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On the metaphor “revolutions are the locomotives of history”

Kapustin B.G.,

HSE University, Moscow, Russia, boriskapustin1951@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 337381 | ORCID: 0000-0003-4076-9466 | RESEARCHER_ID: M-4580-2016

Article received: 2024.01.27. Accepted: 2024.02.29 10:43


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2024.03.05
EDN: HPOOIN

Rubric: Theory and methodology of political studies

For citation:

Kapustin B.G. On the metaphor “revolutions are the locomotives of history”. – Polis. Political Studies. 2024. No. 3. P. 50-73. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.03.05. EDN: HPOOIN

Abstract

The question about the relationship between revolution and progress is the centerpiece of this essay. A specific solution to this question is expressed by a well-known metaphor invented by Marx - “revolutions are the locomotives of history”. The rendering of this metaphor in the language of theory uncovers certain ambiguities and tensions inherent in it, some of which are caused by a collision of positivist-evolutionist and dialectical-revolutionist strands of Marx's thought. The actual revolutions of the twentieth century turned these tensions into political reality. Progress is a form of social development which converts history into evolution removing the former's open-endedness and the variability of the trajectories of societal movement, which is precisely what distinguishes history from evolution. However tragic the concrete manifestation of a revolution can be, it interrupts the progress-as-evolution and restores, at least for the time being, history as history. Thus, Walter Benjamin's metaphor of revolution as an attempt undertaken by the passengers on the train of progress to “activate the emergency brake”, all its own ambiguities notwithstanding, offers a much more adequate image of the relationship between revolution and progress.

Keywords

progress, evolution, revolution, history, continuity and discontinuity, production, agency of production, political agency, harmony and disharmony of historical tasks and the conditions of their accomplishment, freedom and necessity..

 Full Text

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