More of an observation that most successful revolutions or protests so far in history, where we have data for, had at least this many people.

When I learned of this, it was used to make a point that 1% of a country is actually quite a lot of people when they get together.

There’s an anecdotal statistic going around historian circles, that if a revolution gets 1% of the country’s population to participate in some capacity, then it succeeds.

I have a family member who lived in Russia at the time. They wanted to get rid of Yeltsin, so everyone formed one big coalition against him to proof themselves against election fraud, and to block anything he tried to pass through the Rada. This led to his resignation and the appointment of Putin.

Essentially, by this point everyone could see that Yeltsin was a drunk who sold off his country to the Americans and the mob. They decided to get him removed at all costs. At first, Yeltsin was thinking about utilizing the Army, but they were also against him, so he negotiated to resing in exchange for no investigations on his corruption or that of his guys.