We throw around the word revolution a lot, but rarely do we pause to ask: What exactly do we mean by it? What is a revolution? And just as importantly, what isn't a revolution?
In this reading series, I am breaking down an essential passage that draws clear lines between rebellion, insurrection, revolt, and revolution. It’s a sharp reminder that not every uprising is revolutionary—and that true revolution isn’t just about fighting the old, but building something new in its place.
Whether you’re organizing in the streets, building new systems, doing mutual aid, or just deepening your political understanding, this is a foundational read for thinking more clearly—and strategically—about what real change demands.
To understand what a revolution is, we must be very clear about what a revolution is not. The first step in defining anything is differentiation.
A revolution is not the same as a rebellion or an insurrection or a revolt or a coup d’état.
A rebellion is an attack upon existing authority by members of an oppressed group with no intention on the part of the rebels to take state power. It is usually spontaneous.
An insurrection is a concentrated attack upon existing authority by members of an oppressed group, usually with the intention of taking power, if only temporarily, during the course of revolutionary struggles or at the culmination of a process of revolutionary struggle.
A revolt is an organized attempt to seize power, usually by a section of the armed forces, without prior organization of the masses in struggle and without any clear set of social objectives.
A coup d’état is the successful overthrow of existing authority in one audacious stroke, usually by a section of the armed forces. Another name for a coup d’état is a putsch.
All these are single events, limited in time as well as in target and objective. Each has distinct characteristics although the line between them is not always rigid, and a particular event may take on the characteristics of more than one of these categories.
The first two, rebellion and insurrection, may take place in the course of revolutionary struggle, but they do not constitute revolution. Rebellion is a stage in the development of revolution, but it is not revolution.
It is an important stage because it represents the “standing up,” the assertion of their humanity on the part of the oppressed. Rebellions inform both the oppressed and everybody else that a situation has become intolerable. They establish a form of communication among the oppressed themselves and at the same time open the eyes and ears of people who have been blind and deaf to the fate of their fellow citizens.
Rebellions break the threads that have been holding the system together and throw into question the legitimacy and the supposed permanence of existing institutions. They shake up old values so that relations between individuals and between groups within the society are unlikely ever to be the same again. The inertia of the society has been interrupted.
Only by understanding what a rebellion accomplishes can we see its limitations. A rebellion disrupts the society, but it does not provide what is necessary to establish a new social order.
In a rebellion the oppressed are reacting to what has been done to them. Therefore rebellions are issue-oriented. They tend to be negative, to denounce and expose the enemy without providing a positive vision of a new future.
They also tend to be limited to a particular locality, or to a particular group—workers, Blacks, women, Chicanos. For all these reasons the time span of a rebellion tends to be limited—usually to a few days or a few weeks.
When those in rebellion talk about power, they are employing the rhetoric of revolution without the substance. In fact, they are simply protesting their condition. They see themselves and call on others to see them as victims and the other side as villains. They do not yet see themselves as responsible for reorganizing the society, which is what revolutionary social forces must do in a revolutionary period.
Hence a rebellion begins with the feeling by the oppressed that “we can change the way things are,” but it usually ends up by saying “they ought to do this and they ought to do that.” So that while a rebellion generally begins with the rebels believing in their right to determine their own destiny, it usually ends up with the rebels feeling that their destiny is, in fact, determined by others.
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