by Rex Wade
As Jack Censer’s post has pointed out, the role of the military in revolutionary situations is critical to understanding them. Yet, it varies so much that finding common threads can be extremely difficult, and even then misleading. Yet, clearly, they play central roles. Perhaps one useful way of exploring that is to examine the extent to which the military is unified in outlook -- ideological, cultural, social, and hierarchically -- or divided, most likely between officers and rank and file men, which in turn can reflect social or ideological differences (although there could be other fault-lines, such as religion or ethnicity). Moreover, this can change as the revolution progresses.In the Russian Revolution of 1917, for example, both officers and men were unhappy with the tsarist government of Nicholas II as the year opened, with discussion of palace revolution emerging among high-ranking officers by the end of 1916 while rank-and-file soldiers (and lower level officers) were alienated by the ongoing war (World War I). Both immediately supported the February Revolution -- indeed a rebellion of rank-and-file soldiers in the capital city garrison played a critical role in toppling the regime-- and the new liberal provisional government.
