Counterrevolution

Alexander Kolchak, leader of the counterrevolutionary White Army during the Russian Civil War

A counterrevolution is an opposing revolution that attempts to reverse a revolution. A person or group who opposes a revolution is declared counter-revolutionary. In Marxist theory, counterrevolutions are a reactionary force usually composed of bourgeois forces.

In the past, royalists have attempted counterrevolutions against bourgeois revolutions like the French Revolution. In recent times, the West has supported and instigated "color revolutions" in socialist states to expand their own interests.

List of counterrevolutions

Feudal

• Stuart Restoration (England, 1660)
• Bourbon Restoration (France, 1814–1815)

Bourgeois

• Finnish White Terror (Finland, 1918)
• Hungarian White Terror (Hungary, 1919–1921)
• Hungarian counterrevolution of 1956 (Hungary, 1956; failed)
• Prague Spring (Czechoslovakia, 1968; failed)
• Tian'anmen Square riots (China, 1989; failed)
• Counterrevolutions of 1989 (Eastern Europe, 1989)
• Annexation of East Germany (Germany, 1990)
• Overthrow of the Soviet Union (Soviet Union, 1991)

See also

• Color revolution
• Mensheviks