Submitted by i_have_thick_loads t3_106u486 in science
“Ruthless revolutionary murderers kill their opponents and keep power.”
See: Lenin, Castro, Khomeini, Kim
"Timid revolutionaries get murdered by their opponents who keep power."
Fixed that for you.
Also Castro, ruthless? Give me a break.
To survive and stay in power for that long, you'd have to be. Castro would have exactly zero ruths to give after the 2nd assassination attempt.
He's not like Kim or Khomenei no, but still. Or do you just mean specifically to the initial revolution itself?
Or...you could also just have majority support from the population?
The assassination attempts came from the CIA through Cuban exiles and USA-based mafia outfits. Oppressive local measures in response would be largely pointless -- and unless you want to provide evidence to the contrary as far as I'm aware they didn't exist. He just had a competent intel and security team (and some luck.)
Our govt hates socialist and they want us on the same page. A lot of history is white washed because of this fact, that and some other not so good reasons.
Maybe at points later he developed widespread support, but immediately after victory, Castro, with Che and others was pretty murdery on even his co-revolutionaries. "To the wall!"
None of those claims are true.
Castro had widespread support during the revolution. The Batista regime was incredibly unpopular, a major aspect of why the revolution was successful in the first place.
Executions post-revolution were around 500 people tried for war crimes. I suppose one could call that "pretty murdery", but compared to most other revolution's executions it's a small number. The USA media went all out trying to paint it as egregious, but that's pretty easily debunked propaganda and regardless of what the US media said there was popular support from the Cuban public.
As for your last claim that it included co-revolutionaries...I've never heard that before, nor can I find any evidence to substantiate it. Did you just make that claim up yourself?
You absolutely don’t. All of these revolutionary leader get mass support from the people. Even leaders like Lenin, regardless of your opinion of him, had genuine support from the people.
People love their leaders and government even they see those leaders then their societies around for them. Life under Castro is infinitely greater than what came before. Life in the Soviet Union was infinitely greater than what came before. Life in China is infinitely greater than what came before. And people will have appreciation for the fact that their lives are better
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Ah yes. Everyone knows of the great North Korean revolution.
And Lenin and Castro personally killed their opponents. It totally wasn’t the entire society who decided to overthrow the previous society. Instead it was just a single individual who did it
Russian revolution was a lot less violent than the reaction.
Me too. It make brain hurt.
If you kill your opponent during a revolution, they are less likely to strike back.
Perhaps they should violently revolutionize it.
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Correlation Found Between Violence in Revolutions and Likely Success of Counterrevolutions.
I would add the worse word inverse
An astute suggestion indeed
The study says violence helps keep autocrats out of power. But doesn't a violent revolution make it more likely that the new government will itself be autocratic? Does the author account for this? The abstract makes it sound as though violence solves the root problem of autocracy but looking at the example (from the study) of Cuba this doesn't seem to the case.
From the study: "these statistical models also revealed that violence diminishes the probability of counterrevolution primarily because it gives revolutionary governments the coercive tools to defeat bottom-up threats"
Bottom up threats like, say, a functional voting system?
It's not a matter of violence "solving the root problem", it's a matter of violence being the most reliable means to overthrow established power structures.
You can't vote yourself out of a well entrenched status quo.
>t's a matter of violence being the most reliable means to overthrow established power structures.
Actually the study, if you peruse it, says that nonviolent movements are more effective at toppling existing power structures.
What the above quote says is that what violence is able to do is protect newly established power structures by crushing grassroots "counterrevolutionary" opposition.
Counter revolutions are rarely grassroots and almost always cia backed these days
Seems like somewhat contradictory conclusions to me. Successfully protecting new power structures against reactionary forces is an essential key aspect in toppling existing power structures.
If you separate the toppling stage from the power consolidation phase of revolution there is no contradiction necessary. According to the statistical analysis, violence is good for power consolidation but nonviolence is better for toppling.
The terms "counterrevolutionary" or "reactionary" are politically loaded.
From an anarchist perspective, power consolidation might be seen as intrinsically counterrevolutionary - in which case this analysis shows violence tends to be counterrevolutionary as well.
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Well yeah. This is just common sense.
When you remove a group of powerful people from their power and privilege against their will, but without killing them, many of them will try to take that power and privilege back; and the more of them that are around to try and take their power and privilege back, the more resources and connections are at their disposal, and the more the new regime has to metaphorically sleep with one eye open.
Violence is the answer
“Political power grows from the barrel of a gun”
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Wow. Who is buying this weak research???
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I’m not sure I like the results but thank you for sharing.
It does help to explain a little of why the revolution of the United States was successful. They were organized, holding a clear goal in mind they more or less agreed on, didn't suffer traitors to live, and defeated their enemy squarely. Ruthless and efficient.
I understand there was much foreign aid involved, but that is another component of success, as well as having participants from nearly every strata of society, despite the majority population holding loyalist positions.
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Actually it means that there always will be a series of revolutions and counterrevolutions that will continue until there will be one bloody enough.
Looks very much like Russian or Mexican history of the beginning of 20th century.
Now I need a Tylenol and a nap. What?
So, let me get this straight, Machiavelli was right the whole time? The less violence one uses, the less likely people will be upset about it? I, personally, am shocked. But on completely serious note, this has been a fact in Political Science for a very long time, some people just refuse to acknowledge it because they like violence.
mixer99 t1_j3iorzc wrote
I think you should take another crack at that title.