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Full-Circle Revolution: Difference between revisions
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* This trope even exists in healthy democracies, where the favoured form of revolution is by the ballot and not by the bullet. There have been many, many times where an immensely unpopular government was swept out by a new and somewhat over-idealistic opposition promising radical change, only to continue their predecessors' policies once they sat down to effectively govern.
* This is what happened with Iran: the US-supported brutal monarchy of the Shah was overthrown by a revolution that brought immense hopes of independence and justice. Then [[Gone Horribly Wrong|the Islamists came out on top of the revolution and imposed Sharia law]].
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* The same thing happened in Mexico after the supposedly liberal Porfirio Díaz took power. The old aristocracy was simply replaced with an even more brutal plutocracy, and while the cities became modern, small towns were squeezed out of existence and their former denizens became de facto serfs living with inescapable debt in haciendas (they were even called peons).
* Ancient China actually had a name for this trope: the "Dynastic Cycle." Essentially, it was the idea that an empire would rule until it became disapproved of by the gods, who would show their disapproval by some cosmic event (say, a lunar eclipse). Following this, the people would rise and a new empire would begin, and the whole thing would happen all over again.
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