Engels on "a revolution in one country alone"

[Weezer]

From the Principles of Communism, Question 19 by Engels:


— 19 —
Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.

Is it fair to say that Engels would be against the theory of Socialism in One Country if he opposed a "revolution in one country alone"?

[devoration1]

Absolutely. Communism can only come about by a global working class revolutionary wave. It is impossible to have socialism or communism in one country or group of countries- state capitalism is the only result in attempts to create socialist countries in a capitalist world. The revolution does have to start in one place, but by nature the revolutionary wave has to be international for it to work, or potentially work (such as the global wave of 1917-1923, involved almost every country on earth to varying degrees). Stalinism and all further deviations based on Stalinism (aka 'Marxism-Leninism' and its offshoots) are at odds with Marxism and communism/socialism.

[A.R.Amistad]

Is it fair to say that Engels would be against the theory of Socialism in One Country if he opposed a "revolution in one country alone"? Everyone including Stalin opposed the idea that socialism could be built in one country. I am sure that you are familiar with Stalin's self-revisionism where before 1924 he opposed the idea in his book Foundations of 'Leninism' (quotes are my own) but revised the sentence later to encompass his idea of socialism in one country. of course Marx, Engels and subsequently every Marxist after the and before Stalin had no illusions of socialism in one country.

[bailey_187]

So Engels predicted that revolution would most likley spread. The problem is....it didnt...

[Dave B]

There is one of the standard quotations on this that we should all know I think;


Karl Marx. The German Ideology. 1845, Part I: Feuerbach.

Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook
A. Idealism and Materialism

[5. Development of the Productive Forces as a Material Premise of Communism]



This "alienation" (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an "intolerable" power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity "propertyless," and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its development.

And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the "propertyless" mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones.

Without this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples "all at once" and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism.


Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterly precarious position of labour – power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limited satisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a secure source of life – presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus only exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a "world-historical" existence. World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history.

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm)

[devoration1]

So Engels predicted that revolution would most likley spread. The problem is....it didnt...

I don't believe this is accurate. The October Revolution was the prime event which triggered a revolutionary wave around the world, although in every nation that there was revolutionary activity (including Russia) there had been about 10-40 years of struggles leading up to it.

Russian empire 1917, Germany 1918, United States 1919, Hungary 1919, etc. Every nation in Europe, and most nations elsewhere in the world (especially Peria, China, etc) experienced revolutionary upheavel. The October Revolution did not occur in isolation. While the results were furtherst along in Russia and the old Russian Empire, and the proletariat held out the longest there, by the late 1920's (the last large scale revolutionary working class upheavel was most likely the Shanghai Commune of 1927) the revolutionary wave had receded, in defeat- the counter-revolution triumphed, and for 40 years the proletariat operated at very low levels of class consciousness (until its reappearence on the international stage starting in May 1968).

[bailey_187]

thanks for the totally original narative

[devoration1]

thanks for the totally original narative

I'm just curious why you say the revolution didn't spread, and what you mean. Do you think the October revolution was an isolated event, or that because the revolutionary surges in other nations didn't achieve as much/go as far as the Russians that they aren't part of the revolution?

[Weezer]

Bump

[Bright Banana Beard]

I'm just curious why you say the revolution didn't spread, and what you mean. Do you think the October revolution was an isolated event, or that because the revolutionary surges in other nations didn't achieve as much/go as far as the Russians that they aren't part of the revolution?
It wasn't a isolated event, class struggle will always exist and will surge either way across the world. The point is, the class struggle isn't set in unity across the world.
Engels was correct that it is necessary to continue the struggle. However, majority of the "socialist" states went for "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalism and dropped the call for "international proletarian revolution."

What Engels is wrong is the motion that communism can be followed immediately by international proletarian revolution, as saying that reactionary ideas can be ignored.

Hell, even the soviets elected the non-Bolsheviks, so much for workers is smart on their own.