revolt was not successful and their king was beheaded. Afterwards, other countries such as Venezuela started to fight back as well, but no true victory was held until the Spanish were defeated in Chile in 1817.
A Map of Independence dates in Central America
After this, a man named Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan political official, took a stand and rallied small armies which through strategy defeated Spanish colonies one by one. This soon lead to the independence of some places such as what is now Equidor, Columiba, and Venezuela. Finally, Mexico revolted again and eventually the spanish influence was taken out of Central America and the places became their own countires. This example does follow Brinton’s theory in some ways, such as the fact that there is a build up to a climax point where there is violence, but it was still quite organized and radicalism was minimal. The result was also different for Central America changed drastically after separating into independent countries.
Simon Bolivar
Next I researched the Haitian Revolution, which took place in Haiti in 1791. It was caused by self-liberated slaves in Haiti fighting back against the Spanish Regime in their country, eventually ending slavery in Haiti, and consisted of many small revolutions occurring at the same time. It is considered the first and successful slave revolution, and most likely succeeded due to the sheer number of slaves against the Spanish. It is also thought to have been a success because it was rather spontaneous and was well organized as the people banded together for their rights. It was also inspired by the French Revolution, for it was the fight for equality and freedom among people of different classes. Brinton’s theory does apply to the climax of this revolt, for there was violence, riots, rebellion, and unrest, but the end resolved in great change and revolution, and the cause stemmed more from invaders vs indigenous, instead of the people of a country against the government.
The Hatian Revolution
The Final Revolution I have researched happened the shortest time ago, and is the Industrial Revolution. Now this revolution is quite the odd one out for instead of being a dramatic uprising between groups of people, it was rather a steady process of mechanical evolution which eventually reached the point of revolution. Before this time, people were still living pretty much as they did in the renaissance and before hand; farming, living in small communities, and mainly focusing on the survival of themselves and their families. There was not much technology of any sort other than the basics and most things people owned were made by them or someone in their community. However, eventually people started looking for ways to make this life easier, and thus came some of the first major technological inventions of the time. The first major one is credited to be the flying engine made by John K in 1733 which helped the British textiles industry greatly by allowing silk and thread to be spun much faster. Later, more inventions started popping up such as ways to get water out of mines, and soon after, the famous steam engine. This was truly what set this revolution in motion and is still used to this day in many machines.
One of the first Steam Engines
As I mentioned earlier, this revolution does not follow Brinton’s Theory nearly at all and is more of a period of evolution than a typical revolution. It was caused by gradual invention breakthroughs in small communities over time across Europe. There was also never a violent climax point and riots and radicalism was not caused by this. Also, when it came to an end, great change did occur, but above all, this revolution is quite different due to it not stemming from political issues.
Conclusion
After doing much research, and looking at a number of different revolutions across the world and history, I have come to the conclusion that his theory does act as a good starting point to understand revolution, but does not encompass all revolutions, nor is it accurate 100% for the revolutions it does apply to. In the examples I listed here, it seems that the theory does have a part in all of them to some degree, but each one is unique in many other ways (such as their cause, climax, and solution).
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