Revolucija kao tema političke znanosti
Revolution as a Topic of Political Science

Summary/Abstract: The author starts by asserting that most controversial point of the discussion of revolution within political science is the meaning of revolution as a form of political conflict. After exemplifying some varieties of the interpretations of the meaning of revolution, from conventional to theoretically more refined, he then takes into consideration the theories of revolution as justifications of the application of violence for the sake of changing political system. Having shown the most important speculative and pragmatico-operational aspects of the theories of revolution the author turns to the actual discussion of »the costs of revolution«. Exemplifying this on the recent evaluations of »the price« of the Russian October revolution he points out that a common defect of these evaluations is the fact that they come post feslum and because of this they are unable to take into account the completeness of the historical context in which the revolution occurred and developed. Engaging in the discussion of the »causes« of revolution the author again emphasizes that the defect of the »causality« of revolution is the post lestum character of its elaborations and »reconstructions«. After discussion of the economic factor in the origin of revolutions and then commenting the recent findings pointing to the level of education as a factor the author invalidates some of these findings not on empirical but on the theoretical basis. Seeing political revolution as an index of the noblest characteristics of original human nature the author in conclusion says that men will use violence for the sake of defending or gaining liberty as long as there are political systems which peoples consider as the obstacles to their most elementary freedoms. This original freedom-seeking motive of human being is in the author’s eyes the most important »objective« and not only »subjective« condition of political revolution.

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