This article on the Ukraine has an interesting close.

I have argued that, in our time, 1989 supplanted 1789 as the default model of revolution. Rather than progressive radicalization, violence and the guillotine, we look for peaceful mass protest followed by negotiated transition. That model has taken a battering of late, not only in Ukraine but also in the violent fall that followed the Arab Spring. If this fragile deal holds, however, and the fury on the streets can be contained, Europe might again show that we can occasionally learn from history.

Revolution is not merely a change in who holds the keys to the prison. Revolution is a sudden collapse of the old system and the evolution of a new system. The French Revolution was not a failure when Napoleon crowned himself emperor. He may have looked a lot like Louis XVI, but it was not a restoration of the Ancien Régime. It was just another step in France evolving into a post-monarchical state. What’s going on in Ukraine or any of the places references by Ash is just a change in who sits atop the existing order.

Maybe I’m just splitting hairs, but how in the world can you call this new type of revolution anything but a failure when the final product is no different than the previous product? The Velvet Revolution is an exception, but I’m not sure it is a useful analog. What had existed prior to the revolution was imposed from outside. The Czech communist party could not exist with the threat of Russian tanks. No external force propped up the Ancien Régime. No external force was propping up the Egyptian military or even the Ukrainian government. Something lost in all this is the “opposition leader” in jail was more friendly with the Russians than the guy they just ousted.

I think the record of gentle revolutions is rather shabby and the few success stories are poor examples.

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