Revolution and humanistic meaning of history

Abstract

The role of social revolutions is considered in two interrelated contexts: the meaning of history and modernization. The meaning of history is interpreted as a success of the historical selftest of humanity in building large intra- and interstate systems of formal institutions and organizations (Gesellschaft) that would provide the most favourable conditions for the development of various small informal, based on trust and solidarity communities (Gemeinschaft) and for a full value (free, worthy and meaningful) life of individuals of the current and future generations. This global historical self-test needs to overcome the harsh obstacles: from scarcity of resources to group selfishness, inescapable temptations to hegemony, conflict, violence, and exploitation. Modernization with its five main lines occurs to be extremely significant for the historical success of the global self-test. Bureaucratization and capitalist industrialization are ambiguous, while secularization, democratization and ensuring of creative freedom fully correspond to the meaning of history thus understood. Revolutions interact with the main lines of modernization in a complicated way. They destroy old bureaucracies and create new ones, lead to secularization or its reversal, contribute to the development of capitalism or destroy the markets of the capital, labour and land, lead societies to democracy or to even greater authoritarianism, open up freedom to cultural creation or suppress it. Revolutions are the most effective but also the most controversial phenomena, both in terms of modernization and in terms of the meaning of history as a global self-test of the human race.