The news that the pro-Western coalition around Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has collapsed is but one more data point in my unpublished theory that all revolutions cannot hold and eventually eat their own.
The Orange Revolution of Ukraine (2004) is the latest example.
Other examples from history include:
- The French Revolution (1789) turned into the Reign of Terror.
- The Russian Revolution (1917) morphed into the Stalinst purges.
- The Chinese Communist Revolution (1949) led to the Cultural Revolution (1966).
- The Iranian Revolution (1978) is showing signs of trouble after a disputed election and the fact that the government had to put on a show of force to quell an opposition protest during its anniversary celebration.
And there are others, but my time is limited, and I have to get the kids ready for school.
Even the outcome of the American Revolution (1775) could not hold for even two decades. After the Revolutionary War, the thirteen colonies organized themselves around the Articles of Confederation. However, this system proved ineffective and it took a meeting in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 and the creation of the United States Constitution to save the fledgling Union.
Even that mini-revolution in Philadelphia could not hold as over seventy years later, the country would devolve into the United States Civil War.
I’m also sure there are one or two outliers to my theory so I will allow an enterprising young graduate student in need of a thesis to take up my theory, expand on it, make it their own, write a thesis, defend it, publish it, and make tons o’ money on the lecture circuit just so long as I receive credit somewhere along the line.
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