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Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

I always argue caution about revolution to help the poor, as there are plenty of examples where revolution killed as many poor people as it did aristocrats.

Possibly the least flame war worthy example is the French Revolution. While the popular image is of the great terror killing off nobles, the reality is that most of the killings in Paris were either politicians or unfortunate merchants who refused to sell their goods at state mandated prices (at a loss) and were denounced.

And that’s not even including the 160,000 mostly poor soldiers killed in the Vendée after peasants revolted against forced conscription, nor the extra 40,000 civilians killed in the brutal reprisals after the war was over.

And the kicker? Not only did France eventually get a different king, but most nobles were able re-buy their old estates, and the government even went deeper into debt to compensate various nobles for their confiscated land.

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I'd say it's very hard to find any violent revolutions that improved a society. It's pretty much a long line of tragedies.

I count throwing out a foreign oppressor, like the American revolution or the Czech "velvet revolution" as a separate category. Those can be good.

Vietnam gained independence from France, might not be much better but I would say colonialism in general follows this. Or would that fall under "violent revolutions that throwing out a foreign oppressor".

Yeah, I don't count sending the French home as the kind of revolution I talk about.

If the decades of war and communism that followed were an improvement can be debated, but it's a quite separate issue.

>I count throwing out a foreign oppressor, like the American revolution

The revolutionaries were British citizens, just like the soldiers they faced. Sure, England shipped in more soldiers, but neither side was more foreign than the other.

Call it a war of independence, if you prefer.

I think the important part is that the overthrown regime was based outside the (new) country, and was no longer a factor in the internal politics.

There were plenty of violent revolutions that stopped early enough to make gains. (At around the French one, England had a few.)

But any revolution that lasts enough to make into the popular definition of the word will cost more than it gains.

> At around the French one, England had a few.

The USA had one too.

I don't think independence wars are on the same category. They are much more likely to be beneficial, and having a well defined enemy, much less likely to grow unbounded.

It's also an enemy that can go home when they lose.

Afterwards you don't have to choose between coexisting with them, or killing them.

It's worth casting a critical eye on the American Revolution, too.

https://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#the-american-revolution

The central point of the Velvet revolution was that it was non violent; also it was not about foreign oppresor primarily, we were oppresing ourselves very well without much help needed.

My impression is that once it was clear the Soviet Union would not rescue the regime, it had lost it's power base, and was doomed.

Yes, but that was the last resort, after the regime's own army and secret police got overwhelmed.

By the time the Velvet Revolution started, Poland was already after it's semi-free election, Hungary dismantled the heavily protected border with Austria, and the Berlin wall fell. But still, part of the local communist army had a contingency plan, 2 MiG-29 jets going supersonic, as low as they could, above the 300000+ protesters in Letna park. Thank god they didn't go through with it. Sources in Czech: https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/stacil-by-prelet-stihacky... https://www.parlamentnilisty.cz/zpravy/Havel-vzpominal-Staci...

> I'd say it's very hard to find any violent revolutions that improved a society.

The reign of terror in France may not have improved France, but it did scare the European aristocracy, and ended up indirectly giving a lot of political and economic rights to the general population. Aristocrats very quickly realized that they did not want a repeat of that performance in their home countries.

The Soviet Union, especially under Lenin and Stalin was no picnic, but it scared the West shitless, thus forcing it to concede rights, benefits, and legislature to labour movements, to prevent full-scale communism. Social democracy, as an institution, can credit much of its existence to the communist revolution.

People with power over you never give anything up, unless they are scared. Violent revolutions tend to make neighboring oligarchs quite scared.

You are right about the US being scared shirtless about communism, though I'm not convinced labour rights etc were as a direct result.

Also look at all the damage the US did to other societies in the name of preventing "red danger" - the repercussions of which are still being felt in some countries.

The burden of proof is on you, most institution of French social democracy where created in the thirty years following the soviet revolution; without knowing I think it's the same in the rest of western Europe.

Communist Romania. Things improved immensely. And that was definitely not a foreign oppressor. I'm sure there are others, but yeah generally it's rare.

That's a decent counterexample.

Though maybe people didn't revolt before, since ultimately the Soviets would roll in the tanks if they ever toppled Ceaușescu.

Yeah, hard to say. The USSR was still alive for two more years but probably too busy by the end of '89 to care much about such foreign affairs as it was likely crumbling from the inside. But it's hard to know. I think what's more likely is that Ceaușescu would have kept going long after Soviet collapse if he hadn't been killed, probably into a multi generational cult of personality dictatorial communist state. Basically another North Korea. I'm so glad they killed that monstrous piece of shit. Best Christmas present for Romanians ever. If NK or China ever follows suit, I imagine a similar outcome. Some people are better off dead.

Yeah, I'm somewhat familiar with the utter madness and evil of that regime...

Thanks for making me a little less sure of my universal revolution theory :)

> I always argue caution about revolution to help the poor, as there are plenty of examples where revolution killed as many poor people as it did aristocrats.

Std pareto curve. population of 100. 10 are aristocratic. 90 lower class. if you net equal losses, population 80 and you have increased equality. This is a simplification.

Right, but they didn't net equal losses. The vast majority of people killed in the French Revolution were from the Third Estate.

It doesnt have to be equal, just outside the existing curve. Again, conceptually, 1:9 from 100 is an improvement for some abstract measure of equality.

Given the fact that everyone ended up worse off after, this is kind of a pointless thing to attempt to point out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Long-term_im...

Just skimming this, it seems the french and the entire world was left better-off actually

Fair enough, but I think we could both agree that the revolution was only beneficial because it changed the old system into something more malleable and predictable. The throne is an unstable thing, as is the man in it, and only subject to change on unpredictable whims.

If you already exist in a system that is pliable, like a democracy, revolution really wouldn't bring you any of the benefits the French revolution did in the centuries that followed. You'd really only get the downsides.

Let's not forget the context of the conversation here an talk about completely different circumstances.

I don't follow what you mean about context, you brought up a bad example and you're moving goal-posts.

There have been numerous revolutions with positive benefits to the world at large as well as to the society/culture in which they took place. I would chance to say that the majority were net-positive. If you find yourself scared of revolution, you should maybe take an introspective moment and ponder why the poor and downtrodden of the world (or just in your own country) would consider you their enemy.

I'm pointing out that the long-term gain from a revolution is not a by product of the revolution itself, but from the pre and post conditions. The revolution was necessary to effect those changes, but it was the difference in condition that lead to the benefit.

Unless you are planning to massively alter the political (IE not have a democracy anymore) or economic system (IE not have capitalism anymore), a revolution does more harm than good, because you are only getting the short-term byproducts which are predominately bad. If the political and economic system remains largely the same, then a revolution is just a period of time where people are committing violence or protesting instead of making things.

In the French revolution every one think it was mainly the aristos that went to the Guillotine.

In fact most of the deaths happened out in the countryside, Infernal Columns, Revolutionary Weddings (masss drownings of clergy) and the Revolt in the Vendee.

Obviously revolution is terrible because of the enormous amounts of human suffering.

But if we're trying to compare the impact on rich vs poor we should probably use per capita numbers because there are far more poor than rich.

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