While Europe was the centre stage of revolutions since the end of the 18th century, the non-European world, too, was drawn into revolutions around the same period and up to the years of the early 21st century.
How do we understand these revolutionary passions, born outside the continent of Europe? How far have they been conditioned by the European matrices they refer to? Have they, in turn, given birth to exportable models ?
Across three continents: Latin America, the Middle East and India, three authors interrogate the phenomenon of revolution and hold a dialogue with the major work of François Furet entitled, The Passing of an Illusion. The latter is a retrospective of the ‘communist idea’, that was published in 1995, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.
Furet’s ideas of the links between revolution and democracy, revolution and totalitarianism, revolution and egalitarianism are explored with reference to the revolutions in Cuba (1959), Nicaragua (1979), the revolutions of the Middle East, specifically the Iranian revolution (1989), and the revolutionary movement in India prior to Independence.
Hamit Bozarslan, Gilles Bataillon and Christophe Jaffrelot explore the nuances within revolutionary contexts like the ‘bureaucratization’ of Revolution in Latin America, the growing religious fundamentalism of Khomeni’s Iran and the ‘revolutionary terrorism’ of heroes like Bhagat Singh.
The book will be of interest to political scientists and historians and students of international affairs and other general readers.
Hamit Bozarslan (PhD in history and in political sciences) is a professor at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales and a specialist of the historical and political sociology of the Middle East. His last books include: Qu’est-ce une révolution? Etats-Unis, France, Monde arabe (with G. Demelmestre, Paris, Cerf, 2016) and Révolution et état de violence. Moyen-Orient 2011-2015 (Paris, CNRS Editions, 2015).
Christophe Jaffrelot is Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute (London). Among his publications are The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to 1990s. New Delhi: Penguin, 1999; India’s Silent Revolution. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003 and; The Pakistan Paradox. Instability and Resilience. New Delhi: Random House, 2015.
Gilles Bataillon (PhD in Sociology EHESS) is a professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and a specialist of the historical and politicalsociology of Latin America. His last books include: Enquête sur une guérilla Nicaragua (1982-2007), Paris le Félin 2009 and Genèse des guerres internes en Amériques centrale (1960-1983), Paris les Belles Lettres, 2003.
Introduction - Hamit Bozarslan
1. François Furet: The Past of an Illusion and the Revolutionary Enigma - Hamit Bozarslan • Furet’s Passion • Revolution as a Heuristic Subject for Research in the Social Sciences • The War of 1914–18, the Suicide of the Bourgeois Republican State and the Revolutionary Phenomenon • Does Revolution lead to a Totalitarian System? • Egalitarian Passions, the New Man and Revolution • The Revolution and the Hatred of the Bourgeois • The Revolution as Configuration and Religious Ambition • The Regimes of Hope and the Despair of Revolutions • Revolution: A Passion in Democratic Societies and … Elsewhere • Cited Texts of François Furet
2. Two Revolutions—Cuba 1959 and Nicaragua 1979: From the War Against Tyranny to Totalitarian Dicatatorship - Gilles Bataillon • Cuba and Nicaragua • Order and Violence • The Game of Power Struggle • From Populism to the Power of the Egocrat • From the System of Power Struggles to the Sandinista State Party • Social Equality and the Bureaucratization of Society • Glossary
3. The Ups and Downs of Revolutionary Passions in the Middle East - Hamit Bozarslan • Periods of Revolution in the Middle East • 1789–1908: Revolutionary Imagination and Legitimacy • Between the Two Wars: Fascination for the Left and the Radical Right • 1965–89: Radicalisms of the Left • Arab Revolutionary Regimes • The Plurality of the Left • Contested Territories • Profiles of Militancy • The Iranian Revolution or the Contraction of the Universal • After 1989 • Glossary
4. The Making of Indian Revolutionaries (1885–1931) - Christophe Jaffrelot • ‘Terro-Hinduism’, the Indian Version of Anarchism (1885–1914) • Maharashtra and Bengal, crucibles of a political culture of violence • Revolutionaries as individuals in the quest for self-esteem • Tilak, Savarkar and the ‘Hinduisation’ of Anarchism • The ‘Terro-Heroism’ of the Worshippers of the Goddess in Bengal • Republicans and Socialists: the Coming to Age of Indian Revolutionaries (1914–31) • Reshaped by the Exiled • Challenged by Gandhi • The Hindustan Republican Socialist Association (HRSA), between Ancients and Moderns • The HRSA, Socialism and Violence • Violence vs Non-Violence? • The Revolutionaries and the Congress: Opposing Complementarities • Conclusion • Glossary
5. What is Revolution All About? Postscript: Reflections - Hamit Bozarslan • ‘West-East Gradient’ • Westernization and the Centrality of the Intelligentsia • War as Construction of Revolutionary Power • Construction of the Particular through the Universal • Return to Europe
Bibliography