(06-14-2016, 12:23 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:(06-14-2016, 11:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > It makes sense. The Italo-Abyssinian War was an Awakening-Era war
> for Italy (the unification of Italy in the late-middle novecento
> being a Crisis era analogous to the American Revolution, with
> parts of Italy toppling Austrian rule) and a Crisis-era war for
> Ethiopia. The Sahelian famine, Eritrean secession, and the
> overthrow of the Ethiopian monarchy with the rise of Haile
> Mengistu, who made Benito Mussolini look like a humane and
> benevolent overlord by contrast, comprise a truly nasty 4T
> analogous to the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and Stalinist
> madness. Can a Crisis last 30 years? Sure -- in Russia between
> 1916 (catastrophic defeats of Tsarist armies and political
> collapse) and 1945 (end of the Great Patriotic War), and
> apparently in Ethiopia.
> Few countries do wars well in Awakening Eras (think of the
> American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the Italian part of
> the Italo-Abyssinian War).
That's a good analysis. However, I have to go back in time about ten
years, and return to the perennial argument of that time. My response
is:
- A Crisis era cannot possibly last 30 years, because the population
cannot maintain a Crisis era mood for that long. As time goes on, if
no Regeneracy events occur, then the population will slide into a
Fifth Turning, with distinctly different characteristics than a Fourth
Turning.
- A non-crisis war can last 30 years, usually with alternating
periods of peace and low-level violence and police actions. But once
the Regeneracy occurs, then it becomes a full-fledged crisis war. As
far as I can tell, crisis wars tend to last about five years. If a
crisis war lasts longer than that, then something else would have
happened: a crisis war climax after about five years, and then it
turns into a Recovery era war which, once again, is distinctly
different from a crisis war.
- The Bolshevik Revolution was a crisis war. The crisis war climax
occurred in 1927 when Stalin defeated Trotsky.
- World War II was an Awakening era war for Russia. Ten years ago,
David Kaiser opined that WW II was an Awakening war for Russia, but it
so thoroughly destroyed the Prophet generation that it postponed the
next crisis war, which hasn't yet occurred. This is similar to the
reasoning behind a "First Turning Reset," that occurs when a crisis
occurs during a non-crisis era. This could be an unexpected massive
invasion, or it could be a forced relocation of an entire population.
In either case, the population acts according to its era, but returns
to a First Turning Recovery Era following the crisis.
Russia/Soviet Union --
I think of the ferocity of the Thirty Years' War, a long Crisis war that did cultural damage that may have even contributed to the Holocaust. Protestants and Catholics who hated each other united against another group -- the Jews. it was only a matter of time.
That's duration.
I see Crisis eras as waves of danger, sometimes one (American Civil War), sometimes two (Great Depression, WWII for America). Three? In such I see the Russian Revolution and Civil War, Stalin's seizure of power from Trotsky et alia with the subsequent forced collectivization and the Great Purge, and finally the Great Patriotic War, a Crisis war imposed from outside that Stalin blundered into. The Soviet Union waged its war against Nazi Germany as a full-blown Crisis war with Crisis-like ferocity. NEP and the lull between Stalin's purges and the start of Operation Barbarossa were abortive respites.
In Germany I can see three waves of transformative Crisis and danger -- the economic meltdown corresponding to the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the postwar chaos that led to the division of Germany between the Federal Republic in the west and south and the communist "Democratic" Republic in the east, with the Berlin Airlift and the establishment of the German Democratic Republic as the end games. One phase begins with the economic crash and ends with the Night of the Long Knives; the second wave of Crisis begins with the diplomatic bullying of Austria and ends with the Fuhrer blowing his brains out; the third begins with the practical end of the war, contains the legal judgment of surviving top Nazis, and ends with the establishment of a stable situation that undeniably resembles a 1T.
It's all a matter of interpretation.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
