History tells us some revolutions have more sense than others and many revolutions have brought significant damage to human civilization. With the emergence and fast development of information high tech and the unraveling of the post WWII international order which we are experiencing now, the question has become even more complicated.
— Dr. Jianli Yang
Yes, but usually more in context than in hindsight. Revolutions tend to happen when people believe the existing political or social system can no longer reform itself through normal means. That does not mean that everything revolutionaries do is justified, or that revolutions necessarily produce better outcomes. The French and Russian Revolutions from our History course are good examples: many of the grievances behind them were understandable, but the revolutions themselves produced consequences that even many of their original supporters did not anticipate.
The interesting historical question is therefore not simply whether a revolution was “right” or “wrong”, but whether people at the time had realistic alternatives and why revolution came to seem reasonable to them.
( History Teacher at School)
Have revolutions and revolutionaries ever made sense?
"In my opinion, when a system becomes entrenched, it is resistant to change from within and from outside."
— Professor Taimur Rahman, LUMS
