The Processes of Degeneration: The Spanish and Russian Revolutions Compared.

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of the Russian (November 1917) and Spanish (July 1936) revolutions. It examines how two different theoretical approaches to revolution—Marxism and Anarchism—operating under similar structural conditions (underdevelopment, civil war, and crisis) follow parallel trajectories of what I call the processes of degeneration. These are the mechanisms through which the democratic visions of direct political and administrative participation of the lower classes transform into highly centralised and bureaucratic state structures in the revolutionary process. Most studies of such transformations focus almost exclusively on Marxist cases or adopt a state-centred bias, prioritising the conquest of power as the primary revolutionary objective. Anarchist revolutions, however, have been largely neglected. I argue that this has severely limited the sociological study of revolutions. By incorporating an Anarchist case and its anti-state and anti-authoritarian proclivities, one may extrapolate through a paired comparison several novel insights into why revolutions fail to produce their desired outcomes. The historical comparison of Russia and Spain highlights four key findings: (1) structural conditions largely shape the processes of degeneration; (2) specific structural conditions may accelerate or decelerate degeneration; (3) different revolutionary ideologies can also accelerate or decelerate degeneration in distinct ways; and (4) their interplay helps explain how and why degeneration occurs. This dissertation is divided into six chapters. The Introduction explains degeneration more specifically and makes the case for Russia and Spain as two of the most important historical cases for European Anarchism and Marxism. Chapter Two compares Spain’s and Russia’s pre-revolutionary structural features, focusing particularly on underdevelopment, the peasantry, and labour movements. This makes the case for their similarities as case studies and connects these structural conditions to degeneration. Chapter Three compares Marxism and Anarchism more broadly and then connects them in a comparison between the Bolsheviks of Russia and the Anarcho-Syndicalists of Spain. This demonstrates how theoretical positions may later accelerate or decelerate the processes of degeneration. Importantly, it shows what revolutionaries desired from the revolution so that comparisons can be made between desires and eventual outcomes. Chapter Four begins the analysis of degeneration proper by illustrating how war and crisis, in combination with pre-revolutionary structural conditions of the revolution, compel the processes of degeneration. Chapter Five focuses on revolutionary agents and important decisions made throughout the course of the revolutionary process informed by the theoretical positions laid out in Chapter Three. I then explain how and why specific ideological commitments may accelerate or decelerate degeneration. The final chapter concludes with a summary of my findings.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kennedy, Kevan

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Lane, David
• Miley, Thomas

• Revolutionary Theory, Revolution, Communism, Socialism, Degeneration, Marxsim, Anarchism, The Russian Revolution, The Spanish Civil War, The Spanish Revolution

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/db20b6bc-73d1-4915-b0d1-3b8632f48ab4/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.124741

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/395135