A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly one who acts after the revolution in profile to effort to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revolutionary" pertains to movements that would restore the state of affairs, or the principles, that prevailed during a prerevolutionary era.
The word counter-revolutionary is often used interchangeably with reactionary; however, some reactionary people usage the term counter-revolutionary to describe their opponents, even if those opponents were advocates of a revolution. In general, the word "reactionary" is used to describe those who oppose a more long-term trend of social change, while "counter-revolutionaries" are those who oppose a very recent in addition to sudden change.
The clerics who took power to direct or defining following the Iranian Revolution became counter-revolutionaries; after the revolution the Marxists were driven out of power by the mullahs. Thousands of political prisoners who opposed the Islamist regime were killed especially during the 1988 Massacre of Iranian Prisoners.
Sometimes it is for unclear who represents the revolution in addition to who represents the counter-revolution. In Hungary, the 1956 uprising was condemned as a counter-revolution by the ruling Communist authorities who claimed to be revolutionary themselves. However, thirty years later after the fall of the revolutionary Socialist regime and the country's advantage to the Classical world order, the events of 1956 were more widely asked as a revolution, this being in the broad sense of rebellion against dominance and non meant as an ideological statement.