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Haven’t you ever sat there in hindsight, drinking history down retrospectively like an already-bad whisky that has been mixed with some equally worse soda and a couple of rocks thrown in for good measure and wondered what life would be like if this or that event hadn’t actually happened? What would have happened if that soldier that had spared the life of Adolf Hitler as he decided not to kill him at point blank range when he came across him injured had decided otherwise? Yes, Henry Tandey, the most decorated soldier in theBritish Army in World War One is at least said to have spared his life despite the fact that there is little evidence of it actually being true. Hitler exploited the fact that Tandey was the most decorated man whenPrime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrived to get the famous “peace in our time”, that wasn’t forthcoming, and said that he had been saved. But, whether it be true or not, it’s an example of how we react in the world looking back and wishing that perhaps things hadn’t happened the way they did. What if? What if that had happened rather than what actually did? Man is full of regrets, isn’t he?
But, looking back, what would be the life-changing events that would have made history different, perhaps better? Those events that would have changed the course of history and made the world a different place? The revolutions that never happened?
Top 10 Revolutions that Could Have Changed the World…But Didn’t
10. The Gang of 8
When President Gorbachev came to power in 1985 he embarked on the biggest and most ambitious program of political and economic restructuring of the Soviet Union. He introduced perestroika and glasnost. He met resistance from hardliners in the party and there was great fear that the Soviet Union would splinter since there was a growing increase in nationalism around the union. The 8 members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that led the coup against Gorbachev saw their attempt to stem the decentralization of Moscow’s power to the republics fail in just two short days. However, had the revolution succeeded, the Soviet Union would still be what we would be calling the Russian Federation today and the demise of the Communist Party would perhaps have been postponed.
9. The California Republic
It was short-lived and remained unrecognized but it was nonetheless declared for a few weeks in 1846, when the military controlled the north of San Francisco Bay. Their independence was only for three weeks, but what wouldn’t some people give to get three weeks of independence from the US government these days? Just how different would the US be today if California hadn’t been swallowed up by the USA?
8. The February Revolution
This was the first of two revolutions in Russia in the same year, the second one (the October Revolution) of course being the most famous and the one that saw Lenin rise to power and the creation of the Communist state that the Soviet Union was to become. Actually the February Revolution was in March (but at the time March was February in the Julian calendar). The February Revolution only lasted three weeks and was confined to St Petersburg but it resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicolas II. Alexander Kerensky was nominated as the head of the government but he made the mistake of maintaining Russia’s involvement in the First World War, despite incurring already heavy losses. He also ended capital punishment, declared freedom of speech and released political prisoners. All of this paved the way for Lenin’s rise to power. Kerensky had promised to deliver the peasants with food, jobs and land and to do that almost immediately. Of course, he didn’t do any of it. Sound familiar? Had he succeeded in stemming all of that, Russia would perhaps not have become the Soviet Union.
7. African Revolution
Che Guevara attempted to start a Communist Revolution in Africa although it failed dismally due to lack of local support. The only remedy to the Third World’s position as a sub-level continent was to fight using world revolution and proletarian internationalism against the monopoly of capitalism and imperialism of the western world. He tried to export revolution to Congo-Kinshasa in 1965 but he was captured and executed by Bolivian forces, assisted by the CIA. How would things be in Africa today if he had succeeded in rousing local support and fighting the world revolution against the west’s hegemony and exploitation?
6. The Beer Hall Putsch
This putsch took place in 1923 and was a failed attempt by the Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler to gain power in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It took place in 1923 and resulted in 16 deaths in the Nazi Party and 4 policemen being killed. Hitler’s attempt at gaining power failed, but he was arrested and thrown into prison for five years. He gained widespread publicity and it brought the party to the forefront of German politics at the time. The time in prison also allowed Hitler to write Mein Kampf, all of which finally brought him to being elected to power rather than having to take it by force.
5. The United States of Belgium
The Belgians overthrew the Austrian Emperor in 1790 and they set up the Belgium Republic. The Republic only existed between January and December 1790 but it was founded on the very same lines as the United States. Had it survived it might have seen the spreading of democracy much more quickly throughout Europe. The Austrian Emperor Leopold II quickly managed to recapture the Austrian Netherlands and quelled the newly founded state. However, his own rule was quickly overturned again by the French who annexed Belgium in 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Had the United States of Belgium existed the US might have been the founding father of more models of political set-up around the world.
4. The Bavarian Soviet Republic
Another Communist revolution that failed in the world was in Bavaria when the Bavarians decided to declare an independent republic there. They even declared war on Switzerland for refusing to lend them trains. In November 1918 a politician in Bavaria called Kurt Eisner demanded the abdication of the Bavarian King, Ludwig III as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II? He also demanded a working day that would not exceed 8 hours for the people and relief for the unemployed. They were defeated by May 1919, however.
3. Shay’s Rebellion
In 1786 Daniel Shays led a revolution against the US government. Veterans rose up against what they perceived as economic injustices by Massachusetts. The rebellion gained ground but it was quickly quashed. Had it succeeded things perhaps may have been different. But, because it failed, George Washington called for greater powers to quell any further uprisings in the country. Shay was critical of the cronyism of the government, the fact that people were governed by those that were so far removed from that that they had no idea what was going on in the lives of people. He also stated that the government was corrupt and that taxation was regressive. How would it have been, had Shays succeeded in his revolution?
2. The Third Servile War
In 73BC Spartacus led a slave revolt against the Roman Republic. Had he succeeded in his daring feat, the Roman Republic (even before it had had time to become the Roman Empire) would have collapsed beyond repair much earlier than it did. The band of 120,000 men and women raided and ransacked Italy for years with impunity and their defeat led to the transition towards the Roman Empire and control over an entire continent.
1. The Paris Commune
Between March and May 1871 Paris was the world’s smallest state after the French had been forced to surrender, defeated by the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian War. The government of France was overthrown as a consequence. But, The Commune was chaotic and corrupt and was defeated within two months itself by the regular French Army. The Commune was a socialist revolutionary and communist movement that was a four-month siege of the capital. Had it succeeded, France might have become the first Communist state in the world.
There are many revolutions, uprisings and rebellions that might have changed the course of our histories. But, what is history if it is nothing more than interpretation of facts and those facts are usually told by one person anyhow. History is always dictated to us by the winners, isn’t it?
The world revolution originally meant the planets that revolved around the Earth at that long-distant time when we believed that we were central to the universe. Well, have things changed these days? We still believe that we are the center of things although the only difference is that now we know that we are from the central element in the universe; we just try to kid ourselves along. A revolution was the movement of the celestial bodies, out of man’s hands and inevitable, almost god-like and divine intervention. We took that word and first applied it to the Glorious Revolution, which wasn’t one at all in the UK in 1688 when the Dutch stadtholder William of Orange-Nassau overthrew the last Catholic king of the country, James II. It was the first time that the word was applied to anything other than the celestial bodies, but it was far from the modern sense of the word that we have acquired since the French Revolution. But, even that was only an afterthought. In the days that followed the storming of the Bastille and the King being arrested in France, they talked of national regeneration. If only we would learn to regenerate our nations these days rather than just reproducing the same order that has governed us or centuries.
Man is full of regrets, isn’t he? We look back and we wish for things to be different. Life is a complex matrix of events. You cross the road and walk that little bit faster and you will turn the corner before you were meant to and so miss the person that will be the change in your life. Or you’ll cross the road and slow down and bump into the person that will destroy everything you have.
Imagine the world without Ben Bernanke [16] and what if Janet Yellen [17] had failed her exams at high school because she was watching the football team playing soccer too much? What would have happened if Igor Sikorsky hadn’t invented the first helicopter on September 14th 1939, how would Ben Bernanke have thrown the money out to the banks from the heavens above and saved the planet (or so we were told)? There are so many what-ifs and things that could have bene different.
What regrets do you have today in the economic world and who do you wish you had never heard of?
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