{{Short description|Social movement dedicated to carrying out a revolution}} [[File:Tampereen punakaartin komppania rintamalla (26936605946).jpg|thumb|The [[Red Guards (Finland)|Red Guards]], the group of [[Finland|Finnish]] revolutionaries during the 1918 [[Finnish Civil War]] in [[Tampere|Tampere, Finland]]]] A '''revolutionary movement''' (or '''revolutionary social movement''') is a specific type of [[social movement]] dedicated to carrying out a [[revolution]].
== Criteria == [[Charles Tilly]] defines it as "a [[social movement]] advancing exclusive competing claims to control of the [[State (polity)|state]], or some segment of it".<ref name="Tilly"/> [[Jeff Goodwin]] and [[James M. Jasper]] define it more simply (and consistently with other works<ref name="Tischler2010"/>{{qn|date=December 2015}}) as "a social movement that seeks, as minimum, to overthrow the government or state".<ref name="GoodwinJasper2009"/>
A social movement may want to make various reforms and to gain some control of the state, but as long as they do not aim for an ''exclusive'' control, its members are not revolutionary.<ref name="Goodwin2001"/> Social movements may become more radical and revolutionary, or ''vice versa'' - revolutionary movements can scale down their demands and agree to share powers with others, becoming a run-of-the-mill [[political party]].<ref name="Goodwin2001"/>
Goodwin distinguishes between a [[Reform movement|conservative (reformist)]] and radical revolutionary movements, depending on how much of a change they want to introduce.<ref name="Goodwin2001"/> A conservative or reformist revolutionary movement will want to change fewer elements of the socio-economic and cultural system than a radical reformist movement (Godwin also notes that not all radical movements have to be revolutionary).<ref name="Goodwin2001"/> A radical revolutionary movement will thus want both to take an exclusive control of the state, and to fundamentally transform one or more elements of its society, economy or culture.<ref name="Goodwin2001"/>
== Examples == An example of a conservative movement would be the [[American Revolution|American Revolutionary movement]] of the 18th century, or the [[Mexican Revolution|Mexican Revolutionary movement]] of the early 20th century.<ref name="Goodwin2001"/> Examples of radical revolutionary movements include the [[Bolsheviks]] in [[Russia]], the [[Chinese Communist Party]] and other [[communist]] movements in [[Southeast Asia]] and in [[Cuba]] (which attempted to introduce broad changes to the [[economy|economic system]]), the movements of the 1979 [[Iranian Revolution]] against the [[shah]], and some{{which|date=December 2015}} [[Central America]]n [[guerrilla]] movements.<ref name="Goodwin2001-2"/><ref name="DeFronzo2011"/> For a movement to be considered{{by whom|date=December 2015}} revolutionary in the modern-day [[United States]] it should call for a change of the dominant economic system ([[capitalism]]) or the political system ([[two-party]] [[representative democracy]]) operating in that society.<ref name="DeFronzo2011"/>{{qn|date=December 2015}}
The same social movement may be viewed differently depending on a given context (usually the government of the country where it unfolds).<ref name="GiugniMcAdam1998"/> For example, [[Jack Goldstone]] notes that the [[human rights movement]] can be seen as a regular social movement in the [[Western world|West]], but it is a revolutionary movement under oppressive régimes like that in [[China]].<ref name="GiugniMcAdam1998"/> Another example he mentions was the [[racial equality movement]], which could be seen as revolutionary a few decades ago in [[South Africa]], but {{as of | 1998 | lc = on}} is just a regular social movement.<ref name="GiugniMcAdam1998"/>
== Factors == A revolutionary movement can be [[non-violent]], although it is less common than not.<ref name="DeFronzo2011"/><ref name="Downing2010"/> Revolutionary movements usually have a wider [[repertoire of contention]] than non-revolutionary ones.<ref name="DeFronzo2011"/>
Five crucial factors to the development and success of a revolutionary movements include:<ref name="DeFronzo2011"/>
# mass discontent leading to popular uprisings # dissident political movements with élite participation # strong and unifying motivations across major parts of the society # a significant political crisis affecting the state - reducing state ability or will to deal with the opposition (see [[political opportunity]]) # external support (or at last, lack of interference on behalf of the state)
== See also == {{Portal|Society}} *[[List of social movements]]
== References == <references> <ref name="DeFronzo2011">{{cite book|author=James DeFronzo|title=Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JlUZAwAAQBAJ|year=2011|publisher=Westview Press|isbn=978-0-8133-4515-4|pages=10–13}}</ref>
<ref name="Downing2010">{{cite book|author=John D. H. Downing|title=Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwPX23VameIC&pg=PA167|year=2010|publisher=SAGE|isbn=978-0-7619-2688-7|page=167}}</ref>
<ref name="GiugniMcAdam1998">{{cite book|author1=Marco Giugni|author2=Doug McAdam|author3=Charles Tilly|title=From Contention to Democracy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IJUxs0W22vgC&pg=PA128|year=1998|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8476-9106-7|pages=127–128}}</ref>
<ref name="Goodwin2001-2">{{cite book|author=Jeff Goodwin|title=No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991|url=https://archive.org/details/nootherwayout00jeff|url-access=registration|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-62948-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/nootherwayout00jeff/page/47 47]}}</ref>
<ref name="Goodwin2001">{{cite book|author=Jeff Goodwin|title=No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991|url=https://archive.org/details/nootherwayout00jeff|url-access=registration|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-62948-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nootherwayout00jeff/page/10 10]–11}}</ref>
<ref name="GoodwinJasper2009">{{cite book|author1=Jeff Goodwin|author2=James M. Jasper|title=The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wq5ELSlaZlgC&pg=PA4|year=2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4051-8764-0|page=4}}</ref>
<ref name="Tilly">{{cite book |last=Tilly |first=Charles |title=European Revolutions, 1492-1992 |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing|Blackwell]] |year=1995 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/europeanrevoluti00till/page/10 10] |isbn=0-631-19903-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/europeanrevoluti00till/page/10 }}</ref>
<ref name="Tischler2010">{{cite book|author=Henry L. Tischler|title=Introduction to Sociology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EtAe7eWdYMUC&pg=PA427|year=2010|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-495-80440-6|pages=427–428}}</ref> </references>
[[Category:Revolutionary movements| ]]