Over the past couple years, I’ve spent a considerable number of hours listening to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast. All in all, I’ve probably spent over 200 hours listening to this podcast.
Each season of the podcast covers a different historical revolution from background grumblings to violent uprisings and continuing until the revolution reaches some kind of closure.
Season 1. In the 1600s, the English Revolution resulted in the public execution King Charles I and the appointment of a commoner, Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector (dictator). After Cromwell’s death, England quickly relapsed to the monarchy and Charles II, the son of Charles I, regained the throne.
Season 2. This is by far the best revolution and the one that I had the most knowledge about before listening to the podcast - the American Revolution. Unlike any other revolution, the American Revolution fulfilled its promises. And while post-revolutionary America dealt with a bloody Civil War, there was not a follow on revolution or relapse into monarchy.
Season 3. Many of the American revolutionaries continued on to support France in the French Revolution against Louis XVI. Historically, this is where things really start going wrong as the French Revolution became a template for future European revolution. And it’s not a good template. The French Revolution was violent, cruel and short-lived. The French killed their King and wrote a constitution. But this constitution was quickly suspended by the Committee of Public Safety who executed tens of thousands in a brutal, brutal Reign of Terror.
Season 4. While the French were killing each other during their revolution, they also had to manage a sprawling empire. This empire included the slave colony Haiti, then known as Saint-Domingue. In the 1790s, the French Revolutionary declarations of equality and independence made it to Haiti and inspired slaves and colored people to launch a slave revolt. A brilliant slave named Toussaint Louverture took the lead of the revolt and fought off the French, British and Spanish armies. Haiti has the honor of being the only successful slave revolt, but since independence, Haiti has fallen short of Louverture’s dreams. Today Haiti has a GDP smaller than many OpenAI spinoffs.
Season 5. I had trouble getting interested in seasons where I didn’t already have some pre-existing knowledge of the history and this is the first of those seasons. It covers Simon Bolivar’s revolt against the Spanish King in Colombia and the formation of a short-lived Gran Colombia which joined modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela into a mega nation-state.
Season 6. After being a bit sick of France after Season 3, I gave myself the grace of skipping this season too… It covered the (French) Bourbon Restoration and subsequent revolutions. Basically France has kept bouncing between Kings, Emperors, and Constitutions this whole time.
Season 7. Sometimes everything happens at once. In 1848, almost every country in Europe experienced some kind of revolution. Workers in over 50 countries caught the liberalization meme and fought for more social and economic power. This mostly failed but it set the scene for future, successful revolutions and moved the pieces into position for World War I.
Season 8. Oh no, we’re back in France. This season is short, but packed full of violence. It begins with Napoleon III leading the Second French Empire into foreign conquests. Overall he was much less effective than his more famous uncle and he ended up captured by the Germans. Paris then experienced two months of super-liberal almost communist government with the Paris Commune before the French Army rolled in and killed or imprisoned nearly everyone who was part of the Paris Commune.
Season 9. This covers the Mexican Revolution and has a charismatic character named Pancho Villa. I’ve eaten at a Mexican restaurant called Pancho Villa and it’s really good. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to this season so that’s pretty much all I know.
Season 10. This was the big one. 103 episodes on the Russian Revolution. This begins here starts with the theories of Marx, Engels and Bakunin who agree that each technology implies a certain social structure. And since Europe was industrializing, that meant there was going to be a radical change. In Russia, multiple Russian tsar’s were assassinated, World War I happened and ended, and as the dust settled, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were in strong control of the new Russian state. More than any previous revolution, this history felt incredibly contingent. For example, when Lenin took power, most thought that it was only temporary and no one would have called it the “Russian Revolution” at the time. We only know that looking back.
So, across all of these revolutions, what’s consistent across them?
Revolutions are brutal. When you start learning more about any revolution, you’ll see how fundamentally terrifying they are. In Fort Greene, Brooklyn, you can find a memorial to the over 11,500 men who died onboard British prison ships. In France, the revolutionaries had a nasty habit of tying people to barges and then sinking the barges in the river.
Revolutions are often counter-productive. After many revolutions, the revolutionary fervor swings back to put the old regime in power. The French are now on their Fifth Republic. And even if the old regime doesn’t come back, the new regime isn’t usually any better. In Russia, the Tsar Nick II was brutal and repressive. His replacement, Lenin, was similarly brutal, and Stalin was much, much worse.
Revolutions are incredibly hard to predict. The Russians only knew the start and end years of their revolution when looking back after 5-10 years. At the time, Lenin’s consolidation of power seemed as temporary as his predecessors Kerensky and Lvov who each held power for a few months. Conversely, the Revolutions of 1848 had lot of momentum and happened simultaneously across 50 countries. But those revolutions didn’t lead to any lasting change.
Revolutions start with very small groups. The Arab Spring started with the a street vendor setting himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. The American Revolution started with underground protest groups and significant events like the Boston Tea Party were just a few dozen people.
Revolution became a meme. Starting in the mid-1700s there were more revolutions in the next 150 years than in any preceding time in history. I think the idea of revolution caught on. In the Revolutions of 1848, hundreds of thousands of people across 50 countries all revolted with very little coordination. And in the Russian Revolution, the revolutionaries looked up to the French Revolution and would argue about what stage of the revolution they were at. “I think we are in Thermidor.” “No, you are Robespierre!”
It is easier to revolt than to rule. Revolutions often coalesce around opposition to an unpopular government. In the American Revolution, the North and South united against their opposition to England and the king. But it took heroic leadership to keep them together and to form a new Union. And that was shortly followed by a Civil War. After the revolutionaries succeed at overthrowing the Ancien Régime, they have a hard time staying united.
I don’t want a revolution. Most revolutions fail. The ones that succeed are still brutal. And even the “successful” revolutions often regress into a copy of the old political system or into another revolution. It may sound boring, but I’d much rather live through slow, incremental change than a political revolution.