I came across the file of my BYU Senior Thesis today and I thought hell, why let it collect cobwebs on my thumb drive?
So I've resurrected it for your reading enjoyment here, let's see if you have the stamina to see it to it's conclusion. I was winded for a full week after writing it.
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
THE SANCTITY OF LIFE BEFORE IDEOLOGY:
WHERE HUMANITY HAS SUCCEEDED AND FAILED IN REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE
POLITICAL SCIENCE 400 CAPSTONE THESIS
SUBMITTED TO: PROFESSOR DAVID BOHN
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
BY KELLY WILDE VANDERLAAN
Throughout history the world has seen revolutionary governments rise and fall with ideology and philosophy being powerful catalysts. The ideas created by men for humanity to follow have been fraught with power and idealism, but have often come to pass under bloody circumstance. During the French and Bolshevik revolutions ideas were propagated that placed government before the individual. In consequence these revolutions both eventually went full circle back to a tyranny worse than what they started with. The American Revolution however put its individuals before its government and was successful in creating and maintaining a democracy. Looking at the differences between how the events of the American Revolution played out in comparison to how the French and then Bolshevik Revolutions did, it will be clear that it is the kind of philosophy and ideas used in the American Revolution which are needed to make a new government truly successful.
The point of this thesis however, is not to argue that people in times of revolutionary change should attempt to follow the American Revolution in every detail. Circumstance is never exactly the same in every situation, and as the French Revolution exhibited most are prone to failure under such endeavors. The American Revolution was blessed by its time in history, the fact that its enemy was across an ocean, and a particular fervor amongst a group of people who were led up to the revolution through their personal abhorrence to crown rule. In simpler terms it was the right time, the right place, and the right people. Instead what should be focused on and appreciated in the American Revolution were the philosophies it propagated, and the strictness with which it stuck to its beginning ideas. Today America resides much in the same government that was created by its political thought in the 18th century. It kept the integrity to its founding that has been unforeseen in all of the history before it, or any of the history since.
The French and Indian War ending in 1754 left North America to the English as the victors. This incident was the last of many wars between foreign powers to gain control of the new world and it is curious that the many countries occupying America would vanquish one another, leaving only one large power for the colonials to contend with.
It was a varying landscape in America. There were those who had great wealth, and those that had to hack their living out of the dirt. There were recently released indentured servants, and those who had been born in America through families who had been there for several generations. The people were of many faiths, but in the end they believed in one God and had a similar knowledge of moral truth. The differences that existed amongst them did not divide them in the one thing they sought in a world that they had jointly created: freedom and autonomy from the British Crown. While these feelings sparked a cry for revolution amongst the colonials for separation from the crown, King George II and the actions of those in rule over the colonies did not help matters. British Soldiers took quarter in the homes of colonials at their leisure and without seeking permission and food and supplies were taken in such a indifferent manner. The frequent call for participation in parliament fell on deaf ears, and the colonials were afforded no representation. While at sea, colonial ships could be boarded by English ships, their contents taken and the men essentially seized for use by the British Crown. Then the greatest of the oppressions fell upon the colonials, the many tariffs and taxes. Colonials certainly did not like being hit with the burden of paying such heavy fees to the English, but what compounded the insult was that they had no say in the matter. When they protested with such demonstrations as the occurred during the 1773 Boston Tea Party, their harbors were blocked and their livelihoods cut off. In 1774 the First Continental Congress, formed by the colonials adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances. Listed in the resolution was the American’s right to “life, liberty, and property.”
There were three Enlightenment thinkers which influenced the ideas the colonials held about liberty and government. These were Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Baron Charles de Montesquieu. Thomas Hobbes described a dark state of nature where humanity was saved by their fear of death pressing them into a government for protection. The government relieving them of their fear of violent death is where the colonials pulled their ideas of a “right to life.” John Locke also wrote of a state of nature but his was far different from Hobbes, it was a beautiful, sinless place that man had fallen out of. To return to it, man created government or a social compact. Locke wrote that government should only be strong enough to protect “life, liberty, and estate,” and should therefore be limited. This would be influential to the coming of the Declaration of Independence. Finally Baron Charles de Montesquieu suggested in his writings that the British government should divide its governments into many branches, thus providing for check and balances. The Americans would later take their cues from this when developing a structured government (Schweikart & Allen 2004, 68-81).
For the colonials, pamphleteering and columns bled into much of their social life. Printing presses addressed issued of the times with wildly popular writing from local thinkers and more than anything else brought unity of ideas to the colonials. In a time devoid of the technological mediums we use for communication today, word spread far and wide do to the pamphleteering. Thomas Paine found his genius in such writings, after a lifetime of failure at other pursuits. With two marriages and several more careers behind him, he came and fell into what he was perhaps intended for, the final thoughtful push of the colonials into a war of separation with the British crown. Paine’s writings took some of the ideas of the enlightenment and added to them in his famous work, Common Sense. Government was but a necessary evil in society and there to uplift the people, not to oppress them. He argued that the only rational thing to do in the face of English tyranny was to revolt and over throw the oppressive government, thus seeking independence It was the perfect example of an idea that had found its day. The people were receptive to such a thought, they were drawn together by a common enemy and the beginning of the American Revolutionary war followed quickly in 1775 with the battle of Lexington and Concord (Zamoyski 1999, 18-19).
Three weeks after the shots of Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental congress met and Richard Henry Lee proposed a complete break from Great Britain. A group of men consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston met under the direction of the Congress to draft a declaration. After much work and influenced greatly by the works of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson wrote the final version of the Declaration of Independence which was presented on July 4th, 1776. The ideology and philosophy of the enlightenment meshed largely in with the ideas of the founding fathers about what a government should be would change the world forever (Grafton 1999, 5).
As with almost every revolution that has been or will be fought, blood shed was involved. It was an unavoidable tragedy in the American Revolution as well, in order to live in the freedom they desired; the colonials were forced to fight with the British to push them back to their own country. The difference between the American and other revolutions is that the fighting was a means to an end; it was not a machine for revenge against those that were viewed as the oppressor. Additionally the bloodshed of the revolution did not continue once the fighting stopped. The fighting during the war did not turn on its own, the enemy had been fought and conquered and the next step was nation building. Strong lines of good and bad, right and wrong had been drawn to facilitate the war effort, and the complete removal of English governance. But the new Americans were not in love with the war aspect of the revolution, they were in love instead with what could come after the fighting stopped and the nation building could begin. This truly unique aspect to the American Revolution was a huge part of its success in both winning the war, and developing a great country. The common feeling of the righteousness of the cause and intendedness of God for them to have the land to build a government in played a large role in how they conducted themselves (Lokken 1974, 81-95).
America was not a society of a single religion. Many had fled the strangle hold of a State church in coming to America, and had no desire to lose that freedom again. While there was not one sect each looked to as a final authority, there was in society a mutual belief in God and the basic principles of Christianity. Far more believed, than those who went faithfully to church every Sunday. The morality was that taught by Christ, and it was an unalterable conception of good and evil. Of the revolutionary ideas propagated, God was never something the colonials looked to remove from society. Revolution to them was freeing themselves from a tyranny and building a new nation where they could enjoy their freedoms, it was not an opportunity to abolish God and start from a moral ground zero. In fact the founding fathers looked on this as a weakness in past governments and the ultimate reason for their fall. When they met to build a government, God and right was at the forefront of their mind along with the freedoms and rights of the individual.
Revolutions do not end with the last gun that fires, or the last man that dies in battle. Their real mettle is tested in what comes after their oppressor is overthrown and the talking must begin. When the violence no longer answers the problems at hand and they must change or find themselves back to tyranny and perpetual violence. After the English were defeated, the country was at last their own and they became states, and developed the Articles of Confederation in 1781. This document was such that it attempted to give each state its own autonomy and thus resulted in more chaos than order. The states were their own entity, and afraid of building a national government that might subject them to the same treatment as the British crown had. Yet in their attempts to be singular, the new America, found very little of the success they had hoped to achieve with the revolutionary war. They were still at the mercy of the English and other countries, because their divisiveness gave other nations the ability to manipulate them for their own gain. The time came that they had to join together or fall all together apart as a new country. In the summer of 1787 the delegates from each state met in Philadelphia under the organization of James Madison to attempt to fix the Articles of Confederation, what they got instead was a new constitution and one nation.
James Madison had been reading much of the political philosophy of societies of the past and was impressed by some of it and put off by others. By conglomerating the information he had read from books Thomas Jefferson had sent him, he had taken bits of historical governments and put them together to form and idea for the new American government. George Washington presided over the convention and Benjamin Franklin, now quite elderly, showed his support by sitting in on the proceedings as well. Many of the other forefathers participated as delegates, and as the constitution was created over long, sweaty, weeks in the little building, each man contributed his ideas to the document. George Washington said that during this time, he recognized the monumental nature of what was occurring and often got down on his knees and prayed that they might be successful in what they were trying to achieve. Franklin too, often reminded those in the convention of the participation of God in what was occurring and they were spurred on through difficult patches by his comments. At last in September 17th, 1787 the final document was signed by all of the members of the convention. Under the influence of Thomas Jefferson the Bill of Rights was added to the constitution in 1791. The ideas of the ancient Greeks, of the enlightenment, and the men present combined to create the first functional constitution which is relevant to this day (Kirk 1991, 434-443).
Perhaps the most notable difference of the American Revolution to that of other revolutions is that it understood where ideology ended and action began. It looked to the ideas of philosophers and thinkers such as Locke, and Hobbes but used what it found most appropriate from each. It was not a revolution to facilitate one man’s ideas, but one to allow freedom for the individual. The most important purpose for the forefathers and the others involved in the revolution was that a society should be created that worked around the needs of the men within it. Each man had innate rights, and government was involved to make those easier to come by, not to pound an ideology into society by force. The American Revolution was about the rights of humanity, and God was an influence in it every step along the way. Thus it was successful and has turned the United Stated of America into the greatest nation in existence. As Alexis De Tocqueville in his 1848 observations on America said:
“The republic there has not been the assailant, but the guardian, of all vested rights; the property of the individuals has better guarantees there than in any other country of the world; anarchy has there been as unknown as despotism. But the principles on which the American Constitution rest, those principles of order, of the balance of powers, of true liberty, of deep and sincere respect for right, are indispensable to all republics; they ought to be common to all; and it may be said beforehand that wherever they are not found, the republic will soon have ceased to exist.”
In 1789 France was on fire. Having come in as allies to the American’s during their revolution, France was filled with a longing for one of its own. The monarchy of France was viewed as an absolute evil that through the decadence of the Louis’, particularly the XIV, had bankrupted their nation by way of a decadent lifestyle. They were as well critical of it because of the rising of unequal taxes, the persecution of religious minorities and the government influence in private lives. So in 1789 a sequence of events was put into motion that the French initially hoped would take them from an absolute monarchy to a republic of theoretically free and equal citizens. They were to be sorely disappointed.
The intellectual, Voltaire influenced the French Revolution in that he had a hand in undermining the religious principles and history that the old French regime had been based upon. However, it was a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When removing all religion and religious history from France, he removed all of the history and moral traditions with it. Voltaire believed above all in Plato’s philosopher-king, he was however, like many intellectuals careless of how his thought might influence other people’s lives. Voltaire existed to listen to his own voice, and disregard those of others. He thus holds blame for the bad philosophical basis of the French Revolution, but he does not hold all of it. That is where John Jacques Rousseau steps into the picture. Rousseau believed in a social contract, but being the absolutist that he was, this led only to totalitarianism. Rousseau saw the state and patriotism to it, as more important than the rights of humanity. Viewing himself as one of the few perfect people that existed he felt himself capable of giving others advice on what government should be. This meant total dedication to the government, by force if necessary to hold together a society. An ideology based in the power he wished to exploit himself. The French held his ideas as some of the greatest ever written and turned him into an instant national hero upon his death. Thus were the philosophical beginnings of the French Revolution.
In 1789 the parlements, 13 royal regional courts in Paris blended with a group of intellectuals known as the philosophes to protest the monarchy. They argued that the people had natural rights and that government existed to guarantee these rights. They wrote many pamphlets and treaties and claimed to not advocate violence for these ends. In the pamphlets the philosophes crafted a vocabulary that defined political issues in the revolution. Taking their cues from both of the enlightenment and the American Revolution they believed in people’s liberty, right and the nation. This influence along with the fiscal crisis was to push people over the edge to revolt. King Louis XVI decided at this time to abolish all parlements, and move that would only enrage the people further. On May 1789 the Estates General met to discuss the monarchy problem, they tried to work with the monarchy for change and Louis XVI proposed revamping the financial system, but it was too little too late. On July 14th an angry mob captured the Bastille which marked a turning point where reform was forgotten in favor of revolution. It is interesting to note that nature of a revolution and of society are the men who lead and are held in esteem. Influential in the storming of the Bastille was the Comte de Sade, the man whom the term “sadism” comes from. De Sade was well known in France for writing explicitly sexual books, and interweaving in these his ideas on politics. His books were widely read, and despite the perverse nature of the material were given accolades for his political theories. In addition to serving as a voice on government, de Sade managed to have him self thrown into the Bastille with great frequency due to his extravagant and often complicated sexual exploits. On one such occasion he reached a window and added frenzy to an already frothy crowd by yelling to them that the Bastille was filled to bursting with political prisoners like himself. So through de Sade’s mad (presumably syphilis induced) loquaciousness the people below were further bolstered to storm the Bastille and free the many political prisoners it held. Though the name Bastille remains a revolutionary term used worldwide, when the people did indeed free the prisoners there, they found only about seven individual, versus the hordes purported to be there. Most of whom were drunks or madmen, like de Sade himself. It did not bode well for a revolution becoming increasingly more violent, that opinion could be so easily swayed as to move in the direction of moral decay (von Kuehnelt-Leddihn 1990, 62-66).
The revolution started out moderately at first and was thus named the Moderate revolution. Then the peasants of France revolted against landlords in what became known as the Great Fear. On August 4th, the noblemen renounced their personal privileges and the feudal system came to an end. As a result of all that occurred, at the end of August the Assembly put together The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which Recognized the source of sovereignty as existing within the people (Billington, 19-23).
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen written by the French was modeled after American Declaration of Independence, but something was lost in the translation: real intent. Where the American Revolution wished to start fresh with out the tyranny of the English rule, France wished to start completely over without the tyranny as they saw it of the monarchy, morality, and God.
Political clubs and periodical press increased and the crown became more and more unpopular. At this point a constitution was in the works and power had been moved from Versailles to Paris, with the King and Queen taken as prisoners. The French constitution then completely turned the system on its head advocating equal rights, no slavery, and civil rights. They stripped the clergy of power and made them a state entity. Active citizens were allowed to elect bishops and priests, so atheists, Jews, or Protestants could fill the open positions if they wished. King Louis XVI attempted escape and renounced the revolution; he was caught at the border of Versailles and returned as a prisoner but pardoned by the current powers which caused infighting, and the revolution began to fester from within. The left, moderate revolutionaries trying to keep the monarchy were called the Feuillants; these were split from the more radical revolutionaries known as the Cordeliers & Jacobins.
This infighting did nothing to press the course of the revolution in the right direction. The former adulation of all things and thought of the American was soon perverted to fit with the French Revolution’s ever changing ideology. Where there was a deep examination of American documents such as the Declaration and the Constitution before, things started to move increasingly through the moral looking glass. The French constitution took effect at this time, and leaders were telling émigrés to return to France on pain of death and were forcing the clergy to take an oath to the constitution. A new tyranny was rising in the wake of the one left by the crumbled French monarchy.
The Radical Revolution occurred when the French Revolutionary wars began and were led by Jacques Pierre Brissot. The French were in such an upheaval at the time that they were unsuccessful at war with other countries. Brissot blamed the King for this and the King in turn fired him and his followers. On August 10, 1792 another mob stormed the Tuilerie Palace because of military and rising bread price fears. Coached by Brissot’s followers, the Brissotines they demanded that Louis XVI reinstate the Brissotine ministers, he flatly refused. They stormed the palace again in August but this time under the leadership of Robespierre, a leader of the Jacobins and one of the most morally bankrupt individuals of the Revolution. Mostly consisting of women armed with machetes, they demanded a republic, the King refused them again and they hacked to death 600 guards. How did they hope to build a new and non-tyrannical nation on so much blood? Revenge and madness was beginning to take hold of the revolution and it would only continue to get worse.
The monarchy was over and the Legislative Assembly immediately dethroned King Louis XVI. Soon after they held a convention to write another constitution, this one in the supposed vein of republicanism. At the convention power shifted to Georges Jacques Danton, who had likely helped in the organization of massacre on August 10th. Danton was of a murderous intent and fueled fears among the people that the King’s counter-revolutionary forces were plotting against the revolution. He, unlike the revolutionaries of the American Revolution sought the power that could come to him with the fall of the monarchy. The right of the people was the last thing on his mind, but at this point the French Revolution had gotten completely away from itself. Fearing defeat and spurred on by the words of Danton, the Sans-Culottes attacked Parisian jails from September 2nd-7th, murdering and mutilating more than a thousand people, most of them innocent of any involvement in the counter-revolution. The lust for blood was heightening, and any hope of success for individual rights in France was long gone (Zamoyski 1999, 55-85).
Having established what they called a republic another convention was held and a new calendar was instated that disregarded all previous history. It was decided that the year of the revolution would be the Year 1 and September 22nd, 1792 was the beginning of the first year. There had been no past, there was no future but the republic, and there was no God just a Utilitarian structure of government where the state told the people what was right and what was wrong. Flawed and destined to failure the revolutionary powers that be moved forward cutting down all those who opposed them. There would always be someone to oppose them because a past is not something that can be forgotten, there have always been inescapable moral absolutes in the Universe, and God always exists, whether one chooses to acknowledge him or not. The common Christian sentiment of the American revolution was what propelled it forward and contributed to its success. France was a people at sea, lost in a storm of different conceptions, slave both to the past they wished to ignore, and the ignorance of believing in a future devoid of state created absolutes.
The same convention that declared a new calendar also tried Louis XVI, for treason and found him guilty on January 15th, 1793 and voted for immediate execution. The King’s head was speedily separated from his body by a new invention of mass murder called the guillotine, an invention that would eventually consume its creator as well, Robespierre.
During this time of internal chaos, France declared war on Britain, the Netherlands, and Spain, adding to their already huge military burden. France, in its Hydra state then experienced its most horrifying period, the Reign of Terror. During the crisis the revolutionary leaders turned on one another, with the Jacobins coming out the victors, the government then put down the federalist revolts with extreme violence. The new constitution was drawn up, but never implemented. Robespierre put in on hold, with the excuse that the enemies of the revolution needed to be put down first, and on September 5th the convention approved the Reign of Terror to use violence to crush the resistance. They also established the Sans-Culotte paramilitary forces to force farmers into surrendering grain demanded by the government. During the terror, 250,000 people were arrested, and 40,000 lost their lives to the guillotine. Most of the propagators of the revolution lost their lives to it including Robespierre, Danton, and Hebert. It was a step towards modern dictatorship, the ideology of 1789 put “national good” above personal rights. The revolution reached many other lows for the next few years, but was in whole confused with itself and its intent. By 1799, hungry for order the end of the revolution came with the ascension of Napoleon Bonaparte to the dictatorship of France.
In one decade the French had assassinated their king and murdered their way through a revolution that had come full circle back to tyranny. Yet, somehow through all the failure that was the French Revolution it has been considered a success by many, and looked to for example. But France did not succeed in republicanism or democracy; it would in fact remain a country in bitter turmoil for a long time after the revolution ended. It became a vicious machine that ate not only innocent, but its inventors as well. Denying the existence of God, and believing more in the divinity of man, and his ability to create the universe around him, they took a backwards approach and tried to write history by it. Today France is in its 5th Republic in 200 years, and is far away from its revolution. Its government structure continues to change with its constitutions, and it seems its revolution gave it little but a holiday and a dark spot in history. As Edmund Burke so eloquently wrote concerning the French Revolution:
"A speculative system which detest piety, manners, the traditional morality, and all ancient uses, speedily must repudiate even the pretended affection for equality which gives that innovative system its initial appeal to the masses.”
The Bolshevik Revolution was yet another chapter in human history that stands to be examined for its crushing flaws. The oppressive czarist regime had begun to wear thin on its citizens by the mid-19th century. At that time there existed several factions within Russian intellectual communities, the populists who believed in social changes to benefit the people, the anarchists who were against all forms of government, and the socialists. These believed in the teachings of Karl Marx and we thus called Marxists, of the Marxists there were the Bolsheviks (Majority) and the Mensheviks (Minority).
Marx advocated a workers revolution, in which all of the oppressed working class of the world would unite in revolution and create a workers state. In this state, they could throw off the yoke of one supreme leader and instead live in equality with no man higher in stature or income then the next. Considering peoples incapacity to have achieved such an end before it was an unrealistic hope, based on an even more unrealistic ideology. But Marx had been of the same vein as most intellectuals, big on remedies for society, but rather incapable of making any change himself. He was a man who came from a family of average wealth but managed to live off of others wealth for the largest measure of his life. A bitter man, who was notoriously anti-Semitic, even though he was Jewish himself, it is quite remarkable that people looked up to him at all. In fact the nearest he came to the working class was his maid whom he sorely mistreated, impregnated, and then tossed into the streets. Yet his ideas and theories about a workers revolution descended through time, and are still admired to this day (Johnson 1990, 1-30).
As with many revolutions, the varying groups initially worked together to instigate change. They all believed that a revolution was necessary to usurp the tsarist regime and replace it with a democratic republic. At the forefront of the Revolution was Vladimir Lenin, who believed in a violent push to the removal of the tsarist system so that democracy and modernization could come through. He was supported by another thinker, Leon Trotsky, leader of the Mensheviks. In Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, the workers would take power and then through war with other countries, capitalism would be over thrown, making way for the transition to socialism. In February of 1917 the February Revolution took place and 385,000 workers took to the streets confronting the police. They demanded land reform and through increasing pressure, the tsarist regime capitulated and surrendered. What was left in the wake of this rather milquetoast revolution was the Provisional Government led by the Prime Minister, Georgy Y. Lvov. Lvov favored the idea of a constitutional monarchy and eventually a republic. As well were the democratically elected soviets who wielded a good deal of power due to the large amount of workers. With the end of the tsarist regime, thousands of radicals were released from prison and these went far and wide proclaiming “Bread, Peace, Land.” As reform from the provisional government stalled another revolution was in the works. After a series if protests for which the Bolsheviks were credited for, Lenin and Trotsky became wanted men and went into hiding. But the underground that the Bolsheviks had created would only serve to facilitate Lenin’s thirst for power and in September of 1917, the Bolsheviks won many majorities in elections. On October 10th, Lenin and Trotsky established a Military Revolutionary Committee, and made it their responsibility to fight the counterrevolutionary forces, aka the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks attacked the Winter Palace and arrested the members of the provisional government inside. Lenin declared the workers revolution to be on the brink of spreading world wide due to their example.
The Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists, and stated that they alone represented the soviet masses. Change took place over the next little while, organizations supporting the workers, women, and other of the oppressed sprang up and things seemed to be going along as had been planned. But the radical democracy that the Bolsheviks were trying to create would end up being no democracy at all. Trotsky and others had envisioned the revolution in Russia to perpetuate other such revolutions in other countries, but it did not and was thus left without Communist allies. Additionally, Russia’s attempts to pull out of WWI resulted in crushing losses from the Germans and forced difficult compromises on the fledgling government. In and effort to save all they had built from the turmoil within and without Russia, Trotsky organized a Red Army and sacrificed much to win victories in battles. Additionally the Cheka was given the responsibility of crushing rebellion within, and that much it certainly did achieve.
Under the direction of Lenin, opposition parties were banned, as were elections, and to hold his democracy together Lenin turned to tyranny and violence, effectively destroying the seeds of a people run state. In response there were assassination attempts against Lenin, he responded in turn with the most horrific display of his disregard for human life yet: the Red Terror. Suspected opponents of the Leninist government from the lowliest farmer on were beaten, imprisoned, and killed without mercy. Starvation was used as a tactic to keep people in compliance with the government. Lenin’s answer to the smallest offense was an iron fist. The imperceptible chance that Russia had at becoming a democracy had vanished and all that was left was an ever darkening horizon.
Unable to control the monster he had created, Lenin continued with the same violent means, justifying any act by the ending democracy it might produce. However, murder and bloodshed had yet to produce a positive result and this revolution would be no different. In the first two weeks of the Bolshevik Revolution, more people died than in the entire reign of the czars (Courtois 1999, 71-80). Lenin had won the civil war, but he had lost the battle to turn Russian into all the things he preached it should be, a democracy created by the revolutionized workers. His strict bureaucracy together with his seemingly sociopathic ability to see all human being as pawns in his game for power created an absolutist government in Russia. Making it ripe for the dictatorship that would come with Stalin in the 1930’s. Millions would die under his dictatorship, facilitated by the failed attempts of Lenin and Trotsky to change humanity with an impossible ideology (Le Blanc 2002, 1-14).
It is remarkable, that with the clear example of the French Revolution, history could continue to repeat itself by way of the Bolshevik Revolution. Here again we see people who not only ignore what humans are actually capable of in regards to ideology, but squash those who get in the way of their designs. Taking no notice to the ways of the American Revolution, the Bolsheviks decided that they would remake men in the image of a bitter, and disillusioned anti-Semitic Marx. Perhaps we could blame the lack of education amongst the populace at the time for the ease in which they supported a revolution led by such men, under such obviously doomed ideas. But in truth, people still see the Bolshevik Revolution as a success, just as they view the French Revolution as one as well. There are those one can assume who live in a radicalized world of utopian ideas, but history has certainly shown it to be quite a different matter. Trotsky rather appropriately died via an assassin sent by Stalin, Lenin however had the privilege of dying long before that from a double stroke and on his death bed said:
“The machine has got out of control.”
Well what did he expect?
Nothing healthy can grow from a blood soaked ground; that much history has shown us. When the forefathers of the United States set out to create something unique they realized the great responsibility they held in doing so. Not only was the world watching to see how America would survive, but its own people were as well. Never forgetting those things which they had fought the crown to be free of, these extraordinary men forged ahead to make sure that the citizens of America could enjoy their lives free from tyranny. They built a government for the people, recognizing they were a part of that populace themselves. Ideas played a huge factor in their decision making, but they took bits of many philosophies and government structures of the past mingled with their knowledge of the present to make something that would last through time. America is the most free, and powerful country because of the decisions its people made to change the course of history.
How different would the world be today if those involved in the French and Bolshevik Revolutions had done the same! How many lives would have been saved, if the ideology of these revolutions would have put the sanctity of human life and freedom before lofty ideological experiments? Millions upon millions would have been saved from violence and the devastation of seeing their whole lives destroyed if only Robespierre had been a little more like Madison, or Lenin a bit more like Washington.
People have never been malleable enough to fit into ideas; ideas must be created around people. It is not hopeless to wish for better things for human beings, but recognition of the limitations involved are vital. One will never be able to change an entire society merely by twisting their arm hard enough.
On a rather more personal note, I should comment that as I sat down to finish this paper, I found myself in tears due to its subject matter. The screen in front of me was instantly blurred and I was completely overcome by the darkness that cloaks our history, especially the last hundred or so years. How is there hope in all of this? I asked myself. Where is the light that can lead us away from all this bitter sorrow, what must God be thinking watching the way we treat each other? The evils that people have brought down on one another in the name of one idea or another is enough to turn the most easy going individual in a cynic. But I saw answers to my own questions within the paper too, the American Revolution and founding was successful, there is hope for humanity. I look out my window now at living proof of that, a peaceful landscape free from the burden of bad ideas. America is the hope of the world, its ideas, and its founding was and is purely motivated.
All people, no matter their country of origin or political leanings have what it takes for them to live in freedom, and in pure conscience:
“It was hard for her because as an enlightened modern girl, she shared the Communist vision without being Communist. But she loved her father and the irrationality of his defection embarrassed her. ‘He was immensely pro-Soviet,” she said, “and then-you will laugh at me-but you must not laugh at my father-and then-one night in Moscow he heard screams. That’s all. Simply one night he heard screams.’ A child of Reason and the 20th century, she knew that there is logic of the mind. She did not know that the soul has a logic that may be more compelling than the mind’s. She did no know at all that she had swept away the logic of the mind, the logic of history, the logic of politics, the myth of the 20th century with five annihilating words: one night he heard screams...He hears them for the first time. For they do not reach his mind. They pierce beyond. They pierce to the soul. He says to himself: ‘Those are not the screams of a man in agony. Those are the screams of a soul in agony.’ He hears them for the first time because a soul in extremity has communicated with that which alone can hear it-another human soul...If he admits it for a moment, he has admitted that there is something greater than Reason, greater than the logic of the mind, of politics, of history, of economics, which alone justifies the vision...he has betrayed that which alone justifies its faith-the vision of Almighty Man. He has brushed the only vision that has force against the vision of Almighty Mind. He stands before the fact of God (Chambers, 14-15).”
My friend Aimee Lou and I were discussing the hilarity of ghost hunting shows where a group of people go into an abandoned "haunted" house or mental hospital and spend the night with only flashlights and a change of underwear.
While walking to lunch the other day in downtown Arlington I was intercepted by a girl who thrust a clip board at me and shrieked: "Would you like to sign a petition to save the earth?!" My mind shot over the many things she could be referring to: the sanctity of the family, a hard stand against terrorism, or even yanking the power from the courts back to the people.
