Forum: history.stackexchange.com
Tags: <russia><revolution><egypt><arabia><arab-spring>
Title: What is a difference between the revolution in Egypt that sprung recently and the Russian Revolution of 1917
Question: What is a difference between the revolution in Egypt that sprung recently and the Russian Revolution of 1917  i need to find a difference between the revolution that happened recently in Egypt, forcing mubarak out of power and the russian revolution of 1917.   The difference must be related to the causes and circumstances around the revolutions.

Answers:
sents: text: While there are many similarities in the causes (high unemployment, poverty, a feeling of opression from the regime etc.), the mechanics are somewhat different.
text: I would say that in the Russian revolution of 1917, the people had a leader, an elite, and an ideology of how the state should be after the revolution.
text: While it is true, in hindsight, that the leader and elite were working mostly for themselves, and the ideology never materialised into proper Communism (they got stuck in the transitional phase)
text: , there was at least a clear thought as to where the revolution was going, and what it wanted to achieve.
text: With the recent uprising in Egypt, you could metaphorically say that it wasn't one revolution of a million people, but a million single-person revolutions.
text: There was no clear ideology binding the protesters, except that the current situation must be changed.
text: There was no clear vision of what it should be changed to .
text: As a caveat, note that the Arab Spring is only barely over, and we do not yet have the proper historical perspective with which to view it.
text: That will be for the historians of the next generation.
answer_details: author: history.stackexchange.com/users/517/Carmi
score: 4
sents: text: This is a homework-style question and should be tagged as such.
text: That said, comparing the wiki articles for the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the Russian Revolution , we can come up with a few basic differences.
text: One key difference is the scale and scope of the results.
text: For instance, Wikipedia notes some of the concessions given in 2011: Ouster of President Mubarak and Prime Ministers Nazif and Shafik; Assumption of power by the Armed Forces; Suspension of the Constitution, dissolution of the Parliament; Disbanding of State Security Investigations Service; Dissolution of the NDP, the former ruling party of Egypt and transfer of its assets to the state Prosecution of Mubarak and his family and his former ministers Now of course the conditions in Egypt are still fluid, but very simply we can note that the stakes in 1917 were quite different.
text: The current military "guardians" of Egypt are not the Bolsheviks who took over power after crushing the Russian Empire.
text: At any rate, Wikipedia notes some of the major results (my emphasis): Abdication of Nicholas II
text: End of the Russian Empire Bolsheviks' takeover of power [!]
text: Start of the Russian Civil War
text: So of course there are similarities: both were "people's revolutions", and ended up disrupting the existing power structures; but the revolution of 1917 was of a very different character and driven by a different, more 'cohesive' political agenda -- that is to say, on my reading there is a broad and diverse ideological basis for the Arab Spring, and Egypt exemplifies this complexity.
answer_details: author: history.stackexchange.com/users/570/Joseph Weissman
score: 4
sents: text: The main difference is that we know more than 300% of information on the Russian revolution and its consequences.
text: (Everything in 3 or more versions).
text: And we know nothing about the Egyptian revolution and its consequences.
text: Hmm..
text: One little problem.
text: In Russia in 1917 there were two revolutions.
text: Absolutely different, nothing in common.
text: Which one are you talking about?
answer_details: author: history.stackexchange.com/users/566/Gangnus
score: 3
sents: text: The major causes of the Bolshevik revolution can be seen in their two most popular slogans "All power to the Soviets" and "Peace, Bread, and Land".
text: The Russian revolution was in some ways a conclusion of previous revolutions in Russia (1898, 1905, the March 1917 revolution) in that the peasants still did not have control over their land and the industrial minority were still unhappy with the socioeconomic situation in Russia.
text: Added to this growing pressure on the monarchy was Russia's involvement in WWI, a war it was not technologically or militarily prepared for.
text: As a result, the casualties in the tsar's armies were massive and many soldiers were desperate for a peaceful withdraw from the war.
text: Egypt is different in that it isn't quite confluence of events 1917
text: Russia was.
text: It isn't facing a major war, the economic conditions are rather different, and the socialist parties are not dominant.
text: As a previous commentator noted, Egypt's opposition is nowhere near as united as the Russian opposition was, indeed an argument can be made that Egypt's opposition isn't even as united as Russia's was during the height of the Bolshevik/Menshevik split.
text: While the Russian opposition was focused on the extent of socialist reform, the Egyptian opposition is fractured on more fundamental motivations, mainly between the Islamists and the more secular element of the revolution.
text: The split within the Egyptian opposition is actually a common division in Arabic politics for several hundred years.
text: In most Arab countries(Egypt included), western powers have manipulated Arab governments for their personal gains.
text: As a response, some factions believed the best way to combat this was through becoming more like the West to surpass or become on par with those powers, or to turn towards a uniting factor such as pan-Islamic or pan-Arabic sentiment to run out the invaders.
text: In Egypt, the government under Mubarak ruthlessly suppressed the Islamic movement, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.
text: As a result, the more religious and traditional elements wanted his government to resign.
text: The modernist factions were similarly outraged by the repressive nature of the regime and also wanted to bring an end to Mubarak.
text: At this point, the major demand of the Egyptian protesters are for a more representative, open, and less repressive government.
text: Unlike the Russian revolution, there is no unified goal towards a broader societal reformation.
text: Also it is quite arguable that the Russian revolution was under far greater pressure as there was the threat of not only the retaliation from the government, but a German invasion and then the threat of an externally organized and funded counter-revolution by the great powers of Europe.
answer_details: author: history.stackexchange.com/users/742/BrotherJack
score: 3
sents: text: Mubarak was ousted but the corrupt military are still in charge, even more openly than before.
text: The Russian Revolution managed to completely change the state.
answer_details: author: history.stackexchange.com/users/102/o0'.
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
The Egyptian revolution was not nearly as united and was less focussed on social reform than in Russia.
The two revolutions had very different mechanisms and scales, although they shared other similarities. One of the main differences was that the Russian revolution was a largely united movement whilst the Egyptian revolution was highly fractured and included many competing interests.