REVOLUTION: The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another.
I disagree with Mr. Pole on the basis that ideas and examples incite revolution. The origin of revolution is not people but ideas and American political ideas and processes continue to be feedstock for revolution around the world. How many liberal democracies have arisen since 1789? The examples of governance set by the United States have exerted incredible influence over a global revolution toward democracy. The definition of revolution does not require revolutionaries be indigenous, nor a small group. You are correct Mr. Pole in describing how revolution tends to work but you’ve restricted the concept of revolution. I believe you are dead wrong to suggest the American system is not designed to make new revolution. The fact is the very existence of the United States incites revolution in places like Iran. The government of Iran is forced to react, isolate and vilify liberal democracy. Why? If Iran does not, its pillars of fascist power will rot and collapse under the weight of its people's ideas. All people are hungry to adopt successful changes they know occur every day in other parts of the free world. Why should Iranians be left out?
THE PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY
No, revolutions are being done by a small, highly intelligent and well organized elites. The large groups of people are being used by the elite later or before, not during the critical moments.
Read this:
Coup d'Etat, Technique of Revolution
"We need not get a majority," Trotsky said, "it will not be the majority that will have to get into power."
[...]
"first of all, you must take possession of the town, seize the strategic positions and turn out the Government."
[...]
Kamenev and Zinoview: "[...] How can we win without the help of the trade unions and without the support of general strike?"
[...]
But Trotsky smiled: he was calm. "Insurrection," he said, "is not an art, it is an engine. Technical experts are required to start it and they alone could stop it."
[...]
Kerensky must be given due credit for having done everything in his power to prevent a coup d'Etat. [...] Kerenski's system of defense consisted in using the police methods which have always been relied upon today by absolute as well as by liberal governments. But these police methods can no longer adequately defend the State from the modern technique of insurrection."
[...]
All the measures which might safeguard the Government had been taken, and detachments of Cadets patrolled the town day and night. [...] Military patrols passed back and forth among the crowds: armored cars moved slowly by, opening up a passage with the long howl of their hooters.
The chaos was terrible. "There's my general strike," said Trotsky [...] pointing to the swirling crowds in the Nevski Prospect
[...]
On the eve of the coup d'Etat, Trotsky told Dzerzhinsky that Kerenski's government must be completely ignored by the Red Guards; that the chief thing was to capture the State and not to fight the Government with machine-guns;
[...]
"A General Strike is unnecessary," Trotsky replied. "Chaos in Petrograd [Petersburg] is more useful for our purpose than a General Strike. The Government cannot cope with an insurrection when a general disorganization paralyzes the State. Since we cannot rely on the Strike, we will rely on chaos."
The legislative, political, and administrative bodies were still in Kerenski's hands. [...] The situation was certainly paradoxical: never before had an insurrection claimed to have captured the State without even attacking the Government.
[...]
In actual fact, The Ministers in the Winter Palace were unable to govern; Government offices were not working, the Government had been cut off from the rest of Russia [...]
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[How ten years later Trotsky tried to use his tactics of coup d'etat against Stalin:]
Stalin's strength lay in his serenity and patience. He watched Trotsky's actions, studied his movements and followed in his [Trotsky's] quick, irresolute, nervous steps at his own pace, which was that of a peasant, heavy and slow.
Stalin was reticent, cold and obstinate; Trotsky proud, violent, egoistic, impatient, governed by his ambition and his imagination. He was passionate, bold and aggressive by nature.
[...]
The famous trio, Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev employed the most subtle kinds of simulation, intrigue, and deceit in order to compromise Trotsky in the eyes of the masses, to provoke discord among allies, spread doubt and discontent in the rank of his partisans, throw discredit and suspicion upon his words, his actions and his intentions.
The Chief of of the GPU, the fanatical Dzerzhinsky, surrounded Trotsky with a net of spies and paid agents. The mysterious and terrible machinery of GPU was set in motion to cut the adversary's tendons one by one. Dzerzhinsky worked in the dark, while Trotsky worked in broad daylight.
[...]
Trotsky returned to Moscow [in 1927], pale and feverish, to organize the shock troops for the overthrow of Stalin and for the capture of the State.
Stalin however knew how to turn the lessons of October 1917 to good account. With the help of Menzhinsky, the new chief of the GPU, he organized a special corps for the defense of the State.
[...]
"Trotsky is cheating," smiled Stalin. He was closely watching each one of his adversary's moves.
About a thousand workers and soldiers, [...] partisans of Trotsky, loyal still to the revolutionary idea of Bolshevism, were standing by in readiness for the great day. [...] Menzhinsky men in their special corps heard the throb of Trotsky's insurrectional machine wherever they listened for it; and a hundred small portents suggested there was danger ahead.
[...]
The insurrection proper was to being by capturing the head offices of the State's public services, after which the People's Commissaries and the members of the Central Committee and of the Commission for Party Control were to be arrested. But Menzhinsky was well prepared for this: when Trotsky's Red Guard came, the houses were empty.
All the heads of the Stalin party had taken refuge inside the Kremlin where Stalin was patiently and quietly awaiting the result of the struggle between the shock troops of the insurrection and Menzhinsky's special corps.
[...]
Menzhinsky took his precautions. His defensive tactics lay, not in the protection of threatened buildings by a great display of troops but rather in their defense with a mere handful of men stationed inside the walls. He parried Trotsky's invisible attack by an invisible defense. No attempt was made to scatter his troops around [...]. He concentrated his special corps in the defense of public services, while detachments of the GPU police watched over the political and administrative organization of the State.
Trotsky had not foreseen Menzhinsky's tactics and it was already too late when he discovered that his adversaries had learned their lesson in October 1917.
[...]
When news of the failure [...] finally reached him, he suddenly changed his plan [...]. Seeing that his shock troops had been routed and scattered in every direction by their opponents' sudden and violent attack, he abandoned his tactics and concentrated all his efforts on a supreme attempt at popular insurrection.
Trotsky's appeal to the proletarian masses in Moscow that day was only heard by a few thousands students and workers.
[...]
Trotsky's adherents rushed into the University hall, warded off an attack by the police and set out for the Red Square at the head of a column of students and workers.
[...]
Trotsky [...] heard the yells of the crowd and watched his little army of students and workers singing the International as they marched into the Red Square filled with soldiers and people [celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Revolution], bristling with bayonets and flaming with flags. At the first encounter, the little procession was repulsed and scattered. [...]
(Malaparte, Coup d'Etat, Technique of Revolution[Tecnica del colpo di Stato], 1931, translated by Sylvia Saunders)