Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn writes well, but he neglects to mention that had the populace of Leningrad revolted against their masters, they had better be resolved not only to occupy the civic centers of Leningrad, but also to march onto Moscow and the Kremlin. Any population that wishes to revolt against their masters had better be resolved to continue their little war to the very center of the empire, execute the entire ruling elite, and fight the armed might of an entire Westphalian state. The Hungarians learned this lesson painfully in 1956, when their ill-considered revolt led to Soviet tanks running through the streets of Budapest with 200,000 Hungarians fleeing as refugees to points beyond the known realm. Recently, the Syrians, who never learned the lessons of the Hungarian revolt, are learning that revolutions kill indiscriminately, and those killed are usually their children, not the tyrants. Perhaps, those who seek revolutions may wish to gaze upon the 100,000 severed limbs of Syrian children before prattling about "freedom."
You entirely missed the point. Solzhenitsyn was describing what happens when the common people DON'T revolt. And yes, when a SMALL percentage of the people eventually fight back, while the rest stand idly by, horrible things happen. And this isn't about "revolution" as much as it is about disobedience. "Let's go kill the king ... and put up a new king!" is entirely pointless. But when a big enough percentage of the population refuses to obey, whether they resist passively or forcibly, authoritarian control collapses. In case you didn't notice, the Soviet Union since Stalin FELL OVER. The U.S. empire will follow suit when enough people stop believing in an obligation to obey. (What happens after that depends upon whether people want to appoint a new ruling class or not... which depends on how many people escape the superstition of "authority" between now and then.)
Authority blows. Keep it up, Larken. I'll be spamming more of your stuff on my FB wall.