Overthrow of Democratically elected governments

[Radical]

Is there any way we can justify the overthrow of democraticly elected governments by means of revolution?

[amandevsingh]

Depends on the level of corruption in the state; India, for example, will need no justification because its people aren't decieved. In the USA, however, will take much convincing. If you mean moral justification, then I think the presence of capitalism is enough on its own.

[Q]

The mass movement of the revolution in itself constitutes or should constitute a majority of the working class (and thus of society).

[gorillafuck]

Is there any way we can justify the overthrow of democraticly elected governments by means of revolution?
If the government was popular in the first place there wouldn't be able to be a revolution.

[Yehuda Stern]

The mass movement of the revolution in itself constitutes or should constitute a majority of the working class (and thus of society).


Not to insult Q, but this conception is one of the most serious problems with the socialist movement today. In The Socialist Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Lenin successfully debunks the myth that Marxism means waiting until one can secure the support of the majority of the people or even of the workers to carry out the revolution. Lenin shows that the socialist revolution must take any opportunity possible to show its power in practice, and not only through propaganda.

Marxism needs no "democratic" justification for revolution. The historical degeneracy of capitalism is the only justification we need. Capitalism is an outmoded, reactionary social system and therefore its removal is justified, its governments being democratic notwithstanding.

[red cat]

Is there any way we can justify the overthrow of democraticly elected governments by means of revolution?

Depends on the class character of the democracy. At present the best we have is bourgeois democracy which thrives on exploitation. So...

[Misanthrope]

It is completely justified. Any revolution overthrowing a state is justified. The state is an institution forced upon the populace, they are forced to abide by the "democratic" system.

[Raúl Duke]

I think "justification" is relative.

In a revolution, on a modern context, while it constitutes the working class vs. the capitalist class as the main players (in the material sense) will have a myriad of other groupings, factions, formations, conditions, factors involved to take into account.

To those who have something to gain in the revolution (and actually gains it) will of course feel that the revolution is justified. Those who have everything to lose due to revolution will obviously be against it and feel that the revolution is not justified. It's all a matter of perspective.

For example, on the point of different factors and factions, what about religious leaders and their constituents? In the U.S. this is something to be taken seriously...since many religious leaders are reactionary and have substantial following (among both classes). They could probably easily rally support against the revolution.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not to insult Q, but this conception is one of the most serious problems with the socialist movement today. In The Socialist Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Lenin successfully debunks the myth that Marxism means waiting until one can secure the support of the majority of the people or even of the workers to carry out the revolution. Lenin shows that the socialist revolution must take any opportunity possible to show its power in practice, and not only through propaganda.

Marxism needs no "democratic" justification for revolution. The historical degeneracy of capitalism is the only justification we need. Capitalism is an outmoded, reactionary social system and therefore its removal is justified, its governments being democratic notwithstanding.

I think you're grossly misreading PRRK. The Bolsheviks secured the support of the majority of the workers via the soviets (September and October). Lenin's definition of a revolutionary period was derived entirely from Kautsky (mass hostility towards the regime, organized party-movement opposed to the regime, working-class majority support for that party-movement, breakdown in the army and civil bureaucracy) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch06.htm).

What did Kautsky say that Lenin quoted? He said that the party may find itself thrusted into power even if the workers aren't ready. This passive stance is quite different from the Bakuninist-Blanquist putsch approach so near and dear to you.

[Rakhmetov]

Top-down democracies like the USA, U.K., France, Canada etc. are nothing more than dictatorships of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie will use any form of government to pursue its exploitative interests and maintain its exploitative class relations. The bourgeois will use monarchy, fascism, dictatorship, even right-wing anarchism like the one advocated by Ron Paul. Don't let the appearance of things cloud its substance. Lenin wrote a good book called "The State And Revolution."

[New Tet]

Is there any way we can justify the overthrow of democraticly elected governments by means of revolution?

Only if the aim of the revolution is to broaden democracy in every important aspect of a country's social life.

Did I just babble there?

[Pogue]

Is there any way we can justify the overthrow of democraticly elected governments by means of revolution?

I think you clearly misunderstand the context of a revolution. Who would we have to justify it to and why? The revolution will be carried out by the working class, what mroe justification do we need?

[Yehuda Stern]

Second subterfuge. The Paris Commune was a dictatorship of the proletariat, but it was elected by universal suffrage, i.e., without depriving the bourgeoisie of the franchise, i.e., “democratically”. And Kautsky says triumphantly: “... The dictatorship of the proletariat was for Marx” (or: according to Marx) “a condition which ;necessarily follows from pure democracy, if the proletariat forms the majority” (bei überwiegendem. Proletariat, S. 21).


This argument of Kautsky’s is so amusing that one truly suffers from a veritable embarras de richesses (an embarrassment due to the wealth ... of objections that can be made to it). Firstly, it is well known that the flower, the General Staff, the upper sections of the bourgeoisie, had fled from Paris to Versailles. In Versailles there was the “socialist” Louis Blanc-which, by the way, proves the falsity of Kautsky’s assertion that “all trends” of socialism took part in the Paris Commune. Is it not ridiculous to represent the division of the inhabitants of Paris into two belligerent camps, one of which embraced the entire militant and politically active section of the bourgeoisie, as “pure democracy” with “universal suffrage"?


Secondly, the Paris Commune waged war against Versailles as the workers’ government of France against the bourgeois government. What have “pure democracy” and “universal suffrage” to do with it, when Paris was deciding the fate of France? When Marx expressed the opinion that the Paris, Commune had committed a mistake in failing to seize the bank, which belonged to the whole of France,[5] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/common_liberal.htm#fw05) did he not proceed from the principles and practice of “pure democracy”?


In actual fact, it is obvious that Kautsky is writing in a country where the police forbid people to laugh “in crowds,” otherwise Kautsky would have been killed by ridicule.



In these circumstances, to assume that in a revolution which is at all profound and serious the issue is decided simply by the relation between the majority and the minority is the acme of stupidity, the silliest prejudice of a common liberal, an attempt to deceive the people by concealing from them a well-establislied historical truth. This historical truth is that in every profound revolution, the prolonged, stubborn and desperate resistance o the exploiters, who for a number of years retain important practical advantages over the exploited, is the rule. Never—except in the sentimental fantasies of the sentimental fool Kautsky—will the exploiters submit to the decision of the exploited majority without trying to make use of their advantages in a last desperate battle, or series of battles.

This should be enough to show that, as usual, JR distorts Lenin, pompous phrases notwithstanding.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Who said anything about "pure democracy"? I said "the majority of the workers."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/internationalism.htm


The first—named are obligatory for a Marxist, for every revolutionary proletarian and internationalist—obligatory, because they alone take into account in a proper Marxist way the objective situation brought about by the war in all European countries, and they alone conform to the international tasks of the proletariat.

By substituting the petty question about an error which the Bolshevik revolutionaries might have made, but did not, for the important question of the foundations of revolutionary tactics in general, Kautsky adroitly abjures all revolutionary tactics.

A renegade in politics, he is unable even to present the question of the objective prerequisites of revolutionary tactics theoretically.

And this brings us to the second point.

Secondly, it is obligatory for a Marxist to count on a European revolution if a revolutionary situation exists. It is the ABC of Marxism that the tactics of the socialist proletariat cannot be the same both when there is a revolution-ary situation and when there is no revolutionary situa-tion.

If Kautsky had put this question, which is obligatory for a Marxist, he would have seen that the answer was abso-lutely against him. Long before the war, all Marxists, all socialists were agreed that a European war would create a revolutionary situation. Kautsky himself, before he became a renegade, clearly and definitely recognised this-in 1902 (in his Social Revolution) and in 1909 (in his Road to Power). It was also admitted in the name of the entire Second International in the Basel Manifesto.]

And I just cited The Road to Power above (in Post #9), in contrast to your decisively minoritarian approach.

[superiority]

Is there any way we can justify the overthrow of democraticly elected governments by means of revolution?
It's important to realise that the capitalist governments of modern liberal "democracies" are anything but democratic. They do not represent the interests of the population, they are tools used by the bourgeoise to aid in the extraction of profit. The so-called "democratic" aspects are a con job, a farce that helps to trick people into thinking they possess any sort of legitimacy. A socialist revolution would establish a society that represents all of the working class, and is thus far more genuinely democratic than any capitalist state.

[Kyshee]

Not to insult Q, but this conception is one of the most serious problems with the socialist movement today. In The Socialist Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Lenin successfully debunks the myth that Marxism means waiting until one can secure the support of the majority of the people or even of the workers to carry out the revolution. Lenin shows that the socialist revolution must take any opportunity possible to show its power in practice, and not only through propaganda.

Marxism needs no "democratic" justification for revolution. The historical degeneracy of capitalism is the only justification we need. Capitalism is an outmoded, reactionary social system and therefore its removal is justified, its governments being democratic notwithstanding.
Certainly not to insult you, Yehuda, but that could never work for anarcho-communism, for it cannot be imposed on the people.

[Yehuda Stern]

And I just cited The Road to Power above, in contrast to your decisively minoritarian approach.

I know you think you did, but really, you didn't.


Certainly not to insult you, Yehuda, but that could never work for anarcho-communism, for it cannot be imposed on the people.

Well, most of what I say cannot work for anarcho-communism; I see my group as being quite far from that tendency. However, we do not seek to impose anything, but to show in practice the power of the revolution. History teaches that revolutions that wait for the majority and only then act get crushed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I know you think you did, but really, you didn't.

The link in Post #9???

Here's more from that same chapter (I've replaced "socialism" with "social democracy" at the end in accordance with the original German (http://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1909/macht/6-wachstum.htm)):


Just so much the more rapid the economic development, and therewith the proletarianization of the population proceeds, the more numerous the hordes that stream from the country to the city, from the East to the West, out of the ranks of the small possessors into the ranks of propertyless, just so much the more numerous within the ranks of the proletarians is the element that have not yet comprehended the significance of the social revolution, indeed that do not even understand the significance of the class antagonisms in our society.

To win these to the idea of Socialism is an indispensable, but, under ordinary conditions, a very difficult task, that demands the greatest sacrifice and skill, and never proceeds as fast as we wish. Our recruiting ground today includes fully three-fourths of the population, probably even more; the number of votes that are given to us do not equal one-third of all the voters, and not one-fourth of all those entitled to vote.

But the rate of progress increases with a leap when the revolutionary spirit is abroad. It is almost inconceivable with what rapidity the mass of the people reach a clear consciousness of their class interests at such a time. Not alone their courage and their belligerency but their political interest as well, is spurred on in the highest degree through the consciousness that the hour has at last come for them to burst out of the darkness of night into the glory of the full glare of the sun. Even the laziest becomes industrious, even the most cowardly becomes brave, and even the most narrow gains a wider view. In such times a single year will accomplish an education of the masses that would otherwise have required a generation.

When such a situation has arisen, when a stage has been reached where internal conflicts threaten a collapse, and if there is within such a nation a class that is interested in attaining, and has the power to take political power, then the only thing that is needed is a party that possesses the confidence of this class, and which stands in irreconcilable antagonism to the tottering regime, and which clearly recognizes the existing situation, in order to lead the aspiring class to victory.

[Social Democracy] has long been such a party. The revolutionary class is also here, and has for some time constituted a majority of the nation. Can we also reckon upon the moral collapse of the ruling regime?

[Yehuda Stern]

I really don't care for your Kautsky quotes. I care about what Lenin said, which is clarified in the quotes I have put forward.

[F9]

"Justified"?Well if revolution is "justified" then overthrowing this system is justified too.. If people dont find this "justified" then i dont think there place is in here... of course as a simple word and term could get different "meanings" from different people as its a broad term and you werent been specific.
And of course "democratically" again is something that is really discussable..

[Die Neue Zeit]

I really don't care for your Kautsky quotes. I care about what Lenin said, which is clarified in the quotes I have put forward.

Then your minoritarian interpretation is mistaken, I'm afraid. What you quoted was, while on-topic on the question of "overthrowing 'democratically elected' governments," was off topic in regards to my remarks on securing the support of a majority of workers (and I quoted PRRK to be on the safe side).

[Yehuda Stern]

You didn't quote anything to that effect; the word "majority" doesn't even appear in your quote. Lenin says that Kautsky was right on the question of a European war in The Road to Power, not anything else.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Given the undemocratic nature of our electoral systems, and mass apathy, there are actually very few (as in, I can't name one) governments who have a mandate (as set by their 'constitutional' parameters) of over 50% of the population eligiable to vote.

A good example is our current government in the UK. Due to the undemocratic nature of first past the post, with only 36% (ish, this is off the top of my head) of the popular vote, Labour attained 60% of the seats in Parliament. If you then bring people eligiable to vote, but didn't, in to the equation, Labour won loosely 20% of the vote.

Under those kind of stipulations, I don't think it's justifiable to call these governments 'democratic'. Even by their own standards.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

The only democratic power is the working class struggle and the revolution itself, therefore of course there is justification because our structures in capitalist society are undemocratic.

[samizdat]

Hard to say, the elected "bourgeoisie" is protected through layers of opposing political parties that disillusion the middle and working classes with the idea that a change is always possible. If people aren't satisfied with the current democratically elected party, they'll simply switch to another party of their liking that preaches something else. As long as the masses believe that change can be made through the very same political process that is exploiting them in the first place, an actual revolution is unlikely to happen.

[RotStern]

The bourgeois very heart is the very weapon it will be killed with. :lol:

[Nihilist127]

I find that democracy at least in the United States usually means a race between two or three people with little difference between them that have the money and the friends in the right places to run for the office while anyone else without these don't even appear on the ballot. Which is more than enough justification for me to overthrow a "democratic" government.

[Tzadikim]

The answer is simple: the present bourgeois States are not democracies. The very concept of 'democracy' itself entails a level of equality utterly unattainable under a capitalist social system: not only must I be able to vote for my representatives, I must also have a say on my economic situation.

Without the ability to democratically reject exploitation, a State is not a democracy.

[BobKKKindle$]

The mass movement of the revolution in itself constitutes or should constitute a majority of the working class (and thus of society).To further build on what Yehuda said, this conception is also problematic because revolution is most likely to occur in countries where the working class represents only a small part of the population, due to the consequences of combined and uneven development, and in these circumstances it is probable that the peasantry - which generally makes up a majority or at least a significant section of the population in underdeveloped economies - will not side with the same political organizations as the working class, and may even take the side of the bourgeoisie, as a reflection of the peasantry's particular class interests. If you assume that a revolution is only legitimate when the majority of the population lends its support, this would render the October Revolution illegitimate, even if we assume that the whole of the working class supported the overthrow of capitalism and the actions of the Bolsheviks during the course of that event, which was probably not the case. The issue here is that socialists should not be bound by bourgeois political morality. The notion that a decision or policy having the support of the majority makes it morally correct has nothing to do with Marxism because Marxists do not analyze politics and history in terms of abstract moral principles like the will of the majority, or individual liberty, or human rights - the central principle of our politics is the self-emancipation of the working class, and this means that there is nothing wrong with the working class imposing its will on the rest of society and giving itself political privileges that are not available to other classes (such as giving workers' Soviets greater electoral weight than peasants' Soviets, using coercion to extract food from the countryside, or making the right to vote dependent on someone being part of the productive population - all of these measures were implemented by the Russian working class to prevent the peasantry from obstructing the overthrow of capitalism, and to enable the working class to retain power during the Civil War) as long as the revolution is being carried out by the working class itself, and not an organization that claims to act on behaf of the working class.

The moral weight commonly given to the will of the majority is further weakened by the fact that "democratic" governments as they currently exist in capitalist countries like the UK are often not elected by the majority of the population - the electoral system that is used in Britain allows a party to gain a strong parliamentary majority even when their share of the national vote is equal to or only slightly above the opposition, and this, combined with low voter turnout, led to New Labour's current government receiving only around 30% of the population's support. The electoral college system in the US led to a situation in 2000 where Al Gore was not given the presidency despite receiving more votes than his competitor due to the way the votes are distributed between the states. There is also the obvious fact that these "democracies" are representative in nature and so there is no guarantee that a given decision would receive a majority if subject to a referendum.

[Dimentio]

I don't think that people will overthrow governments in general unless the following three qualifications are true:

1. The governments has turned more authoritarian over decades in order to correspond to crises.

2. The majority of people view reality in such a way that they view the fall of the system as less non-beneficial than the continued existence of the system.

3. The leaders of the system have given an impression of weakness.

[Dimentio]

I think it is possible to overthrow democratically elected leaders by a justified argument, by the same motivation as Gracchus threw out his fellow tribunes. If a democratically elected leader fails to protect the interests of his or her constituencies, they should be able to be thrown out.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't think that people will overthrow governments in general unless the following three qualifications are true:

1. The governments has turned more authoritarian over decades in order to correspond to crises.

2. The majority of people view reality in such a way that they view the fall of the system as less non-beneficial than the continued existence of the system.

3. The leaders of the system have given an impression of weakness.

Almost Kautskyan, but I don't think #1 is necessary. In fact, that goes against one of the criteria you didn't mention: breakdown in the army and civil bureaucracy (which is stronger than #3). You also forget to mention the presence of some movement against the regime. I see #2 as a combination of mass hostility and support for the movement.


To further build on what Yehuda said, this conception is also problematic because revolution is most likely to occur in countries where the working class represents only a small part of the population, due to the consequences of combined and uneven development.

Except that even in countries like Venezuela, the working class constitutes at least half of the population. Perhaps Q's "and thus of society" might not be accurate in countries where the working class is NOT the demographic supermajority, though.

[Dimentio]

Revolutions usually happens before any movement is crystallising, historically. The French revolution of 1789 was before the era of professional revolutionaries. All they had in that time was some philosophers espousing liberal and proto-socialist thinking, some informal clubs for the intelligentsia and so on.

Yet, the French monarchy crumbled that summer of 1789. It was first after that when political parties started to rise. Usually, a revolution is a series of events.

1. Overthrow of the preexisting order.

2. Infighting between revolutionaries about the direction of the state.

3. Consolidation of a new regime.

[BobKKKindle$]

Except that even in countries like Venezuela, the working class constitutes at least half of the population. Perhaps Q's "and thus of society" might not be accurate in countries where the working class is NOT the demographic supermajority, though.

Yes, the majority of the working class might comprise a majority of the population in Venezuela. The point however is that having the support of the majority of a country's population does not give a particular course of action like the overthrow of capitalism any special degree of moral legitimacy that it would otherwise lack. You and the other posters here are constrained by the political morality of the bourgeoisie because you place such moral emphasis on activity reflecting the will of the majority. This ignores the fact that it is only recently that the urban population on a global scale has exceeded the rural population and so it would seem that any attempt to introduce socialism in the past (or even in the present, given that this urban population also includes large numbers of people who would not be seen as part of the proletariat in the traditional sense, due to them not selling their labour power as a commodity on a stable basis, such as slum dwellers, dependents, and so on) would be "immoral" on the grounds that it would represent the class interests of only a segment of the global population, i.e. the proletariat, against the interests of the majority.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why do I get the feeling that you are unconsciously repeating the line found in left-communist Bordiga's most openly totalitarian work, The Democratic Principle?

Again, you are confusing the majority support of the population/society with the majority support of the class, naturally because you are against the latter.

Here's a scenario that you haven't thought of: suppose the revolutionary party-movement has the support of the majority of the population/society, but not however the majority support of the class. As a Marxist, I would be against any attempt by this party to take power based on this support, because "the workers aren't ready."

For a historical-hypothetical example, say the Bolsheviks formed a coalition with the popular left-SRs and took power during the July Days (just after the split in the SR party), then won the constituent assembly elections (majority support of the population/society). I would condemn that as an opportunistic, Blanquist maneuver (because they did not obtain the majority support of the class).

[BobKKKindle$]

Why do I get the feeling that you are unconsciously repeating the line found in left-communist Bordiga's most openly totalitarian work, The Democratic Principle?I'm not "unconsciously" repeating anything as I'm fully aware of Bordiga's line of argument. Despite Left-Communism's broader flaws and inconsistencies, Bordiga was correct in drawing attention to the flaws of bourgeois political morality, and exposing pure democracy, devoid of class content, as an ideological weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie. You and others have fallen into the trap of accepting the bourgeoisie's political morality not only be asserting that a course of action only becomes morally acceptable once it gains the support of the majority, but also by framing the overthrow of capitalism as something that is carried out by "the people", whereas Marxists are aware that the socialist revolution can only be carried out by the proletariat, and that the interests of this class are necessarily in conflict with those of other classes that suffer exploitation under capitalism, most important the peasantry, and not just the bourgeoisie. The existence of class antagonisms between the proletariat and the peasantry means that the proletariat may find itself in a position where it is forced to carry out measures that violate the interests of the majority and even provoke opposition from those proletarians who have links with the countryside - the most obvious case of this being the implementation of War Communism during the Civil War, which cannot be justified if our conception of politics is rooted in such idealistic concepts as the will of the majority.


Again, you are confusing the majority support of the population/society with the majority support of the class, naturally because you are against the latter.I am in no way oppossed to the principle that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself but unlike you I do not view the overthrow of capitalism as something that will simply occur as soon as the majority of the working class has been won over to a revolutionary position, and likewise I do not believe that the working class can simply select a point in time, and then carry out a revolution; rather the overthrow of capitalism will necessarily be carried out by the advanced section of the class, as embodied in the vanguard party, and it will be the task of revolutionaries to be able to take advantage of favorable circumstances when they arise, and to correctly judge the balance of class forces. This is demonstrated by the experience of the Bolsheviks. Lenin correctly judged that October was the only viable time at which a revolution could take place because by that point the crisis had matured to the extent that a seizure of power under the leadership of the Bolsheviks would allow the working class to consolidate its power, whereas, in July, when the possibility of an insurrection was also proposed, the Bolsheviks might only have been able to establish power in Petrograd, and for only a small period of time. The Bolsheviks had of course increased their support during the intervening period but nonetheless other parties maintained a base of working-class support, especially outside Petrograd; despite this Lenin acknowledged on October 1st that "to wait would be a crime to the revolution", because the threat of insurrection was leading to the emergence of proto-fascist forces such as the the Black Hundreds, and so if the Bolsheviks had wavered and decided to wait until they had accumulated more support they would inevitably have faced violent repression, either at the hands of these forces, or the German armies, which were approaching Petrograd. Or, as Lenin said, with my emphasis, in The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power, written on September 12th:

"It would be naive to wait for a "formal" majority for the Bolsheviks. No revolution ever waits for that. Kerensky and Co. are not waiting either, and are preparing to surrender Petrograd. It is the wretched waverings of the Democratic Conference that are bound to exhaust the patience of the workers of Petrograd and Moscow! History will not forgive us if we do not assume power now"

None of this is to say that a party can seize power unless it embodies the advanced section of the working class and has the support of a significant section of the same class - in fact in Marxism and Insurrection, Lenin argues that the situation in September was different from July because by September the Bolsheviks had gained the "following of the majority of a class", as expressed in the Soviets, and had also gained the support of the landless peasantry, as a result of the SRs and Mensheviks having shown themselves unable to carry out land reform, through Chernov's resignation in the case of the SRs. However, Lenin's argument is clearly that, in the words of Marx, insurrection is an art, and so if revolutionaries (i.e. people who are members of the working class and have the most advanced understanding of the interests of that class and what is required to further those interests, such that they are committed to the overthrow of capitalism) are faced with an opportunity for insurrection, they should seize it with the knowledge that such opportunities are rare. This requires that revolutionaries reject the notion that the support of the majority whether of the population or the working class is a necessary condition for a revolution.


suppose the revolutionary party-movement has the support of the majority of the population/society, but not however the majority support of the class.This would suggest that the party in question does not reflect the class interests of the working class. Once again you ignore the fact that a revolution is not something that is handed down to the working class and nor is the revolutionary party an organization that exists outside of the ranks of the working class - it is simply the organized expression of the most advanced section of that class and so would never find itself in a position where its support amongst other social groups is greater than the support it obtains from its base.

Also, I don't dabble in alternative history, sorry.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This requires that revolutionaries reject the notion that the support of the majority whether of the population or the working class is a necessary condition for a revolution.

That, unfortunately, goes against Marx's dictum which you just quoted. And what of Lenin's praise of the identification of a revolutionary period in The Road to Power based on four criteria, including majority working-class support?

The Bolshevik decision in late October and early November did take into account the threat of the Black Hundreds, but securing additional support was no longer necessary once a sufficient majority of working-class support was obtained. The point is that a sufficient majority still had to be obtained, or else the anti-Bolshevik arguments made by the renegade Kautsky would have had much more credibility.


This would suggest that the party in question does not reflect the class interests of the working class. Once again you ignore the fact that a revolution is not something that is handed down to the working class and nor is the revolutionary party an organization that exists outside of the ranks of the working class - it is simply the organized expression of the most advanced section of that class and so would never find itself in a position where its support amongst other social groups is greater than the support it obtains from its base.

Also, I don't dabble in alternative history, sorry.

Now look who's being the "mechanical Marxist" here?

My hypothetical scenario was based on the assumption that the revolutionary party was a workers' party that ironically had more support in other classes than in the working class. Which just happens to be the state of much of the far left parties today, by the way.

[BobKKKindle$]

That, unfortunately, goes against Marx's dictum which you just quoted.
I fail to see how Marx's dictum that insurrection is an art infers that a revolution can only be carried out if the majority of the working class has already been won over to a revolutionary position. In fact, you've asserted that a revolution requires the "support" of the majority of the working class in order to be valid or stand any chance of success but you've yet to provide any definition of what "support" actually means, beyond the context of Russia, where you seem to believe that "support" can be understood as how many votes the Bolsheviks received in the Soviet elections, relative to other parties.


And what of Lenin's praise of the identification of a revolutionary period in The Road to Power based on four criteria, including majority working-class support?
Insofar as Lenin's definition is borrowed from Kautsky, Lenin never accepted the mechanical and abstract notion that as soon as a revolution gains the support of the majority (i.e. more than 50.0% of the working class - this is literally what we are talking about here, such is your level of abstraction from the concrete conditions of struggle) is becomes legitimate, and not before. Lenin never suggested that a revolution is possible without the working class being radicalized, or that a revolution can be an act of self-emancipation if it takes the form of a coup, imposed by a party which seeks to act on behalf of the proletariat, but for him this is a strategic question, and not a moral one, as he contends that the revolutionary party should have a level of support that enables it to seize power and defend itself against the response of the bourgeoisie, and that the revolution should be genuinely proletarian in terms of the class forces that are involved, hence Lenin's observation that "insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people". This is a strategic question because the level of support that is required is particular to different revolutionary situations, and Lenin does not endow the concept of a formal majority with any moral significance - hence his further observation, as quoted in my last post, that "it would be naive to wait for a "formal" majority for the Bolsheviks". This strategic concern is combined with others, such as the impending threat of the German armies, the geographical scope of the revolutionary upsurge, the vacillating behaviour of the Provisional Government and other radical forces, the indecision of the imperialist powers as to whether they should continue the war against Germany or sign a seperate peace directed against Russia, and Lenin, taking these factors together, correctly judged that October was the right time for an insurrecton. You also fail to acknowledge that a revolution is not just concerned with institutional changes, or power passing from one group of individuals to another; the process of revolution itself involves individuals who were previously told that they could not be allowed to manage their own lives or assume any degree of responsibility seizing control of their society, and for that reason a revolution inevitably draws in individuals who would not otherwise conceive of themselves as being able to shape the course of history, and therefore has a major impact on consciousness, giving people the confidence to transform the conditions in which they live. This is relevant because a revolution may be initiated by a force that does not represent a majority and yet is is only through a revolution that a majority of the working class can become capable, in terms of its consciousness of itself, of managing society, and building socialism. In this respect there is a link to be drawn between the process of revolution and the process by which Rousseau's social contract comes into being; Rousseau operates within a political tradition, also involving Pascal, that sees man's beliefs and understanding of himself as not being derived from a static nature, but as being the product of experience, hence Rousseau argues that as long as men inhabit the state of nature or live under illegitimate forms of political rule they cannot understand why the social contract is necessary or what the contract would entail; it is only after they have escaped from a pre-contractural society that they can understand why their escape was necessary.

Another point that's relevant to this discussion is that, if you view the support of the majority as a universal moral condition, that a party or government needs to fulfill in order to be able to carry out its desired course of action, then on this basis you would be forced to reject many of the measures that the Soviet government adopted once the revolution had been initiated. The measures that were designed to improve the condition of women, such as granting divorce to any individual that requested it regardless of their gender or whether their partner gave consent, as well as the legalization of abortion, provoked opposition from male workers, and the legalization of homosexuality provoked opposition from both male and female workers, and it may have been the case that these measures would have failed to secure the support of the majority if referenda had been held; nonetheless it was obviously correct for these measures to be implemented because as Marxists we are committed to liberation for all oppressed groups even when the process of liberation goes against the desires of a privileged majority, and requires coercion to implement fully.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Here's something for you to chew on:


On this issue, the centre presented the anarcho-syndicalists and the left with a version of Morton’s Fork. The first limb of the fork was that a true general strike would depend on the workers’ party having majority support if it was to win. But if the workers’ party already had majority support, where was the need for the general strike? The workers’ party would start with its electoral majority as a mandate for socialism, rather than with the strike. It was for this reason that the centre, in Bebel’s resolution at the 1905 Jena Congress of the SPD, was willing to demand the use of the mass strike weapon in defence of, or in the struggle for, universal suffrage.
The second limb of the fork was that the strategy of the working class coming to power through a strike wave presupposed that the workers’ party had not won a majority. In these circumstances, for the workers’ party to reach for power would be a matter of ‘conning the working class into taking power’. However formally majoritarian the party might be, the act of turning a strike wave into a struggle for power would inevitably be the act of an enlightened minority steering the benighted masses.
The argument against the right was also an argument against minority action - but minority action of a different kind. The right argued that the workers’ party, while still a minority, should be willing to enter coalition governments with middle class parties in order to win reforms.

[Yehuda Stern]

I'm sorry, maybe in your mind Mike Macnair has the same authority in Lenin, but not so in the mind of any sane person. Neither does Bebel.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the sense that Lenin was a second-hand Kautskyan who became a lesser renegade by the 1920s, perhaps. And it's comrade Rakunin who's got Bebel as a historical fascination, not me. :p

[Tower of Bebel]

Marxism needs no "democratic" justification for revolution. The historical degeneracy of capitalism is the only justification we need. Capitalism is an outmoded, reactionary social system and therefore its removal is justified, its governments being democratic notwithstanding.
No "bourgeois democratic" justification ;) (e.g. "the majority of 'the people' in one country", "a parliamentary majority", etc.). That as the fundamental problem with the renegade Kautsky as shown in The Renegade Kautsky.

We need a certain democratic justification however. It's that kind of democracy explained by Lenin in The Renegade Kautsky and by Luxemburg in The Russian Revolution. In the end it's the goal which justifies the means, but as long as the final goal is not achieved we can only rely on the active participation of the working class ("the masses") for the justification of our "despotic inroads on the right of property" (the basis for our supposedly (bourgeois) "democratic" governments).

[Yehuda Stern]

We need a certain democratic justification however. It's that kind of democracy explained by Lenin in The Renegade KautskyYou mean this kind of democracy?


Engels came to express his views on this subject when establishing that the term "Social-Democrat" was scientifically wrong.
In a preface to an edition of his articles of the seventies on various subjects, mostly on “international” questions (Internationales aus dem Volkstaat), dated January 3, 1894, i.e., written a year and a half before his death, Engels wrote that in all his articles he used the word “Communist”, and not "Social-Democrat", because at that time the Proudhonists in France and the Lassalleans[8] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm#fw08) in Germany called themselves Social-Democrats.
"... For Marx and myself," continued Engels, "it was therefore absolutely impossible to use such a loose term to characterize our special point of view. Today things are different, and the word ["Social-Democrat"] may perhaps pass muster [mag passieren], inexact [unpassend, unsuitable] though it still is for a party whose economic programme is not merely socialist in general, but downright communist, and whose ultimate political aim is to overcome the whole state and, consequently, democracy as well. The names of real political parties, however, are never wholly appropriate; the party develops while the name stays."[9] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm#fw09)


EDIT: The more one thinks about the argument that Marxists must have the support of a majority of the working class on their side for an uprising to be legitimate, the more its nationalist and at bottom reformist logic is exposed. Suppose in one country the majority of the working class supports a revolution but in a neighboring country only a minority does. What does the revolution do? Does it stop at the border?

Suppose that near the border of the other country, there are many communist workers who also want to join the uprising. Do the revolutionaries in the majority country say, "no, you must wait until you have a majority - only then do you have the right to a revolution!"?

Let us think of the very likely event in which the army of the minority country sets out to suppress the revolution. Surely, it will not miss the chance to also suppress the communist workers. Should these workers allow themselves to be shot down like dogs because according to our democratic socialists, they have no right to start a revolution?

Let's be even more concrete. In Israel, as well as other settler states, only a minority of the working class could ever realistically become revolutionary. Even if one disputes this perspective, it has been a fact up to now. Was a Palestinian and regional working class revolution illegitimate up to now, still is illegitimate? In the end, what these comrades are arguing is that Palestinians should allow themselves to be oppressed and murdered for as long as there is no majority of the working class supporting a revolution in Israel. All the smug theories of this kind are easily exposed once one tries to think about implementing them in practice!

The bottom line is: revolutions do not respect borders. Reformists do. Centrists do. Nationalists do. Revolutionaries do not. Those who view the legitimacy of a revolution in such bourgeois-democratic terms merely betray their hostility to the working class and to the oppressed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

EDIT: The more one thinks about the argument that Marxists must have the support of a majority of the working class on their side for an uprising to be legitimate, the more its nationalist and at bottom reformist logic is exposed. Suppose in one country the majority of the working class supports a revolution but in a neighboring country only a minority does. What does the revolution do? Does it stop at the border?

Depending on the trans-national situation, the revolution in the first country may not happen at all - yet. [The most obvious case being when that's the only country in the world seething with revolution. :glare: ]

On the other hand, if the second country is dwarfed demographically by the revolutionary country, then I see no problem with "social imperialism," but that depends on the trans-national situation.

You say that "revolutions do not respect borders." Yet your 20th-century, inter-nationalist "analysis" demonstrates otherwise. Capital has gone trans-national; so should the organization of the working class (because the revolutionary period (http://www.revleft.com/vb/overthrow-democratically-elected-t116852/index.html?p=1539262), not just "revolution," has to transcend borders).


Let us think of the very likely event in which the army of the minority country sets out to suppress the revolution. Surely, it will not miss the chance to also suppress the communist workers. Should these workers allow themselves to be shot down like dogs because according to our democratic socialists, they have no right to start a revolution?

Again, that depends on the global revolutionary situation. If the second country's demographic is small, for example, the first country could practice "social imperialism" - again depending on my remarks above.


In Israel, as well as other settler states, only a minority of the working class could ever realistically become revolutionary. Even if one disputes this perspective, it has been a fact up to now. Was a Palestinian and regional working class revolution illegitimate up to now, still is illegitimate? In the end, what these comrades are arguing is that Palestinians should allow themselves to be oppressed and murdered for as long as there is no majority of the working class supporting a revolution in Israel. All the smug theories of this kind are easily exposed once one tries to think about implementing them in practice!

But there is no revolutionary period in the Mideast region, is there (your minoritarianism doesn't help bring this about)? Support their "bourgeois-democratic" aspirations, sure. But I don't see the demographically and territorially small Palestine as the flashpoint for trans-national proletocratic revolution.


Centrists do.

Well, I quoted a revolutionary-centrist in my definition of a revolutionary period and stressing majority working-class support, didn't I? :p

[Tower of Bebel]

Yehuda, I'm not exactly sure of what you mean, but I'll post this anyway.

Yes, we get rid of democracy once we get rid of the state. But in my opinion that doesn't say anything about the kind of democracy a "workers' state" needs. It's not something arbitrary.

I recall Trotsky who wrote:
The division of our programme into maximum and minimum programmes has a profound and tremendous principled significance during the period when power lies in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The very fact of the bourgeoisie being in power drives out of our minimum programme all demands which are incompatible with private property in the means of production. Such demands form the content of a socialist revolution and presuppose a proletarian dictatorship.

[...]

[...] The very fact of the proletariat’s representatives entering the government, not as powerless hostages, but as the leading force, destroys the border-line between maximum and minimum programme; that is to say, it places collectivism on the order of the day. The point at which the proletariat will be held up in its advance in this direction depends upon the relation of forces, but in no way upon the original intentions of the proletarian party.

For this reason there can be no talk of any sort of special form of proletarian dictatorship in the bourgeois revolution, of democratic proletarian dictatorship (or dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry). The working class cannot preserve the democratic character of its dictatorship without refraining from overstepping the limits of its democratic programme. Any illusions on this point would be fatal. They would compromise Social Democracy from the very start.Results and Prospects (ch 6.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp06.htm)

I think Trotsky should have written "The working class cannot preserve the democratic character of its dictatorship without refraining from overstepping the limits of bourgeois democracy".

If we are to believe what Marx and Engels once wrote then the dictatorship of the proletariat must take a peculiar form; that of a democratic republic.

I hope the following helps:


Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; [...]Critique of the Gotha Programme (part 5.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm)

But as long as the aufhebung of the state didn't happen the struggle for democracy plays an important role in our programme:

But one thing has been forgotten. Since the German Workers' party expressly declares that it acts within "the present-day national state", hence within its own state, the Prusso-German Empire — its demands would indeed be otherwise largely meaningless, since one only demands what one has not got — it should not have forgotten the chief thing, namely, that all those pretty little gewgaws [Gotha's democratic demands] rest on the recognition of the so-called sovereignty of the people and hence are appropriate only in a democratic republic.

[...] t is precisely in this last form of state of bourgeois society that the class struggle has to be fought out to a conclusion.Critique of the Gotha Programme (part 5.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm)

And Engels:

The political demands of the draft have one great fault. It [I]lacks precisely what should have been said. If all the 10 demands were granted we should indeed have more diverse means of achieving our main political aim, but the aim itself would in no wise have been achieved.

[...]

[...] This forgetting of the great, the principal considerations for the momentary interests of the day, this struggling and striving for the success of the moment regardless of later consequences, this sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present, may be “honestly” meant, but it is and remains opportunism, and “honest” opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all!

Which are these ticklish, but very significant points?

First. If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown.Critique of the Erfurt Programme (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm)

Thus, the dictatorship of the proletariat presupposes a democratic republic if the workers want to fight the final conflict. The democratic republic is the political form of the proletarian dictatorship. It can mean the continued existance of bourgeois laws (like Marx has presented in his critique of the Gotha programme), but overall proletarian democracy goes beyond bourgeois democracy because it does not defend private but collective property.

Rosa Luxemburg's critique of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution confirms the need of democracy:

Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people. The Russian Revolution (ch 8.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm)

Lenin also defened proletarian democracy as the democratic rule of the working class. The working class set up its own state for this. The proletariat supposedly ruled through the soviet republic; which was a democratic republic:


Instinctively, from hearing fragments of admissions of the truth in the bourgeois press, the workers of the whole world sympathise with the Soviet Republic precisely because they regard it as a proletarian democracy, a democracy for the poor, and not a democracy for the rich that every bourgeois democracy, even the best, actually is.

[...]

In Russia, however, the bureaucratic machine has been completely smashed, razed to the ground; the old judges have all been sent packing, the bourgeois parliament has been dispersed—and far more accessible representation has been given to the workers and peasants; their Soviets have replaced the bureaucrats, or their Soviets have been put in control of the bureaucrats, and their Soviets have been authorised to elect the judges. This fact alone is enough for all the oppressed classes to recognise that Soviet power, i.e., the present form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic.

Kautsky does not understand this truth, which is so clear and obvious to every worker, because he has “forgotten,” “unlearned” to put the question: democracy for which class? He argues from the point of view of “pure” (i.e., non-class? or above-class?) democracy.The Renegade Kautsky (ch 3.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm)

With "pure democracy" we've come to the threat of abstraction. Quite correctly Trotsky warns the "social democrats" for creating illusions in "democracy". An abstract idea of proletarian democracy, much like the bourgeois republican ideas of the Renegade Kautsky, constitute a weapon in the hands of our enemies. Marx already made an early warning in 1852:


A joint program was drafted, joint election committees were set up and joint candidates put forward. The revolutionary point was broken off and a democratic turn given to the social demands of the proletariat; the purely political form was stripped off the democratic claims of the petty bourgeoisie and their socialist point thrust forward. Thus arose social-democracy. The new Montagne, the result of this combination, contained, apart from some supernumeraries from the working class and some socialist sectarians, the same elements as the old Montagne, but numerically stronger. However, in the course of development it had changed with the class that it represented. The peculiar character of social-democracy is epitomized in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away with two extremes, capital and wage labor, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less revolutionary notions, the content remains the same. This content is the transformation of society in a democratic way, but a transformation within the bounds of the petty bourgeoisie. Only one must not get the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie, on principle, wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest. Rather, it believes that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions within whose frame alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided.The Eightteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (ch 3.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch03.htm)

The same critique can be found in the critiques of the Gotha and Erfurt Programmas. And in the words of Trotsky:

The more radical representatives of this same democracy do not risk taking up a stand against revolution even from the point of view of already-secured constitutional ‘gains’. For them this parliamentary cretinism, preceding the rise of parliamentarism itself, does not constitute a strong weapon in the struggle against the proletarian revolution. They choose another path. They take their stand not on the basis of law but on what seems to them the basis of facts – on the basis of historical ‘possibility’, on the basis of political ‘realism’ and, finally ... finally, even on the basis of ‘marxism’. And why not? That pious Venetian bourgeois, Antonio, very aptly said:

‘The devil can quote Scripture to his purpose.’ Results and Prospects (ch 6.) (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp06.htm)

This however, as I explained, does not mean that we don't need a (proletarian) democracy. Without democracy there's no rule of the proletariat by the proletariat. Without democracy there's no road to socialism.

[Yehuda Stern]

To be honest, I don't know what to say next. Jacob Richter's post does a great work of exposing him all on its own; it fully shows his reactionary worldview. He manages to take positions that are the exact opposite of Lenin's - that a revolution should not be undertaken if it can only be victorious in one country, but that a workers state should bureaucratically force a revolution on another country if it can. This was Stalin's conduct in Georgia, which Lenin and Trotsky sharply criticized. He also avoids my point on Palestine, which is not surprising since he never has anything real to say on any concrete question - well, even less than usual.

As for Rakunin, I merely wanted to demonstrate that democracy of any kind is no a-proiri principle of Marxism; it is just the best way for the workers to run their state. You've avoided, however, the second and far more important part of my post.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Jacob Richter's post does a great work of exposing him all on its own; it fully shows his reactionary worldview. He manages to take positions that are the exact opposite of Lenin's - that a revolution should not be undertaken if it can only be victorious in one country, but that a workers state should bureaucratically force a revolution on another country if it can. This was Stalin's conduct in Georgia, which Lenin and Trotsky sharply criticized.

I put "social imperialism" in quotes because I don't like the idea of sending in ground troops, which Lenin and Trotsky tried to do with Poland!

http://www.revleft.com/vb/road-power-and-t83963/index.html?p=1198024

Not that the technology of their time helped, either, but in today's terms one could simply use cruise missiles and other long-range bombardment to devastate the military, paramilitary, and police apparatuses of the opposing country - and let the workers there finish the job. That's a hint of where I think revolution should start.

If I remember correctly, it is you who advocated the idea of bureaucratically forcing a revolution on another country as a rule ("majority country" spreading revolution to the "minority country" even if the workers in the latter aren't ready).

[Yehuda Stern]

If I remember correctly, it is you who advocated the idea of bureaucratically forcing a revolution on another country when possible ("majority country" spreading revolution to the "minority country" even if the workers in the latter aren't ready).

Now. I simply said that workers should seize power wherever they can. If they can do so in a given country and in part of a country which borders it as well, the revolution will have to alter these borders. I doubt this will really be given much thought.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why didn't you clarify this, then? Your post implied wholesale spreading of revolution ("invasion") and didn't imply the possibility of partial "land grabs" (which I'm OK with, too).

[Without this example of yours, I would've merely copied and posted "Neither Revolution Nor Legality 'At Any Price'" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch05.htm)]