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Hello. and welcome to

1:15

revolutions.

1:20

Appendix victory

1:23

and defeat.

1:27

So the revolution has come.

1:29

All potential compromises,

1:31

accommodations, and settlements have been spurned.

1:34

All off ramps have been missed.

1:37

Not only has the potential revolutionary energy

1:39

stoked by years of resistance and frustration

1:42

to the Sovereign grown to uncontainable levels,

1:45

but the trigger has now been pulled, turning

1:47

all that potential energy into kinetic

1:49

energy. ALLETEs

1:51

are now rushing through Palace corridors and

1:53

hosting feverish meetings in their salons.

1:56

Regular people are pouring out into the street directing

1:58

barricades, tossing pavement

1:59

stones, blockading neighborhoods, signing

2:02

up for revolutionary armies.

2:04

These are the heavy days when no one really

2:06

knows what happened, what's

2:08

happening, or what's going to happen.

2:11

Will the regime emerge from this chaotic

2:13

moment dead or alive? It's

2:15

not impossible to predict. But

2:18

as I said last week, one of the main

2:20

things that the revolutionary trigger does

2:22

is open the final contest to

2:24

decide the fate of the regime. whether

2:26

the Sovereign still holds a preponderance

2:29

of force. Who

2:31

wins and who loses this brute force

2:33

contest? determined to the fate of the regime

2:35

and the revolution. Now

2:37

we know from any game, fight

2:39

or sporting match that not only does

2:41

one side win because of the things the

2:43

winner did write, their superior talent

2:46

and strategies and tactics, but

2:48

also because of the things the loser

2:50

did wrong, their inferior talent

2:53

and strategies and tactics. The

2:55

narrative of any sporting match can be framed

2:57

as a story of what the winning side did

2:59

right or a story about what the

3:01

losing side did wrong. but

3:04

always always always it's a mix

3:06

of the two. So as we discussed

3:08

this final revolutionary contest, We

3:11

must talk on the one hand about the superiority

3:13

of the forces rising up, as well as

3:15

the inferiority of the forces

3:17

falling down.

3:20

Now on the rising upside, we

3:22

have what I have variously described as

3:24

a cross class alliance, a revolutionary

3:26

coalition, and a full blown

3:28

shadow society. By

3:31

that, I mean that every socioeconomic level,

3:33

branch category, whatever, has

3:36

a revolutionary wing from

3:38

the upper most reaches of the ruling

3:40

class on down to the lowest peasants and workers.

3:43

In between, there will be revolutionary lawyers,

3:46

students, shopkeepers, administrators, merchants,

3:48

clergy artists, journalists, clerks

3:51

artists and servants bankers professors,

3:53

all of them springing into action to advance

3:55

the revolutionary cause in their

3:57

specific socioeconomic niche.

4:00

at the very tippy top of this

4:02

vast cross class revolutionary coalition,

4:06

we might find a dissident member of the royal

4:08

family ready to replace their cousin

4:10

on the throne. They might be surrounded

4:12

by rich, educated, influential supporters,

4:15

each of whom are ready to take over the Ministry of

4:18

Finance or justice or the interior.

4:21

This then extends on down the line through

4:23

merchants and businessmen aiming for profitable

4:25

new arrangements through middle

4:27

class professionals ready to take over the administrative

4:30

functions of the state, young students

4:32

and clerks ready to staff, those mid level

4:34

and lower level functionaries, on

4:36

down to workers wanting to force changes

4:38

in their factories and peasants redefining

4:40

the terms of land ownership and authority in

4:42

their home villages. Now

4:44

at every level of this cross class

4:46

coalition, people are making

4:49

risk reward calculations. Now,

4:51

I am not myself a huge proponent

4:53

of rational choice theory where people are

4:55

sitting down and gaming out scenarios and

4:57

making purely logical choices based off of

4:59

like mathematical equations, don't

5:01

think humans actually work that way, but

5:04

risk reward calculations are

5:06

present. They are doing some of the work.

5:08

If you're watching a society advance

5:11

through all these stages of disequilibrium

5:13

to shocks to the system and then reach this trigger

5:15

point, It might still seem like

5:17

there's a very low likelihood of revolutionary

5:20

success and no real

5:22

personal advantage or reward to

5:24

be won This is a high risk,

5:26

lower word scenario, and in that

5:28

case, you'll probably sit it out. But

5:30

if you look around society and

5:32

decide, hey, there's a good chance of revolutionary success

5:35

and enormous possible rewards

5:37

and advantages to be one? This

5:39

is a low risk high reward scenario

5:41

when you might say, yeah, okay,

5:43

let's go for it. But

5:45

this is a calculation that made by various

5:48

members of the cross class coalition each in

5:50

their own way and each for their own reasons.

5:53

Because it is not the case that everyone in

5:55

this coalition has the same interests, far

5:57

from it. Our proverbial

5:59

dupe

5:59

d'Orlion, that royal cousin

6:02

waiting in the wings,

6:03

is thinking about how wonderful it will be to

6:05

sit on the throne. to decide

6:07

lofty matters of state and play the great

6:09

game of international diplomacy. Do

6:11

have everyone bow to you while

6:13

you bow to literally no one

6:17

These are not the same interests as,

6:19

oh, let's say, a rural peasant

6:21

who is mostly interested in getting a

6:23

little bit more land. or the

6:25

interest of the urban worker who's mostly

6:27

interested in higher wages and cheaper

6:29

bread or the interest of middle

6:31

class professionals Often

6:33

eyeing possible material gains. Yes.

6:35

But mostly interested in gaining access

6:37

to political power and influence they have

6:39

likely been denied previously. they

6:42

want to participate to have a real voice

6:44

in politics. And when you

6:46

look at all these interests, they're often

6:48

quite contradictory. The

6:50

members of the breakaway faction of the ruling

6:52

class want to wield power, not share it with

6:54

social inferiors, the land

6:56

for the peasants, Where is it gonna come from?

6:59

Well, probably from the real estate portfolios of

7:01

the ruling class families, some of who

7:03

might be in that revolutionary coalition. And

7:05

there's of course always gonna be tension between

7:08

urban workers who want to pay less for bread and

7:10

rural peasants who want to be paid more for

7:12

their grain. So

7:14

if this coalition has such divergent

7:16

interests and everyone's risk reward

7:18

calculation is based on wildly different

7:20

factors, How are they even

7:22

united? Well,

7:24

I think there are several unifying categories.

7:28

There might be geographic ties.

7:30

where we over here

7:32

see the sovereign as representing them

7:35

over there. This is

7:37

obviously a huge factor in fights over things

7:39

like independence and national self determination.

7:42

All of those other conflicting

7:44

interests are papered over by shared

7:46

geographic proximity or ethnic

7:48

identity. or the sovereign

7:50

is seen as a fundamentally foreign object

7:53

they can all get together to

7:55

remove. This can

7:57

also take on a religious tone as

7:59

religious differences

7:59

often follow geographic and ethnic contours,

8:02

so that

8:02

religious doctrines and belief become binding

8:05

touch downs for the revolutionary coalition

8:07

against those heretics over

8:09

there. Religious doctrines can

8:11

also be seen as a subset of one of the major

8:13

unifying ties just

8:15

abstract principles and ideas, which

8:18

often spring from those new ideas that help

8:20

fuel all the political disequilibrium in

8:22

the first place. We've talked

8:24

through so many late eighteenth century and early

8:26

nineteenth century revolutions. We know that things

8:28

like liberty and equality.

8:30

as words as concepts and slogans,

8:33

exert a major unifying

8:35

effect. Now these ideas need

8:37

to be vague enough and universal enough

8:39

that everyone can feed their specific

8:41

interests through that abstract

8:43

slogan. So both the banker

8:45

and the worker, the landlord and

8:47

the peasant, might say that they are

8:49

fighting for liberty or equality, while

8:51

they

8:51

are talking about very different things.

8:55

But

8:55

what I really think brings them

8:57

all together, really fuses

9:00

them into a single force capable of

9:02

overthrowing the regime. is the

9:04

fundamental belief that the Sovereign is an

9:06

obstacle. The Sovereign is an

9:08

obstacle that has to be removed.

9:11

Whatever it is you want, Liberty, a

9:13

quality, bread land, power,

9:15

respect, wealth,

9:15

the sovereign stand in the way.

9:17

It is an obstacle.

9:20

This

9:20

takes us back to those two big things causing

9:23

equilibrium, resistance, and

9:25

frustration. The

9:26

Sovereign has either been doing things we

9:28

hate or the Sovereign has not been doing

9:30

things we want, and

9:31

we have all now. All of us, each

9:34

in our own ways, decided

9:35

that the only option left is removing the sovereign.

9:39

People

9:39

at every rank in class have come to believe

9:41

that the main thing preventing them having

9:44

all the things they want is

9:46

the sovereign. It is an obstacle

9:48

that must be removed, and

9:50

everyone

9:50

agrees on that.

9:53

Now, one

9:54

interesting point I want to make before moving

9:56

on is that I have not found it

9:58

to be the case, that

9:59

this

9:59

initial revolutionary a coalition is fused

10:02

together by a single charismatic leader.

10:04

Now I'm speaking specifically

10:06

here of the first revolutionary

10:08

wave that rises up and

10:10

overthrows the ASEAN regime. With

10:12

one notable exception, the cross

10:15

class revolutionary coalition will

10:17

have leaders Some of them may even enjoy a

10:19

popular following, but they

10:21

are invariably just one

10:23

among many. First wave,

10:25

revolutionary coalitions have many different

10:27

leaders, most of whom no one

10:29

has ever heard of. The

10:31

major charismatic leaders who do become

10:34

unifying revolutionary figures. Cromwell,

10:37

Washington, Louis couture, believe our

10:39

cashout, Lenin. They make

10:41

their names after the revolution has

10:43

started. They

10:44

do not make the revolution with their

10:46

names.

10:47

Even someone like Washington, as

10:49

unifying a charismatic revolutionary leader

10:51

as we're likely to find was

10:53

not the one out there leading the people of New

10:55

England into armed revolt in seventeen

10:57

seventy five. The people of Massachusetts were

10:59

not shouting long live Washington

11:01

at Lexington in Concord. They

11:04

probably never even heard of a guy.

11:07

Now the notable exception here is the Royal

11:09

Francisco Madero played in the Mexican

11:11

revolution. Not that Madero

11:13

himself was such a

11:15

charismatic revolutionary leader that he

11:17

commanded unrivaled authority in the revolutionary

11:19

coalition because he really did not. but

11:21

given the particulars of the Mexican revolution

11:24

emerging as it did from a rigged

11:26

presidential election, Valero became

11:28

a symbol. His name and face

11:30

were absolutely a unifying

11:32

element of the Mexican revolution. People

11:34

were absolutely shouting Viva

11:36

Madero as they rode off into battle.

11:38

So that

11:40

brings us to the fact that people are now

11:42

writing out into battle.

11:44

The great physical challenge to the

11:46

Sovereign has been launched. The

11:48

contest over who has a preponderance of

11:51

force has

11:51

begun.

11:52

This means that the class revolutionary

11:55

coalition must be able to produce

11:57

armed forces capable of taking on

11:59

the

11:59

sovereigns armed forces There must

12:01

be enough willing volunteers to risk not just

12:03

their socioeconomic position, but to

12:06

risk

12:06

their lives. And

12:08

by virtue of the very nature of clashes like

12:10

this, that means that they must come

12:12

overwhelmingly from that popular

12:14

force now exploding into the streets.

12:16

what has been unleashed by the trigger, the

12:18

popular forces that make the revolution

12:21

a true revolution. These

12:24

armed forces can take several different

12:27

victorious forms depending on the needs of each

12:29

revolution. They can

12:30

be whole regularized armies,

12:32

the new model army, the continental army,

12:35

Madero's army of the North.

12:36

They can be volunteer citizen militia

12:39

groups, the most famous of these being the French

12:41

National Guard. And as we the National

12:43

Guard was such a decisive force that

12:45

you could basically predict how a

12:47

revolution would go based on the loyalty of

12:49

the National Guard. There

12:51

are also semi organized but mostly

12:53

irregular forces operating on their

12:55

own revolutionary initiative, neighborhood

12:57

groups building barricades and watching

12:59

out for their own quarter. And this probably

13:01

also includes political parties

13:03

who organize inside of existing military

13:06

structures in the interests of fermenting

13:08

mutiny and unrest. We've seen that

13:10

in groups from the levelers to the Bolsheviks.

13:12

And then

13:13

finally, we have our good old fashioned,

13:16

unorganized mobs.

13:18

Protesters, demonstrators, and marches appearing

13:20

so spontaneously and in such huge

13:22

numbers that the

13:23

regime simply cannot contend with them.

13:26

the women marching on Versailles in October seventeen

13:28

eighty nine, the women marching through

13:30

petrograd in February nineteen seventeen.

13:33

whatever form they take, however organized

13:35

they are, whatever weapons they

13:38

have, all

13:38

of these forces serve the same

13:41

function. They challenge the sovereigns claim

13:43

to a preponderance of force. And

13:45

that means that they are the force

13:47

that will make or break the revolution.

13:49

It's why the popular element is so important.

13:52

No popular element, no force

13:54

strong enough to openly challenge the

13:56

regime's forces.

13:59

But

14:00

like, how

14:01

can the sovereign possibly lose this

14:04

contest? They are

14:06

the sovereign. They control the

14:08

army and the navy. They command the

14:10

resources of the entire polity.

14:12

All existing social hierarchies,

14:14

economic production, chains of command,

14:17

terminate with them. Their

14:19

word is law. And it's

14:21

been that way for like

14:23

decades. The sovereign's

14:25

ability to project physical force inside

14:27

of their polity is quite literally

14:29

unrivaled. It's why they're

14:31

the sovereign. So how on Earth can they possibly

14:33

lose? Well, again,

14:35

first things first, they usually

14:37

don't. That's why the number of failed

14:39

revolutions and revolts interactions,

14:41

uprising, rebellions, etcetera, far

14:43

outnumber the successful ones.

14:46

But when we come across a very specific

14:48

set of political, economic and social

14:50

circumstances. And those

14:52

circumstances are presided over by

14:54

one of our very special great idiots of

14:56

history. Sovereign

14:58

Can lose. and then does

15:00

lose. The reason they

15:02

lose is that while the ties binding the

15:04

forces of revolution grow stronger

15:06

and wider, the ties binding

15:08

supporters of the Sovereign, withered,

15:10

and disintegrate.

15:11

disintegrate

15:13

So just as the

15:15

revolutionary cross class coalition,

15:18

coalesces, around a few

15:20

lofty abstractions, and the fundamental

15:22

belief that the sovereign is a obstacle

15:24

to peace

15:24

land justice, quality bread, and

15:27

or freedom.

15:28

The corresponding cross class alliance that

15:30

has propped up the regime all these years is

15:32

now breaking apart. By the

15:34

time the final trigger is pulled years of

15:37

resistance or frustration have already

15:39

pushed former supporters into the ranks

15:41

of either the opposition. or

15:43

more probably the

15:45

ranks of the a political dropouts.

15:47

And just as with the revolutionary

15:50

coalition, I'm talking about people and down

15:52

the socioeconomic line. Lawyers,

15:55

journalists, peasants, workers, bankers,

15:57

clerk, servants, a bunch of people who

15:59

had previous

15:59

defended the regime and supported the

16:02

regime each in their own way and

16:04

each in their own niche,

16:06

now start to passively go

16:08

quiet. they start to care a little bit

16:10

less, or

16:11

they start

16:12

actively defecting to the revolution.

16:17

Once the trigger is pulled, push

16:19

is truly coming to shove, and the

16:21

alliance

16:21

that has long supported the sovereign run

16:23

to tone risk and reward scenarios to

16:25

decide what they should do. And

16:28

since

16:28

we are inevitably dealing with a

16:30

uniquely incompetent weak and

16:32

ineffective sovereign, would be

16:34

supporters often failed to see the advantage of

16:36

continuing to be die hard supporters

16:39

because it means they will likely die

16:41

hard. Hard.

16:43

Now, do all of these supporters have the

16:45

same interests? No, of course

16:47

not. Just as with the revolutionary coalition,

16:49

they range from a sovereign trying to hold

16:51

on to the throne all

16:53

the power and influence and wealth that comes

16:55

with it.

16:56

Sitting adjacent to ministers,

16:58

advisors, and high ranking officials who

17:00

are all about to lose their Augusta status.

17:03

There are gonna be business interests connected to

17:05

the existing regime who will suffer under

17:07

a different regime. But there are

17:09

also like bakers with a contract to

17:12

supply a palace. Prosecutors

17:14

who will lose their positions, maybe a

17:16

customs official who will be replaced.

17:18

Even village elders who have a pretty nice

17:21

plot of land and good standing in the local

17:23

community might

17:24

tend to prefer the present sovereign.

17:26

There are also other abstractions

17:29

out there binding them together, things like tradition,

17:32

duty, obedience, maybe

17:34

religious principles are coming into play

17:36

that hold supporters together against the

17:38

rising revolutionary tide.

17:40

But here's

17:40

the problem. Those

17:42

binding abstractions and those individual interests

17:45

are rapidly losing their

17:47

potency. And even if that

17:48

doesn't push them into the revolutionary

17:51

ranks, it at least pushes

17:53

them out of active support for the

17:55

regime. It makes them willing to

17:57

shrug their shoulders and acquiesce to the

17:59

final outcome of

17:59

the contest, without too much fuss one

18:02

way or the other. So

18:04

the

18:04

moral, economic, and political ties

18:07

binding together the sovereign's coalition of

18:09

supporters is unraveling. But

18:11

even still, right up to the moment that the

18:13

trigger is pulled, the Sovereign is still

18:15

a mighty force. the

18:18

sheer number of rifles, pistols,

18:20

swords, cannons, and bayonets they command

18:23

invariably dwarfs anything the revolutionaries

18:25

can put into the field, I mean, look, we're talking

18:27

about the entire British Army and Royal

18:29

Navy against whatever the colonials are

18:31

trying to scramble together. the

18:33

French against protesters roaming angrily

18:35

around Paris. The czars

18:38

combined

18:38

military forces presently organized

18:40

to wage a world war

18:43

against a few malcontents in Petrobras in Moscow. And

18:45

this is not even counting yet their

18:48

police forces, elite bodyguard

18:50

secret services, and

18:52

black

18:52

hundred style reactionary paramilitary

18:55

groups, all of

18:55

whom are well practiced in the

18:57

bashing of heads. On paper,

18:59

the balance of forces is nowhere near

19:02

balanced. The

19:02

Sovereign commands so much more. More

19:05

men,

19:05

more weapons, more munitions, more resources,

19:08

more everything. So

19:10

how can this on paper dominance fail

19:12

so spectacularly? While it

19:14

fails thanks to a corrosive trifecta

19:17

called loss of faith,

19:18

loss of trust and

19:20

the mother of them all,

19:21

loss of will.

19:24

Now remember, The deal here is

19:27

that the Sovereign at the moment is

19:29

uniquely weak and

19:31

incompetent. That's why they're being taken

19:33

out. That's why the revolution is

19:35

gonna succeed. And people inside the regimes

19:37

armed forces can sense that weakness. They

19:39

can sense that incompetence. And

19:41

so they begin

19:41

to lose faith. This

19:45

includes those who might in nearly any

19:47

other circumstance support the

19:49

regime,

19:49

or who reluctantly still support the regime

19:51

even though their hearts are not really

19:53

into it anymore. So rank and

19:56

file soldiers, non commissioned

19:58

officers, senior officers, and staff on up

19:59

to commanders in chief. They've

20:02

all been watching political events with growing

20:04

dismay and disillusionment, and they

20:07

are rapidly losing faith in

20:09

the sovereign. And

20:10

I often think here of General Marmont

20:12

from the revolution of eighteen thirty,

20:14

who read the

20:15

four ordinances with shock and

20:17

dismay and said to a friend Well, I

20:19

suppose I'm obliged to now go get killed

20:21

for them. And then he was

20:22

in fact ordered to lead the armed

20:25

repression of Paris even

20:26

though he wanted nothing to do with the four

20:28

ordinances and thought it was totally stupid.

20:31

He did his duty and people

20:33

like General Marmant may be instinctively and temperamentally

20:36

supportive of the Sovereign. But their

20:38

own mounting exasperation with the Sovereign's

20:40

inability to manage events

20:42

might start to produce in them this

20:45

thought. I'm a

20:46

professional soldier, loyal

20:48

to the Sovereign of my

20:51

Kingdom, Empire, or Republic,

20:53

whoever that may

20:56

be. Once

20:57

senior officers start to lose

20:59

faith in the individual presently on

21:01

the throne, and realize that their professional

21:04

loyalties are merely to the abstract concept

21:06

of the Sovereign, and that they

21:07

owe their faith and fidelity to

21:10

that rather than the present great idiot

21:12

sitting on the throne. It's pretty

21:14

bad news for the great idiot presently sitting

21:16

on the throne. Now,

21:19

even if they have not completely lost faith and

21:21

they are inclined to defend the present great idiot

21:23

at all costs, they may

21:25

yet be doused with another corrosive

21:28

acid. and that is loss

21:30

of trust. And where

21:32

loss

21:32

of faith is looking up at

21:34

the sovereign, loss of

21:36

trust is looking down at the

21:38

rank and file. We've seen

21:40

this

21:40

repeatedly over the course of the podcast. Sure,

21:43

there are battalions of

21:45

soldiers mustered under arms and ready to be

21:47

deployed. But what happens

21:49

if we actually deploy them?

21:52

So many

21:52

times we've seen loyal officers

21:55

assessing the morale of their soldiers and reporting back

21:57

up the chain of command. If I

21:59

order

21:59

them to fire on the people, It's

22:02

entirely likely they will mute me and shoot me

22:05

instead. It's the

22:06

men's sir. They can't

22:08

be trusted. And

22:10

this is often what truly paralyzes

22:12

the Sovereign's ability to deploy

22:14

their overwhelming force. and

22:16

they cannot be sure that those forces won't immediately

22:19

defect. And this is not

22:20

theoretical. We saw it happen a bunch of

22:22

times where protesting citizens are on one side of

22:24

a street and soldier are a raid against them on the other

22:27

side of the street, and then they just physically

22:29

switch sides. They, like, literally cross the

22:31

street. And if you

22:32

don't trust your soldiers to stay loyal,

22:34

and kill

22:35

who you've ordered them to kill.

22:37

Well, it turns out your on paper strength

22:39

does not really exist in

22:42

real life. And

22:44

that

22:44

brings us to the moment to defeat for

22:46

the sovereign. And this is

22:48

when their will disappears.

22:51

This is not an original idea,

22:53

whose focus on will. And

22:55

it's a point

22:56

I've so often seen and become so

22:58

attached that actually wrote about it in He wrote two worlds when I got to

23:00

the point when the British were gonna call it quits after Yorktown

23:02

and I figure rather than reinvent the wheel,

23:04

I'm just gonna quote this paragraph.

23:08

which I wrote to open up chapter

23:10

nine. War

23:12

is a contest of wills.

23:14

Weapons, armies, fleets,

23:17

and fortresses are simply the means by which

23:19

one breaks the will of their

23:21

enemy. A generation

23:22

hence, Crosswits would write

23:24

war has three broad objectives.

23:27

destroying

23:27

your enemy's armed forces,

23:29

occupying

23:29

their country and

23:30

breaking their will to continue the

23:33

struggle. first two are merely

23:35

the means by which one achieves

23:37

the third, the only

23:38

true goal of war, breaking

23:40

the

23:40

enemy's will to continue the struggle.

23:43

Victory and defeat are subjective

23:46

psychological events, not objective

23:48

material conditions. If

23:50

the enemy's will is broken, a million cannons will

23:52

sit idle. But if their will is

23:54

not broken, it does not matter if

23:56

they are disarmed or occupied,

23:58

It does

23:58

not matter how naked

23:59

and defenseless they stand. They

24:02

will

24:02

simply kneel down, pick up a

24:03

rock, and

24:04

throw

24:06

it. And so the

24:07

final moment of truth comes for

24:09

our beleaguered and beseech sovereigns, not

24:12

when all

24:12

their forces have been wiped out.

24:15

when their will to fight

24:17

on dissolves. Maybe

24:20

they are told that thanks to a loss of faith

24:22

or a loss of trust,

24:24

Further,

24:24

action is impossible. Maybe they

24:27

themselves don't want to commit mass murder to

24:29

staying power. Maybe their

24:31

closest

24:31

friends and advisers are saying sire,

24:33

it's it's over. It's time to sign this

24:35

piece of paper announcing to the world

24:37

that it's over. That you,

24:39

the obstacle, are going

24:41

away. and

24:43

even if there are still armies to be deployed,

24:46

money to be raised, plans to be

24:48

drawn up, there simply

24:50

no more will left to do any

24:52

of that.

24:52

Now in

24:55

terms of the revolutions that we

24:57

have covered, the

24:58

period between the trigger being pulled

25:00

and the sovereign's will disappearing

25:02

can

25:02

take anywhere from several days

25:05

to several months to many many

25:07

years. This

25:08

contest over the preponderance of

25:10

force that final conflict goes

25:12

on for as long as the Sovereign can maintain

25:15

it. Charles the tenth in eighteen

25:17

thirty and Louis Philippe in eighteen forty

25:19

eight They gave up and abdicated the

25:21

throne in a matter of days.

25:23

czar Nicholas held out for just over a

25:26

week from

25:26

late February to early March

25:29

nineteen seventeen Perfirio Diaz

25:31

waged a war against Madero's army for

25:33

several months before calling it quits in May of

25:35

nineteen eleven and sailing into

25:37

exile. in other revolutions

25:39

this period takes years and years.

25:42

Louis

25:42

sixteenth salvaged his position by coming

25:44

to Paris within days of the fall of

25:46

deal and say, yes, yes, I accept it all. No more

25:48

fighting. I am now your citizen king. But

25:51

it wasn't until August of seventeen ninety

25:53

two that he

25:54

really gave up. The contest

25:57

between Crown and Parliament and the

25:59

American

25:59

colonies lasted from

26:00

the trigger in April of seventeen seventy five

26:02

to Cornwallis' defeat in October

26:04

seventeen eighty one And even then it

26:06

was several more years before it was clear

26:08

that hostilities would not resume. The

26:11

wars of Spanish American independence

26:13

continued off and on for more

26:15

than a decade before the

26:16

Spanish sovereign claiming authority over the

26:18

Americas finally called it quits. And

26:20

our old good

26:21

friend, King Charles the

26:23

first of England, Scotland, and Ireland? No, he never gave

26:26

up. He never acknowledged defeat.

26:28

Right? Until the moment, they chopped

26:30

his head off.

26:33

The

26:34

sovereign finally giving up, losing

26:37

their will

26:37

to fight, admitting

26:38

they have lost the contest over who

26:41

controls a preponderance of

26:43

force marks the

26:44

victory for the forces of revolution.

26:47

It sets off

26:47

a wave of euphoria up and

26:49

down the line. People

26:51

are ecstatic. The great

26:52

obstacle has now been removed all their

26:55

dreams can come true.

26:57

Except, what

26:58

happens next? With a

27:00

unifying obstacle removed, the conflicting, competing,

27:03

and contradictory interests of all the people

27:05

in that cross class revolutionary

27:08

coalition, are

27:08

exposed for all to see. And we

27:11

all know

27:11

what happens after that. Say

27:13

it with me now.

27:14

me now The

27:15

entropy a

27:17

victory.