Say for example on the scale of the French or Russian revolution.
Could it have resulted in a totalitarian dictatorship?
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What Could Have Sparked A Revolution Britiain In The 19th Century?
Posted on April 25, 2013.
The Chartist Movement was perceived in Britain as a radical movements ie. it demanded yearly elections, secret ballots, and that there be a popular sovereignty instead of a system where only men of property be allowed to vote and hold office. The Chartists were quite popular receiving well over a million signatures on their petitions. Marx and Engels studied these issues and concluded that ‘revolutions’ were not so easily predictable on the basis of swings in the stock market and the outburst of political movements. In fact many people were surprised to see the Chartist movement
slacken while in the rest of Europe there was similar unrest that blossomed into the 1848 Revolutions.
So I would simply argue that if Britain had been harsher on the Chartists and had reacted in a more draconian manner, then the likelihood of an 1848-type revolution in Britain would have been more likely. What happened in Britain was there was enough people to trust British reforms and govt. so as not to foment revolution. Also those workers who were radicalized or enlightened enough to envision a revolution channeled their energies into becoming socialists and adopting an international view rather than just a British view about Britain. In fact, Marx and Engels began to adopt a more long term ‘peaceful’ approach of change rather than focusing exclusively on revolutionary change.One could argue that British radicalism was absorbed by the development of a successful Labor Party.
Not really possible in 19th century Britain in the same way as in France or Russia,because:
Parliament – a democratically elected (albeit on a narrow franchise for much of the century) assembly that had the majority of political political power.Reform legislation was thus pushed through Parliament on moral grounds by senior aristocrats.
British monarchs weren’t Absolute rulers,so couldn’t interfere unduly in internal politics.
The ongoing effects of the Industrial Revolution,which meant that the expanding middle class had at least some economic and political power (unlike in France and Russia before their revolutions).
If the press had leaked the fact that Her Britannic Majesty never wore knickers, who knows what kind of fresh hell could have broken loose.
Fortunately, reporters were more circumspect back then than they are today.