Almost every successful revolution had external forces that push the revolution to victory. Every version of the Russian Revolution had it, the Chinese Revolution had it, the Haitian Revolution had it, Vietnamese national liberation struggle had it, and so on. Bolivar had no chance of liberating Latin America from the Spanish if it weren't for the triumph of the Haitian Revolution. The DPRK would've been completely toasted if it weren't for the PRC's PVA crossing the Yalu River, and the CPC wouldn't have been able to quickly establish the PRC if the Soviets hadn't handed Manchuria to them instead of the KMT on a silver platter. There's almost no revolution that was done exclusively by the revolutionaries themselves without outside allies and external forces.
And for various reasons, the deck is stacked very heavily against a potential US revolution, so relative to other revolutions, it's going to heavily rely on outside allies and external forces relative to the revolutionaries themselves and internal forces. It doesn't mean that we can do nothing until the PLA marches through Main Street, USA, but consider this. Many Eastern European countries during the 1930s and 1940s like Hungary and Romania were fascist shitholes, so how did they become socialist in the 1950s? There were legitimate Hungarian and Romanian socialists, but a lot of it boils down to the Red Army curbstomping the fascist regimes and propping up socialist governments on top of the fascist ashes.
For the 1905 Revolution, it was the Russo-Japanese War. That revolution was a failure, but Russia basically had to crush the revolution at the cost of their war with Japan. The mutiny of the Potemkin happened less than two months after the Battle of Tsushima where the Russian navy lost all their battleships. In general, if you plot the major events of the 1905 Revolution like Bloody Sunday and major battles of the Russo-Japanese War like the Battle of Mukden, they basically completely clutter 1905. It's not a coincidence that the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed less than two months before the October Manifesto.
For the February Revolution, it's WWI in general. War meant the populace was forced to offer up their sons, brothers, and fathers to the meat grinder on top of domestic life just deteriorating in general. Widespread conscription also meant that you have a huge swath of angry people with arms.
For the October Revolution, it was due to the provisional government wanting to continue participating in WWI. There was also that infamous event in history where Lenin was able to sneak back into Russia from Switzerland courtesy of the German Kaiser and his agents. Obviously, he was no socialist. He mostly saw Lenin as someone who would greatly destabilize Russia, his imperialist rival. The October Revolution would've never happened if Lenin was still stuck in Switzerland, and the only reason why he was able to get back to Russia was because Russia's imperialist rival thought it would be a good idea.
For all three cases, you had external forces that overwhelmed the old regime and opened windows of opportunity for revolutionaries to exploit.
Almost every successful revolution had external forces that push the revolution to victory. Every version of the Russian Revolution had it, the Chinese Revolution had it, the Haitian Revolution had it, Vietnamese national liberation struggle had it, and so on. Bolivar had no chance of liberating Latin America from the Spanish if it weren't for the triumph of the Haitian Revolution. The DPRK would've been completely toasted if it weren't for the PRC's PVA crossing the Yalu River, and the CPC wouldn't have been able to quickly establish the PRC if the Soviets hadn't handed Manchuria to them instead of the KMT on a silver platter. There's almost no revolution that was done exclusively by the revolutionaries themselves without outside allies and external forces.
And for various reasons, the deck is stacked very heavily against a potential US revolution, so relative to other revolutions, it's going to heavily rely on outside allies and external forces relative to the revolutionaries themselves and internal forces. It doesn't mean that we can do nothing until the PLA marches through Main Street, USA, but consider this. Many Eastern European countries during the 1930s and 1940s like Hungary and Romania were fascist shitholes, so how did they become socialist in the 1950s? There were legitimate Hungarian and Romanian socialists, but a lot of it boils down to the Red Army curbstomping the fascist regimes and propping up socialist governments on top of the fascist ashes.
what external forces were there in the Russian Revolution?
For the 1905 Revolution, it was the Russo-Japanese War. That revolution was a failure, but Russia basically had to crush the revolution at the cost of their war with Japan. The mutiny of the Potemkin happened less than two months after the Battle of Tsushima where the Russian navy lost all their battleships. In general, if you plot the major events of the 1905 Revolution like Bloody Sunday and major battles of the Russo-Japanese War like the Battle of Mukden, they basically completely clutter 1905. It's not a coincidence that the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed less than two months before the October Manifesto.
For the February Revolution, it's WWI in general. War meant the populace was forced to offer up their sons, brothers, and fathers to the meat grinder on top of domestic life just deteriorating in general. Widespread conscription also meant that you have a huge swath of angry people with arms.
For the October Revolution, it was due to the provisional government wanting to continue participating in WWI. There was also that infamous event in history where Lenin was able to sneak back into Russia from Switzerland courtesy of the German Kaiser and his agents. Obviously, he was no socialist. He mostly saw Lenin as someone who would greatly destabilize Russia, his imperialist rival. The October Revolution would've never happened if Lenin was still stuck in Switzerland, and the only reason why he was able to get back to Russia was because Russia's imperialist rival thought it would be a good idea.
For all three cases, you had external forces that overwhelmed the old regime and opened windows of opportunity for revolutionaries to exploit.
World war 1