Revolution Truths

Taking it to the streets.

Denial is more than just as river in Egypt, they say. It may not be a popular thing to say in all the euphoria around the Arab Spring, but among the popular delusions of our day is the common notion that revolution is good. The cult of revolution is everywhere: on campus, and among the clerical class generally. It forms part of the national ideology of both America and France, not to mention China, Mexico, and on and on.

But really, when has a revolution ever brought more good than evil? The Russian Revolution brought us Stalin. The Chinese Revolution brought us Mao. The French Revolution brought us Robespierre, then Napoleon. The English Revolution brought us Cromwell. The Iranian Revolution brought us Khomeini and Ahmadinejad. There is a pattern: power goes soon to a strongman, not to the people. There is less liberty, not more liberty; and despite Potemkin villages, there is relative economic stagnation, not greater wealth.

This result is, moreover, perfectly logical and predictable. A full revolution more or less by definition kicks down the basic law, the nation's constitution, whatever it is. Everything is up for grabs in the street. Without law, what one has left is not freedom, but the law of nature: a natural struggle of all against all. And laws, in the end, are there to protect the weak. Inevitably, where there is no law, the strongest and most ruthless will benefit, and the weak will be crushed. Think "Lord of the Flies": after much spilling of blood, some organized group with weapons will emerge to dictate. They will have triumphed by sheer ruthlessness and lust for power. They are going to be in the mood to exercise it.

Sounds like a good idea?

Unfortunately, the American Revolution can be pointed to as a counterexample. Unfortunately, because it gives revolution a cachet of morality and progress. But to see the American struggle as a revolution, rather than a war of independence, seems arbitrary. At state and local level, those in power before the revolution, remained in power after the revolution, as did all the state laws. That makes a crucial difference. Government never descended into the street.

And even then, did the American struggle for independence really produce more good than harm? For, besides the blood shed at the time, it surely set the precedent of a right to secession which then led directly to the American Civil War, not to mention that fuss over in France in 1789, and further tumult throughout the Americas. And for what, exactly? To avoid ending up like Canada? 

Can one name a single nation that went directly and peacefully from a genuine revolution to a liberal democracy? For one can cite many who went from a military junta or absolute monarchy to a liberal democracy without internal conflict. 

Of course, this is a bitter pill for those saddled with a genuinely oppressive and corrupt government—a Muammar Ghaddafi, for example; himself, note, the product of a prior revolution. One might argue that a truly bad government makes revolution necessary. But any glorification of revolution for its own sake? Be careful what you wish...

Comrades in arms.