Leaders and Their Effect on Revolutions

     It seems that when a revolution becomes about a person, either glorifying a revolutionary leader or gaining revenge on an old one, the revolution becomes violent. It is interesting to note that all of the revolutions of 1989 were nonviolent, with the exception of Romania. In all of these Eastern European countries, revolt came from the people, and was led by the people. When the people rose together, as one, with a common purpose, there was nothing their governments could do to stop them. There were no central figures, like Robespierre or Khomeini, driving them. We don't remember the names of their Communist leaders, like we remember Stalin and King Louis XVI. In Romania, where we do remember the name of their leader Ceausescu and all the suffering he caused, the revolution was violent.  In Poland and Czechoslovakia there was Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, but the revolutions they helped to lead never became about them or revenge. They remained about freedom and democracy for everyone.

     In countries that had central revolutionary leaders, such as Iran, France, and Russia, the revolution became not about freedom for the people but about power for that one person. People began to support and worship their leaders. The leaders could have asked the people to do anything and they would have complied. Every protest in Iran featured hundreds of portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini, whereas in the revolution in Egypt the Egyptian Flag was prominently displayed. When the people mobilized around supporting one person, there was usually violence. It is much easier to convince a group of people to all support freedom and equality than it is to convince them to support a certain person. In each of these countries there was also a leader remembered for the atrocities and oppression they had committed towards the people. These leaders became magnets for the people's hatred, and they wanted to destroy them violently.
     The people in Eastern Europe did not have a common enemy, a person to blame all their problems on and to center all their hate around. They only hated Communism, and perhaps Russia for imposing it on them. The Soviet Union had invaded their countries and forced communist governments on them, and continued enforcing them for decades. When the people revolted, it was simply to replace their government with one that wouldn't oppress them, there was no desire to make their current government suffer. They wanted only peaceful transition, there was no violent hatred and desire for revenge as there was in Romania, France, Iran, and Russia, where all of the leaders were executed by revolutionaries.