Something remarkably like the French Revolution as it actually turned out was widely forecast in the decades before 1789, too -- that there'd be a crisis in public finances that would precipitate regime collapse, with the likelihood of a Caesarist outcome if some tricky constitutional questions couldn't be resolved. Michael Sonenscher's recent book, "Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution" (Princeton, 2007) is an excellent discussion of the subject.
Chris
On 7/4/09 23:24, "Chris Doss" <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> People keep saying this, and it isn't true. 1917 surprised MARXISTS, because
> it did not correspond to their a priori schemata. It did not surprise the
> Tsarist government or secret police, which had been terrified of revolution
> since, oh, the Decembrists. 1917 took place 12 years after another revolution,
> a decade-plus period of time that saw civil unrest in the Russian Empire that
> killed _thousands of people_, and after a giant war. Oh, and after decades of
> agitation and assassination by various revolutionary groups. Yup, no way
> anybody could see that coming.
>
>
> --- On Tue, 4/7/09, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> It is the same mistake
>> that was made
>> in 1789, again in 1848, and again in 191`7. These
>> revolutions, too,
>> surprised almost everyone,
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk