Today I would like to address a very well known event torn directly from the books of history, one of the most prestigious and greatly justified revolts of all time: the Russian Revolution.
In technicality, the Revolution began prior to World War I with the country-wide labour strikes in 1905, halting almost everything in Russia for almost an entire year, and pulling the Russian economy into a catastrophic downturn until the Constitution of 1906 (the 'Fundamental Laws'), which stated that the Tsar Emperor had complete control over almost every aspect of the countries existence, including the entire existence of the Duma Parliament (created following the labour strikes of 1905).
All of these aspects were accepted due to the fact that loyalty towards the Tsar was still incredibly high at the time, and the Revolutionaries were still a general minority.
As soon as World War I broke put in 1914, loyalty towards the Tsar imperial reign reached an all-time high when a holy crusade against Germany was declared by Emperor Nicholas II.
This loyalty quickly fell in 1916 when Nicholas II took direct control of Russian forces on the front line, and began a string of defeat throughout the entire European theatre.
This fueled the spirit of Revolution in Russia, making the Tsar seem unfit to rule due to basic incompetence to defend the motherland (which was now cemented after being presented as a general possibility after the defeat of Russia at the hands of Japan in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese war) along with a belief that they had complete totalitarian control of the biggest country in the world.
Finally, after over a decade of tension, a full-fledged Revolution broke out, and the Tsar were massacred in a small cottage they where hiding in at the time of the Revolutions end.
Following the end of the Russian Revolution, Russia became the USSR (Union of the Soviet Socialists Republic) under the control of Bolshevik Communist dictator Vladimir Lenin, who died a few years following due to poor health and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin.
Now, I would like to talk about the justifications of this Revolution, was it completely justified? Or just agitated to the point of bursting? I believe many points played a role in the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, such as the fact that Nicholas II admitted to being unfit to rule before he actually began his reign of blunders and terror, along with the fact that it was considered a great embarrassment when Russia lost the war against Japan, and the responsibility was pinned on the House of Tsar directly, with World War I being the absolute breaking point for the Russian peoples tolerance of the entire situation.
Other things that played a part was the installment of a German-Russian into the royal family during the Fist World War, and the corruption of the government following Gregori Rasputin's installment as the advisor to the Tsar.
So, yes, I see plenty of justification for this revolt, but I don't see justification for what the revolt led to: a frightened, paranoid, aggressive totalitarian communist regime that almost joined the side of the Nazis during World War II due to completely selfish reasons and their lust for more territory, but later pretended to be one of the good guys and joined the Allies following the invasion of Russia by German forces.
This then led to the Cold War, which, on a few occasions, almost led to a break-out of a Third World War with the United States and other Commonwealth countries.
So, again, there are a couple of ways this could have gone: if the Russian Revolution had either been thwarted or never happened in the first place, the Tsar would either still be in control, or a completely democratic government would be in control, as opposed to the current puppet democratic government secretly controlled by Vladimir Putin, and if the Tsar would still be in control, who knows? Maybe they would finally have a completely competent ruler.
Then again, if the Revolution had been representing a rise in democracy, then Russia may have become a much better place then what it is or what it was following the success of the revolt, and the entire world may have been in a phase of near-complete peace following the end of World War II.
It really gives you a lot to think about if you look at it hard enough.
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