They Weren't all Complete Failures

Last week in class we separated into five groups each assigned a different revolution. The different revolutions were: The Decembrist revolt, 1830 France, 1848 France, Frankfurt Assembly and the 1484 Hungary revolt. After we got assigned a revolution we read some primary sources and determine whether it was a success or failure. Then we made a survey monkey, where were would make questions based on our revolt and the class would take the survey. After everyone answered all the questions we were able to see the results and see how many people got the correct answer.The essential question that will be answered throughout this blog post is, were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded?

The revolution that I was assigned to was the Decembrist Revolt of 1825. The Decembrist Revolt took place in Russia. The goal of this revolt was to assassinate Tsar Alexander, the rule of the Russian empire. Everyone was against Tsar Alexander because he failed to grant  meaningful constitutional change. As said before they planned to assassinate him, but a few days before Tsar Alexander died of natural causes. Now that Tsar Alexander has died the people were able to fight back, They wanted to Constantine (Alexander’s older brother) to become the new Tsar but he refused and then Nicholas (ALexander’s son) found out that he was next in line to become Tsar. In a primary source Nicholas I is speaking about the Decembrists to the French Ambassador he says, “The leaders and the instigators of the conspiracy will be dealt with without pity, without mercy.” He is saying that he is not going to be merciful toward the people and he is trying to teach the rebels a lesson that monarchies will not be overthrown. Tsar Nicholas is trying to stop the revolt and show that he is in power. In another primary source Alexander Pushkin says, “This is the cause of the swift decline of our nobility: the grandfather was rich, the son is needy, the grandson will go begging.” This is showing that Nicholas is not being that good of a ruler because Russia is continuing to decline and nothing is getting better. This war was a complete failure because the people did not get what they want, they wanted Constantine to be the new Tsar instead of Nicholas and as soon as Nicholas became Tsar Russia began to decline and many people became poor.

Here is one of the questions that everyone answered right. This question was a true or false saying, Russian rebels executed Tsar Alexander so that they could have a new king which was false. The people planned to execute Tsar Alexander but he died a few days before it was supposed to happen.

This question was asking if this revolt was a success or failure. Most people said is was a failure, two people said semi failure and then one person said neither success or failure. Like I said before this was definitely a failure because the people did not even come close to what they wanted in the first place. I think a lot of people did learn from this survey monkey because most people got the correct answer when we looked at the results.

In my opinion I don’t think that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were really all failures as many historians have concluded. Out of all the revolutions only one of the revolutions was a complete failure. This revolution was the Decembrist Revolt. All the other revolutions were between semi-failure meaning the people got some things they wanted but not all to success meaning the people got everything that they wanted. For example the 1830 France revolt was a moderate success because they almost got everything they wanted but not quite. Louis XVIII made the effort to compromise satisfied some people. After Louis XVIII died, Charles X took over but many people did not like Charles and people started getting angry and fighting back. Charles was afraid and fled back to angry. With the king gone they wanted to set up a republic, They Louis Philip became king and everyone got along very well with him, they called him the “Citizen King”. Another revolution that was a success was the Frankfurt assembly meaning the people got what they wanted. King Frederick obliged to the constitutions cerastes by the Frankfurt Assembly. Germany was united and King Frederick became a constitutional monarch. Even though some of the revolutions did end up being failures there were many that were actually success’ so I do not think the historians were correct in saying that all the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 are really failures.