Talk: Revolutions

I had a hard time coming up with a definition for revolution. Feel free to help clarify it. Turtle Fan 22:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I submit that perhaps certain wars should be double categorized as wars and revolutions, and that the Revolutions category be moved to the Events Category. TR 22:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Why? Most revolutions involve warfare sufficient to be considered wars. I guess there are a few exceptions like the 2011 putsch, but almost everything here would double-count. Turtle Fan 19:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Mostly because of those exceptions. While many wars are revolutionary acts, not all are. Likewise, not all revolutions are wars. TR 19:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Not all wars are revolutions, of course, but nearly all revolutions are wars. Actually, with exceptions like the putsch, I agonized over whether to call them Revolutions or see if we could create a category of Coups instead. Turtledove's written about a number of those, though they don't all have articles. Beria's coup against Molotov, Straha's failed ouster of Atvar, Knight's and Forrest's attempts on Featherston, the 2011 Putsch, the Cecils' ejection of the Hapsburgs from England. . . . Turtle Fan 23:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, I remember writing the articles for two of the big coups attempted against Featherston. Jelay14 23:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What titles are they under? I don't recall them. Turtle Fan 00:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Bunker Plot and December Plot. Jelay14 00:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I do remember them now that I've reread them. Turtle Fan 02:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I've wondered about a coups category. I've also wondered if "Victims of Coups" might be a worthwhile category. The one potentially justified the other. TR 04:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking over what is categorized here, only the 2011 putsch doesn't match the rest. That one had the potential to become a civil war rather than a revolution. To my mind a revolution either tries to change a system or seeks independence while a civil war is a struggle to become the ruler of a country. A coup is a changing of rulers with limited violence that doesn't expand into a civil war. That would be a useful, separate category.

Given this distinction, the Russian Revolution (both OTL and ATL) is a revolution rather than a civil war. On the other hand, the ACW really isn't and so the ATL name of Second American Revolution does seem more accurate. ML4E 05:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I like your definition. It's more succinct than the one I put up, certainly. Turtle Fan 15:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Donut

Don't ask me how I wound up here tonight, but this really needs to be addressed. The definition is first of all, inadequate because it covers only revolutions where the revolutionaries win; yet we've got a number of articles (Black Belt Republic, Icini Revolt, Mexican Civil War, Utah Troubles) where the side with revolutionary aims lost. We've got the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which was locals resisting a foreign invasion, and the Vietnam War, which was one government simultaneously fighting an internal rebellion and a (debatably) foreign invasion with tremendous amounts of involvement by a (not debatably) foreign ally. When speaking of the Vietnam War, one sometimes includes France's failed attempt to hang onto its Indochinese colony, which might be a revolution if you believe that war for independence=revolution (I'm growing ever less sanguine about that). The French ruled the Vietnamese through a puppet emperor and both governments which arose out of the Geneva Convention (not that Geneva Convention, obviously) were republican if nothing else, so I guess that's revolutionary. However, our Vietnam War article flat-out states that the war began in 1959 in its introduction and does not include France as a combatant, counting that war as something else entirely. (It is however in the categore Wars Involving France, meaning reconciliation is needed. I'll call a priest--ka-ching!)

Then there are disagreements between members of the category and its definition that are more subtle but no less real. The revolutionaries won the Servile Insurrection did not become governors of a territory; they briefly had that breakaway country with the tricolor flag, but what they really wanted was citizenship in the USA, and they used their separatism as a stalking horse to push the consuls toward their demands. The Russian Civil War is . . . very difficult; I think that one's going to need a complete overhaul now that I look at it. The Utah Troubles did not involve natives of Utah as the revolutionaries in the first generation (or the first two generations, if we count them as being contiguous with the Antebellum unrest that resulted in Albert Sydney Johnston leading the last nationally-supported military expedition of any significance before the ACW started), while the Thaumaturgical Revolution wasn't even violent.

I can't try to reconcile the content of the category while the definition of revolution remains in flux. To my mind we've got three categories here: civil wars, revolutions, and wars for independence. There's tremendous overlap among the categories: The American Revolution, for instance, fits firmly in all three camps. The ACW was part civil war and part war for independence; it was not a revolution, based on a side-by-side comparison of the US and Confederate constitutions, which essentially reveal that the Rebs wanted a more obnoxious version of the national government they'd already had. Both articles on versions of the ACW that the Rebs won are in this category. One has "revolution" right in the name, which makes it somewhat difficult to boot.

Looking at ML4E's definition, I see that he's conflated Revolution and WfI. His delineation of the difference between a civil war and a revolution is clearer and more useful than the current definition, but still problematic: changing a system (I assume he means a political system and that the change in question is the replacement of one system with another) and struggling to become the ruler of a country overlap quite closely.

The Chinese Revolution and Chinese Civil War were both internal wars (well, there was some foreign involvement in the latter, but not enough to stop it from being an internal war, as opposed to, say, the Spanish Civil War, which was a proxy war above all else) in which the stakes were either the continuation of the existing political system or its replacement with a totally new one. Essentially both wars produced entirely new Chinese states: the Republic of China as successor state to the Empire of China and, though I know this one is a little controversial, the People's Republic of China as successor state to the Republic of China.

On the other hand, the rebellions in 1643-44 which eventually resulted in the Qing Dynasty establishing itself as China's ruling party fit ML4E's definition of civil war better than either twentieth century conflict in that they were a struggle to lead the existing empire, not replace it with something else. We had the above discussion in the wee hours of January 20, 2009. At the time the government of the United States was headed by a Republican. Later that day a Democrat took over, but the state and the political system remained unchanged. Just so was it when the Qing replaced the Ming (or maybe the Shun, in the same sense as one could consider Lady Jane Gray Elizabeth I's predecessor rather than Mary I.)

In English history the English Civil War should be a revolution rather than a civil war, since the difference between the Commonwealth that the Roundheads wanted and the Kingdom of England that had existed before and would exist after was every bit as drastic as, for instance, the differences among the various governments that ruled France from 1789 to 1815. (That was definitely a revolution, no way around it.) On the other hand, the Wars of the Roses do rate as civil wars: All sides wanted the political system to remain in place, they just battled over who would sit on the throne it defined. Had they confined themselves to palace intrigue and small-scale violence, it would have met ML4E's definition of a coup instead. How widespread the violence is is the key determining factor there (though I'm not sure that's adequate; I see a civil war as having connotations that doesn't cover) and conceptually neither is different from an election, at least in terms of transitioning of power within a political system that is not otherwise affected.

I'll leave everything in place for the moment while my esteemed colleagues digest this rather lengthy discourse. I'm certain of this, though, that the putsch and the Thaumaturgical Revolution will have to go.

Furthermore, I don't like it when discussions of much-needed action just slip our minds like this and end up dangling in limbo for years. Maybe we can discuss a procedure for keeping them current until they're resolved? That would rate its own forum, which we can hold off on till we've dealt with the issue at hand. Turtle Fan 04:08, August 25, 2011 (UTC)

I think part of our problem is that, as TF pointed out, we seem to be conflating successful revolutions with failed ones. I think as a matter of semantics, "failed" revolutions are more often considered "rebellions", although the latter can lead to the former, and rebels can be revolutionaries. However, rebels "traditionally" are more interested in limited changes to the system in place, rather than throwing out the whole system and starting from scratch. Wikipedia, for example, uses the Jacobites as an example of a rebellion: they wanted to bring back the Stuarts, not squash the monarchy like Cromwell did in his day. The Atlantean Servile Insurrection, then, is probably better called a "rebellion" rather than a "revolution".

Revolution, on the other hand, explicitly seeks to change the system from the outset. Rebellions can do this, as I said above, but those only become "revolutions" when they work. Thus, we have another instance of the winner writing the history books: the "Whiskey Rebellion" failed, so it stays a rebellion; the American Revolution succeeded so it became a revolution (and as we probably know, even though it succeeded, the Brits called it a rebellion for some time).

So perhaps the answer is that we establish a new category for "rebellions", and shuffle those events that were limited in scope (ASI) or just didn't take (the Utah Troubles, what have you) to that category. Civil Wars and Wars for Independence will be included in one or both depending. (E.g., ACW would qualify as a revolution in 2 tls, as a rebellion in M&S, and I suppose in OTL by this proposed definition). And I think we will need to do the OTL/Fictional split for the revolution and rebellion categories (should we adopt the rebellion category to begin with).

The Thaumaturgical Revolution's problem is that it is our only non-political revolution. We don't have articles on the Scientific or Industrial Revolutions, and whether or not we need them is up for debate, although IHP does point out their absence. It's still a revolution, but it would be a decided odd-ball amongst all the politics.

So, anyway, that's my 2 cents: new category to separate the winners (revolutions) and the losers (rebellions), double cat where necessary, double bill civil wars and WFIs where necessary. TR 17:53, August 26, 2011 (UTC)

Rebellion is a somewhat amorphous category; since we're having so much trouble coming up with clear-cut definitions, a somewhat vague catch-all could prove very useful. And as I think on it, you're right that rebellion tends to be the name the victors give to failed revolutions which said victors survived: The Taipings and the Guomindang were equally interested in ending the age-old imperial system in China and replacing it with something else, but Hong's followers have gone down as rebels while Sun's get credit for being revolutionaries.

We'll just have to be very careful about how we word the description. The category will include more than failed revolutions; it will include things like the ASI, political violence aimed at neither replacing a political system nor dividing a country but obtaining reforms to existing political systems. And since the ASI succeeded at this, we'll have to make sure we don't conflate rebellion with failure at all.

I'd also like to see a wars of independence category. A WfI is not a revolution; the American Revolution can be described as such not because it ended British colonialism south of the St Lawrence but because it replaced a constitutional monarchy with a federal republic. The American Civil War would have been a WfI if the Rebs had won, but would never have counted as a revolution because the political system of the US would have stayed in place under different management. The Confederate Constitution was far closer to the US Constitution than the Articles of Confederation were, and there was no revolution to replace the Articles with the Constitution. The fact that in GotS they've started calling it the Second American Revolution does no more to make it a revolution than the full name of North Korea makes that country a democracy. In the aftermath of the fall of the Romanovs, the provinces of the former Russian Empire which obtained independence, such as Finland and the Baltics, were the very places where the Russian Revolution did not take hold.

And yes, OTL/fictional splits across the board would be very, very useful. Turtle Fan 19:15, August 26, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the general direction we are going in, but suggest the two of you look at some of the other sub-cats in the "Violence" super-cat. Specifically, we have "Uprisings" which includes the Thanksgiving Revolt, a twee variation on the Easter Rising which failed. Also, under "Terrorism" we have the Second Irgun and the German Freedom Front which could be classified as rebel groups. A more general revamp may be in order.

Uprisings, you say? I think we can use that as our Rebellions category without too much difficulty. Uprising, revolt, rebellion, insurrection: They're all far more closely synonymous than the words we're wrangling with now.

As for a revamp, I have a few ideas in that direction. I'll take a look and start a forum so we can get the ball rolling. Turtle Fan 02:54, August 27, 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, the 2011 Putsch which triggered my original comments fits better under "Coups" so that is resolved. It does raise the point that a failed coup where the leaders of it escaped could lead to a civil war. ML4E 21:45, August 26, 2011 (UTC)

True, a coup can flow into a civil war. When it does, there's enough of a metamorphosis that we can consider it a separate event. Turtle Fan 02:54, August 27, 2011 (UTC)