Why revolutions happen

Is a book that distils lessons from revolutions complete without a study of the Chinese experience or that of Arab Spring? Which one created a more profound impact, Thaksin Shinawatra’s troubles in Thailand or Ho Chi Minh’s success in Vietnam?

Revolutions are like special snowflakes, as Sam Wilkin notes in his latest book History Repeating: Why Populists Rise and Governments Fail. They are impossible to replicate successfully, “each requiring an essentially unrepeatable set of conditions”. Yet each century, and especially the 20th, has seen a deluge of revolutions. The 21st century appears to be seeing more of them, contradicting the mistaken sense of complacency that had invaded the literature of the first decade. Who, for instance, would deny that Brexit and the 2016 US elections were not revolutions? As Mr Wilkin also points out, all revolutions do not emanate from the left of the ideological spectrum.

So it makes sense to read each of the cases he analyses here — the Bolshevik revolution, the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the century-long emasculation of Argentina, the revolt from Huey Long that Roosevelt overcame —  with the detachment that a lapse of time provides. It is all meant to answer the question to which Mr Wilkin builds up at the end; “Is your nation doomed?”

To seek those answers, however, the examples need to be chosen carefully, and one gets the sense that this is where Mr Wilkin’s Euro-centric selection of cases might limit a fuller understanding. Perhaps this western bias has something to do with the fact that these are the examples that his team at Oxford Analytica had studied over the years. These studies are rich in detail but the reader is left dissatisfied because there is no explanation of whether they can answer this hugely significant question.

Mr Wilkin does provide a lot of perspective in this fast-paced book, especially on the right-wing populist surges with their many burlesque leaders. No surprise the trigger for this book is Donald Trump, as he says in the introduction. “Mass uprisings in support of the right, … are largely a 20th century phenomenon,” he writes. “Popular uprisings in support of the radical, anti-democratic right were rare before…”.

His training as an economist (visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University), a geopolitical analyst as senior advisor at Oxford Analytica (which counts among its clients more than 25 world governments) and at Oxford Economics (which reportedly produces forecasts for more than 190 countries) helps. He has veered away from his analysis of wealth (Wealth Secrets: How the Rich Got Rich) to a new terrain, to bring in a perspective for a subject that has baffled philosophers, political scientists and, of course, politicians.

Although his observation that all revolts, Left or Right, tend to come unstuck when they push for redistribution has been made by earlier authors, Mr Wilkin adds to the literature by showing that it is not the poor but the upwardly mobile who often provide the push that changes the centre of gravity. But since he examines only one true Left-wing case, Russia, this line of analysis is left hanging.

Indeed, Mr Wilkins is more sure-footed analysing the Right-wing cases. He correctly observes that the trigger is released when the rich try to weaken the democratic compact whenever a regime tries to cut back on their privileges, especially when others in society chafe at rising inequalities. It happened in both Thailand and Argentina, Mr Wilkin says and offers a lengthy explanation of the growing support for Donald Trump. Talking about the blowback against President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, he argues “historically, these kinds of political obsessions by the rich have not led in a good direction…. The Argentine stand-off has not been an issue in rich countries for decades. But then again, for the most of that time, inequality was at historic lows. Now that inequality has risen again, how lucky do we feel.”

The disturbances magnify, he says, when the middle class “progressives try to salvage political stability when society becomes polarised or democracy comes under threat”.  “In a worst-case scenario, the educated middle class can end up mobilised against the traditional middle class or poor…that is a bad scenario for stability”. It may be hard to imagine this as true but as Mr Wilkin shows this has happened in the aftermath of the Iranian overthrow of the Shah. In the United Kingdom, the Brexit vote is a close parallel. His advice: “Progressives have tended to brand those who voted for Brexit or Trump as lunatics; or at the very least fools who were prey for unscrupulous politicians… . (But) mobilised groups of the politically disaffected are not sheep waiting to be led; they are active participants in shaping struggle stories.”

And when these struggles get out of hand, the resulting leadership may not be exactly what society needed. That leadership could even come through a democratic election in which two populists face each other. For the cause of liberal democracy around the world, this is a depressing conclusion indeed.

History Repeating 

Why Populists Rise and Governments Fail

Sam Wilkin

Profile Books (Hachette India)

242 pages; Rs 599