Theories of Revolution in the Light of 1989 in Eastern Europe

Abstract

This article explores several issues related to the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe. How well do contemporary theories of revolution explain these events? What did and did not happen? What theoretical framework makes the best sense of these events? The 1989 revolutions are notable for a number of reasons. Although they were centred in urban areas they were characterized by relatively low levels of popular mobilization. Most importantly, key sections of the old ruling classes welcomed the shift toward the market. Despite differences in the tempo and character of events in different countries, bureaucratic reformers and oppositional intellectuals shared many of the same political and economic views. Neither group saw popular mobilization and alternative forms of institution-building as desirable or necessary. Attempts to theorize the 1989 revolutions have been insufficiently critical of notions of 'civil society', 'modernity', and the supposedly 'post-materialist' values current among opposition intellectuals. The shift from 'communism' to the 'free market' did not represent a qualitative shift in systems but rather a shift from a form of state-directed capital accumulation to a form of 'mixed economy'. As in other recent 'democratic transitions', the need to restructure the process of capital accumulation was accompanied by a transformation in the political regime. As such, the 1989 revolutions should be seen as a form of 'bourgeois revolution' within capitalism.