I think it is difficult to say now that those were necessarily horrific and needless, without considering the horrors experienced daily under feudal/serf systems.
Moreover, the selection of revolutions you have put together seems one-sided. It was revolution that gave people in Britain the vote, it was (at least partially) revolution that ended apartheid in South Africa and white minority rule in much of Africa writ large, etc. etc.
The Khmer Rouge killed 1.5 to 2 million (or 25%!!!!) of all Cambodians. Pretty tough to argue that the deaths of 25% of any population is anything but needless and horrific, particularly when you learn about Pol Pot's insane and homicidal policies. Imagine if every 4th person you know were dead in the next 5 years because a guy had a plan to... make our lives better by ruining them indefinitely for some distant vision of Utopia.
The Nazis are truly astronomical in terms of both death count and evil. They successfully created an actual hell on Earth.
Stalin's regime is estimated to have killed 20 MILLION of his own people. I wonder if the murdered would say, "Yeah, but its worth it in the end because no more monarchy!"
Mao's derangements are estimated to have resulted in 45 MILLION dead Chinese. That's 45,000,000. Again, I wonder if their surviving loved ones felt better off? Mom was beaten to death for being "a capitalist", but at least we don't have to worry about that darned monarchy anymore! How would you feel if your Mom was beaten to death? How would you feel if your brother or sister were summarily executed based on an accusation? What if you saw your child needlessly starve to death? These aren't just numbers. These are real human lives extinguished for political ends.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Your logic is truly deranged. Revolutions are really, really, really bad for everyone, and the vulnerable, weak, and poor are not exempt. Most of them can usually just count on good old fashioned starvation in their near futures as the revolutionaries lurch from one disastrous or insane policy to the next. If they don't starve, there's a good chance the revolution will at some point purify them anyway.
So, I'll point you back to my suggested heuristic.
> Mao's derangements are estimated to have resulted in 45 MILLION dead Chinese.
Both of these death estimates are primarily due to starvation (not murder and not the result of violent revolution decades earlier) and are based off of differential estimates of population (ie. counting declining births as deaths, etc.).
Most importantly, they are not comparative with famine deaths prior to these revolutions under the feudal system. Integrated over time, those deaths almost certainly outnumber the deaths due to these events. Moreover, many of those who died post-revolution would never have even had the chance to be born in a feudal society given how many children died of starvation etc. during those times.
Tens of millions of people die of easily preventable deaths (no water, no food, etc.) in the status quo every year. Those numbers were even worse under feudalism. Do those not get to be counted against the non-revolutionary status quo?
You buried the lede. Death per unit time is extremely important. And yes, huge numbers died of starvation as the result of revolutionary, utopian (and insane and nonsensical) policies. But the starvation deaths were the direct result of the violence and insanity. The two cannot be decoupled. So, I certainly would "count" them. I think most people would.
Is there an argument about how the deaths per unit time went down in those countries post-revolution?
> many of those who died post-revolution would never have even had the chance to be born
I'm not ceding this point, but hypothetically, by your logic, these were just bonus lives whose horrible ends shouldn't count?
> Tens of millions of people die of easily preventable deaths
Yes, this is the default state of nature and thus humanity. Violent, cataclysmic revolution is almost never the best (or even a good) solution. There are limited examples of success, but what sane person would bet their life on it?
I think, fundamentally, the problem with violent revolution is that its leaders are most often ideological zealots who are ill-equipped to lead a nation. They tend to think the same tools that gained them power (violence) will yield effective results in governance. Or, and I think this is a more likely explanation, they are probably just sociopathic, power-crazed murderers.
The best case --- if it works --- is "non-reformist reform" as the European social democracies were planning. Some Marxists think it was doomed to fail because you can't avoid the antagonisms. I think they were merely prudish about printing money (especially Germans), and if drank more Post-Keynsian kool-aid (and let in more immigrants not as an underclass like in America), we would all be Socialist already.
Letting in immigrants while you are trying to reduce working hours is a good idea because a) moral b) you are trying to show off you have the best society, let people vote with their feat c) you still need to make investments so being able to have total working hours go up while per-capita working hours goes down is good. Especially if there is a tech/productivity lag where you don't get fully automated dank shit for a few years after you make labor scarce
Letting in immigrants as beneath-the-table workers while trying to lower working hours means you get apartheid not utopia, so yeah, it's bad. The thing that makes America less bad is at least the elite likes to overwork itself for cultural reasons so the rat race is just as stupid but less unfair than it would otherwise be.
The best-of-both-worlds is what I want. The first decently country to let in immigrants while reducing working hours is going to crush everyone else with a strong, more technologically- and culturally-advanced society. I am excited to see it happen.
(incidentally a very vague materialist take on why the soviet union sucked is it began too underdeveloped, and in the rush to do more work they ended up too military-industrial. A lot of people say "not enough consumption" but you ought to connect it being able to let demand "pull" investment rather than centrally "push" investment. More consumer goods or less working hours are somewhat equivalent once you are (post-)industrialized.)
https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/
Edit: Btw, I think the poster above meant the millions of undocumented immigrants living in USA without full rights.
The US has admitted more than 1.2 million refugees (I believe the number is closer to 3 million), this chart only counts refugees under UNHCR mandate.
"Syrians good, Greeks bad, let's breed Neo-Nazis with austerity so Syrians bad soon too. Oh and more coal." Is that really net good?!
Revolutions almost always result in prolonged mass violence. Most often of the horrific, needless, and soul shattering kind. A sampling of recent revolutions: the Bolshevik Revolution, the French Revolution, Cambodian civil war/Khmer Rouge takeover, Nazi takeover of Germany, Chinese Communist Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, etc etc.
I propose a new heuristic for my fellow HN'ers: if someone pines for revolution, its a very good signal that they are poorly acquainted with history or that they are a sociopath.