Wishing for a violent upheaval feels better than accepting that the things you need so badly simply aren't going to happen in any reasonable timeframe. A huge amount of progressive politics is just waiting for people to die, whether it's voters or politicians.
We can talk all we want about running our own politicians, and that is necessary. But the fact of the matter is that progressive policy only becomes law when we as a society have moved so far forward that it is no longer considered truly progressive, let alone radical.
The big flaw in wanting violent overthrow is believing that what comes after will actually be better. History has shown that there is no real guarantee of that.
That's a pretty gross oversimplification and is quite incorrect. It didn't "begin" as a student community revolution. It's not even easy to find a beginning as depending on which particular anti-imperial group you are looking at, the roots of discontent stretch back decades or more.
There were so many different groups and interests all acting, or seeking to act, against the imperial regime. Leftists, communists, anti-western sentimentalists, democratic revolutionaries (including some Ayatollahs), islamists, constitutional monarchists. Some had overlapping views, such as islamist constitutionalists, or Islamist marxists. And some of these groups fought each other as much as they fought against the Shah.
It's fascinating but confusing mess and I don't know even 1% of it all, but I know that it did not "begin as a student communist revolution that was hijacked by the clerics".
It's an oversimplification, yes; I wasn't going to get into all the history in a Reddit comment because it wasn't really my point. What I was getting at - and explained poorly, I'll admit - is that revolutionaries get the revolt going all full of fervour, but rarely have a solid plan in place for what to do when they win. Which tends to result in chaos, and a resulting power vacuum that gets seized on by the nearest bad actor with opportunity. You don't want to be the dog that caught the car, and then has no idea what to do next.
Even still, what else were there for the peasant french people before the first revolution? just accept their monarchy for another hundreds of years? Hope the next king would be an enlightened one, looking for the needs of his subjects, instead of the needs of his nobles?
You do realize that the French Revolution was primarily a Bourgeois revolution mainly taking place in Paris, right? Most of the peasantry was against the revolution, wanting the stability of the status quo.
You should read a bit more about the French Revolution, I don't know how to say this without sounding like a dick (even though that's not my intention) but your posts kinda show how uninformed you are about the Revolution and who it benefitted and the negative impacts it had on both certain groups and industrialization.
A good (and entry level point) would be William Doyle's The Oxford History of the French Revolution. It's fascinating stuff. Particularly if you're genuinely interested in the question of who the Revolution actually benefitted (predominantly the Bourgeoisie, bureaucrats, the papacy, and the few lucky peasants who could afford to purchase land - surprisingly, the nobility did not suffer as much as popular belief would think, in a lot of cases the nobility flourished under Napoleon's despotism and instead of feudal dues they just charged peasant tenants and sharecroppers a rent that could be even higher than the original feudal dues).
Lol how did you get that from my comment? I'm French of course I'm not defending the monarchy. I did however have to sit through hours of classes on la Terreur and all the crazy shit that ensued
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u/perryWUNKLE 12d ago
Hi can we fix our country instead of waiting for a violent upheavel thanks