A general strike did not work in the past against most communist governments and it is much less likely to ever work in the future, anywhere.
In all the countries of the Eastern Europe where the communist governments were removed, this was possible only due to traitors inside the communist top layer, who had reached the conclusion that their chiefs are too incompetent, so it will be more profitable for themselves to remove all the figures well known to the public and to convert themselves into capitalist businessmen, ensuring the surviving of their power in another form.
For a general strike to exist, it must be coordinated. There must exist someone who must say "Let's do this" and everybody else must start the strike.
This is impossible under a competent tyrannical government. A half of century ago it was impossible because every company, institution or school was infiltrated with informants, who would report immediately any kind of criticism against the government, then the reported person would disappear, e.g. by being interned in a mental health institution. If somehow a strike succeeded to start in a single place, that place would be instantly isolated, with no communications, then nobody outside would learn what has happened, except perhaps many years later, and the strikers would disappear.
Nowadays, this has become much simpler, because the government no longer needs a huge number of loyal human snitches (which had to be redundant, as none of them could be trusted), it can use electronic surveillance monitored by AI.
As someone who has worked all over the world with several different cultures and types of people, including in war zones, saying “the rest of the world shakes their head” is an extremely broad generalization. Different countries have very different experiences with guns, governments, and resistance. I'm sure you have your own perspective that is valuable, but speaking for “the rest of the world” comes across as dismissive and small minded, rather than engaging with the point that was made.
No, we don't. Don't speak for the rest of the world, for not everyone lives in your country, let alone in your bubble.
I think your "offense" Is downright naive, if not moronic. You should know how difficult politics are, and what you are asking for, the civilians, the military, just sitting down to "protest" is not only an imaginative fantasy, but I would also wager downright impossible.
I don’t think everyone in the entire world disagrees and I think many people in the world do agree with my point of view . I also think it would be more constructive for people who disagree to disagree respectfully rather than shake their head in disapproval - with the understanding that two rational actors can arrive at different and reasonable conclusions because they value parameters differently. I work with statistics and probability every day. It’s my understanding that certain assumptions and modeling were made in the statistics so that the probabilities may not apply to me in general. I also think that governments may not act generally tyrannically, but specifically tyrannically and target certain groups, and may even have the popular support of most people in the country like what’s happening with the Uyghurs in China right now. In this case a general strike wouldn’t be useful at all because the majority of people in the country would be happy and productive.
I hate to say this - but having known refugees from a tyrannical government, I have to shake my head at this. If a population tried a general strike against a truly tyrannical government, pretty soon that government will start bringing out gunmen. Like in Ukraine in 2014. Sometimes it will work out, but not without sacrifice.
You mean the Revolution of Dignity, where mostly unarmed (at least by firearm) protesters stood up against government snipers and successfully removed the pro-Russian government? If anything, it shows one can overthrow their government despite not having much firepower while the government has guns.
With more than a hundred people killed by those government snipers. The protestors succeeded, but some paid the ultimate price to do it. If they had a means to defend themselves, maybe there could have been less lives lost.
This was Ukraine, where elections still existed and there was still some air of democracy and institutions. In a place where a tyrant has an established, unshakeable monopoly on violence, what do you think could prevent the tyrant from using that?
You think there would have been less death if both sides were actively shooting at each other? Are you really following your own logic here?
How did the Confederate uprising go with their arms against the federal government in the US? More or less than a hundred or so deaths? And this was also a country that still had elections.
Do you actually have examples of civil wars in large modern-ish countries where both sides were well armed that resulted in less than 200 deaths?
I don't view civil wars the same way - these aren't individual protestors, but separatist military forces. They are violent by definition.
I did say maybe. Yanukovych ultimately fled - presumably he felt his position was threatened. We cannot know how many more he might have been willing to kill if he did not feel as threatened.
This is not advocating for a solution, only to point out that a committed tyrant can be next to impossible to dislodge.
What would have stopped the Maidan protesters from being labeled as separatist military forces if they were well-armed? You're drawing distinctions where there are none.
Where do you think the Confederate forces got their firearms from? They just suddenly popped into existence the moment they became "separatist military forces"? They were the people with rights to bear arms bringing up arms against their tyrannical government.
The Confederacy was made of states. Even before the Civil War, each of these had militias.
I'm sure Yanukovych would have labelled them a separatist military - but would the remaining institutions agree? We don't have to assume that the protestors bring weapons from the beginning - it could come only in response to Yanukovych committing to violence.
Do you believe the results would have been the same under a Stalin instead of a Gorbachev?
This isn't to take away from what Poland accomplished then, or to say that such methods can never work in the right conditions. Violent revolutions against established tyrants do not have a great history. But I have a hard time understanding the belief that these methods can work in the worst of conditions.
>Do you believe the results would have been the same under a Stalin instead of a Gorbachev?
A little different if you're talking foreign invasion obviously. In Poland's case it was Poles vs Poles and regardless of the level of tyranny, soldiers have trouble shooting their countrymen if they're sitting in a factory.
If the other guy is actively shooting at you though?... The logic is simple to follow.
I am pretty sure that a general strike could not have been initiated in Poland without the support of traitors from inside the top layers of the communist party and of the security forces.
In any of the communist countries of Eastern Europe everybody hated the government and they wanted to start a general strike. However, immediately after somebody would say this in loud voice, they would disappear. There have been a few cases when strikes have succeeded to start in a place, but then the government succeeded to prevent everybody else to know anything about this for many years, usually until the fall of the communist governments around 1989, and the strikers would disappear in such cases.
The weakness of the communist governments around 1989, after decades of easily suppressing any similar opposition, can be explained only by an internal fight within the communist leadership.
