Many historians conceive historical evolution in like manner, and in the name of evolution such writers oppose the idea of political revolution. Such is the outlook of the revisionist reformists, of those who tell us that our aim must be to promote reform, not revolution.
The evolutionist argument against political revolution is not self-evident and is not entirely valid. Revolutions may well be a part of evolution; in actual fact, revolutions have occurred and do occur; but, despite this, evolutionists and historians espouse the theory of gradual evolution. Moreover, modern evolutionists incline to recognise the existence of an evolutionary process wherein progress is effected by leaps, and from this outlook the idea of revolution may likewise be defended in the domains of history and politics, although it is true that evolution by leaps may also be interpreted in the reformist sense.
As a matter of methodology it is necessary to point out that cosmological and botanical analogies cannot be taken as proof by the sociologist. Political revolution must be sociologically explained as a social and historical fact.
After 1848, during the first years of reaction, Marx had frequent occasion, in his political articles, to speak of the revolution of 1848 and of revolution in general, but he failed to define the term more precisely. For example, in articles upon the eastern question (1853 to 1856) he spoke of the explosive energy of democratic ideas, of man's natural thirst for freedom, and the like. Revolution and democracy in Europe were contrasted with absolutist Russia. In the Communist Manifesto, in the attack on Proudhon, in the series of articles entitled Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the definitive social revolution was assumed to be close at hand.
Marx's outlook was ever purely practical. He deprecated the "capricious attempts to foment revolution" made by many socialists and even by some of his own followers. In his essay upon the trial of the Cologne communists he showed that the overthrow of a government could be no more than an episode in the great struggle that was imminent, and that the matter of real importance was to make ready for this last and decisive contest. Capitalism, he said, was a mightier and more terrible power than political despotism. In like manner Engels distinguished in 1890 between the "fundamental transformation of society" and a "mere political revolution"; whilst shortly
