Proletariaccy jakobini – rewolucja francuska i przewrót październikowy w perspektywie porównawczej .......... 31: Ideały Wielkiej Rewolucji 100 lat później

PROLETARIAN JACOBINS – THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION CONTRASTED

The aim of this article is to present the French Revolution as the ‘mother’ of the October Revolution and to call special attention to the way in which its ideals were transferred and adopted on Russian soil. This comparative analysis highlights essential similarities and differences between both revolutions from the perspective of their respective macrostructures. The subject mentioned above is extremely interesting, especially because of the far-reaching consequences of both revolutions – from the local and the global point of view. Some scholars have already tackled this issue, but it still remains a topic which is worth exploring and commenting on. The first part of the article is an attempt to rethink the two historical events from ‘the inside’ – a juxtaposition of the revolutions on several different levels. The analysis performed at this point also contains information on the courses of both revolutions and the reasons behind them. Differences and similarities between the revolutions will be shown in accordance with the approach of Theda Skocpol. She explores the phenomenon of revolution by doing a comparative research on its structure and history. With Krzysztof Brzechczyn’s additional reflections on the theory of revolution, we can distinguish the following four comparison criteria between the revolutions of 1789 and 1917:
- entities pivotal to the course of a revolution,
- the most important factors leading to the outbreak of a revolution,
- anti-revolutionary factors,
- the results of a revolution.

If we take into consideration the above-mentioned comparison criteria combined with Skocpol’s approach, the circumstances which led to both revolutions will turn out to be very similar. However, a detailed comparison of the French Revolution and the October Revolution reveals significant differences between these two upheavals, which had to do with an internal and external situation in these respective countries. Looking at the phenomenon of revolution as a result of geopolitical pressure contrasts with the voluntarist theory of revolution. The conclusions of this analysis are based on Jarosław Chodak’s publication Teorie rewolucji w naukach społecznych (Theories on revolution in social sciences) and are an attempt to answer the question whether revolutions are phenomena which can be predicted.