Revolutions Podcast

Everything is Terrible, and Getting Worse

Revolutions Podcast: 2013-2020
By Mike Duncan

I’m proud to say I didn’t spend the whole pandemic bingeing Netflix and eating Tim Hortons doughnuts. I also used the Days of Lockdown to listen to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast. This was a perfect COVID project; the ten seasons run as long as fifty-five (!) episodes and, as the Table Of Contents shows, he covers every Great Unpleasantness that roiled European politics between 1640 and 1918:

• Season 01: The English Civil Wars and revolution (1640-1660)
• Season 02: The American Revolution and War of Independence
• Season 03: The French Revolutions of 1789
• Season 04: The Haitian Revolution
• Season 05: The Spanish American Wars of Independence
• Season 06: The French July Revolution of 1830
• Season 07: The European revolutions of 1848
• Season 08: The Paris Commune of 1870
• Season 09: The Mexican Revolutions and Civil War, 1910-1920
• Season 10: The Russian Revolution of 1918

Duncan was a great host for these hours: engaging, knowledgeable, and possessed of a sly sense of humour. He packs each episode with fascinating details and telling anecdotes while never losing sight of the big picture. From the formidable amount of research on display, Revolutions was clearly a labour of love.

What’s more, Duncan is a qualified historian (author of The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic). He’s always careful to place events and personalities in the context of their own time, never treating the actual outcome as predetermined, and never judging historical figures by modern standards. He’s as interested in the why and how as in the who, what, and when.

This is real history, and it tells a story still relevant today. Duncan’s revolutionaries dashed crowns in the gutter and waged war across continents. They brought down kings and tsars whose rule had seemed fixed and eternal or, just as often, were sent to an early grave by betrayal or defeat. Either way, nothing was quite the same after they passed. We are all living in the world they created.

A Story of Failure

In short: Revolutions is terrific, and bingeing all ten seasons in one go was a great way to follow certain themes that kept popping up from season to season. Revolutionary movements, for example, splintered into rival factions so often that this began to seem intrinsic to their nature. Even when factionalism wrecked their chances for success, they seldom resisted the centrifugal forces tearing them apart. Despite this, I was surprised to notice just how often these revolutions failed. Some ended in outright defeat, others through corruption of the revolutionary ideal. But, by the end of the podcast, Duncan had told a remarkably consistent story of failure and defeat.

The French Revolution is fairly typical. An uprising in 1793 sent the Sun King, Louis XVI, to the guillotine, but all attempts to establish a new, revolutionary government were beset by vicious factionalism and infighting. In consequence power passed to a revolving door of new strongmen, each securing their position by the murder of most of their predecessors. A stable new regime was only established when Napoleon took charge as First Consul in 1799 — essentially making himself a military dictator. After the chaos and death of the previous decade, there was little protest when he followed this up by crowning himself Emperor in 1804, reestablishing dynastic rule and spelling the end of the revolution.

The Mexican Revolution successfully overthrew the Porfirio regime, which had provided a combination of stable government and crass exploitation for decades. Again, however, his would-be successors soon divided into rival factions. Ten years of civil war and banditry followed, during which the various blocs took turns putting their leader in the president’s chair. None could keep him there for long, however, and finally exhaustion and revulsion at the death toll enabled Alvaro Obregon to establish a more or less stable presidency in 1920. This brought peace and an end to the revolution, but his reliance on selling resource rights to foreigners — while most Mexicans remained poor sustenance farmers — meant the revolution had merely replaced one corrupt oppressor with another.

The Russian Revolution succeeded in the sense that the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tzar and won the ensuing civil war. But, despite establishing a relatively secure revolutionary government, the death of Lenin sent their leaders into yet another murderous bout of infighting. When Stalin emerged triumphant, that government descended into a cruel dictatorship of death, tyranny, and terror – betraying every one of its founding ideals.

The United States stands out as perhaps the only exception to this dismal record. The American Revolution established a new republic, broadly in accordance with the principles it espoused, and that republic has endured for almost two and a half centuries. Which raises two interesting questions: why do revolutions almost always fail? And, how did the United States avoid this fate?

Anything Goes

We’ve already seen that susceptibility to factionalism was a weakness within most revolutionary movements. This had its roots in the cornucopia of previously unthinkable philosophies and ideas that tended to be unleashed once the old order was challenged. In the atmosphere of freedom thus created, revolutions would attract a wide array of fringe groups, all of them championing wildly incompatible ideals and beliefs.

When parliament rejected the authority of Charles I, for example, its aims were relatively moderate — to constrain royal authority within the existing social order. But the social upheaval and Civil War that followed soon unleashed more radical elements.

The “Diggers” were led by William Everard, who had served in the New Model Army. Opposed to the use of force, they believed they could create a secular and classless society simply through seizing land and holding it in the “common good”. A relatively small group, they were suppressed relatively easily by the mainstream parliamentary forces, led by Cromwell and Fairfax.

Almost as radical but more influential were the “Levellers”. At the end of the first civil war, in 1646, Leveller ideas (including universal suffrage and common land ownership) were debated by ordinary soldiers with their officers. The outbreak of the second civil war enabled the generals to reassert their authority and, when Leveller soldiers later attempted to mutiny, they were brutally put down and their leaders hanged.

Although both these radically democratic factions were suppressed en route to the New Model Army’s victory over the royalists, they show how easy it is for revolutionary movements to spend almost as much energy on infighting as they do on overthrowing their avowed enemies.

Liberal vs Social Revolution

Although less radical than such back-to-the-land movements, conflicts between what what Duncan labels “social” and “liberal” revolutionaries was another source of factionalism. Liberals, representing the growing economic strength of the middle class, mainly wanted admittance to the political institutions that had been the preserve of the old aristocracy. Social revolutionaries sought to tear down, rather than reform, the existing system and redistribute wealth and economic opportunity all the way down to the working classes.

For liberals, the extension of voting rights (usually to all landowners), and the acceptance of non-nobles into state offices and legislatures, was change enough. Their presence in the corridors of power, they believed, would produce reform for the benefit all. This wasn’t fast or sure enough for the social revolutionaries, to whom any revolution that didn’t include better wages, housing, and protection from starvation, was no revolution at all.

Infighting between “liberal” and “socialist” factions tore apart several revolutionary movements, especially in Russia and France, where primitive rural economies and the positively feudal state of peasant society made social change for the poor literally a matter of life or death.

Foreign Intervention

While factionalism seems inherent to revolutionary movements, other factors contributed to many of their failures. Foreign invasions by counter-revolutionary powers fought agains several revolutions in an era when most royal families were related to one another and revolt against one was seen as a threat to all. Short of invasion, foreign intervention could also take the form of providing asylum for exiled aristocrats who needed a safe haven from which to plot counter-revolution. Even when such foreign pressure failed to prevail over revolutions outright, it deflected resources away from their social and political goals toward national defence.

The French Revolution, for example, almost immediately faced invading armies from Austria and Prussia, turning the Committee of Public Safety into a war cabinet. A successful defence at Valmy only widened the conflict, resulting in ever-increasing demands for men and supplies. These were used to justify increasingly authoritarian measures on the home front. Soon the executions began for all “traitors” to the nation and, even sooner, such traitors included any “opponents of the revolution”. Revulsion against this murderous excess eventually destroyed public support for the revolution and paved the way for Napoleon’s dictatorship.

Such military interference extended even into the 20th Century. In 1919 the victorious Allies sent an expeditionary force to Russia, in support of the White Army’s fight against the Bolsheviks. Predictably, this only made the Russian Civil War even more bloody and awful. And, also predictably, the expeditionary force’s main legacy was its use by the Bolsheviks to justify ever more murder and oppression against their political opponents, whom they could now paint as enemies of the state.

The Basis for Legitimate Authority

As archaic and unpopular as the ancien regimes may have been, they did at least have a well established concept of the state and its source of authority in a divinely appointed sovereign. This may seem odd to us moderns, but it formed a body of legal precedent for the day-to-day work of government.

Once it had sent the King and Queen to Madam la guillotine, any new revolutionary government would have to create a new authority for state power from scratch. By what right are you enforcing the laws (and which laws?), collecting taxes, and conscripting citizens into the army? Claiming “we won” as the source of your authority only works until a rival faction takes power and produces a new winner. The result was, all too often, an invitation to bloody infighting and murder en masse as the each faction scrambled to establish themselves at the top of the bloody pile.

Americans are taught that the answer to this question is a written constitution — a basic law that codifies the people’s will. The problem, of course, is writing such a beast when different groups want such different things. In the midst of a national crisis, if not outright war, it isn’t easy to gather representatives to write a constitution, or hold a vote to establish its legitimacy — especially when basic concepts about who is a citizen and what are their rights are in dispute. The liberals, as noted, believed all male property owners should have the vote, an idea that would grant political power to the previously disenfranchised middle class. The social revolutionaries wanted to go even further with a vote for all adult males. (Few were crazy enough to advocate votes for women.)

Such disputes meant that some revolutions never managed to finish writing their constitution, while others produced too many. Either outcome meant failure to establish a legitimate, enforceable, and popularly recognized basis for the new government’s authority. In this absence a prolonged power struggle usually ensued between various pro and anti-revolutionary factions – until exhaustion led to some sort of restoration of the old regime. In France this period of struggle was particularly deadly, leading Jacque Mallet du Pan to observe: “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children”. In their time the Mexican and Russian revolutions would also do their best to prove him right.

The Question of Succession

A constitutional basis for state authority is also needed to establish a legitimate process for succession — the peaceful transfer of power to a new government or head of state. In consequence many revolutions, after managing to stumble from crisis to crisis, collapsed upon the death (or murder) of their founder.

The English Revolution, for example, emerged triumphant from years of civil war. It executed a King and established parliamentary rule under Oliver Cromwell. But this “Protectorate” barely outlived its first Lord Protector. Constant infighting had led Cromwell to assume increasingly dictatorial powers and, like so many dictators since, he failed to establish a legitimate process for succession.

When Cromwell died in 1658 The Protectorate was unable to agree on any better plan than to appoint his talentless son as the new Lord Protector. This, in an advanced country, with a strong parliamentary tradition. Richard Cromwell, however, proved so incapable of mastering the factions struggling to govern Britain that he lasted barely a year before George Monck gathered an army, marched on London, overthrew him, and restored the Long Parliament. In 1660 this led to the restoration of Charles II and the end of England’s experiment with republican rule.

The US Exception

With the odds so stacked against any revolutionary movement, how did the Americans avoid seemingly inevitable disaster? Despite a combination of fortunate circumstances and outstanding leadership, it was a near run thing…

Anything Goes: the splintering call of radical philosophies was not a fatal strain on the American Revolution because of its decentralized political institutions. The War of Independence was waged by a confederation of 13 colonies who, after victory, formed a decentralized federation of 13 states. This was well suited to accommodate their wide variety of religious and other viewpoints. Most areas of social and business life remained under state control so Puritans, for example, could operate their churches freely in Massachusetts, without interference from more moderate states.

Liberal vs Social: the same decentralization also helped keep the American Revolution from splitting along social versus liberal lines. While there were differing ideas on voting rights in the different colonies, these remained a State jurisdiction, accommodating such local differences. The principle of representative government had been a key belief of the revolution, but the various states were able to move at their own pace to eventually eliminate religious and property requirements from the franchise. Of course, it would take another bloody conflict to end slavery and create a truly universal male franchise.

Foreign Intervention: the US faced weak neighbours on its own continent (Mexico and British North America) and was separated by wide oceans from the great powers, so foreign intervention was not a great danger to the new nation. Britain, who might have been tempted to recover its colonies, was almost immediately swept up in the Napoleonic Wars. The War of 1812 did reignite the squabble between old world and new, but by then the United States was well established as an independent power and was never under existential threat. When the conflict ended in stalemate Britain had to finally accept the legitimacy of the US republic, leaving it free to pursue national projects, such as western expansion.

The Basis Of Legitimate Authority: arguments about the basis for legitimate authority, and the fight to draft a constitution, were by far the greatest threat to the success of the American Revolution. During the War of Independence, the 13 Colonies had formalized their alliance with a sort of proto-constitution, The Articles of Confederation. This served to coordinate their war efforts against the British, but its concept of the colonies as a union of sovereign states proved unsustainable once victory was achieved.

The British defeat at Yorktown in 1781 was followed by years of confusion, economic hardship, and even new rounds of revolutionary violence (including a full-blown farmer’s revolt in Shay’s Rebellion). A variety of ideas emerged in the various States as to what form the new nation should take (in particular how centralized it should be — the essential question of how much power the states should cede to the centre).

This was ominously reminiscent of the way other revolutionary movements had split apart. In response, the states called a convention in 1787 to draft a new constitution for the national government. Initially this seemed unpromising. One state refused to participate while others were dubious or slow to send representatives (of 76 delegates only 55 actually attended, of which 39 signed the resulting document).

Fortunately for the new nation, those who did take part included some of the greatest minds of the day: George Washington, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin to name a few. They designed a bicameral legislature that provided effective central government while protecting the rights of smaller states. The founders also designed a system of elections to ensure peaceful succession and created the position of Vice President to ensure stability in exceptional cases when the presidency was vacant. Though not perfect, their work is justly revered in America today. They saved the revolution when its outcome hung in the balance.

The Question of Succession: The authors of the constitution were a remarkable group, but it was one man’s character that kept America out of the dictator trap. After leading the Continental Army to victory, George Washington was a larger than life figure, essentially the military commander of the new nation. Unlike so many revolutionary leaders, though, he did not convert this into political power. Instead, in accordance with his belief in limited government, he resigned his commission and retired to his farm (famously following the example of Cincinnatus, the Roman commander who similarly retired in 458 BC).

Called out of retirement to lead the Constitutional Convention, Washington’s stick-handling was essential to the success of that delicate process. In 1788 he bowed to popular demand and stood for election as the first President of the new republic. Winning by a landslide, his popularity and authority helped establish the legitimacy of the constitution and the national government it established.

Washington seems to have genuinely desired to serve only one term as president but, concerned about increasing factionalism (the old story!) and ongoing economic struggles, he stood again in 1792. He again won overwhelmingly but, at the end of this second term, his work finally done, the aging Washington retired to his farm for good. The tradition he established by only serving two terms was later enshrined in the 22nd Amendment.

On three separate occasions Washington’s leadership preserved the revolution when success hung in the balance:

• By refusing to become a military dictator at the end of the War of Independence;
• By overseeing the Constitutional Convention’s work to create a constitution acceptable to the states; and
• By retiring after two terms in office when he could have easily remained President for life.

Washington ensured the survival of America’s revolutionary idea in circumstances that corrupted or defeated them almost everywhere else. A modern Cincinnatus, indeed.

Falling Into the Future

If America’s combination of lucky circumstances and inspired leadership remains unique, this only provokes another question. If revolutions almost always fail, how has the world made so much progress?

For all our contemporary wailing about the state of the world, the long tail of history shows an incredible improvement in every measure of human wellbeing since our story started in 1640. The absolutely feudal restrictions of ancien regime France, for example, with its internal travel boundaries, restrictive guilds, aristocratic perquisites, impoverished peasants, and the exclusion of even the middle class from civic and political life (much less the working class or poor), are almost unimaginable today. If all this didn’t change by revolutionary means, how did it happen?

It’s revealing to take some of our earlier examples and follow them a little further. As we’ve seen, the English revolution failed because of factionalism and a failure to answer the question of succession: Richard Cromwell was overthrown by a cabal of worthies – who promptly returned a Stuart to the throne. However, while the end of the Protectorate meant the restoration of the monarchy, this happened in a nation that had been profoundly changed by the experience of war, revolution, and regicide.

The divine right of kings had less force in a Britain that had chopped off the head of its previous one. Likewise, It was had become even less acceptable for the Stuarts to promote their twin enthusiasms of Catholicism and authoritarian rule. Having executed one king, it proved a much shorter step for the English to throw out his descendent. The same cabal of parliamentarians and English grandees who had restored the Stuarts, sent them packing for good in 1688. Instead of succumbing to strongman rule, however (the British had had enough of that under Cromwell), they sought a middle course – a constitutional monarchy.

William and Mary of the Netherlands were interested, and Parliament invited them to succeed the Stuarts as king and queen of the United Kingdom – on condition they sign a Bill of Rights to limit royal power and guarantee the supremacy of parliament. They ascended to the British throne in the “Glorious Revolution” (actually counter-revolution) of 1688 and, in 1689, kept their word by granting Royal Assent to the Bill of Rights, 1689. (This is still a living constitutional document for the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) Thus, though Britain remained a monarchy, the revolution ensured it was a constitutionally limited on. Henceforth, the Crown would reign but not rule.

Napoleons defeat in 1814 (and final defeat in 1815…) also brought counter-revolution and the re-instatement of royal rule. As with the Stuarts, however, Louis XVIII became sovereign of a changed nation. Two decades without a king had seen France’s institutions almost entirely remade and Louis was expected to agree to a new constitution before ascending the throne. This ceded political power to the elected legislature effectively made him also a limited monarch.

While Louis chafed at these constraints, his brother, Charles, attempted to rule like an absolute monarch of old when he ascended to the throne in 1824. Talleyrand famously observed: “they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing”. Such behaviour had become unacceptable, however, and in 1848 the Bourbons were sent packing again, this time for good.

As in Britain, deposing a monarch was much less traumatic second time round. There was no popular uprising, no reign of terror, and no great regret at seeing the last of the old dynasty. Their place was taken by a populist strongman, Napoleon III. He ruled for a time as an elected President before making himself France’s last monarch. In 1870 his increasingly erratic leadership led to another popular coup, ending any chance of a new Napoleonic dynasty. Instead, yet one more constitution was drafted to establish the Third Republic. France has been a more or less stable democracy ever since.

It seems that even when revolutions lose the argument, they change the context in which the argument takes place. The defeat of a revolutionary uprising is never the end of the story: more upheavals follow, sometimes amounting to minor insurrections in their own right. The movement may slip backward (or sideways), but that first calamitous experience of the unthinkable sets a process in motion that will not be stopped. Even in defeat, revolutions change the world; nothing quite goes back to the way it was before.

This is an amazing story, and Revolutions tells it vividly and well. I’ve only touched on a few broad themes here. You’ll have to listen to Mike Duncan for the whole, riveting tale.

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