londons_explore
10 months ago
Almost without fail, every fall of a government is caused by external invasion or lack of food/water.
All other issues people will complain about, but never act on en-mass.
hollerith
10 months ago
Counterexamples: fall of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Fourth Republic in France in 1954, English Civil War and the English royal restoration a few decades later.
marcosdumay
10 months ago
Well, I guess the GP should have added "the government stupidly mass-murdering its citizens at random" to the other 3 causes.
About the fall of the Soviet Union, a lot of it was caused by each one of the GP's factors and the mass-murdering. You seem to want a clear case with a well defined "fall", but theirs wasn't it (like any supranacional empire).
wqaatwt
10 months ago
> and the mass-murdering
Right, yet mass murdering in the USSR stopped 30 years before its collapse. Of course it was still an oppressive totalitarian state but nowhere close to Stalin’s day.
It kind of the opposite. USSR collapsed a few years after the party loosened its grip and began liberalizing. Freedom of the press (to a limited extent) fair elections began a cascade.
On the other hand during the great purge in the 30s and later the 40s there was very little and effectively no organized opposition (outside of a few recently occupied peripheral states)
marcosdumay
10 months ago
The party loosened its grip and began liberalizing because the block was collapsing, not the other way around.
That one is also common on places with violent governments. The people organize themselves, fight for survival and get some victories; the government makes concessions; the people say "too little, too late" and keep fighting for more until they get meaningful change. If you look, the English Revolution also got the most impressive results way after the kind had loosened his rules.
spinytree21
10 months ago
afganistan war killed a lot of people, food shortages would kill others too.
you do make a point that nobody revolted during the purges, fear and killing opposition can be stabilizing. Removing fear (by say liberalization) can embolden opposition to act fast and get rid of perceived tyrants / avenge past transgressions.
wqaatwt
10 months ago
> embolden opposition
If there even is one. In the USSR most reformists or people who achieved real power after the collapse were opportunistic party insiders who were at the right place at the right time. There were some exceptions of course.
> afganistan war killed a lot of people, food shortages would kill others too.
Not that many in relative terms. Even according to independent estimates it was ~26k over 10 years (compared to 1-3 million Afghans..). That was of course much more than what NATO/etc. lost in their war but several times less than what Russia is losing now in Ukraine every single year.
And of course there was no famine in the USSR in the late 80s (and as for general shortages the worst came when the collapse was effectively inevitable).
spinytree21
10 months ago
> And of course there was no famine in the USSR in the late 80s.
I'm curious on what you base this information on. Having lived that period and experiencing first hand the shortages, I can say the opposite.
> In the USSR most reformists or people who achieved real power after the collapse were opportunistic party insiders who were at the right place at the right time
That is generally what happens with revolutions. In some places it got better though. Not all ex-USSR ended up like belarus or russia.
wqaatwt
10 months ago
> I can say the opposite
You mean your are aware of an actual famine in the UUSR in the late 80s?
> Not all ex-USSR ended up like belarus or russia
None besides the Baltic states did well though (and they are somewhat special due to historical and diplomatic reasons). All other states are generally very poor and extremely corrupt (even those that have m have lots of oil like Azerbaijan).
spinytree21
10 months ago
> You mean your are aware of an actual famine in the UUSR in the late 80s?
I have lived through the time period and have experienced the shortages first hand...
Can you say the opposite?, that life was good?, that people did not starve?, where did you learn that?
wqaatwt
10 months ago
Did they literally starve in the 80s? I mean I’m not rejecting you experience it would just be interesting to hear more..
> that life was good?
Never made such claims or that there were no shortages. Famine is something else though..
hollerith
10 months ago
I appreciate your participation here: I did not know that ordinary Soviet citizens were chronically short on calories in the late 1980s.
wqaatwt
10 months ago
According to data that we have from Western sources (of course still take with a grain of salt since getting accurate statistics from the USSR on any topic was near impossible) average Soviet citizen consumed only slightly less calories than the average American.
Of course they ate much more grain products and potatoes and relatively little meat (and AFAIK it wasn’t very good quality at all anyway).
And of course tropical and out of season fruits were a huge luxury..
alephnerd
10 months ago
> fall of the Soviet Union
The USSR relied heavily on imported grain and fertilizers from the US by the 1970s-80s [0], but the Carter administration placed a sanctions regime on the USSR preventing them from importing inputs for farm as well as grain [1].
Successive bad harvests lead to food shortages by the early 1980s [2][3]. Because of the Afghan War and the weapons buildup race with the US, there just wasn't as much money available for the Soviet administration to help alleviate social pain.
Those shortages (remember the photos of long lines at near empty groceries stores) along with Perestroika meant a lot of pissed off people went to the streets.
[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_United_States%E2%80%93S...
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_grain_embargo_...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/15/world/soviet-food-shortag...
[3] - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-11-18-mn-8360-s...
gepiti
10 months ago
The Soviet Union could not buy wheat in the free market due to falling oil revenue. In the end it was its' inability to feed its' people that drove the collapse.
sigwinch
10 months ago
Syria 2006-2011, Ukraine next year
londons_explore
10 months ago
> The unrest coincided with the most intense drought ever recorded in Syria, which lasted from 2006 to 2011 and resulted in widespread crop failure,
przemub
10 months ago
> Ukraine next year
Next three days, you mean?