After Oceanyka's disastrous defeat in the New Caledonian War in June 1961, the presidency of Cestlep found itself in a crisis. Having failed to protect part of the Federation due to indecision, Thomas Badfellow, then the President of the Oceanykan Federation, was lynched by an angry mob in July. His teenage nephew, Jonas Badfellow, assumed office years before planned, displaying enormous incompetence at governance. The turning point for the Revolution came when an angry mob successfully stormed Petersburg Armoury, a Federal Army depot, and captured its supplies. Riled up by revolutionary rhetoric, a bloody riot began on the streets of Cestlep, lasting several months.
The decisive blow to the Old Republic came in September 1961, when the German Strike on Farenday crippled the Federation's main naval force, while the Council sat doing nothing. By the first days of October, Jonas Badfellow had been dragged out of his presidential residence and butchered by a mob. Alan Redfort, leader of the Oceanykan Peoples' Party, declared a revolution to restore order to the Federation. The OPP proved to be a formidable organising force, which quickly levied an army of commoners and gained the loyalty of the Federal Army. Its main objectives were to centralise power in Cestlep in favour of the people of Oceanyka, and to defend the Federation's national sovereignty at all costs. During most of 1961 and 1962, the Council's constituent members were "convinced" to side with the new regime and numerous military expeditions by the new Oceanykan People's Army drove loyalists of the previous regime and reactionaries into the country's backwaters.