יום ראשון, פברואר 10, 2008

The dynamics of revolutions and counter-revolutions

I specifically write this in English to reach a wider audience:

Recurring characteristic of revolutions had caught my eye. I may not be the first one who have seen it and I might not be too original, but I've seen it now and want to share it with you. And this characteristic is the fact that in a revolution, any revolution, there are always three sides.
I’d found it when trying to imagine how could such revolutions be subverted and eliminated without the violence and suffering that always occur in the effort to defeat them, and worse, in living within or outside of the domain of such a revolution when it ultimately succeed
To start with, there are two sides with a legitimate conflict between them. For example, the noble people who controlled France and were largely exempt from taxes vs. the Third Estate who would pay the bills by their taxes. This example would be refined later to the conflict between the capitalists (whether Noble or bourgeoisie) who own the means of production vs. the proletarian who actually operate those means. Such conflicts are not always of economic/social nature. They could be of ethnic/national and even worse, of religious nature.
In retrospect, all these conflicts could and should have been eliminated, had the two sides been thinking rationally and reaching (communicating) with the other side. The First and Second Estates in France could have understand that there are some problems in the situation, that the Third Estate could not be the only one who carries the burden of paying the bills, that the monopolistic economical system is broken, etc. Well, in the same time they couldn’t see it because of their cultural conceptual view of the world.
It is this gap, between the two conflicting sides that the third side thrives on. The revolutionaries use such a gap to their evil ends. They use the grievance that one side feels towards the other and the inability of that other side to recognize the legitimacy of the ‘oppressed’ side arguments. They use these issues to agitate the ‘oppressed’ side with the full and open intent to destroy the ‘oppressing’ side in a violent revolution.
But, resolving the legitimate interests of the side that they are agitating is not their real goal. Their real goal is world dominance for whatever theory, (pseudo) scientific or religious they hold. They do not give a hoot to the well being of the people that they claim to fight for. Look at the ‘Terror’ that the French Revolution inflicted on people from the ‘oppressing’ Estates and it’s own revolutionaries alike or look at the bulk amount of suicide bombs victims who are as Muslims as their murderers and you must admit that.
Now, the masses may come to think and may realize that they may gain much more by communicating with the ‘enemy’ then by living under and fighting for the revolution. And the enemy may come to the same conclusion when they recognize the power of the revolution. These two sides may try to open new channels of communication and come to some mutual understanding that would put the revolutionaries out of business. So the revolutionaries always resort to violent and forceful means that aim to cut any such communication channels on one side and keep their masses agitated and aim to destroy the enemy.
Short of destroying those masses, there is no way to stop the conflict by outside force. It must be that these masses would get rid of their revolutionary leaders/oppressors and renew the communication with the other side. And the best strategy for that other side is to aim exactly for that.