Injustice and the Legitimation of Revolution: Damning the Past, Excusing the Present, and Neglecting the Future

To generate ideas about how theories of distributive and procedural justice might be usefully expanded, this article content analyzes the ways leaders of violent, 20th-century revolutions describe the injustice of a status quo system of reward distribution, justify bloodshed, assess the balance of power, and envision a perfectly just future. Results suggest that conceptualizations of injustice should be broadened by incorporating emotional and ideological concerns, by examining the effects of legitimated and delegitimated contexts for assessments of outcome distribution, and by specifying conditions under which complex and simplified justice judgments are likely.