On Revolution

Arendt summarizes her argument thus far: Movements aimed at restoring ancient rights and liberties were transformed into revolutions in the 18th century because men of letters “dream[ed] of public freedom” in France and “tasted public happiness” in the colonies (132). Revolutionists in both countries agreed that the goal of revolution was to establish a republican government. She notes that the American war of liberation was immediately “followed by a spontaneous outbreak of constitution-making in all thirteen colonies” (132) and that it was the constitutions, not the Bill of Rights, that were revolutionary.

Many so-called revolutions fail because the initial phase of liberation from tyranny is followed not by the foundation of freedom, but by either permanent revolution—as in latter-day Russia and China—or by the establishment of some form of limited government, in which government power is restrained by civil rights, as in many European countries after World War I and in colonial countries that won independence after World War II. In the latter cases, constitutions were not the outcome of revolution, but were instead imposed after the revolution had failed, making them, “at least in the eyes of the people living under them, the sign of its defeat not of its victory” (135).