ABSTRACT
It would be difficult to justify the exclusion of China from a course on comparative revolution. While relevant to a very wide array of questions, the Chinese case is especially useful in teaching about several of important themes that have dominated the study of revolution in recent years. They are:
The role of mass poverty and hardship in generating the discontent that can fuel revolutionary movements;
The role of foreign invasion and devastating warfare in generating both opportunities for revolutionaries and mass support for their appeals;
The role of organization and strategy in enabling revolutionary challengers to mobilize sufficient resources to defeat incumbent states having superior military power;
The role of a prior condition of state breakdown, or its opposite, state cohesion, in determining whether a mass-supported revolutionary challenge will succeed or be defeated.
