Sociology of Revolution

• Book: The Sociology of Revolution. Pitirim Sorokin.

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Summary by Richard Simpson:

"The Sociology of Revolution (1925) is strongly colored by Sorokin's revolutionary experiences.

He explains revolution, not in terms of historical or socio-economic movements as commonly conceived by writers on revolution, but as a destruction of the precarious balance between reason and disorganized antisocial instincts, with uncontrolled impulses coming to the fore. Since revolution results from the victory of man's upset biological drives over civilized reason, violent revolution is a disaster.

Sorokin does not attempt to explain why unreason overcomes reason at certain times but not at others; his analysis is essentially psychological rather than sociological or historical. This book bears the imprint of Freud, Pavlov, Pareto, and others who stress the non-rational aspects of behavior. A behavioristic influence is manifested continually; Sorokin speaks of reflexes of property, the stimulus to obedience, the reactions to authority. His main purpose is to chart the course of internal events in typical revolutions. Every revolution, he says, follows a cycle of license, reaction, repression, and new equilibrium. The belief seems implicit that no revolution really alters the state of affairs materially; the French Revolution, for example, is treated not as a triumph of democracy or of the bourgeoisie but simply as a temporary outburst of animalism like every other revolution."

(https://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-36d7-41d4-0000-000064b51e55/simpson_sorokin.pdf)