When the natives get restless

Extravagant spending by King Louis XVI (1754-1793) of France and his predecessor had left France on the brink of bankruptcy as the 18th century drew to a close. Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but two decades of poor cereal harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest amongst Parisian peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes, yet failed to provide relief for the peasants, by rioting, looting and striking.

La Bastille was stormed in 1789. On January 12, 1793, King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, was sent to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette suffered the same fate nine months later. Over 17,000 people, incl the entire Royal family hierarchy, associates of royalty and tax collectors, were officially tried and executed, mostly by the guillotine during a 10 months period in 1793 known as the Reign of Terror. An unknown number of others died in prison or without trial.

French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable right.

2. American Revolutionary War - 1875 to 1883

Causes:

Taxes imposed by Britain upon American colonialists was the primary cause of the American Revolutionary War.

Effects:

The Boston Tea Party humiliated the English monarchy that then imposed punitive laws on Massachusetts in 1774 known as the Coercive Acts, following which Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts. In late 1775, the Patriots in each of the thirteen colonies formed Provincial Congresses set up their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance efforts against Great Britain. Other colonists, known as Loyalists, preferred to remain aligned to the British Crown.

An estimated 6,800 Americans were killed in action, another 6,100 wounded, and upwards of 20,000 taken prisoner. Historians believe that at least an additional 17,000 deaths were the result of disease or as prisoners of war. Unreliable imperial data places the total casualties (battlefield deaths and injuries, deaths from disease, men taken prisoner, and those who remained missing) for British regulars fighting in the Revolutionary War around 24,000 men.

In London, as political support for the war plummeted after the disastrous battle in Yorktown, the British Prime Minister resigned in March 1782. In April 1782, the Commons voted to end the war in America. The formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris (for the U.S.) were signed on Sept 3, 1783.

3. The Russian 'October' Revolution - 1917

Causes:

By 1917, most Russians had lost faith in the leadership of Czar Nicholas II. Government corruption was rampant, the Russian economy remained backward, and Nicholas repeatedly dissolved the Russian parliament established after the 1905 revolution, when it opposed his will. The final catalyst to the first phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 was Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War I. Riots and strikes erupted in March 1917.

Effects:

The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces. Bolshevik Red Guard forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began to take over government buildings on 24th October, 1917. The following day, the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia), was captured. Soldiers ceased to obey Czar Nicholas II and his family that were executed by Bolshevik forces in July 1918.

A series of great political upheavals in China between 1911 and 1949, which eventually led to Communist Party rule and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. In 1912, a nationalist revolt overthrew the imperial Manchu dynasty. The 10,000-km Long March to the northwest, undertaken by the communists from 1934 to 1935, to escape Kuomintang harassment, resulted in the emergence of Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) as a communist leader. During World War II the various Chinese political groups pooled military resources against the Japanese invaders, but, in 1946, the conflict reignited into open civil war. Mao’s troops formed the basis of the Red Army that renewed the civil war against the nationalists and emerged victorious after defeating them in 1949.

Communist rule was established in the People’s Republic of China under the leadership of Mao Zedong.

The ‘liberation’ of China, however, resulted in millions of civilian causalities at the hands of both the nationalists and the Red Army.

On March 10th, 1952, General Fulgencio Batista overthrew the president of Cuba, Carlos Prìo Socarrás, and canceled all elections. President Batista dictatorship evidenced brutal suppression and poverty which angered a young lawyer, Fidel Alejandro Castro. For the next seven years Castro led attempts to overthrow Batista’s government. In 1957 Castro began using guerrilla tactics to fight Batista’s armed forces, and, with the aid of other rebellions throughout Cuba, he forced Batista to resign and flee the country on January 1st, 1959. Castro became the Prime Minister of Cuba in February and had about 550 of Batista’s associates executed.

He soon suspended all elections and named himself “President for Life”, jailing or executing all who opposed him. He established a communist government with himself as a dictator and began relations with the Soviet Union. Fidel Castro governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Once established as Cuba’s leader Fidel began to pursue more radical policies: Cuba’s private commerce and industry were nationalized; sweeping land reforms were instituted; and American businesses and agricultural estates were expropriated. The United States was alienated by these policies and offended by Castro’s fiery new anti-American rhetoric. His brother Raul succeeded Fidel in 2006.

In Iran, Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) was overthrown and replaced by an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The revolution was in part a conservative backlash against the westernization and secularization efforts of the Western-backed Shah. The Shah was perceived by many Iranians as a puppet of non-Muslim the United States whose culture was contaminating Iran. The Shah's regime was seen as oppressive, brutal, corrupt and extravagant. It also suffered from basic functional failures, an overly-ambitious economic program that brought economic bottlenecks, shortages and inflation.

(a) lacked many of the customary causes of revolution (defeat at war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military);

(d) overthrew a regime heavily protected by a lavishly financed army and security service; and

(e) replaced a modernizing monarchy with a theocracy based on the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists.

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