From Candlelight to Colossus: Movements Always Start Small

We are the few who come before the many. (DN 4.2)

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22

(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.10 I 2.11 | 2.12 | 2.13 | 2.14 | 2.15 | 2.16 | 2.17 | 2.XX | 2.18 | 2.19 | 2.20 | 2.21 | | Where: 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.10 | 3.11 | 3.12 | 3.13 || Who: 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.2

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(Note: This is an installment of The Distributed Nation. For installments of The Freedom Scale (book), see here.

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Chapter 4.2
The Few Before the Many

Longtime readers may recall, from a few brief mentions over the last couple of years, that I spent a month in the USSR, and that it just happened to be at a very pivotal time in history. I haven’t told you the whole story of that month, or even of the crazy three days (August 19–21, 1991) of the August Coup. To do either would require many, many pages. However, one brief observation is appropriate to today’s topic.

I will skip over most of the bizarre events of Monday the 19th. I went to class that morning (Moscow State University) and my teacher was freaking out about…something. I didn’t understand enough Russian to fully grasp what it was, though, so like any normal man in his early 20s, I hopped on a train to go find my newly made Russian girlfriend in Tver. I got really drunk on that train with some random middle-aged Russian guy in a brown suit and…well, now I’m telling the wrong part of the story.

Fast forward to the next day. At this point, not only was I fully aware that a coup was underway—I had placed myself in the middle of it. I was on the grounds of the Belyy Dom with two Russian guy friends (met through my girlfriend) and many thousands of others, listening to Yeltsin’s allies give speeches. For part of the time, I was actually sitting atop a tank (part of one of the few military units that were on Yeltsin’s side, rather than on the Gang of Eight’s).

I had only studied Russian for eight months at this point, and I had little idea what is being said. But at one point, a huge cheer went up and I asked my friends why. They told me that two divisions in Leningrad had joined “our” side.

It was exciting. But not understanding the details, due to the language barrier, also left my mind to wander a bit, and I started to have a thought.

Basically, I realized that the fate of millions of people, stretched across 11 time zones, was being decided in these moments by a tiny number of individuals. The Gang of Eight. A few key military officers. A small number of politicians. And a portion of the people of Moscow, in whose number I was temporarily counted.

It was a realization of a truism, of course, for this is how it usually is. History is generally moved by a small number of individuals. Later, I refined that understanding to include not just historical events, but history-changing movements as well. And the first such movement that occurred to me was, appropriately, socialism, and specifically Soviet communism.

Socialism started with a tiny number of writers and thinkers expressing ideas. It attracted intellectuals, as ideas always do. At some point, someone put those ideas into action. Soviet communism didn’t start as millions of people. It started with a tiny number, meeting in secret by candlelight. And then it grew.

This is how it always is. All movements—the good, the bad, and the ugly—start small and then grow. From a small number of writers, intellectuals, and activists, socialism ended up swallowing half the planet, and continues to infect the minds of millions to this day. All from a few seeds planted by a tiny number of people.

Christianity, similarly, did not start out with millions of adherents. It started with Jesus and a few apostles. Today, Christians are said to number more than two billion—one out of every four people.

We could go on listing examples, but you get the idea. Movements always start small.

And a small number can do amazing things. It is frequently said that only three percent of the colonists participated in the American Revolution. And look what came of that.

In The Network State, Balaji Srinivasan notes that a small number of people with a vision can scale up to any size and make their vision a reality:

Now, with all this talk of embassies and countries one might well contend that network states, like the aforementioned micronations, are also just a LARP. Unlike micronations, however, they are set up to be a scaled LARP, a feat of imagination practiced by large numbers of people at the same time. And the experience of cryptocurrencies over the last decade shows us just how powerful such a shared LARP can be.

We are currently small in number. We are the ones who know there is something wrong. We are the ones who are awakening to what that something is, and we want no part of it. We are the ones who have the desire, the drive, and the vision to do something about it.

Right now, we are few. But our cause is just, and our core principles are the principles of nature itself. This is only the beginning.

Who are we? We are the few who come before the many.

David Broad/CC 3.0