ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the subject and imagery of social and political revolution. Prompted by Harold Behr’s imaginative study of the French revolution, goes alongside his offering, to situate the subject of revolution/revolutionary subject in a wider context of history and group theory. All revolutionary movements express the imagination, with imagery of sweeping away and rebuilding, from scratch. Revolutions are stylish affairs, with uniforms, codes, flags, proclamations, statues, badges, lifestyles, art, and languages. And with revolutions come revolutionary subjects and bodies, filled and fleshed out by the conviction of their cause: the fist, the shout, the march, the fraternal embrace, the muscular hero, perfect communist mother, to name a few. The socialist revolutionary crowds were believed to represent a mortal risk to civilisation itself. The chapter focuses on the rich imagery and narratives of revolution, its demands and bodies, and, also, how fear of revolution promoted some of the first formalised theories of crowd and group behaviour.
