The Anatomy of Revolution

Crane Brinton's classic text and the auguries of violence.

Nov 21, 2024

When Plowshares are beaten into Swords

Since wrapping up Welcome to Charlottesville I’ve been working on a couple of essay cycles, one looking backwards into American colonial history and one looking further still, back to the ancient Middle East and oldest settled communities yet scraped by the archaeologist’s trowel, but those aren’t done yet, and I keep getting distracted by the events around us.

When I was a kid my aunt Clarice used to say, “May you live in interesting times.” She cited it as a Chinese blessing, but Google claims it was an English concoction long believed to be Chinese, but a curse not a blessing. I like my aunt’s interpretation. It’s a blessing to live when we get to witness change all around us.

The Gadsden flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775. It draws on Ben Franklin’s Join or Die cartoon from the Seven Years War.

How much more change is coming and how extreme will it be? During the presidential campaign many feared the election would end in violence. Democrats feared Trump would not accept the results if he lost—understandable given that he said he wouldn’t and in 2020 he’d refused to accept losing.1

But many Trump-leaning voters also feared violence based on a few comments made by Hillary Clinton supporters back in 2016 about the electoral college changing pledged votes, suspicions that the 2020 vote was rigged (based on high turnout and America’s painfully slow vote counting),2 and general fears of the QAnon variety fanned.

But were any of these fears—and are they now—possible? In the legacy media all fears of revolution seem directed at Trump, based on his own comments and previous behavior, but under any conditions could a real coup or revolution arise from any part of the left?

Remember our country was actually founded on a revolution from the left. Those revolutionaries were much more radical then we might remember; after all, they overthrew their annointed king. In general countries like Great Britain, France, and Russia have all experienced successful revolutions from the left, but arguably not from the right.3 For some reason multi-ethnic countries—like the U.S., Great Britain, France, and Russia—seem intrinsically to be more vulnerable to revolutions from the left while countries based on single ethnicities—such as Italy, Germany, Greece, and Poland—have been more vulnerable to revolutions from the right.

Two excellent books. Find them in your favorite book purveyor.

Left and Right

Words like liberal and conservative are used by so many people in so many ways that I’m going to avoid them and try to stick with “left” and “right.” I’ve written at length about how left and right are temperamental approaches to the relationship between equality and freedom. People on the left tend to notice ways in which equality and freedom reinforce one another. People on the right tend to notice ways in which equality and freedom are in conflict with one another. So people on the right tend to have more faith in hierarchies.

Americans towards the center, either center right or center left, often accuse their opponents of being “extremists” on the “far left” or “far right” whenever they’re intense, dogmatic, or belligerent. Critics of “wokeness” and “political correctness” often call “social justice warriors” the “far left,” but such people are center-left.4 An Ayn Rand fanatic isn’t “far-right,” they’re center-right. Anyone can be a fanatic.

Up until recently the word ‘revolution’ was used for overthrows of governments from the left. There didn’t need to be a word for the overthrow of governments from the right because the world was dominated by Europe and European history for centuries consisted of moving leftward: the medieval order of kings, state churches, hereditary aristocracies, serfdom, and slavery was taken down step by step. When these leftward shifts were halted or turned back by the right, such events were described as reactions (as in ‘reactionary’), revanchism, restorations, or counterrevolutions. The Right saw what they were doing as restoration of the past (even though it often wasn’t). But since WWI—and especially since the overthrow of the USSR—the right has won more than its lost and in many cases no longer garbs its successes in a pretense of the past, so I’ll use the term revolution for both.

But today we’ll start with the classic revolutions from the Left: the English Civil Wars, American Revolution, French Revolution, and Russian Revolution. We’ll be guided by a brilliant book by historian Crane Brinton called The Anatomy of Revolution. Published in 1938 with a third addition in 1965, it was a classic, but now largely neglected—probably because the way it describes revolutions is neither respectful nor disrespectful enough for post-1960s tastes.

Anatomically Correct

Brinton looks for parallels and similarities between the English Civil Wars, American Revolution, French Revolution, and Russian Revolution. All were revolutions from the left in that they strove to increase political equality and freedom. Here are five points in common:

We might think of revolutions as coming from the downtrodden masses as a last desperate act, but the truly desperate aren’t generally able to rebel. These revolutions all took place in periods of generally rising prosperity, though there were temporary downturns and setbacks. The revolutionaries were often facing real economic difficulties but not crushing starvation and misery. (This was surprising to me in the Russian case, but read the book if you doubt.) The governments were in worse shape financially than the economies as a whole, and tried to collect revenue in unpopular ways.
All took place in periods of widespread social antagonisms. Not simple proletariat-versus-bourgeois-type class conflicts, but rather fine-grained intense class resentment. For example the American colonists felt very disrespected by their British brethren for behaviors such as American troops being whipped by British officers during the Seven Years War.
The intellectuals transferred allegiance. Brinton’s intellectuals aren’t necessarily brilliant scholars or wits. He means the class who make their living from writing, teaching, or such. They stop supporting the system and go over to its critics.
Our revolutionaries face incompetent governments. It can’t be stressed enough what boneheads were the Stuarts, King George III, Louis XVI, and Czar Nicholas, supported in each case by bad administrations struggling with awful financial situations. It’s shocking to read how these rulers consistently zigged when they should have zagged, attacked when they should have compromised, underestimated their opponents and overestimated themselves, and generally had tin ears, weak stomachs, and an inability to ever say the right thing.
The upper classes in decay. This is something Brinton spends some time on and it fits with both #3 and #4 just above, but it’s hard to summarize. He’s speaking not just about the administrations, but about a lack of confidence, ability, and energy among the entire elite whether due to corruption, decadence, or cultural exhaustion.

All four revolutions ran on similar sequences. Incompetent governments flailed about with financial problems, petulantly attacked critics, refused reasonable compromises, inflamed tensions, and in the process basically forced revolutionaries to organize and recruit, eventually leading to open conflict. Early success by the revolutionaries and stupid responses eventually culminated in revolutionary victory. But once in power the revolutionaries split into factions with the radical wing winning out early, persecuting their rivals, and eventually being overthrown by a dictatorship (except in the United States where George Washington opted not to become dictator). Eventually some version of the pre-revolutionary order was superficially restored but its not the same system underneath, and the country—and the world—is changed forever.

Obviously, that’s a ridiculously short summary of four major world events, but pick up the book for more. I highly recommend it.

Can it Happen Here?

At a glance we might claim Trump’s election was a sort of revolution against the Washington establishment. Certainly his defenders claim—and probably hope—so. Does it fit Brinton’s paradigm?

Is America generally increasing in prosperity? I don’t think so. In any case Americans aren’t highly taxed.
Are there social antagonisms between the elite and the rest of the country? Definitely!
Did the intelligentsia switch sides? Not really.
Is the government incompetent? Biden and the Democrats are certainly incompetent but they didn’t make much effort to raise taxes on the rich. Maybe yes?
Is the elite in disarray? Well, the professional-managerial classes now seem to be. Billionaires like Musk, Gates, and Bezos are more who Brinton would have called the elite. And even if the professional-managerial classes were the elite, were they in disarray before the election? Not really.

So #2 yes, #4 maybe yes, & #5 if you squint your eyes, but definitely not #1 and #3. And anyway Brinton’s revolutions met all these criteria; it wasn’t like a checklist test in a magazine. In any case we promised this post would be about revolution from the left and Trump is certainly not from the left. He’s a fairly conventional center-right conservative, albeit with a narcissistic and authoritarian streak.5

However, Trump has promised the rounding up of illegal immigrants, and the use of the military to accomplish this. If the military doesn’t go along with the roundups, senior officers will be fired. If his packed courts go along with the firings, Trump could eventually have a pliant officer corps commanding a second-rate army. Why second rate? Soldiers who enlisted to serve in wars don’t necessarily want to separate crying babies from their screaming Spanish-speaking mothers, and that ongoing stress can wreck morale and discipline. One of the causes of Israeli military atrocities in Gaza is that the IDF for decades has been used as an occupational force in the West Bank. Soldiers used that way become cruel and arbitrary. (And then they come home traumatized and spread the cruelty into civil society.) Now we should not expect a revolution from the illegal immigrants or the army, but…

Trump has promised to reinstate a sort of spoils system to break what his supporters call the “Deep State,” that is, the federal bureaucracy, by firing lots of federal employees. If he manages this, will he purge not just the top level but the middle level? More, more, more is how he’s done everything else. Certainly if he manages these purges, they will include ranks of the national security-intelligence bureaucracy.

All of this so far is pretty unlikely. There’s a lot of steps in there. Beyond this we’ll be going into the realm of dystopian science fiction, but there’s nothing wrong with sci-fi. If nothing else it’s a good thought exercise, so follow with me.

In opposition to Trump after 2016 many professionals in the national security bureaucracy shifted to the Democratic Party. Where else could they go in a two-party system? So if they wanted to oppose Trump now they would merge with the Democrats. Moreover, the Democrats welcomed them before, and would much prefer their energy to having to actually listen to their own left wing.

So now let’s go full Brinton. Let’s say Trump really angers these people. Let’s say they draw on their contacts in the intelligence services to leak material embarrassing to Trump, and given how corrupt Trump and his coterie are, there will be lots to leak. Trump’s administration would try to arrest and prosecute them, and with a pliant ill-disciplined army atrocities might happen.

But where it gets really dark enough to flip is regarding Israel and Iran. I believe there are many, many people in the intelligence services who view our unconditional support for Israel and threats against Iran as betrayals of U.S. interests, laws, and morality.6 Trump has promised that support for Israel and belligerence towards Iran will certainly go further then it even did under Biden. Moreover the U.S. government has shown a quick willingness to crack down on critics of Israel. (See U.S. college campuses.) If leaks have to do with Israel, Trump’s responses might well show himself the equal of any overreaching Stuart or French king

Certainly, prosecutions would tend to overreach, and probably be poorly handled (Consider the incompetence of his past lawyers) so the guilty would go free and the not-guilty would be punished. It would meet Brinton’s list:

These fired deep state people would be suffering somewhat compared to the general economy.
There’s a lot of antagonisms.
All these libertarian types and a lot of other Americans would eventually switch allegiances to anyone opposing support for Israel and war against Iran.
Trump and his people will certainly be incompetent as they were in his previous administration.
If the issue comes down to Israel the pro-Zionist American elite is weak across the board, exhausted and doubtful of itself and its legitimacy.

But this is fiction. In reality building centers of power take longer than one presidential term, and we don’t even know if Trump will call on the military or if the military will go along with Trump’s directives or what will happen with Israel or Iran. I don’t expect Trump to have more than a token (but highly public) impact on the federal bureaucracy. Appointing Tulsi Gabbard to be intel chief—a woman harassed by American intelligence agencies—is amusing, but she has no actual experience in running intelligence agencies, so she probably won’t manage to make a dent. To break up bureaucracy you need to promote from within to draw out rivalries and conflicts, not add hostile layers on top. Cracking down from above just gets the agency to hunker down and wait out your term. In this and other areas, Trump may present himself as different but when it comes to policy all he has is the Reagan-Clinton playbook. A Trump administration will mean harrassment of immigrants but otherwise it’s already shaping up to be military budget increases, budget cuts for everyone else, tax cuts for the wealthy, wars abroad, police at home, and further economic monopolization and consolidation under the guise of “cutting regulations.”

So I don’t think anywhere close to enough federal employees will be fired to form any real opposition.

But what isn’t science fiction, what is truly dangerous, is the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the war and genocide in the Middle East. When all that comes back to haunt us, and there are a lot of ways those events can and will, our domestic politics will change forever.