| Chapter 2: | Pattern of the Insurrection and Modernity |
of linkages between domestic conflict and domestic variables; indeed, almost all explanations of political instability employ this approach.
Armed forces’ coherence is a third important variable cited. Chorley and Russell, for example, suggest that revolution is not possible when the armed forces are loyal, intact, and effectively used by the state.15 However, in the author’s view, this does not explain how, for example, the Shah of Iran or Somoza of Nicaragua fell despite unquestionable loyalty from the formidable modem armies they had created during the course of their autocratic rule.
The structure of rural societies or landlord–peasant relationships is a fourth important variable considered essential by the new theorists of revolution. This arises from their observation of the role of the peasants especially in the Bolshevik, the Chinese, and the Vietnamese revolutions. Moore, Wolfe, Landberger, Migdal, Paige, Prosterman, and Linz have attempted to analyze the role of the structure of agrarian communities in a national revolution.16
Skocpol questions whether urban based revolts can be successful in initiating or determining the outcomes of revolutions.17 Urban revolts, according to her, took place only in unsuccessful revolutions for which she cites the Paris Commune and the German and Austrian revolutions of 1848. She also adds that the outcome of a major social revolution transformed rural life by removing the powers and privileges of the landlords over the peasants in the countryside without any apparent change in the social organization of the cities. The crucial thing in a revolution, according to her, is a peasant revolt coming simultaneously with a breakdown in the power structure of a country’s central government.
Finally, third generation theorists of revolution consider the elites’ relationships and behavior as an important variable in precipitating not only a revolution but also the type of revolutionary outcome. Skocpol, Eisenstadt, and Trimberger have carried out a wide range of studies to explain this phenomenon. Eisenstadt, for example, suggests that new elites with a close tie to old elites create “pluralist” or “open” regimes whereas isolated or clandestine elites create what he