China expert Patrick Chovanec has a provocative blog post on What Causes Revolutions, building upon the Financial Times’ description of how the Chinese Communist Party is struggling with corruption.
In his article Chovanec quotes Richard Pipes’ Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution which looked at how the fall of the Tsarist government was largely unexpected.
This is true with the fall of all great regimes, in the late 1980s the idea that the Soviet Union would cease to exist within a decade was unthinkable.
Chavonec quotes a key part of Pipes’ book;
In 1982 [Pipes writes], when I worked in the National Security Council, I was asked to contribute ideas to a major speech that President Reagan was scheduled to deliver in London. My contribution consisted of a reference to Marx’s dictum that, when there develops a significant disparity between the political form and the socio-economic context, the prospect is revolution.
“A significant disparity between the political form and social-economic context” could be just as applicable to Western democracies.
The Economist article makes a point about the French revolution “the widely accepted theory now is that the French Revolution was one of rising expectations that eventually could not be met.”
As Stratfor’s George Freedman pointed out last week, a generation of Americans have expectations that are not going to be met. The same is true in Europe.
While there’s no doubt the China’s political structures – like those in all totalitarian nations – are more brittle than those in established democracies, it might not be a good idea for those of us in the West to be smug and complacent about our own systems.
Zapata image is courtesy of Ferferfer through SXC.