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Historically the Peasant's Revolt, the civil war, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 probably all count. So does the American Revolution, because the American colonies were part of Britain until they revolted and became independent. And what about the 1857 Indian mutiny, which replaced Company rule in India with direct government rule?
In the 20th century, the collapse of the British empire involved revolutions in Malaya, Kenya, and arguably also in India to some extent (e.g. the Indian Navy mutiny). Consider that the British empire controlled about 25% of the population of the planet 100 years ago, and now the UK is a small country of ~67 million people.
People who are looking for revolutions often need to look outside the physical geography of the British Isles to find them, but they are definitely there, they happened in parts of the world that were controlled by Britain and were considered part of Britain at the time, and they all had a huge impact on Britain.
Yeah, I think it's safe to limit it to the popular conception: there has never been a "popular" or "workers" revolution, no decisive break with the past that enforces a modern-style explicitly written constitution, that affected mainland Britain. Outside that there have been revolutions, in the Empire and especially in Ireland - once a key part of the United Kingdom that sent MPs to Westminster!
The Civil War and "Glorious Revolution" don't really fit a modern revolutionary politics mode. Fundamentally they're part of the older Reformation politico-religious conflict. Also they were elite-driven rather than popular. The "glorious revolution" was really collusion with allowing the country to be invaded by the Dutch on the condition that they didn't touch the existing power structure.
Or at least, not in England. The violence of "King Billy" against Ireland is still celebrated by the Orange Order. You could argue that this has continued to be an issue until the Good Friday Agreement, and that the PIRA campaign was ultimately a successful revolution. Crucially it did win constitutional change - with external guarantors, for the civil and human rights of the Catholic population of Northern Ireland.
Mainland UK has been effective at deploying armed forces to prevent any revolutionary moments, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_George_Square : tanks on the streets of Glasgow.
> there has never been a "popular" or "workers" revolution, no decisive break with the past that enforces a modern-style explicitly written constitution, that affected mainland Britain
Doesn't Magna Carta count?
I know it was lead by "lords" who owned land, and thus might not count as "popular". It's aims certainly had parallels with more modern revolution: power-sharing between state and subjects; legal defence against tyranny etc
(Perhaps it's mentioned in the OP. I didn't read it 'cos HN comments draw me in first)
> The Civil War and "Glorious Revolution" don't really fit a modern revolutionary politics mode. Fundamentally they're part of the older Reformation politico-religious conflict. Also they were elite-driven rather than popular.
On one level, this is true but, as I learned from reading Murray Bookchin’s excellent The Third Revolution - Volume 1, the Civil War story is more nuanced than that. During the English Civil War(s), there were a number of factions on the republican side: the Levellers and Diggers were the more radical, with popular and progressive goals such as universal suffrage, land reform (agrarian socialism), equality, freedom of religion, etc. while the Grandees were the officer class of the New Model Army whose interests were those of the parliamentarian elites who wanted to maintain – and extend – their traditional power as feudal lords.
The book covers the political struggle over the future of Britain without a ruling monarch (see the Putney Debates¹). Unfortunately, the Grandees were the ultimate winners of this struggle within the New Model Army. They maintained their position of privilege while the more radical factions were sidelined. And history remembers the victors.
Then you are you redefining "revolution" to mean only the "socialist-marx-like" kind of revolution.
> there has never been a "popular" or "workers" revolution
That would be the Peasants Revolt mentioned above, but it failed.
>there has never been a "popular" or "workers" revolution that affected mainland Britain.
>Also they were elite-driven rather than popular
All revolutions were elite driven, starting by the French revolution.
The Russian revolution for example had less than 2% industrial workers on it(because Russia was not industrialized yet). It was actually a coup d'Etat given by a german double spy and agent(Lenin) and paid by the German Government in order to stop the East front on the first world war(Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).
It should never be forgotten that Lenin was sent by the Germans with money and Parvus were given millions of marks in order to support the bolsheviks when things went sour for the Germans.
Neither Lenin or Trosky had worked or lived on their own before they led the revolution. They had basically rich parents that supported them without working.
Parvus lived like a satrap.
The coup d'Etat was basically given against the Mensheviks(the moderate socialist) that were the legitimate representation of Russian people, after real elections. Lenin basically killed them all and became a dictator as he knew the output of the elections.
The Lenin Government had basically no workers on it, but "intellectuals", basically good writers with 0 contact with reality. They self described as the representation of the workers, but there were no actual workers on it. Real workers from England and Germany reminded Lenin that on several Workers' Congresses.
The first thing Lenin did was to exterminate the real workers that Russia had, the farmers, and after his terrible economic decisions made millions starve to death(more than in WWI), he actually fought revolutions against him with iron fist, led by the same Soviets that reveled against the Thar in WWI.
Russia went near the 200 Million people, now they are 144. In the middle there is Lenin and Stalin Communism making tens of millions starve by sheer incompetence of the system.
It was only after Stalin took the power that real workers came into power, and that was because Stalin exterminated all the intellectuals so they could not compete with him.
Really nice post, thanks for brining the idea that the revolution doesn't necessarily have to have happened in what we now consider to be that entity. It's often a challenge to put aside our modern biases when looking back, and it really help appreciate how different the past was.
In the mid 1800's there was a period of "quiet revolution" with a number of reform bills, and less quiet riots. Before 1832 a very small number of people, just the upper class were part of the democratic system. After 1884 almost all men over 21 were allowed to vote. A number of other electoral weirdness was removed. This period had a similar effect on a persons rights to the big revolution in France, whilst maintaining the power structure. I guess if you move with the times and give up some power, you can keep on top still.
I would also argue (pedantically perhaps) about calling a 67 million population country small, this is the 21st most populous country in the world out of 235, so in the top 10% of countries by size (almost 1% of world population). Calling this small doesn't really leave anywhere to go for smaller countries. I would suggest having Huge (1Bn+), Large (1Bn - 100mil), Medium (100mil-10mil), Small (10mil - 1mil), Tiny (less than 1mil).
Don’t forget that Ireland was part of the UK until their revolution 100 years ago, though the British tended to treat it as a colony rather than one of the home nations.
> the American colonies were part of Britain
This doesn't sound right because Britain is the name of the island. The American colonies were part of the British Empire I guess.
To be pedantic the country was called the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1707 to 1801. And the American colonies were part of it.
The name of the island is, in fact, "Great Britain". "Britain" is a very widely understood name for the country more formally known as "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
To be fair, I think the question is asked for whether today's cultural/national entity of Britain ever had a revolutionary monent. Not societies that were ruled by the British.
Those distinctions can become vague in the case of the American Revolution, I agree.
Also, Ireland. Nominally 1916, though in some sense it lasted forever.
Oh come, we don’t know that yet
How about the Managa Carta in 1215?
There’s been a few. For example, the Barons’ revolt that resulted in Magna Carta in 1215 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
Or the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt in part arising out of the aftermath of the Black Death.
The second closest in recent-ish times was the rioting after the Lords defeated the Second (Electoral) Reform Bill in 1831. Rioting broke out in a number of UK cities and rioters took over in a handful.
But the British are essentially oppositional, not constructive, so after they'd done a bit of shouting and running around and setting fire to things they went home.
Wellington watched it all unfold. Apparently couldn't believe his eyes when a mass of people who could easily have overthrown the government and started a French-style revolution gave up after some fairly token brick throwing.
The closest was probably the General Strike in 1926 - nominally over coal supplies - which was much the same story but with almost no violence.
Although in fact you could easily argue that Brexit was a kind of reactionary revolution, where a group of fascist intellectuals and journalists persuaded the more gullible elements of the population that leaving one of the world's biggest trading blocs would be entirely friction free and a glorious patriotic future would ensue - and not at all the entirely predictable economic and social disaster it has turned into.
If you read this, you might enjoy Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast:
It's interesting reading the comments here, most of which are of the kind, "well, it doesn't count because it was X or Y, or because this was already normal somewhere else in the world." And then a bunch of other comments which say, "well, if you include A and B then...yeah, it did."
I mean, sure...Britain either did or didn't ever have a revolutionary moment, depending on how you change the definition and requirements of 'revolutionary'.
In those terms, the conversation so far feels more like "Do I think Britain ever had a revolutionary moment?"
Well, yes, it's not an especially well defined term, and it's interesting to explore the boundaries of what does and does not count.
Cromwell?
Seems a reasonable question.
One might say that Cromwell represented one power faction and Charles the other, so it was more a change at the top (albeit a popular one) than a grassroots uprising.
It was also an early expression of the Enlightenment. That I think is the real revolution here and around Europe and the Americas around that time.
One point of interest is that, after the restoration, many of the ousted Parliamentarians settled in America. To carry on the work as it were!
That was my thought too, but that era of English history is an absolute tar pit for my American brain. No matter how much I try to understand it I don’t and each time I try I find I start in the same place no matter how often I try.
That's me (Swedish, but fluent English reader and interested in UK/European history) when it comes to the American Civil War...
The English seem divided on this, which I do not understand.
They got rid of the king, but got a dictator instead. After he died, his son took over, botched the job, and was replaced by a king again.
France went through something similar. The aftermath of the French Revolution was botched so badly that France got Napoleon.
Russia after the breakup of the USSR, Germany after WWI... You screw up a democracy, you get a dictator.
Not really a popular revolution, more of an intra-elite conflict; not rooted in modern concepts of democracy, more in sectarianism; and it didn't "stick". The country reverted to a monarchy after his death. However, Parliament was then resolved to control the monarch - in particular to prevent the monarch ever being politically Catholic. Hence the uneasy toleration of Charles II (Catholic, but hedonist) and eviction of James II.
Cromwell is regarded, not unreasonably, as a mass murderer in Ireland.
I think the division is merely into people who know about British history and people who don't.
We had a civil war which ended when we chopped our king's head off and replaced the government. That has to count as a "revolutionary moment" or the phrase has no meaning.
From a revolutionary perspective, the Diggers and the Levellers were the really interesting players to emerge from the civil war.
It's worth looking into. That period is why the American military is constitutionally dependent on the legislature.
If you will forgive me omitting many important details, Cromwell replaced a monarch and became a military dictator. Militaries and politics shouldn't mix.
To be clear, I mean "was it a revolution", not "was it a good one".
First example that also came to my (vaguely aware) mind - seems like a clickbait title once again.
King Oliver Ⅰ of the House of Cromwell?
IIRC, the Protectorate Parliament offered him the Crown, but factions of the Army made it clear he would not survive should he accept.
Lord Protector. Not entirely clear to me how his power differed from that of a king.
Outside of Britain proper, but in what was then a British dependency, you had the United Irishmen revolt at the end of the eighteenth century, in which (as the name might suggest) Protestants and Catholics made common cause. That must have caused some alarm in London.
It did inspire similar movements in Britain itself -- United Englishmen, United Scotsmen, United Britons -- but they don't seem to have amounted to much.
I don't understand why the first answer is even controversial. Sure the 17th century was a violent shit-show for everyone, but the commonwealth stuff really raise more existential questions does it not?
Anyways, Dutch Revolt -> English civil wars, American revolution -> French revolution seems pretty clear.
The Magna Carta was revolutionary for its time, putting limits on divine monarchy and making steps toward a rule of law, not men.
Anything but. It was all about the rights of the barons to oppress their fiefs without royal interference.
In anglosaxon world for sure.
Meanwhile in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe several countries had elective monarchies and self-government at local level :)
I highly recommend this article to people who only ever read about history of political systems through anglosaxon POV: http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was-shockingly...
Peasant revolt sparked off by some knobhead tax collector raping women definitely counts.
(Half jokingly) Brexit?
Although Betteridge's Law of question headlines suggests "No.", I think that the executive summary is 'In our poll, 3 of these 4 historians answered "Yes, it did.".'. (-:
I think it's pretty revolutionary to state that god gave you the crown and that's why you're the king