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The Incompetence Of Leaders Led To The Outbreak Of Revolution

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Autor:   •  March 3, 2011  •  2,105 Words (9 Pages)  •  875 Views

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The incompetence of leaders is a pre-requisite in the outbreak of revolution. This can be seen clearly in both Russia in October 1917 under the leadership of Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government and China in 1949 under the leadership of Chaing Kai Shek's Guo Ming Dang. As a result of this incompetence both the countries experienced the outbreak of revolution. Although the incompetence of the leaders leads to the outbreak of revolution it is not the sole issue. The outbreak of revolution in Russia was Lenin and the Bolshevik party seizing power by means of a coup de-tat from the provisional government of Kerensky in October 1917. In China the Chinese Communist Party seized power in their revolution in 1949, after a civil war with the Guo Min Dang under the incompetent rule of Chiang Kai Shek. In both countries the incompetence of the leaders, the Provisional Government and the GMD, both created discontent amongst the masses, failing to fulfil their roles to both the people and the country. The Incompetence of the leaders was vital to the outbreak of revolution however other factors such as wars, both civil and international, and reform escalated the growing discontent amongst the masses and support for Revolutionaries growing.

The incompetence of the government's leadership was a key factor in the outbreak of both revolutions. After the fall of the Tsar, Russia installed a Provisional government, whose only real policy was to maintain status quo until elections could be held. This idea proved inadequate to satisfy the discontents population want for change. The Provisional Government lead by Alexander Kerensky was unable to maintain law and order in Russia due to incompetence of leadership and realization of what the peasants wanted, "Bread, Peace and Land." His Incompetent decision to continue with the war effort proved a vital factor in increasing discontent for his government and his launching of a new offensive under his name, only worsened the situation. The Keresnky offensive as it was labelled failed miserably, soldiers deserted in droves, returning home on vigilante missions to take land for themselves. Kerensky and the Provisional Government issued warnings and threats but were powerless to stop the peasants in the countryside redistributing land. Perhaps one of the most incompetent decisions Alexander Kerensky made was allowing basic civil liberties such as freedom of the press, the abolition of ethnic, religious discrimination and set free all political prisoners. In allowing this to happen Alexander freed his opposition from his grasp and allowed them to once again begin to spread the work of revolution. This eventually led to Kornilov affair, in which Kerensky was supported by the Bolsheviks then outsmarted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks and ultimately lost power of the government due to the outbreak of revolution. Similarly in China the GMD under the leadership of Chiang Kai Shek were a militaristic government that claimed to act in the national interest. However the true nationalist intentions of the party were often corrupt. The GMD was seen to be a western influenced right wing political party whose intentions for china were to establish a democracy, but in reality they were heavily corrupt, serving the interest of only themselves and the nobility of China. Chiang Kai Shek was a strong leader who used violence and intimidation to scare his people into following him, however the people had lost a lot of respect for his regime. Chiang Kai Shek s failure to suppress the invading Japanese only added to the growing discontent for the leader and allowed the CCP to gain mass support. Chiang also taxed the people heavily and forced the peasants to have very low standards of living, Chiang Kai Shek also drained the lifeblood of his rural country with forced conscription. A good example of Chiang Kai Sheks incompetence was allowing "The Four Families" who were wealthy and influential families related to Chiang, to amass great wealth through government protected monopolies, exploiting the population. All of these incompetent decisions by Chiang Kai Shek lead to the outbreak of revolution. Similarities between the two leaders Kerensky in Russia and Chiang in China are clearly visible, both failed to establish reform, which meant that the leaders lost support from the majority of their populations the peasantries, and both failed to conclude wars. Differences arise from Kerensky having no political policies except to maintain the status quo, whereas Chiang was meant to govern his country based on democracy. Both Kerensky and Chiang's incompetent leadership was responsible for the outbreak of revolution.

Wars are often factors that associate themselves with the support for revolutionary movements growing. If a war takes place wether it is civil or international the countries involved all criticize their governments for their participation especially if the war creates discontent amongst society. With this criticism of the government happening bad decision-making and incompetent leadership becomes clear. However war can be seen in the context of incompetence of leadership, though the outbreak of war is significant enough to warrant individual responsibility in the outbreak of revolution. This is shown in Russia with involvement in WW1 and China in involvement in both the civil war GMD vs. CCP and WW2. In Russia the war effort by the Provisional government can summarised solely as the Kerensky offensive. Russia was unable to match Germany's superior armaments, however Russia's army was much larger than Germanys, although Russia had the man power, Russia itself was not prepared for war as Germany was and suffered large loses during the offensive. The offensive proved a disaster and was deemed a waste of resources and manpower. With the failure of the offensive came mass desertion in the army, which was crippling, draining not only the home front but also the whole war effort to the point of an attempted coup by General Kornilov. With the loss of support from the army the Provisional government and Alexander Kerensky had really started to lose control over Russia and because the offensive was in his name (the Kerensky offensive) the failure of it reflected directly on Kerensky's incompetence as a leader. Similarly war in China had been a problem since the fall of the dynastic rule, using up all of the countries resources and manpower. The civil war between the GMD and CCP separated the country. With this separation the GMD, under Chiang, striped resources from the peasants and the CCP aided the peasants with problems such as land reform. As the civil war raged on for many years the CCP started to gain popular support from the peasants as they were advocating change (land reform for instance) and were addressing the problems Ð''the people' faced. With the civil


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