Yes, although that was exceptionally irrational, to the point where I don't really feel I understand the events.

It would be rational if you would think killing a few (or a lot of) protesters will intimidate the rest of the country into submission. It didn't, but it could have.

Timothy Snyder put his history of Ukraine class on YouTube. The lesson on the Maidan was done by a guest speaker. The presentation is mostly dry and the person isn't the best speaker, but the content was quality and very worth watching, especially if you have any beliefs in "color revolutions" or American imperialism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg_CLI3xY58&list=PLh9mgdi4rN...

It was now a revolt against произвол, an idea of arbitrariness tinged with tyranny, helplessness in the face of power, the feeling that the powers that be can do whatever they want to you, and you are helpless, that you are being treated as a plaything, as a thing and not as a human being, as an object and not as a subject, and the Maidan became a revolt against произвол, it became an insistence on being treated as a person and not as a thing, as a subject not as an object, and they began to call themselves on the Maidan the revolution of dignity.

It seems that Yanukovych (Ukraine's corrupt Russian puppet leader) was counted on the fact that if you shock people this way (brutally beating up protestors), not enough to kill people, but enough to terrify them, the parents will freak out and they will pull their kids off the streets... (after many people's children were beaten) Suddenly you have parents joining their children on the streets, and that is the moment that creates the revolution...

Wishing the person who downvoted this an ironic encounter with their ignorance.

But nobody thinks that way. If they can kill your friends, they can round you up afterwards and kill you.

Once it gets to that point, there's no reason not to immediately organize a military response.

Almost every single authoritarian thinks that way. That’s how they stay in power. Please google Volksaufstand (1953), Hungarian Uprising (1956), Prague Spring (1968), Tiananmen (1989), Vilnius Massacre (1991)…

Military responses are very hard to organize if you're not already the military. Having a bunch of demonstrators killed is usually the final step in consolidation of power. Especially if the rest of the public isn't 100% behind the demonstrators.

Hold on to that thought we're going to need it this summer.

>But nobody thinks that way.

And yet history shows many (dozens?) of instance where that's exactly what most people thought.

“Winter on Fire” on Netflix is a pretty thorough documentary of events day-by-day, though many scenes are difficult to watch.

Unfortunately, it worked in Belarus.

I knew those protests were going to fail as soon as I heard on the news that police were throwing down their weapons and joining the protesters.

The way to defeat a dictator is not by painting yourself as a defenseless victim. (That is only useful as the first step to gain support.) The way is to show him you have a greater potential for violence than him and if he doesn't flee, he will be punished (usually killed, sometimes tortured first).

They had huge numbers and if at least some police were on their side they were on the right track to escalating the threat of violence. At some point the dictator would have either broken or the violence would have materialized. But that requires the good people to keep their weapons and use them.