Gene Sharp: The “father” of Colour Revolutions has died, but methods live on

Vesti – translated by Inessa Sinchougova | February 4, 2018

On January 31, the Boston Professor Gene Sharp died aged 91. In his youth, he refused to serve in the American army and fight in Korea. He was jailed for 9 months, after which Sharp left the United States and lived in Europe for nine years.

Sharp became known for writing of instructions for the political destruction of states. He was called a modern day philosopher, but rarely appeared at philosophical meetings. He was called a political technologist, but he never led any group and rarely participated directly in anything to do with revolutions. That’s if we don’t count that government power in various countries was overthrown by his textbooks.

The most famous work is “From dictatorship to democracy”; 198 methods of nonviolent actions. For example – number 22 – undressing in protest, 124 – boycotting of elections, 161 – non-violent psychological exhaustion of the opponent. Although not everything in Sharp’s writing is so non-violent – point 148 is rebellion.

The “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine in 2004 is a classical implementation of the recommendations of Gene Sharp. Without any imagination whatsoever. Earlier, Professor Sharp’s know-how was implemented in the “bulldozer revolution” in Yugoslavia, when protesters on a bulldozer stormed a television station.

Later, Sharp’s ideas were implemented in the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan, “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia in 2010-2011 . Egypt and the “Arab Spring” also utilised Sharp’s technology.

To generalize, the main goal in any “color revolution” is to create a point of public discontent in a limited space and claim that this crowd of people, is “the people”, out and about revolting in a “grass-roots” movement.

An attempt at a colour revolution was also tried in Russia in the winter of 2011-1012 – with white ribbons, prior to the presidential elections. Sharp himself made a remark to the “negligent pupils” – “It’s a real false start, the organizers of the rally were too quick. You can’t do it before the elections take place,” Sharp said in an interview.

Later, Sharp had founded the Boston Einstein Institution, which had very few employees. Yet it was financed very generously – these funds financed protest movements in countries where the United States required regime change. Sharp’s money came primarily from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is maintained by the Congress, and from the International Republican Institute (director – John McCain).

Why does America participate in “color revolutions”? It’s simple – it solves military tasks by non-military means, destroys states and puts the country’s resources in the service of the United States. People as a result of the revolution generally live worse than before the uprising.

“This is military technology, but a substitute for war and other violence,” Sharp said.

Sharp’s work was also engaged in the Soviet Union – technologies of collapse were similar. As we now understand, the same methods were utilised in the countries of Eastern Europe – take at least “Solidarity” in Poland in the late 80’s.

Now, when the United States once again would like to destroy Russia, Sharp’s tactics are also useful. Let us turn again to its numbered points: 89th – tightening of credit/loans, 96th – international trade embargo, 154th – deterioration of international diplomatic relations.

But the original Sharp recommendations are similarly growing obsolete – he could never have imagined the new subversive opportunities through the power of the Internet, technologies able to process large databases – big data, sanctions and all sorts of “enemy lists” of America, the use of terrorist armies to overthrow a disliked leader. For America, this is also “not war”, which means that it is also a “non-violent” method for achieving military tasks.

Sharp has died, but his legacy lives on and is snowballing new methods.