They [the women strikers] threw some snowballs at the men’s factories to get them out. And when the men came out on the street, it became clear there was a very significant strike in the capital [Moscow]. Steve Smith, University of Essex
He [Lenin] pronounces his ten principles like Moses coming down with the tablets, the Ten Commandments. The April Theses. The ten theses. Chris Reid, University of Warwick
Performance No. 4 Red Square: ‘The masses rise up and move on the Kremlin. Explosions set off at Security headquarters. Bitches piss themselves behind red walls. Riot is here to abort the system. An attack at dawn? Don't mind if I do. When we’re whipped for our freedom, The Mother of God will learn how to fight ... Magdalene the feminist will join the demonstration. Uprising in Russia! The Charm of protest. Uprising in Russia! Putin pissed himself. Uprising in Russia! We exist. Uprising in Russia! Riot! Riot! Take to the streets ...’ Storyville: Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer starring Nadia & Masha & Katia, BBC 2013
Those protests would bring down a dictatorship that lasted 23 years. Ben Ali fled the country. The Tunisian revolution spread and prompted a wave of uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring. Richard Bilton, Wikileaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower I, BBC 2012
People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely. Steven Pinker
A small revolution was taking place, so modest and well behaved that almost no one had noticed. Like a visitor to an abandoned film set, I stood by the entrance to Chelsea Marina and listened to the morning traffic in the King's Road, a reassuring medley of car stereos and ambulance sirens. Beyond the gatehouse were the streets of the deserted estate, an apocalyptic vision deprived of its soundtrack. Protest banners sagged from the balconies, and I counted a dozen overturned cars and at least two burnt-out houses. J G Ballard, Millennium People p1
But I was thinking of another time, a brief period when Chelsea Marina was a place of real promise, when a young paediatrician persuaded the residents to create a unique republic, a city without street signs, laws without penalties, events without significance, a sun without shadows. ibid. pp293-294
The sites were very vulnerable during the revolution. Imagine ... The Museum on Liberation Square, BBC 2011
Nasser’s revolution didn’t have the success it hoped for. ibid.
Words became public weapons promoting revolutionary ideas. Adam Nicholson, The Century that Wrote Itself I: The Written Self, BBC 2013
A literacy revolution. ibid.
The story of the French Revolution through the destruction of art, buildings and symbols. Richard Clay, The French Revolution: Tearing Up History, BBC 2016
It’s the power of the people. For the first time in their history the people have a representative government. ibid.
This moment of unrest, violence … is meaningful. ibid.
To actually topple a statue is no mean feat. Anybody who’s seen the footage of the Statue of Saddam Hussein being brought down by American marines during the Gulf War will understand the scale of the task. ibid.
Statues of kings were toppling across the city … The statue was as hollow as the power of kings … All royal symbols were at risk. ibid.
Fascii is that symbol of Roman unity, also Roman law and order, that eventually becomes the symbol, that gives the name, to fascists. ibid.
‘Vietnam was, and still is, the only question that can mobilise the masses.’ Grin Without a Cat aka The Base of the Air is Red, Paul Verges, 1977
Saint-Nazaire May 1st 1967: End of the longest strike of the post-war in Sud-Aviation. ibid.
1967: ‘We feel we had a real movement.’ ibid. striker
‘On April 11th 1968 Rudi was gravely wounded by gunfire while he cycled in a Berlin street. He’d written, We Must Revolutionise Revolutionaries. ibid.
Paris 1962 Metro Charonne: ‘A new attitude in the demonstrations, more aggressive, born from a real need of striking back.’ ibid.
‘This is where the New Left was born.’ ibid.
‘It’s a struggle between rich and poor.’ ibid. Douglas Bravo
May ’68 and all that: ‘For me, May ’68 happened in the Boulevard Saint-Michel. ibid.
‘But never have this authentic courage, this everyday courage, which consists of sacrificing your personality completely to become effective.’ ibid.
‘Indeed, we have occupied the Sorbonne.’ ibid.
Paris, Latin Quarter, May 6th: ‘At once the State reveals its oppressive side; the one that stays more or less hidden in everyday life.’ ibid.
‘The occupation of the Latin Quarter went fine until 8 p.m. It was the police that set off the incidents attacking us with chlorine grenade-launchers.’ ibid.
‘Birth of a legend. Birth of an image.’ ibid.
‘It’s always the same scene: a few blows and then they arrest them.’ ibid.
‘That time showed us that street violence does not lead automatically to political change.’ ibid.
‘In Latin America a whole generation of political fighters would end up under fascist regimes.’ ibid.
‘They want a change: political and economic.’ ibid.
‘In Saint-Etienne, however, the CGT strikers shunned by their comrades from the other two unions take to counter-attack and attack the CRS with stones, screws and iron bars.’ ibid. Newsreel October 1948
‘Anyway, history wasn’t being written in Avignon that summer; it was being written in Prague.’ ibid. striker
‘In Prague, the archives of the Gestapo were thrown into the streets.’ ibid. French newsreel
‘The first Soviet tank that entered Free Prague carried the number 23. It was the same tank, now a monument, that was surrounded by other Russian tanks in August 1968.’ ibid. commentator
Dubcek goes to Moscow and finds another Brezhnev who threatens with military invasion and ‘normalization’. ibid.
‘What are you doing in Prague? And you call yourself a communist.’ ibid. demonstrator to man in tank
‘Student demonstration, May ’68, quickly repressed the Mexican way. Two hundred dead, and the game opened in a pacified capital.’ ibid. commentator
The lights are out all over Egypt. The Square, opening scene, 2013
Egypt was living without dignity. Injustice existed everywhere. Before the revolution I lived from one job to the next. I started working when I was eight years old. ibid. Ahmed
They forced us to live for 30 years under emergency law. ibid.
We will go down and demand our fundamental human rights. ibid. protester
We have taken Tahrir Square! … The entire nation erupted at once. ibid.
When Mubarak stepped down the armed forces took over the country’s affairs. They swore to God to meet the people’s demands. So the people went home. And nothing happened. ibid.
So we went back to the square. ibid.
They arrest people and take them to the museum. ibid.
The battle is in the images; the battle is in the stories. ibid.
The Muslim Brotherhood started shouting, ‘Islamic rule! Islamic rule!’ … The Brotherhood began to use the Square to negotiate with the Army. They’re not calling for the people’s demands but for their political demands. ibid.
They were firing live bullets at us … People were falling one by one. ibid.
Even the doctors are dying. ibid.
We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. ibid.
Winter, 2012-13: Two years after the start of the revolution President Morsi gave himself unchecked powers. Tensions rise between the Brotherhood and the revolutionaries. ibid.
Religion is the biggest problem we face in this next phase. ibid. Ahmed