(Given some recent thread titles in here, when in Rome…)
Yeah, we occ. get military-style coups, and some “democratic” takeovers, but when was the last time we had something akin to the French or Russian Revolutions? Are the people just not motivated enough anymore? The machinery of the modern repressive state too hard to overcome now? (Communications, weapons, surveillance) The people, bizarrely enough, often identify with their despotic leader, vs. reviling him (her)? (Stockholm Syndrome Style) No competing system of political thought for them to identify with?
Thanks to modern media, the masses have a lot more “opiates” than the religion of Marx’s day. As long as our oppressors can keep us fed and entertained, they have nothing to fear.
There’s also the possibility that “the masses” saw what happened in the French, Russian of Chinese Revolutions - hundreds of thousands of people die, the country is ravaged, and in the end, the new government is as bad as the old one - and decided that it just wasn’t worth it.
Genuine popular revolutions are rare historically. Changes of regime more usually involve an existing power centre taking over. This change at the top may be presented by the new leaders as the peasants or the sans-culottes rising up and taking power for the people, but that’s generally just for show.
The last glorious revolutions was the Arab Spring of 2010-2012. It brought down regimes in a half-dozen countries. It’s also been blamed for the Syrian Civil War, the emergence of ISIS, continuing instability in countries like Egypt and Libya, and repressive crackdowns in others. In short, people’s revolution in Tunisia = glorious; people’s revolution in Syria = very bad; people’s revolution in other Arab countries, mostly ineffective to bad.
Notably, considering current events, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004-2005, and the Maidan Revolution or Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014.
Is there a right-wing MAGAt Glorious Revolution brewing right now in the United States? How far will it go? How revolting will it get? Will it become YARoT - Yet Another Reign of Terror?
The story is still a work in progress . . .
Sample evidence from today’s WaPo:
‘Gutted’: What happened when a Georgia elections office was targeted for takeover by those who claim the 2020 election was a fraud
See also, e.g.: Brewing Reigns of Terror for LGBTetc. people (and their families) in Texas, Florida, Idaho.
There’s an inherent structural problem with popular revolutions, too: A million people in the street can pretty effectively sweep a corrupt government out of power, but afterward, a million people can’t become president. There has to be someone ready to step up and take charge on their behalf.
Truly spontaneous uprisings frequently go sour, it seems to me, specifically because of their spontaneity. The people rise, they are victorious, and they celebrate. But they had no plan. This allows some smaller subgroup to jump in to fill the vacuum; either they did have a plan and were waiting for this situation to arise, or they recognized the sudden opportunity and formed quickly to take advantage of it. And in the subsequent weeks and months, the people slowly awaken to the unpleasant realization that they’re now under the thumb of a cabal that didn’t have much to do with the revolution and isn’t that different from what came before.
This basically happened in Iran, where angry mobs forced the Shah to flee, and then Khomeini suddenly returned from exile to present himself as the new leader. The majority of Iranians did not want a severe Islamic regime, but that’s what they got. In the aftermath, they understood that the uprising had been stoked by Khomeini in absentia along with in-country loyalists, and they realized they’d been played for suckers. If they’d been better organized, they could have short circuited this takeover before Khomeini was installed, but again, organization is the Achilles heel of a mass revolt.
Ukraine itself provides the useful counterexample. The Euromaiden protests were largely spontaneous, but behind them, a legitimate opposition was available to step forward when Moscow’s puppet Yanukovych was thrown out in 2014.
As with most things, one can’t really generalize and say that popular revolutions do or don’t work, or are or aren’t successful. It’s always about the specific context of each.
the rise of MAGA revolutions is the opposite of a people’s revolution. MAGA is more akin to the rise of the KKK in the post civil war Era. a group of people whose identity and sense of privilege that is based on their race, religion, gender and nationality feel their status and privilege are under threat by rising tides of justice and democracy, so they engage in terror, coups and anti democracy actions to suppress out groups and cement their hold on power
It’s of course a special case, but the fall of the Berlin Wall was a combination of people voting with their feet and a crumbling government with a deteriorating economy. I’d call that a people’s revolution, there doesn’t have to be necessarily bloodshed , luckily. (though bloodshed was close and only historical luck prevented it)