revolutionary

A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term revolutionary can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society.

==Definition== thumb|The Red Guards (Finland)|Red Guards, the group of Finnish revolutionaries during the 1918 [[Finnish Civil War in Tampere, Finland]] The term—both as a noun and adjective—is usually applied to the field of politics, but is also occasionally used in the context of science, invention or art. In politics, a revolutionary is someone who supports abrupt, rapid, and drastic change, usually replacing the status quo, while a reformist is someone who supports more gradual and incremental change, often working within the system. In that sense, revolutionaries may be considered radical, while reformists are moderate by comparison. Moments which seem revolutionary on the surface may end up reinforcing established institutions. Likewise, evidently small changes may lead to revolutionary consequences in the long term. Thus the clarity of the distinction between revolution and reform is more conceptual than empirical.