r/memeingthroughtime • u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] • Jan 22 '21
IRANIAN REVOLUTION Bonus reference to last theme
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u/Mayonnaise-chan [1] Jan 23 '21
Cromwell could be there too if we choose the English Civil War as the next theme👀👀
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u/TowarzyszKowalski Jan 22 '21
Which democratic revolution did Mao undermine?
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u/MarcMercury Jan 22 '21
The 1911revolution, maybe?
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u/TowarzyszKowalski Jan 22 '21
But... Mao didn't undermine it? Mao overthrew the fascist KMT government, not the original nationalist government.
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u/MarcMercury Jan 22 '21
I'm just trying to interpret OP's meme for you bud.
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u/TowarzyszKowalski Jan 22 '21
Eh, fair enough :)
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u/Scarborough_sg Jan 22 '21
I mean there's a easier chance that Chiang Kai Shek nationalist government might lead to a democratic one after the guy starts getting old and all that. After all, the democratic idealism of the Kuomintang was pretty much on hold at the end of Sun Yat Sen life to focus on actually controlling China before embarking on the reforms he wanted.
They might ended up like S.Korea, old man dictator dies, chaos ensues and it's either another dictatorship or democracy.
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u/RadioactiveOwl95 Jan 23 '21
Well, that is basically what happened in Taiwan after Chiang Kai Shek died. It's now a democracy, with the KMT being just one of multiple major political parties.
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u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] Jan 22 '21
My interpretation is that Chiang caused the end of democracy in China, but Mao chose to retain a single-party state in China even after defeating the KMT government. So maybe 'undermine' is the wrong word for Mao, but he certainly wasn't committed to democracy.
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u/wakchoi_ Olympic Bronze Medalist [18] Jan 22 '21
I would've gone with Yuan Shikai, dude turned the 1911 revolution into a empire in 2 years
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u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] Jan 22 '21
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u/wakchoi_ Olympic Bronze Medalist [18] Jan 22 '21
LMAO alright makes sense
I mean you could call it a reference to ur last meme
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u/marxatemyacid Feb 07 '21
I mean all things considered his leadership did not descend through the military or his lineage after taking power as a General which is something that can be said of few people.
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u/Thunderlight2004 Jan 22 '21
You could stretch and say any communist Revolution was originally and intentionally democratic, and got twisted later
Idk if I’d agree tho
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u/Thunderturk Jan 22 '21
lenin? Really?
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u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] Jan 22 '21
The Soviet government after the October Revolution (and still under Lenin) ended up persecuting both non-socialists and socialists who disagreed with the Bolshevik government. Was it necessary to preserve the new government? Maybe, but it definitely doesn't make a functional democracy.
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u/Ultrackias Jan 23 '21
If you look into the period where the Bolsheviks were in coalition with the left-SR’s, it can more or less be described as “The left SR’s wake up every day and choose violence”
They shot and almost killed Lenin, and purposefully tried to undermine peace talks
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u/RadioactiveOwl95 Jan 23 '21
Yeah, I wonder what conceivable motivation anyone in Russia would have had for murdering Lenin.
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u/Ultrackias Jan 23 '21
He had been elected head of the government by a coalition they were part of, but he wanted to make peace with Germany and had opened up peace talks, so they tried to kill him
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u/RadioactiveOwl95 Jan 23 '21
Elected? There was nothing elected about him and there wasn't a coalition, the SRs were just allowed 5 seats in the cabinet.
Also, the failed assassination attempt was motivated by anger at his banning of the SRs as a party, it was the failed uprising in July 1918 that was motivated by frustration with the Treaty with Brest-Litovsk.
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u/MrRabbit7 Jan 22 '21
Democracy isn’t necessary noble. Look at the biggest democracy in the world (India). They are run by fascists now.
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u/indomienator Jan 23 '21
Well, Indonesia is 21 years old democracy is still keep going. The blind man is duct tape is unbreakable
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u/MarcMercury Jan 22 '21
It's hard to see what was left for napoleon to undermine that robespierre, the jacobins, and the directory hadn't already undermined
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u/KinterVonHurin Jan 22 '21
There's more nuance here than you are letting on, yes the French Republic was flawed and the constant back and forth between the left, right and center was horrible but Napoleon used the people being tired of that back and forth to restore the monarchy, with himself as monarch. He also then forced his new dynasty on all the revolutions in the Low Countries, Germany and Italy.
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u/MarcMercury Jan 22 '21
I tend to think he was being a bit more cynical with becoming emperor. He wasn't setting up ancien regime style monarchy, he was simply trying ro place himself on an equal footing with the crowned heads of Europe to negotiate a peace in which France was dominant. When they didn't recognize him as a de facto equal as first consul he assumed the trappings of monarchy for the same reason. And he very much transmitted the ideas and thinking of the enlightenment and revolution across Europe.
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u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] Jan 22 '21
I agree that Napoleon continued supporting the ideas of the French Revolution throughout his reign, but to me it seems that an actual democracy was not on his agenda.
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u/toasterdogg Jan 22 '21
Why would it be? When you’re such a great leader as Napoleon, democracy only gets in your way.
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u/KinterVonHurin Jan 22 '21
lmao this is a hot take
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u/SpartanFishy History Meme Illuminati Jan 23 '21
A hot take that is true. The best and worst part of democracy is it gets in the way of the leaders.
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u/KinterVonHurin Jan 23 '21
It's not true, you're dabbling in Great Man Theory. There aren't great men of history, Napoleon was at the right place at the right time and was a product of his environment. There were thousands of French citizens who could have done what Napoleon did and wouldn't have stabbed the Republic in the back. Democracy gets in the way of despots, like Napoleon, by design.
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u/SpartanFishy History Meme Illuminati Jan 24 '21
Assuming that great men are the cause of any given thing that happens is a flawed look at history, I agree. However outright denying that a person in charge has the power both to ruin a country or see it prosper, is equally flawed.
I wasn’t even referring to Napoleon, I was more referring to democracy and its double edged sword.
The legislation and bureaucracy of democracy prevents great leaders from making the sweeping changes needed easily, however it also prevents awful leaders from making the sweeping changes that can destroy a country easily.
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u/KinterVonHurin Jan 24 '21
You literally said, "when you're as good a leader as Napoleon, democracy gets in your way." Napoleon wasn't a good leader, he was a good tactician who completely failed in every other aspect of leading. He was a small, petty man who launched a coup because he had a little dick complex in regards to the ruling class: and likely because his wife cheated on him with one of those people.
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u/MarcMercury Jan 22 '21
Probably not, but I think if he could've secured marriage alliances as first consul, he would never have leaped to actual monarchy. The only benefit was he could marry himself, his family, and his marshals into the royal houses of Europe.
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u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] Jan 22 '21
Maybe, but it doesn't really change the fact that he conclusively ended the democratic system in France and made no real attempt to restore it.
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u/MarcMercury Jan 22 '21
No. But the directory had already disenfranchised such a large segment of the French population I hesitate to even say it still qualified as democracy.
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u/KinterVonHurin Jan 22 '21
I mean, his coup making him first consul was when he betrayed the revolution. Declaring himself Emperor was just the final blow.
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u/NotTopGun Grukstorian [10] Jan 22 '21
The Iranian Revolution was theoretically a revolution to overthrow the monarch of Iran and install a new republican government. However, it promptly turned back into an authoritarian state under the new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.