Poul Anderson, Shield, XV.
Political discussion continues as Koskinen and Trembecki privately assess the Equals' proposals summarized in the previous post. Poul Anderson summarizes much history in few paragraphs. Trembecki doubts that there has ever been a justified revolution. I now summarize his views.
American
Colonists tried to regain their traditional rights as Englishmen. However, they had already ceased to be Englishmen, becoming instead an embryonic nation. Therefore, they made an easily justifiable revolt against foreign oppression, not an internal revolution.
French
The Revolution proper neither used violence nor abolished the monarchy but brought about overdue reforms through political pressure but then the extremists took over.
Russian
The Duma legally made the Czar abdicate but then the Bolsheviks forcibly overthrew a functioning republic.
(Blogger's opinion: another view is that Bolshevik-led workers' councils, using very little force in the actual seizure of state power, overthrew a paralyzed and impotent republic but this issue is highly contentious and has already been discussed more than once on this blog. I welcome other views although I prefer to avoid another lengthy exchange in this forum. The issue has come up yet again only because Anderson quite rightly raises it at this point in Shield - which, we discover, is about much more than a shield.)
Other Cases
People who forcibly overthrow a tyrant almost by definition become the next despots, whether benevolent or not, and benevolent despotism is not the best governmental form, in fact is stultifying. Kemal Ataturk worked to restore freedom but "'...slowly and carefully.'" (p. 117)
The Equals
The imposition from above of a world federation is unlikely to work because there would as yet be too few people used to thinking in that way. (Blogger's opinion: a very good point.)
Trembicki wants no part in enforced radicalism (again I agree) although he leaves the way open for "'...many sorts of radicalism.'" (p. 118) Like Dominic Flandry in The Rebel Worlds, he argues that measures short of revolution have not yet been exhausted.
If the Equals seize power, then:
they will have to retain power for a while to ensure that their new arrangements are working;
the arrangements will not work as wanted because new institutions always take unexpected directions;
so the Equals will shoot, tinker and suppress opponents of their dictatorship with a secret police even stronger than the current Military Security;
such secret police forces become powers in their own right;
an ideology can be enforced only by a tyranny;
Quarles would disapprove but would also be powerless to prevent it.
Trembicki's scorn for the idea that the junta would resign reminded me of Anderson's story, "For The Duration," which has other surprising parallels with Shield. See More Latin.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I know just a tiny bit about Kemal Ataturk, just enough for me to think he was one of the beneficial dictators mankind has seen. Briely, he wanted to modernize and Westernize Turkey. But, ISLAM was a major obstacle to that. And the current Erdogan dictatorship has been working hard to demolish Ataturkist institutions, planning to replace them with Islamic institutions and Sharia law.
Were these "blogger's opinions" you've mentioned mine? Yes, I do believe Lenin overthrew a weak and impotent provisional gov't. Prince George Lvov and Alexander Kerensky made many mistakes while they were Prime Ministers. One of them being too loyal to the Alliance with France and the UK. The smart thing for Russia to have done was to make peace with the Central Allies as soon as possible, on the best terms possible. That alone would have taken the wind out of Lenin's sails and make it impossible for that odious man to grab power.
I don't know how true this was, but in the movie NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA, an officer advising PM Kerensky on the day of Lenin's coup said that with a single regiment of reliable troops he could have crushed the Bolsheviks. But, it was too late, Kerensky had blundered away his chances.
Yes, the "moderate" phase of the French Revolution was from 1789-92. It SHOULD have ended with France becoming a constitutional monarchy, which is what most Frenchmen would have been satisfied with. But, as you said, the fanatics and extremists took over.
And I share Trembecki's skepticism that an Equals dictatorship would have soon surrendered its power.
Sean
Sean,
By "Blogger," I meant myself, editorially referred to in the third person. Everything outside brackets is me quoting Trembecki (although agreeing with perhaps most of what he says).
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Oops! I Misunderstood, in that case! Mea culpa!
Sean
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