How to Overthrow the Government

The technique of the coup d'etat

Crisis is here, and chaos is coming. I am not one for New Year’s resolutions, but reading Curzio Malaparte’s Coup d’Etat: The Technique of Revolution may lead to a change of ways.

This book, banned, long neglected and out of print, is a practical guide to seizing control of the State.

It shows that revolution is a technique. Along with everything else in the technological society, sudden political change turns out to have nothing whatsoever to do with the awakening of the masses to their own best interests - but relies on a method refined to produce a standard result.

This is the first post in a series on the crisis in the Liberal state. It will treat subjects such as Locke’s Right to Revolution, which inspired the French and American revolts, as well as revisiting the arguments of Isaiah Berlin and John Gray to show how our states are no longer liberal nor democratic.

In fact, they are not even legitimate. This final question, as we shall see, has nothing to do with elections. Nor doe…