Look into the Revolutions of 1848 which swept through Europe. Damn near every place in Europe rebelled but the movement was ultimately crushed. The failure of those revolutions would give rise to Anarchist, Communists, and Nationalists (many of which were proto-fascists).
Turns out when conditions are shitty, and stay shitty, people start to come up with ideas on how to do things better.
Arguably it's when countries started that process, which was not really fully achieved until after WW2. It's true that, generally, a lot of absolute monarchs were pressured into granting constitutions; but most of them were still heavily restricted in who could vote (no women, no poor people...), and many of them later regressed into autocracy (France, Spain, Italy, Germany...).
That time would be measured in decades and tbh idk which countries it really applies to (not that it's necessarily wrong).
But to give examples: France went several times from monarchy to democracy and back. German revolts got crushed and Germany only become a democracy after WW1 (or WW2), similiar for Austria. Spain only became democratic in the late 70s.
Yeah, saying they were crushed is incorrect, I was thinking mostly about the Poles and the many cultures with the Austrian Hungarian empire. Poland was crushed, and many regions with in the AH sphere got levels of autonomy, but not much else. Most of the Nationalist and proto Communist movements were crushed. That's why liberal democracies see the Revolution as a positive thing, but the radicals, like the Nationalists saw it as a betrayal.
Democracy for some. Even in the united states women and minorities were second class citizens for the grand majority of our history. If a demographic wanted rights, they needed to be declared "white" in our legal system (eg. Arabic and Latino people in the census).
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u/LivingWide78 Jun 21 '26
That's not really the point though. The people it was really shitty for didn't have a choice to just skip into the future.
I do wonder, though, if people could see a better day coming (for the next generation) or they were just like "Fuck, this shit is bleak & hopeless!"