Talk:Revolutionary wave

Revolutionary Waves and Sunspot cycles
There is a correlation between "revolutionary waves" and heights of the 11.5 year sunspot cycle. Most of them happen for a the few years that are the top of the cycle because the electromagnetic energy sends negative ionization into atmosphere which is known to hep people up. I've been aware of this since 70s and have experienced the ups and downs 3 times as a political activist (1979; 89; 2000). I've written an article with some WP:RS and have been meaning to put this info into several article after I beef it up with most recent references, but FYI if you want to check out my article and the topic. It's called "Sunspot Cycles and Activist Strategy." 2012-14 is going to be very hot. CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is pseudo-science and feels extremely unimportant to this article. I'm not sure if I can delete other users' talk posts but this is the most far fetched I have seen thus far. NedTown5000 (talk) 00:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Post-WW2 anti-colonial revolution
Isn't the post-WW2 period of anti-colonial revolutions also a revolutionary wave? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.107.153.99 (talk) 20:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Refs for wider context and specific examples
Just searching "revolutionary wave" on books/scholar/news.google I found it used by a number of people as a general description of the phenomena, not just Marxists, and also that many refs mention specific revolutions, allowing refs to be applied where there currently are none. One of many articles I'd love to beef up. But just encouragement to anyone else who wants to beef up the article first. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Examples
An anonymous editor has suggested that many of the examples given are not appropriate, and that the entire article has a Marxist bias. The examples certainly need references, but a two-second search returns Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves, which gives the wave starting in 1917 as one of its major examples - and I can't imagine anyone seriously disputing that it should be included. Warofdreams talk 14:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Many examples inappropriate
This article is full of biased wording and examples (some indeed semi-respectable) which are at worst thumbsucked and at best a matter of opinion. I have tried to whittle it down a lot: the supposed unity of the revolutions of 1905-1911 seem to be the pet theory of a particular Wikipedian, which is unacceptable (see the talk page there). the African revolutions, which here are put forward very definitely as a wave, were similar in that they happened in the same continent, in the decades after independence, and were responding to similar economic strife. They had some causes in common - but to consider the South West African Border War and the Dergue overthrow of the Selassie regime to be part of the same wave is just silly. Whatever your views, it's an interpretative opinion, not fit for an encyclopedia. Similarly for some of the others on the list. And one revolution isn't a wave, either. And the 'given as...' disclaimer-phrase at the top doesn't neutralise later wording.

Also, the statement about the importance to Marxists, and the quote from Comrade Luxemburg (pbuh) are not appropriate so early on in the article, before the major examples are even given. This isn't a specifically Socialist forum. Their wording is otherwise neutral, so I have put it further down. Before I get trolled, I consider myself quite cynical of all politics to the point that my fantasy utopia is quite anarchic (and non-revolutionary), but uncompromising ideologues with a sacred doctrine, be it left-wing, right-wing or religious, must understand where the line is drawn for what can go into an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.138.201 (talk) 14:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Apologies - did not mean to head towards an edit war. Yes, I agree it's uncontroversial that the 1917-1923 was a revolutionary wave. I think I deleted it accidentally while deleting one of the other rather more extremely iffy ones. The comment about a Marxist bias (a simple observation, and not meant in a McCarthyan way) was a reaction to the opening paragraph, not to the 1917-1923 revolutions, which should obviously be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.138.201 (talk) 15:05, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. I'm glad to see that there's no serious disagreement here.  The examples have mushroomed, without any referencing, even for the uncontroversial ones.  I suggest tagging all the examples with fact for now, and then removing any which don't have a reference within a week or so.  I think it makes sense to have the prose - including the Luxemburg quote - before the examples, but there certainly needs to be more prose, giving other points of view.  I will try to find some time to source something; it would be great if anyone else can, too. Warofdreams talk 15:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The revolutionary wave book has a number, according to its definition. Others have had slightly different definitions (not all included here, especially since it's been used a lot last six months) and examples. If don't have time to update before you delete, this is a reminder for me to go back to this time period and see what got deleted. CarolMooreDC (talk) 07:25, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It's 13 years later but when I read the article just now I still saw a number of very dubious examples: approximately concurrent events that are not obviously related to each other even if they occurred at approximately the same time (the Taiping Rebellion in China, the Eureka Rebellion in Australia, and the Indian revolt in 1857). These entries were also unreferenced; they should not be restored without references supporting the idea that these are "revolutionary waves". Ucucha (talk) 17:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Revolutionary wave
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Revolutionary wave's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "afp": From 15 October 2011 global protests: 'Indignant' protests to go global on Saturday. 15 October 2011. AFP via France 24. Article quote: "Protesters will take to the streets worldwide on Saturday, inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' and 'Indignants' movements, to vent their anger against alleged corporate greed and government cutbacks. The organisers, relying heavily on Facebook and Twitter, say demonstrations will be held in 951 cities across 82 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa." From Occupy movement: 'Indignant' protests to go global on Saturday. 15 October 2011. AFP via France 24. Article quote: "Protesters will take to the streets worldwide on Saturday, inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' and 'Indignants' movements, to vent their anger against alleged corporate greed and government cutbacks." From Facebook:  

Reference named "15october": From Occupy movement: 15th october: #United we will re-invent the world. From 15 October 2011 global protests: October 15th: Dreaming of a “new global citizen power”. Periodismo Humano (Human Journalism). By Juan Luis Sánchez. Translation by Blanca G. Bertolaza. Take The Square. From the article intro: "It does not intend to be just any other demonstration, but to spark off an international social movement. Part of the 15M movement admits to some fragmentation and places hopes of reunification on Saturday." 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 14:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed. It was just copies from other articles, with orphaned refs, and totally wp:undue. CarolMooreDC 17:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Protests are not Revolutions
The article is currently full of late 20th and early 21st century Protest movements, these are not the same as Revolutions and not all of them could even be called "waves". I mean the Occupy Movement is not a Revolutionary movement, because it uses only peaceful means to try to lobby the government for change, it created a world-wide protest wave, but not a Revolutionary wave. These should be removed. --Hibernian (talk) 04:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I have gone through and removed the protest waves, which as you point out, a) don't relate to the article topic and b) smack of WP:RECENT. --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 14:23, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * So then I guess the 1968 protests should be removed too, right? There was no real revolution that took place during the mentioned protests in 1968, not even in France. If the 1968 protest wave can be kept, I don't see why the 2011 Occupy Movement protest wave can't be kept. Either keep both of them, or get rid of both of them. Alialiac (talk) 13:38, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Remove them both Occupy and BLM are certainly notable movements, and depending on your leanings, very important meaningful things, but they are very small potatoes compared to real actual revolutions that attempted to make drastic changes to many facets of government either through soft overwhelming public support or actual violence. 1968 protests should be removed as well - non-user 15:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've removed Occupy and Black Lives Matter as there is a clear consensus that these aren't revolutionary waves. I think the 1968 protests are a more marginal case - they did have broadly revolutionary aims, and in Prague or Paris they amounted to more than the term "protest" suggests, would be good to see if there are any references one way or the other. Warofdreams talk 18:44, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Prognosis?
This is a significant and fascinating article IMHO. I've done research on this, summarized at www.terror-rhythm.blogspot.com and reached similar conclusions. Revolutions happen in clusters, and when they do, they cause deep trouble in the world. not immediately, but after a time-lag of 70-80 years. After the revolution there is expansionism followed by political midlife crisis, political stagnation and ending in state collapse

Why 70-80 years? 'The lifetime of a regime has obvious parallels to the human lifespan' according to Geoff Mulgan. He echoed Ibn Khaldun in the Muqadimmah who saw dynasties lasting for 'three generations'. For example;


 * German second and third Reichs; 1871-1945, 74 yrs
 * French first and second Napoleonic ages; 1798-1871, 73 yrs
 * Colonisation of Africa, 1885-1960's, 75 yrs
 * Italian unified kingdom, 1870-1944, 74 yrs
 * Marxist Russia/USSR, 1017-91, 74 yrs
 * French third republic, 1871-1940, 69 yrs
 * Japan, meiji restoration, 1868-1945, 77 yrs
 * Yugoslavia, 1919-1990's

SYNTH is that a distant cause of world war one was the cluster of revolutions in the 1840's, especially in Austria, Turkey, (Russia in 1825?). Distant cause of world war two was the wave of revolutions in the 1860's in Germany, Italy, Japan, the US.

The cluster of collapses in the 1990's (USSR, White south Africa, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia,) could not have happened without the post-WW1 revolutionary wave.

Since the 1960's were also a decade of revolutions ( neoconservatism, Chinese cultural revolution, student revolts, Six day war), what does that suggest for the future, say in the 2030's? Thucydides Trap suggests that China and US may already be on a collision course.

How to incorporate these thoughts into this article, that's the thing. Crawiki (talk) 12:08, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Have the above observations been presented in some published form, by yourself or others? If so, those publications can be cited to forestall "original-research" criticisms.
 * If there are no such publications yet, why not submit an article for publication to an appropriate periodical?
 * If no such periodical exists yet, why not start one—on paper, or online?
 * Let me know if pre-publication review, for punctuation and the like, would be helpful!
 * Nihil novi (talk) 23:31, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I notice that 73 years have now, as of 2018, passed since the end of World War II, in 1945, when the U.S. began assuming the role of arbiter of international relations.
 * I wonder, in view of that, should we expect an imminent shift in U.S. fortunes, comparable to those that you enumerate above?
 * Nihil novi (talk) 10:08, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Owing to the small sample size, one cannot make a general rule of this trend. One version of Goodhart's law is 'there are no laws in the social sciences, only statistical probabilities'

That said, I perceive the following in respect to the US;
 * Anti-communism, from 1919-1991, starting with the Red scare of 1919, midlife crisis in Cuban missile crisis
 * Keynesian revolution 1933-2000, from the New Deal to midlife crisis in 1970's inflation, to the impeachment of Clinton
 * Neo-conservative revolution 1964 and ongoing, beginning with the Goldwater campaign, midlife crisis in Iraq 2003
 * Monetarist revolution from 1972 and ongoing, beginning with the scrapping of Bretton Woods, midlife crisis in the 2008 credit crunch Crawiki (talk) 15:34, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

With specific reference to WW2, Lebanon, India, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Korea saw revolutionary changes in the immediate postwar period and if the past is any guide to the future, any 'imminent shifts' ie collapse might well occur here. Crawiki (talk) 15:38, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * can the US really be perceived as a 'neutral arbiter'? Conflict of interest surely. Would anyone permit Djokovic to referee his own matches, rewrite the rulebook, bribe the line judges?Crawiki (talk) 15:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, instead of "assuming", I should have said, "arrogating to itself".
 * Nihil novi (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)