social revolution
Fundamental collective change
Social revolution is the fundamental transformation of a society's economic, political, and class structures—not just a change of rulers but a reshaping of how power and resources are distributed.
The French Revolution and Russian Revolution are archetypal examples.
Unlike reform, which works within existing systems, social revolution implies upheaval from below: The industrial working class was expected to be the agent of social revolution.
The term appears both in serious political analysis and as hyperbole for any dramatic cultural shift.
- class struggleConflict between economic groups
- class consciousnessAwareness of economic group identity
- anti-authoritarianismOpposition to concentrated power
- uprisingOrganized resistance to power
- mutual aidCooperative community support
Emma Goldman · Zapatistas · decentralization · worker cooperatives · syndicalism · bread and roses · anti-capitalism · grassroots organizing · mass movement · workers' councils · participatory democracy · socialism · rebellion · demonstration · upheaval · systemic change · self-management · direct action
- Revolutionrevolt, uprising, insurrection, overthrow, revolutionaries
- uprisingsuprising, revolt, rebellion, insurrection, mutiny
- anarchismanarchy, anarchism, Emma Goldman, Goldman, anarcho-communism
- Communist Revolutionproletariat, Bolsheviks, Lenin, Marx, class war
- Spanish Anarchismanarchism, Catalonia, Barcelona, collectivization, syndicalism
social revolutionincrementalism
Change through small steps
gradualism · reformism · evolutionary change · legislative reform · social reform
social revolutioncounterrevolution
Reversal of political upheaval
restoration · rollback · retrenchment · revanchism · ancien régime
social revolutionstatus quo
Existing condition of affairs
social stability · continuity · social order · stagnation · conservatism
social, society, associate, revolution, revolve, association, sociable, associated, antisocial