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Comment by return0 | Hacker News Reader

The revolution set the stage for the modern world though, a world separated in sovereign states (instead of kingdoms) the three branches government etc. etc. For countries that are hanging on the edges of europe, which weren't strongly ethnically homogeneous, like my country, Greece, that style of government was vital for the definition of the nation.

That said, let's not derail the conversation with irrelevant historical anecdotes that are out of time anyway.

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The revolution set the stage for the modern world though, a world separated in sovereign states (instead of kingdoms) the three branches government etc

I'm fairly certain that the US was already independent and had adopted the current Constitution by the time the French Revolution happened.

The US is not the world though.

Thank you. US people just don't get it.

Yes, but the original claim was that the French Revolution codified the idea of the separation of powers, which is clearly false. The evidence of that is that America already existed with this structure and was obviously known to the west.

Democracy was also known in Greece a couple thousands of years prior. As others have stated, the ideas were the ideas of the enlightenment and while America was a wonderful project, it wasn't the real example to show that these ideas could work -- the French Revolution did that.

The ideas worked only about 10 years though, until Napoleon.

Not at all. Napoleon was definitely seen as a force in that direction and that was a large part of his appeal to the masses.

Some interesting fact-bending here.

He's right. In a dichotomy of revolutionaries vs. monarchists, Napoleon is definitely seen as the former. It's not really as simple as democracy vs. lack thereof. Many of the most radical revolutionaries were extremely undemocratic. At times during the Revolutinary period even suggesting democratic measures (like implementing the Constitution) could get you killed.

Except it didn't work. After overthrowing the monarchy, France went through a number of highly unstable governments until Napoleon ascended to the throne in 1805. That period was called the Reign of Terror for a reason. If you were suspected of being a counter-revolutionary, you could be executed without trial.

After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the French monarchy was restored. When the Second Republic was established after the revolution of 1848, Napoleon III quickly abused his uncle's popularity to establish another dictatorship within five years. This lasted until 1870.

Well, sorry to say this (it might offend Americans), but nobody important at the time really cared. Except for Britain, as the directly involved party. The US at the time was a minor player and its independence and democratic process didn't really affect a lot of people. Abraham Lincoln, ~80 years after the American Revolution was replying to San Marino's government along the lines: you are the only fellow state in the world (San Marino being the oldest republic in the world) in this period of turmoil (i.e. Civil War).

The French Revolution was the event that kick-started the spread of democratic ideas and regimes throughout the Old World. It brought about the downfall of the medieval regimes, the abolition of serfdom and slavery, etc.

The American Revolution was more of a symbolic event at the time. On the other hand the fall of the French monarchy was a colossal event at the time: the new French Republic was continuously attacked by all its neighbors to prevent the dangerous ideas from spreading.

Well, Poland was inspired to adopt a democratic constitution in 1791 and the speed with which its neighbors invaded probably shows that they cared about the spread of democracy too in a more negative way. But yes, that wasn't as significant as the French Revolution.

Ironic that the Poles set themselves back by electing their new right-hardline leader, who immediately moved in to take control over the national television, don't you think?

The elected official in question actually saw no problem with that. To make matters even "better", he is stuck to communist regime / fascist methodology of tightly controlling television and radio... in the age when everybody is on the Internet... awesome!

I know of another guy, over in Turkey, who works the same way... Ataturk would be turning over in his grave if he saw what that other guy is doing in the country he founded.

Anyway, when is Poland holding the referendum on leaving the european union?

I think you're talking about the Second Polish Republic in 1918. They didn't have televisions in 1791.

Nor they did in 1918 for that matter.

Sorry, but you are very misinformed about current events in Poland, as well as the broader geopolitical context. The current party has for the most part used methods that have been employed by every government in Poland since 1989. Purging the national media is standard practice (please see what the previous party did, or the numerous shocking scandals it was involved in). Worth noting is that Polish media are owned (~80%) by German media conglomerates Bauer and Axel Springer which means that the mainstream media are largely pro-German. That is a far more worrying state of affairs than the recent tradition of purges and political jiggery-pokery. I won't get into all of the details, but Poland faces numerous challenges that the Western media never discuss, leaving Westerners horribly misinformed about what's actually happening or why it's happening. What Chomsky calls neoimperialism is very much a factor.

> Ataturk would be turning over in his grave if he saw what that other guy is doing in the country he founded.

Well Atatürk was not exactly a saint, for example I've just learnt the history of İzmir, which had a large Greek population who had been living there for generation and was relocated to Greece after the Greco-Turkish war.

Some of the events around the revolution and the subsequent foundation of the Turkish Republic would now be considered ethnic cleansing now. And the man is still worshipped in Turkey (at least in parts of the country that don't have an AKP majority). In İzmir there is even a Mount-Rushmore-like statue with his face.

This is not to say that Erdoǧan is better, far from it. But Turkey is a complicated country with a complicated history and talking about Kemalists vs Islamists as if they were good guys vs bad guys is a bit simplistic.

The main difference is that the French Revolution overthrown the old Order.

If you read Tocqueville, he actually clearly comment on the difference, and even impressed with American institution or people, he says that it only works because it was basically a blank slate, and does not believe it could work in Europe.

The American independence did not endanger that much the British Monarchy or British Empire (who happily went on to be the first world power in the XIXth century)

Simón Bolívar (born 1783) was an extremely important historical figure. Much of Latin America threw off their European oppressors in part through inspiration Bolívar took from what the Americans accomplished in getting rid of the British.

Clearly the American Revolution was far more than symbolic: it directly, entirely reshaped both North and South America.

And isn't it ironic that this name was used to re-enforce Hugo Chavez's "Bolivar Revolution" aka dictatorship. Now Venezuela is in shambles and the poor people can barely afford food when the government controls more proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia.

> And isn't it ironic that this name was used to re-enforce Hugo Chavez's "Bolivar Revolution" aka dictatorship.

Actually, Hugo Chavez was very popular and won all his elections by a wide margin. You could say a lot of things about him but he was not a dictator.

Except for the time he lost, and within two days a military coup of the democratically elected body put him back in power (amongst other thing):

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-15240081

Forget the excessive gerrymandering or his successful change to the Venezuelan constitution which allowed for him to be reelected indefinitely. He was indeed a lot of things, but his legacy will be mismanaging a country with enough natural resources to be one of the richest countries in the world. He was an authoritarian dictator. Faux democracy with fake votes and a press which is govt controlled and a leader that wants to run forever is a dictatorship no matter how you skin it.

Many of your critiques apply to many countries considered democracies. Excessive gerrymandering is an issue in many democracies including the US. Not to mention that in the US minorities are specifically targeted for exclusion. A lot of countries don't have term limits for heads of state (for most of its history the US didn't). Press freedoms aren't what defines what a dictatorship is either. Would Saudi Arabia be a democracy if suddenly all censorship laws are purged from the books?

> Except for the time he lost, and within two days a military coup of the democratically elected body put him back in power

LOL. The coup was done against him after being democratically elected in 2000 but it failed disastrously, making him some kind of a folk hero in most of Latin America. If you don't know this basic fact you really have no business talking about Venezuela, let along calling Chavez a dictator just because you didn't like the guy. Venezuela had many chances of getting rid of him democratically and they decided not to, we all can disagree about how wise a decision it was but that is different matter.

The US independance was completely inspired by the "Lumières" (the philosophical movement of the Enlighteners), which originated in France and led to the French revolution as well as the emergence of true democracy accross Europe. So even if the US was already independant by the time the French Revolution happened, this is only because it was way more complicated to achieve the latter. But let's not be mistaken about its origins.

> But let's not be mistaken about its origins.

Let's not make nonsensical statements like US independence was completely inspired by the Lumières then.

Most notably, US independence was also inspired by the Glorious Revolution in England (the American Bill of Rights is even based on the English Bill of Rights), about a century earlier.

The glorious revolution was the direct consequence of the Lumières - in fact it was part of the movement!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

HTH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumières

"The Lumières (literally in English: Enlighteners) was a cultural, philosophical, literary and intellectual movement of the second half of the 18th century"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

"The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688"

Your proposed timelines are a little off, old bean. ;-)

There was a lot of inspiration the other way too, though.

Here are two little instances I came across recently where the french copied their rhetoric and symbolism from America:

In 1787 Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants". Then in 1793 Bertrand Barère, in an influential speech to the national assembly advocating execution of the king, repeated "The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants" . In French sources the quote is often (incorrectly) attributed to Barère only.

Similarly, during the American revolution, Americans raised symbolic "liberty poles" in their towns. Directly inspired by this, during the french revolution most cities raised and decorated "Trees of Liberty" in their central squares. King Louis even stooped to visiting and honoring the one in Paris to appease revolutionaries (it didn't help).

(The French took the idea of "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants" quite literally).

You would be correct to believe that.

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