Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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CHAPTER XIX
CHARACTERIZATION
1. The Dynamics of Revolutionary Movements
The dynamics of change (motion) are different from the laws of
inertia. This is particularly true of revolutions which lead to major
upheavels. A great distinguishing feature of the revolutionary
movements is their emotive upsurge which is surcharged more by
ideological inspiration than by mundane considerations.
Commenting on the French Revolution, Tocqueville writes: ‘I
have often asked myself what is the source of that passion for political
liberty, which in every age has caused man to achieve the greatest
results ever accomplished by man; I no longer thing that the true love
of liberty is even ever born from the mere view of the material comforts
that it secures. That which in all ages has so strongly attached to it the
hearts of certain men is its own attractions, its own charm, quite apart
from any material advantage; it is the joy of being able to speak, to
act, to breathe, without restraint under no sovereign but God and the
law. He who desires in liberty anything other than itself is born to be a
servant. 1
Lefebvre and Rude express more or less, the same viewpoint.
‘For the last half century students have applied themselves, and rightly
so, to the task of showing how the revolutionary spirit originated in a
social and economic environment. But we should commit no less an
error in forgetting that there is no true revolutionary spirit without the
idealism which alone inspires sacrifices 2 ....it needed more than economic
hardship, social discontent, and the frustration of political and social
ambitions to make a revolution. To give cohesion of the discontents
and aspirations of widely varying social classes there had to be some