Revolution is not when you exchange one group of landlords for a different set. It is a total upending of systems. That is the true meaning. Soc dems and reformists think we can just change the window dressing and call it systemic. "If the new lord is better than the old lord we can return to the happiness of feudalism." What a terrible thing to believe.
We must reclaim this term. These terms belong to the people not a bunch of centuries dead slaveholding jackasses in powdered wigs who didn't change a goddamn thing.
Just something I've been thinking about lately.
Bourgeois revolution is still revolution. I don't know how you can use violent conflict to go from colonial territory to independent state and not call it a revolution.
In every revolution the class that takes power is one of the most powerful classes from before the revolution. In the USA the gentry took power from the monarch, in Russia the workers took power from the tsar and the church, in China the workers and the national bourgeoisie took power from whatever the previous ruling class was. Are you saying that the the cpc's revolution was not a revolution because it was not only workers that benefited? Do not repeat the ideological mistakes of the sino-soviet split, comrade.
The issue with applying it in the British context is that this:
isn't really true. Rather it was the USA gentry taking power from the British gentry (which is very much interwoven with the monarchy but not an absolute monarchy like other European states).
You can compare the American revolution to the (lack of) an Australian revolution, where the actual demarcation between subject and independent state isn't really clear.
But despite that it's of a different character to many other revolutions, I'm not fussed about using revolution to describe it. I don't think 'regime change' or whatever alternative is going to build much critical consciousness in the US masses.