Counterexamples: fall of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Fourth Republic in France in 1954, English Civil War and the English royal restoration a few decades later.
Well, I guess the GP should have added "the government stupidly mass-murdering its citizens at random" to the other 3 causes.
About the fall of the Soviet Union, a lot of it was caused by each one of the GP's factors and the mass-murdering. You seem to want a clear case with a well defined "fall", but theirs wasn't it (like any supranacional empire).
Right, yet mass murdering in the USSR stopped 30 years before its collapse. Of course it was still an oppressive totalitarian state but nowhere close to Stalin’s day.
It kind of the opposite. USSR collapsed a few years after the party loosened its grip and began liberalizing. Freedom of the press (to a limited extent) fair elections began a cascade.
On the other hand during the great purge in the 30s and later the 40s there was very little and effectively no organized opposition (outside of a few recently occupied peripheral states)
The party loosened its grip and began liberalizing because the block was collapsing, not the other way around.
That one is also common on places with violent governments. The people organize themselves, fight for survival and get some victories; the government makes concessions; the people say "too little, too late" and keep fighting for more until they get meaningful change. If you look, the English Revolution also got the most impressive results way after the kind had loosened his rules.
afganistan war killed a lot of people, food shortages would kill others too.
you do make a point that nobody revolted during the purges, fear and killing opposition can be stabilizing. Removing fear (by say liberalization) can embolden opposition to act fast and get rid of perceived tyrants / avenge past transgressions.
If there even is one. In the USSR most reformists or people who achieved real power after the collapse were opportunistic party insiders who were at the right place at the right time. There were some exceptions of course.
> afganistan war killed a lot of people, food shortages would kill others too.
Not that many in relative terms. Even according to independent estimates it was ~26k over 10 years (compared to 1-3 million Afghans..). That was of course much more than what NATO/etc. lost in their war but several times less than what Russia is losing now in Ukraine every single year.
And of course there was no famine in the USSR in the late 80s (and as for general shortages the worst came when the collapse was effectively inevitable).
> And of course there was no famine in the USSR in the late 80s.
I'm curious on what you base this information on. Having lived that period and experiencing first hand the shortages, I can say the opposite.
> In the USSR most reformists or people who achieved real power after the collapse were opportunistic party insiders who were at the right place at the right time
That is generally what happens with revolutions. In some places it got better though. Not all ex-USSR ended up like belarus or russia.
You mean your are aware of an actual famine in the UUSR in the late 80s?
> Not all ex-USSR ended up like belarus or russia
None besides the Baltic states did well though (and they are somewhat special due to historical and diplomatic reasons). All other states are generally very poor and extremely corrupt (even those that have m have lots of oil like Azerbaijan).
The Soviet Union could not buy wheat in the free market due to falling oil revenue. In the end it was its' inability to feed its' people that drove the collapse.
The USSR relied heavily on imported grain and fertilizers from the US by the 1970s-80s [0], but the Carter administration placed a sanctions regime on the USSR preventing them from importing inputs for farm as well as grain [1].
Successive bad harvests lead to food shortages by the early 1980s [2][3]. Because of the Afghan War and the weapons buildup race with the US, there just wasn't as much money available for the Soviet administration to help alleviate social pain.
Those shortages (remember the photos of long lines at near empty groceries stores) along with Perestroika meant a lot of pissed off people went to the streets.
Almost without fail, every fall of a government is caused by external invasion or lack of food/water.
All other issues people will complain about, but never act on en-mass.
Counterexamples: fall of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Fourth Republic in France in 1954, English Civil War and the English royal restoration a few decades later.
Well, I guess the GP should have added "the government stupidly mass-murdering its citizens at random" to the other 3 causes.
About the fall of the Soviet Union, a lot of it was caused by each one of the GP's factors and the mass-murdering. You seem to want a clear case with a well defined "fall", but theirs wasn't it (like any supranacional empire).
> and the mass-murdering
Right, yet mass murdering in the USSR stopped 30 years before its collapse. Of course it was still an oppressive totalitarian state but nowhere close to Stalin’s day.
It kind of the opposite. USSR collapsed a few years after the party loosened its grip and began liberalizing. Freedom of the press (to a limited extent) fair elections began a cascade.
On the other hand during the great purge in the 30s and later the 40s there was very little and effectively no organized opposition (outside of a few recently occupied peripheral states)
The party loosened its grip and began liberalizing because the block was collapsing, not the other way around.
That one is also common on places with violent governments. The people organize themselves, fight for survival and get some victories; the government makes concessions; the people say "too little, too late" and keep fighting for more until they get meaningful change. If you look, the English Revolution also got the most impressive results way after the kind had loosened his rules.
afganistan war killed a lot of people, food shortages would kill others too.
you do make a point that nobody revolted during the purges, fear and killing opposition can be stabilizing. Removing fear (by say liberalization) can embolden opposition to act fast and get rid of perceived tyrants / avenge past transgressions.
> embolden opposition
If there even is one. In the USSR most reformists or people who achieved real power after the collapse were opportunistic party insiders who were at the right place at the right time. There were some exceptions of course.
> afganistan war killed a lot of people, food shortages would kill others too.
Not that many in relative terms. Even according to independent estimates it was ~26k over 10 years (compared to 1-3 million Afghans..). That was of course much more than what NATO/etc. lost in their war but several times less than what Russia is losing now in Ukraine every single year.
And of course there was no famine in the USSR in the late 80s (and as for general shortages the worst came when the collapse was effectively inevitable).
> And of course there was no famine in the USSR in the late 80s.
I'm curious on what you base this information on. Having lived that period and experiencing first hand the shortages, I can say the opposite.
> In the USSR most reformists or people who achieved real power after the collapse were opportunistic party insiders who were at the right place at the right time
That is generally what happens with revolutions. In some places it got better though. Not all ex-USSR ended up like belarus or russia.
> I can say the opposite
You mean your are aware of an actual famine in the UUSR in the late 80s?
> Not all ex-USSR ended up like belarus or russia
None besides the Baltic states did well though (and they are somewhat special due to historical and diplomatic reasons). All other states are generally very poor and extremely corrupt (even those that have m have lots of oil like Azerbaijan).
> You mean your are aware of an actual famine in the UUSR in the late 80s?
I have lived through the time period and have experienced the shortages first hand...
Can you say the opposite?, that life was good?, that people did not starve?, where did you learn that?
The Soviet Union could not buy wheat in the free market due to falling oil revenue. In the end it was its' inability to feed its' people that drove the collapse.
> fall of the Soviet Union
The USSR relied heavily on imported grain and fertilizers from the US by the 1970s-80s [0], but the Carter administration placed a sanctions regime on the USSR preventing them from importing inputs for farm as well as grain [1].
Successive bad harvests lead to food shortages by the early 1980s [2][3]. Because of the Afghan War and the weapons buildup race with the US, there just wasn't as much money available for the Soviet administration to help alleviate social pain.
Those shortages (remember the photos of long lines at near empty groceries stores) along with Perestroika meant a lot of pissed off people went to the streets.
[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_United_States%E2%80%93S...
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_grain_embargo_...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/15/world/soviet-food-shortag...
[3] - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-11-18-mn-8360-s...
Syria 2006-2011, Ukraine next year
> The unrest coincided with the most intense drought ever recorded in Syria, which lasted from 2006 to 2011 and resulted in widespread crop failure,
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
The fall of the government only occurred 14 years after the end of that drought though...
Depends which part of Syria we're talking about.
> Ukraine next year
Next three days, you mean?
It also puts the rebels on deaths ground. People who are on deaths ground with no way out will fight like they have nothing to loose but the noose.