Revolution

A profound qualitative change in the development of a phenomenon of nature, society, or knowledge, for example, the geological revolution, the industrial revolution, the scientific and technological revolution, the cultural revolution, and the revolution in physics and philosophy. The concept of revolution is most frequently used in describing social development. (See.)
The concept is an integral aspect of the dialectical conception of development. It reveals the internal mechanism of the law of the transformation of quantitative into qualitative changes. Revolution means a break in gradualness, a qualitative leap in development. It differs from evolution—the gradual development of a process—and also from reform. Between revolution and reform there exists a complex correlation determined by the concrete historical content of the revolution and the reform.