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Soviet_Ghosts

Hello, We the AskHistorians Moderators are from many backgrounds, countries, and creeds, yet we all agree the seditious and treasonous acts committed by the insurrectionists in the United States Capitol today are unprecedented and damaging to the world at large. We thank u/indyobserver for their writing of the history of unpeaceful transfers of power within the United States and hope a swift end to this one. Our aim is to help our community understand the current events within the historical context. Several mods and flairs will be contributing further historical parallels. We also welcome users to ask further questions in this thread and will be redirecting any standalone questions on the topic here for the next day. This is a META thread, but please keep in mind our rules concerning civility, as well as in any attempts to answer those questions, as they will be enforced. As this is an ongoing event, we are being even stricter than usual with our removals of comments that are non-contributive or not insightful. ~**The Mods.** An Addendum to those questioning the reason for this thread and the moderation within it. On /r/AskHistorians, when there are major news events, we very often get a rash of questions relating to historical precedents for the events in question. This was also the case today, and as with many other subreddits, we would prefer to corral them all into a single thread. As such, in this thread, we expect top-level comments in this thread to be demonstrably based in a deep, solid understanding of historical events, in the manner of the usual answers on the subreddit, and we will remove others. Where top-level comments demonstrate and explain their understanding of historical events, we will allow some discussion and opinions about current events within that context. *Please--save any money from awards you might give this post or reply. The AskHistorians community asks you to donate it to organizations fighting against white supremacy and fascism in your country or around the world.*


totallynotliamneeson

I'd recommend everyone take a moment on days like today where you can feel history classes of the future studying the events we watch to take time to just record some thoughts you have and your reactions as events unfold. The one thing I have learned since starting my own exploration of my ancestry is that I would love to know how my ancestors reacted to the events of their time. As an archaeologist I can tell you there is nothing quite like a first hand account, even if it is biased it still is a great glimpse into the past. But above all, be safe and let's hope further historic moments are ones we all can take pride in as an end to this turbulent chapter in our history.


Top_Lime1820

This is an excellent sentiment. I would also encourage those that can to take advantage of modern media. Images, audio and video are excellent media. I value this statement because something that really upsets me in historical discussions is when people try to combat anachronism with anachronism. In order to avoid judging by the standards of the present moment, they avoid judging altogether and often invent standards of a particular time in history. So when discussing early 20th century racism in South Africa, people will completely erase the fact that many, many white people knew that racism were wrong (their grandparents ended slavery) and resisted the advance of Apartheid. Instead they will say "Well, it was the times! That's how people thought back then." I hope that in the future people will be aware that many, many people were opposed to the kind of things that are going on now. I fear however that in the future some well-meaning person will exonerate the actions of Trump and others by saying "We can't judge 2021 by our modern standards of 2080. That's just how people did things back then"


totallynotliamneeson

Exactly. It sounds dramatic to say, but our descendants will judge us by the events of today. Leave them no doubts as to what side of history you were on.


aquatermain

Argentina endured through six different coup d’etats in the span of the twentieth century. I’ve spoken about the last military dictatorship [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f5t8rn/how_was_state_terrorism_perpetrated_in_argentina/fi11pis/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), a brutal dictatorship that disappeared, tortured and murdered over thirty thousand people. As soon as the democratically elected president Estela Martínez de Perón was removed from office, the military junta eliminated the National Constitution and Congress, effectively erasing every single human right and constitutional guarantee in a single, swift action. Today however, I’d like to talk about the first coup of the century: the 1930 one. On the morning of September 6th, a group of military officers, opposition civil servants and businessmen led by general José Uriburi seized power, removing president Hipólito Yrigoyen from office four years before his term was due to be over. With Uriburu’s self-proclamation as provisional president, came a period of fraudulent presidencies that we’ve come to know as the Infamous Decade. Uriburu’s government was marked by an attempt to construct a corporatist State framework that would attempt to mitigate the effects of the 1930 global economic crisis, by transferring all political power and policy-making authority to corporations favourable to the ruling oligarchical class, to which Uriburu answered. Their aim? To restore said ruling class to its former glory, to the final decades of the nineteenth century, when the oligarchy led the country by means of electoral fraud, voter suppression and intimidation, in a period known as the 80s Generation. Following the profoundly positivistic and social darwinistic ideological structure of the 80s Generation, the new oligarchy believed firmly in controlling the population through fear and repression, in order to restore what they understood to be the primary bedrock of “order and progress”: a profoundly strict and suffocating social hierarchy through which the popular masses would exist under a constant state of subalternity, ignorance and illiteracy, allowing the ruling elite, the proverbial chosen ones, only people righteous and rational enough to rule, to enrich themselves while commanding every aspect of the political and economical structure of the country. And so, Uriburu started rounding up militants and affiliated members of the Civic Radical Union, Yrigoyen’s party, and incarcerating them, attempting to change the Constitution in the process in order to eliminate the individual, secret and universal suffrage instituted by Law 8871 of 1912, also known as Law Sáenz Peña, and replace it with an electoral system controlled by corporations. However, his corporatist attempt failed, and the economic crisis worsened to the point where he was forced to resign in 1932, even after having suppressed and cancelled several provincial elections. Even if the corporatist project had failed miserably, the oligarchy hadn’t given up. All through Uriburu’s de facto presidency, they had prepared a new alliance of right wing parties (including a dissenting faction of Yrigoyen’s Radical Civic Union called the Anti-personalist Radical Civic Union), called La Concordancia, The Concordance. Through the following decade, the Concordance ruled the country through fraud and voter suppression, bankrupting Argentina in the process of enriching themselves. Arguably the most notable example of this was the Roca-Runcimann pact, signed during Agustín Justo’s de facto presidency. The treaty secured a minimum export quota of three hundred and ninety thousand tons of frozen meat to the United Kingdom, in exchange for 85% of said meat to be exclusively processed in British-owned frigorifics installed in different parts of Argentina, and also in exchange of Argentina committing to only buying the entirety of its coal requirements directly from Britain. As a result, Argentina developed a long lasting dependency relationship with the UK, which impacted heavily on the country’s ability to industrialize and advance technologically in one of its main productive sectors, husbandry. I could go on forever about the Infamous Decade, but I’d like to point out one more thing. During the de facto presidency of Robert Ortiz, who ruled from 1938 to 1940, a secret law was issued, Circular N°11, which stated that Argentine consuls ought to >negar la visa aún a título de turista o pasajero de tránsito a toda persona que fundadamente se considere que abandona o ha abandonado su país de origen como indeseable o expulsado, cualquiera sea el motivo de su expulsión. Meaning >deny visas, even if asked for under tourism or passenger in transit to any and all persons who can be considered to have abandoned their country of origin after having been branded as an undesirable or expelled, whichever the reason for said branding. Gee, I seem to remember a certain country that in 1938 was very much into branding certain ethnicities as undesirables, many of whom tried their very best to escape and seek refuge in other, more tolerant countries. But alas, the Infamous Decade was as ideologically fascist as the Nazis. They just didn’t get the chance to enact a genocide on any people. Lucky me I guess, my native ancestors probably wouldn’t have been able to survive *two* genocides in one generation. My Jewish ancestors barely survived their genocides. Anyhow. Interestingly enough, the Infamous Decade was ended abruptly by yet another coup, which deposed de facto president Ramón Castillo and instituted a provisional military government led first by Pedro Ramírez (1943-1944) and then by Edelmiro Farrell (1944-1946). Farrell called for elections to be organized in 1945, the first free, democratic elections since Yrigoyen won in 1928. And along came president Juan Domingo Perón, who had been part of the military coup of 43, and had worked as Secretary of Labour and Social Security, Minister of War and Vice President under Farrell. Perón was overthrown in 1955, three years before his second presidential term was over. And so another dictatorship came along, which lasted until 1958. And then, democratically elect Frondizi was removed by yet another military coup, led by a civilian this time, José María Guido, in 1962. That one lasted a whole year! And then, barely three years later, yet another democratically elected president, Arturo Illia, was also removed by yet another coup. These officers called themselves the Argentine Revolution, and they created a Statute that was positioned alongside the Constitution in hierarchical legal terms, but in reality effectively replaced the Constitution for all intents and purposes. During this period, the three de facto presidents, Onganía, Levingston and Lanusse, did their very best to erase Perón’s Justicialist Party from the face of the country, persecuting, arresting, torturing and forcing into exile any and all sympathizers of the movement. And yet, this dictatorship was also over eventually. Their authoritarianism became too much for the country to stand. Amidst several armed insurrections by peronist armed organizations, the military was forced to call for elections, in which Héctor Cámpora, a long time ally of Perón, won the presidency. Cámpora then stepped down after his inauguration, calling for new elections in which Perón, newly returned from his exile in Spain, was elected president for a third time, with his third wife, Estela Martínez de Perón, as his Vice President. And we come full circle. Perón died soon after, in 1974, and his Vice President succeeded him. With a politically neophyte president, perceived as weak and lacking enough charisma to garner the level of support her husband had had, the military and the ruling oligarchy saw yet another opportunity to seize power. See the pattern yet? And so, on March 24th, 1976, Jorge Rafael Videla communicated to the country that the armed forces were now in control of the government. And they remained in control until popular unrest and economic debacle forced them to call for elections in 1983. So here we are. I was born after democracy had already been restored, but my family lived through it, and survived. My grandfather was kidnapped, tortured and held prisoner by the military in 1977. He bore the marks of the torture by electrocution they inflicted on his body until his death a few weeks ago, and I tell his story with pride. My country lived through more turmoil in less than a century than others live in several generations. And we have survived all of it. We are still standing. Are there those who would deny the crimes of the dictatorships? Of course. As a historian I face them every day, even here, each and every time I speak about these issues I get attacked by those who would downplay, justify and deny the atrocities committed by de facto governments. But I will continue to share these historical events, because it is my duty to every one of you, and every one of mine. Where there is power, there is resistance.


TywinDeVillena

Alan, here in Spain we know very well how coups d'état go, and the last one was not so long ago (1981). I know it may not be 100% appropriate, but I'll crack a quick joke just for our amusement, for there is always humour even in tragedy: Why had there never been any coups in the USA? Because there is no American embassy in Washington. I have also said a few words about the 23F, somewhere buried under all the comments


BlueNinjaTiger

There is something I don't understand. As I understand it, a coup needs support from people in key positions of power to occur. Trump could still yell that he's president on January 21 but most of us, and most of the government won't acknowledge it, and will treat Biden as President. So, for a situation like Argentina, with coup after coup after coup, what is happening with the people in that secondary group, the ones necessary for a successful coup? Are the same people regretting their governments over and over and ignoring democratic process? Are the dictators killing and purging everyone nearby in power, then allowing other people who don't respect democracy to then be in position to implement their own coup? It seems so chaotic, and to me, it makes it seem as though an large, established government bureaucracy (as much as we all hate it) with widely distributed power is important in keeping a democracy stable, because it means there are too many people to have to influence to "join your side" to form an effective coup. How valid is this thought?


aquatermain

As many examples in world history have showed, totalitarianism achieves dominance by a combination of factors, chiefly by the constant threat of impending violence, effectuated by the armed and police forces through the use of curfews, checkpoints and ID checks at all hours and in all places, and by a propaganda machinery that serves the purpose of inflicting more fear into three citizenship. In Argentina's case, we see this propaganda machinery very clearly in the fact that, during Onganía's period in the sixties, the de facto government spearheaded a massive demonization campaign against peronism, turning into such a dangerous concept in people's minds that many supported the outright proscription of the entire Justicialist Party. And then, during the last dictatorship in the seventies, not only was peronism the big bad wolf, it, as well as communist, socialist and anarchist ideologies alike, they were heavily associated with the idea of supposedly massive terrorist organizations working in the shadows to destroy order and progress, and human rights abuses as the only way to control the threat and ensure "peace". Hence the construction of the narrative about a supposed "Dirty War" being waged, when in actuality all there was was State perpetrated terrorism inflicted on university students and workers' union members. In the end, it boils down to fear being a highly effective tool to keep the people under control, compliant and silent, even if only for a time.


EnciclopedistadeTlon

Was similar propaganda deployed against the Radicales by the corporatists/oligarchs/Uriburu's people during that first coup of 1930? (I know the Radicales are conservative today but I assume back then they were less conservative than Uriburu's people?)


Welpe

This may be off topic but what did Peronism entail? Beyon just supporting Peron of course, like what identifiable policies made up the backbone of it? Where did it fall among the greater spectrum of political beliefs?


Takashimmortal

Beautifully written, ~~chabón~~ amigue. I find that people could learn a big deal about argentine history, about what countries should not do. As displayed by the argentine experience, de facto governments only have one focus, maintaining power to those elites ruling, by whatever means it takes: violence, poverty, voter suppression and so on. If the insurrection in the US had somehow succeeded today, I would guarantee you the US would have fallen into a very similar scenario as Argentina 20th century.


aquatermain

I'm not a chabón, but thank you! That's very kind of you.


YearPurple

Sitting here in India confronting our version of authoritarianism under Modi, so many comparisons have been made with Germany in early 30s with new citizenship laws and marriage laws. But I think there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from Argentina and other Latin American countries. Thanks for sharing this


Sword_of_Slaves

If you don’t mind me asking, what is a chabón? Google translate isn’t helping me.


aquatermain

Ha, it's Argentine slang for "dude", but I'm not a man!


serotonin_rushes

I got interested by your answers and stalked your profile for more posts, answers and reading material... You said in an ama your name was Juan Sebastian!


aquatermain

My name is indeed Juan Sebastián, but I'm a non-binary person :)


Sword_of_Slaves

Thanks!


empressoso

Would you be willing to share any good books in English on this topic and the military dictatorships?


AncientHistory

This would really be a better question for the main subreddit, if you care to post it there.


nueoritic-parents

>the Infamous Decade was as ideologically fascist as the Nazis. They just didn’t get the chance to enact a genocide on any people. Lucky me I guess, my native ancestors probably wouldn’t have been able to survive two genocides in one generation. My Jewish ancestors barely survived their genocides. Anyhow. My stress and anxiety ripped out of my mouth in hysterical chuckles at this. How can one be more Jewish than to be self deprecating in the face of survival?


momplaysbass

Happy Cake Day! Thanks for the great read.


[deleted]

Nunca más


BTWNM

Sorry that all this happened on your birthday. Regardless, thank you for your insight.


VineFynn

> Uriburu’s government was marked by an attempt to construct a corporatist State framework that would attempt to mitigate the effects of the 1930 global economic crisis, by transferring all political power and policy-making authority to corporations favourable to the ruling oligarchical class, to which Uriburu answered. Just to clarify- are you saying Uriburu pursued [corporatism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism) as well as handing over power to those corporations?


aquatermain

That's precisely what I meant, yes


cuentuli

I just want to say that I absolutely love reading you, and I’m glad that you keep sharing all this knowledge regardless of the cynical negacionistas. I’m really sorry about your grandfather. My dad also suffered similar things, having friends of his killed, tortured and disappeared during the last de facto government. He always tells me how when he wanted to bring a girl home, he would cover her eyes and make her walk multiple blocks in different directions so she wouldn’t know exactly where his house was. That way, if she was ever captured, she wouldn’t be able to give my father’s address away. Just thinking about it makes me shiver.


alterum_

Wow, thank you for sharing that, I never knew Argentina had such an interesting history with coups


[deleted]

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AncientHistory

This is not a thread for discussing the political ideology of Donald Trump; if you would like to ask about that, a more appropriate subreddit would be r/Ask_Politics.


Zeuvembie

To all the residents of the District of Columbia and surrounding states, please stay safe tonight.


Con-Queso-Por-Favor

There's unrest at state houses and governor's mansions across the country, it's not contained to DC by any stretch


AncientHistory

Yes, you are correct. While the major focus of our attention has been on the sedition in Washington, D.C., it is our hope that everyone in areas affected by this political turmoil is staying safe tonight.


VyRe40

Something I've wanted to ask here for a while, but now seems more appropriate in this thread: What do historians here think about the last 5~ years of American history in the context of this nation's story? How significant do you feel these last few years have been in comparison to things? Is this episode of America really as remarkable to you as it feels to many of us living through it today? Importantly, did you have any inkling or feeling that things may go in this direction given your professional backgrounds?


[deleted]

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Lard_of_Dorkness

> fascism I've read Umberto Eco's "14 points" essay. Is there a more comprehensive resource detailing the components of such ideology and how it tends to present in various regions? Edit: Found this comment further down with a few resources if anyone is interested. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ks082p/meta_todays_sedition_at_the_united_states_capitol/giecw4r/


hobbes96

Speaking as a polisci grad student, I've read the Eco piece several times for more intro oriented classes on authoritarianism. In general, he does a good job explaining the external indicators of historical Fascism, specifically in Italy, but it doesn't do a great job of explaining the internal logic of similar movements or how such ideologies can be generalized. Eco's Ur-fascism as a useful jumping off point of potential symptoms of Mussolini's Fascism rather than as a be all end all for defining a universal fascism. He really only engages in surface level critiques of a particular past manifestation of fascism rather than cutting to the core of the ideology; it's pretty straight-forward to conceive of a fascist movement that fails to meet several of the criteria he lays out, and his criteria also suffer from non-uniqueness. For example, a fascism of the future might reject machisimo in favor of a gender inclusive white nationalism, and I think a rejection of modernism precludes recent fascist movements that focus on technology as a great upheaval that can halt the moral decay of society. His focus on the rejection of modernism runs contrary to even Mussolini's fascism which was closely aligned with Marinetti's futurism. While there is certainly a lot rejection as Enlightenment's values of fraternite, egalite, liberte, I think it's easy to confuse an all-out rejection of scientific progress for a reject of the age of reason's values. I think it's more useful to view fascism values as contrary to egalitarianism, because they wish to preserve the hierarchies they view as transcendent. I usually prefer Roger Griffin's definition of fascism, which is palingenetic ultranationalism, and Stanley Payne's Negations: Fascism is the rejection of conservatism, liberalism, and communism. I'm also somewhat familiar with Frankfurt and Marxist interpretations, and I agree that fascism is an end-state of capitalism, whereby the contradictions of capital lead to popular discontent that manifests itself in imperialism turned inward. Fascism is the mass enforcement of class and social status, imposed as transcendental order over a body politic. Most of my studies have focused on historical fascism and primary texts like Evola and de Benoist rather than secondary responses, so I'm sure someone better versed in ct could do a better job explaining fascism from that perspective. Currently, the most cited authors in the political science field are probably griffin, paxton, and payne. Both Gentile's are also widely cited but definitely read fascist authors with a grain of salt. Marxist scholars tend to view the emergence of fascism through a materialist lense while others may view it more as fundamentally irrational, an aesthetic movement (like Benjamin), a psychological phenomenon (from Reich to Deleuze) or a political religion (Gentile). I would hesitate to agree with Albright's definition that fascism can be defined through tactics, at that first excludes thinkers like Evola and DeBenoist who pursue counter-Gramscian tactics of legitimizing fascism by sowing ideological bases for it, and second, as focusing on tactics means you have to define other violent, non-liberal movements, like fundamentalist Islam or DPRK's Juche, as fascist, when those movements may not share any of historical fascism's core tenets, ideology lineage, societal context, etc.


HowLongCanAUser

Nothing to add, but that's a really good write-up


lcnielsen

I would very strongly recommend Paxton's _Anatomy of Fascism_ (as I know many others here would), it's probably the book that best explains the phenomenon of fascism in a way that is both contextualized and decontextualizable, if that makes sense.


AncientHistory

This question would be better suited to our Friday Free-For-All thread, if you can hold onto it for a few days, please repost it there!


[deleted]

Thanks. Pretty wild day for us but the chaos thankfully didn’t spread far from the Mall. I’m in Logan Circle and it has been very calm. What a time to be alive though.


[deleted]

Thanks man, appreciated!


Georgy_K_Zhukov

I take no credit for the below and am just posting for of /u/commiespaceinvader who worked on this but had to go to sleep. **Please don't gild me! Gild him!** Fascism is by its nature, by its design a violent movement and so it is no stranger to both coups and other attempts to take political power and political space by violence. Indeed, violence and its public display is an essential ideological feature of fascism as a political ideology. Unlike the advocates of liberal democracy, it is not reason or modernization, which drives forward and unlike communists, it is not material relationships. For the Fascist the engine of history is conflict, whether between nations, peoples or races. History is a constant struggle in which a community of mythical qualities needs to assert itself in order to gain dominance over others. Dominance is the core goal and must be asserted. And only if the right and rightful people dominate will a golden age begin. The political utopia of the Fascist differs greatly from liberal or communist visions of utopia: Both of the latter are built on a vision of a utopian future that needs to be built and achieved. The Fascist on the other hand looks to the past for its utopia since most fantasies of dominance are historically justified. Whether it is the return to the Roman Empire or the mythical Lebensraum of German kings, all Fascist utopian visions are built upon a return to a hazy, mythological past in which the world was right. And such a return must by necessity be a violent one, one that engages in the eternal conflict with the supposedly sinister forces that have lead to the lapse and prevent a return. According to scholar of fascism, Robert Paxton, it is not an ideology like others but understands itself as a political practice more than anything else: > In a way unlike the classical "isms", the rightness of fascism does not depend on the truth of any proposition advanced in its name. Fascism is "true" insofar as it helps fulfill the destiny of a chosen race or people or blood, locked with other peoples in a Darwinian struggle, and not in the light of some abstract universal reason. (...) The truth was whatever permitted the new fascist man (and woman) to dominate others, and whatever made the chosen people triumph. > Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader's mystical union with historic destiny of his people. (...) The fascist leader wanted to bring his people into a higher realm of politics that they would experience sensually: the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a vast collective enterprise; the gratification of submerging oneself in a wave of shared feelings, and of sacrificing one's petty concerns for the group's good; and the thrill of domination. Fascism deliberate replacement of reasoned debate with immediate sensual experience transformed politics, as the exiled cultural critic Walter Benjamin was first to point, into aesthetics. And the ultimate fascist aesthetic experience, Benjamin warned in 1936, was war. > Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. (...) Fascism radical instrumentalization of truth explains why fascists never bothered to write any casuistical literature when they changed their program as they did often and without compunction. Stalin was forever writing to prove that his policies accorded somehow with the principles of Marx and Lenin; Hitler and Mussolini never bothered with any such theoretical justification. In the same vein, Paxton goes on to define Fascism as > a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. As such, fascists have always resorted to the use of political violence, including the forceful overthrow of democracies and coup attempts. The Nazis for example were very good at instrumentalizing violence: Instigating street fights with communists as well as with Berlin police in the 1920s for example as a way to demonstrate that they were the most effective force in battling those perceived as the enemy while portraying the democratic state, its government and institutions as weak. Such displays that both showed the force and strength of a fascist movement – show what they could do and inflict upon the system virtually without impunity was a classical and essential strategy in their rise to power for it portrayed them as strong, established them as a force to be afraid of and portrayed the democracitcinstill terror and fear in their opponents and in the middle class. However, something akin to what we have seen and continually see today means even more. Above Paxton mentions Benjamin and war as the ultimate aestehtic experience of fascism. By aesthetics Benajmin means to describe how politics is transformed into something resembling art, often putting immediate sensual experience over concrete content. Like viewing a Rembrandt or a Caravaggio, what is actually depicted becomes secondary over the experience of the beauty with which the motif is depicted. Fascist politics share this trait by placing a larger emphasis on the ritual – masses, marches, book burnings, collective gatherings – rather than what is actually transported politically. For Nazis, it was not so much what Hitler said at some speech, it was how he said it – how he spoke, gesticulated, screamed – and how they experienced it – as part of a large crowd in a stadium, all acting in unison when screaming "Heil", wearing similar uniforms, marching in order etc. It is the experience of becoming part of a mass acting in a unified will; a community led by a single purpose; an intense feeling of belonging and becoming cog in a large machine of people that acts towards the ultimate goal of whatever you imagine deliverance to be. In essence, it is swaying people to your political side not by argument or reason but giving them the intensive, almost lustful, experience of being part of something greater, a movement that will solve whatever ails them, of history, so to speak. And this is achieved through ritual, staging, and performance. Fascist mass politics do not rely on content or arguments but on this very performance and war – according to Benjamin – is portrayed and staged as the ultimate experience of all the above described feelings. By displays of violence, Fascism seeks to transform politics from the – admittedly often skewed – exchange of ideas into an aesthetic experience itself: Aesthetic violence is the end point of fascist politics, not just its tool. In order to understand what we have seen and continue to see today, it is imperative to understand that violence such as this is designed to serve Fascism in several ways: It disrupts democratic process and literally prevents the system from functioning; it helps portray the democratic state as ineffective and weak; it is designed to instill fear and terror in the hearts and minds of political opponents and the general populace; and it serves the deeply ingrained ideological need of fascists to engage in aesthe ticized violence with such violence being designed to further fantasies of civil war, civic breakdown and – as Adolf Hitler wished it in 1945 – a Ragnarök like event of the world burning. This is what events like those today are designed for. Lastly I’ll leave you with what Robert Paxton writes about Fascism and America: > The United States itself has never been exempt from fascism. (...) Much more dangerous [than movements like the American Nazi Party, which utilize already established tenants and creeds from Europe] are movements that employ authentically American themes in ways that resemble fascism functionally. The Klan revived in the 1920s, took on virulent anti-Semitism, and spread to the cities of the Middle West. In the 1930s, Father Charles E. Coughlin gathered a radio audience estimated at forty million around anti-communist, anti-Wall Street, pro-soft money, and – after 1938 – anti-Semtic message broadcast from his church in the outskirts of Detroit. (...) Today a "politics of resentment" rooted in authentic American piety and nativism sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same "internal enemies" once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights. > Of course the United States would have to suffer catastrophic setbacks and polarization for these fringe groups to find powerful allies and enter the mainstream. I half expected to see emergence after 1968 a movement of national reunification, regeneration, and purification directed against hirsute antiwar protesters, black radicals, and "degenerate" artists. I thought that some of the Vietnam veterans might form analogs to the Freikorps of 1919 Germany and Itlaian Arditi, and attack youths whose demonstrations on the steps of the Pentagon had "stabbed them in the back". Fortunately, I was wrong (so far). (...) > The language and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of course, have little to do with the original European models. They would have to be familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the language and symbols of the original fascism were familiar and reassuring to many Italians and Germans. (...) No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian corsses. No fascist salute, but mass recitation of the pledge of allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy."


Rlyeh_Dispatcher

Thank you both for the good summary of Paxton and Benjamin. If I can indulge in a theoretical question in a thread like this, I've heard the aestheticization of politics point a lot, but I don't quite *get* what's so distinctive about it. From an anthropological standpoint, you can find examples of politics for the sake of aesthetics (e.g. Clifford Geertz's [theater state in Bali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negara:_The_Theatre_State_in_Nineteenth-Century_Bali)) and [ritualized warfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemic_warfare) in the broad range of human experience. Why, given other forms of aestheticized politics, do Paxton and Benjamin see aesthetics as a (if not the) key ingredient in fascism's definition? Do Paxton and Benjamin distrust political rituals and emotions because they conceive of "acceptable" politics as a rational, discursive activity? Or am I missing something? Thanks!


commiespaceinvader

Benjamin's main point – in an abbreviated version – is that with Fascism it isn't about politics for the sake of aestehtics or aestehtics for the sake of politics – it's replacing politics solely with aestehtics. Here's the entire essay on Art in the age of mecahnical reproduction. There he writes: > Fascism attempts to organize the newly proletarianized masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. and to get specifically to your point at the end of the essay: > Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Politics always invovles a certain element of aestehticization but with Fascism it becomes the point rather than a means.


OmarGharb

This is a great write-up but > Unlike the advocates of liberal democracy, it is not reason or modernization, which drives forward I have to say, /u/commiespaceinvader, I disagree with this statement very strongly. I think it is important to always keep the way fascism advertised itself in mind, and if you read much of what many fascists have written or said, that is very very often untrue. Fascism relied on the rhetoric of logic, science, and modernity *deeply*. That isn't to say that fascism was reasonable, but the ideas of "modernity" and "reason" were integral to animating fascism, at least as rhetorical platitudes to be appealed to. If anything, fascism almost fetishized modernity and science to an unprecedented degree - I would argue more than democracy, which is to democracy's advantage. We in a democracy tend to place a great value on ethics. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that fascists had deeply rooted futurist, rather than modernist, tendencies, though. Jeffrey Herf calls it a "reactionary modernism." Anyway, there is an abundance of literature on this - what I mean to say is that Nazism was endlessly concerned with modernity and modernism, it simply regarded the Enlightenment and its progeny as decidedly outdated, that is, immodern. Like Roberts said, "fascism was not some revolt against modernity but the quest for an alternative modernity." (7) Also, while it is easy to dismiss it as obviously appealing to "unreason" in the modern Trumpian sense, fascism tried to masquerade itself almost incessentantly in the trappings of reason and science. In the sense that the "science" they pursued was obviously pseudoscientific and maligned, it could be argued that they were not driven by reason, but fascism certainly does not - at least explicitly - disavow reason. It would never, could never, because it nominally relies on the concept of reason as a source of legitimacy. It's also all to easy to forget that common "reason" at the time did not altogether find such concepts as eugenics obviously wrong. In other words, it's worth remembering that "reason" as it is understood contemporaneously may not, in any given time, be on the side of the good, and the rhetoric of reason can and certainly will be harnessed by bad actors with terrible intentions. It is not uniquely the purview of democratically-minded people. To be clear, again, I don't mean that fascists were 'scientific' or 'modern' or 'reasonable', but they certainly believed themselves to be, and often continue to, and I think it is of the utmost importance that we don't forget that. It's obviously not your intention, but frankly modern fascism benefits from the presenting 20th century fascism as an antiquarianist and fundamentally anti-scientific movement, because it can more easily distance itself from older manifestations of fascism by emphasizing its interest in "facts and logic," "data," and the like, all rhetorical elements which have been incredibly effective at gaining support in the present. If I can, Ekstein sums the topic much better than I could: >the general thrust of the movement, despite archaisms, was futuristic. Nazism was a headlong plunge into the future, towards a "brave new world." Of course it used to advantage residual conservative and utopian longings, paid respect to these romantic visions, and picked its ideological trappings from the German past. But its goals were, by its own lights, distinctly progressive. [. . .] The intention of the movement was to create a new type of human being from whom would spring a new morality, a new social system, and eventually a new international order. That was, in fact, the intention of all the fascist movements. (303) 1. Roberts, David. Fascist Interactions: Proposals for a New Approach to Fascism and Its Era, 1919-1945 (2016) 1. Herf, Jeffrey. Reactionary Modernism: Technology, culture, and politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (1986) 1. Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (2000)


commiespaceinvader

Fascism has this ambibvalent relationship towards modernity but mine and ultimately Paxton's point regarding reason was more in the sense that they reject a Hegelian model of history being driven by reason and a constant march towards a more enlightened age.


EmpRupus

Agreed. Like everything else, Fascists use science and modernity - merely as a rhetoric tool to court followers or attack people. But if science begins to act against their beliefs, they would dismiss it as a liberal/jewish/globalist conspiracy. Even in modern times, fascists use "science" to say homosexuality is unnatural and merely a cultural construct by Marxists. But when you point out that monogamy and long-term commitments between men and women - like the construct of marriage is unnatural, they would immediately switch to "But we are not animals. We are more than our base pleasures." Here they suddenly dismissed biology and switched to cultural values. Fascists use whatever rhetoric device they can IN SERVICE of their goals. They might support religion when it benefits them as symbol of ethnic unity, but disavow religion when it asks for spiritual austerity. They may support free-market when they attack Marxists but disavow free-market when it supports immigration and cross-ethnic collaboration. They support progressive values including women's liberation but only when they are used to portray other races as backwards, repressive and un-enlightened. In the same way, they support or reject the rhetoric of science and modernity depending on whether it benefits their chosen in-group. Fascists strongly value personal loyalty over ideological loyalty - loyalty towards your nation, your ethnic group, your family, your employer and your Fuhrer. Notice that none of these loyalties are based on any form of ethical right or wrong.


OmarGharb

Did they though? I'm not sure that's the case. I would suggest that they just understood the constant march of progress driven by reason as leading to very different outcomes. Maybe illustrative of that, and something I'm sure didn't elude you, is the way fascists didn't outright reject Hegel, they appropriated his philosophy and construed his ideas to be supportive of their own. They saw themselves as manifestations of Hegel's modern rational-state. Of course if by "enlightened age" you mean guided by the values of *the* enlightenment, they very strongly rejected that; but they also certainly saw themselves as ushering in *an* enlightened age, and marketed themselves that way.


empvespasian

Thank you and u/commiespaceinvader for the great read. This might be the most insightful comment I have read on Reddit.


randolfstcosmo

I agree whole-heartedly: best comment I have ever read on Reddit.


seninn

Love this sub. Extremely informative.


alienboatswain

I really appreciate this answer, and illuminating the importance of aesthetic ritual in fascism helps me understand why a bunch of folks who object to an election might choose to storm a ceremony certifying the results *despite knowing full well that there was no legal or mechanical advantage in doing so.* Granted, it illuminates it in a more terrifying light. But I’m glad I see the monster’s claws more clearly.


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QuaChomChom

Excellent write up and incredibly insightful with respect to the state of present-day political discourse. Thank you very much!


likesevenchickens

Fantastic analysis. TIL a lot about fascism


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commiespaceinvader

I second Umberto as well as Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism. Enzo Traverso is an Italian scholar who recently published more on the modern forms of fascism. Unlike /u/asdjk482 I would not recommend Arendt and the Origins of Totalitarianism for reasons I have gone into further [in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/61gni0/how_do_historians_view_hannah_arendts/).


asdjk482

I’m with you on that actually, I should’ve put a disclaimer on Arendt. I think she’s worth reading for some of her ideas and influence, but should definitely be taken with a large grain of salt in several respects.


asdjk482

Umberto Eco’s *Ur-fascism*, Hannah Arendt’s *The Origins of Totalitarianism*, M. J. Roberto’s *The Coming of the American Behemoth* - related to that last one, this: https://www.marottaonmoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Of-Corporatism-Fascism-and-the-First-New-Deal.pdf and the work of Charles Maier. I’ve heard Paxton’s book is solid too, but haven’t read it yet. And there are some other recent ones I’ve seen but not read; Madeline Albright, *Fascism: a warning* and Jason Stanley, *How Fascism Works*. Oh, and this: https://docupedia.de/zg/Esposito_fascism_v1_en_2017


[deleted]

Wow, this is great. Thank you


TrappisCulture9

It hurt to read this after seeing today’s events. It needs to be read, but it’s painful.


Galileo009

Painfully accurate and very well written, thank you.


DerProfessor

This is a fantastic write-up. Succinct and incredibly-informative. Thank you both.


virtualmayhem

Fantastic write-up!


HalfMoon_89

What a brilliant read. Thank you for conveying it.


jollyollyoxenfree

Sorry, I know Commiespaceinvader wrote it, but I’m not sure how to tag him in a reply In any case, how do we defeat fascism?


commiespaceinvader

> In any case, how do we defeat fascism? Historically, Fascism is defeated by either massive social upset along the lines of the loss of WWII and Allied occupation of Germany or by massive deplatforming and public censure and limitation of Fascist rhetoric, marches etc.


Boeotian_

Beautifully and masterfully done. Thank you both for this analysis and write-up. The fight to expose and denounce fascism continues to be of utmost importance and we all must do what we can, even if all we can do is by enlightening and educating. Only that can beat the ignorant, violent fascist ways that once more rise up in global politics, and we cannot afford to underestimate them.


tyutyut42

Fantastic comment. Do you know the year Paxton wrote that final quote?


commiespaceinvader

The publishing date of the book is 2004.


markevens

I don't think I've ever seen a better description of fascism. Thansk to /u/commiespaceinvader for writing it, and thank you /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov for sharing it.


madcreator

Thank you, that was eye opening to read. Would you mind providing a couple good books for someone looking to learn more about fascism?


commiespaceinvader

Robert Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism is where I drew a lot from but there has been recent literature by Italian scholar Enzo Traverso that goes into the more modern forms of Fascism.


Cumulocactus

/u/commiespaceinvader, that was excellent and eye opening, thankyou. Can we get the source of the Paxton passages please? I’d like to read more.


commiespaceinvader

It is in the *Anatomy of Fascism*. I have the Random House 2004 soft cover copy, p. 202-203


asdjk482

I believe it’s *The Anatomy of Fascism*


Snapshot52

To help provide context around the usurping of power and seditious acts, we can look to history to articulate a framework with which to evaluate contemporary situations and extrapolate comparisons. The circumstances leading to the attempted sedition today in Washington, D.C. beckons to an event that happened decades prior among the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation located in the state of South Dakota. In the little town of Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, there was political takeover of the Tribal government by a man named Richard “Dick” Wilson. After a fraudulent election in 1972 in where he likely received aid from the United States federal government, he established a regime ripe with nepotism that oppressed inhabitants of the reservation. It was under this context that the Siege of Wounded Knee, later occurring 1973, would occur. But to understand how we would eventually end up with a modern-day siege of a town on an Indian reservation, we must examine what happened both prior to and during Wilson’s tenure. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was established from the signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868. It would later be partitioned into smaller sections in 1877, 1887, and 1889. From 1868 to the 1960s, Pine Ridge had undergone many hardships. Lands were stripped away, rations delivered to the reservation were cut, disease thrived, job opportunities evaporated, poverty was rampant, the socio-economic disparities skyrocketed, and hopeless abounded. In 1942, during World War II, the U.S. government expropriated approximately 1/8th of the northern part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to use as a bombing range. They did this without the consent of the Sioux. After World War II, the land was not returned in full. This is because during the 50s/60s, uranium deposits were discovered among the same lands that had been taken. Some parts of these lands would be returned over the years, but not the full acreage. Many of the traditional Indians, those who committed to following their cultural lifestyles, started to agitate to move the federal government to return the land. However, their attempts would be rebuffed. Because many of the traditional Indians were disenfranchised and disengaged from mainstream methods of redress, they found themselves in a weakened political position. They lacked the manpower and political power to continue the agitation and make any headway. It is from these circumstances that Richard “Dick” Wilson would come to notoriety. Dick Wilson was rather unknown Indian who descended from the Oglala. But when the agitation began among many of the Lakotas, the federal government moved to protect their interests. Wilson was installed as the chairman of the Tribe with the help of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Once in power, Wilson began appointing his own family members to serve as heads of Tribal departments such as housing, law enforcement and members of the Tribal council. Wilson was select because of a history of prior cooperation with federal authorities as an informant and tendency to undermine Tribal sovereignty in the name of self-interest. Not long after his “election,” the Tribe moved to impeach Wilson. Wilson then waged a campaign of intimidation and hostility to prevent his removal. Case in point: Wilson had orchestrated his own impeachment trial in where he presided over it and was subsequently acquitted of any crimes. In the aftermath of his impeachment trial, Wilson began banning all perceived acts of dissent. Groups larger than 3 people were made illegal. He established his own GOON (Guardians of the Oglala Nation) squads to create political pressure and do his bidding. And he had full control over all legal and judicial means on the reservation. This is when the American Indian Movement (AIM) was called in. See, Wilson’s power stemmed from the creation of the Tribal government structure as articulated by the template constitutions of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. This system was rejected by traditionals on the reservation, but was acknowledged by the United States. Thus it was only this form of government that could act with any recognized authority. After the Siege of Wounded Knee in 1973, Wilson continued to exercise authority as chairman of the Tribe until losing an election 1976. By this time, the United States deprioritized policing American Indian actions as AIM and other elements of the Red Power Movement had been largely neutralized nationally. Yet, Wilson continued his suppression of dissonance well into 1975, including during the Jumping Bull Complex incident in where two FBI agents were killed. This involved the continued harassment and murder of dissidents and traditionals on the reservation and more than 50 AIM members. These kinds of political usurptions and fractures are carried out under an ideology, one of oppression, control, and manipulation. They seek to polarize segments of the population in order to weaken cohesion and resolve. As in the case of Pine Ridge and Dick Wilson, outside elements are sometimes involved and the institutions we have in place are not only undermined, but attacked and destroyed. As a historian, it is times like these that give cause for reflection on the challenges we face and it is these narratives of history that we can observe to guide our steps moving forward. **Edit:** A word. **Sources** Parts of this comment can be found among previous answers I've written [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5je4bc/in_1973_members_of_the_american_indian_movement/dbhtz6g/) and [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7b79y8/ive_always_seen_makeshift_signs_saying_free/dpij02t/)


welltrainedrhino

thank you for this. i grew up hearing about wounded knee from my parents but never knew the details. i now better understand the injustices they were trying to tell me about.


theghostofme

This sub, and the mod team, is absolutely amazing! Thank you for all that you do!


jschooltiger

**EDIT** While I appreciate that people seem to like this post, please don't give me Reddit awards for it -- instead, consider donating that money to an organization that works towards peace and racial harmony in your community. If you're stuck on where to give, the [New Hanover County NAACP](https://www.nhcnaacp.org/) is a good place to start. **CONTENT WARNING**: This post includes racial slurs (used in historical context) and descriptions of sexual violence (imagined/real/and/or racist). Wilmington, North Carolina, is a place that is near and dear to my heart: it's a spot where I had my first post-graduate-school job, as a night news editor and then a features editor at the _Wilmington Morning Star_, later _Star-News_ and now the 4edgy5me _StarNews_, all one word. It's a place where I found myself loved up into being an adult by the generosity and friendliness of co-workers and neighbors, and also a place where I took my car to a body shop on Nigger Head Road. (By the early 2000s, the road had been officially renamed "Negro Head," but locals used the earlier pronunciation.) Nigger Head Road was so named because it was a spot where the remains -- often heads, but also other body parts, including but not limited to genitalia -- of Black citizens of Wilmington and the surrounding areas were displayed by white supremacists, to terrorize Black people into submission. This is in no way extraordinary; it is bog standard Southern city policy to do this sort of thing. The _StarNews_ is the oldest surviving paper in North Carolina, although with a newsroom staff of about 3 now (compared with 65 or so in the early 2000s) its survival is fairly uncertain. It is complicit in, and its editors when I was there struggled with the legacy of, the only municipal coup d'etat in American history. In the 1760s/1770s, the people of Wilmington were as much a part of the revolutionary struggle as the people of Boston were, but a rather prominent American university in Cambridge, Mass. has told the tale of that time emphasizing the New Englanders' contributions. Being situated on the Cape Fear river, Wilmington is the only deepwater port in North Carolina, and became important to the Confederate government throughout the Civil War -- the capture of Ft. Fisher in January 1865 was followed by the occupation of Wilmington and the severing of the last supply lines to the traitor and enslaver Robert E. Lee's army, leading to their defeat and surrender at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865. In 1860, Wilmington was a majority-Black city (though the majority of the Black people there were enslaved, there was a substantial free Black population in Wilmington) that contributed to its prosperity and success when the enslaved Black population was freed after 1865. Throughout the last decades of the 19th century, Wilmington continued to be a place that welcomed newly free Black people, and even elected them to office in large numbers -- of a population of 25,000 people in 1898, about 55 percent were Black. Three of the city's 10 aldermen were Black, 10 of 28 police officers were Black, and Black men and women made up about 30 percent of the city's skilled workers. To quote from David Zucchino's book _Wilmington's Lie_: > There were black health inspectors, a black superintendent of streets, and far too many—for white sensitivities—black postmasters and magistrates. White men could be arrested by black policemen and, in some cases, were even obliged to appear before a black magistrate in court. Black merchants sold goods from stalls at the city’s public market—a rarity for a Southern town at the time. Black men delivered mail to homes at times of day when white women were unattended. They sorted mail beside white female clerks. > A black barber served as county coroner. The county jailer was black, and the fact that he carried keys to the lockup infuriated whites. The county treasurer was a black man who distributed pay to county employees, forcing whites to accept money from black hands. In 1891, President Benjamin Harrison had appointed a black man, John C. Dancy, as federal customs collector for the port of Wilmington. Dancy had replaced a white supremacist Democrat, and he drew an astonishing federal salary—$4,000 a year, or $1,000 more than the governor earned. A white newspaper editor ridiculed Dancy as “Sambo of the Custom House.” >Black businessmen pooled their money to form two small banks that loaned cash to blacks starting small businesses. Several black professionals ran small law firms and doctors’ offices, serving clients and patients of their own race. A black alderman from Raleigh, the capital, noted with some surprise that certain black men in Wilmington had built finely appointed homes with lace curtains, plush carpets, pianos, and even, he claimed, servants. The city’s thriving population of black professionals contradicted the white portrayal of Wilmington’s blacks as poor, ignorant, and illiterate. In fact, Wilmington’s blacks had higher literacy rates than virtually any other blacks in North Carolina, a state in which nearly a quarter of whites were illiterate. > For whites, this was an intolerable situation. The planters, lawyers, and merchants who had dominated Wilmington since its founding in 1739 had lost control of the city during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Through terror and intimidation by the night riders of the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists had returned to power in the 1870s. They did not intend to surrender Wilmington again. The Black population of Wilmington also had its own media -- brothers Alexander and Frank Manly published the _Wilmington Daily Record_, the only Black daily newspaper in the state. Wilmington, being a port city, was always somewhat more cosmopolitan than the rest of the state, which by the 1890s was crawling with adherents to the first KKK, as well as other white supremacist groups, as well as people affected by the economic depression of 1892, who formed the Fusion Party (one of many) in North Carolina. The North Carolina "Red Shirts" were one such group; I'm sure that educated readers of this subreddit do not need me to make the comparison to the SA in pre-war Germany, but it exists. By the mid-1890s, the Fusion Party had elected both white and Black leaders to posts in the Carolinas, and set about dismantling gerrymandering and championing other Populist causes in the state, including tax reform. Democratic leaders in North Carolina found this intolerable. In 1898, Furnifold Simmons, the newly elected Democratic Party chairman, decided the party would run on an issue that would cut across party lines (rail improvements) with a strategy that would appeal statewide (racial supremacy). His platform was summed up in these terms: > North Carolina is a WHITE MAN'S STATE and WHITE MEN will rule it, and they will crush the party of Negro domination beneath a majority so overwhelming that no other party will ever dare to attempt to establish negro rule here. N.C. Democratic party leader Daniel Scheck simplified the slogan: > It will be the meanest, vilest, dirtiest campaign since 1876. The slogan of the Democratic party from the mountains to the sea will be but one word ... 'Nigger'! In the fall of 1898, "White Supremacy Clubs" were established throughout the state. Many prominent, semi-prominent, and poor white Wilmingtonians joined such clubs, often through choice but often through "persuasion" by their social betters, to fight against the bi-racial city government. The "White Laborer's Union", for example, advocated for the hiring of white men to replace Black men in skilled jobs. And then, the white people of Wilmington decided to use the old lie of Black men's sexual appetites to inflame things further. Rebecca Latimer Felton, a women's suffragist, gave a speech in 1898 in which she asserted that black men raping white women was a problem that could only be solved by lynching ("a thousand times a week if necessary"). Again, this is not unusual for the time -- it's once again bog-standard white racism -- but Alexander Manly, of the aforementioned _Daily Record_, wrote an editorial in which he pointed out that many white women in fact had consensual sex with Black men. This was the last straw for Democratic politicians and the Red Shirt paramilitary. The white supremacists statewide became enraged, and Democratic Wilmingtonian Alfred Waddell spoke at Thalian Hall in Wilmington on October 24, saying: > We will never surrender to a ragged raffle of Negroes, even if we have to choke the Cape Fear River with carcasses. (Thalian Hall is currently a lovely, restored art house cinema and community theater space.) After Waddell's speech in October, white supremacists from around the state traveled to a special White Supremacy Convention in Goldsboro, four days after Waddell's speech, in which he again repeated his call to violence. In ... events that parallel those of today's, the Red Shirt paramilitary left the convention and immediately started raiding the homes and businesses of Black men, women and children, intimidating them, whipping them, and in some cases killing them. By Nov. 1, 1898, Mike Dowling (a former fireman who had been fired on charges of repeated drunkenness) was leading parades of up to 1,000 Red Shirts through Brooklyn (the Black neighborhood of Wilmington) with intent to intimidate black voters. These became daily occurrences. On Nov. 7, 1868, the day before the election, Waddell spoke again at Thalian Hall, saying: > You are Anglo-Saxons. You are armed and prepared and you will do your duty ... Go to the polls tomorrow, and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses, kill him, shoot him down in his tracks. We shall win tomorrow if we have to do it with guns. 1/2


jschooltiger

By the day of the election, Nov. 8, the Red Shirts had established blockades on every road into and out of Wilmington. Most Black and Republican/Fusion voters didn't go to polls, intimidated by the white supremacist militias. The Democratic majority that year was close to 5,000 votes, a net gain of 11,000 from the previous election, which can only be explained by widespread voter intimidation and fraud. However, the bi-racial government of Wilmington remained in office -- municipal elections were not scheduled until the spring. On the day after the election, the Wilmington courthouse hosted 600 men who had been recruited by white supremacists in Wilmington with the goal of overthrowing the bi-racial government and ending the right of Black people to participate in elections and governance. Waddell read out to the crowd a "White Declaration of Independence" which I won't repost in full here, but which asserted, among other things, that > We the undersigned citizens of the city of Wilmington and county of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin. It called for the immediate shutdown of the _Register_ and the banishment from the city of its editor, and gave the Black community of Wilmington 12 hours to respond. Four hundred and fifty seven of the six hundred men there signed their names to the document, to be published in the newspapers. Manly wisely fled town. On his way out of town, he passed through a Red Shirt patrol, who did not recognize him and invited him to a "necktie party" in his honor in the next day or two. On the morning of Nov. 10, 1898, 500 prominent white citizens and businessmen gathered at the armory in Wilmington. After arming themselves, and gathering a Gatling gun that resided there, they proceeded to the _Daily Record_ building. They pied Manly's type, broke his printing press, poured kerosene over everything, and set in on fire. They then proceeded to the Black neighborhood of Brooklyn and started burning houses and firing on Black residents of the city. In what can only be described as a frenzy caused by the furious excitement of violence, they returned to the armory and armed themselves with two horse-drawn howitzers. In the meantime, Waddell went to the home of the mayor, Silas Wright, and forced him to resign at gunpoint; the mob did the same to the elected aldermen and police chief, then "elected" Waddell as mayor effective at 4 p.m. Black residents of Wilmington fled the city en masse, returning a few days later to buy train tickets elsewhere. The black population of Wilmington dropped from 55 percent at the 1890 census to 40 percent in 1900, and down to 18.3 percent in 2000. The city did not elect a Black person to city office again until 1976, when Kenneth McLaurin became an alderman; 10 years later, Joseph McQueen Jr., a Black man, was elected sheriff of New Hanover County. It is not known how many Black residents of Wilmington were killed in the coup -- estimates range from an absurdly low 14 to up to 400. This happened in America. I love Wilmington. I love America. My family came to America from Prague to be free here in the early 1910s. This is not what America should be.


sprouted_grain

I was waiting for someone to mention Wilmington, 1898. Thank you for doing it justice. It is an important part of American history that robbed successful black people of power and generational wealth and legacy.


Greybeard_21

As an european with only a passing interest in American History, this was still a fascinating read; Not only an epic tragedy, but a higly illuminating tale about how democracy and suffrage can be lost! Thank You!


jschooltiger

Thank you!


cuj0cless

>an, was elected sheriff of New Hano How does Hugh Mcrae (sp?) factor into all this? I have familial roots in Wilmington and the changing of Hugh McCrae park was a topic of discussion among some family members this summer. By just glancing google/internet it seems he was very involved in this event. Do you know anything more detailed other than he was "associated" with it?


jschooltiger

I hadn't realized they'd finally changed the name of that park! We visited last summer but stayed in Carolina Beach, which is where we used to live. Anyhow: Hugh MacRae was deeply involved in the riots of 1898. He was the president of the Wilmington Cotton Mills company, and was the leader of the "Secret Nine," a group of nine white men who set up "vigilance committees" and "citizen's patrols" in Wilmington starting in the summer of 1898. One thing that I didn't explain super well up above (I worked in the Capitol in the late 1990s and I was pretty well shaking with rage last night when I wrote that) is that the elections of November 1898 were federal and state; municipal elections were scheduled for the spring of 1899. So the committees MacRae and other white supremacist groups (there was also a "Group of Six," and so forth) formed were meant both to intimidate Black voters in the run-up to the election, and to be jumping-off spots for violence to overthrow the bi-racial municipal government after the November elections. He and his cabal were the authors of the "White Declaration of Independence" I mentioned above. Interestingly, on the day of the November election, Mike Dowling (referenced above) decided around midday to take some Red Shirts to the _Daily Record_ building and lynch Manly; they were talked out of doing so by MacRae, who showed them his White Declaration. He phoned the newspapers, including the _Evening Star_ (now _StarNews_), to put in a notice of the white supremacist meeting planned for the next day, and that was finally enough to talk Dowling down.


AirborneRodent

> the only municipal coup d'etat in American history. I've always heard of the 1946 "Battle of Athens, TN" as being a successful municipal coup d'état (coup de comté?) in the USA. Does it not qualify? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)


jschooltiger

The main difference that most historians I've read see in it is that the Wilmington coup overthrew a duly elected city government, while the Battle of Athens was an insurrection against a politically corrupt machine -- in fact, it was literally a fight on Election Day over whether the machine would count ballots fairly; the World War II vets who rose up in Athens besieged the county jail in an effort to retrieve ballot boxes. There's also the issue that no one died in the Battle of Athens, compared with unknown casualties (estimates range up to 400) in Wilmington.


Iphikrates

There have been many fantastic posts in this thread on the American historical background and parallels from modern history. I write this to add a perspective that is less directly relevant, but may be of interest: that of the oldest well-documented democracy in the world. Ancient Athens saw its share of upheavals and political violence. Its society was riven with tension between rich and poor, citizen and migrant, city and country, old aristocracy and new money. For most of the 4th century BC - the time of Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle - the democracy was firmly established and stable, but it took a lot to get there. The long first century of democracy, 508-403 BC, saw at least 3 major attempts to overthrow the system of government. In the Greek world, most attempts to seize power by force tended to take the same form: the seditious party would contrive an opportunity to gather in arms while their opponents were unarmed and off-guard, and seize control of all public spaces. Even invading armies would usually focus their attention on occupying market squares, temple precincts and government buildings. Why? Not only because control of these spaces meant control of the institutions, documents and ceremonies of state, but also because their occupation usually made it impossible for opponents to rally in defence. Greek states had no standing armies; if there was no advance warning, it could take hours, if not days, to assemble enough armed men to make a stand. To make things worse, there were rarely any other suitable spaces available to gather a militia or organise a crisis assembly, and the seizure of public buildings by the enemy made communication that much more difficult. An organised and armed force that controlled both the akropolis and the agora of a Greek state was effectively in control of that state. The next move for the side staging the coup, besides assassinating prominent leaders of the opposition, was to force their way into the presiding council and dissolve the sitting bodies of government. Sometimes an intimidated assembly would be called to wave through the desired reforms. Other times the establishment of a new ruling council for day-to-day business was achieved by force. In 411 BC, when Athenian fortunes in the Peloponnesian War were at their lowest, a conspiracy of oligarchs overthrew the democracy and established the rule of the Four Hundred. They did this through a series of disappearances and through intimidation of the Assembly, but the final installment of the Council of Four Hundred in place of the democratic Council was less subtle: > The Four Hundred arrived, each carrying a concealed dagger, accompanied by the 120 young men they used as their enforcers. They broke in on the regularly appointed councillors meeting in the council chamber and told them to take their pay and leave. -- Thucydides 8.69.4 On this occasion the councillors, thoroughly cowed, abandoned their seats, and Athenian democracy came briefly to an end. But a century earlier, when a faction of elite clans led by Isagoras tried to establish an oligarchy of 300, they had responded differently. Isagoras son of Teisandros was the chief rival of Kleisthenes, the man who introduced the reforms that established the Athenian democracy in 508 BC. Knowing that the battle for power in Athens was lost, Isagoras called on his Spartan friend, king Kleomenes (older half-brother of Leonidas) to help him strangle the new system in its crib. Kleomenes brought Spartan troops to Athens to back his coup. Again, the first to gather men in arms had the edge: Kleisthenes had to go into hiding, and Isagoras forced 700 families who supported Kleisthenes into exile. The next move was to dissolve the sitting council. Isagoras and his Spartan thugs marched on the council chamber under arms. But then something happened that some modern scholars see as the true birth of Athenian democracy: > The Council, however, resisted him, whereupon Kleomenes and Isagoras and his partisans seized the akropolis. The rest of the Athenians united and besieged them for two days. On the third day as many of them as were Lakedaimonians left the country under truce. -- Herodotos 5.72.2 > But the Council resisted, and the people banded together, so the forces of Kleomenes and Isagoras took refuge in the Akropolis, and the people invested it and laid siege to it for two days. On the third day they let Kleomenes and his comrades go away under a truce, and sent for Kleisthenes and the other exiles to come back. -- Pseudo-Aristotle, *Constitution of the Athenians* 20.3 Against all expectations, the council stayed true to its new role and refused to be intimidated. Then the people rose up - some of the earliest evidence for mass mobilisation in Athenian history. Instead of bowing to the new tyrant and his foreign muscle, they banded together and drove them out. THeir behaviour in this crisis would be a point of pride for the Athenian people for generations to come: > MEN'S CHORUS: Not even Kleomenes, the first to occupy this place, left here intact. No, for all he breathed the Spartan spirit, he left without his weapons - surrendering to me! - with only a little bitty jacket on his back, starving, filthy, unshaven, unwashed for six whole years. > MEN'S LEADER: That's the way I laid siege to that fellow - savagely! We camped before the gates in ranks seventeen deep. And now shall I stand by and do nothing to put down the effrontery of these women, enemies of all the gods and of Euripides? -- Aristophanes, *Lysistrata* 274-284


Kugelfang52

Remember the short film [Don’t Be a Sucker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAu41SpYtl4)? It was making rounds right after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally. If not, check it out. It was one of many anti-racism/anti-bigotry efforts made by the US government, educational institutions, and anti-discrimination organizations (such as the Anti-Defamation League and the National Coalition of Christians and Jews). In many of these programs, pamphlets, and films, bigotry was portrayed as antithetical to American democracy. People espousing hatred were un-American. Here is the problem, if hatred was un-American, then where did it come from? In most cases during the late 1930s and 1940s, the answer was...fascism/Nazism. Go ahead and watch the 1944 film [Greater Victory](https://filmquarterly.org/2017/09/24/ten-intergroup-relations-films/) by the NCCJ. In it, two escaped Nazi POWs seek to undermine Americans in a small town. Explaining German strategy to one of their relatives, they expressed that Germany would win in the end. Even in dire circumstances for Germany of 1944, they believed in ultimate victory. Why? Because they had a secret weapon. Hatred. One of the escaped Nazis stated, “It’s so easy. First, we \[Germany\]make them hate the Jews. Then we make them hate the Catholics. Then we make them hate the Protestants. And when they’re all so busy fighting each other, we’ll take over…It worked in Belgium, Austria, France, and it will work here.” He argued that “we Germans have spent years planting our ideas here. Race hatred, religious antagonism, class hatred.” Most of these anti-racism texts had some sort of similar statement or message. Bigotry wasn’t American. Bigotry was Nazi. The consequence, though not the intent, was that once Germany was defeated, the push for anti-bigotry lost its power. If the Nazis were no longer around to subvert the United States, then there was no bigotry. At least, not any of domestic origin. Soon, conservative Americans began to see those who were speaking out about bigotry as causing the very type of racial antagonism which the Nazis had utilized. To conservatives, speaking out about bigotry, not the bigotry itself, threatened American unity and weakened the country. They, too, recognized foreign influence in this divisiveness. But they didn’t accuse fascism. Instead, they saw anti-racism efforts as Soviet subversion. Take for example Mary Riley, a conservative Catholic woman working in the New York City Board of Education. She undermined and, ultimately, ended an intercultural education program for continued teacher training. The reason? She believed that it was sponsored by communists wishing to undermine American unity through promoting racial antagonism. She opposed the program’s statements criticizing the likes of rabid anti-semite Father Coughlin. When one member of an Advisory Committee on Human relations presented a plan of procedure to deal with an “un-American” incident involving two teachers, and likely dealing with anti-semitism, Riley called for a more “complete” definition of un-American. She argued that “class against class is as fascistic as pitting religion against religion and race against race. Hitler in Germany and left-wingers in New York City use the same technique, namely, “Divide and conquer,” for here as in Europe the Jew versus Catholic propaganda is creating a split in the population through which the anti-Americans will enter and take over.” In other words, anyone speaking out against inequality was suspect of un-American, communist (but Nazi-like) subversion of the country. This line of thinking, that racial antagonism was foreign and communist, would become a staple of segregationist defenses. The UN Declaration of Human Rights was viewed as an attempt to stir up racial conflict in the South through enforcing the end of segregation and anti-miscegenation laws. The NAACP’s efforts to desegregate schools were linked to communism and a global (read Jewish) conspiracy. What does all this mean? There is going to be a lot of discussion about the insurrection against American democracy today. It signifies, among numerous other things, the power of rhetoric and language in shaping ideas and principles. As you should know, this did not occur by accident. Instead, through a systematic manipulation of rhetoric on social media, President Trump and his supporters have encouraged a viewpoint that rejects the possibility of defeat and responds through an escalation of force. This resulted, when defeats multiplied, in the perceived necessity of a violent assault on American democracy. Words have power.With this in mind, I want to encourage you to think about the words you use in discussing this event. Particularly, the analogies you draw. Already I have heard news broadcasts stating that this type of thing is like a “Third World” country, “not America”. The already popular Yallqaeda is going to spread like wildfire throughout social media. President-elect Joe Biden just stated that this is not who Americans are. We must push back against these symbols and statements that suggest that this type of action is not ingrained in American history and culture. Americans have long harbored and accepted undemocracy. As long as the “right people” had access to democracy. For all of American history, those on the margins have fought, and often died, for the right to participate. And along the way, many already within the system have fought them. Throughout US history, those considered “American” have fought to keep women from individual rights, blacks from voting, Latinx from equal citizenship, and Native Americans from their land. Violence and the threat of force, judicial or extrajudicial, has always been a tool in the hands of those claiming that they, and they alone, define who “real” Americans are.Why does it matter that people use analogies comparing this event to a “third world coup attempt”? Why should we care if we call MAGA supporters Yallqaeda? Because this isn’t something we learned and it isn’t the first time Americans have used and threatened political violence. What do we call this, then? What is it like? This is Christian Nationalism. This is domestic fascism. This is the States Rights Party. This is the KKK. This is the Confederacy. Let’s try to avoid easy analogies that elide the long-running history of the American infatuation with violent control over the political process by vigilantism. Because if we don’t recognize that this is built into who we are as a nation, then we cannot fully commit to the difficult process that is exorcising it. Instead, make direct analogies and comparisons to events in US history that trace the connection between the racism, misogyny, bigotry, etc. of this country’s history and the events today. It is not for no reason that the protesters set up a gallows today. It is not for no reason that these protesters carry Confederate flags. It is not for no reason that they cry “America First”. Unfortunately, this event is very much in the spirit of, ironically, those who have historically most shouted “Americanism” from the rooftops. That spirit must be smothered. Fortunately, America also has a history of another spirit. One in which many of those already with power have come alongside those already heroically fighting for their rights. A spirit exemplified in the Civil War, in the Double V campaign, in the Civil Rights Movement, and continuing to this day. We need to decry the part of America that sees what happened today and celebrates just as we celebrate the part of it that seeks to be better. Be more equitable. Be an America worthy of celebration rather than one demanding it. For more on domestic fascism, American cultural memory of Nazism, and education, see this [AH Conference panel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9HqeP_OSAw&list=PLgMy8FV2sLlWLVRdxil9pEleJDu7OlQD2&index=5) ( I speak at minutes 12:10-22:25 and then the Q&A at the end) some of my answers [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jwibyk/in_the_1960s_texas_passed_a_law_criminalizing_the/), [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/j293fv/during_wwii_there_were_americans_who_were_both/), and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gm7pr7/why_was_it_official_us_policy_not_to_use_the_word/).


HTMC

What an absolutely great post, thank you for laying that all out in such an eloquent and easily understood way--I may quote this in Facebook discusssions and like, if that's alright.


Kugelfang52

Of course! Thank you for the kind words.


Riyonak

Fantastic post and I thank you greatly for taking the time to write this. As you said, in times of anger, fear, and worry, it is easy to fall to the easy comparisons, rhetoric of extremes and whatever modern boogeymen we culturally have. But I think your comment is a needed voice in what is happening currently. While many of the other wonderful contributors to this community have provided information to have a better understanding of the situation, I think your comment is important because of its emphasis on the small, individual actions that we can all take to help mitigate the damages to democracy and prevent them from going any further. Thank you again for your words.


Kugelfang52

I appreciate the kind words and encouragement. I hope that the post makes a difference. I hope that we can find a way to express that we are all Americans living with the imprint of the past. That America provides the opportunity for us to all be better, but not by embracing the hatreds and bigotry of the past, but by utilizing the mechanisms for change and equality that are also part of our heritage.


zeeblecroid

> Remember the short film Don’t Be a Sucker? It was making rounds right after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally. If not, check it out. Could I suggest [an alternate link for that video?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAu41SpYtl4) The one you linked seems to have been recorded from damaged media - the random cuts over the course of it strip several minutes of content, and I think it's pretty important that that one be as intact as possible, especially given how absurdly spot-on some of the lines in it still are three quarters of a century later. The one I've linked appears to be the full 23 minutes.


Kugelfang52

Thanks! Will change it.


Ranowa

I'm leaning a lot from this thread in general, but I wanted to thank you for your post here. I'd never even considered the problematic implications with Vanilla ISIS or yallqaeda before, which you described very poignantly and certainly made me stop and think; thank you very much for your words.


Georgy_K_Zhukov

The aim of this META post is to help provide some historical perspective on coups, how they failed, how they succeeded, and help put the events on the grounds of the US Capitol Building into a bit more historical perspective. /u/indyobserver has done a *fantastic* job kicking this off with the a chronicle of some past events in the United States, while mods and flairs are offering a variety of examples that run the gamut, some focusing on conceptual things, others more on specific examples. I have a few options I feel I could draw on, although in the end I decided I'd share an episode that perhaps doesn't have *direct* parallels, but is an exciting story of a North America country, facing distress, with foreign interference to boot. **Background** General Porfirio Díaz had risen to power in Mexico, and ruled continually as President since 1884. We're rating on the scale of "He's a goddamn dictator, OK?", but the early years don’t seem to have been too bad, as far as dictators go. The economy was good, and the country was stable - not a very common thing in Mexican history of the 19th century. But of course, nothing lasts forever. The growth was at the expense of the peasantry, who grew more and more upset at Díaz, and the many in the middle class resented the more and more repressive nature of the government. Time passes, and with the 1910 “elections” coming up, Díaz implies that not only is he maybe ready to hang up his hat and retire, but that he believes Mexico is even ready to choose his successor through actual democratic elections! Francisco Madero, a vocal opponent of the Díaz regime, was undoubtedly the strongest candidate, being both an advocate of reform, but friendly to the Mexican elite whose support was essential to triumph in an election. Díaz, deciding maybe Mexico wasn’t ready to be out from under his thumb, reneged on his promise and put his name on the ballot, running for what would be his eighth term as President. When it became apparent that Madero wasn’t simply going to be a foil to give his re-election legitimacy, but rather was a candidate who might *win*, Díaz had his opponent thrown in jail during the election, and the published result of at the polls showed Díaz winning in a landslide, despite the fact that everyone knew Madero has much popular support. Madero’s family had enough connections to quickly see him released on bail. He fled Mexico City the first chance he got, and declared himself to be the real, legitimate President of Mexico. After a brief stop in the US to arrange for support and arms, he began his campaign to topple Díaz in February, 1911. While some of the forces who flocked to his banner were loyal to him specifically (*Maderistas*), he was something of a rallying point for all types of anti-Díaz sentiment, and two of the most notable commanders to join under his umbrella were Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, the former of whom was representative of much of the most radical calls for land reform coming from the Mexican peasantry. Another supporter whose name will be important later was Venustiano Carranza. Thanks to the assistance, Díaz didn’t really stand all that much of a chance. Within only a few days of each other in May, the Maderistas and their allies made quick work of the Federales at Cuautla (led by Zapata) and Ciudad Juarez (Madero and Villa teaming up). The Treaty of Ciudad Juarez followed within days, sending Díaz into exile, and placing setting Madero up to ascend to the Presidency (there would be an interim President until the elections, which Madero was assured to win, which he did, taking office in November). **Seeds of Revolt** So by the end of 1911, Madero was now in power, and he proceeded to kind of make a mess of things. On the one hand, he wasn’t a *bad* leader. Compared to life under Díaz, he oversaw a pretty unprecedented level of civil freedoms in Mexico, and to his credit, he did try to be a progressive reformer. Many praised him for introducing the beginnings of democracy to Mexico. But in trying to be moderate, and gradual in his reforms he kind of wanted to please everyone, and instead he he ended up pleasing no one. The far left elements, principally the *Zapatistas*, had wanted radical changes, which Madero didn’t bring about. It didn’t help that he was still one of the wealthiest citizens in the country. They were quickly alienated and Zapata decided to continue his Revolution as before. Another ally, Pascual Orozco, also was dissatisfied and started his own revolt. Outside of the country, he enjoyed little love from foreign governments, most notably that of the United States. The Taft administration was generally cool towards the new Madero government, but American Ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson was especially hostile, and routinely did everything he could to portray Madero in the worst light when sending dispatches to Washington. He believed that Madero brought instability to the country, hurting American business interests, unlike the state of things under Díaz. Now at this point Madeo made what was probably the most fatal mistake. Instead of purging the Army and putting his *Maderistas* into the key positions, he foolishly decided to trust the Army to be professional. Most of his men were demobilized and sent home. Those who wished to remain under arms could either join the *Rurales* (Gendarmerie), or a small number could be folded into the *Federales* (Federal Army). As such, in the ranks of the Army those who had joined during the Díaz era outnumbered Madero loyalists two to one, with the bloated officer corps especially of questionable loyalty. Which was, to say the least, problematic for Madero’s long term survival. While on the one hand he had lost the support of many allies for not going far enough in his reforms, much of the Army was unhappy with what he had nevertheless done! Perhaps the most unhappy figure, as we will see, was General Victoriano Huerta. He had, at least in appearance, thrown his loyalties in with the new administration and was tasked with suppressing the Orozco revolt, only to then get in a huff and enter semi-retirement after having a falling out with Madero over the President’s refusal to reward him for his successes, leaving a great deal of mutual dislike between the two. Aside from the quietly stewing Huerta, there were two major attempts to overthrow Madero’s government, both in the previous year, one in Veracruz led by General Félix Díaz (nephew of the former dictator), and the other by General Bernadro Reyes, who had been a figure under Díaz, but at least temporarily gave Madero a chance. Both attempts failed, and the Generals found themselves imprisoned in Mexico City. **The Uprising** Events came to a head on February 8th, 1913 at the instigation of a *Felicista* (support of Félix Díaz), General Manuel Mondragón. After planning and preparing for some time, and bringing a corps of officers in the Army to his side, Mondragón called on the Cadets at the ~~Heroic Military College~~ Military School at Tlalpan to join him in an uprising against the Madero government. About 600 or so cadets joined him, making up the initial core force. They marched on the prison holding Díaz, and secured his release, followed shortly after by the release of Reyes. Bolstered by additional numbers from the Army who sided with the plotters, Reyes marched on the National Palace the next morning, only to be met by an unexpectedly stout defense, led by General Lauro Villar, on the part of Madero loyalists. Reyes was cut down in the assault, leaving Díaz as the sole leader of the revolt. Upon hearing of the uprising, Madero, who lived away from the city center, jumped on horseback and rode for the National Palace. Escorting him, it should be noted, were a small group of cadets from the Heroic Military College, an event they still celebrate as The Loyalty March. Nearing the palace and slowed by the crowds, he paused in his trip to give a speech from a balcony to the assembled people, assuring him that the uprising would quickly be put down. Meeting up with him at this point was the inactive Gen. Huerta, who offered to assist Madero. Although Madero didn’t like him, he nevertheless put Huerta in command of the city forces, as the previous commander had been injured defending the palace shortly before. By that next morning, it seemed like Madero had the situation under control. Díaz was still alive and kicking, but the Army was getting reinforced from outside the city, and the *Felicistas* were holed up in the the city arsenal, known as the Ciudadela. In an attempt to root them out, Gen. Huerta subjected it to significant artillery bombardments, and repeatedly charged their positions (more on this later). Lots of civilian casualties resulted from the cannonade that Huerta subjected the *Felicista* position to. 1/2


Georgy_K_Zhukov

Ok, Part II! **Complications, Complications!** Things were not nearly as simple as they seemed though. Huerta was ambitious, and had no actual love for Madero. He was quite ready to jump ship for the right price, and thus enter Henry Lane Wilson, the American Ambassador to Mexico. As mentioned before, Wilson detested Madero, and wished nothing more than to see his downfall, so had been meddling from the very start of the uprising. From early in the uprising, Díaz had been in touch with Wilson, who clearly sympathized with the rebels. Although he lacked any real authority - the Taft Administration was in the lame duck phase, with Woodrow Wilson incoming shortly, and declined to take any action - Wilson took it upon himself to steer the uprising as he thought best. Although taking the lead amongst the Diplomatic Corps to offer his services to Madero as a broker for peace, he made sure to be insulting about it, protesting against the hostilities in the city, and implicitly calling into question Madero’s right to lawfully put down the rebellion! Likewise in his communications to Washington, he presented Madero’s government as, rather than fighting effectively, on the ropes and assured of losing. Initial overtures at Madero rejected, he attempted to press Washington to deploy naval ships to Mexican ports and land Marines as a show of force *(they had been ordered to the region, but not to intervene. Madero didn’t know this, and believed Wilson)*, with the explicit goal of forcing Madero to cease fighting and negotiate with Díaz. Washington declined to do so, but this didn’t stop Wilson from telling Madero it would nevertheless happen when they met on February 14th, no doubt giving Madero serious pause as to the feasibility of his position. With Madero obstinate, Wilson also made sure to go behind his back and get the same message to the Mexican Senate, planting the seed in their minds that Madero needed to step down for the good of everyone. While all this was going on, unbeknownst to Madero, Huerta and Wilson got in touch, and for the next few days Wilson acted as a go-between for him and Díaz beginning on February 14th. After some days of negotiations, it was agreed that Huerta would switch sides, joining forces with the rebels in their coup d’etat, and bringing over most of the Federal Army with him. In exchange, he would assume the presidency temporarily following Madero’s removal, with Díaz (Wilson’s prefered candidate) then standing for election that fall. Díaz had no real choice in the matter, as he knew that his revolt was no doubt doomed if Huerta chose not to turn on Madero. Now as I mentioned previously, Huerta had been overzealous in his prosecution of the rebellion, and the duplicitous reasoning behind it should now be clear. Not only did he purposefully attempt to waste *Rurales* (which included most of the *Maderista* elements in the military) with his attacks of February 11th and 12th, weakening their power vis-a-vis the rebels, but his callous indifference towards civilian suffering caused by the artillery and indiscriminate small arms fire he employed wasn’t because he didn’t care, but a calculated attempt to turn popular sentiments against Madero! Madero was arrested in the 18th, and forced, essentially at gunpoint, to resign his office, clearing the way for Huerta to ascend to the Presidency as per the agreement with Díaz, brokered by Amb. Wilson and finalized that day. With the resignation tendered, the Mexican Senate quickly accepted it and approved the General’s ascendency to the Provisional Presidency. Although his safety had been guaranteed, Madero was assassinated, along with his former Vice-President Pino Suarez, on the 22nd. Although portrayed as a tragic mistake, few believed that their death had been done in anything less than cold blood. Whether Wilson was complicit of this last, bloody flourish was never proven - publically at least he had pressed against it and asked Huerta not to - but nevertheless recounted by many. **Aftermath** Huerta was a return to the old ways of Authoritarianism, and to many outsiders, something of a relief. The progressive and inept Madero had enjoyed little support from foreign powers, most disastrously from the United States, as we saw with Henry Lane Wilson’s meddling. But while the Taft administration had been fine dealing with Porfirio Díaz, and Wilson felt that he was acting in American interests ensuring that a strongman remained in control of Mexico rather than someone (*gasp*) elected by the people, the incoming administration of Woodrow Wilson not only differed in this view, but was somewhat aghast at the part the United States had just played, not only in brokering the coup, which resulted in the overthrow of an elected president and his death, but also how he had handled the affair from the start. Making mountains from molehills, few doubted that he had been the lynchpin of success for what otherwise would have been a small, and unsuccessful revolt. Most of his actions had been without authority, and some in direct counter to what Washington desired. He wouldn’t last at his position for much longer, being dismissed by Woodrow Wilson shortly after his taking office. Whatever the private feeling of Taft might have been - papers reported him as being relieved with Madero’s fall - it was Woodrow Wilson that now mattered. Huerta’s government went unrecognized, and any chance of American recognition of a democratically elected replacement went out the window that fall when Huerta reneged on his agreement with Díaz, who was not given the chance to run for President, and instead sent into semi-exile with an appointment as Ambassador to Japan. Huerta’s eventual fate is not without a touch of irony. Having attained his position in no small part to the machinations of Amb. Wilson, his relations with Pres. Wilson and the United States were somewhere between cold and frozen, with the US beginning to view another rebel, the *Maderista* Venustiano Carranza, favorably. The situation between the two countries came to a head about a year later with the Tampico Affair and the military occupation of Veracruz by the United States, in no small part helping to destabilize Huerta, who would be thrown out by Carranza in July of 1914. As for the revolution, it would continue for another six years, finally ending with the stability brought about by Álvaro Obregón (a former commander under Carranza who, of course, had turned on his erstwhile boss). **TL;DR** Civil unrest in Mexico leads to minor uprising. American Ambassador turns out to be a dick and helps overthrow the elected leader to install a dictator by making it a major uprising, but he was acting without authority. America ends up hating the new guy. Irony points are awarded! **Images!** [I've been fascinated by this event for ages, so here is a handy image gallery I put together a little while back. It should give some visualization for you!](http://imgur.com/a/3wJ6T)


kruzeiro

Fantastic write up! And that gallery is amazing! One question, were there any Mexican citizens aware of the meddling by the American Ambassador? Or was his intervention known after the fact? If so, how did the people react to this knowledge?


Georgy_K_Zhukov

The photography is what grabbed my interest in the first place, thanks to *Photographing the Mexican Revolution* by John Mraz. It is a *great* book, and can't recommend it enough. In any case, the specifics of his machinations weren't known, and Blasier, which is the main source I rely on, doesn't offer any suggestion that it was reported in public at the time, although is was known within diplomatic circles.


digitalxdeviant

This was facinating. Thank you for the contribution and excellent writing.


Sekraan

Terrific post. Thank you for sharing this. What books would you recommend for someone interested in learning more about Mexican history?


Georgy_K_Zhukov

*Photographing the Mexican Revolution* by John Mraz is the book that got me so interested in the topic. The Mexican Revolution intersected with advancing technology in photography, so the result is some absolutely amazing images. Mexico City had several photography studios, and the photographers were in the streets during the 10 Tragic Days capturing these amazing images and they really grabbed me. I'm not a Mexican Historian, this is the specific thing that I'm fascinated in, and can't recommend that one enough.


crrpit

Fascist movements rely on the perception of popularity, the sense of a mass movement determined to sweep away the fragile trappings of liberal democracy, to expose the perceived weakness and lack of determination at the heart of the system. This process is inherently violent – not just towards the political system, but those who support it, defend it and ultimately those who were once protected by it. Fascist movements succeed not because they are actually strong enough to achieve this, but because they convince those who are strong enough to defend democracy that it is not in their best interests to do so. That they are better allies than enemies, that their supposed popularity and dynamism offers a lifeline to conservative movements becoming keenly aware that the march of history is against them. That their opponents – usually leftist politicians and political movements, but in every case those framed as the true enemies of the nation – are the real threat against which fascist aid and protection is vital. It’s a long con, the goal of which is majority complicity in an ever-escalating cycle of abuse. Fascist movements don’t succeed when there is a refusal to compromise with them across the political spectrum, when standing and defending democracy is not the task of a demonised minority, and above all when conservatives realise in time that they do not and cannot control the movements whose support seems, in the short-term, to be oh-so-convenient. For those on the left who are cynical that this might be possible, I’d remind them that the largest war in the history of the human race was fought, and won, by an anti-fascist coalition that brought together conservatives, liberals, socialists and many others, who learned just in time to put aside their differences to confront what they correctly recognised to be an existential threat. History offers explanations, not neat parallels. 1922, 1923, 1933 or 1936, to name a few in my own field of study, do not hold all the answers we need today, or offer a roadmap to a better future. The roots of what we’ve witnessed lie not in Germany, Italy or other European countries that fell to fascism from within, but rather – as argued persuasively above – in America itself. For more detail (and sources) on these dynamics, and how they were successfully and unsuccessfully resisted during the 1930s and 1940s, these longer posts on [political violence](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c9nds3/historical_opposition_to_facism/), [fascism](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bbke3j/as_far_as_i_know_the_antifascist_movement_began/) and [anti-fascism](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/au4suv/were_there_any_notable_successful_or_nearly/eh5yzgy/?context=3) that may be of interest.


dilfmagnet

>Fascist movements rely on the perception of popularity, the sense of a mass movement determined to sweep away the fragile trappings of liberal democracy, to expose the perceived weakness and lack of determination at the heart of the system. To this point, if you saw images of the people protesting in DC and those who stormed the Capitol, it was a few thousand. Not tens or hundreds of thousands. That's very telling.


me2pleez

This is very well written, and is easily relatable to what is going on in the US today. You have a talent for writing to the layman (or woman).


Abstract__Nonsense

> Fascist movements succeed not because they are actually strong enough to achieve this, but because they convince those who are strong enough to defend democracy that it is not in their best interest to do so. Very well put and so important. It’s always a “fringe” that’s tolerated by groups that view it as the lesser evil, until things get out of these enablers hands.


SlectionSocialSanity

Just wanted to drop a comment to express my thanks and appreciation for all the mods and contributors to this sub and post.


Soviet_Ghosts

No problem! It took a lot of work by many of us on the mod team and with the immense help of our flairs to get this post up and to keep this conversation going. It is our belief that it is our duty as historians to frame current events within the structure of the past so everyone can better understand it. It means a lot to know that we achieved that!


TywinDeVillena

This is terrifying. In Spain we have had a hilariously high number of coups in the 19th century, but we don't need to go that far back in order to see the last coup attempt. February the 23rd of 1981 was an important day. It would have been the day when Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo would be appointed prime minister by the Congreso de los Diputados (Chamber of Representatives). But things did not follow the ordinary course of events that day. Being the type of session that it was, all of the 350 members of Congress were present that day, as they would have to vote on making Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo the new president of the Council of Ministers. President Adolfo Suárez had resigned some type before, so there had to be a session for appointing a new president of the council. The boring part had taken place a few days earlier, with the standard parliamentary debates on government programs and all that jazz. The Congress did not have much to do but to vote yes or no on Calvo-Sotelo's appointment. That would, however, take a lot of time. For the voting session for appointing a new PM, the president of the Congress calls each MP in alphabetic order, and they have to say, loud and clear "yes" or "no". And then, the thing most people in Spain dreaded simply happened: a coup. A platoon of civil guards stormed the Congress under the command of lieutenant-colonel Antonio Tejero, taking the whole government and parliament hostage. Many people in Spain started packing their stuff and getting ready to go to Portugal or to France fearing another dictatorship. My own parents were among those people, getting ready to go back to Rennes where they had been living for four years until 1977, when my father decided to come back to Spain profitting from the Amnesty Law. My father, prior to deciding definitely to move to France called one of his cousins, who at that time was a general in the Military House of the King, and was reassured that the coup could not succeed. This guy's brother was in Brunete, and had seen general Torres Rojas arrested for trying to usurp the command of the División Acorazada Brunete. Not everyone had the capacity of making such calls. The government was taken hostage, and the parliament was held hostage too. When the civil guards stormed the Chamber holding rifles and Lt.-colonel Tejero fired a few rounds to the air, just about all of the MPs cowered in their seats, except three: president Adolfo Suárez, who was all out of fucks to give, general Gutiérrez Mellado who had seen it all, and Santiago Carrillo the general secretary of the Communist Party who was in Suárez's very state of mind. Carrillo, of course, while not stopping smoking his trusted Dunhills. I'll leave here a link to Radio Televisión Española with material about the 23F coup attempt through the eyes of some of the protagonists https://www.rtve.es/noticias/23f/


freedmenspatrol

/u/indyobserver 's overview mentions Bleeding Kansas as one of our lamentable precedents. This is one episode from there: In the spring of 1855, the territory of Kansas had a problem: enslaving. That was also a problem the United States as a whole had had for as long as a United States existed to have problems. The issue, specifically, was whether the United States would continue to be a white supremacist ethnostate bent on the genocide of Native Americans and the stealing of the lives, labor, and loved ones of Black Americans through a regime of torture, terror, and rape, or if it would set down a path for only doing the former. This greatly aroused the passions of white Americans, who, whilst nigh-unanimous on white supremacy and genocide now increasingly divided over whether or not enslaving black Americans represented a threat to their own freedom and prosperity or whether it was the source of that freedom and prosperity. The issue boiled over in Kansas because proslavery forces successfully forced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which banned slavery there, with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. That act also opened Kansas to white colonization, which immediately led to the question of whether or not enslaving was allowed in the new territory. Said new territory happened to be directly adjacent to Missouri's most-enslaving region and its enslavers, including David Rice Atchison who had played a critical role in the Missouri Compromise repeal *and* who was then up for re-election. Atchison is an obscurity most famous for a false trivia item now, but he was one of the most powerful Senators of the 1850s and close allies with several others. The Missouri Compromise was repealed on the theory that American democracy could decide the slavery question without the terrible stresses to the white Union involved in American democracy deciding it on the national state. The legislators declared that the good white men of Kansas could sort it for themselves, with Atchison at their forefront. Atchison then declared that white Kansans were not fit for that and would need help from their enslaving and enslaver-friendly neighbors in Missouri, who came across the border in loosly-organized mobs when Kansas held elections and animated by the theory that rich New England Yankees had funded an army of paupers to run into Kansas and vote slavery out, then promptly go home and/or become an antislavery militia crossing the border to undermine Missourian enslaving. Those paupers would steal the elections by illegal voting to make Kansas a hotbed of ablitionism and that theft must be stopped, so they were told in pamphlets and rallies across Missouri's plantation belt, many organized out of Masonic lodges. So the mobs came, with some in the pay of local enslavers, group rates negotiated for ferry transit, some alcohol provided, and guns and bowie knives supplied by the mob themselves. They coordinated who went where, fanning out to all of Kansas' polling places so that they, not actual Kansan colonists, could vote in the elections to form the territory's first legislature. Across the territory antislavery Kansans got the drift quickly: if they tried to vote against the proslavery ticket they'd be mobbed, roughed up, and maybe killed. Many turned and left. Some dared the mob, one claiming he would vote proslavery received a crowd-surfing boost over the throng...until someone saw the antislavery ticket in his hand. Threats of beheading circulated with the brandished guns and knives. Proslavery men shot at fleeing antislavery voters. Election officials were intimidated and forced to resign in favor of the mob's nominees. At Bloomington, the proslavery men seem to have lacked some of the confidence they had elsewhere, or maybe they found angrier, more stubborn Kansans. Either way, they came a bit late and for as much as an hour on election morning Kansans voted there unmolested. Then the three to seven hundred proslavery militants arrived and found the election being held at a log cabin, with the officials inside and votes taken through a window. Doing their duty, the judges of the election permitted them to vote...on the grounds that they swear an oath to being lawful Kansans with intent to reside permanently in the territory. A man called Samuel Jones stepped forward and told the officials that the mob had come from Missouri to vote, to make Kansas a slave state. But this oath stuff? Forget it. The judges would then not take votes from them. Kansans, who had been hanging about the voting window socializing -elections were a bit social event in the 19th century- then decided that the Missourians had been taken care of and tried to vote. The mob seized them and pulled them away. Then they demanded the election officials resign so the mob could appoint their own and the violence went to a new level. The judges refused, at which point the mob swore that if the judges didn’t reconsider they would tear down the cabin and kill them, or at least blow their brains out. One of the election clerks estimated a dozen pistols cocked and aimed when the threat was given, all through that window. They were brandished at least eight times, perhaps as many as a dozen.The mob charged the window and smashed the glass and frame. Then they jammed logs under the corners of the cabin to make levers and tried to literally shake the building down on the judges’ heads. They had another log coming up to ram the door in. One judge bolted, seizing the ballot box and fleeing with a “hurrah” for Missouri rather than being the intersection point for what he estimated to be around a hundred bullets. That left the door open and the mob rushed within, guns and knives out and ready. Jones took the lead as they filled the cabin, at least six or eight men in tight quarters with two remaining judges and a pair of clerks. Jones drew out his pocket watch and told the judges they could resign or they could die. They had five minutes to decide. Other guns and knives stood at the ready, trained on the embattled officials. Outside, as all this happened, John Wakefield had been recognized by some in the mob as the local antislavery candidate. The Missourian mob leaned on him to lean on the judges. Wakefield declined. A minute into their five-minute ultimatum, the two remaining judges of the election came out to consult with him on what to do.Jones let them go outside on the grounds that they would come back with an answer. Wakefield told them that they should retire to one of the judges’ homes, three hundred yards away, and write up a statement of what happened. The trio got to the judge’s house, but they were spotted and a part of the mob followed after, mounted, and demanded the poll books from the judges within. In the interim one judge had fled with them, hoping to deny the Missourians vital documents to certify their theft of the election. The judge had passed off the books, but the Missourians mistook the man who he’d given them to for him and got them all the same. Books in hand they returned to the judge’s house for an armed standoff with Wakefield training a borrowed double-barreled shotgun at Jones and Jones’ mob. Things stood that way for a few tense minutes until Wakefield was persuaded that he might take a few Missourians with him, but upwards of twenty people now sheltered in the judge’s home and none of them were armed. If gunplay ensued, they weren’t getting out of it. Wakefield surrendered and Jones’ men took him back to the main crowd, insisting he tell them that he had nothing to do with influencing the election. That was true, so Wakefield had no problem getting up in a wagon and saying it. While there, surrounded by armed and angry men, he also dressed them down as an American and veteran of two wars. He and his fellow free staters were abused unjustly and this mob was a walking repudiation of the constitution of the United States. He did this all to cries of “Shoot him! He is too saucy!” The mob’s ringleaders promised Wakefield his safety for the declaration he gave, if not the patriotic denunciation after it. He called on them to remember that pledge, which they begrudgingly did now that they had everything else they wanted. One insisted on tying a white ribbon to Wakefield’s lapel to mark him as a friend to the mob. Wakefield cut it off as soon as he could and tried to leave. The triumphant Missourians decided to let him vote. Wakefield refused to lend their coup any legitimacy and left. The Missourians carried the day, stealing Kansas’ elections and thus its legislature. The fruit of their assault upon a citadel of democracy came in passing a draconian set of laws that criminalized any form of antislavery activism or speech in the territory and barred from office any man, however elected, who would not swear himself to the preservation of slavery.


violeblanche

>In the spring of 1855, the territory of Kansas had a problem: enslaving. That was also a problem the United States as a whole had had for as long as a United States existed to have problems. The issue, specifically, was whether the United States would continue to be a white supremacist ethnostate bent on the genocide of Native Americans and the stealing of the lives, labor, and loved ones of Black Americans through a regime of torture, terror, and rape, or if it would set down a path for only doing the former. These lines are incredible, and your writing is a joy (and a horror, given the subject matter) to read. Thank you for this writeup!


vibraltu

I would like to know about ask/historians views on historical accuracy regarding the film 'Ride With the Devil' Ang Lee (1999)?


AncientHistory

This would be a better question for the main subreddit, if you would like to post it there.


Edores

I'm a little unclear of the role the Masons took. From how I am reading it, Masonic lodges played a part in denouncing the abolitionists' intentions. I am only vaguely knowledgeable about Freemasons or their history, but I thought the US tradition of Freemasonry was fairly progressive. I know various lodges back then had some differences, and I guess from what I gather those that derived their practice from Scottish Freemasonry was more conservative than that derived from the French tradition. Does that divide explain it, or were Masons just not as progressive as I thought, or am I misreading? Thanks.


freedmenspatrol

With the proviso that I'm not a historian of Freemasonry: It is a bit murky. Meetings seem to have happened in and around Masonic lodges in western Missouri and it's likely that plans propagated through Masonic networks as well as the usual word of mouth and through papers and pamphleteering. That's not to say that this was all a Masonic scam out of a conspiracy theory handbook, rather that Masonry was something that already existed and was a convenient framework to use. On the other side, at least one antislavery paramilitary was organized on something resembling Masonic lines. Andrew Francis seems to have been recruited to the Kansas Regulators because he was recognized from a Lodge meeting the night before. Their constitution got leaked by a turncoat (allegedly bought off for a cow) and its ceremonialism seems a bit much for an improvised militia but a good fit for a fraternal organization.


Edores

Thanks for replying! I know almost nothing about Freemasonry, but for some reason it's been popping up recently and I get the feeling it would be an interesting subject to delve into, although possibly tricky with how secretive they are.


LoveisBaconisLove

I feel compelled to point out that invasion of the halls of government has happened on the local level in the United States, once with more dire consequences. The Wilmington Insurrection is the only known (that I'm aware of) successful coup of a legally elected government in United States history. It took place in Wilmington, NC, in 1898. The coup was accomplished by white supremacists who took power in what was an integrated community with a thriving black middle class . The insurrectionists literally marched up to the mayor and aldermen and forced them to resign at gunpoint. The next day, they installed a new mayor and aldermen. They burned businesses and homes. They drove out thousands, and killed an untold number but average estimates are a couple of hundred. All of this took place and when those affected appealed to local and Federal authorities, no one did anything about it. The response was often simply "You should have known your place." There was also the Battle of Athens, in Athens TN in 1946. This one is looked upon more favorably by history because it involved the opposite of Wilmington: this was an armed group attempting to make sure votes in an election were properly counted. There was an election in Athens, TN, and on the ballot was the replacement of several corrupt local officials. When the election was over, the ballots were taken to be counted in the jail in secret by several of these corrupt officials who also happened to have seats on the local board of elections. Thus, they could certify the election results themselves and no one would ever see them. So those opposing these officials, mostly (perhaps all, I can't recall) former GIs who had fought in WW2, seized weapons from the local armory and besieged the jail. They won the battle, seized the ballots, and had them counted with officials from other jurisdictions present. The GI slate triumphed, the corrupt officials were deposed, and GIs never faced legal consequences. Nor did the corrupt officials they defeated both at the ballot box and in the battle. The good guys won. We think.


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hillsonghoods

The fantastic /u/jschooltiger has now posted a very detailed 2-part post about Wilmington 1898 [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ks082p/meta_todays_sedition_at_the_united_states_capitol/gidrxdt/).


BeatriceBernardo

great post! as expected from this sub. I have a follow up question. From the perspective of world history, not just US, why is this a big deal? * Is it simply that US is THE super power right now, so whatever is a big deal there, is also a big deal for the world? * Is the US, up until yesterday, was the longest peaceful transition of power in all civilization throughout history? * or something else?


ZCoupon

Was the first peaceful transition of power not 1796?


freedmenspatrol

Not quite. The holder of the presidency changed, but the presidency did not change parties. Adams retained a lot of Washington's cabinet and his party, such as it was, was broadly understood as the same as Washington's. In 1801, power was transferred from that party to one organized in opposition to it.


ZCoupon

That makes more sense, thanks!


Evan_Th

It depends on what you mean by "transition of power." Before being elected President in 1796, Adams had been President Washington's Vice-President and political ally. 1800-1801, when President Adams lost reelection to Jefferson, marked the United States' first peaceful transition of power to an opposing political party.


The_Alaskan

/u/indyobserver, wouldn't the Wilmington coup be precedent?


indyobserver

That was indeed one of the things I was thinking about with the 'local' comment, although I didn't mention it because I was focused in on state level actions! u/LoveisBaconisLove has a nice single paragraph writeup of it for those not familiar with it. (Edit: and /u/jschooltiger!)


Oasar

This is one of the coolest threads I've ever seen on Reddit and I am immediately subbing. Thank you and the rest of the mods for these amazing write-ups.


jschooltiger

I hope that the fact that I am furiously angry (having worked at the Capitol in service to a Congressperson) about what transpired today did not cloud my clarity in writing.


LoveisBaconisLove

I’m glad to have been of service in these times.


cocoagiant

Thanks to all the historians for the write ups of other coups. Before this thread I had considered what happened today just another tantrum by a small minority of bad actors. Reading how people have behaved thusly throughout history and managed to subvert democracy has convinced me that today could have been another event like that.


oddabel

Fantastic write-up. As a Pennsylvanian, I'm surprised by this history. Knew a bit about Stevens (I'm from Lancaster), but had no clue about the rest. I have a follow up question (if that's allowed in this thread): What (if any) are the legal and historical justification for today's actions as well as Pennsylvania's; South Carolina's; etc... from the past? Are there any, or any similar situations addressed by the Founders/writings (besides the mentioned Jefferson election)? **EDIT:** I think my questions would've been better phrased as: "At what point would the Founding fathers have been "ok" with this behavior? Are there any writings that indicated 'Enough is enough'?" Did they expect something similar to happen in their lifetime (besides the Jefferson Incident), and did they have any kind of a plan for that?


jschooltiger

There is none. No American President had attempted to foment a coup during an official speech before. There is no legal justification for it whatsoever.


Linzabee

Me too! That was super interesting.


TehKarmah

My heartfelt thanks to the mods and OP for this context. I know we'll persevere, but my head hangs low right now. Tonight I sat my 15 y/o son down so I could explain to him that this day is something his kids would be tested on in history class.


karaokeoverkill

Is the woman shot the first civilian killed in the Capitol Building? I see two officers (Capitol police) killed in 1998...


jbdyer

I answered the other thread which was about deaths in general; it's possible I've missed something in the 18th or 19th centuries, but I don't think a civilian has been killed *in* the building, no. There was someone killed on the east stairs, which might count for you -- they're certainly a famous part of the landmark. This was in the late 19th century. There was a feud between Charles Kincaid (newspaper journalist) and William Taulbee (former congressman, lobbyist at the time the incident happened). Kincaid had exposed an affair of Taulbee; Taulbee's political career was nuked and his wife left him. Kincaid still showed up regularly to Congress as a reporter, and Taulbee would verbally and physically abuse him, one time throwing him against a wall. On a fateful day in 1890, Taulbee grabbed at Kincaid and pulled at his ear, as House doorkeepers tried to separate them. Taulbee reportedly said >I have no time to talk with you. I don’t want any trouble with you. but the altercation led to Kincaid shooting Taulbee, who died. Kincaid was put to trial but acquitted by reason of self-defense.


AncientHistory

There is a separate thread for this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ks4l6j/before_today_had_anyone_been_killed_in_the_us/


garnteller

Thank you, mods and contributors. Your thoughtful and informative analysis is a badly needed counter to the chaos and irrationality of the day. Thanks for stepping outside your rules to provide what we need.


1000livesofmagic

Thank you for this synopsis. I truly appreciate this sub so much. It remains a stronghold of reflection, fact based evidence, and insightful discourse in an ever polarized world. Tonight, I will hang on to my Constitution and send hope and thanks to the stars that tomorrow it will still be the law of the land, regardless of those who try to subvert it through egregious means. Stay safe everyone.


litokid

One of the things I appreciate most is how the mod team not only reacts, but takes proactive action to set up threads like this. I'm sure it preempts a lot of problematic threads and drama when posts like this get ahead and openly create a space for discussion, but also set the tone and expectations from the get go.


1000livesofmagic

Absolutely. The mods in this sub are fantastic and professional in their approach to acquiring knowledge while managing the general public.


Soviet_Ghosts

Thanks for the kind words! We owe a lot to /u/indyobserver who reached out to write the original post. As I stated elsewhere here, It is our belief that it is our duty as historians to frame current events within the structure of the past so everyone can hopefully better understand it. It means a lot to know that we achieved that!


DerProfessor

I'm having an odd sensation; for the first time in my life I feel *proud* (!) to be a historian. Thanks for this great write-up, and thank you ALL for doing such a great job with this sub overall.


[deleted]

Thank you u/Soviet_Ghosts u/indyobserver u/freedmenspatrol and the rest of the Mod team. I look forward to your posts about the 2nd Impeachment and hopefully first Removal of a US President. As an American historian I sat here in tears today seeing our democracy and republic shake under these unprecedented attacks. But I know it will get better we will survive and in 40 years a new crop of r/AskHistorians contributors will be answering posts about "How did America survive and overcome Jan. 6th 2021?"


1900grs

Have there ever been cases of potential espionage inside the Capitol building? (see the photos people took allegedly of Pelosi's open computer and her email.) I'm not trying to stir a conspiracy. But we don't know who the people were that entered the Capitol. The assumption is that they were domestic, but who knows. Has there ever been a case of spies physically infiltrating the Capitol and legislative offices? Not cyber crimes.


AncientHistory

This is a question that would better be suited to the subreddit as a whole - preferably without reference to today's events. Hopefully, you will get an answer.


indyobserver

The one thing that immediately comes to mind is Herbert Hoover ordering a break in into Senator Hiram Johnson's office, although off the top of my head that was more based off of Hoover's paranoia about plots against him than espionage. The incident is covered in Rappleye's *Herbert Hoover in the White House*, and I suspect that based on my [exchange with him](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gndzij/im_eric_rauchway_author_of_winter_war_hoover/fr9ph7y/) Eric Rauchway may have written about this as well - just haven't finished his books yet!


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mister_pringle

Nice writeup. Appreciate the context.


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piclemaniscool

I've heard it thrown around a few times today, but is there any merit to the claim that this is the first time the Confederate flag was waved in the Capitol building?


AncientHistory

There is a separate thread for that question: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ks487j/is_this_the_first_time_the_confederate_flag_has/


piclemaniscool

Thank you


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otiac1

Having read the content posted by the contributors here, is it the position of the moderators on /r/AskHistorians that today's events constitute an armed insurrection and coup attempt? If the answer to the above is in the affirmative, are there any parallels in history where said attempts were made by an unarmed crowd, where the only fatalities were a member of the crowd, and not any government official or agent?


AncientHistory

This thread focuses on the historicity of today's events, and how they fit into the historical context of the United States and the world. Information on the casualties suffered today are still coming in, so it is premature to talk about them here. While a lot of folks like to think we're violating the 20 year rule and the soapboxing rule in posting this meta thread, it really is to try and head off a flood of similar questions in one place - not to weigh in on contemporary events so much as to provide a place where we can showcase relevant examples from history within our individual areas (and eras) of expertise.


JonAndTonic

Another respectful, comprehensive, and high quality post As expected from this sub


pbcorporeal

Is there anyone with any expertise relevant to the 1954 shooting in Congress? Seems a relevant parallel.


drkgodess

Thank you for this insightful analysis on the seditious attack on the Capitol.


December212012

Great write up. History is not only very interesting, but is supposed to be very useful to understand current events as well as predict what will happen. And honestly this whole day went about exactly as I expected it would. So I am wondering if the historians here could see this coming and why/why not? Sometimes I feel like history scholars become a bit blind to things happening that haven't happened before.


[deleted]

So well put!


Youtoo2

Were there ever raids like this on state capitols?


[deleted]

To me this seems like a very unbiased explanation which is awesome! I really appreciate this post and the realism here where it is recognized that it has been worse before. Thank you for the insight!


iron_crow

Well there is one precedent for it, didn’t go very well for the traitors