Revolution!!!

[Boris Godunov]

Yes, because we all know how much Pat likes to get jiggy wit it.

[spartak]

[Boris Godunov]

Edit: Nevermind!

I know there are more history buffs around waiting to argue about this, come on.

The French Revolution was a meaningless bunch of twaddle!

Discuss.

[loinburger]

You need a significant portion of the armed forces on your side for a modern revolution, ideally the whole kit 'n kiboodle. It doesn't matter how many pistol-toting rednecks you've got on your side if the other guy has tanks and bombers on his.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Exactly.

Last I checked, the Constitution came through unbent.

[chequita guevara]

I would have to say that the Athenian revolution was the most significant. It gave the world the first democracy.

After that, the French Revolution sounded the death knoll of feudalism and spread the capitalist order across Europe.

The third great revolution was the Russian Revolution, which showed that workers can take power for themselves, even if it went sour later.

What would it take for a successful revolution today? First of all, it takes a group organized and prepared to take power. Generally these don't exist, because nay smart government suppresses them.

The next ingrediant is a disaster (man made or natural) that the government can't handle. This destroyed the legitimacy of the rulers, and allows the alternative power to step in and take power. Sometimes the revolutionaries create the disaster through civil war, but most often they are just organized opposition groups that get "lucky."

[red_jon]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The third great revolution was the Russian Revolution, which showed that workers can take power for themselves, even if it went sour later.

Actually I'd have said the Mensheviks were more on track than the Bolsheviks.

[orange]

French and American revolutions (combined because of their natures and time period, though they both ended in radically different ways)

[monkspider]

I'd agree with Comrade Chegitz. Athenian, French, and Russian were each the most far-reaching, and each broke down barriers that may have been thought impossible previously.

[monkspider]

I'd say the French revolution was more important for Democracy since the American revolution, contrary to popular opinion, wasn't really all that democratic. Instead of giving power to the people, it gave power to a small number of land-owning elite. Poor whites, women, blacks, and native americans weren't even considered "people". At least, they certainly didn't fit into Jefferson's egalitarian equation of all men being equal.

France was much more idealist at least, and paved the way for "liberty", as we know it.

[MOBIUS]

People seem to forget about the English Civil War, which meant that Britain was henceforth ruled by a bunch of idiots instead of just one idiot...

Why are they called Civil Wars anyway - they never seem to be very civil...

[orange]

monkspider - I agree with what you say, but I don't feel that that discredits it as one of the most important historical revolutions

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by red_jon
The American revolution was pretty major, I'm not sure which out of the American and French revolutions was more pivotal though. The French revolution did influence Europe, which was pretty influencial itself. But the American revoltion affected other countries too.

You can't compare the two. The French Revolution didn't accomplish much more than giving democracy a bad name in Europe, and it ended the age of classicism and enlightenment. Yes it inspired the revolutionary movements in the mid 19th century, but many of these movemnts also acquired the preferrence for violence, revenge, and dictatorship which plagued the revolution of 1789. The people of Europe wouild have been better off without the bad example set in France.

[monkspider]

Orange- Oh it was certainly important, and without question one of the most important actually, if for nothing else than it created what would come to be the most powerful western Empire since Rome.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
People seem to forget about the English Civil War, which meant that Britain was henceforth ruled by a bunch of idiots instead of just one idiot...

We did mention it, had several posts about it.