Why Revolutions Fail

revolutions face a choice imagine you're from a small economically unstable country without much International influence and after weeks of protests and violent clashes with the state with hundreds of people lifted in the streets you've just overthrown a brutal dictatorship which has held power for decades you've promised the people jobs equality human rights democracy and now you've got to deliver the question is what next the military swears to well quote protect the revolution but you don't know how much you can trust them and even though you worked with some extremist radicals to overthrow the dictator can you really rely on them now they want some pretty bad stuff your new regime needs money to survive and all of these other rich countries are scrambling eyeing up your oil reserves breaking ties with any of these people might see the death of the Revolution but keeping them around might destroy it too this was the exact dilemma Egypt faced in 2011 after alting dictator hny Mubarak after three decades of power part of the Arab Spring this is the revolution's [Music] Dilemma and if you like this kind of realworld fictional commentary stuff then make sure to pick up my on writing and World building books which contains all of our writing and World building discussions with way more depth way more detail in an easier to read and reference context and got good news volume 3 is coming at the end of the year and it is the best volume yet I'm I'm so stoked with it so far you guys have been picking the covers I love it they're gorgeous thank you so much anyways link down below go get them they're awesome on with the video part one a tender flame in the words of plutar Heavens be revolutions are a tnder flame there a storm of complex factors all coming together at once you can watch my other video about that on the dictators dma they need to be nurtured with a little kindling and warmth and they're so easily snuffed out and that's because of what we can call the three eyes infighting international support and implementation after over dictator hosne Mubarak Egypt found itself at a Crossroads the revolution had been led by labor unions secular activists military factions in the Muslim Brotherhood and while they all agreed that Mubarak needed to go down ideological disagreements showed the cracks between them the moment the Revolution was won see officially mub passed on power to the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces who went on to dissolve parliament and then pinky promised definitely crossed my fingers HHO to die SW or that they would only hold on to power until things calm down but then suddenly it's deao martial law and when the Constitutional assembly is finally allowed together the secular politicians clash with the growing islamist faction who disagree on whether this new state should be based on liberal human rights or the Quran and the Armed Forces well they want to enshrine themselves as the ultimate executive Authority in the Constitution and when the elections are finally allowed to take place it's the islamist Muslim Brotherhood who win with their president Muhammad Mory taking power needless to say chaos the leftwing labor unions clash with conservatives the secular with the Islamic the Christians with the Muslims and Mory only last a couple of years before being replaced by the Army's presidential candidate in 2014 despite promising freedom of expression and interplace brutality a stable democracy and better working conditions very few of these are at all realized because of elite infighting and there's been Democratic backsliding for some years now even though it's in a better place than it was before it's still fallen short of a lot of those aims the revolution did not ultimately succeed because the Revolutionary masses failed to keep United and continue their push for change after mb's resignation existing Elites particularly the military have become the biggest obstacle to change ideological disagreement is especially poisonous for revolutions given revolutions tend to attract people of more radical ideologies be it political extremism religious extremism or ethnic EX extremis M Stalin used the power struggle between bolik leaders over smaller and smaller ideological issues to throttle the Revolution and marginalize his competition till he ended up with autocratic power in a transition period like Revolution people need to have faith in the institutions and political system like democracy that they're supposedly meant to hand over power to but if they don't think that they can achieve their aims what they revolted to do through that new system even something like democracy why would they give up power to it you got to remember that it's very easy for a democratically elected leader to slide into becoming a dictator disagreements breeds gridlock gridlock breeds collapse and collapse breeds chaos and War and we're back on that cycle half measures and civil unrest once more and often old social religious and ethnic tensions are going to Bubble to the surface again revolutions are important forces in society forcing change in static often terrible systems but beating the dictator is only the start and they've got a long way to go before they're really successful I know it's a ya book but I've always admired how The Hunger Games doesn't shy away from those post-revolution difficulties symbolically perhaps but it does acknowledge them president coin assures the world she will pinky promise cross my fingers hope to die only take power in her interim government until democratic transition is possible Right the revolution though turns on itself pretty godamn quickly you know canis ends up having to kill her people espouse these values but when they want to do stuff things like democracy can suddenly become an obstacle I've said it before and I'll say it again democracy simply doesn't work but more than that how do you deal with the significant faction of people who are going to want revenge on those who were in power and not just the politicians and dictator but the civilians aligned with them like the Egyptian revolution wanted a public trial for hosne Mubarak but what about his supporters and the districts publicly executed snow but coin wanted to go further she wanted to hold a new Hunger Games for the capital's children there's revenge in that the people who benefited from and perhaps supported Snow's regime how far did the punishments and trials go the representatives their families the people who profited from it the children who happened to be benefiting if revolutions are down ethnic lines then they'll often end up targeting the people who happen to be the same demographic as those who were in power even though they may not be directly responsible but it's complicated because they benefited from it and it's not necessarily right for them to keep what they have if it's down class lines well let's just say the phrase eat the rich is there for a reason so when you're writing Revolution you're going to want to figure out where these cracks start to appear and importantly you're going to have to figure out kind of one of the only three ways that they deal with it do they one compromise two are they ousted or three do those aims get a che counter revolutions like in 2014 ating Mory are incredibly common you know these factions turn on each other in the struggle over who gets to decide what this new world will look like well the Hunger Games yeah it's not the most complicated exploration of these issues it does at least acknowledge them and how they can threaten revolutionary aims easily slipping into an oppressive cycle this is kind of what happened with Stalin as well despite the revolution's aspirations of a democratic liberal socialist republic ideologic iCal disagreements LED Stalin to slowly concentrate power in himself using the chaos of the post-revolution world to eliminate competition and undermine the role of the Soviets till it was just him the ideological disagreement prevented the perhaps more popular other factions from working against him and his rule was a simpler way out of the chaos and while people in Russia rightly wanted to revenge against the uber wealthy Stalin also used that desire to persecute demographics he wanted marginalized often against the aims of Lenin's original reevolution but it's not just ideological disagreement the elite and Powerful will often join a revolution in hopes of gaining something else power or money or position to stay within the circles of power when they know it's coming and the Egyptian Military can be read this way Egyptian history is a record of the army guarding the interests of the secular State and their own Elite position in the system of power the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces did not intend to be sidelined either nor did it want to lose its self- ascribed role as the guarantor of constitutional legitimacy and security and be stripped of its economic privileges in other words the military could see the writing was on the wall for hos Mubarak and wanted to ensure that they weren't excluded from the circles of power and so Revolution and we can see this by the way in George AR Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire series tywan Lannister doesn't revolt against the manad king out of a sense of morality or justice but because he's been alienated from the circles of tararan power and wants to get in on Robert's new regime he knew that if he didn't help then there was no chance of it and taking King's Landing put him in a powerful position to do so when the Soviet Union fell Russian oligarchs saw a huge opportunity to seize State assets and make a ton of money and that's a huge motivator you know they don't ever care for pesky things like human rights or the vision of the Revolution it's about getting a better position from a world falling apart chaos is a ladder and the question is these Elites the powerful the rich what happens when they don't get what they want how does the revolution survive without their support without their money without their men without their resources so don't just think about how Elites might help the revolution happen but where their interests might diverge and what that point of tension how you know how is that resolved because it can lead to a counterrevolution or an impotent government or another civil war one detail I really like and I think it's the Mandalorian is that After the Revolution after the evil empire is overthrown we get all these evil scientists and soldiers who have committed atrocities what do you mean to do with them well supposedly they're sent to be rehabilitated and taught the error of their ways but in reality the rich and Powerful basically tell them in secret oh we're just happy to have you on our side you know on the side of the Republic rather than it being about Justice like the revolution claim they instead bring them in make money off them put them in positions of power and use those skills again just from a slightly different angle they superficially supported the revolution but spoil its aims when it comes down to the Brass tax they don't care about Justice Just money and power part two International puppeteers many revolutions live or die on International support money people aid from other countries and all too often this comes in return for trade guarantees access to Resort forces for their own security interests I.E the entire cold war in Korea Vietnam Angola Afghanistan Nicaragua mosm Ethiopia Lebanon and a myriad across South America over and over Western Powers have stifled communist revolutions with sanctions and blockades and sabotage preventing them from integrating with the International Community I'm not saying we shouldn't sanction North Korea but it is what has been happening for decades and the United States has been strangling Cuba for a long time in the case of North Korea their economy was intimately reliant on aid from the Soviet Union or after it fell now China see revolutions put countries in really vulnerable positions they're piss poor disorganized they don't have the institutions or Logistics that the other regime might have had and they're struggling not to slip back into chaos and in that environment other countries come looking for concessions and guarantees following Libya's Revolution at the same time during the Arab Spring France sent oil companies to secure oil reserves that they could not get to undera Gaddafi French foreign minister at the time Ela jup even said it was quote fear and logical that those who supported the revolution would get access to its oil pressing their claim without the support or not giving in to sometimes exorbitant demands these revolutions might be left to die before they're even given a chance to see change but it also comes across as giving up a lot of autonomy and future investment and that does not reflect well on the government especially if they perhaps promised to nationalize assets sometimes revolutionary support and weapons and Manpower and money is to disrupt something like a nuclear program or a new industry in the area or to Simply depose a regime they consider unfriendly like what happened during the Cold War once that objective is achieved then they might pull that Manpower and money and Munitions and then the revolution is left dead in the water killing any momentum the revolution has towards its goals and taking away any security buffer that allows old powers and squabbles to sweep back in and Chaos part three implementation it's 1949 Ma has taken Beijing and proclaimed the People's Republic of China we know now today and is pursuing new communist economic policies focusing on peasant lead collectivized farms and decentralized communes to boost the economy but it fails utterly these new policies prove more difficult to implement than he ever thought China doesn't have the logistics to reorganized people and resources on this scale it doesn't yield what Ma thought it would China lacks the technology to really make it work but it can't afford it because it's been at War for so long and Ma refuses as an ideologue to let it go and there's corruption at every level down the command chain making it difficult to know just what's happening anyway in the ironically named Great Leap Ford millions of people starve to death in one of the largest man-made famines in history people who make for good revolutionaries for good generals do not necessarily make for good peacetime leaders so when World building look for what we're going to call the implementation gap between the aims of the Revolution and the problems they may not have considered do you have the tax money to do what you want the votes the bureaucracy the logistical and infrastructure support you can promise to raise the minimum wage but what does that mean when your country is suddenly struck with hyperinflation or you want to raise taxes but the rich people can just bribe their way out of that and the judicial system that you're left with is too fractured to deal with that in the first place reorganizing Society is hard and that's why a lot of revolutions will try to do something big and ambitious and aspirational and they will end up doing it pretty poorly and of course that just means that people look at the Revolution and feel like it kind of failed them like you can't do what you promised if there's a massive gap between the aims and implementation then it can lead to counterrevolution and throw the state into chaos once more this is also something that's very difficult for like left-wing Revolutions in particular like a right-wing Revolution you can sell off State assets easy that's that destroying the state un you know undoing what is is a lot easier building up something new logistically is very complicated especially if it hasn't been tempted in the place before this is also why there's a tendency for revolutions to devolve into dictatorships rather than democracies democracies are complicated systems they require a robust and sophisticated bureaucracy to work I love democracy if you don't have that you risk poisoning democracy from the start military rule on the other hand is cheaper and logistically easier and often Rises out of pre-existing structures you've already got and the more you rely on hard power the more entrenched those people and that way of doing things becomes a newborn Revolution still needs to keep the people who keep them in power happy and that can lead to some pretty toxic relationships with the military with the church with oligarchs with the wealthy with other countries even the big difference is that stable democratic governments are self- sustaining they're self-sufficient they don't need to rely on oligarchs or the like to keep them going at least you'd hope so and you can actually say the same of like a stable monarchy or whatever but the point is how do you achieve what you set out to do when you're simultaneously having to privilege this other group P Brown's Red Rising series is a fantastic exploration of all this like it has the main character daro lead a revolution against the oppressive system but then he finds himself struggling with the complexities of governance you know over and over his mistakes make things worse with different factions vying for power leading to Revolution and counter Revolution but Brown makes a point with all of this dictatorships are less complex systems you know it's easier for them to rise out of a revolution than democracy democracies need an informed and engaged populace and if you corrupt that they fall apart Darrow finds himself in conflict with the Senate an allegedly Democratic body but clearly a flawed one and you want to know a weird thing in 2019 a poll found 59% of Russians felt the Soviet Union quote took care of ordinary people and 66% regretted its dissolution in 2012 38% of Armenians said their country quote would always need a leader like Joseph Stalin and I spoke about this in previous videos but people will IDE idealized the past even autocratic undemocratic states with a terrible record of Human Rights abusers I mean we see this today with people like idealizing the 1950s America period which was an awful period for you know women and people of color this is because every regime is good for someone and often more than you think it's no surprise that Russians are more likely to think Fally of the USSR when it was a system which privileged Russian culture language and people it's it's easy to look back funly when you don't see or just don't care about the terrible things that other people or other cultures had to endure at that time we come up with ways to justify it we have a very different narrative and often times our identity you know is wrapped up in that narrative and so we we want to think positively of it but all of this affects our relationship with the past regime we're more likely to give it the benefit of the doubt and it effects how we see this revolution because we see all the things that it's tearing down and not just the new things that it's building and hoping to do however this positive view of past regimes also comes from the implementation Gap post-soviet countries often struggled in the wake of the revolutions and the ussr's dissolution the Soviet Union I thought you guys broke up yes that's what we wanted you to think the transition to a market economy often meant gutting social services and a downtune economically for a time especially when it came to pension systems see the USSR had a sophisticated and very generous pension system that was a lot higher and often a lot better than what we see today so people who benefited from or worked for that were very attached to it and and reasonably so right these new Democratic liberal governments promised better living standards but weren't always able to deliver and for a lot of people it's kind of like well how good is it really in some pretty awful cases some radical groups will start start to blame this decline of their quality of life on women or minorities and that can lead to some pretty dangerous ideologies I.E fascism but also I want to point out that I know it's easy for us sitting here in our modern liberal Democratic wealthy societies to sit here and pontificate about the virtues of freedom of speech and democracy and religion and stuff but it's important to note that like the vast majority of people around the world just want to get by they want food on the table and to feel safe and when you think about why people don't always just Revolt for this stuff it's it's because of that they value stability and revolutions are inherently unstable things people kind of identify with systems which they feel are just kind of okay to them you know but you can leverage all of these symtoms to create some really interesting relationships in your world building you know the the community who believed in the revolution and then find themselves worse off the people who kind of were fine with the autocratic regime but now find themselves kind of again destroyed and reminiscing about the past the people who find themselves way better off than before the people who didn't used to clash but now because of the Revolution are brought into conflict with each other and also we've talked in this video about revolutions as kind of forces for positive change but that is not always true military juns and coups and revolutions are sometimes for very bad oppressive ideology it's easy for radical ideas to get slipped in with more reasonable justifications we see this a lot with Islamic extremism mixed in with anti-colonial discourse revolutions are complicated and people are going to have an interesting time internalizing the Now versus the before and if you are going for a negative Revolution how do people think about the past how do they memorialize it you know how do they feel about it cuz I think Margaret Edwards the handmaid's tale is just a brilliant example of this and forgive the TV show cover I'm so sorry I know this crime cannot be forgiven Luke and I used to walk together sometimes along these streets we used to talk about buying a house like one of these an old big house fixing it up we would have a garden swings for the children we would have children although we knew it wasn't too likely if we could ever afford it it was something to talk about a game for Sundays such Freedom now seems almost weightless so you've just overthrown a brutal dictator things I on the up but you have no money you're not quite sure who you can trust to actually enforce your reforms and cracks are starting to appear with your allies you try to start new elections but local governments are corrupt and only take orders from one of the other factions your allies are trying to seize property from the rich but some of the wealthy on your side are protesting the people who supplied your weapons who do you side with you've promised people jobs but you don't have the money to pay them and now riots are starting up and you have to send in forces to keep the peace International delegations are promising to support you in exchange for your oil reserves but you know it'll mean ousting your allies and handing over resources you promised you wouldn't before only if you don't take power now it'll mean Bloodshed down the line and suddenly you look around and you have become the very thing you swore to destroy if you've got this far into the video then you need to go pick up on rting a World building volume 1 and volume 2 we talk about Civil Wars and Empires and how they work and fall and volume 3 is coming at the end of the year and we talk about so much more it's great all the stuff all the wunning W buing stuff we talk about in more detail easy to reference book and it's gorgeous isn't it but if that's not you consider supporting me on patreon so I can keep making this sort of stuff it's a lot of work a lot of research and I very much appreciate it you guys are amazing uh patreon is what makes this channel work it means I can be less dependent on sponsor chips because you guys are sponsoring me and these books are sponsoring me I am sponsoring me it's all good it's all fantastic Because of You links are down below thank you so much so let's bring this all into a revolutionary summary one ideological disagreement can poison the post-revolution world be it moderates versus radicals extremist ideologies old ethnic or sociological tensions or in Elite infighting two Elites often Revolt for very different reasons bringing them into conflict with other factions in the post-revolution world World International support may help a revolution but it's also often used as a tool of disruption or coercion and without it in the post-revolution world the revolution may be dead in the water sanctions or Co blockades May prevent a new Society from succeeding revolutionaries do not necessarily make for good peacetime leaders some people will idealize the past regime be it because it benefited them because implementation issues create the impression of a failed Revolution or economic woes thank you all stay Nery patreon books and I'll see you in the future now for

Channel: Hello Future Me

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Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, revolution, dystopia, booktok, authortube, authortok, booktube, manga, rebellion, star wars, mandalorian, red rising, worldbuilding, world building, fantasy, scifi, science fiction

Id: 8akTwV82jmE

Length: 26min 33sec (1593 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 09 2023