Tzadikim
2nd February 2010, 09:26
In every other great revolutionary epoch - I speak in particular of the transitionary eras between stages of historical development (the mercantilist era between feudalism and capitalism, the 'monastic' era that existed between the fall of the slave-centered Roman Empire and the rise of the estates, and so forth), there seems to be a period of percolation, in which the material conditions of society seem to exist as if on a pendulum, swinging to and fro between extremes - in point of fact, both 'extremes' can frequently be found to co-exist with one another, though one typically does dominate. The best example I can think of is the period immediately following the deposition of Romulus Augustus in 475 and the ultimate collapse of the Empire, but preceding the rise of Charles Martel and the Carolignians: the Germanic peoples that re-populated the Roman Empire converted swiftly from the slave-oriented agrarian forms of production of their Latin predecessors to one based wholly, or entirely, on a centralized monastic hub, all within the space of a few generations. Before the rise of the great feudal estates - which assumed almost completely unmolested the role the monasteries had previously held in Medieval economics - there was already the basic blue-print of the future inherent within the post-Roman economy.
I believe that historical epochs are not perfectly defined, and that this accords well with historical materialism. Aside from the example cited above, capitalism in its present form is known to have existed on a much smaller scale as early as the fourteenth century, when the rapid population decline associated with the Black Death led to an increasing inability on the part of the nobles to find serfs enough to operate their estates, causing them to initiate some of the first modern wage systems in the world. That this sort of proto-capitalism wasn't immediately adopted the world over hardly means that this wasn't its formative state.
Now, what I mean by all this is simple: I do not believe that even if a revolution were initiated worldwide tomorrow, that it would be a success. I do not believe this because I do not believe the structures necessary to support a global revolution today exist - the Communist movement has been heavy on theorizing and lax on making the effort to effectuate the necessary systems required before any revolutionary movements could occur.
If, for instance, tomorrow we were to wake up to find the entire capitalist world besieged from New York to New Delhi by Communist forces -- where would its supply of ammunition come from? Where its transportation? Where its communication (the Internet would likely be the first integral service to be shut down by its owners)?
The fact of the matter is that a revolutionary spirit is hindered, in large part, by the lack of pre-existing structures in place to support it. And this is directly the result of the hitherto immaturity of the capitalist system - we Communists often tend to forget the the Manifesto was written a mere one hundred and sixty-two years ago; the feudal world before it, in comparison, existed for very nearly a thousand years, and its earliest echoes can be found on the Roman frontier several hundred years before the collapse of the Western Romantic Empire.
What this all means, in summation, is that, instead of ideological bickering, and as an addendum to efforts at consciousness-raising, we ought to be focused on the very physical task of creating the sort of economy that we'd like to see implemented - we very literally ought to turn our energies towards establishing those institutions which will outlive the Revolution proper and prove indispensable to its stated aims. Simply because the mainstream of our society today is capitalist does not make this endeavor possible; to the contrary, the aforementioned examples of simultaneous systems makes it possible.
At the same time, I am not interested in joining a monastery or running away to some commune in California. What I want is to focus less on Communism in the abstract, and more on how each industry will grow and thrive and operate functionally under it. I'm less interested right now in armed militancy and more in technological progress that can render capitalism utterly irrelevant.
[/rant]
I believe that historical epochs are not perfectly defined, and that this accords well with historical materialism. Aside from the example cited above, capitalism in its present form is known to have existed on a much smaller scale as early as the fourteenth century, when the rapid population decline associated with the Black Death led to an increasing inability on the part of the nobles to find serfs enough to operate their estates, causing them to initiate some of the first modern wage systems in the world. That this sort of proto-capitalism wasn't immediately adopted the world over hardly means that this wasn't its formative state.
Now, what I mean by all this is simple: I do not believe that even if a revolution were initiated worldwide tomorrow, that it would be a success. I do not believe this because I do not believe the structures necessary to support a global revolution today exist - the Communist movement has been heavy on theorizing and lax on making the effort to effectuate the necessary systems required before any revolutionary movements could occur.
If, for instance, tomorrow we were to wake up to find the entire capitalist world besieged from New York to New Delhi by Communist forces -- where would its supply of ammunition come from? Where its transportation? Where its communication (the Internet would likely be the first integral service to be shut down by its owners)?
The fact of the matter is that a revolutionary spirit is hindered, in large part, by the lack of pre-existing structures in place to support it. And this is directly the result of the hitherto immaturity of the capitalist system - we Communists often tend to forget the the Manifesto was written a mere one hundred and sixty-two years ago; the feudal world before it, in comparison, existed for very nearly a thousand years, and its earliest echoes can be found on the Roman frontier several hundred years before the collapse of the Western Romantic Empire.
What this all means, in summation, is that, instead of ideological bickering, and as an addendum to efforts at consciousness-raising, we ought to be focused on the very physical task of creating the sort of economy that we'd like to see implemented - we very literally ought to turn our energies towards establishing those institutions which will outlive the Revolution proper and prove indispensable to its stated aims. Simply because the mainstream of our society today is capitalist does not make this endeavor possible; to the contrary, the aforementioned examples of simultaneous systems makes it possible.
At the same time, I am not interested in joining a monastery or running away to some commune in California. What I want is to focus less on Communism in the abstract, and more on how each industry will grow and thrive and operate functionally under it. I'm less interested right now in armed militancy and more in technological progress that can render capitalism utterly irrelevant.
[/rant]