Political stillness and lack of changes lead to unhappiness and discontent among masses, which inevitably demand for improvements. Reforms and revolutions are the two ways in which those improvements can be achieved, but they are quite different from each other. Some of the key aspects that differentiate a reform from a revolution include:.
A reform aims at improving the status quo by modifying laws, policies and practices, whereas a revolution aims at completely overthrowing the status quo, eliminating the existing order and reinstating a new and improved system;. In the case of a reform, change is brought about gradually, meaning that there is no drastic disruption of the existing political system — thus allowing citizens to adapt to the changes in an easier way and allowing all social groups to move forward in a cohesive manner.
Conversely, a revolution is a drastic and sudden change that often has backlashes on the social groups that have to deal with the legacy of violence; and.
Reforms are reversible whereas a revolution is not. For instance, various political parties and politicians often overrule decisions and policies implemented by their predecessors, underlying the reversibility of peaceful and progressive reforms. Conversely, once the existing political, economic and social order has been overthrown through a violent revolution, there is no way back and all changes are permanent. Building on the differences highlighted in the previous section, we can identify a number of other aspects that differentiate a reform from a revolution.
All countries and almost all governments are bound to undergo a process of change and improvement to adapt to progress. Throughout history, various social groups have fought for their rights and for better conditions, pushing for political change and resorting to violent means when reforms failed to materialize. The concept of reform implies the modification of an existing entity — generally a government, a law or a policy — in order to bring about progress and social, political and economic change.
Reforms are usually peaceful and gradual, and the changes they bring about can often be reversed. When governments fail to enact the necessary reforms to meet popular demand and to promote justice and equality, tensions can build and escalate rather quickly, to the point that a failed reform can translate into a violent revolution.
When the status quo becomes unbearable, a revolution becomes inevitable, and people resort to violent means to achieve their goals. Revolutions employ drastic measures to obtain a radical — and generally irreversible — change.
In addition, during a revolution, countries often cease to comply with international regulations, overlooking their duties and responsibilities towards their allies and partners. Once the revolution is completed, the newly appointed government resumes relations with foreign countries, sometimes renegotiating some treaties and covenants.
Conversely, during a time of reform, governments may revise their role on the international scene, renegotiating treaties or parts of treaties in order to improve the existing conditions. Therefore, a reform results in the modification of the existing order, both at a domestic and international level, whereas a revolution results in the overthrow of the existing government — often employing violent means — and in the modification of the existing international balance.
Difference Between Reform and Revolution. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. We must often address contradictory messages about why we fight. For example, are we waging war to defeat political oppression? Or is there another agent driving the conflict, such as religious ideology or financial gain? Keep these various perspectives and challenging questions in mind as we examine reform and revolution artifacts from the 20 th century.
This all-black American infantry unit fought during WWI. The homecoming parade honoring the decorated war heroes turns somber when they learn of the notorious race riots of the Red Summer of The Declaration of Independence is a textual artifact that marks the birth of the United States.
It also defines universal rights guaranteed to all people, not just its citizens. The document was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, , as part of the announcement that the 13 American colonies were no longer members of the British Empire.
This document defines the American view of freedom and revolution, underscoring particular cultural perspectives. The historical context plays a key and disconcerting role. Slave labor was central to the flourishing of the American economy. Nevertheless, the declaration states that all men are created equal. This equality did not exist for the slaves, who earned no wages and were treated as property to be sold, branded, and traded.
For voting and taxation, they counted as only three-fifths of a person. Interestingly, the original draft alluded to the immorality of slavery. However, this mention was removed for political expediency. For many Europeans, the French Revolution remains a pivotal moment in history. It is a touchstone event, highlighting the will of the people versus totalitarian institutions.
Toward the end of the 18 th century, unrest was growing among urban and rural peasants. France had experienced two decades of poor harvests, triggering rising costs for bread, a staple food item for most of the population. Resentment festered from heavy taxation, necessitated by the excessive spending habits by King Louis XVI.
The monarch provided no support or relief for those struggling with crop failure and famine. Public complaints and discontent turned into rioting and looting, which soon spread across the country. Bastille Day, July 14, , marks the start of the French Revolution. On this date, people stormed the Bastille fortress in Paris to obtain guns and gunpowder. More than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of this armed conflict that involved most of Europe, Russia, the United States, and the Middle East.
The triggering event was the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, by a South Slav nationalist named Gavrilo Princip.
Hostilities between Serbia and Austria-Hungary that had flared up during the Balkan Wars added to the tense situation following the assassination in Existing European alliances came into play, creating a situation where armed conflict seemed inevitable.
Russia, an ally of Serbia, mobilized their army to defend against an attack from Austria-Hungary. Germany interpreted this as an act of war, declared war on France, and pulled Great Britain into the conflict. Total casualties are estimated at million people, which include over 6 million people executed in Nazi concentration camps. Several countries, Germany in particular, were discontent with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles Adolph Hitler used this time of political and economic uncertainty to rise to prominence in the public eye.
Following his election as Chancellor in , Hitler drafted laws to exile Jewish people from society. And he continued to disseminate propaganda that supported these laws. Because these legislative moves occurred against the backdrop of prosperity and development, they went mostly unnoticed until the Nazi party began enforcing the laws they had put into place.
On the other side of the world, Japan had its own motives for joining the war. Korea had already been taken over in , predating WWI. On August 6, , the US bombers dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima , killing an estimated 70, people from the detonation. At least 80, more people succumbed to related physical injuries and radiation poisoning. Three days later, US bombers dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
The conservative death toll, which includes immediate and subsequent deaths, is estimated at 75, people. These are the only two uses of nuclear bombs in warfare history.
Japan submitted its intention to surrender to the Allied powers on August 10, The Nuremberg Trials that were held following WWII became a model for retributive justice , international criminal law, and the definition of a crime against humanity.
The trials documented Nazi war crimes and sentenced the perpetrators of murder, torture, mutilation, imprisonment, persecution, enslavement, and other inhumane actions. Truth commissions organized after the trials attempted to apply restorative justice , which investigates war crimes and makes recommendations on preventing human rights violations. These examples of judicial reform are undergirded by dual, complementary aims: holding war criminals accountable for past actions and empowering victims by documenting their stories.
Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov , more commonly known as Vladimir Ilich Lenin, was one of the leading political figures and revolutionary thinkers of the 20 th century. Two personal crises that befell Ulyanov during his youth were strong influences on his anti-establishment views as an adult. The first was when his father died after being harassed by the government.
The second blow was the execution of his elder brother, who was convicted of conspiring to assassinate the Russian emperor. Ulyanov pursued a law degree at Kazan University, where he was soon expelled. Despite being denied readmission, he completed his studies, passed his examinations, and graduated in In his law practice, he confronted a corrupt legal system that heavily favored the wealthy and upper class.
Ulyanov gave up his practice, moved to St. Petersburg, and became a professional revolutionary. In , he was arrested, jailed, and exiled to Siberia. After returning from exile, he adopted the pseudonym Lenin and spent most of the next 15 years in western Europe.
During his time away from Russia, he emerged as a prominent revolutionary. Lenin returned home and started working against the provisional government, which had overturned the tsarist regime in February. On October of that same year, Lenin instigated the Bolshevik October Revolution , overthrowing the provisional government. During this period of upheaval, conflict, and famine, Lenin demonstrated a chilling disregard for the suffering of his countrymen and mercilessly crushed any opposition to his will.
Lenin also had a practical side. When his efforts to transform the Russian economy to a socialist model stalled, he introduced the New Economic Policy.
In , Lenin survived an assassination attempt but was severely wounded. The injuries affected his health, and in he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered. Lenin died on January 24, Mao Zedong led an armed peasant revolution that swept out the imperialist Chinese government and replaced it with a communist one.
Born in to peasant farmers, Mao developed his anti-imperialist, pro-nationalist outlook early in life. Mao was forced to flee his home province after organizing an activist network of farmers and peasants. He moved to the large urban city of Guangzhou, where he ran propaganda campaigns for the Nationalist Party and attended the Peasant Movement Training Institute. After evading a purge of communists by Nationalist Party leader Chiang Kai-shek, Mao returned to his rural roots.
In , Mao led a peasant uprising using guerrilla warfare tactics that would later be adopted by the Red Army. At first, the battle went in favor of the Red Army; however, they eventually were crushed.
The defeated army, Mao, his children, pregnant wife, and younger brother fled the battlefield to make their way home in what is now called the Long Marc h The Red Army began the trek with 86, troops. Along the way, Mao and his communist followers were bombarded from the air and attacked on the ground.
Six thousand miles later, only 8, survivors managed to reach their destination. The personal tragedies suffered during the march proved to be a compelling recruitment tool. The growing threat of invasion by Japan helped unify the nationalist and communist factions, and in , the two parties forged a formal agreement of unity.
From , while many communists were fighting Japanese incursions into China, Mao spent this time writing about his revolutionary goals. In , Mao was officially instated as leader of the CCP. In , he launched the Great Leap Forward. He planned to use mass mobilization of labor to boost agricultural output, which would facilitate the transition to a modernized industrial economy.
However, the strategy backfired, and agricultural output declined. The diversion of resources into industrialization projects, coupled with poor harvests, caused widespread famine and the deaths of millions of people.
His political authority severely weakened, Mao abandoned his disastrous economic policy and launched the C ultural R evolutio n Mao drove his campaign to revive the revolutionary spirit with a totalitarian intolerance for any challenges to his authority.
His mandates attacked all forms of traditional culture. Intellectuals—typically, doctors, teachers, artists, musicians, and scholars—were labeled bourgeois traitors to the party. One-and-a-half million people died, and untold centuries of cultural heritage were destroyed.
The Gambia was not the first country, nor will it be the last, to implement a truth commission in the wake of a revolution. In the last three decades, more than 40 countries, including Ghana, Canada, Guatemala, Liberia, Rwanda, Morocco, Philippines, Kenya, South Korea, and South Africa, have established truth commissions as an act of reform against human-rights abuses. Many of these past injustices are rooted in a sustained, pervasive, and systemic disregard for human rights.
These commissions also create permanent public records that officially document the facts surrounding a crime against humanity. These facts include the suffering of the victims, human-rights violations committed, and the identity and actions of the perpetrators. While not perfect and sometimes problematic, truth commissions offer restorative justice that has helped millions of victims of colonialism, racism, nationalism, totalitarianism, kleptocracy, slavery, bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia.
Whether via poetry or storytelling, through a visual or audio medium, art can provide a comfortable way to engage in an uncomfortable conversation. The artists, musicians, authors, poets, and filmmakers featured in this section have created works that serve purposes beyond artistic creation. These art artifacts also provide moral accountability and historical documentation. This two-fold function empowers art with the role of bearing witness to reform, revolution, civil rights, genocide, war, ethnic cleansing, oppression, conflict, social justice, prejudice, and the myriad of other human experiences.
He discussed how American filmmakers and the government represented Vietnam during the war and how they regarded Vietnamese refugees—if they regarded them at all. The Harlem Renaissance was a social, artistic, political, and cultural movement that began near the end of WWI and lasted into the s. Harlem, New York, was a magnet for black writers, painters, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Many of these artists arrived as part of the Great Migration —a mass exodus of blacks fleeing the South and its systemic racial discrimination.
Millions of black citizens left rural southern states for urban centers in the northern and western states. In , Harlem artist Jacob Lawrence created a panel painting series called The Migration Series to bear witness to the experiences of these relocated black Americans. The Harlem Renaissance gave black thinkers the freedom, inspiration, and community support to explore and share their creative passions.
The magazine published many poems, stories, and visual works by Harlem artists. Context is critical for understanding how important it was for black Americans to have a thriving, unfettered, cultural community like Harlem. The renaissance was much more than a source for new literature and art.
The revolution aims to establish a new system. The pace of revolution is moderate to high and the approach is not peaceful. The greatest example of revolution is the French Revolution of Reform refers to the amendment and improvement made in an existing system that is wrong, unsatisfactory, or even corrupt.
Reforms can occur in various sectors. It can be in civil service, macroeconomic policy, or even in public financial management.
There can be reforms on several bills, acts, or upon distribution of parliamentary seats. Another nation-building reform is electoral reform that promotes democracy.
Any social movement which aims to bring reform of any level in the society is called reformism or simply reform movement. It has a radical approach to the social movement. Some of the major reform movements are of United States from — , Ottoman Empire from — , Mexico in called La Reforma, Russia in the s, and even Turkey from s s.
Reform improves the existing structure and achieves social and political changes but does not overthrow any existing order or system. There can be different approaches to bring about a reform. Reforms are also commonly used as strategies by politicians to gain votes and trust, as the reforms address the insecurities of the people.
Revolution can be referred to as an act to resist any existing system and bring about changes violently. It disrupts the existing system completely and establishes a new structure. It overthrows the status with radical force.
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