So like to be clear, I am not saying that this theory of mine is correct; I am saying that based on my extremely and knowingly limited knowledge, it looks reasonable. So like chill with the haterade, and bring forth the "well, this revolution doesn't fit that theory".

Maybe it's that cultural revolutions are like this, and there's very, very few non-cultural revolutions - maybe only independence revolutions? I literally do not know so like if you know one, put forth the Wikipedia link?

Why were those things notably absent in the US revolution?

From dragonwriter's post elsewhere in the comments:

> Americans sometimes forget that what we call our “revolution” was not an anti-elite revolution but an elite-led regional separatist movement coordinated by the local governments acting in concert, and so avoided many of the challenges found in genuine revolutions.

A big part is that it was not a social revolution. Nor did it seek much material restribution which is a feature of many revolts and rebellions.

After the war, Americans ended up with a government and distribution of material wealth very similar to what they had before.

Because the American revolution was not a “revolution”, it was a split between the highest levels of management in the US and the higher level management in England. It was like PayPal spinning out of EBay.

I think so. French Revolution had its Terror period.

Even though it is true, it is dwarfed in magnitude by the repression in the communist world. The French revolution was attempting to terrorise a political ellite. Communism was aiming at terrorising everyone.

The French revolution terrorized everyone, including its own leaders.

> Even though it is true, it is dwarfed in magnitude by the repression in the communist world.

From 1789 to the first Empire was only 15 years; to the Thermidorean Reaction even shorter.

> The French revolution was attempting to terrorise a political ellite.

That's a very generous interpretation. It's certainly what Robespierre would say, sure, but it's just as much what Lenin would say.

We are talking about 4 orders of magnitude differences, of a third of the population in some country. It’s not a matter of a few years.

I am not trying to defend the French revolution, which actions were the antithesis of the values it pretended to promote. But for all its horrors, the french revolution wasn’t in the business of mass slaughtering its own population.

> But for all its horrors, the french revolution wasn’t in the business of mass slaughtering its own population.

The French Revolution was strangled in its crib while it's mass killing was still accelerating, and it's leaders themselves killed en massé by counterrevolutionaries; it wasn't in business very long for that reason, a fact that future revolutionaries were keenly aware of and eager to avoid.

The stated ideology of the 1790s Paris Commune might be more attractive to modern democratic capitalists than that of the Bolsheviks, et al.,, but the main reason that the former has less of a history of violence than the latter is that they lost very early on in their program of exterminating an ever-expanding list of perceived enemies of the revolution, not some greater humanitarianism.

Venezuela? Chavez took power fair and square in an election, and then turned it into a communist authoritarian dictatorship later.

The modern revolution in Czechoslovakia turned out fairly free of violence, at it was not communist.

Did Chavez's revolution in Venezuela have all the paranoia and whatnot, as well? (I do not know, I am definitely just asking).

Oh, that's neat about the Czech revolution. I know, oh hmm, literally nothing about it. <looks it up> - The "Velvet" revolution? This is super cool, had no idea something like this happened, thanks!

The danger is/was absolutely real. Counter-revolutionaries (both internal and external) in general and anti-communism in particular have always been a formidable force.

Although genocide isn't usually a part of the revolution see the Holomdor.