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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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To have a rebellion, you need… Something that struck me while doing research into failed
and successful rebellions (far more of the former, sadly) was that few
rebellions appear out of nowhere. The
peasants’ revolt in England in the 1300s was a failure, largely because there
was no organisation that upheld the new rights they had obtained from the King.
Slimily, the Russian revolution of 1905 was a failure, the Whiskey
Rebellion in 1783ish was a failure and the constant disturbances in Saudi have
achieved nothing beyond a lot of dead protestors. On the other hand, the American Revolution was a success,
the Iranian revolution was a success and the ‘rebellious side won the British
Civil War. I asked myself, why did
those revolutions succeed and the others fail? One possible answer is that there was an existing,
alternate, power structure in place before the rebellion.
The Americans had congress, although it was very ramshackle at the time,
the British had parliament and the Iranians had the religious establishment.
They all played a role in channelling the power of the people against the
people they believed to be oppressing them. We could also add the US states system as making the
creation of the CSA easier and the Spanish division of power between
towns/nobles/monarchy as aiding the commerous revolt.
Both those revolts were failures, but they lasted longer than any revolt
without a power base. Thoughts? Chris
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