The Revolutionary Character of the Papal Revolution
The term revolution, as applied to the great revolutions of European history, has four main characteristics which, taken together, distinguish it from reform or evolution, on the one hand, and from mere rebellions, coups d'etat, and counterrevolutions and dictatorships, on the other.
These are its totality, that is, its character as a total transformation in which political, religious, economic, legal, cultural, linguistic, artistic, philosophical, and other basic categories of social change are interlocked; its rapidity, that is, the speed or suddenness with which drastic changes take place from day to day, year to year, decade to-99-
decade as the revolution runs its course; its violence, which takes the form not only of class struggle and civil war but also of foreign wars of expansion; and its duration over two or three generations, during which the underlying principles of the revolution are reconfirmed and reestablished in the fa ce of necessary compromises with its initial utopianism, until the grandchildren of the founding fathers themselves acknowledge devotion to their grandparents' cause. Then evolution can take place at its own pace, without fear of either counterrevolution from the right or the radicalism of a new
left. 19