Change has to come from within; you need people like Gorbachev.
Revolutions bring lots of bloodshed and animosity and pits friends against friends. It takes many decades to heal from that. There is also a vast and deep trail of wasted lives in its wake.
Whenever there's a revolution there's a potential counter-revolution. It's rare to be able to spike the guns with carnations, like Portugal.
> Revolutions bring lots of bloodshed and animosity and pits friends against friends. It takes decades to heal from that. There is also a vast and deep trail of wasted lives in its wake.
This is something every would-be revolutionary kid needs to internalise and ask themselves if they are really ready for. The cost is huge and mostly borne by vulnerable other people.
Portugal's carnation revolution is a clear example that change has to come from within.
The man behind the coup was General Spínola, the man in charge of Portugal's fight against independence movements in Portuguese guinea. Prior to the revolution he wrote a book on how the war was unwinnable to pressure Portugal's ruling dictatorship into a political solution, to which the ruling Portuguese dictator refused. Consequently a couple of coups were attempted and when they finally succeeded the dictator surrendered and General Spínola took over as interim president of Portugal, enactig the political changes he defended such as ending fighting and jump-starting a transition to a democratic regime.
Meanwhile, the dictatorship's single-party parliament already included groups of representatives, such as Sá Carneiro's liberal wing, who were not only openly against the dictatorship but also openly advocated for a transition to democracy.
You can't get more internal than that.
This is one of the points emphasised by [0| I call it the 3.5% talk]. The argument is that nonviolent peaceful "revolutions" are not only more successful in toppling regimes, they also make it easier to build a new one.