Not necessarily - one can REACT to change tryingto tunrn the clock back. The fascist movement or islamic fundamentalism are good examples. I think that the Russian revolutionaries were well aware of the possibility that the peasant masses can turned to be a reactionary rather than a revolutionary force, which is why they executed the tsar with his entire family - to deprive the reactionary road of its beacon.
This is warmed-over Skocpol, anyway -
> why not just present her original argument (in simplified form)?
Because I do not think anyone "owns" an argument, especially one that has been around for a while in various versions (cf. Barrington Moore). Besides, I think that social sciences are turning into citology aka names dropping - which I absolutely despise, because it gives people who otherwise have nothing to say an aura of respectablility.
> (2) If we can identify that class, how do we foster the
> structures of cooperation BEFORE the emergence of a
> revolutionary situation that will make that class more able
> to act in a revolutionary situation?
I do not think that this is the most presing problem facing any meaningful social change in this country. Recruiting a bunch of riff raff to do the dirty work has never been a problem in this country - who said that he can hire half of the working class to kill the other half? Or that the best way to solve the race problem in this country is to let the Irish lynch the Negroes and then hang them for murder?
The problem is the lack of institutional and economic forces to sponsor such a change.
Wojtek