The Rule Of Successive Revolutions

I have noticed something very important about understanding recent history.

While I was a child, the Vietnam War was on television every night. The actual war in Vietnam was only part of it. The war was very divisive at home and the anti-war protests were almost as much a part of the news as the war itself. Drawn everywhere was the peace symbol and people would make the peace sign, a V formed by the first two fingers. 

In January, 1973 there was rejoicing as the Communists agreed to a truce and America pulled out of the war. The people who understood the situation seemed skeptical that the truce would last, and they were right. Two and a half years later, seeing America distracted by Watergate and with a new president, the Communists launched a general offensive, gambling that America wouldn't get re involved in the war, and finally conquered South Vietnam. At age 14 I watched the Fall of Saigon live on the news.

But there is so much mystery about this war. The first mystery is that American forces never lost a major battle in the war, and reportedly dropped a greater tonnage of bombs than were dropped by both sides in the Second World War, yet still didn't win the war. The second mystery is that North Vietnam won the war, in the name of Communism, but today is an ally of the U.S. and displays the bustling entrepreneurial spirit that is typical of free enterprise. It was as if the war was really over nothing. 

There was an economic reason for the war, that we saw in the section 17) AMERICA'S WAR IN VIETNAM in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, but that is separate from what we are discussing here. 

The first thing to understand is that Southeast Asia was a French colony, and most of it's leading people spent time in France. The mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, in Hanoi, resembles Napoleon's La Madeleine. Image from Google Street View.

A monument that Thailand claims commemorates a military victory against France ironically resembles the obelisk in Place Concorde. Image from Google Street View.

The monuments of Laos (top) and Cambodia that celebrate independence from France are actually a version of the Arc De Triomphe. Images from Google Street View.

The monument commemorating victory over Napoleon in St. Petersburg, Russia, closely resembles Napoleon's other arch, the Arch De Triomphe Du Carrousel.

Anywhere that has been associated with France will be closely familiar with the French Revolution. This was the opening of the modern political era. I consider the French Revolution as the "Big Bang" of the modern political era. 

The French Revolution began in 1789 and resulted in the overthrow and guillotining of the king and queen, to establish a republic. This was the prototype of the modern republic but what ultimately arose out of it was Napoleon, who was the prototype of the modern dictator. The revolution was also very hostile to the Catholic Church. One reason that the revolution is so memorable is the monuments. Napoleon's two famous arches form an axis in Paris and the Eiffel Tower is to commemorate the centennial of the revolution. 

There have been two major reenactments of the French Revolution, as well as many minor ones. The two major reenactments both changed the direction of the revolution, as far as it's interpretation by the world, as the prototype of modern politics. So we can describe it as a series of three revolutions. Each revolution superseded the one before it.

1) The French Revolution of 1789

2) The October (Communist) Revolution of 1917

3) The Iranian Revolution of 1979

Suppose that a nation went to war but the outcome of the war had already been decided? No matter what the nation did, or how many battles it won, nothing could change the outcome of the war because it had already been decided. That is what happened when America entered the Vietnam War because the war was really all about the French Revolution and that had already been decided. 

The First Vietnam War was the Vietnamese Communists against France. But the battle had already been decided. This was the era of the Second Revolution, which favored the Communists. This is why Communism spread so far. Not only that but France was allied with the Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, while the original French Revolution had been about overthrowing the king. Finally, French forces constructed a great fortress, at Dien Bien Phu, while the signature event of the French Revolution was the storming of a fortress, the Bastille. So, no matter what France achieved in battle, it already had three strikes against it in terms of history.

America's involvement is sometimes referred to as the Second Vietnam War, and it followed France into a war where the outcome had already been decided by history. Emperor Bao Dai, who had been close to France, had been overthrown but replaced by a Catholic president, Ngo Dinh Diem, in this mostly Buddhist country. When Diem was overthrown he was ultimately replaced by Nguyen Van Thieu, who was also a Catholic. 

This represented France before the revolution, as the revolution was as hostile to Catholicism as it was to monarchy. We saw in the compound posting, "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015, that America, unlike most other western countries, represents the France before, rather than after, the revolution. The king and queen who were overthrown and guillotined were actually America's first allies who helped it gain independence. America's Republicans are actually the continuation of the Bourbon Dynasty, which is why America's Democrats were generally the anti-war protestors.

So no matter what America did in the Vietnam War, the outcome had already been decided by history. The amazing thing is that American forces never lost a major battle during the war, but that didn't matter at all. The 1968 Tet Offensive, where the Communists simultaneously struck at targets all across South Vietnam, was actually a military defeat for the Communists as they suffered heavy losses. But it ended up as one of the turning points against America because it was like a national level "Storming of the Bastille", and those who stormed the Bastille were the winning side. The American base at Khe Sanh also represented a Bastille that was stormed during the Tet Offensive. 

During the Third Vietnam War, in 1975 after America's withdrawal, the helicopters evacuating staff from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, with news cameras from across the world recording it, as the Communists surrounded it, was a final and perfect reenactment of the Storming of the Bastille to conclude the war, because the war had been all about the French Revolution and no military force was going to change that.

What I find really interesting about Southeast Asia is that the countries that had been French colonies, Vietnam, Cambodia and, Laos, became Communist, but none of the countries that hadn't been French colonies, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand or, Myanmar, became Communist. Yet France itself wasn't Communist and certainly didn't introduce the idea of Communism. What France did do was to introduce the idea of it's own revolution and the October (Communist) Revolution was now the successor of that.

But then if Communism had history on it's side, as the successor of the French Revolution, and it did conquer about a third of the world, then why did it just seem to evaporate like it did? Not many years after great victories like this in Vietnam, came the spectacular collapse of Communism in eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. 

What happened is that the Second, October or Communist, Revolution had been supplanted by the Third Revolution. This is the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Like the Second Revolution, this had contact with France. The ideals of the French Revolution had been brought to Russia by the conquests of Napoleon and the Iranians who fermented the Iranian Revolution did so in exile near Paris. 

Not so long ago the superpowers had nuclear missiles pointed at each other over competing economic systems. But now, when nations deal with each other, no one seems to care much about economics anymore. The First (French) Revolution was secular and hostile to religion. The Second (Communist) Revolution was even more so. But the Third (Iranian) Revolution is moving back toward religion, and not only Islam.

Does anyone remember when there used to be lewd and crude bumper stickers on many cars, that we don't see anymore? Could anyone have ever imagined, in the days of "Godless Communism" that Russia would one day refer to a military campaign as it's "Holy War", and soldiers who were killed in it would have their sins forgiven? Albania once declared itself as an officially atheist nation, where any expression of religion was forbidden. But it recently established a Vatican-like area for a religious group.

It is all the result of the Third Revolution superseding the Second and bringing the world, at least the west, back toward religion.

But then why is there still Communism in the Far East? China, North Korea and, Vietnam are ruled by Communist parties, although that Communism has been considerably modified, even though Communism is of the Second Revolution and we are now in the era of the Third Revolution?

We find a simple answer in the posting "Understanding The World In Terms Of The South And West And The North And East" April 2016. The two parts of the world operate differently and are defined by religion. The South And West is the realm of the monotheistic religions, primarily Christianity, Islam and, Judaism. The North And East is the realm of the eastern religions, primarily Hinduism and Buddhism. The primary difference between the two realms is that nations tend to come into being with ideas in the South And West, while the same nations have mostly existed since ancient times in the North And East. 

Since the Iranian Revolution was about Islam, which is a monotheistic religion, we should expect that the Third Revolution would apply more to the South And West that to the North And East, and this is why some degree of Communism, at least in name, remains in the Far East. 

We have seen the significance of the Iranian Revolution in the posting "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", January 2017. 

So when first France, and then America, went to war in Vietnam, they were up against more than the Communists, they were up against history. This was the era of the Second Revolution, which was about Communism, while America and France were still in the past, and no amount of bombs and bullets and victories were going to change that. 

In the Second World War, Hitler was the new Napoleon figure. We saw this in "Germany And The French Revolution", July 2024. Hitler made a point of visiting Napoleon's tomb and his field of conquest was virtually identical to that of Napoleon. But the era of the Second Revolution had begun, and this made inevitable the come-from-behind triumph of the Soviet Union. Napoleon never knew it but his own apparently unsuccessful invasion of Russia succeeded in planting the seed of the Second Revolution, about Communism.

But when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan it turned out similar to the American venture in Vietnam. That's because it was now the era of the Third Revolution, which began not long before in neighboring Iran. This is what brought Communism as we knew it to a conclusion. It was not capitalism that "won" the Cold War. It is true that Communism "crashed" in Russia but, during the tenure of Boris Yeltsin, capitalism crashed even worse and global democracy has been in slow decline since the end of the Cold War. What happened is that the Second Revolution had been supplanted by the Third Revolution.

You can see that the Rule Of Successive Revolutions always holds true, and no amount of military force can change it.