Revolutions

The French Revolution was a disaster: killed 2 million people, led to the rise of Napoleon–perhaps the world's first totalitarian fascist dictator, who began wars of conquest that killed an additional 4 million people, led to the restoration of slavery, to the restoration of the… pic.twitter.com/jgzk1SRkua

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) September 9, 2025

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The French Revolution was a disaster: killed 2 million people, led to the rise of Napoleon–perhaps the world's first totalitarian fascist dictator, who began wars of conquest that killed an additional 4 million people, led to the restoration of slavery, to the restoration of the monarchy, and a delay of democracy in France by perhaps a century.

Russian Revolution killed several million, led to the Russian Civil War–which killed another 9 million–led to the rise of Stalin, who killed 20 million.

There's an old cliché: you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Well, it ignores the fact that people aren't eggs, and that generally does not result in an omelette.

Again, the Chinese Revolution, perhaps the most disastrous event in history, led to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, killed perhaps 30 to 40 million people altogether.

Pinker started his career in psycholinguistics under the influence of Chomsky. Politically now he seems to be making up for lost time as a kind of anti-Chomsky. 

It's tragic when you think now of what could have been if the post-Mao liberalisation under Deng Xiaoping had continued, before Xi Jinping took over and turned into another Mao-style despot. Was it inevitable? – with no liberal or democratic tradition to fall back on? – the system just waiting for another authoritarian to fill the Mao-shaped hole. I don't know – but how different the world might look now…