What makes a revolution turn into a civil war?

This is something of a random musing, inspired by reading Spanish history and by current events.

We've seen plenty of governments fall over the last century without a foreign invasion. We have also, sadly, seen many instances where a despotic government was able to crush protestors and retain control. What we have not seen is the proliferation of civil wars that seem to occur in many timelines.

So, this is a vague question, but IMO interesting. What turns a revolution into a civil war?
 
Offhand I'd say that revolutions and civil wars are two distinct events that share some overlap but aren't necessarily always related. A civil war is any armed conflict between inhabitants of a nation and a revolution is directed at the overthrow of the government -- one doesn't necessarily "turn into" another, its more like a Venn diagram with a portion in the middle where civil war and revolution overlap.

These are just my thoughts, someone else may have more insightful opinions than me.
 
Looking at the cases where this happened (off the top of my head, the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, and the Vendee) what seems to be the common thread is a comparatively small revoutionary core that is strong enough to seize state control but not quite able to claim everyone's loyalty. It seems like very centralized states whose revolutionary groups are heavily urbanized are especially prone to this.
 
Distance and infrastructure mainly.

The established government has many advantages and the improved infrastructure of most nations means that they can react and disrupt any dissent before it has time to organise.

Of course the provisio is that they retain control of the state - if the Army sits out the rebellion as in Egypt then the advantages lie with the rebels (usually) as they tend to have more mobilised popular support.

Libya is a civil war now because of distance and NATO air support which gives the rebels a safe haven. Syria is a (failed) rebellion as the army still works for the state and there is no safe haven for the rebels to organise.

You still see civil wars in Africa, particularly in the jungles of West and Central Africa as the jungles themselves provide a space for opposition to organise.
 
I would turn the question the other way and ask when does a civil war become a revolution. I know there are bloodless revolutions, but so are bloodless coups - which in essence are mini-civil wars where one side decides to surrender without a fight.

It's hard to say. In my opinion there is revolution when the former structure of government/power is completely altered. Also, because of historical reasons we reserve the word revolution for episodes where the change in government is towards the left, since every change towards the right is deemed reactionary or counterrevolucionary.
 
When one side cannot seize everything at once, to echo Roger and Derek's points.

With the RCW, the Bolsheviks took St. Petersburg, Moscow, and some other cities in NW Russia but weren't able to assert control elsewhere and they ended up having to fight "elsewhere."
 
Revolution; the people VS the rulers, with ideologues possibly.

Civil war; two sides, not necessarly people vs rulers, less clear cut

Or something like that...
 
I thought it was something like . . .

Revolution = People vs Government

Civil War = Government vs Government
 
A civil war is a defeated revolution essentially.

By definition, neither party in a civil war has to be a clearly legitimate government.

Similarly, a revolution does not have to entail a movement of the people against the government. Rather, it could be an instance of the government moving against the people. Revolution only necessitates substantive change to the status quo, something which can be achieved in a variety of ways.
 
This is a good question. I might throw out territoriality and equivalency as a distinguishing characteristic of "civil wars" vs "revolutions". Most civil wars involve fairly well organized and fairly equivalent groups, often based in distinct regions and fighting with equivalent tactics. This applies whether or not the purpose of the "civil war" is to take control of the central government (Spain 1930's, China 1940's and Russia 1920's), or separate and form a new state (USA 1860's). I would suggest that "revolutions" tend to be more broad based, less regionally focused, and often involve assymetrical conflict. While there is one big possible exception (America 1770's - perhaps really a civil war within the British Empire) revolutions aim solely at the complete overthrow of an existing regime not separation in a regional basis
 
A civil war is a defeated revolution essentially.

By definition, neither party in a civil war has to be a clearly legitimate government.

Similarly, a revolution does not have to entail a movement of the people against the government. Rather, it could be an instance of the government moving against the people. Revolution only necessitates substantive change to the status quo, something which can be achieved in a variety of ways.

Interesting terminological caveats regarding revolutions (which I can buy to a point), but I disagree about "civil wars". To me its just the opposite. the combatants in Civil Wars often have legitimate (and sometimes internationally recognized) governments and neither the Russian, Chinese, nor Spanish civil wars were deferated revolutions.
 
Interesting terminological caveats regarding revolutions (which I can buy to a point), but I disagree about "civil wars". To me its just the opposite. the combatants in Civil Wars often have legitimate (and sometimes internationally recognized) governments and neither the Russian, Chinese, nor Spanish civil wars were deferated revolutions.

Well, in Spain, the formation of a reactionary, anticommunist government suggests that a movement which was increasingly leftward in orientation was stifled by a monarchist, proclerical movement opposed to even the prewar status quo.

Further, tacit recognition or not, it's difficult to argue that either the Russians or the Chinese had real governments before their civil wars. So, in one sense, there were still civil wars, but they evolved into revolutions because one side clearly won and the other lost.
 
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