ABSTRACT
If it is true that revolutions are the product of both structural conditions
and human agency, and that they are born out of both political economic
and cultural causes, then we may ask: In the current structural, political
economic conjuncture of globalization, what are human and cultural
dimensions of revolutionary social change in the modern world? Certainly,
in the post-cold war, post-September 11, 2001, world, the space for revolu-
tionary projects seems constrained by the collapse of older ideals and
models. The socialist vision of the twentieth century has been tarnished by the authoritarian shape it took under the Soviet Union and in Eastern
Europe, the return of savage forms of capitalism to China’s new economy,
the reversal of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in the 1990s, and the
uncertain future that lies ahead in a post-Castro Cuba. Zimbabwe, Mozam-
bique, Angola, Vietnam, and Algeria all experienced anti-colonial social revo-
lutions in the latter half of the twentieth century, and now find their prospects
circumscribed by global capitalism and leaderships whose socialist creden-
tials have given way to a hunger for power and money. The end of dictatorships in Haiti, the Philippines, and Zaire through political revolutions
has not been accompanied by economic growth or betterment of life for
their populations. Even the momentous toppling of apartheid in South
Africa in 1994 has not been matched by any measurable gains for much of
the black social base whose sacrifices brought it about.
