10.14- The Tsar Liberator

After the disaster of the Crimean War, it was time for an era of Great Reform. 

Direct Link: 10.14- The Tsar Liberator

Sponsor: audible.com/revolutions

Comments

[Sur Name]

A day late, eh?

[Ron]

I find it interesting that 19th century rulers seemed to be acutely aware of the danger of revolution and did what they at least was thought best to prevent it, while rulers of the present century don’t seem to even be aware of the possibility of revolution. I wonder if the age of revolutions is truly over, or if today’s rulers are just in denial.
.

[Kay]

@Ron: The Age of Revolution is not over.
See:
Venezuela
Tunesia
Syria
Iraq
Afghanistan
Ukraine
Hong Kong
list goes on

[seth]

@Kay
I see what you're driving at, but can't help but feel like the countries you;ve listed are missing something crucial that's been happening to the places we've followed in this podcast.

Sure Venezuela is in revolt, sort of, it's definitely in crisis, but what's the revolutionary ethos? What's actually changing there? I don't see any new ideas or changing of the guard, just popular resistance against a strong man during a time of crisis.

Looking at the list the only one I'm thinking is maybe revolutionary is Tunisia, but even this looks more like them catching up to the rest of the world by unseating a despot, not some massive cultural ideological shift.

I'd have to side with @Ron on this one.

[TGUT]

@Ron - I've seen it speculated somewhere that the reason for this was that rulers (and corporate executives/landed aristocracy) in the 19th century just worked a lot less and therefore could read books like Capital. While they may not have agreed with the conclusions, they couldn't argue that the logic was sound and therefore had to be answered. In contrast, modern rulers and elites often work insanely long hours and therefore while very talented at their area of expertise, are plagued by ignorance and shallow thinking of areas that don't concern these. See Elon Musk for perhaps the crowning example of this.

Plus you have consider for much of the 19th century, the rulers of Europe had either experienced directly or their parents had experienced the horror of the revolution and knew experiencing it again was unthinkable. The same could be said of the post-1945 generation. It is perhaps unsurprising that once people like Alexander III came to power, who had far less connection with the revolutionary terror and war of 1789-1815, that the response to the danger of revolution became more complacent and self-destructive