What Is The Balance Of Power In The 19th Century

n 1887 the British historian and politician, Lord Acton wrote “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” In the next half century this was proven true by the corruption of the ideals of revolutions across Europe leading to tyrannical regimes in the place of the oppressors they reviled. At the end of World War One, Europe was wracked by revolution caused by the death of empires. This seismic shift was felt strongest in Russia though at this time all of Europe of was in a state of total upheaval. In many of the formerly great empires, revolution, and civil war wracked the land, changing the geopolitical structure to that of modern Europe. Following the First World War, the balance of power throughout the world was drastically changing. Russia was the epicenter of most of this change. During the heart of the “Great War,” the strain upon the old regime in Russia was mounting, unrest was mounting in the countryside where peasants were continuously frustrated by the slow progress of reforms. Unrest also grew in cities where an explosive period of population growth precipitated a disastrous food shortage. This unrest grew into revolution in March of 1918 when soldiers joined with the …show more content…
The Soviet Union that sprung out of the Russian Revolution remained a superpower into the 1990’s while today borders drawn after this war are fought over by different ethnic and religious factions. The aftermath of World War One sealed the fate for the rest of the twentieth century condemning generations to seemingly constant tension and war. Before World War One brutal tyrants ruled over their people while political powder kegs threatened to ignite at any moment much of this remains true today though many of the faces of these factions are new it always seems the narrative remains the