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This thesis analyzes the causes and processes of the East German revolution of 1989. The first half explains the demise of the USSR and its East European allies in terms of their insertion into a changing global environment. A Marxist explanation is given of the economic and social decay of East European ‘Communism’ in general and of East Germany in particular. The latter state was characterized by two fundamental contradictions. The first was between its economic nationalist form and the developing internationalization of the world economy. The second was between the attractive power of the economically superior West and the GDR’s dependence upon the USSR. East Germany’s rulers, despite being uniquely grateful for Moscow’s ‘bear hug’, were also tempted to embrace the West. The East German economy became ever more entangled with and dependent upon Western businesses and states. Albeit to a lesser extent than their counterparts in Poland and Hungary, East Germany’s rulers found themselves seduced by the superior technologies, commodities, and economic structures of the West. They were torn between loyalty to orthodox Communism and to Moscow, and a tacit awareness of Western economic superiority. This contradiction was compounded when, under Gorbachev, the Kremlin ceased to be identified with Communist orthodoxy. The second half of the thesis is devoted to the revolution itself. The interaction between the regime’s reaction to the developing crisis and the mobilization of protest is examined. Among the questions addressed are why the SED was unable to prevent mass emigration and why the security forces were unable to crush the protests. In the context of a narrative of the protest movement three aspects are given particular attention. The first is the transformation of society. Over the course of some five months of weekly demonstrations in which millions participated, political institutions were transformed as well as other core features of social and political behaviour. Secondly, the importance of conscious deliberation, debate and strategy is emphasized. Detailed consideration is made of how people became conscious of the developing national crisis, how they scented the opportunity to protest, and how they acted to effect political change. Thirdly, the question of why a divergence developed between the ‘Citizens’ Movement’ and the rest of the movement is addressed. In particular the radicalization of the mass movement is examined, as are the strategies of the Citizens Movement and of the regime. Finally, the history of the overthrow of the forces of the old regime is narrated, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The first chapters of this thesis explore the picture of eighteenth-century Parisian popular culture emerging from recent research, and suggest how it may be incorporated into a history of Parisian popular disturbances in 1789. Developing themes from this, the thesis explores the interaction in 1791 between popular perceptions of the revolutionary situation and the perceptions of popular activity by the authorities and other opinion-forming groups, notably the press and the popular societies. The picture which emerges from comparison of police records with press and administrative reports is one of near-paranoid suspicion. Suspicion focused on the conception that popular discontent over socio-economic and political issues was necessarily the product of ignorance coupled with rabble-rousing by agents of aristocratic factions. In a situation of rising political tensions, stimulated by dissent amongst the clergy and royal reluctance to approve the new settlement, records show popular concerns over these events falling into spirals of growing alarm, as the press reflected back to the people the fears that their activities were provoking. Confusion over the identity of alleged seditious elements, coupled with social prejudices continuing from the ancien regime, made this process chronically destabilising, and eventually led to the Champ de Mars Massacre. The thesis concludes that individuals at all social levels appear to have had a meaningful engagement with the issues of freedom and equality raised by the promises of the Revolution, but that attempts to express these independently by members of the lower classes led to conflict and repression. It further suggests a path from this position to a new hypothesis on the formation of the sans-culottes under the Republic.

This thesis is an attempt to determine the extent of Burke's influence at the state and national level, and the effect of one man's personality on the revolutionary period in America.

This thesis is concerned with the waging of revolution through people's war. In the first chapter the concept of revolution, in both contemporary and historical usage, is considered, as are the major social science theories of revolution.' It was found that the social science theories are deeply flawed, and frequently suffer from a predilection towards grand theory and mono-causal explanations. The conclusion is reached that revolution is essentially a political phenomenon made and waged by man, and not by forces above and beyond his control. In the interest of developing a theoretically coherent and useful understanding of revolution, the concept is defined as referring to the overthrow of a government and the substitution of a new system. The second chapter considers strategies for the achievement of revolution through war. Guerrilla warfare, it is found, is frequently confused with people's war. The former refers to irregular warfare fought on irregular terrain. The latter can bear tactical similarities to guerrilla: warfare, but in it war becomes an affair of the people. People's war is defined by the population's active support and participation in the struggle. Two case studies, Algeria and Cuba, are considered at length as important examples of people's war. It is found that the people's wars, remained militarily weak yet triumphed against superior armies. The principle reason for this was that the revolutionaries built a militarily unassailable base. Their violence was tuned to the political ends of revolution. The governments, in contrast, failed to consider the political and psychological impact of their actions. As a result they lost the battle for popular mobilization, and their military superiority was rendered irrelevant. In Algeria an undefeated army lost a war, when metropolitan France refused to continue waging it. In Cuba the government was overthrown once the military refused to fight and support it. People's war it is found is an extremely powerful form of warfare.

By reference to a wide range of sources and with an especial, but deliberately not exclusive, concern for events in Northern Durham, an attempt is made to reconstruct basic patterns of coalmining, population and enclosure. A second major task is to provide a framework of explanation for these patterns: to examine the factors which may have created and, in turn, destroyed them, and to explore ways in which the patterns may have been interrelated or interdependent. Rising demand for coal throughout the period 1551-1810, emanating chiefly from London, stimulated population growth within the mining districts, and the rise of an increasingly specialized industrial work force, in turn, put pressure upon agriculture to reform its technical and organizational structures in order to ease the task'of providing more locally grown food. Developments were not as simple as might be assumed from the above scenario, however. The variable attitudes and actions of decision makers were no less crucial than the uncertainties of natural resource endowment in determining the pace and location of developments through time and space, period and place. Landownership emerges as a dominant factor in understanding contrasts and similarities in the changing economic landscape of Northern Durham. An appreciation of the richness and variety of regional experience is essential to the formulation of descriptive or explanatory models of economic and social change.