or a Napoleon. Sometimes you get a Napoleon, and hey if not for Russian Winter and health issues...... Man gave it a very good run. that Dictatorship is easier as you said.
One thing that always kind of annoyed me is that historically we tend to remember revolutions for what came of them rather than what caused them. Comfortable people dont go to war over ideology.
Except the Slave owning Plantocracy of the United States. They were just a bunch of rich White dudes who didn't want to pay their fair share of taxes and wanted to steal more Indian land.
Making the American Revolution different in that respect. Here we have tried to prevent the conditions that lead to our Revolution. At times that may be difficult to see I know. It is one of the reasons that our politics are so brutal. It's a kind of Revolution every voting cycle. I for one, wouldn't have it any other way. It is the price of our freedom.
And in the case of the American Civil War which cost the lives of 750,000 Americans...we see that American tried and failed to prevent the outbreak of widespread violence. @@Helm-w1q
@@Helm-w1q Hilarious. 1. The American "Revolution" was not a revolution. A bunch of second sons of British aristocracy didn't want to pay taxes (more than half of whom were also slave owners) so they founded their own country. The Founding Fathers actively despised democracy (which we would call direct democracy) and James Madison (another slave owner) in particular had some very unsavory things to say about it. That is the polar opposite of the goals and nature of every real attempt at revolution a.k.a the rising up of the oppressed underclasses against an oppressive hierarchy. 2. To compare American elections to revolutions in any way is a farce. See above. Liberal representative democracy is not meant to allow the people to actually make any radical changes, but to give the illusion of choice while keeping power firmly in the hands of the same political and economic elite. Why do you think there are two political parties that are near identical on economic and foreign policy? Why do you think electoral colleges exist, or the two same parties have been taking turns for over a century and a half? The US foreign and domestic policies are designed specifically to carry out goals for the benefit of the US corporate elite and always have been. They spend American lives like small change for the sake of corporate profit, and they slaughter non-Americans with the same brutality as any dictatorship. When was the last time an American was charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity? Why has the US spent much energy and money suppressing democracy and revolutions in other countries? Do you think the US government and economic establishment has any higher regard for American citizens? Then why do they keep moving American jobs abroad to be done in sweat shops? Ehy do so many Americans live poverty? You speak of freedom, but what you have is slavery, the sort that deserves a real revolution. The problem is the people of the USA have been conditioned to believe that what they're offered is the only choice and that slavery is freedom.
Tim: Imagine you're from a small, economically unstable country without much international influence... Me, watching from Zimbabwe: no need to imagine here😅.
At least you badasses were cool enough to beat down your colonial oppressors. Here in Mexico we still are forced to play nice with our American oppressors.
@@jonh5832 And don't forget the influences of Spain as well. Just like with the actual Native Americans, there's so much negative colonial impact in any place touched by Western European imperialism.
@@jonh5832 and look where that got them. And Mexico today would be an ACTUAL Cartel State if it weren't for the US so stop whining. Edit: spelling mistakes
@echidnanatsuki882 Zimbabweans got freedom and sovereignty over their own land. The cartels are as powerful as they are because of the US. The US literally trained the cartels how to fight. The large majority of the firearms that the cartels have come straight from the US as well. The CIA got their undisciplined yankee population addicted to drugs so that the cartels would have a constantly growing yankee customer base. If Mexico shakes off its anglo oppressors, the cartels will cease to exist.
As a Thai person who is living in a country that is undergoing massive social revolution, your series looking into the complexity of revolution has been very interesting to me as many of your points resonates with what is going on right now in Thailand. For example: how people who are on the same side with the revolutionaries might not even understand or be into the revolution's ideology... They just HATE the current regime who is being cartoonishly evil to the point that they are even dumbly alienating the upper class people in the society. (Many of my associates are politicians in the Move Forward Party that I guess would be the revolutionaries in our current situation. They are quite surprised that they have gained this much support this quickly as they had previously expected that it would take some times for the conservative Thai society to get behind their heavily liberal ideologies. They didn't expect that the regime will act this stupidly and become ridiculously hatable.)
For those of us less familiar with Thai news, can you discuss a little bit about (1) what the military government did that was so farcically hatable, (2) why the Move Forward Party achieved dominance yet could not have its leader become prime minister, and (3) why the Thai military junta has not simply done what the Burmese junta did and simply ended the democratic "experiment" when it did not work in their favor.
@@oremfrien (1) It is hard to condense what they have done in the past 8 years into a few lines or even a few pages, so this will be a long answer. To be clear, their actions are a mixture of ridiculous evil and stupid evil. What they have done might not be the most evil thing dictators or juntas have ever done, but their actions are often farcical in a ‘why would you do that?’ kind of way which have increasingly turning off even their own supporters aside from the most zealot ones. . For example. - Among their numerous acts of corruption, they starved school children, literally stealing children’s lunch money while pushing the military spending on expensive military equipment that never get used as well as splurging on the living hood of the generals. . - When the military government’s salary is criticized, their people snap back that their well paid salary can’t be cut down or they won’t have enough to eat. . - Then, despite the fact that Thai people are already sensitive about the school lunch thing, people find out that there is a chapter in the current edition of elementary school kid’s schoolbook celebrating not having enough to eat with a kid character who could only afford a single boiled egg for dinner proclaiming that “being happy is about choosing to be satisfied” and her boiled egg lunch is the most delicious in the world. This really ticked people off because the military government is known to make many revisions to school books including praising ‘dictatorship’ as an act for good with the then junta as the example of a good man. . - AND THEN, one of their ministers chooses to protect the school book by saying that “there is nothing wrong with boiled egg because my boy likes it” and claiming that the opposition is brainwashing people to cancel boiled egg. . Or other examples . - The military government ironically run the military so poorly that the forcibly recruited soldiers die horribly quite often due to abuse. Not only are abuses rampant, and the recruits have to live off watery vegetable soup with almost no protein (my brother’s personal experience), the recruits are used as unpaid servants in the generals’ households. As a result, many of the soldiers have mental issue that are severely ignored. Combining that with poorly guarded weapons, some of the poorly treated soldiers turned into crazed gunmen. When violent incidents occurred, the junta prime minister and his party didn’t even try to appear sorry or sympathetic to the loss. In one of the infamous cases of “why would you do that?!” the junta made a ‘mini-heart’ pose when he had to visit the scene of the shooting. . - Despite their habit of buying expensive weapons (that either don’t work or aren’t used), they like to ignore genuine threats to the country. Many time when Myanmar army’s fight got into Thailand territory, with villages being terrorized and boats being looted, the military government did nothing with the explanation that “Oh, that’s just some silly misunderstanding.” . - Appointing an ex-drug dealer as one of the ministers who they claimed was only selling ‘powder’. Coincidentally, under the military government regime, drug price falls to the lowest in Thai history with the addicted number rising rapidly. . - Also made weeds legal with NO regulation as it is the minister of health’s financial benefit. . - Denied any rising drug issue as fake news. Said that the real problem is the youngsters being brainwashed by the westerner (AKA the Americans) to hate them. . - Oppressing creative economy with the junta himself literally said in an interview something along the line of “Thai people are only good for agricultural stuff.” It is quite common for him and other military higher ups to give interviews saying that Thai people are stupid which is why they must make decisions for us. . - THEN they claimed to have always supported 'soft power' while still oppressing the creative economy to give themselves more budget to steal from (based on the accounts of many Thai film and series directors). . /// . (2) The military government created a special system which they appointed 250 senators who have the power to vote for the prime minister. Their votes override the citizen votes UNLESS there is a landslide victory which didn’t happen. OF CAUSE, the junta-appointed senators didn’t vote for a Move Forward party prime minister. Many of the senators echo the junta’s sentiment that we Thai people don’t know what is good for us, which is why they need to make the decision for the country. . The Move Forward party (based on my friend’s account as one of the party members) has actually expected that they won’t become the government yet this round. They are playing the long game as more and more Thais become fed up with the old system. . /// . (3) The military, which is deeply tied with the monarchy with the generals including the junta proclaiming themselves to be “the king’s soldiers”, still wants to keep the illusion of democracy to appear righteous even though they are horrible at it. Also, the richest and most powerful families in Thailand, who are financial supporters of the royal family, won’t like that illusion to be gone as it will affect their businesses.
@@oremfrien To add on a bit on why the gov was evil in a dumb way, their regime (including what I didn’t mention in the previous reply since … they did A LOT of things) screwed over everyone from the poor to the middle class and even some of the super riches, and their own soldiers aren’t into them (with a bunch of soldiers voting for the Move Forward party), which was indeed evil but stupid as they should have curried favor with some people aside from the hardcore royalist zealots (who make them even harder to not hate). The junta having a short fuse and zero diplomatic skill also resulted in him insulting too many people whom he would benefit to tolerate him.
@@oremfrienI'll never be able to capture the complexity of modern Thai politics in a s8nggle youtube comment (which to my mind is still much of the old one). But to make it a bit simple. 1. The Thai military has engineered coups all throughout Thai history. 13 have been successful, and many more unsuccessful. The Thai military is famously corrupt, with many similar business deals to most other khaki capitalist economies. but perhaps the darkest aspect is how deeply they have been involved in making Thailand into their image in their process of nationbuilding. Famous fascist dictator Phibun is the one who gave the country its name and created pad thai. We can also argue that his military camp re-instored the monarchy to full glory in the post-war period, enhanced its cult worshipping, and did everything to stop communism (with the US's support). Which in time means establishing disdain for leftist politics in Thailand, exemplary with the massacre at Thammasat University in 1976. Today the army is juggling political and economic power with oligarchs and aristocrats, which makes for an unstable political climate centered around a relatively profitable and protectionist economy. 2. The MFP didnt get to put a prime minister in power because the army designed the constitution and appointed the senate. It didnt have enough seats to win, even with the popular vote because of those appointees. And more recently, their political allies in the opposition the Pheu Thai Party (PTP), led by the Shinawatra family and a good analogue for pro-money oligarchs decided to form their own coalition with the support of military backed conservatives. This shows that money really is all that matters, and as long as Thaksin cuts in his military allies on payouts he'll get to play with power. Something he didn't do back then, which cause the 2006 and 2014 coups in the first place. 3. Democracy in Thailand is older than the concept of Thailand and Thainess itself. It is not an experiment by the military, but a promise from 1932 that has never been fully realised. The military is making a compromise to pacify political and economic stakeholders, including foreign powers. They also know that combat as in Myanmar is a very bad idea. They aren't smart, but they don't want outright warfare either.
I don't think its that revolutions fail, its just that its not a quick process. However, if a revolution is conducted due to misunderstandings or for the wrong reasons, then they can easily make situations very bad. For instance, Marx argued that the main enemy of the workers was the bourgeois class. However, the bourgeois class was weak and no longer the dominant capitalistic class by the time of the Russian Revolution. The business class - often made up of outsiders and nobodies - was far more dynamic and effective than the bourgeois and many of its failings in Russia were due to the dying bourgeois and aristocracy trying to bring it down. This is why corporate free market capitalism did so well compared to Russian marxism. Marxism was superior to the bourgeois capitalism of the 1850s where the upper class in the various cities and even towns stifled industrialization in order to protect their own positions of power. However, improvements in transportation due to the Bessemer process making steel rails affordable made bourgeois capitalism obsolete and caused its fall. So when the Russians overthrew the corporate free market industrialists, then didn't destroy the thing holding their empire back but instead they themselves became the issue holding Russia back. If the revolutionaries in Russia destroyed the aristocracy and weakened the bourgeois, then Russia would've been much more powerful.
I like how in Doctor Who, in best speech called Scale Model of War, he asked rebelling alien what she'll do about people like her, the troublemakets, after she wins and what her new world will look like? Will there be music, movies, etc. and she didn't have any answer, she was just saying we'll win and then we'll figure it out. Also in Eragon they devoted over 100 pages to: Well, we won, now what? And they were supressing rebellions, arguing between allies,... and it even ended with new ruler saying"I don't think I'll have a calm day till the rest of my life, but maybe my children will inherit peaceful kingdom.
Much like the Quellists in the Takeshi Kovacs novels, who preferred to go down in a blaze of glory......and the first families came back out of the ashes again...
"We once fought together for an ideal with our swords. It wasn't for power or for glory, but to create a peaceful world where people could live without fear. And, if you should forget about that, then what did we fight the revolution for?" - Kenshin Himura.
@@IliyaMoroumetz It is indeed a shame that the creator is a registered sex offender, but that doesn't stop Rurouni Kenshin from being great. at least in my opinion.
Considering Kenshin is a decade older than his second wife... We shouldn't have been surprised Though Kenshin's son does take an older girl as his lover so his family even things out
I have not watched Mando, so I'm sitting here listening to you describe scientists being rolled into powerful systems during a postwar period and all I'm hearing is a fictionalized description of Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim for the UDSSR were a little different tough. They took the Specialists from another state to use for their own technological advancment while the New Republic took the Scientists of their own State, formerly ruled by the Empreror, to reintegrate. So the more accurate comparison would be Germany and Austria after WW2 pardoning and reintegrating Scientists, Teachers, Judges, Politicians into their new democratic State. What they actually did. Austria because we liked the Idea of beeing the first victim of Nazi Germany and therefore are free from guilt. Ignoring thousands of Austrians serfing in Germanys Terror Machinery. We got Doctors back into hospitals who contributed in Genocide and mass murder of handicapped children. We got politicians in the government who serfed in the SS etc. Germany denazified better, but still there were plenty former Nazis in the Secrete Service, Teachers etc. And, sadly, there is a good reason to do so. Those people were well educated, well trained and experienced administrators. All the stuff you need to run a government. And this is something a revolutionary government has to consider as well. They need expirienced administrators, lawyers, judges to run the country.
At least to me, one of the striking things in the Andor series is just how competent and effective the high-level Imperial bureaucrats are. There's definitely a "banality of evil" angle, but the some of those characters are just awesome bosses/managers. ETA: In Mando, there is an Imperial character who really is reformed (and wasn't really bad to start with)... I won't spoil it. His arc isn't an explicit crossover with Andor, but that subplot is more like the tone of Andor than Mando. I wouldn't describe it as "fun".
@@travcollierAnd there's another ex-Imperial working in the New Republic's bureaucracy, but is a spy for one of the ousted Imperial officers still running around.
@@dawoifeeExactly for whatever reason people never seem to realize that the Empire is the Republic. Sheev didn't overthrow anything he simply engineered a situation where he was given dictatorial powers entirely legally.
I love these multi part series on geopolitical functions(like the empires one and this). Like all of these videos they really help with research for my political fantasy setting. There really is nothing else that goes into such detail and stays understandable. Thanks so much!
Failure to gain a competing claim to monopoly of force, treason from within, apathy from without, there is a list of variables. Looking forward to your thoughts.
@@quickcube2834perhaps a more precise choice of words would be “perceived treason from within,” since there’s almost always a paranoid sentiment of internal treachery at some point, whether it happens to be substantiated or not.
I came to Egypt a couple of months ago as a refugee and the first thing I noticed were the armed police forces occupying every street corner, when I asked about it I was told that 'he who must not be named' has placed them as a preemptive warning in response to the rising frustration due to inflation and increased prices. My own country's revolutionary history mimics that of Egypt, and as someone who has worked in the civilian government after the military regime was ousted I have come to realize that revolutions rarely work without international support and international actors (and their citizens) rarely care about the developing world, elite in fighting and failed promises has led my own civilian government to be ousted in 2 years and replaced once again by a military coup. History always repeats itself.
The Hunger Games is written in the present tense. It really pulled you into the experience of the characters. Glad to see it appreciated on this channel
I've only be able to play a little bit of it and didn't want to spoil it for myself in research but I *love* it so far. And some really insightful political commentary too. ~ Tim
In the Discworld series, the dictator of the power city state Ankh-Morpork is Havelock Vetinari. He rules with an iron fist, but he stays in power because all the rival factions hate each other more than him. Vetinari made himself so indispensable that he’s the only one who can fix whatever chaos comes the city’s way. In fact, life in the city state got horribly worse when he got deposed; so much so that the protagonists begged him to come back to power.
Also keep in mind, the faction that overthrows the dictator might not be the one to rule afterwards. There might be a different faction that has hidden in the shadows and now uses this moment of weakness to barge in and take power themselves.
The end reminded me of the Whiskey Rebellion, where President Washington sent the US Army to put down a rebellion about taxation on whiskey. Yeah, everyone can hear the historical parallels.
Not really, the colonies rebelled over being taxed without representation. The people who revolted over the whiskey tax did have representation in congress.
@@gabrielespana319 no 2 problems are ever the same, and I don’t condemn Washington for his actions. The problem with the “post-revolutionary period” is that no matter how legitimate or secure that you claim to be, you have just proven that a revolution is POSSIBLE AND ACCEPTABLE, in fact when you have been in power for so short a time you don’t have the cultural solidity to be presumed to be the right kind of government. You have to secure your new government against the exact same kind of people you were just working with. For example, Patrick Henry was a massive influence for independence. When the Constitutional Convention was held he refused to attend because as he said, “I smell a rat!”
To his credit, Washington personally led the army to stop the Whiskey Rebellion. Not that he was some great guy, but at least he had some accountability.
Apparently by the time his army got there, his negotiators had already resolved it. The ultimate result was that this proved the post-convention U.S. government could solve these sorts of problems without having to resort to violence.
@@dantecarangelo1083 The threat of violence was there and almost certainly played a part in the Whisky Rebels accepting the terms that Congress "negotiated".
One of my favorite recent revolution stories is actually from the Snow version of Snowpiercer. It has a revolution that, spoiler alert, goes well. But it also puts a lot of focus on the Rebels leadership post revolution, and how they tackle a lot of the same/similar problems the old guard had to face. The writing wasn't always there, but still a really fun and interesting show.
Something you really have to remember is that with outlandishly rare exceptions, the dictator isnt overthrown unless the military ALLOWS the dictator to be overthrown. The peasants storming the palace is a nice trope, but a mob of unarmed or melee armed peasants loses to a handful of well-fed palace guards with machine guns 10 times out of 10. Which is whybwith every irl revolution mentioned, the leader is only deposed once the generals join the revolutionaries and the soldiers either lay down their weapons or actuvely join the mob.
@@cmd31220sorry i a m not good at english i am just saying hitler was soldier in ww1 army when germany was defeated in ww1. he went bavair when he enter politics he already had good relationship militry when he become there is coup basically saying militry will not coup you .if you have good relationship militry and general no fear of coup but is not so stalin did purge militry gereneral Also there great video how hitler enter in politics so you understand
@runajain5773 yes but none of that changes the fact that the revolution doesn't succeed unless the army allows it to happen. Stalin purged generals in part BECAUSE of this. He purged generals that were more loyal to Trotsky and replaced them with those loyal to him. Same with bureaucrats, party officials, governors, everything. Hitler did the same. It's what every good dictator does when they take power because right after your ascension is when your hold on power is the weakest. It's also the same reason revolutions so quickly devolve into dictatorships of their own. Those that help you win power aren't necessarily the ones that help you KEEP power and the history of politics is the balancing act between those two groups
@FirstnameLastname-bp2pg lol what damage? I mean seriously in the grand scheme of things what damage was caused and if the the capitol police actually felt like shooting how many would have even gotten to the barriers, let alone in the building?
As maybe the only person other than Martin who's ACTUALLY interested in Aragorn's tax policy, thank you, Tim. These videos are always amazing and inspiring and I thank you for what you do for the writing community.
@@valerynorthI know there was wealth and treasures in Middle Earth. The dwarves definitely had coins and gold. But, it's so weird to think of Elrond or Galadriel ever needing to think about money. Was there a vault of gold underneath Lothlorien? Or did Galadriel just trade fancy rope and potions to people in order to get whatever she wanted?
@@annamelvina216 Also - where did the Lothlorien elves get the grains for the bread they made? No farming that we can see, and we know they were by 3rd Age Middle-Earth an insular people. Similar questions about the metal for their arrowheads. The Hobbit at least depicts the trade relations of northern Middle-Earth and how the overthrow of Smaug affects them!
@@valerynorthThe bread is actually explained. It is made from a special corn gifted to the Elves by the Valie Yavanna, and only Elven matriarchs are allowed to make the bread or teach how the bread is made.
Have you watched Andor? I think you'd like it, they tell the story of rebellion but from the perspective of individuals, how does one go from keeping their heads down to fighting oppression head on. I think it has some really nice themes
@@d.rabbitwhite It's interesting to compare Andor with The Mandalorian, which emphasizes how dysfunctional The New Republic is. Things are unlikely to get much better in the short term so revolutionaries need to be patient and take a long view. But if they were patient would they be revolutionaries?
Which one? The PKI tried a revolution, failed horribly and got purged twice, once at Madiun against Sukarno's nationalists in 1948 and once against the rising power of the military nominally alongside Sukarno in 1965. It was after the latter that 1.5 million of them were killed by the New Order in their third, largest and final purging. It was also the latter, @brunoactis1104, where the forces of reaction had Western backing and CIA interference on their side - the former was entirely an internecine dispute between nationalist revolutionaries of different political bents.
@@glizygxbler3131 oh please, acting as if I wanted 1.5 million people dead simply because I don't like authoritarian communist states is stupid. Should I say you are cheering on the deaths of millions if you wanted the Nazis destroyed? Communism has killed millions more than they ever helped but go on being a bootlicker.
I really-really love these newer type of video ideas from you. Youre (not) comparing fantasy/sci-fi world building to real life, rather, you show how some of those concepts have inflicted people irl. Based
This is extremely helpful and well timed for me! I’m working on building a faction heavy warring kingdoms world right now and learning more about revolutions and dictatorship is super useful!! Thank you!!
@@BeergardeningI live in Russia. Climate change is great. Removes the permafrost bit by bit, makes the northern territories more fertile, the heat makes it more comfortable over here. I see more and more people on the internet hating Russia and Russians so I care less and less what happens to the rest of the world.
@@trashpanda684As Serbian living though them, since I was born, only for first war to start when I was six, they still take a big toll on you. I do think the OP you are commenting on, just wished for some boredom when it comes to large, tumoltuos events that affect whole regions and millions of people. As others already suggested, I doubt we gonna get lucky.
I really wish the creatives at Disney Star Wars had employed people with actual writing skills/knowledge like this for the Sequel Trilogy. Rebels, Rogue One, and Andor lay the groundwork for what's explained here, expanding on all the different factions that made up the Rebellion. Mon Mothma's & Bail Organa's disillusioned senators, vs Saw Gerrera's whatever it takes gorilla fighters, vs the industrial interests of worlds like Corellia & the Mon Calamari, etc. These groups have vastly different goals, power bases, and obligations. Even the remnants of the Empire are a much more dynamic and interesting, as shown in Battlefront 2 campaign and with Mayfeld in Mandalorian. Providing even more opportunities for great story telling. That's not even touching on the ethical problems around droids... Instead we just got; hey the Empire 2.0 is here... and they brought yet another bigger, badder Death Star.
And then at the end, every enemy ship is a Death Star too. Yeah, they really really screwed the pooch with the sequel trilogy. The additional travesty is that there were so many plots available from the Star Wars novels; not all canonical of course, but people would have responded much better to some variant of those plots, instead of the garbage ideas they did some up with. I still feel sorry for the young actors, having their careers tainted by the shitty plots & egomaniac executive negligence, which they were asked to hold together.
Imagine if The Force Awakens was this intense spy film where people wanna overthrow the Republic and Luke etc. Are having to sort of deal with the dillema of being a super power being and whether they should interfere or if his duty is to just see what the people want etc. Couldve been interesting and maybe explained Kylo Rens fall to the dark as him seeing the jedi as this overpowered institution or something. No Emperor, you could have Imperial Remnant maybe trying to take advantage of the turmoil etc.
@@wyldhowl2821From what I've read it's because Disney gave the creatives very little time compared to even the prequels, and meddled in everything out of a desire to squeeze every last dollar out of it, even if it creatively doomed the franchise.
I have listened to a podcast about revolutions and as soon as you were talking about the splits in the alliance after overthrow the regime my immediate thought was “yup, there’s the entropy of victory from all of them
A thing I now realize is that the USA was born from a revolution in a sea of absolutism and we somehow avoided a American dictatorship despite it being a possibility bc George was a military general after all
You didnt avoid it. America was a dictatorship, you avoided nothing. Its just that 'dictatorship' isnt used when the perpetrators are westerners. America enslaved millions, killed millions, and started as many wars as it could manage, some for oil some for political power. In the era of Washington it was slavery and colonialism, in the 20th century it was anti-communism and installing fascist dictators willy-nilly. America simply avoided being poor.
Victory breeds division. When revolutionaries no longer have a common and obvious enemy, it is likely to spiral into infighting and massive power struggles
@@paavobergmann4920”The world became ours, and we lost it. Nothing, it appears, is more challenging to the souls of men than victory itself. Or was that victory an illusion all along? Did our enemies realize that the harder they fought, the stronger we resisted? Perhaps they saw that the heat and the hammer only make for a better grade of sword. But ignore the steel long enough, and it will eventually rust away.” The back cover of The Way Of Things.
I’m just working through Volume #1 of On Writing & Worldbuilding and you have done a fantastic job! Huge help with defining the techniques, features and styles of writing
As an Egyptian, for anyone interested, even though Sisi technically took power through a military coo. Morsi (of the Muslim Brotherhood) was a corrupt leader just as bad if not worse than Mubarak, who was quite openly corrupt. As a Coptic (we are a minority race in Egypt...we trace our ancestry back to Pharaohs, although obviously bloodlines have absolutely mixed over the years) there was genuine and true fear that Morsi would take power. Copts were persecuted and murdered quite regularly throughout Egyptian history by extremists (from which Morsi identified) and government officials (ala Mubarak, Sadat, and Nasser) to pit Copts against Muslims. The revolution bridged quite a few gaps between the 2 groups. Sisi has thus far shown more willingness to not murder us than previous rulers of Egypt. Forget equal treatment, we would just like to not be killed. E.g., Sisi popped into an Easter mass, this has never happened by an Egyptian leader. By doing that he acknowledged us as humans. In the new Cairo museum, Copts have a spot for their heritage artifacts, as well. Things are not perfect and I won't sit here and tell you Sisi, is a nice or even perfect ruler. However, this is one of those EXTREMELY RARE cases where the military coo was actually better than the "elected government." Again I put that in quotes as Morsi's election was extremely corrupt, and people were threatened with violence, death, or destruction if they did not vote for Morsi. It's a very layered situation there and it goes back very far. The west saw military coo and instantly said "bad", understandably but it came from a place of ignorance.
A good counter question would be: How have revolutions in the past succeeded? Why are Cubans so happy and satisfied with their government, despite crippling sanctions?
Cubans happiness with their current system is due to entrenched censorship & surveillance. Cuba is famously known as the place where a doorman earns more than a doctor. This is only possible if you hide alternatives outside the country or restrict freedom of movement.
By most standards, they haven’t. I have looked, and have yet to find a violent revolution which left its people better off in terms of personal freedoms, standard of living, or life expectancy. Even the most justified revolutions in history (ie Haiti) just make things worse for the people they claim to fight for.
@@thrawncaedusl717I mean I hate to be the stereotypical American, but the American revolution turned out pretty well, all things considered. Granted, it was a bit different, as we already had quasi-local governments and were fairly autonomous overall, and the "revolution" was mostly just removing the colonial overseers. We kind of already had governments in place, so there wasn't as much of a power vacuum. To be fair, the articles of confederation were kind of a disaster, and I'd argue that Washington almost singlehandedly prevented the executive from becoming a dictatorship (they literally wanted to appoint him king, and he turned it down, instead going for an (at the time) extremely informal term, "president," as well as establishing all sorts of other norms for the presidency like term limits). There is a perfectly plausible future where the US government either collapsed under infighting between states, or Washington could have easily become a dictator if he had wanted to.
One of the main problems that revolutions face is that the revolutionary forces need to be a minimal coalition in the sense that, once they take power, the support of every constituent group is necessary to maintain the government and that swapping any one of them for some other faction would also hurt one of the other original groups. If this is not the case, then the other factions would be tempted to remove said other group in order to claim more power for themselves and the government would devolve into infighting (as a side note, that is why I consider corporate governments as portrayed in many cyberpunk stories to be unrealistic: shareholders rely on the legal system for their power and so, after the company takes over, they would be easily moved out of the way without risking a loss of control (unless they have the backing of some foreign government), but that means that they would want to prevent the company from getting into a position where it might take power, in the first place). At the same time, the revolutionary forces also need to be strong enough to even remove the current government, but the revolution will likely change the balance of power between the factions and so it is very difficult to meet both of those requirements, at the same time. The 'traditional' solution to this problem is to have the revolutionary forces be composed of very similar groups (so the balance of power is unlikely to shift much, between them), but then it is also very easy for them to set up a dictatorship, rather than anything bordering on democracy, to benefit themselves at the expense of the general populace.
This is a great look into some of the reasons revolutions are more complicated in real life than in fiction; though I think there is perhaps a good reason few fictional stories explore the subject properly, and the main reason is that complexity. Usually a story has a protagonist who is a specific person, or at most a half dozen people, but a real revolution requires a significant chunk of the population to be involved. The antagonist is normally also a single individual, but in a real revolution it is the existing institutions, often inherently impersonal. A lot of revolution are really just power fantasies, a protagonist overcoming the authorities that frustrate us in the real world. Most of the rest work on the level of metaphor. The government does things in such a bizarre way and unrealistic way because it is a metaphor for something else; it might not even be about government policy. A dystopia where people are separated into castes might just be a metaphor for how people are forced into certain social roles because of they rely on stereotypes and assumptions to understand others and themselves. The authority of a government works as a metaphor for how difficult it is to resist the widespread human tendency.
That bit about idealizing the past really hit home. In Portugal it´s still common to see older people idealizing Salazar´s regime as a time of order and stability, when the government wasn´t corrupt and was efficient, as opposed to today. Hell , even young people grow up hearing this kind of crap and they also come to idealize or respect the figure of Salazar as an efficient leader, despite being able to search on the internet the data that contradicts all the points mentioned above. Really sad to see near-fascism (or just straight up fascism) resing up again in my country, supported not only but the old, but the young too.
You can personality of cult it happen when one politician hardcore popular with his regime so people will always support even you did worse when person like you said
On of the struggles I've had lately, especially after watching some of these recent videos, is a feeling of displaced hopelessness in my ability to ever properly/compellingly write a lot of these topics. There are just so many factors to track even before you put characters into the story.
Don't give up! It's a lot, but you don't have to do everything all at once. Write what you like, little by little, and then you'll write a masterpiece (or at least something you live) in no time🙃
Also don't let these things distract you from the real goal: making an awesome emotional experience for the readers. Your world building and political maneuvers might not be the stuff of pentagon case studies, but as long as the overall story is a powerful emotional experience, it worked
There was a show on FX a few years ago called Tyrant which dealt with this exact issue. The main character overthrew an Islamic state and tried to implement reforms and release political prisoners. But one of those same prisoners then launched a counter revolution against his secular government so in order to gain back control, he became a tyrant. The same one he overthrew before
Dr. Who gave a brilliant speech on this topic. Somewhat paraphrased(because, you know, it’s Dr. Who. Aliens are involved) it goes: “It’s not fair? Oh, well, goodness me, I didn’t realize it was unfair! And when the war is over? What, are you gonna have a homeland, free from your oppressors? Will people live in houses? Will people have jobs? Oh, do you think there’ll be music? Will people be allowed to play violin? Who’s gonna make the violins? You don’t know, do you? Let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you’ve killed all the bad guys, and everything is perfect, and just, and fair, and you’ve got everything exactly the way you want it, what are you gonna do, with the people like you? The troublemakers? How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?”
We must also remember as well, that to people looking at democracies from outside view, sometimes all you can see or hear is the fact that is about 600+ elected MPs (UK as example) all who seem to be caught in scandals half the time, and seem to just push policy anyway even if the public don't support the policies. And in reality you have have two choices to choose from in who runs the Nation, a two party state which is not really democratic when you only have two options who seem be just as bad as each other. To an outsider they might think," Well this is silly, why have 600 corrupt leaders, when we already have one corrupt leader, likely cheaper too". We must also admit the fact that some democracies today have been sliding towards more controlling, right limiting, freedom of speech suppression policies recently (USA,UK). I mean once those virtues of freedom are started to be eroded by elected governments, at some point people might just wonder what's the point of electing people if they're corrupt and will just limit our rights anyway. A democracy can be as authoritarian and tyrannical as any Monarch or Dictatorship. Just look at Athens and even the Roman Late republic. The dark secret is, most revolutions are either squashed, or just morph into a monster as bad as the old system. The American Revolution is actually a rarity in how it came out as a stable and actually decent place to live. I think Modern Hollywood and Americanism has kind of infected the idea of revolution in the eyes of western people and media, making it seem like they're always noble and actually win. When historically there are countless attempts of revolutions or rebellions that are put down in the end, or are just as bad people getting in power. The Arab Spring is for example in the end a failure as well, it did not achieve much since either the old powers stayed in place, the country collapsed or worse people got in. Look at when NATO helped rebels overthrow Gadhafi, in the end Libya is still in a much worse state than it was before, It's a failed state now still with divided groups competing for control. Cruel to say this but sometimes, better the dictator you know, than the one who could be.
You should get more light on your face or turn of your cameras auto focus feature. It gets constantly confused and leaves your face blurry more often than sharp
are there dystopian books where the main character's do overthrow the dictator or big bad guys, but end up becoming the very same thing they destroyed? it happens in real life, it should happen in fiction
Watching this reminded me of a political science professor I had who raved about military coups. He had nothing but good things to say about times when the military would take over a government. He was from Eritrea, so from his lived experience being from an unstable part of Africa, the military were the ones deposing corrupt governments and restoring democracy. The way he explained it, solders are the lower classes and no one joins the military to get rich. When they take over, it's the common people ousting the corrupt upper class. And since the military already has a built in command structure and established organization, you don't have this post revolution chaos talked about here. As an American, this perspective was wild.
@@TheKrstff and I am from Egypt and he doesn't has authority to talk about the entirety of Africa as a piece of land especially about my country Because he wasn't talking about just his country but the entirety of Africa
Whaat No mention of mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson? This was the example where i learned that time after the revolution is even harder than the revolution itself.
Not going to lie, I love this stuff, it’s great for world building and writing stories. However every time that he says liberal in the same breath as revolution I have to do a double take. From the perspective of studying revolutionary ideologies that are all inherently revolutionary, calling something like an insurrection against an authoritarian dictatorship just to install another hierarchical government feels redundant. Why would we ever fight for possibly a lifetime if just to end up with the perfect breeding ground for the same system we just “escaped”. There’s nothing revolutionary about replacing one ruling class with another, it’s insurrection sure but for something to be truly revolutionary wouldn’t it change the base idea or social structure in the region?
he cant commit to his premise. because that would undermine his own position given he exists on youtube and makes money off of google. no one like a hypocritical hand biter. so he is going to go in with as much of a smokescreen of plausible deniability as he can muster to play both sides and not take a hard stance on anything.
I wrote this almost a year ago after digging deeper into history of my birth-country. I think it fits here. Identity crisis of a russian-born man. We're raised to European level standards of quality, rights, freedom of speech and belief, yet encounter a spiraling history of conflicts, bloodbaths, treason, militant groups all over the past century and present. Fighting those who were our allies, forfeiting treaties right after signing them, not even ceasing the fire in the middle of the talks, scamming entire nations - not to mention, our own people. Fake it till you make it.. we never did - only a handful of people, and yet those have the most blood-stained hands, shirts, and bills. The attempts at hegemony and control of the region and repeated collapses of it are comical when viewed from an outside perspective. You can't make a sweet treat out of poo - it may even look like one for a short while, but will never taste the same.
The core issues are in how things are done, played even, inside the people, their principles. Lack of motivation, some say. We were born this way. Raised mostly, too. Accepting what's available and too scared to achieve more. Only anomalies are able to stand their way through such - and what for? The state is "in shambles", the potential heroes - killed or silenced. They don't see support from the people as the people have no more will. The people want to be Left Alone. It's no surprise that the only chance to survive is to remove themselves from the immediate threat, trying your best remotely, only keeping the exposure via a distanced one (it too, at times, being closer than one hopes for). That, however, eases further distancing from within and opens up new opportunities to silence the whole ordeal, spreading further lies. Nobody can be trusted, they say. "Truth is more complex than that." It's the winners who write the truth, but the tactics are outdated, so the state actually loses. But only so for those who actually seek the truth. The commoner doesn't do it intentionally, there's no culture for it - instead, they try to keep up with enough to make somewhat of a guess out of the specially prepared food for thought, with spices and variety of just the right way to not be able to definitively say: "This is the position, the flavor of this place and cuisine." - instead, it's a mixture from all the sources available, a never-ending semi-improvised series where mishaps are common but forgotten, where the ingredients have rotten all the way down but have decently looking make up.. Sometimes, not even that. Systemic and planned bullying, setting up nations against each other in an attempt to worsen the consequences of the inevitable. The further blindness to it lead to what was planned but forgotten. Next, you're turning onto your brother, your farther, your mother, as "They don't understand. They're wrong, and need to be treated. Repaired. Fixed.", based on doctored claims that just so happen to align enough to make some resemblance of sense and then allow one to hypothesize their own findings. Oh so convenient, isn't it? A hilarious comparison comes to mind, as nowadays it's almost like some want this people to feel like Israelites, in a way. The "true inheriters", the "righteous", "with God on their side". And yet the religion is contradicting itself in the most awful way, praising those who go into battle. Promising heaven. And this is mere dozens of years after eradication of the institution of church altogether, spreading "scientific" beliefs, an attempt to nurture at least some sense. It's obviously another tool, used when it fits. Though sometimes you use an axe to nail things as you don't have a hammer. One wonders - when the handle scatters in pieces, what will get cut off by it's falling head? Everyone's at fault. And little to nobody blame themselves. Some do, but it won't reverse the action. A solution is necessary, yet nobody has one, apart from learning from the mistakes.
Paraphrasing Churchill: if you were given the choice between war and dishonour and chose dishonour, you will have both. All those people who try to be left alone and choose humiliation of living in a society like this in exchange for safety they won't be safe, they are signing their own sentence and reckoning is coming.
The glamour of revolution really dies when you realize how emotionally driven and how cruel they can be (sometimes even crueler than the very institutions they want to dismantle)
@BloomerMedia Extremism needs to be learned about and 'Some More News' is literally an entire channel about local and global issues, bad systems, and Extremism
The one revolution that actually succeded and wasn't overly emotional was the russian revolution. Too bad research is complicated, as half the literature is anti communist propaganda from the red scare onwards.
Much of our view on revolutions is tainted by the environment we live in. The fact that revolutions happen is proof that the underlying system failed. However, its far easier to hear about a thousand people being imprisoned and executed than to see the daily pain and suffering that might've otherwise occurred had a revolution not happened that was far worse in the long run. Yeah, some revolutions can be evil(just look at Germany with Hitler) but those revolutions are often the result of a faction trying to protect a ruling bourgeois class is failing due to its own internal problems. The problem revolutionaries face in those situations is that they find out its much harder to fix their bourgeois's internal problems than it is to try to wipe out potential adversaries of that bourgeois. And that's why the atrocities start.
@@ryelor123 Germany? There was no revolution. There was a successful coup. Beginning with Hitler being assigned Chancellor by President Hindenburg, in an orderly democratic process. Then through a series of machinations, Hitler gradually acquired ever more power.
Nobody in a revolution situation, none of the participants, think it's glamorous; but they do think it's necessary and the only way out. Because all attempts to affect the system from within have failed.
A great taste of the complexity of revolutions. It's not a subject I want to tackle in my own writing, just because of the sheer level of complexity, but I did like how a previous video mentioned it can just be a sort of set piece or trope, depending on the tone and focus of the story. Thanks for using a variety of real life and fictional examples! That helps a lot!
@@davidmauriciogutierrezespi5244 Makes sense,isuspect the duche with domes mighthave historians,and dome architects of course, And goblins hae a book review rivalry in export
@@marocat4749 i actually picture the duche of The Dom exports swords and fine tailored suits apart from historians The goblins have a review rivalry but they're network of infromants is without par, therefore having the best News of all.
The world we live in is the result of a revolution, a bourgeois/capitalist revolution, and it had it's fair share of setbacks before becoming the norm, a decade after the French revolution was cutting the heads of nobility, France was a monarchy again. Our world history is just a series of revolutions, doesn't mean any of those are simple, but also proves they are anything but impossible. The issue is people think history is a series of static events that happen in specific dates and suddenly everything changes, that the middle age peasent suddenly woke up a renaissance painter, when actually history is a much more gradual process, sometimes with 1 step forwards and 2 back.
Might the propensity to idealize an autocratic past have an element of survivorship bias? The people most severely oppressed by such systems may well be no longer able to object. The rise of neo-facism coincides with the passing of the generation that directly experienced what OG racism meant. It's not the only factor, but it seems to be *a* factor.
The problem is understanding who the actors are. The rise of neo-facism is real but its not due to the very people and groups accused of it. Neo-facism exists to try to strengthen the bourgeois class. So while the bourgeois class in America and Europe, for instance, may publically express seemingly leftwing views, in private and through nonprofits they express neofacist and racist views. Most people in America considered rightwing can't stand the neofacists and fight them all the time. This conflict isn't seen by people who just assume both rival groups are instead just one group. So while you may feel that giving money to a nonprofit organization that claims to "desire peaceful coexistence" will result in them spending the money pushing love and tolerance, its often more likely that the money is spent spreading racism and conflict. There is no doubt that the neofacist groups are coordinated and paid since they just don't act like people with strongly-held views. When you argue with them, its like you're arguing with someone who doesn't care about the truth but instead just speaks their lines. However, they are doomed since their groups are infiltrated.
American revolutionaries (1776), french revolutionaries (1789), british revolutionaries (1688), spanish revolutionaries (falangists are technically revolutionaries), latin american revolutionaries (1800-1980) and Botswana chilling: *I N T E R E S T I N G.*
One thing that was interesting to learn from history is that there is rarely *A* revolution. They usually come in pairs/trios. It's not unusual to see a liberal revolution face its own revolution that lands a country far more conservative than it was before.
Brilliant video as ever! I've been reading a lot of contemporary sources on the Communist revolution in Russia, and it's interesting to see the continuity that was felt with the failed 1905 revolution, as well as how the February Revolution was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Then, how the Bolsheviks immediately found themselves up against those challenges of meeting their promises, faced with huge interference from the Entente powers in WW1 (backing the White army in the civil war), the German and Austrian aristocrats looking for major gains from the revolutionary promise to end the war, and the desperate need to rebuild and then supply an army that they could rely on. In amongst all of which (as mentioned in the video) factional disputes and Stalin's machinations were already shaping up. I've wanted to write some kind of management sim video game about being a victorious leftwing revolutionary trying to keep a lid on all this, and many of the issues I've been thinking about how to frame in that way are covered. (A video game that does it from a more interactive novel kind of angle is Suzerain, which gives you options of which global/foreign powers to align with, as well as internal business leaders.)
Suzerain yeh it tough to communist dictator because military ups hate communist and their political parties has a less so it could turn sordland into socialism democracy I did playtrough I did great run I become ssp
20:34 - "All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Hi Tim, I've been enjoying your channel for some years now, but of late your videos have become even more interesting and serious (I think since the video about Unit 731). It's really captivating content. Keep it going! Love that you included Paul Artreides in the conclusion about the righteous revolutionary becoming the new repressice regime. Many people don't realize how deep Frank Herbert's analysis on this topic goes.
So many great examples of this. I just finished reading Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, and it does a great job of this. One of the central tensions of the story is a huge religious discrepancies around the dragons that exist in the world, and a lot of it is distortions of diegetic historical events.
Your video was amazing man its been 10 days since you posted man please post again soon man we miss your content! I also write video essays and your videos really inspire me
Terry Pratchett put it best. When revolutionaries do things for the people they quickly find that they've got the wrong type of people. How you respond to that is how you find out where you are on the morality scale.
14:24 It might be depressing, but one argues that there are no peacetime leaders, since the international community is mostly concerned with siege warfare and resource extraction on a very large scale. It might be better to say that some people can secure territory, some public support, and others trade.
The army in Egypt was already in control of large chunks of the civilian economy and the state. They decided to stop holding up Mubarak, but didn't want to give over their control of Egypt.
I think about these things like a 2x2 grid. You can be either a radical or a moderate in terms of methods and in terms of ends. You can have a very moderate person who doesn't want very much change at all and just doesn't like the current dictator who is fully willing to launch an insurrection and fight their neighbors for power. I think of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington who was fully radicalized in terms of methods but who were, in retrospective, leading quite a moderate revolution that didn't even free the slaves. It doesn't get more radical in in terms of methods than forming a militia and overthrowing the government. You can also have hardcore radicals aiming at full communism who are scared of even picking up a gun. Folks like Ledru Rollin or Martov or other "Democratic Socialists" are aiming for full communism eventually in their lifetimes but they just don't have the stomach for violence. They put far too much hope in peaceful protests, petitions, strikes, and democracy. And of course you can have peaceful moderates and violent extremists. Those are standard archetypes.
I think that peaceful moderates and violent extremists are more common because if your goals are modest there is less incentive to use violence. You have a reasonable chance of implementing small changes while still working within the system and even if you fail it's not the end of the world since you likely think the current system is pretty okay if all you want to do is tweak it slightly. Conversely it is very hard to make big changes to a system while simultaneously trying to work within that system, and you are probably less willing to accept failure if you think the system sucks so hard that it needs such major changes.
@@studentofsmith Yeah that is true. But if moderates believe that the system cannot be reformed or worse yet, there is backsliding in a more far right direction then moderates will pick up arms.
There is a TV show I watched a while ago called ‘Tyrant’. It shows a reasonably good example of this with a brother going home to his family who runs a dictatorship. And this brother wants to change it to a democracy because he’s lived in America and seen the freedoms. It’s a good exploration of how it’s just not so simple.
A lot of the scenarios mentioned could be avoided via anarchist methods of organisation. Hell, past societies worked pretty well on an internal basis, and only collapsed because of external invasion by states (Free Territory and Kronstadt taken over by the Soviets, Catalonia by Fascist Spain, Korean anarchist enclaves by the Japanese and Rojava currently facing incursions from Turkey). That sounds like a condemnation of anarchism, but all it really proves is that the point it raises about the state and unjust hierarchies are pretty much spot on (also something I'm planning to explore in my book series).
Is that true? Because I think to win a war, you need a merit-based hierarchy so that everyone can execute the plan perfectly. How anarchism can make everyone stick to the plan when hierarchy does not exist ?
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 temporal hierarchy in times of war, usually, with the understanding that you don't carry it back into the community. Pretty sure that's how Mahkno's Black Army worked, and it's kinda how the YPG in Rojava works. Obviously, I'm not a military expert, so I'd advise looking into both to confirm.
@@GallowglassVT and how to guarantee they don't bring it back to community? Are there punishment or something? How to enforce order and stability in anarchy society? How about the gun law? How the economy works? is there any tax? If not, the how to fund the revolution then?
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 safety nets in the form of rehabilitation and, in extreme cases, exile from the commune. The community may even decide to execute the offenders on extreme cases, especially in times of war. In past cases, there apparently wasn't much need because everyone's immediate needs were met, which left only exceptions to the rule (sociopaths that would thrive under capitalism). When it comes to being armed, most non-pacifist anarchists believe in the right to possess firearms, and as I mentioned earlier, safety nets exist to make sure the mentally ill don't have access to them. As for international funding, that defeats the point of anarchism. Besides Rojava, no other previous communities took support from other nations, outside of volunteers. The whole point is a self-sustaining horizontal society based on mutual aid and cooperation between the various communes, and as I said, the only reason previous attempts have failed isn't due to a failure of the ideology itself, but because of the very things it opposes.
It's a crime Disco Elysium isn't mentioned once as an example Edit: I just wanted to mention disco elysium has very thoughtful writing on ideology and revolution and then I get a dude in my replies who is a proper communist from the game: complains only that others aren't communist enough while contributing nothing to the conversation.
@@panoskatrin4910 you sound like a salty tsnkie lmao. Disco elysium was written by socialists, hence why communism and socialism is the most made fun of and critiqued ideology of the game. Other ideologies flaws are self évident, but you know a game is made by socialists when the line "communism has only succeeded 0.000% of the time in the world" exists because its the exact same as our own world. Only tankes and red-fascists who simp for Stalin, China or other genocidal states disagree.
@@bluexephosfan970 the video is devoid of any class analysis while also promoting the idea that revoloutions fall because of great men like stalin or mao.Disco elysium was filled with class struggle not once kras mavoz(marx and lenin) and ignus nilsen(engels and stalin) are portrait to be as these massive figures who somehow had the entire country be their property as stalin or mao are presented here.All this while the game dives into actual revoloutionary subjects!it was a game made by communists for communists who live in coutntries that experienced communist revolutions that were crushed like myself and you can so cleary see that and i am in love with harry because so much of revachol reminds me of my country As for the video no analysis of actual revolutions he brings up egypt ,keep in mind the arab spring at the end of the day was still a reformist capitalist movement seeking to establish democratic institutions without any attack on the political and economic structure of the country!The same capitalists who ruled under the dictatorship still do even in to this day in the democratic tunis or other succeful democratic arab spring countries(i dont think they are any) and the model to follow as a country for Tim is what?Our liberal western countries? When he talks about mao or stalin being autocratic no actual source is presentor analysis of why the infighting was happening just the claim what it was done due to ideological diffrences and it was used by stalin to gain autocratic power.Obsviously this falls into the category of the great man theory its the reduction of soviet revolutionary history the struggle of building socialism reduced to individuals who control entire nations, while of course not having any source.I know the aim of the video is not to be a history documentary but we cant talk about all these without examining historical sources.Workers councils(soviets) the diffrent factions within the communist party and their disagreements are not presented, the structure of the soviet system is not analysed of course its just simply autocratic with not needing to question anything simply relying on our already extisting biases which are created by the very capitalist society that we live in, we have all heard that the ussr was evil and that revolutions fail why provide a source?Why care to actually seek out a way to change the world for the better?I dont think tim is doing it on purpose but its a video that simplifies revolutions to such an extend that makes it anti revoloutionary not challenging our biases and instead conforming them while activly spreading anti communist propaganda this is what anti communist propagandas are at the end of the day a terrible simplification of past socialist experiements to a character of an evil nazi totalitarian kingdom
You ally with Goblin Kingdom, provide them access to raid other countries around Futurestan, in exchange have percentage from Gold and Gem mines in Goblin Kingdom. Use that money to create Swedish Syle Welfare state, have Goblin Kingdom train your army. Fortify like Switzerland. Success.
Speaking as a revolutionary marxist, you did pretty well with this video, the other ones too, revolutions are far from easy! My only criticism is that there could have been more examples of the successes of past revolutions.
From a more leftist perspective, I'd argue that while international pressure is obviously covered here, too much credence is given to natural division within revolutions and not enough credence is give to manufactured division. The short way of phrasing it is thus: if revolutions were really super prone to failure and return to autocracy, the United States would not have to be so darn good at regime change. The non-short way of putting it, because I'm a leftist: there are plenty of counter examples to the idea of authoritarianism naturally arising out, or being easier to arise out of left-wing revolution, especially in South and Central America. Take 1950s Guatemala. The dictator was overthrown by 2 military officers, and a formerly exiled professor became the democratically elected president, the first in the history of the nation. Guatemala had no history of any kind of democracy, they had just thrown out their old constitution and put in a new one like 2 days before the new president's inauguration, the old bureaucracy which formed the new congress had no real history of experience governing because they were purely figureheads in the previous regime, and the new guy was backed by the military. All the features of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," all the trappings of the makings of a dictator. But no! The new president helped instill democracy, helped guide congress to co-equal power, and began instituting reform. He didn't even particularly like the candidates to replace him at the end of his term, but he respected the 1 term (in 12 years) limit. Now, international (aka just the United States, acting on the behalf of one fruit corporation) influence did manage to overthrow the 2nd democratically elected president via *extensive* financial, military, and diplomatic support for an external, right wing military group, but it was neither the common people nor the original revolutionaries falling from grace that ended liberal democracy in Guatemala at that time. My argument would be that all of the factors that made revolution possible also make international influence easier, more pervasive, more systemic. And if you're the international influencer, it's also easier to make it look like natural division by bribing a few elites with the right passport or funneling weapons, money, and connections to the paramilitary group with the right looking leader. Although I should say, I don't disagree with the premise of the video, which is very good overall. I don't disagree with the fact that revolutions can be splintered, I just disagree with the source of division.
Where is the manufactured division in 1917 Russia? Who paid the Bolsheviks to convince the Meniviks at literal gunpoint, to then start going after each other, ahemm, trotzki, ahemm, ice pick...? Where is the manufactured division in 1919 germany? Why were different leftist groups butchering each other in the streets instead of preventing the rise of fascism? Nothing you wrote about Guatemala is wrong, but you picked one fitting example to argue for an alternative "general rule" that I don´t really see. I would say both can and did happen in history. And I would argue, most of the time, both happen. You need some kind of initial crack to drive a wedge in. And in terms of the certain Fruit Company, I think Guatemala is by far not the only country they had their greedy fingers in. I remember there was also a military coup in Turkey in the eighties, that ended in the military forcing reelections and then stepping back. But then again, we had Gadaffi, who started out not all that bad if you look into his early days, and then simply couldn´t let go, and it went down from there.
I found this interesting and searched it. My take to this is should the common enemy outweighs the natural division, no division will happen in a short while. Manufactured division though in my opinion is an amplification by an external force rather than manufactured out of thin air so whether it is greater depends on the existing division available to be exploited or the skill of the exploiter. You're highly likely to be right about this as manufactured division has higher potential to cause division depending on the scenario as it is proactively causing problems while natural divisions is sort of a reactionary one.
I think a really cool follow-up to this video would be an exploration, perhaps with hypothesization of how you or others may believe the founding fathers tackled this issue, and how the United States managed to avoid collapsing to this point. Democracies are stable as you said, so there is more resistance to ideological splintering. George Washington said don’t split into political factions, Lincoln said a house divided cannot stand. So how did we lose this mentality in the modern day and are the days of the US golden age numbered?
As long as your future conflicts stay within your borders and aren't forced onto us brown people again I don't care about what happens to the US. Your nation's "golden age" has been my peoples pain and suffering.
I love this!!! Honestly, this analysis feels so nice both for writing reference and also just...understanding real world current events and history and society and such. It is kind of sobering though, to think of just how hard it is to make a revolution work, and to consider all that's gone on in the world this past century. As an American, I feel like it's easy to romanticize revolutions, simply because the US had a relatively successful one...not without numerous problems, money being a big one, but it was probably made so much easier by the fact that Britain was an ocean away and the colonies had a preexisting governmental structure that could readily take over. It seems that to make a new government, you have to basically already have that structure in place, or you have to make one really fast, or else, the military is your structure, or something else. ...or maybe, you could argue that we *all* romanticize revolutions of the more distant past, because we are so far removed, that we don't see the immediate growing pains that people back then would have experienced. So yeah, I think in writing, it is good to keep this stuff in mind...even when not writing a complete dramatic revolution outright. It's just a good study into human behavior and how factions interact, honestly
Well it is also worth remembering that the initial society in the United States failed after a time. The systems that were put in place and protections for certain wealthy elites in the south ended up clashing with the initial revolutionary ideology and growing progressive sentiment as time went on. Thats a big driver of why the Civil War happened. Some historians say that the Founding Fathers believed that the Slavery Issue would sort itself out gradually over time, but they were wrong about that.
One thing I'd point at is that revolutions tend toward extremes, which while understandable because it's those extremes which drive people to fight more than a centre position, but it makes them brittle like raw iron. A stable system is one which incorporates many elements of different systems to cover weaknesses, like good spring steel. Constitutional monarchy providing separation of powers (among many other things) plus democratic legislation seems a winning combo for example, which very few revolutions have attempted.
It is like raw iron, to make steel requires them to lose what they had and gain something new so they can become better. Yet too often the rebel still think the cold iron is gonna keep people in line forever. Until the new rebels bring steel
@@ExeErdna Well, the cycle unfortunately tends to be that more rebels bring less rusty raw iron which falls apart just as rapidly. The alloy is needed to end the cycle of violence, oppression and instability, but as I said it's rare for a revolution with a balanced agenda to get off the ground. Not impossible though. Compare the fall of the USSR with the fall of Spanish fascism.
@@BernddasBrotB7 Since it's based upon what happened to them. The USSR was doomed from the jump and only "worked" because a gross amount of people were dead. What happened with the Spanish was an afterthought. These days revolution is like protests it doesn't benefit those doing it. Yet those that will exploit it later
One example of great revolutionaries is Mustafa Kemal Attaturk. He promises progress, modernization, secularization, human rights and democracy. Although as a tyrant because he need a dictatorship to implement his policies in a heavily conservative society and at the end he gave up his power to the people he could entrusted with to guarding the democracy until they purged out quite recently.
I feel like the lady with the shoe was Snowpiercer, but does anyone have an idea what movie it was that looked like Bruce Willis as a military commander on Fox News around the 16:05 mark?
Really nice videos, love your work disagree with a lot of your conclusions specially the ones regarding the USSR and Stalin but I understand that research time is limited and the most easily accessible sources are the go to in this kind of situations, great work regardless
He's not a historian, political scientist or intellectual in any capacity after all. Personally, i believe he shouldn't have touched these matters to begin with, since they require half a lifetime to even get the facts right (mostly due to propaganda), still, i respect this channell. Cheers comrade.
What did he say wrong? Stalin was an anti-democratic autocrat. That's not debatable. Nor is it debatable that the USSR carried out ethnic/anti-queer purges alongside political purges.
The first I reminded me of Peter Turchin. According to Turchin, instability can be attributed to two factors: popular well being and elite overproduction. Popular well being has to do with how well people are doing. It is made up of four categories: employment prospects, relative wage, health, and family. Employment Prospects: This has to do with labor supply in proportion to labor demand. More supply in proportion to demand lessens prospects for workers. Relative wages: This metric measures income inequality which is calculated by finding the difference between GDP per capita (average) and median wages (median). Health: This measures expectation of life and average height. Family: People tend to get married when they're ready to settle down. This can happen sooner when economic conditions are good. In 1890, grooms were, on average 26/27 while brides were 23/24. The age hit its all time low in the 50s when labor power was at its all time strongest and houses were cheap. Grooms were 24 and brides were 20/21. Today, the age is at an all time high of 30 for first time grooms and 28.6 for first time brides. Elite overproduction refers to the number of qualifying elites compared to the number of positions available. There are three categories: top wealth, cost of education, and elite fragmentation. Top wealth: Wealth of the wealthiest person divided by median income Cost of education: Cost of attending an elite university divided by median income Elite fragmentation: Political polarization Popular well being is important because people want to thrive. When that is not the case, people look for answers to their problems. When people do not thrive, revolution does. The people leading the revolution are disgruntled elites who are looking for a way to seize power and use a revolution to do so. Increasing income inequality does both. It decreases popular well being as some fall from the middle class into the lower class. On the other hand, some rise into the upper class, leading to elite overproduction. In a democratic society, it results in the cost of winning elections rising as more people vye for positions and as the amount of money which can be spent on elections increases.
This is honest to god how the game Frostpunk works. The game is basically what if SimCity but everyone is starving and freezing and will publicly execute you if you don't fix their issues. They always start with things like, "Okay we will be ethical and make the right decisions!" followed by "Oh god we have a resource shortage... Child Labor or 24 Hour Emergency Shifts?" and then at the end of the game it is like, "Do we just make it legal for people to Duel in the streets and kill each other to keep the Discontent under control?" It gets even better in the DLC scenario The Last Autumn where you have to manage a work site and you can legitimately have a communist or fascistic revolution occur on the jobsite depending on your decisions. "Yeah we should have a Union of the workers! Oh god... the workers are suggesting dumb changes that will slow down the project. Well let's make a council for the workers... aaaand now they are corrupt power mongers..."
I’m surprised you went through this whole thing without referencing Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer saga which explores these very ideas in TWO different revolutions, one with Dazen Guile, and one with the Color Prince.
It’s a shame this guy won’t re-examine his interpretation of socialist leaders. 18:05 could I be wrong and clinging to the ideology of perfection? No, it’s the socialists who are idealists!
![On Worldbuilding: How an Empire Falls? [ Game of Thrones l Avatar l Byzantine ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jAKfs0TaOR4/mqdefault.jpg)
Chaos is a ladder.
~ Tim (well, Baelish)
or a Napoleon. Sometimes you get a Napoleon, and hey if not for Russian Winter and health issues...... Man gave it a very good run. that Dictatorship is easier as you said.
must stop those (former Colonies) I mean COMMUNISTS! from doing stuff!
I mean that means 62% said fuck that though. Almost double have the opposite opinion.
Growing is a ladder,angle numbers,vibration,and the nerve system are just metaphysical/phycoligical ladder.
Lol😊
One thing that always kind of annoyed me is that historically we tend to remember revolutions for what came of them rather than what caused them. Comfortable people dont go to war over ideology.
Exactly, it's almost as if we're sitting in a world with governments and media that actively push an anti-revolutionary narrative...
Except the Slave owning Plantocracy of the United States. They were just a bunch of rich White dudes who didn't want to pay their fair share of taxes and wanted to steal more Indian land.
Making the American Revolution different in that respect. Here we have tried to prevent the conditions that lead to our Revolution. At times that may be difficult to see I know. It is one of the reasons that our politics are so brutal. It's a kind of Revolution every voting cycle. I for one, wouldn't have it any other way. It is the price of our freedom.
And in the case of the American Civil War which cost the lives of 750,000 Americans...we see that American tried and failed to prevent the outbreak of widespread violence. @@Helm-w1q
@@Helm-w1q Hilarious.
1. The American "Revolution" was not a revolution. A bunch of second sons of British aristocracy didn't want to pay taxes (more than half of whom were also slave owners) so they founded their own country. The Founding Fathers actively despised democracy (which we would call direct democracy) and James Madison (another slave owner) in particular had some very unsavory things to say about it. That is the polar opposite of the goals and nature of every real attempt at revolution a.k.a the rising up of the oppressed underclasses against an oppressive hierarchy.
2. To compare American elections to revolutions in any way is a farce. See above. Liberal representative democracy is not meant to allow the people to actually make any radical changes, but to give the illusion of choice while keeping power firmly in the hands of the same political and economic elite.
Why do you think there are two political parties that are near identical on economic and foreign policy? Why do you think electoral colleges exist, or the two same parties have been taking turns for over a century and a half?
The US foreign and domestic policies are designed specifically to carry out goals for the benefit of the US corporate elite and always have been. They spend American lives like small change for the sake of corporate profit, and they slaughter non-Americans with the same brutality as any dictatorship.
When was the last time an American was charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity?
Why has the US spent much energy and money suppressing democracy and revolutions in other countries?
Do you think the US government and economic establishment has any higher regard for American citizens? Then why do they keep moving American jobs abroad to be done in sweat shops? Ehy do so many Americans live poverty?
You speak of freedom, but what you have is slavery, the sort that deserves a real revolution. The problem is the people of the USA have been conditioned to believe that what they're offered is the only choice and that slavery is freedom.
Tim: Imagine you're from a small, economically unstable country without much international influence...
Me, watching from Zimbabwe: no need to imagine here😅.
At least you badasses were cool enough to beat down your colonial oppressors. Here in Mexico we still are forced to play nice with our American oppressors.
@@jonh5832 And don't forget the influences of Spain as well. Just like with the actual Native Americans, there's so much negative colonial impact in any place touched by Western European imperialism.
@@jonh5832 and look where that got them.
And Mexico today would be an ACTUAL Cartel State if it weren't for the US so stop whining.
Edit: spelling mistakes
@echidnanatsuki882 Zimbabweans got freedom and sovereignty over their own land. The cartels are as powerful as they are because of the US. The US literally trained the cartels how to fight. The large majority of the firearms that the cartels have come straight from the US as well. The CIA got their undisciplined yankee population addicted to drugs so that the cartels would have a constantly growing yankee customer base. If Mexico shakes off its anglo oppressors, the cartels will cease to exist.
@echidnanatsuki882 NATO is the world's largest terrorist organization btw.
Those who start revolutions rarely end up in power.
It's always those who bring the revolution to a conclusion.
if youre smart you hire or give power to a "hero" and make em a martyr.
Then you step on the hero's corpse and sit on the throne
@@johnynoway9127Stalin did that
@@falconeshield pretty much every person in power has done it
Most revolutionaries make the mistake of only leading one coup.
Revolutions *happens* no one "start a revolution" they happen and someone take the power
As a Thai person who is living in a country that is undergoing massive social revolution, your series looking into the complexity of revolution has been very interesting to me as many of your points resonates with what is going on right now in Thailand. For example: how people who are on the same side with the revolutionaries might not even understand or be into the revolution's ideology... They just HATE the current regime who is being cartoonishly evil to the point that they are even dumbly alienating the upper class people in the society. (Many of my associates are politicians in the Move Forward Party that I guess would be the revolutionaries in our current situation. They are quite surprised that they have gained this much support this quickly as they had previously expected that it would take some times for the conservative Thai society to get behind their heavily liberal ideologies. They didn't expect that the regime will act this stupidly and become ridiculously hatable.)
For those of us less familiar with Thai news, can you discuss a little bit about (1) what the military government did that was so farcically hatable, (2) why the Move Forward Party achieved dominance yet could not have its leader become prime minister, and (3) why the Thai military junta has not simply done what the Burmese junta did and simply ended the democratic "experiment" when it did not work in their favor.
@@oremfrien (1)
It is hard to condense what they have done in the past 8 years into a few lines or even a few pages, so this will be a long answer. To be clear, their actions are a mixture of ridiculous evil and stupid evil. What they have done might not be the most evil thing dictators or juntas have ever done, but their actions are often farcical in a ‘why would you do that?’ kind of way which have increasingly turning off even their own supporters aside from the most zealot ones.
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For example.
- Among their numerous acts of corruption, they starved school children, literally stealing children’s lunch money while pushing the military spending on expensive military equipment that never get used as well as splurging on the living hood of the generals.
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- When the military government’s salary is criticized, their people snap back that their well paid salary can’t be cut down or they won’t have enough to eat.
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- Then, despite the fact that Thai people are already sensitive about the school lunch thing, people find out that there is a chapter in the current edition of elementary school kid’s schoolbook celebrating not having enough to eat with a kid character who could only afford a single boiled egg for dinner proclaiming that “being happy is about choosing to be satisfied” and her boiled egg lunch is the most delicious in the world. This really ticked people off because the military government is known to make many revisions to school books including praising ‘dictatorship’ as an act for good with the then junta as the example of a good man.
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- AND THEN, one of their ministers chooses to protect the school book by saying that “there is nothing wrong with boiled egg because my boy likes it” and claiming that the opposition is brainwashing people to cancel boiled egg.
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Or other examples
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- The military government ironically run the military so poorly that the forcibly recruited soldiers die horribly quite often due to abuse. Not only are abuses rampant, and the recruits have to live off watery vegetable soup with almost no protein (my brother’s personal experience), the recruits are used as unpaid servants in the generals’ households. As a result, many of the soldiers have mental issue that are severely ignored. Combining that with poorly guarded weapons, some of the poorly treated soldiers turned into crazed gunmen. When violent incidents occurred, the junta prime minister and his party didn’t even try to appear sorry or sympathetic to the loss. In one of the infamous cases of “why would you do that?!” the junta made a ‘mini-heart’ pose when he had to visit the scene of the shooting.
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- Despite their habit of buying expensive weapons (that either don’t work or aren’t used), they like to ignore genuine threats to the country. Many time when Myanmar army’s fight got into Thailand territory, with villages being terrorized and boats being looted, the military government did nothing with the explanation that “Oh, that’s just some silly misunderstanding.”
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- Appointing an ex-drug dealer as one of the ministers who they claimed was only selling ‘powder’. Coincidentally, under the military government regime, drug price falls to the lowest in Thai history with the addicted number rising rapidly.
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- Also made weeds legal with NO regulation as it is the minister of health’s financial benefit.
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- Denied any rising drug issue as fake news. Said that the real problem is the youngsters being brainwashed by the westerner (AKA the Americans) to hate them.
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- Oppressing creative economy with the junta himself literally said in an interview something along the line of “Thai people are only good for agricultural stuff.” It is quite common for him and other military higher ups to give interviews saying that Thai people are stupid which is why they must make decisions for us.
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- THEN they claimed to have always supported 'soft power' while still oppressing the creative economy to give themselves more budget to steal from (based on the accounts of many Thai film and series directors).
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(2)
The military government created a special system which they appointed 250 senators who have the power to vote for the prime minister. Their votes override the citizen votes UNLESS there is a landslide victory which didn’t happen. OF CAUSE, the junta-appointed senators didn’t vote for a Move Forward party prime minister. Many of the senators echo the junta’s sentiment that we Thai people don’t know what is good for us, which is why they need to make the decision for the country.
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The Move Forward party (based on my friend’s account as one of the party members) has actually expected that they won’t become the government yet this round. They are playing the long game as more and more Thais become fed up with the old system.
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(3)
The military, which is deeply tied with the monarchy with the generals including the junta proclaiming themselves to be “the king’s soldiers”, still wants to keep the illusion of democracy to appear righteous even though they are horrible at it. Also, the richest and most powerful families in Thailand, who are financial supporters of the royal family, won’t like that illusion to be gone as it will affect their businesses.
@@oremfrien To add on a bit on why the gov was evil in a dumb way, their regime (including what I didn’t mention in the previous reply since … they did A LOT of things) screwed over everyone from the poor to the middle class and even some of the super riches, and their own soldiers aren’t into them (with a bunch of soldiers voting for the Move Forward party), which was indeed evil but stupid as they should have curried favor with some people aside from the hardcore royalist zealots (who make them even harder to not hate). The junta having a short fuse and zero diplomatic skill also resulted in him insulting too many people whom he would benefit to tolerate him.
@@oremfrien a shame Thailand couldn’t be like Taiwan and have the dominating party allow democracy without a bloody civil war
@@oremfrienI'll never be able to capture the complexity of modern Thai politics in a s8nggle youtube comment (which to my mind is still much of the old one). But to make it a bit simple.
1. The Thai military has engineered coups all throughout Thai history. 13 have been successful, and many more unsuccessful. The Thai military is famously corrupt, with many similar business deals to most other khaki capitalist economies. but perhaps the darkest aspect is how deeply they have been involved in making Thailand into their image in their process of nationbuilding. Famous fascist dictator Phibun is the one who gave the country its name and created pad thai. We can also argue that his military camp re-instored the monarchy to full glory in the post-war period, enhanced its cult worshipping, and did everything to stop communism (with the US's support). Which in time means establishing disdain for leftist politics in Thailand, exemplary with the massacre at Thammasat University in 1976. Today the army is juggling political and economic power with oligarchs and aristocrats, which makes for an unstable political climate centered around a relatively profitable and protectionist economy.
2. The MFP didnt get to put a prime minister in power because the army designed the constitution and appointed the senate. It didnt have enough seats to win, even with the popular vote because of those appointees. And more recently, their political allies in the opposition the Pheu Thai Party (PTP), led by the Shinawatra family and a good analogue for pro-money oligarchs decided to form their own coalition with the support of military backed conservatives. This shows that money really is all that matters, and as long as Thaksin cuts in his military allies on payouts he'll get to play with power. Something he didn't do back then, which cause the 2006 and 2014 coups in the first place.
3. Democracy in Thailand is older than the concept of Thailand and Thainess itself. It is not an experiment by the military, but a promise from 1932 that has never been fully realised. The military is making a compromise to pacify political and economic stakeholders, including foreign powers. They also know that combat as in Myanmar is a very bad idea. They aren't smart, but they don't want outright warfare either.
Revolutions can fail for so many reasons. For writing Revolutions, it might be good to show the Revolution failing, during or before the story.
@@slevinchannel7589 Under extreme circumstances, extremism always ends up displacing the moderates
I don't think its that revolutions fail, its just that its not a quick process. However, if a revolution is conducted due to misunderstandings or for the wrong reasons, then they can easily make situations very bad. For instance, Marx argued that the main enemy of the workers was the bourgeois class. However, the bourgeois class was weak and no longer the dominant capitalistic class by the time of the Russian Revolution. The business class - often made up of outsiders and nobodies - was far more dynamic and effective than the bourgeois and many of its failings in Russia were due to the dying bourgeois and aristocracy trying to bring it down. This is why corporate free market capitalism did so well compared to Russian marxism. Marxism was superior to the bourgeois capitalism of the 1850s where the upper class in the various cities and even towns stifled industrialization in order to protect their own positions of power. However, improvements in transportation due to the Bessemer process making steel rails affordable made bourgeois capitalism obsolete and caused its fall. So when the Russians overthrew the corporate free market industrialists, then didn't destroy the thing holding their empire back but instead they themselves became the issue holding Russia back. If the revolutionaries in Russia destroyed the aristocracy and weakened the bourgeois, then Russia would've been much more powerful.
Commonwealth Minutemen have entered the chat
@@tanostrelok2323 Ok but what do you think of the channel i mention?
Or even an idealistic revolution succeeding in the Prologue, only to become the Empire to be overthrown in the rest of the story.
I like how in Doctor Who, in best speech called Scale Model of War, he asked rebelling alien what she'll do about people like her, the troublemakets, after she wins and what her new world will look like? Will there be music, movies, etc. and she didn't have any answer, she was just saying we'll win and then we'll figure it out.
Also in Eragon they devoted over 100 pages to: Well, we won, now what? And they were supressing rebellions, arguing between allies,... and it even ended with new ruler saying"I don't think I'll have a calm day till the rest of my life, but maybe my children will inherit peaceful kingdom.
Much like the Quellists in the Takeshi Kovacs novels, who preferred to go down in a blaze of glory......and the first families came back out of the ashes again...
In the original Mistborn trilogy, the first book deals with the overthrow of the Lord Ruler, while the second two books deal with the aftermath of
"We once fought together for an ideal with our swords. It wasn't for power or for glory, but to create a peaceful world where people could live without fear. And, if you should forget about that, then what did we fight the revolution for?" - Kenshin Himura.
Maybe not quote a character whose creator is a registered sex offender, bro.
@@IliyaMoroumetz It is indeed a shame that the creator is a registered sex offender, but that doesn't stop Rurouni Kenshin from being great. at least in my opinion.
@@IliyaMoroumetzthis is a good example of ad hominem fallacy: attack the source, making no actual argument about the validity of the point made
@@IliyaMoroumetz its a good manga.
Considering Kenshin is a decade older than his second wife...
We shouldn't have been surprised
Though Kenshin's son does take an older girl as his lover so his family even things out
I have not watched Mando, so I'm sitting here listening to you describe scientists being rolled into powerful systems during a postwar period and all I'm hearing is a fictionalized description of Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim for the UDSSR were a little different tough. They took the Specialists from another state to use for their own technological advancment while the New Republic took the Scientists of their own State, formerly ruled by the Empreror, to reintegrate.
So the more accurate comparison would be Germany and Austria after WW2 pardoning and reintegrating Scientists, Teachers, Judges, Politicians into their new democratic State. What they actually did.
Austria because we liked the Idea of beeing the first victim of Nazi Germany and therefore are free from guilt. Ignoring thousands of Austrians serfing in Germanys Terror Machinery. We got Doctors back into hospitals who contributed in Genocide and mass murder of handicapped children. We got politicians in the government who serfed in the SS etc.
Germany denazified better, but still there were plenty former Nazis in the Secrete Service, Teachers etc.
And, sadly, there is a good reason to do so. Those people were well educated, well trained and experienced administrators. All the stuff you need to run a government. And this is something a revolutionary government has to consider as well. They need expirienced administrators, lawyers, judges to run the country.
At least to me, one of the striking things in the Andor series is just how competent and effective the high-level Imperial bureaucrats are. There's definitely a "banality of evil" angle, but the some of those characters are just awesome bosses/managers.
ETA: In Mando, there is an Imperial character who really is reformed (and wasn't really bad to start with)... I won't spoil it. His arc isn't an explicit crossover with Andor, but that subplot is more like the tone of Andor than Mando. I wouldn't describe it as "fun".
@@travcollierAnd there's another ex-Imperial working in the New Republic's bureaucracy, but is a spy for one of the ousted Imperial officers still running around.
@@dawoifeeExactly for whatever reason people never seem to realize that the Empire is the Republic. Sheev didn't overthrow anything he simply engineered a situation where he was given dictatorial powers entirely legally.
I love these multi part series on geopolitical functions(like the empires one and this). Like all of these videos they really help with research for my political fantasy setting. There really is nothing else that goes into such detail and stays understandable. Thanks so much!
Failure to gain a competing claim to monopoly of force, treason from within, apathy from without, there is a list of variables. Looking forward to your thoughts.
treason within depends about the theme of rebellion.
Well it seemed the video more discussed the aftermath of revolutions rather than the revolutions themselves
@@quickcube2834perhaps a more precise choice of words would be “perceived treason from within,” since there’s almost always a paranoid sentiment of internal treachery at some point, whether it happens to be substantiated or not.
I came to Egypt a couple of months ago as a refugee and the first thing I noticed were the armed police forces occupying every street corner, when I asked about it I was told that 'he who must not be named' has placed them as a preemptive warning in response to the rising frustration due to inflation and increased prices. My own country's revolutionary history mimics that of Egypt, and as someone who has worked in the civilian government after the military regime was ousted I have come to realize that revolutions rarely work without international support and international actors (and their citizens) rarely care about the developing world, elite in fighting and failed promises has led my own civilian government to be ousted in 2 years and replaced once again by a military coup. History always repeats itself.
The Hunger Games is written in the present tense. It really pulled you into the experience of the characters. Glad to see it appreciated on this channel
Ngl I was part way into the video and you were like "when you're writing a revolution" and I was like "oh yea, this video is about writing, not doing"
The line is thin
I feel like Disco Elysium does a really good job of covering a time of postrevolution
It's one of my favorite things about that game setting.
I've only be able to play a little bit of it and didn't want to spoil it for myself in research but I *love* it so far. And some really insightful political commentary too.
~ Tim
@@HelloFutureMe yes!! It’s a really good and (in my opinion) fairly realistic portrayal of how people live in, with, and around competing ideologies.
@@Jszar yeah it’s so goooood
Bringing up DE is basically cheating.
"if we kill one dictator, what stops another from taking their place?"
-random rebel from ghost recon wildlands
Nothing literally nothing !
In the Discworld series, the dictator of the power city state Ankh-Morpork is Havelock Vetinari. He rules with an iron fist, but he stays in power because all the rival factions hate each other more than him. Vetinari made himself so indispensable that he’s the only one who can fix whatever chaos comes the city’s way. In fact, life in the city state got horribly worse when he got deposed; so much so that the protagonists begged him to come back to power.
Classic divide and conquer
And the best part of it was he was the leader of the revolution overthrowing himself
He had unlocked the most amazing power possible: he could see the present.
Vetenari the real Kwisatz Haderach.
Not a Dictator but a Tyran....Absolutely not the same, XD
@@kernelpanikk5151 potayto potahto
Also keep in mind, the faction that overthrows the dictator might not be the one to rule afterwards. There might be a different faction that has hidden in the shadows and now uses this moment of weakness to barge in and take power themselves.
The end reminded me of the Whiskey Rebellion, where President Washington sent the US Army to put down a rebellion about taxation on whiskey. Yeah, everyone can hear the historical parallels.
Not really, the colonies rebelled over being taxed without representation. The people who revolted over the whiskey tax did have representation in congress.
@@gabrielespana319 no 2 problems are ever the same, and I don’t condemn Washington for his actions. The problem with the “post-revolutionary period” is that no matter how legitimate or secure that you claim to be, you have just proven that a revolution is POSSIBLE AND ACCEPTABLE, in fact when you have been in power for so short a time you don’t have the cultural solidity to be presumed to be the right kind of government. You have to secure your new government against the exact same kind of people you were just working with.
For example, Patrick Henry was a massive influence for independence. When the Constitutional Convention was held he refused to attend because as he said, “I smell a rat!”
To his credit, Washington personally led the army to stop the Whiskey Rebellion. Not that he was some great guy, but at least he had some accountability.
Apparently by the time his army got there, his negotiators had already resolved it. The ultimate result was that this proved the post-convention U.S. government could solve these sorts of problems without having to resort to violence.
@@dantecarangelo1083 The threat of violence was there and almost certainly played a part in the Whisky Rebels accepting the terms that Congress "negotiated".
blackshirts and reds is needed 😂
Desperately
Parenti is a gem, one of the best leftist American writers
One of my favorite recent revolution stories is actually from the Snow version of Snowpiercer. It has a revolution that, spoiler alert, goes well. But it also puts a lot of focus on the Rebels leadership post revolution, and how they tackle a lot of the same/similar problems the old guard had to face.
The writing wasn't always there, but still a really fun and interesting show.
Something you really have to remember is that with outlandishly rare exceptions, the dictator isnt overthrown unless the military ALLOWS the dictator to be overthrown.
The peasants storming the palace is a nice trope, but a mob of unarmed or melee armed peasants loses to a handful of well-fed palace guards with machine guns 10 times out of 10. Which is whybwith every irl revolution mentioned, the leader is only deposed once the generals join the revolutionaries and the soldiers either lay down their weapons or actuvely join the mob.
@@runajain5773 can you try that again in English? I have no idea what you just said
@@cmd31220sorry i a m not good at english i am just saying hitler was soldier in ww1 army when germany was defeated in ww1. he went bavair when he enter politics he already had good relationship militry when he become there is coup basically saying militry will not coup you .if you have good relationship militry and general no fear of coup but is not so stalin did purge militry gereneral
Also there great video how hitler enter in politics so you understand
@runajain5773 yes but none of that changes the fact that the revolution doesn't succeed unless the army allows it to happen. Stalin purged generals in part BECAUSE of this.
He purged generals that were more loyal to Trotsky and replaced them with those loyal to him. Same with bureaucrats, party officials, governors, everything. Hitler did the same. It's what every good dictator does when they take power because right after your ascension is when your hold on power is the weakest.
It's also the same reason revolutions so quickly devolve into dictatorships of their own. Those that help you win power aren't necessarily the ones that help you KEEP power and the history of politics is the balancing act between those two groups
One thing Trump proved though was civilians can do a LOT of damage before the military shows up.
@FirstnameLastname-bp2pg lol what damage? I mean seriously in the grand scheme of things what damage was caused and if the the capitol police actually felt like shooting how many would have even gotten to the barriers, let alone in the building?
As maybe the only person other than Martin who's ACTUALLY interested in Aragorn's tax policy, thank you, Tim. These videos are always amazing and inspiring and I thank you for what you do for the writing community.
I have always been curious about the economic and social policies of Middle-Earth's nations and rulers!
@@valerynorthI know there was wealth and treasures in Middle Earth. The dwarves definitely had coins and gold. But, it's so weird to think of Elrond or Galadriel ever needing to think about money. Was there a vault of gold underneath Lothlorien? Or did Galadriel just trade fancy rope and potions to people in order to get whatever she wanted?
@@annamelvina216 Also - where did the Lothlorien elves get the grains for the bread they made? No farming that we can see, and we know they were by 3rd Age Middle-Earth an insular people. Similar questions about the metal for their arrowheads. The Hobbit at least depicts the trade relations of northern Middle-Earth and how the overthrow of Smaug affects them!
@@valerynorthThe bread is actually explained. It is made from a special corn gifted to the Elves by the Valie Yavanna, and only Elven matriarchs are allowed to make the bread or teach how the bread is made.
@@italianserge That doesn't explain where they *grow* the corn, though, which is the economics question that bothers me about Elvish society.
Have you watched Andor? I think you'd like it, they tell the story of rebellion but from the perspective of individuals, how does one go from keeping their heads down to fighting oppression head on.
I think it has some really nice themes
Agree. It is also really good at showing the process of a nuance of oppression scattered through out the environment developing into full on fascism.
@@d.rabbitwhite well fascism in Star Wars is tied to Satan worshippers; whereas Nazism in real life was created by… a Gnostic race cult…. Hmmmmmmmm.
@@d.rabbitwhite
It's interesting to compare Andor with The Mandalorian, which emphasizes how dysfunctional The New Republic is.
Things are unlikely to get much better in the short term so revolutionaries need to be patient and take a long view.
But if they were patient would they be revolutionaries?
The failure of Indonesian Communist Party's revolution (and it's complete failure and subsequent annihilation) can also be an interesting case study
As far as i know, it was basically western imperialism, right? Like most communist movements
Which one? The PKI tried a revolution, failed horribly and got purged twice, once at Madiun against Sukarno's nationalists in 1948 and once against the rising power of the military nominally alongside Sukarno in 1965. It was after the latter that 1.5 million of them were killed by the New Order in their third, largest and final purging. It was also the latter, @brunoactis1104, where the forces of reaction had Western backing and CIA interference on their side - the former was entirely an internecine dispute between nationalist revolutionaries of different political bents.
@@kingofcards9yes cheering on the deaths of 1.5 million people is good
@@kingofcards9- Only the evil-minded would revel in the evil deeds of others.
@@glizygxbler3131 oh please, acting as if I wanted 1.5 million people dead simply because I don't like authoritarian communist states is stupid.
Should I say you are cheering on the deaths of millions if you wanted the Nazis destroyed?
Communism has killed millions more than they ever helped but go on being a bootlicker.
I really-really love these newer type of video ideas from you. Youre (not) comparing fantasy/sci-fi world building to real life, rather, you show how some of those concepts have inflicted people irl. Based
This is extremely helpful and well timed for me! I’m working on building a faction heavy warring kingdoms world right now and learning more about revolutions and dictatorship is super useful!! Thank you!!
Thank you. I was stuck and hadn't written in weeks, and this episode sparked ideas that added complexity to my story that got me writing again.
I’ve been seeing tons of Revolution/rebellion based videos lately 👀 feels like we’re bound for some historical moment this decade
Well even ignoring any country specific politics, climate change is about to cause A LOT of strife and conflict.
@@BeergardeningI live in Russia. Climate change is great. Removes the permafrost bit by bit, makes the northern territories more fertile, the heat makes it more comfortable over here.
I see more and more people on the internet hating Russia and Russians so I care less and less what happens to the rest of the world.
I'm sick of living through historical moments
@@Sacchi682 I'd rather live through them than die because of them
@@trashpanda684As Serbian living though them, since I was born, only for first war to start when I was six, they still take a big toll on you. I do think the OP you are commenting on, just wished for some boredom when it comes to large, tumoltuos events that affect whole regions and millions of people. As others already suggested, I doubt we gonna get lucky.
"Chaos is a ladder" is such a good quote
I think it's more like
"Chaos is a laddah!"
Also an overused quote
@@balabanasireti because it's so good.
I really wish the creatives at Disney Star Wars had employed people with actual writing skills/knowledge like this for the Sequel Trilogy.
Rebels, Rogue One, and Andor lay the groundwork for what's explained here, expanding on all the different factions that made up the Rebellion. Mon Mothma's & Bail Organa's disillusioned senators, vs Saw Gerrera's whatever it takes gorilla fighters, vs the industrial interests of worlds like Corellia & the Mon Calamari, etc. These groups have vastly different goals, power bases, and obligations.
Even the remnants of the Empire are a much more dynamic and interesting, as shown in Battlefront 2 campaign and with Mayfeld in Mandalorian. Providing even more opportunities for great story telling.
That's not even touching on the ethical problems around droids...
Instead we just got; hey the Empire 2.0 is here... and they brought yet another bigger, badder Death Star.
Yeh like it feel you destroy powerful empire then defeat his reminant weaker empire faction become way stronger than older one like wth
And then at the end, every enemy ship is a Death Star too.
Yeah, they really really screwed the pooch with the sequel trilogy. The additional travesty is that there were so many plots available from the Star Wars novels; not all canonical of course, but people would have responded much better to some variant of those plots, instead of the garbage ideas they did some up with.
I still feel sorry for the young actors, having their careers tainted by the shitty plots & egomaniac executive negligence, which they were asked to hold together.
Imagine if The Force Awakens was this intense spy film where people wanna overthrow the Republic and Luke etc. Are having to sort of deal with the dillema of being a super power being and whether they should interfere or if his duty is to just see what the people want etc. Couldve been interesting and maybe explained Kylo Rens fall to the dark as him seeing the jedi as this overpowered institution or something. No Emperor, you could have Imperial Remnant maybe trying to take advantage of the turmoil etc.
And the cherry on top,
Somehow, palpatine survived.
@@wyldhowl2821From what I've read it's because Disney gave the creatives very little time compared to even the prequels, and meddled in everything out of a desire to squeeze every last dollar out of it, even if it creatively doomed the franchise.
I have listened to a podcast about revolutions and as soon as you were talking about the splits in the alliance after overthrow the regime my immediate thought was “yup, there’s the entropy of victory from all of them
A thing I now realize is that the USA was born from a revolution in a sea of absolutism and we somehow avoided a American dictatorship despite it being a possibility bc George was a military general after all
You didnt avoid it. America was a dictatorship, you avoided nothing. Its just that 'dictatorship' isnt used when the perpetrators are westerners. America enslaved millions, killed millions, and started as many wars as it could manage, some for oil some for political power. In the era of Washington it was slavery and colonialism, in the 20th century it was anti-communism and installing fascist dictators willy-nilly. America simply avoided being poor.
Victory breeds division. When revolutionaries no longer have a common and obvious enemy, it is likely to spiral into infighting and massive power struggles
Tocqueville remarked something to the effect of "After victory, one needs to face oneself"
@@paavobergmann4920”The world became ours, and we lost it. Nothing, it appears, is more challenging to the souls of men than victory itself.
Or was that victory an illusion all along? Did our enemies realize that the harder they fought, the stronger we resisted? Perhaps they saw that the heat and the hammer only make for a better grade of sword. But ignore the steel long enough, and it will eventually rust away.”
The back cover of The Way Of Things.
I’m just working through Volume #1 of On Writing & Worldbuilding and you have done a fantastic job! Huge help with defining the techniques, features and styles of writing
Well that's an interesting video, which be useful for both real & fictional scenarios.
Facts
The Goblin Horde reside within the nearby Goblin Kingdom where they review books and get really hype doing silly bits.
As an Egyptian, for anyone interested, even though Sisi technically took power through a military coo. Morsi (of the Muslim Brotherhood) was a corrupt leader just as bad if not worse than Mubarak, who was quite openly corrupt. As a Coptic (we are a minority race in Egypt...we trace our ancestry back to Pharaohs, although obviously bloodlines have absolutely mixed over the years) there was genuine and true fear that Morsi would take power. Copts were persecuted and murdered quite regularly throughout Egyptian history by extremists (from which Morsi identified) and government officials (ala Mubarak, Sadat, and Nasser) to pit Copts against Muslims. The revolution bridged quite a few gaps between the 2 groups. Sisi has thus far shown more willingness to not murder us than previous rulers of Egypt. Forget equal treatment, we would just like to not be killed. E.g., Sisi popped into an Easter mass, this has never happened by an Egyptian leader. By doing that he acknowledged us as humans. In the new Cairo museum, Copts have a spot for their heritage artifacts, as well.
Things are not perfect and I won't sit here and tell you Sisi, is a nice or even perfect ruler. However, this is one of those EXTREMELY RARE cases where the military coo was actually better than the "elected government." Again I put that in quotes as Morsi's election was extremely corrupt, and people were threatened with violence, death, or destruction if they did not vote for Morsi. It's a very layered situation there and it goes back very far. The west saw military coo and instantly said "bad", understandably but it came from a place of ignorance.
Bro stop spreading misinformation
A good counter question would be: How have revolutions in the past succeeded? Why are Cubans so happy and satisfied with their government, despite crippling sanctions?
Or the Vietnamese
Part of it is their belief in Fidel Castro as their protector and liberator.
Cubans happiness with their current system is due to entrenched censorship & surveillance.
Cuba is famously known as the place where a doorman earns more than a doctor.
This is only possible if you hide alternatives outside the country or restrict freedom of movement.
By most standards, they haven’t. I have looked, and have yet to find a violent revolution which left its people better off in terms of personal freedoms, standard of living, or life expectancy. Even the most justified revolutions in history (ie Haiti) just make things worse for the people they claim to fight for.
@@thrawncaedusl717I mean I hate to be the stereotypical American, but the American revolution turned out pretty well, all things considered. Granted, it was a bit different, as we already had quasi-local governments and were fairly autonomous overall, and the "revolution" was mostly just removing the colonial overseers. We kind of already had governments in place, so there wasn't as much of a power vacuum.
To be fair, the articles of confederation were kind of a disaster, and I'd argue that Washington almost singlehandedly prevented the executive from becoming a dictatorship (they literally wanted to appoint him king, and he turned it down, instead going for an (at the time) extremely informal term, "president," as well as establishing all sorts of other norms for the presidency like term limits). There is a perfectly plausible future where the US government either collapsed under infighting between states, or Washington could have easily become a dictator if he had wanted to.
One of the main problems that revolutions face is that the revolutionary forces need to be a minimal coalition in the sense that, once they take power, the support of every constituent group is necessary to maintain the government and that swapping any one of them for some other faction would also hurt one of the other original groups. If this is not the case, then the other factions would be tempted to remove said other group in order to claim more power for themselves and the government would devolve into infighting (as a side note, that is why I consider corporate governments as portrayed in many cyberpunk stories to be unrealistic: shareholders rely on the legal system for their power and so, after the company takes over, they would be easily moved out of the way without risking a loss of control (unless they have the backing of some foreign government), but that means that they would want to prevent the company from getting into a position where it might take power, in the first place). At the same time, the revolutionary forces also need to be strong enough to even remove the current government, but the revolution will likely change the balance of power between the factions and so it is very difficult to meet both of those requirements, at the same time. The 'traditional' solution to this problem is to have the revolutionary forces be composed of very similar groups (so the balance of power is unlikely to shift much, between them), but then it is also very easy for them to set up a dictatorship, rather than anything bordering on democracy, to benefit themselves at the expense of the general populace.
That's why in a lot of cyberpunk there's no "winning" just surviving long enough to understand the scope.
This is a great look into some of the reasons revolutions are more complicated in real life than in fiction; though I think there is perhaps a good reason few fictional stories explore the subject properly, and the main reason is that complexity. Usually a story has a protagonist who is a specific person, or at most a half dozen people, but a real revolution requires a significant chunk of the population to be involved. The antagonist is normally also a single individual, but in a real revolution it is the existing institutions, often inherently impersonal. A lot of revolution are really just power fantasies, a protagonist overcoming the authorities that frustrate us in the real world. Most of the rest work on the level of metaphor. The government does things in such a bizarre way and unrealistic way because it is a metaphor for something else; it might not even be about government policy. A dystopia where people are separated into castes might just be a metaphor for how people are forced into certain social roles because of they rely on stereotypes and assumptions to understand others and themselves. The authority of a government works as a metaphor for how difficult it is to resist the widespread human tendency.
That bit about idealizing the past really hit home. In Portugal it´s still common to see older people idealizing Salazar´s regime as a time of order and stability, when the government wasn´t corrupt and was efficient, as opposed to today. Hell , even young people grow up hearing this kind of crap and they also come to idealize or respect the figure of Salazar as an efficient leader, despite being able to search on the internet the data that contradicts all the points mentioned above.
Really sad to see near-fascism (or just straight up fascism) resing up again in my country, supported not only but the old, but the young too.
You can personality of cult it happen when one politician hardcore popular with his regime so people will always support even you did worse when person like you said
On of the struggles I've had lately, especially after watching some of these recent videos, is a feeling of displaced hopelessness in my ability to ever properly/compellingly write a lot of these topics. There are just so many factors to track even before you put characters into the story.
Don't give up! It's a lot, but you don't have to do everything all at once. Write what you like, little by little, and then you'll write a masterpiece (or at least something you live) in no time🙃
Also don't let these things distract you from the real goal: making an awesome emotional experience for the readers. Your world building and political maneuvers might not be the stuff of pentagon case studies, but as long as the overall story is a powerful emotional experience, it worked
There was a show on FX a few years ago called Tyrant which dealt with this exact issue. The main character overthrew an Islamic state and tried to implement reforms and release political prisoners. But one of those same prisoners then launched a counter revolution against his secular government so in order to gain back control, he became a tyrant. The same one he overthrew before
The story is loosely based on the life of Bashar-Al Assad of Syria
Feel like all these revolution videos have you on some kind of list now
And what does that say about the "free world"? Because what you're saying might not even be a joke.
List of what?
A Cia recruitment list maybe.
@@CarrotConsumer think he do not know about cia back on dictatorship everyworld
@@CarrotConsumer CIA: Communism bad? Social Change and Revolution Bad? Yeah your in buddy welcome to da club.
Dr. Who gave a brilliant speech on this topic. Somewhat paraphrased(because, you know, it’s Dr. Who. Aliens are involved) it goes:
“It’s not fair? Oh, well, goodness me, I didn’t realize it was unfair! And when the war is over? What, are you gonna have a homeland, free from your oppressors? Will people live in houses? Will people have jobs? Oh, do you think there’ll be music? Will people be allowed to play violin? Who’s gonna make the violins? You don’t know, do you? Let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you’ve killed all the bad guys, and everything is perfect, and just, and fair, and you’ve got everything exactly the way you want it, what are you gonna do, with the people like you? The troublemakers? How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?”
We must also remember as well, that to people looking at democracies from outside view, sometimes all you can see or hear is the fact that is about 600+ elected MPs (UK as example) all who seem to be caught in scandals half the time, and seem to just push policy anyway even if the public don't support the policies. And in reality you have have two choices to choose from in who runs the Nation, a two party state which is not really democratic when you only have two options who seem be just as bad as each other. To an outsider they might think," Well this is silly, why have 600 corrupt leaders, when we already have one corrupt leader, likely cheaper too".
We must also admit the fact that some democracies today have been sliding towards more controlling, right limiting, freedom of speech suppression policies recently (USA,UK). I mean once those virtues of freedom are started to be eroded by elected governments, at some point people might just wonder what's the point of electing people if they're corrupt and will just limit our rights anyway. A democracy can be as authoritarian and tyrannical as any Monarch or Dictatorship. Just look at Athens and even the Roman Late republic.
The dark secret is, most revolutions are either squashed, or just morph into a monster as bad as the old system. The American Revolution is actually a rarity in how it came out as a stable and actually decent place to live. I think Modern Hollywood and Americanism has kind of infected the idea of revolution in the eyes of western people and media, making it seem like they're always noble and actually win. When historically there are countless attempts of revolutions or rebellions that are put down in the end, or are just as bad people getting in power.
The Arab Spring is for example in the end a failure as well, it did not achieve much since either the old powers stayed in place, the country collapsed or worse people got in. Look at when NATO helped rebels overthrow Gadhafi, in the end Libya is still in a much worse state than it was before, It's a failed state now still with divided groups competing for control.
Cruel to say this but sometimes, better the dictator you know, than the one who could be.
The American revolution to me is the most romanticized revolution of human history. 🇺🇸
It’s the only successful one
You should get more light on your face or turn of your cameras auto focus feature. It gets constantly confused and leaves your face blurry more often than sharp
are there dystopian books where the main character's do overthrow the dictator or big bad guys, but end up becoming the very same thing they destroyed? it happens in real life, it should happen in fiction
Animal farm is kinda of what your looking for
Spoilers for books from the 60's and the movies releasing currently
Dune
Dune.
Dune Sequels.
The B plot to Solar Opposites
Watching this reminded me of a political science professor I had who raved about military coups. He had nothing but good things to say about times when the military would take over a government.
He was from Eritrea, so from his lived experience being from an unstable part of Africa, the military were the ones deposing corrupt governments and restoring democracy. The way he explained it, solders are the lower classes and no one joins the military to get rich. When they take over, it's the common people ousting the corrupt upper class.
And since the military already has a built in command structure and established organization, you don't have this post revolution chaos talked about here.
As an American, this perspective was wild.
Huh makes you wonder if Hello Future Me knows what he is talking about and isn't just some neoliberal cuck with zero class consciousness.
As a egyptian. He doesn't know what he is talking about
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl To be fair, he was from Eritrea and was probably living there during the war for independence.
@@TheKrstff and I am from Egypt and he doesn't has authority to talk about the entirety of Africa as a piece of land especially about my country
Because he wasn't talking about just his country but the entirety of Africa
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl he wasn't talking about Africa, he was talking in general that military coups tend to oust corrupt regimes.
Whaat No mention of mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson? This was the example where i learned that time after the revolution is even harder than the revolution itself.
Not going to lie, I love this stuff, it’s great for world building and writing stories. However every time that he says liberal in the same breath as revolution I have to do a double take. From the perspective of studying revolutionary ideologies that are all inherently revolutionary, calling something like an insurrection against an authoritarian dictatorship just to install another hierarchical government feels redundant. Why would we ever fight for possibly a lifetime if just to end up with the perfect breeding ground for the same system we just “escaped”. There’s nothing revolutionary about replacing one ruling class with another, it’s insurrection sure but for something to be truly revolutionary wouldn’t it change the base idea or social structure in the region?
he cant commit to his premise. because that would undermine his own position given he exists on youtube and makes money off of google. no one like a hypocritical hand biter. so he is going to go in with as much of a smokescreen of plausible deniability as he can muster to play both sides and not take a hard stance on anything.
@@thenightwatchman1598So in other words, the liberal stance.
@@darksaint0124 Exactly.
I wrote this almost a year ago after digging deeper into history of my birth-country. I think it fits here.
Identity crisis of a russian-born man.
We're raised to European level standards of quality, rights, freedom of speech and belief, yet encounter a spiraling history of conflicts, bloodbaths, treason, militant groups all over the past century and present. Fighting those who were our allies, forfeiting treaties right after signing them, not even ceasing the fire in the middle of the talks, scamming entire nations - not to mention, our own people. Fake it till you make it.. we never did - only a handful of people, and yet those have the most blood-stained hands, shirts, and bills.
The attempts at hegemony and control of the region and repeated collapses of it are comical when viewed from an outside perspective. You can't make a sweet treat out of poo - it may even look like one for a short while, but will never taste the same.
The core issues are in how things are done, played even, inside the people, their principles.
Lack of motivation, some say. We were born this way. Raised mostly, too. Accepting what's available and too scared to achieve more. Only anomalies are able to stand their way through such - and what for?
The state is "in shambles", the potential heroes - killed or silenced. They don't see support from the people as the people have no more will. The people want to be Left Alone.
It's no surprise that the only chance to survive is to remove themselves from the immediate threat, trying your best remotely, only keeping the exposure via a distanced one (it too, at times, being closer than one hopes for). That, however, eases further distancing from within and opens up new opportunities to silence the whole ordeal, spreading further lies.
Nobody can be trusted, they say. "Truth is more complex than that."
It's the winners who write the truth, but the tactics are outdated, so the state actually loses. But only so for those who actually seek the truth.
The commoner doesn't do it intentionally, there's no culture for it - instead, they try to keep up with enough to make somewhat of a guess out of the specially prepared food for thought, with spices and variety of just the right way to not be able to definitively say: "This is the position, the flavor of this place and cuisine." - instead, it's a mixture from all the sources available, a never-ending semi-improvised series where mishaps are common but forgotten, where the ingredients have rotten all the way down but have decently looking make up.. Sometimes, not even that.
Systemic and planned bullying, setting up nations against each other in an attempt to worsen the consequences of the inevitable.
The further blindness to it lead to what was planned but forgotten.
Next, you're turning onto your brother, your farther, your mother, as "They don't understand. They're wrong, and need to be treated. Repaired. Fixed.", based on doctored claims that just so happen to align enough to make some resemblance of sense and then allow one to hypothesize their own findings. Oh so convenient, isn't it?
A hilarious comparison comes to mind, as nowadays it's almost like some want this people to feel like Israelites, in a way. The "true inheriters", the "righteous", "with God on their side". And yet the religion is contradicting itself in the most awful way, praising those who go into battle. Promising heaven. And this is mere dozens of years after eradication of the institution of church altogether, spreading "scientific" beliefs, an attempt to nurture at least some sense. It's obviously another tool, used when it fits. Though sometimes you use an axe to nail things as you don't have a hammer. One wonders - when the handle scatters in pieces, what will get cut off by it's falling head?
Everyone's at fault. And little to nobody blame themselves. Some do, but it won't reverse the action. A solution is necessary, yet nobody has one, apart from learning from the mistakes.
Paraphrasing Churchill: if you were given the choice between war and dishonour and chose dishonour, you will have both. All those people who try to be left alone and choose humiliation of living in a society like this in exchange for safety they won't be safe, they are signing their own sentence and reckoning is coming.
@@KaterynaM_UA Well, sometimes you could choose war and get both.
The glamour of revolution really dies when you realize how emotionally driven and how cruel they can be (sometimes even crueler than the very institutions they want to dismantle)
@BloomerMedia
Extremism needs to be learned about and 'Some More News' is literally an entire channel about local and global issues, bad systems, and Extremism
The one revolution that actually succeded and wasn't overly emotional was the russian revolution. Too bad research is complicated, as half the literature is anti communist propaganda from the red scare onwards.
Much of our view on revolutions is tainted by the environment we live in. The fact that revolutions happen is proof that the underlying system failed. However, its far easier to hear about a thousand people being imprisoned and executed than to see the daily pain and suffering that might've otherwise occurred had a revolution not happened that was far worse in the long run. Yeah, some revolutions can be evil(just look at Germany with Hitler) but those revolutions are often the result of a faction trying to protect a ruling bourgeois class is failing due to its own internal problems. The problem revolutionaries face in those situations is that they find out its much harder to fix their bourgeois's internal problems than it is to try to wipe out potential adversaries of that bourgeois. And that's why the atrocities start.
@@ryelor123 Germany? There was no revolution. There was a successful coup. Beginning with Hitler being assigned Chancellor by President Hindenburg, in an orderly democratic process. Then through a series of machinations, Hitler gradually acquired ever more power.
Nobody in a revolution situation, none of the participants, think it's glamorous; but they do think it's necessary and the only way out. Because all attempts to affect the system from within have failed.
A great taste of the complexity of revolutions. It's not a subject I want to tackle in my own writing, just because of the sheer level of complexity, but I did like how a previous video mentioned it can just be a sort of set piece or trope, depending on the tone and focus of the story. Thanks for using a variety of real life and fictional examples! That helps a lot!
the splintering of factions spawned out of Poland's Solidarity movement is facinating
Right - both major Polish political parties are descended from rival factions of Solidarity.
It's easy to overturn the apple cart.
It's quite another thing to pick up the pieces.
0:04 Saw this and yeah, the Disheveled Goblin being unable to hold onto much territory makes sense, however what is the gverment system in Merphy Land
A textatorship? Per laweveryone has to read a book,or audiobook per week, muhahaha 😂
Oh and undulated is banned
@@marocat4749 Their chief import are book reviews and scholars
@@davidmauriciogutierrezespi5244 Makes sense,isuspect the duche with domes mighthave historians,and dome architects of course,
And goblins hae a book review rivalry in export
@@marocat4749 i actually picture the duche of The Dom exports swords and fine tailored suits apart from historians
The goblins have a review rivalry but they're network of infromants is without par, therefore having the best News of all.
Brilliant video. I don't think that necessarily revolutions are that impossible, but they're certainly much more complicated than people think
The world we live in is the result of a revolution, a bourgeois/capitalist revolution, and it had it's fair share of setbacks before becoming the norm, a decade after the French revolution was cutting the heads of nobility, France was a monarchy again. Our world history is just a series of revolutions, doesn't mean any of those are simple, but also proves they are anything but impossible.
The issue is people think history is a series of static events that happen in specific dates and suddenly everything changes, that the middle age peasent suddenly woke up a renaissance painter, when actually history is a much more gradual process, sometimes with 1 step forwards and 2 back.
Might the propensity to idealize an autocratic past have an element of survivorship bias? The people most severely oppressed by such systems may well be no longer able to object. The rise of neo-facism coincides with the passing of the generation that directly experienced what OG racism meant. It's not the only factor, but it seems to be *a* factor.
you might be onto something
The problem is understanding who the actors are. The rise of neo-facism is real but its not due to the very people and groups accused of it. Neo-facism exists to try to strengthen the bourgeois class. So while the bourgeois class in America and Europe, for instance, may publically express seemingly leftwing views, in private and through nonprofits they express neofacist and racist views. Most people in America considered rightwing can't stand the neofacists and fight them all the time. This conflict isn't seen by people who just assume both rival groups are instead just one group. So while you may feel that giving money to a nonprofit organization that claims to "desire peaceful coexistence" will result in them spending the money pushing love and tolerance, its often more likely that the money is spent spreading racism and conflict. There is no doubt that the neofacist groups are coordinated and paid since they just don't act like people with strongly-held views. When you argue with them, its like you're arguing with someone who doesn't care about the truth but instead just speaks their lines. However, they are doomed since their groups are infiltrated.
@@ryelor123 Nice conspiracy theory you’ve got there, it’d be a shame if someone applied critical thinking to it.
@@laecard1778 It's literally not
There is no such thing as neo fascism
American revolutionaries (1776), french revolutionaries (1789), british revolutionaries (1688), spanish revolutionaries (falangists are technically revolutionaries), latin american revolutionaries (1800-1980) and Botswana chilling:
*I N T E R E S T I N G.*
One thing that was interesting to learn from history is that there is rarely *A* revolution. They usually come in pairs/trios. It's not unusual to see a liberal revolution face its own revolution that lands a country far more conservative than it was before.
Why does the map at 19:24 show Crimea as part of Russia?
Itsprobably not intentional.
@@marocat4749 I hope so
Brilliant video as ever! I've been reading a lot of contemporary sources on the Communist revolution in Russia, and it's interesting to see the continuity that was felt with the failed 1905 revolution, as well as how the February Revolution was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Then, how the Bolsheviks immediately found themselves up against those challenges of meeting their promises, faced with huge interference from the Entente powers in WW1 (backing the White army in the civil war), the German and Austrian aristocrats looking for major gains from the revolutionary promise to end the war, and the desperate need to rebuild and then supply an army that they could rely on. In amongst all of which (as mentioned in the video) factional disputes and Stalin's machinations were already shaping up.
I've wanted to write some kind of management sim video game about being a victorious leftwing revolutionary trying to keep a lid on all this, and many of the issues I've been thinking about how to frame in that way are covered. (A video game that does it from a more interactive novel kind of angle is Suzerain, which gives you options of which global/foreign powers to align with, as well as internal business leaders.)
Suzerain yeh it tough to communist dictator because military ups hate communist and their political parties has a less so it could turn sordland into socialism democracy I did playtrough I did great run I become ssp
Man you really took a deep dive into revolutions
Extremism needs to be learned about and 'Some More News' is literally an entire channel about local and global issues, bad systems, and Extremism
20:34 - "All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Hi Tim, I've been enjoying your channel for some years now, but of late your videos have become even more interesting and serious (I think since the video about Unit 731). It's really captivating content. Keep it going!
Love that you included Paul Artreides in the conclusion about the righteous revolutionary becoming the new repressice regime. Many people don't realize how deep Frank Herbert's analysis on this topic goes.
So many great examples of this. I just finished reading Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, and it does a great job of this. One of the central tensions of the story is a huge religious discrepancies around the dragons that exist in the world, and a lot of it is distortions of diegetic historical events.
love your cinematic intros. and your videos in general. you’re such a master of atmosphere, your nonfiction feels like fiction!
Your video was amazing man its been 10 days since you posted man please post again soon man we miss your content!
I also write video essays and your videos really inspire me
Terry Pratchett put it best. When revolutionaries do things for the people they quickly find that they've got the wrong type of people.
How you respond to that is how you find out where you are on the morality scale.
What film/show were those scenes of military rule in New York City from?
Found it, its the Siege (1998)
14:24 It might be depressing, but one argues that there are no peacetime leaders, since the international community is mostly concerned with siege warfare and resource extraction on a very large scale. It might be better to say that some people can secure territory, some public support, and others trade.
that's objectively false, and I live in Ukraine, one of very few places in the world that actually has a non-peace leadership.
The army in Egypt was already in control of large chunks of the civilian economy and the state. They decided to stop holding up Mubarak, but didn't want to give over their control of Egypt.
Correct
The fact that the October Revolution was not touched upon even once
Would recommend "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics". CPG Grey has a good video synopsis if you want a TLDR.
I think about these things like a 2x2 grid. You can be either a radical or a moderate in terms of methods and in terms of ends. You can have a very moderate person who doesn't want very much change at all and just doesn't like the current dictator who is fully willing to launch an insurrection and fight their neighbors for power. I think of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington who was fully radicalized in terms of methods but who were, in retrospective, leading quite a moderate revolution that didn't even free the slaves. It doesn't get more radical in in terms of methods than forming a militia and overthrowing the government.
You can also have hardcore radicals aiming at full communism who are scared of even picking up a gun. Folks like Ledru Rollin or Martov or other "Democratic Socialists" are aiming for full communism eventually in their lifetimes but they just don't have the stomach for violence. They put far too much hope in peaceful protests, petitions, strikes, and democracy.
And of course you can have peaceful moderates and violent extremists. Those are standard archetypes.
I think that peaceful moderates and violent extremists are more common because if your goals are modest there is less incentive to use violence. You have a reasonable chance of implementing small changes while still working within the system and even if you fail it's not the end of the world since you likely think the current system is pretty okay if all you want to do is tweak it slightly. Conversely it is very hard to make big changes to a system while simultaneously trying to work within that system, and you are probably less willing to accept failure if you think the system sucks so hard that it needs such major changes.
@@studentofsmith Yeah that is true. But if moderates believe that the system cannot be reformed or worse yet, there is backsliding in a more far right direction then moderates will pick up arms.
There is a TV show I watched a while ago called ‘Tyrant’. It shows a reasonably good example of this with a brother going home to his family who runs a dictatorship. And this brother wants to change it to a democracy because he’s lived in America and seen the freedoms. It’s a good exploration of how it’s just not so simple.
It's actually based loosely on Bashar al-Assad, back during the mid-2000s when it seemed he would be a reformist force.
A lot of the scenarios mentioned could be avoided via anarchist methods of organisation. Hell, past societies worked pretty well on an internal basis, and only collapsed because of external invasion by states (Free Territory and Kronstadt taken over by the Soviets, Catalonia by Fascist Spain, Korean anarchist enclaves by the Japanese and Rojava currently facing incursions from Turkey). That sounds like a condemnation of anarchism, but all it really proves is that the point it raises about the state and unjust hierarchies are pretty much spot on (also something I'm planning to explore in my book series).
Is that true? Because I think to win a war, you need a merit-based hierarchy so that everyone can execute the plan perfectly.
How anarchism can make everyone stick to the plan when hierarchy does not exist ?
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 temporal hierarchy in times of war, usually, with the understanding that you don't carry it back into the community. Pretty sure that's how Mahkno's Black Army worked, and it's kinda how the YPG in Rojava works. Obviously, I'm not a military expert, so I'd advise looking into both to confirm.
@@GallowglassVT and how to guarantee they don't bring it back to community?
Are there punishment or something?
How to enforce order and stability in anarchy society?
How about the gun law?
How the economy works?
is there any tax?
If not, the how to fund the revolution then?
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 safety nets in the form of rehabilitation and, in extreme cases, exile from the commune. The community may even decide to execute the offenders on extreme cases, especially in times of war. In past cases, there apparently wasn't much need because everyone's immediate needs were met, which left only exceptions to the rule (sociopaths that would thrive under capitalism). When it comes to being armed, most non-pacifist anarchists believe in the right to possess firearms, and as I mentioned earlier, safety nets exist to make sure the mentally ill don't have access to them. As for international funding, that defeats the point of anarchism. Besides Rojava, no other previous communities took support from other nations, outside of volunteers. The whole point is a self-sustaining horizontal society based on mutual aid and cooperation between the various communes, and as I said, the only reason previous attempts have failed isn't due to a failure of the ideology itself, but because of the very things it opposes.
@muhammadashshiddiq8752 side note: taxes may exist on a temporary basis, but most operate on mutualism (see Proudhon for more info on that)
Splinter revolutions where the empire loses pieces but still remains are interesting too
Very interesting concept to go very in depth in.
Extremism needs to be learned about and 'Some More News' is literally an entire channel about local and global issues, bad systems, and Extremism
It's a crime Disco Elysium isn't mentioned once as an example
Edit: I just wanted to mention disco elysium has very thoughtful writing on ideology and revolution and then I get a dude in my replies who is a proper communist from the game: complains only that others aren't communist enough while contributing nothing to the conversation.
I know right
@@bluexephosfan970 its because its pro comunist and the video is actively anti revoloutionary itself
@@panoskatrin4910 that's a misreading of the video tbh
@@panoskatrin4910 you sound like a salty tsnkie lmao.
Disco elysium was written by socialists, hence why communism and socialism is the most made fun of and critiqued ideology of the game. Other ideologies flaws are self évident, but you know a game is made by socialists when the line "communism has only succeeded 0.000% of the time in the world" exists because its the exact same as our own world.
Only tankes and red-fascists who simp for Stalin, China or other genocidal states disagree.
@@bluexephosfan970 the video is devoid of any class analysis while also promoting the idea that revoloutions fall because of great men like stalin or mao.Disco elysium was filled with class struggle not once kras mavoz(marx and lenin) and ignus nilsen(engels and stalin) are portrait to be as these massive figures who somehow had the entire country be their property as stalin or mao are presented here.All this while the game dives into actual revoloutionary subjects!it was a game made by communists for communists who live in coutntries that experienced communist revolutions that were crushed like myself and you can so cleary see that and i am in love with harry because so much of revachol reminds me of my country
As for the video no analysis of actual revolutions he brings up egypt ,keep in mind the arab spring at the end of the day was still a reformist capitalist movement seeking to establish democratic institutions without any attack on the political and economic structure of the country!The same capitalists who ruled under the dictatorship still do even in to this day in the democratic tunis or other succeful democratic arab spring countries(i dont think they are any) and the model to follow as a country for Tim is what?Our liberal western countries?
When he talks about mao or stalin being autocratic no actual source is presentor analysis of why the infighting was happening just the claim what it was done due to ideological diffrences and it was used by stalin to gain autocratic power.Obsviously this falls into the category of the great man theory its the reduction of soviet revolutionary history the struggle of building socialism reduced to individuals who control entire nations, while of course not having any source.I know the aim of the video is not to be a history documentary but we cant talk about all these without examining historical sources.Workers councils(soviets) the diffrent factions within the communist party and their disagreements are not presented, the structure of the soviet system is not analysed of course its just simply autocratic with not needing to question anything simply relying on our already extisting biases which are created by the very capitalist society that we live in, we have all heard that the ussr was evil and that revolutions fail why provide a source?Why care to actually seek out a way to change the world for the better?I dont think tim is doing it on purpose but its a video that simplifies revolutions to such an extend that makes it anti revoloutionary not challenging our biases and instead conforming them while activly spreading anti communist propaganda this is what anti communist propagandas are at the end of the day a terrible simplification of past socialist experiements to a character of an evil nazi totalitarian kingdom
You ally with Goblin Kingdom, provide them access to raid other countries around Futurestan, in exchange have percentage from Gold and Gem mines in Goblin Kingdom. Use that money to create Swedish Syle Welfare state, have Goblin Kingdom train your army. Fortify like Switzerland. Success.
Based Foreign policy maker
Speaking as a revolutionary marxist, you did pretty well with this video, the other ones too, revolutions are far from easy! My only criticism is that there could have been more examples of the successes of past revolutions.
I.. you should rewatch
From a more leftist perspective, I'd argue that while international pressure is obviously covered here, too much credence is given to natural division within revolutions and not enough credence is give to manufactured division. The short way of phrasing it is thus: if revolutions were really super prone to failure and return to autocracy, the United States would not have to be so darn good at regime change.
The non-short way of putting it, because I'm a leftist: there are plenty of counter examples to the idea of authoritarianism naturally arising out, or being easier to arise out of left-wing revolution, especially in South and Central America. Take 1950s Guatemala. The dictator was overthrown by 2 military officers, and a formerly exiled professor became the democratically elected president, the first in the history of the nation. Guatemala had no history of any kind of democracy, they had just thrown out their old constitution and put in a new one like 2 days before the new president's inauguration, the old bureaucracy which formed the new congress had no real history of experience governing because they were purely figureheads in the previous regime, and the new guy was backed by the military. All the features of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," all the trappings of the makings of a dictator. But no! The new president helped instill democracy, helped guide congress to co-equal power, and began instituting reform. He didn't even particularly like the candidates to replace him at the end of his term, but he respected the 1 term (in 12 years) limit. Now, international (aka just the United States, acting on the behalf of one fruit corporation) influence did manage to overthrow the 2nd democratically elected president via *extensive* financial, military, and diplomatic support for an external, right wing military group, but it was neither the common people nor the original revolutionaries falling from grace that ended liberal democracy in Guatemala at that time.
My argument would be that all of the factors that made revolution possible also make international influence easier, more pervasive, more systemic. And if you're the international influencer, it's also easier to make it look like natural division by bribing a few elites with the right passport or funneling weapons, money, and connections to the paramilitary group with the right looking leader.
Although I should say, I don't disagree with the premise of the video, which is very good overall. I don't disagree with the fact that revolutions can be splintered, I just disagree with the source of division.
Very well put.
The answer is better than the video itself.
Where is the manufactured division in 1917 Russia? Who paid the Bolsheviks to convince the Meniviks at literal gunpoint, to then start going after each other, ahemm, trotzki, ahemm, ice pick...? Where is the manufactured division in 1919 germany? Why were different leftist groups butchering each other in the streets instead of preventing the rise of fascism? Nothing you wrote about Guatemala is wrong, but you picked one fitting example to argue for an alternative "general rule" that I don´t really see. I would say both can and did happen in history. And I would argue, most of the time, both happen. You need some kind of initial crack to drive a wedge in. And in terms of the certain Fruit Company, I think Guatemala is by far not the only country they had their greedy fingers in.
I remember there was also a military coup in Turkey in the eighties, that ended in the military forcing reelections and then stepping back. But then again, we had Gadaffi, who started out not all that bad if you look into his early days, and then simply couldn´t let go, and it went down from there.
I found this interesting and searched it. My take to this is should the common enemy outweighs the natural division, no division will happen in a short while. Manufactured division though in my opinion is an amplification by an external force rather than manufactured out of thin air so whether it is greater depends on the existing division available to be exploited or the skill of the exploiter. You're highly likely to be right about this as manufactured division has higher potential to cause division depending on the scenario as it is proactively causing problems while natural divisions is sort of a reactionary one.
I think a really cool follow-up to this video would be an exploration, perhaps with hypothesization of how you or others may believe the founding fathers tackled this issue, and how the United States managed to avoid collapsing to this point. Democracies are stable as you said, so there is more resistance to ideological splintering. George Washington said don’t split into political factions, Lincoln said a house divided cannot stand. So how did we lose this mentality in the modern day and are the days of the US golden age numbered?
As long as your future conflicts stay within your borders and aren't forced onto us brown people again I don't care about what happens to the US. Your nation's "golden age" has been my peoples pain and suffering.
Tim's revolutionary arc
19:40
Liberal democracy is a Bourgeoisie Democracy. Of course, it's not good for the normal people.
I love this!!! Honestly, this analysis feels so nice both for writing reference and also just...understanding real world current events and history and society and such. It is kind of sobering though, to think of just how hard it is to make a revolution work, and to consider all that's gone on in the world this past century. As an American, I feel like it's easy to romanticize revolutions, simply because the US had a relatively successful one...not without numerous problems, money being a big one, but it was probably made so much easier by the fact that Britain was an ocean away and the colonies had a preexisting governmental structure that could readily take over. It seems that to make a new government, you have to basically already have that structure in place, or you have to make one really fast, or else, the military is your structure, or something else.
...or maybe, you could argue that we *all* romanticize revolutions of the more distant past, because we are so far removed, that we don't see the immediate growing pains that people back then would have experienced. So yeah, I think in writing, it is good to keep this stuff in mind...even when not writing a complete dramatic revolution outright. It's just a good study into human behavior and how factions interact, honestly
Well it is also worth remembering that the initial society in the United States failed after a time. The systems that were put in place and protections for certain wealthy elites in the south ended up clashing with the initial revolutionary ideology and growing progressive sentiment as time went on. Thats a big driver of why the Civil War happened. Some historians say that the Founding Fathers believed that the Slavery Issue would sort itself out gradually over time, but they were wrong about that.
Azgaars map generator is very pog
One thing I'd point at is that revolutions tend toward extremes, which while understandable because it's those extremes which drive people to fight more than a centre position, but it makes them brittle like raw iron. A stable system is one which incorporates many elements of different systems to cover weaknesses, like good spring steel. Constitutional monarchy providing separation of powers (among many other things) plus democratic legislation seems a winning combo for example, which very few revolutions have attempted.
It is like raw iron, to make steel requires them to lose what they had and gain something new so they can become better. Yet too often the rebel still think the cold iron is gonna keep people in line forever. Until the new rebels bring steel
@@ExeErdna Well, the cycle unfortunately tends to be that more rebels bring less rusty raw iron which falls apart just as rapidly. The alloy is needed to end the cycle of violence, oppression and instability, but as I said it's rare for a revolution with a balanced agenda to get off the ground.
Not impossible though. Compare the fall of the USSR with the fall of Spanish fascism.
@@BernddasBrotB7 Since it's based upon what happened to them. The USSR was doomed from the jump and only "worked" because a gross amount of people were dead. What happened with the Spanish was an afterthought. These days revolution is like protests it doesn't benefit those doing it. Yet those that will exploit it later
One example of great revolutionaries is Mustafa Kemal Attaturk. He promises progress, modernization, secularization, human rights and democracy. Although as a tyrant because he need a dictatorship to implement his policies in a heavily conservative society and at the end he gave up his power to the people he could entrusted with to guarding the democracy until they purged out quite recently.
I feel like the lady with the shoe was Snowpiercer, but does anyone have an idea what movie it was that looked like Bruce Willis as a military commander on Fox News around the 16:05 mark?
Really nice videos, love your work disagree with a lot of your conclusions specially the ones regarding the USSR and Stalin but I understand that research time is limited and the most easily accessible sources are the go to in this kind of situations, great work regardless
He's not a historian, political scientist or intellectual in any capacity after all. Personally, i believe he shouldn't have touched these matters to begin with, since they require half a lifetime to even get the facts right (mostly due to propaganda), still, i respect this channell. Cheers comrade.
The anti-communism is strong with this one
Saying you need a lifetime of education to understand something is pretty bourgeois, comrade.
What did he say wrong? Stalin was an anti-democratic autocrat. That's not debatable. Nor is it debatable that the USSR carried out ethnic/anti-queer purges alongside political purges.
@@bluexephosfan970 Political purges without a doubt, queer and ethnic purges no
The first I reminded me of Peter Turchin. According to Turchin, instability can be attributed to two factors: popular well being and elite overproduction.
Popular well being has to do with how well people are doing. It is made up of four categories: employment prospects, relative wage, health, and family.
Employment Prospects: This has to do with labor supply in proportion to labor demand. More supply in proportion to demand lessens prospects for workers.
Relative wages: This metric measures income inequality which is calculated by finding the difference between GDP per capita (average) and median wages (median).
Health: This measures expectation of life and average height.
Family: People tend to get married when they're ready to settle down. This can happen sooner when economic conditions are good. In 1890, grooms were, on average 26/27 while brides were 23/24. The age hit its all time low in the 50s when labor power was at its all time strongest and houses were cheap. Grooms were 24 and brides were 20/21. Today, the age is at an all time high of 30 for first time grooms and 28.6 for first time brides.
Elite overproduction refers to the number of qualifying elites compared to the number of positions available. There are three categories: top wealth, cost of education, and elite fragmentation.
Top wealth: Wealth of the wealthiest person divided by median income
Cost of education: Cost of attending an elite university divided by median income
Elite fragmentation: Political polarization
Popular well being is important because people want to thrive. When that is not the case, people look for answers to their problems. When people do not thrive, revolution does. The people leading the revolution are disgruntled elites who are looking for a way to seize power and use a revolution to do so. Increasing income inequality does both. It decreases popular well being as some fall from the middle class into the lower class. On the other hand, some rise into the upper class, leading to elite overproduction. In a democratic society, it results in the cost of winning elections rising as more people vye for positions and as the amount of money which can be spent on elections increases.
I think you mean The Traitor's Qualm. From The Traitor Baru Cormorant. One of my fav antihero stories
This is honest to god how the game Frostpunk works. The game is basically what if SimCity but everyone is starving and freezing and will publicly execute you if you don't fix their issues.
They always start with things like, "Okay we will be ethical and make the right decisions!" followed by "Oh god we have a resource shortage... Child Labor or 24 Hour Emergency Shifts?" and then at the end of the game it is like, "Do we just make it legal for people to Duel in the streets and kill each other to keep the Discontent under control?"
It gets even better in the DLC scenario The Last Autumn where you have to manage a work site and you can legitimately have a communist or fascistic revolution occur on the jobsite depending on your decisions. "Yeah we should have a Union of the workers! Oh god... the workers are suggesting dumb changes that will slow down the project. Well let's make a council for the workers... aaaand now they are corrupt power mongers..."
I’m surprised you went through this whole thing without referencing Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer saga which explores these very ideas in TWO different revolutions, one with Dazen Guile, and one with the Color Prince.
It’s a shame this guy won’t re-examine his interpretation of socialist leaders. 18:05 could I be wrong and clinging to the ideology of perfection? No, it’s the socialists who are idealists!
Amen to that comrade. Nice Sampsons reference.