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Episode 2: Revolutions
17 Plays1 year ago
The second episode of the 'Debatable Discussions' podcast tackles revolutions and their impact on societies. Alongside national revolutions such as the French, American and Russian, we also explore the impact of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution.
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Transcript
The Influence of Revolutions on Society
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the second episode of the debatable discussion podcast, where we're going to tackle questions from the worlds of philosophy, history, politics, and more.
00:00:16
Speaker
However, today we are focusing ourselves on history and revolutions.
00:00:22
Speaker
So every week we'll be uploading a new episode exploring a different theme and or issue.
00:00:28
Speaker
Episodes like last week will only last around 25-30 minutes long and we'll explore everything from nepotism to meritocracy and free will.
Are Revolutions the Biggest Force for Change in History?
00:00:38
Speaker
So today we're going to take a look at the past, in particular revolutions of the past and their impact on society.
00:00:45
Speaker
So yes, we will be discussing revolutions, whether they're the biggest force for change in history and their impact.
00:00:52
Speaker
However, we'll be taking a particular focus on the American, French and Russian Revolution.
00:01:00
Speaker
So John, you're a bit more of a historian than I
The American Revolution: Causes and Key Figures
00:01:03
Speaker
am.
00:01:03
Speaker
So I say we start this way with you explaining the American Revolution and really how it started and why it did.
00:01:10
Speaker
So what do you think was the main issue then in America at the time?
00:01:14
Speaker
So I think there was one main issue in America, and that was effectively taxation.
00:01:20
Speaker
And what that stemmed into was political representation.
00:01:24
Speaker
So firstly, the American Revolution was a period between 1765 to 1783, which was firstly sort of hostilities and acts of resistance towards the British, and then became the War of Independence that we all famously sort of know and have heard of.
00:01:41
Speaker
But so the war started mainly due to a huge frustration amongst the colonialists because of taxation.
00:01:50
Speaker
So there were two notable taxation acts, the Stamp Act of 1765, which was heavy, which was a heavy tax really on all printed materials, which was quite a lot back then because a lot of things were printed on paper.
00:02:05
Speaker
And this tax had to be paid in British currency and not the colonial paper currency that they used, which was quite annoying at the time for the colonialists.
00:02:16
Speaker
So this act led to the Stamp Act Congress of...
00:02:20
Speaker
later on that decade and that sort of congress was really the first major force political sort of force against the british empire that really anywhere in the empire had seen and it really represented the main reason for the american revolution and that was their frustration at not having representation in british parliament and also their frustration of being subject to these heavy taxation acts
00:02:48
Speaker
Could you give us any sort of leading figures in the American Revolution?
00:02:52
Speaker
If there's a couple of people who everyone should know, who do you think are those?
Declaration of Independence and Its Significance
00:02:56
Speaker
I mean, obviously, the first one that will spring to anyone's mind is George Washington.
00:03:00
Speaker
You know, he led the Continental Army against the British, became the first president.
00:03:06
Speaker
He's obviously the most major figure, probably.
00:03:08
Speaker
However, another interesting one, quite controversial figure nowadays is
00:03:13
Speaker
is Samuel Adams.
00:03:16
Speaker
He set up lots of committees and groups against the British.
00:03:21
Speaker
Notably, he was involved in the Boston Tea Party.
00:03:25
Speaker
Could you explain where that is, just in case anyone doesn't know?
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, so the Boston Tea Party was after a tea act by the British Empire to help promote the British East India Company's tea trade to the 13 colonies.
00:03:39
Speaker
And as the British Empire wanted to increase the volume of trade, they created this Tea Act, which would lower the tariffs on trade from the British Chiefs India Company to encourage people to buy from there.
00:03:53
Speaker
However, they hated it.
00:03:54
Speaker
They hated how Britain was forcing them to do something.
00:03:57
Speaker
So in 1773, they decided to revolt.
00:04:03
Speaker
And effectively, this was the Boston Tea Party, in which they went on to two or three ships and threw what was at the time a huge value worth of tea into the sea.
00:04:14
Speaker
And this infuriated the British Empire and London.
00:04:19
Speaker
So there's the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 1776, which
00:04:26
Speaker
Could you give us a bit more details on what that actually is?
00:04:29
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
So, well, firstly, as everyone will know, it's when America literally declared independence from the British Empire.
00:04:38
Speaker
It was as a result of the Taxation Acts, their lack of representation in politics, which they wanted more of, hence the popular phrase, which many would have heard of, taxation without representation, which was because they were so angry at not having any representation, but being subject to such heavy taxation.
00:04:59
Speaker
But the Declaration of Independence, it was written by Thomas Jefferson and signed by 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which was sort of the provisional government just a bit before and throughout the War of Independence.
00:05:14
Speaker
And I think a lot of people would know a bit about the American Revolution from Hamilton, a very famous musical.
00:05:21
Speaker
So who was Alexander Hamilton?
00:05:23
Speaker
Should we know him?
00:05:24
Speaker
Was he an important figure in that campaign?
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, Hamilton was definitely an important figure.
00:05:32
Speaker
For me, Hamilton is most known for what he did slightly after the American Revolution.
00:05:38
Speaker
So he was a founding father, obviously, but his role as First Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, that's why he's most known.
00:05:46
Speaker
However, obviously, he contributed greatly to the American Revolution.
00:05:51
Speaker
You know, he fought in it, as seen in Hamilton.
00:05:54
Speaker
He was...
00:05:55
Speaker
a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation.
00:05:59
Speaker
However, what I think Hamilton should be most known for is really his role as Secretary of the Treasury and to do with the First Bank of the United States of America.
00:06:09
Speaker
And he fought very hard to remove the sort of national debt that they had after the War of Independence.
00:06:14
Speaker
So that's sort of the interesting thing about Hamilton.
00:06:16
Speaker
He was a very good politician, people would say, after they achieved independence.
00:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'd agree with you there.
00:06:26
Speaker
And also it's very interesting, we were talking about this yesterday, actually, how history is really related to itself.
00:06:32
Speaker
So before we move on to the French Revolution, we're saying how the Marquis de Lafayette, another Hamilton figure, appears in both wars in actual history.
00:06:41
Speaker
So I just found that really interesting.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:46
Speaker
So now to the French Revolution.
The French Revolution: Economic and Philosophical Roots
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, Diane, can you explain to us a bit about the French Revolution following the American Revolution this was?
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, so the French Revolution itself basically started in 1789.
00:07:01
Speaker
And we know the 14th of July is the storming of the Bastille prison, still a national holiday to this day, really, in which the Bastille was this political prison.
00:07:13
Speaker
which on the 14th of July, the people just stormed and took control over the fall of Bastille.
00:07:19
Speaker
And really the French Revolution was due to the economy.
00:07:26
Speaker
So going back to the American Revolution, the French intervened in the American Revolution.
00:07:34
Speaker
Some would say successfully, you know, achieved their goal.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:39
Speaker
But in the same time, they had some very big economic losses there.
00:07:44
Speaker
And in order to keep up, they need to increase taxes and also get a lot of loans.
00:07:49
Speaker
So Louis XVI at the time thought that if he kept spending money to make the monarchy seem wealthy, he'd get more loans, which is partly true.
00:08:00
Speaker
But he did spend so much that he wasn't able to pay it back, had to raise taxes dramatically.
00:08:07
Speaker
And then the people just...
00:08:08
Speaker
They're not like him a single bit.
00:08:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:08:12
Speaker
So as you said, it's quite interesting, the link with the French Revolution, which succeeded the American Revolution, but they did help America to achieve independence from the British.
00:08:23
Speaker
You're a very keen philosopher, very interested in philosophy.
00:08:28
Speaker
What was the sort of philosophical background, would you say, of the French Revolution?
00:08:32
Speaker
So it's really, I think, two people there.
00:08:34
Speaker
Number one is from the Protestant side, because the French Revolution also kind of tackled the Catholic Church and their control, as they owned about 10-15% of the land, if I'm not mistaken.
00:08:44
Speaker
And some of the French Protestants didn't like that, most notably Voltaire.
00:08:51
Speaker
So Voltaire was heavily against the Catholic Church because he was a Protestant and therefore was a big supporter of the Revolution.
00:08:58
Speaker
But the main father of the Revolution, the philosophical founder of the Revolution, is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, actually.
00:09:05
Speaker
who not only is famous for his work in the education system, but also because he's the philosophical figure of the revolution.
00:09:13
Speaker
As he wrote, that is, I quote here, manifestly contrary to the law of nature, that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities.
00:09:27
Speaker
So Rousseau here basically condemns the monarchy and Louis XVI's huge spendings and Marie Antoinette's huge spendings.
00:09:34
Speaker
whilst the French people were having nothing to eat, basically.
00:09:39
Speaker
And they were scavenging for food.
00:09:42
Speaker
It was a very hard time for the normal, you know, French peasant at the time.
00:09:47
Speaker
Oh, so can you tell us more about sort of perhaps the Jacquemart and Robespierre, and also sort of the activity, the real sort of violence that occurred in the revolution?
The Reign of Terror and Robespierre's Role
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, so there were two, originally there were two main parties.
00:10:01
Speaker
So it was La Plaine, which were centrists,
00:10:04
Speaker
And then there was another party which split into two factions.
00:10:08
Speaker
So the Girondins, who are moderates, and were led by this guy named Brousseau.
00:10:13
Speaker
And the Montagnards, which are probably the most famous ones, because they were the radical group led by Maximilien Robespierre.
00:10:20
Speaker
Now, Robespierre is basically the individual who is responsible for the reign of terror that happened in 1793.
00:10:33
Speaker
where 300,000 people were arrested, when around 17,000 people were executed on charges because they were royalists.
00:10:42
Speaker
And also, another 40,000, however this is not confirmed, may have been executed or died awaiting trial.
00:10:49
Speaker
So there weren't official executions, but they still happened.
00:10:54
Speaker
And now, 1793 as well, they sentenced Louis XVI to death, a conspiracy against public liberty and general safety.
00:11:03
Speaker
And on a vote, 361 to 288, voted to execute the 16.
00:11:13
Speaker
Which happened in the Place de la Révolution.
00:11:16
Speaker
Now the Place de la Concorde, very famous square in the middle of Paris.
00:11:21
Speaker
And Robespierre is the man responsible for this.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:29
Speaker
Now what's interesting to me in the French Revolution is that
00:11:32
Speaker
monarchy doesn't really end.
00:11:35
Speaker
Napoleon came and took power in 1804 as an emperor.
00:11:41
Speaker
And also another thing that I find interesting that, you know, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, the French national motto, if I'm not wrong, was popularized by Maximilian Robespierre.
00:11:57
Speaker
So that's a bit of an interesting thing, in my opinion, because you have this
00:12:02
Speaker
man who's killed 17,000 people and around 40,000 others who still is immortalized in history really.
00:12:11
Speaker
And that says, you know, also talking about presentism and all those other things.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah.
The Russian Revolution: Bolsheviks and Lenin
00:12:18
Speaker
So now we're going to move on to the most recent one, the Russian revolution of the 20th century.
00:12:25
Speaker
So John, would you like to just briefly explain
00:12:29
Speaker
some of the stuff regarding the Russian Revolution?
00:12:32
Speaker
So yes, the Russian Revolution, it's the most recent of all the revolutions we're discussing.
00:12:38
Speaker
However, there are some definite similarities.
00:12:40
Speaker
So firstly, with the French and the American, and really sort of most revolutions, it's people and parties uprising against who they view as their oppressive leaders, who are because of the harsh climate that they're in.
00:12:56
Speaker
So many will have heard of a few names to go through before we go through, before we talk about the revolution.
00:13:03
Speaker
We have the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin, who are the communists.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yep, the communists.
00:13:09
Speaker
And they're in this sort of second revolution that they have in 1917 because you have the February revolution, which happened in Petrograd, the then capital in which Nicholas VII was abdicated.
00:13:20
Speaker
And then you have the October revolution led by the Bolsheviks and Lenin,
00:13:25
Speaker
in which they did this sort of armed insurrection against the Russian provisional government.
00:13:30
Speaker
And, you know, after that, they had a Russian civil war against the White Army.
00:13:34
Speaker
And then eventually, Lenin managed to become leader of Russia.
00:13:38
Speaker
So can I stop you there and just do a quick summary?
00:13:43
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:13:44
Speaker
So in February, Nicholas II, the Tsar, abdicated.
00:13:48
Speaker
But he wasn't killed then.
00:13:49
Speaker
So he was killed in the October Revolution.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:53
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:13:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:56
Speaker
In the October Revolution, Lenin targeted both the royalists and another group of people really in charge.
00:14:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:07
Speaker
So, yeah, he also was also against the Russian provisional government, which was the sort of government installed from the February Revolution.
00:14:17
Speaker
And really, with the Russian provisional government, little improvement was seen.
00:14:22
Speaker
And, you know, the causes of this revolution were because of the poor living conditions, the famines faced.
00:14:30
Speaker
A huge loss in people, money and prestige from both the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905 and World War I, which was quite harsh upon the Russian people.
00:14:42
Speaker
Huge casualties for the Russians.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:46
Speaker
And it really sort of deteriorated the domestic conditions in the country and also Russia as an international force.
00:14:53
Speaker
That was a huge reason for why Lenin and Bolsheviks decided to revolt.
00:14:58
Speaker
Also, I was wanting to ask you that.
00:15:06
Speaker
Do you think, you know, because we've spoken about revolutions which have been generally seen positively upon, apart from this one.
00:15:15
Speaker
So how can a revolution also be a positive thing, I was wondering, or a negative thing?
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think with revolutions...
Intentions Behind Revolutions: Governance and Living Conditions
00:15:26
Speaker
People do them.
00:15:27
Speaker
The intention behind a revolution is effectively positive.
00:15:30
Speaker
It's because people want to basically get out of the conditions they're living in at the moment and they want to escape their ruler to be living in effectively a better society.
00:15:42
Speaker
That's why a lot of revolutions we see are about economic conditions, political oppression, because these are the things which really frustrate people and make them angry at their leaders.
00:15:53
Speaker
And thus they say,
00:15:54
Speaker
They say, why don't we just revolt?
00:15:57
Speaker
Why don't we install someone else's leader who can get us out of the huge mess our country is in?
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
I mean, what do you think about the sort of impacts of revolutions and so forth?
00:16:09
Speaker
I think they've really, they're the number one sort of bringer of change, if you can say that in a way.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
So I think with our revolutions, not only political ones we're talking about, you know, other types of revolutions, the agriculture revolution of 10,000 BC,
00:16:24
Speaker
which invented property as well.
00:16:26
Speaker
A revolution is really a significant time in history of change.
00:16:30
Speaker
That's how I define that.
00:16:32
Speaker
But I was talking with a friend about this, actually, a couple of days ago.
00:16:35
Speaker
You know who he is.
00:16:38
Speaker
That if you have a revolution and you're led by a charismatic leader, so Lenin, for example, you know, it's very hard to see also the negatives of the revolution.
00:16:48
Speaker
So I don't think any of the Bolsheviks really realize fully, okay, well, we're getting rid of
00:16:53
Speaker
this government, but we're going to have Lenin instead with his policies.
00:16:56
Speaker
They're just, okay, let's get rid of these people and let's decide what we're going to do later.
00:17:02
Speaker
Which I think is also very dangerous, possibly.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's a key thing about revolutions.
00:17:09
Speaker
As people are sort of trying to escape their current lives, they're very optimistic in revolutions.
00:17:14
Speaker
And people think by getting rid of our current leader, we're going to be able to live in a world and a society which is so much better.
00:17:22
Speaker
And they don't realise that, you know, being a leader of a country is obviously extremely hard.
00:17:29
Speaker
And it's almost inevitable that there's going to be a few messes and incidents that the country eventually gets into.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, a few mistakes as well.
The Agricultural Revolution's Societal Transformation
00:17:40
Speaker
So yeah, going back to the agricultural revolution, this is one that we haven't mentioned so far in the podcast.
00:17:48
Speaker
However, it's arguably probably one of the most transformative revolutions in history.
00:17:53
Speaker
So Diane, can you please explain a bit more about the agriculture?
00:17:56
Speaker
Yes, I'd say it's really the most transformative revolution ever recorded.
00:18:04
Speaker
So the agricultural revolution of 10,000 BC is the...
00:18:10
Speaker
the moment in time where property was found and people stopped living in the hunting and gathering way and developed a civilization instead.
00:18:23
Speaker
And what does it actually mean is that that's when trade began because before you just have people going out fishing for the family or killing a wild animal just for their family, there wasn't really any
00:18:39
Speaker
organized trade between people.
00:18:41
Speaker
But that agricultural evolution really is the founding of capitalism, you could say.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, so it sort of created this private property which many philosophers will say has caused huge issues since.
00:18:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:59
Speaker
You know, it's definitely, I would say, I'm a capitalist, but I would definitely say property is the cause of
00:19:06
Speaker
of conflict for better or for worse.
00:19:09
Speaker
So if we think back in recent history, I cannot name any wars that were not really based on property even.
00:19:20
Speaker
Even World War II, in my opinion, has a bit of a tangent there.
00:19:25
Speaker
Hitler wanted Russia.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, and he wanted to expand.
00:19:30
Speaker
He wanted more property.
00:19:31
Speaker
Exactly.
00:19:33
Speaker
I mean...
Industrial Revolution vs. Agricultural Revolution
00:19:34
Speaker
Another one that comes to my head is the Industrial Revolution.
00:19:37
Speaker
It's sort of, as you said, like the Agricultural Revolution because it was a transformative moment.
00:19:43
Speaker
It was the moment in which societies and countries hugely developed scientifically and that was a big shift in the world and in people's lives just as the Agricultural Revolution was.
00:19:56
Speaker
Another interesting thing about revolutions is why don't we have more today?
00:20:01
Speaker
I mean, I think a lot are going on but
00:20:04
Speaker
Do you have anything to say for that?
00:20:06
Speaker
I mean, the last, I think, huge wave of revolutions happened in 1989 with the fall of communism.
00:20:14
Speaker
So, you know, that's when most countries in the Eastern Bloc had the revolution.
00:20:21
Speaker
Either executing their communist leaders or just getting rid of them.
00:20:27
Speaker
The Iron Curtain fell, you know, the Berlin Wall as well.
00:20:32
Speaker
So I think that was, again, another transformative time recently.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, my parents were alive, your parents were alive.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
At that time.
00:20:41
Speaker
I don't think today we have so many popularized revolutions, really, because of more revolutions turning into coup d'etat, in my opinion.
00:20:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, before...
00:20:55
Speaker
I was going to say, that is an interesting distinction between is a coup d'etat type of revolution, are they totally separate?
Revolutions vs. Coups: People's Movements vs. Military Actions
00:21:03
Speaker
That's something that sort of blurred lines slightly in between the two, aren't there?
00:21:06
Speaker
I'd say a revolution is when the people revolt.
00:21:11
Speaker
The coup d'etat is more when, for example, in Spain, General Franco, that was a coup d'etat because he was a general, he brought his army with
00:21:24
Speaker
With those people, yes.
00:21:26
Speaker
Was the army made of people?
00:21:27
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:27
Speaker
But it was an organized group.
00:21:29
Speaker
It wasn't, you know, just millions or hundreds of thousands of people going on the street.
00:21:35
Speaker
It was an organized group who was a military organization.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:40
Speaker
I mean, that's the amazing thing I find about revolutions.
00:21:43
Speaker
It's just the impact that people can directly have.
00:21:45
Speaker
Because going back to the Russian Revolution, with the revolution that took place in February 1917, where Nicholas II was abdicated, that was really just protests by people which led to that.
00:21:58
Speaker
I mean, I think the protests lasted for about eight days long, about the harsh economic conditions.
00:22:03
Speaker
And the people were so impactful, they literally got the army to side with them by the end.
00:22:08
Speaker
which is just amazing because it shows how influential, you know, protesting can be if it can topple 300 years of monarchical rule.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:19
Speaker
Do you have anything more to say I was going to say about revolutions?
00:22:23
Speaker
I mean, I think we've gone through them all.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think we've touched on the major ones in recent history.
00:22:30
Speaker
Of course, we've omitted some.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:34
Speaker
But it's just very interesting, I feel, to look at how they're interconnected as well, going back to that point.
00:22:39
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:22:39
Speaker
Because, as you said, history is always intertwining with each other.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah.
Revolutions as Transformative Moments in History
00:22:45
Speaker
And perhaps finally, we could just speak on the impact of revolutions.
00:22:49
Speaker
And as we've mentioned with all the ones we've gone through...
00:22:54
Speaker
They really mark a transformative moment in a country or in a society, whether you've got the agricultural revolution, which shifted, changed the world irreversibly, or just a revolution in a country like French, American or Russian.
00:23:08
Speaker
It signifies a change in time and a change in ruler and also a change in sort of the country's conditions.
00:23:15
Speaker
And values as well, I'd say.
00:23:17
Speaker
and values yeah that's the amazing thing about revolutions and that's why they're such a big force for change that's what they're yeah because they really symbolize the end of an era and the starting of a new era with a different type of government perhaps a different ruler different political and economic conditions yeah so thank you everyone for listening to the second episode of the debatable discussions podcast and who are we going to have next week john
00:23:45
Speaker
Well, we've got a special guest coming in to talk to us about nepotism versus meritocracy.
00:23:52
Speaker
That will definitely be a very good episode to listen to.
00:23:55
Speaker
And I would encourage everyone to come back and listen to it next week.
00:24:00
Speaker
Thank you very much.