The concept of conflict dynamics and the main 'forks' of the February Revolution

The concept of conflict dynamics during periods of deep social and political crises and social revolutions is presented. The concept integrates the theory of interactive rituals (E. Durkheim, E. Goffman, R. Collins), the theory of attitudes (Dm. Uznadze) and habitus (P. Bourdieu), the operant conditioning model (B. Skinner), a new typology of legitimacy, principles of legitimacy dynamics, change of interaction fields, factors of resoluteness to use violence, etc. The "chaos" of revolutionary events is interpreted as a complex, polyvariant conflict dynamics with intermittent periods relative to regular processes ("funnel" or "track", "rut") and brief periods of bifurcation with several opening alternatives ("fork"). In successful interactive rituals, participants begin to experience a common emotion and acquire a common subjective reality. The stronger this general emotion is, the more effectively the five types of attitudes are strengthened or transformed: cognitive attitudes (frames), existential attitudes (identities), symbolic attitudes (sacred objects, values), social attitudes (roles), behavioral attitudes (typical reactions, practices). Aggressive conflicts with escalation are treated as a combination of attempts by each side to impose its ritual: to stand in the winner position and to drive an enemy into the defeated position. The attitudes in the rituals are actualized, strengthened or become latent, destroyed depending on the positive or negative reinforcement: the sense of winning, victory or frustration of loss, defeat. The special role of violence in the revolutionary periods is due to the weakening of conventional institutions and practices that exclude or severely restrict violence. The author uses the but a new typology of legitimacy, rather that the classical Weberian one, which includes division according to the subjects of recognition: forceful legitimacy, authoritative legitimacy, popular legitimacy, international legitimacy. In revolutionary periods, the state loses its monopoly on legitimate violence, and therefore there appears a paramilitarian legitimacy that political actors possess from all sorts of militant groups and gangs. In the revolutionary period, decisive is not a single encounter, but the whole cascade of multiple and interconnected chains of events. The main results of these events are shifts in the legitimacy of the parties, in access to administrative and forceful resources. On this basis, a theoretical analysis of the well-known events of the February Revolution of 1917 was carried out: the increase in the mass character of insurgents, despite attempts of forceful suppression, the transfer of Petro-grad garrison to the Revolutionary side, the dissolution of the Council of Ministers and factual support of rebels by the Duma, the rejection of the punitive march, the abdication of Nicholas II.

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