Gorbachev: Soviet Destroyer

One of the most surprising aspects of the Eastern Bloc revolutions of 1989 was the peaceful nature and general lack of violence with which they occurred. But what was most surprising about these revolutions was the non-violent response, or general lack of response by the USSR.

Throughout the past the USSR had come to be known for their violent tactics in regards to revolts and maintaining control. This was most obvious during the Stalinist Era of the USSR.

During Stalin’s reign the USSR came to be known for KGB kidnappings, Gulags and collectivized farms, causing massive famine and death throughout the country. Even long after the death of Stalin, the USSR continued this policy of violence. In response to the Yugoslavian revolt in 1956, the USSR sent in the overwhelming Red Army and crushed all forms of revolt.

It was Gorbachev who, in ending this policy of violence and enacting a policy of reforms and concessions in favor of maintaining the USSR, destroyed it.

The USSR, without it’s overbearing sense of fear that it imposed on other countries (namely their satellite states) left themselves open for revolt. Gorbachev, in striving for peace in the USSR, ultimately destroyed his USSR and his own position within it.

The Great Satan

Throughout the course of the Iranian revolution, the U.S. played many roles, often with varying consequences and effects. But, through these roles, the U.S. molded the outcome of the Revolution itself. At the beginning of the Revolution, the U.S. was in support of the recently-risen to power Reza Shah, who was a great advocator of westernization and modernization in Iran. Even after the deposition of Reza Shah and the subsequent rise to power of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the U.S. still had managed not to interfere in Iranian affairs unlike their wartime Soviet and English allies. It was not until 1953 that the U.S. made its first appearance in the Iranian revolution. At the height of the Cold-War, our allies tipped us off to a “soviet” threat lead by the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh. In a magnificent display of 1950’s soviet fear, the U.S. sends in team from the recently formed CIA to unseat the Prime Minister, which the team accomplishes. It is from this initial takedown that trust for the U.S. begins to diminish in the eyes of the Iranian people, a crucial trust which would play a big role later in the revolution.

Some time later, Ayatollah Khomeini, the primary leader amongst the Anti-Shah faction, would coin the term “The Great Satan” for the United States. Khomeini viewed the U.S. as such because he viewed it as the pinnacle of Western corruption. It was the U.S. who was the leading super-power in the world at the time, and it was the U.S. who was the model of Western thought and society. It was this western society that Khomeini viewed was corrupting the true Iran, the Islamic Iran. In 1979, after 14 years of exile, returned to Iran and rose to power, appointing Mehdi Bazargan as the Prime Minister of Iran, with no official authority behind him.

3 years later, in 1982, Iran and Iraq were at war over a territory near the Gaza Strip. This Iran-Iraq war was a pinnacle point in the U.S. manipulation of the Iranian revolution. The Iraqis, committing war-crimes in doing so, used mustard gas and nerve gas against the Iranian soldiers during the war. This nerve gas was provided to the Iraqi forces by none other than the U.S., who were at this point on good terms with the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In response to this use of nerve gas, the U.S. started providing arms to the Iranian soldiers, in what can be called an attempt to even out the playing field. This war had a very drastic effect on the Iranian people, as supporters and those against the war became increasingly radical, the two opposing sides being the Basij and Khomeini respectively. 

In conclusion, the U.S. not only played an important role in the Iranian revolution as a victim, but played a role as a player and molder as well.

The Rise of the Red Guard

During Mao’s return to government in the cultural revolution, a destructive force was created which could not really be controlled. In urging the young people of China to rise up and rebel at the chains that held them, Mao unleashed a tidal wave of violence and anarchy that, in Mao’s sense of the word, epitomized “Revolution”.

The Red Guards sprung up from Mao’s urging of the youth of China to rise up and rebel against the bureaucracy that they experienced in their everyday lives. The Red Guard took this advice to the extreme, not only rebelling against constraints placed on them in their everyday lives such as teachers and school work, but also against constraints in society. This rebellion against societal restraints turned extremely violent, as groups of Red Guards militarized and roamed the countryside, destroying all forms of “bureaucracy” that they saw. This, is as Mao defines it, the perfect revolution.
As Mao has been quoted “Revolution grows out of the barrel of a gun”. And in the case of the Red Guards militarization, it literally did. Also, the revolution staged by the Red Guards also held up with the view of a Communist Revolution, having the common student rise up and free themselves from the chains of bureaucracy. This Red Guard Rebellion was in fact, Mao’s perfect revolution.

Satyagraha and the Salt March

The Salt March, one of Gandhi’s successful non-violent protests en masse, was a titular moment in Gandhi’s satyagraha campaign and India’s bid for independence. The Salt March can also be said to be the perfect embodiment of Gandhi’s ideals of satyagraha. As defined by Gandhi, satyagraha is the act of non-violent protest and the conversion of your enemies to the ways of satyagraha. Satyagraha also includes the Janiast ideal of “relative truth”, that you must look at arguments presented by both sides and accept your opponents views, considering both sides as true. These ideals can all be seen in the components of the Salt March. The Salt March was based on the Salt Tax of India, a controversial tax on an everyday necessity. This attack on the everyday lives of the common Indian was a direct affront against humanity in Gandhi’s mind. Adhering to the ideas of Satyagraha, Gandhi informed the vice-roy of his plans in order to allow him to form his own opinions of the march and to take action accordingly. Then, following satyagraha to the T, he started a march of non-violent protest, all the while garnering more and more followers. This non-violent campaign and its successful result can be said to have perfectly embodied satyagraha.

Egypt's Internal War

It seems that the chaos that has infected Egypt has now come to a new stage of revolution with the most recent development in the political revolution in Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak has stated recently that he would remain as the President of Egypt, much to the surprise of the people of Egypt and the onlookers of the events of the country. Over the past couple of days, violence in Egypt has been on the rise, with the death toll at the 300’s by 2/1/11. The rise of violence can be seen as the natural course of things for a revolution of such as this, but with the recent development I see a new chapter of the revolution arising. With Mubarak’s declaration, I foresee not only further violent protest to continue, but to explode and possibly even lead to a breakout of civil warfare. The army has already stated in response to Mubarak’s declaration that they would fight for the good of the country, which at this moment seems to be on the side of the people. I predict that if Mubarak was to continue this course of action and attempt to retain his power, the current course of revolution will lead to civil warfare and will ultimately destroy the government of Egypt, and the city of Cairo itself.

The Power of Steam

The Industrial Revolution was a period of time known for many changes. It can be known for the birth of the factory, redefining how we as a people act, work and view the working world even today. It can be known for the redefinition of the role of women in the working role and in society as general, changing not only the role of women in the work place but, up until recently, changing the view of women in society to that of the matron and caregiver that we’ve known until now. It can even be known as a time of revolutionary thought, such as the idea of self improvement for the sake of success as coined in Samuel Smiles, or Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”. The revolution is more prominently known for it’s exponential growth in the field of machines and industrial engineering. The most important product of this engineering and of the Industrial Revolution was undoubtedly the Steam Engine. The steam engine, created by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, later perfected by James Watt, the steam engine was not only an advancement in energy production and use itself, but also led to the advancement in other fields through the use of this powerful engine.

The steam engine, for 150+ years, solved the energy crisis by providing an efficient engine that allowed the coal to be turned into a previously unseen amount of energy. Using this energy provided by the engine, factories and manufacturer’s were able to create machines that were able to produce products more efficiently and on a grander scale. Also, the machines themselves were able to perform bigger tasks and bigger and better machines could be built due to this previously unseen energy limit. But what I find most interesting is the way that the steam engine revolutionized transportation. Up until the Industrial revolution, land travel was done by horse and buggy, and land travel by boat. But when the steam engine was created, the transportation field now had a new energy source to run on. Using this engine, trains and steamboats were invented, revolutionizing not only the duration of travel and travel itself, but also effecting trade and the world in ways probably not unforeseen.

On a smaller note, the steam engine is even effecting the modern world today, a sub-culture of fashion aptly named after the world that this engine provided.

The Color Barrier: Race in Haiti

The Haitian revolution ended in a very interesting way in my opinion. With their leader, Toussaint L’ouverture, dead after being imprisoned, former general under Toussaint, Jean-Jacques Dessalines leads a bloody purge of the white French from the island. I find this interesting that such a drastic outcome would come from this revolution. From the beginning of the revolution, race was not an important factor in the fighting of the revolution. But for such a bloody end to come from the revolution caught me off guard. In the beginning this revolution seemed to me to mostly be a conflict of ideas, not of color. The plantation owners and the wealthy wanted to keep control over their own economy, which was run through the power of the black slaves. But the plantation owners were not all white, some were free black who had been born free or even bought their freedom. As the movie stated, at the time of the slave revolt, Toussaint was running a plantation of his own, utilizing slave labor. So the idea of color had not yet seemed to become the main component of the revolution. After the free blacks had begun fighting the whites of the island, the slaves were still considered separate from the free black cause, even when the slaves joined the fight. It did not seem like an issue of color up until the Dessaline’s purge of the white French. This turning point seems to me to be when race suddenly became the big issue of the revolution.