I hate to say this - but having known refugees from a tyrannical government, I have to shake my head at this. If a population tried a general strike against a truly tyrannical government, pretty soon that government will start bringing out gunmen. Like in Ukraine in 2014. Sometimes it will work out, but not without sacrifice.

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vel0city 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Like Ukraine in 2014

You mean the Revolution of Dignity, where mostly unarmed (at least by firearm) protesters stood up against government snipers and successfully removed the pro-Russian government? If anything, it shows one can overthrow their government despite not having much firepower while the government has guns.

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throwaway3060 5 days ago | parent [-]

With more than a hundred people killed by those government snipers. The protestors succeeded, but some paid the ultimate price to do it. If they had a means to defend themselves, maybe there could have been less lives lost.

This was Ukraine, where elections still existed and there was still some air of democracy and institutions. In a place where a tyrant has an established, unshakeable monopoly on violence, what do you think could prevent the tyrant from using that?

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vel0city 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

You think there would have been less death if both sides were actively shooting at each other? Are you really following your own logic here?

How did the Confederate uprising go with their arms against the federal government in the US? More or less than a hundred or so deaths? And this was also a country that still had elections.

Do you actually have examples of civil wars in large modern-ish countries where both sides were well armed that resulted in less than 200 deaths?

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throwaway3060 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't view civil wars the same way - these aren't individual protestors, but separatist military forces. They are violent by definition.

I did say maybe. Yanukovych ultimately fled - presumably he felt his position was threatened. We cannot know how many more he might have been willing to kill if he did not feel as threatened.

This is not advocating for a solution, only to point out that a committed tyrant can be next to impossible to dislodge.

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vel0city 5 days ago | parent [-]

What would have stopped the Maidan protesters from being labeled as separatist military forces if they were well-armed? You're drawing distinctions where there are none.

Where do you think the Confederate forces got their firearms from? They just suddenly popped into existence the moment they became "separatist military forces"? They were the people with rights to bear arms bringing up arms against their tyrannical government.

	▲	throwaway3060 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The Confederacy was made of states. Even before the Civil War, each of these had militias. I'm sure Yanukovych would have labelled them a separatist military - but would the remaining institutions agree? We don't have to assume that the protestors bring weapons from the beginning - it could come only in response to Yanukovych committing to violence.

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slidehero 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>If they had a means to defend themselves, maybe there could have been less lives lost.

dude c'mon, be serious.

the response to "my house is on fire" is not "gee I wonder what would happen if I added more fuel..."

The response is to starve the fire of oxygen. Labour is a government's oxygen.

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slidehero 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>but having known refugees from a tyrannical government

my family escaped Poland as political refugees before the end of communism. Poland famously had bloodless revolution in 1989 exactly this way.

Down tools. stop work and the economy essentially seized up (practically over night).

>Sometimes it will work out, but not without sacrifice.

Sacrifice is always necessary.

If the factories stop, there is no way to move forward, regardless of how tyrannical the government.

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throwaway3060 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Do you believe the results would have been the same under a Stalin instead of a Gorbachev?

This isn't to take away from what Poland accomplished then, or to say that such methods can never work in the right conditions. Violent revolutions against established tyrants do not have a great history. But I have a hard time understanding the belief that these methods can work in the worst of conditions.

	▲	slidehero 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		>Do you believe the results would have been the same under a Stalin instead of a Gorbachev? A little different if you're talking foreign invasion obviously. In Poland's case it was Poles vs Poles and regardless of the level of tyranny, soldiers have trouble shooting their countrymen if they're sitting in a factory. If the other guy is actively shooting at you though?... The logic is simple to follow.

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adrian_b 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I am pretty sure that a general strike could not have been initiated in Poland without the support of traitors from inside the top layers of the communist party and of the security forces.

In any of the communist countries of Eastern Europe everybody hated the government and they wanted to start a general strike. However, immediately after somebody would say this in loud voice, they would disappear. There have been a few cases when strikes have succeeded to start in a place, but then the government succeeded to prevent everybody else to know anything about this for many years, usually until the fall of the communist governments around 1989, and the strikers would disappear in such cases.

The weakness of the communist governments around 1989, after decades of easily suppressing any similar opposition, can be explained only by an internal fight within the communist leadership.