It is important for any budding historian or researcher of social disciplines to distinguish the main signs of a revolution. What is its essential uniqueness, in particular, the difference from evolution? Specialists identify signs of a revolution, the main ones are the ability of classes to joint mass actions that will be strong enough to withstand the current government.
How to recognize a revolution?
The most important thing is the rapid and significant changes that occur quickly and change the very foundation of the existing system.
The main signs of a revolution that any aspiring historian should pay attention to. First of all, experts identify several types of revolutions. They can be natural, economic, political, scientific and social. If a crisis arises in a public or related field, then all the prerequisites for a revolutionary situation appear .
The main symptoms
The main feature is a radical change in the existing state system, a global change in the attitude of members of society towards the current government. The timing of these changes may vary. The most rapid revolutions occur in one to two months, the maximum period is one to two years.
Signs of the revolution, which should not be forgotten, are that everything happens necessarily under the leadership of the revolutionary movement. Moreover, this movement can come both “from below” (if the force striving for change is in the opposition), and “from above” (if they managed to seize power).
It is important to determine the reasons for the revolution. This is primarily the inability of the state to effectively manage society. Among the economic reasons, the main one is the decline in the state economy, which leads to an aggravating crisis. Social causes are the unfair distribution of income between social classes.
Neolithic revolution
It is important to understand such a concept as the Neolithic revolution. This is a key term for understanding how human society has evolved.
At its core, the Neolithic revolution is the transition of human society from the most primitive economy, which included hunting and gathering, to a more complex social structure. This is agriculture, which is based on livestock and farming. This is important to understand when you are asked: "Group the signs of the Neolithic revolution."
Archaeologists have reliably established that the first domestic animals appeared about 10 thousand years ago. And, surprisingly, this happened at the same time in 6-8 regions, independently of each other. First of all, these include the countries of the Middle East.
For the first time this concept was used by the British archaeologist Gordon Child, who lived at the beginning of the 20th century and adhered to the ideas of Marxism.
How to recognize the Neolithic revolution?
The main signs of the Neolithic revolution are as follows: the emergence of tools from radically new materials. First of all, it is a stone.
The next sign is the appearance of the division of labor. In human society, certain crafts begin to stand out, which only specific people are engaged in.
The third is the emergence of arable farming, as well as settledness. The emergence of permanent settlements.
Management becomes a special form of labor, and consequently, class stratification in society begins. An individual economy is born, private property appears. All these are signs of a Neolithic revolution.
Reforms and Revolutions
The signs of reform and revolution are very similar in many respects, but nevertheless they are very different in fundamental moments.
A revolution is a complete change in the majority, if not all aspects of social life. And the reforms consist in a gradual and systematic change in one particular aspect of public life. At the same time, the existing social, social and political structure is necessarily preserved. Power remains in the hands of the current ruling class.
Therefore, reforms in this case are closer to evolutionary processes, when there is no fundamental breakdown of the existing system.
Another difference is that reforms are necessarily carried out “from above”. While the revolution most often begins "from below", from the social strata who are not directly in power.
It is worth noting that in Soviet historiography, for a long time, most reforms were perceived as a direct threat to the existing power system. This happened even in those cases when the reforms themselves were not the result of mass protests, but were initiated by public structures close to the current government. According to the prevailing opinion among historians, any changes were still a potential threat to the preservation of state power in the country.