is this revolution?

[(DSL)Mai68]

i have a question but this is learn forum



i also believe in that revolution. but is this revolution? how do we revolution? do u think well see real rise-up-revoluion like russia or CHINA or france-68? or something else new now in 21 century?
do u really have internet message board and rise-up0revolution in the streets? what about all the modern tech?
or is revolution only possive in 3 world where very little tech? i Don't like that idea thougg, cause then u only have poor revolutions like russia or CHINA
ideas to learn?
:thumbup1:

[fa2991]

Revolution is the forceful overthrow of the existing order. It can happen in 1st world countries with full technology, but the majority of the population would have to back it.

[(DSL)Mai68]

Revolution is the forceful overthrow of the existing order.

i know that! :P


It can happen in 1st world countries with full technology, but the majority of the population would have to back it.

right but as a rise-up-revolution like CHINA or russia> or something new?

my question is what would 21century majority of the population do fro revolution?

[fa2991]

I'd think they would takeover the workplaces with a mass strike - syndicalism - and use mass control of capital to install the new order.

[Blackscare]

I think that the style of revolution would certainly be different. Remember, the revolutions of the past that were successful all had at least two things in common: they were in the 3rd world and traced their roots to Leninism. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing, but it does say something about the material conditions in which Leninism is most effective.


From the beginning there has been a rift between Leninists and so called "Left Communists" who were more based in places like Germany (a 1st world industrial power with a very large proletariat, much larger than China or Russia). Considering these two ideologies have roots in very different material circumstances, it follows logically that their methods may be different.

The Left Communists are more libertarian in their ideals, believing that rather than a vanguard party being necessary, the working class itself must mobilize and take control of the revolution. This is more of a feasible idea where the working class is large and strong, and possessing a high degree of awareness (which, workers today may lack, but considering we have wonderful tech like the internet today, it's within reason to expect people to be able to more rapidly educate themselves than ever before, in times of crisis). This was not the case in 1917 Russia, where in order to have a proletarian revolution Lenin correctly saw that a third party (or, the party) would have to step in and strong arm the rest of society, who were mostly agricultural, into compliance.



So I believe that a revolution in Western Europe or the USA would likely be of a less Authoritarian nature than those in the past.


Also, another important distinction is that in past revolutions, the countries involved have been quite underdeveloped, requiring a united force to guide development and modernization. This is another role that would not need to be filled nearly to the same degree elsewhere, and I see no reason why a centralized party would be needed.



Here is a link to "An Open Letter to Comrade Lenin" in which Herman Gorter refutes "Left Communism: an Infantile Disorder" and in the process lays out the major differences in conditions and praxis, of Left Communist thought.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm


I hope this post helped a bit, welcome to the forum!

[Obs]

Just out of curiosity, why do you put "China" in all capital letters?

[Zanthorus]

From the beginning there has been a rift between Leninists and so called "Left Communists" who were more based in places like Germany (a 1st world industrial power with a very large proletariat, much larger than China or Russia). Considering these two ideologies have roots in very different material circumstances, it follows logically that their methods may be different.

Actually, the roots of Leninism are also in Germany, in the pre-1910 works of Karl Kautsky. The rift between "Leninists" and "Left-Communists" is also false. The Left Fraction of the Partito Communista d'Italia considered itself as being followers of Lenin.


rather than a vanguard party being necessary, the working class itself must mobilize and take control of the revolution.

Well if you had actually read Gorter's reply to Lenin, you would've found him arguing for a vanguard party, "hard as steel, clear as glass".


This was not the case in 1917 Russia, where in order to have a proletarian revolution Lenin correctly saw that a third party (or, the party) would have to step in and strong arm the rest of society, who were mostly agricultural, into compliance.

Prior to 1917 Lenin didn't even believe that socialism was possible in Russia and he and the Bolshevik party advocated the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" which they believed would lay the foundations for capitalist development in Russia, being unable to move any further due to the social power of the peasantry. It was two men who at the time adhered to Menshevik organisational principles - Alexander Helphand Parvus and his somewhat more famous disciple Leon Trotsky - who opposed both the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks and declared that Russia was ripe for socialism given a simultaneous proletarian revolution in Western Europe. Lenin's theory of the party had nothing to do with the way the revolution would go anyway. It was originally based on an attempt to imitate the model of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany.

[Blackscare]

Well if you had actually read Gorter's reply to Lenin, you would've found him arguing for a vanguard party, "hard as steel, clear as glass".


He also argued that such leaders and such a party clearly did not exist at the time, and that it was a matter of the working class sorting things out and arriving at the proper vehicle for revolution. Regardless, the sort of vanguard party being mentioned would have been different, IMO, if only because it was generated from the working class itself rather than being an outside clique of particularly dedicated militants "harnessing" pre-existing energy towards revolutionary means.


I'm not against vanguards, and I did indeed word that post wrong, but the important part is what the nature of such a vanguard party is. Is it created out of the workers movement as an outlet of the most radical members of said movement? Then I support it. Is it a group of intellectuals and professional militants seeking to persuade the working class to march to it's banner? Then, in this situation, no I do not.

[Peace on Earth]

A revolution in an industrialized, first-world nation will most likely occur when workers occupy factories and other businesses on a large scale. The workers will run the means of production and other businesses, most likely in a more productive manner than the previous owners did, thus leading consumers to be happy, therefore garnering more support.

Eventually law enforcement will attempt to take back the means of production for the previous owners, which will sadly result in violent conflict. If the people begin to win, expect the military to be sent in. A large number of people (75% or more) would need to support the revolution at this point to counter the power of the military.

Hopefully the leaders of the nation will realize that a bloody war is not something that they want and will take millions of dollars and retire to a latin american nation or an island where they live their lives out.

[Weezer]

Just out of curiosity, why do you put "China" in all capital letters?

It appears English is not (DSL)Mai68 is not his/her first language, relax.

[Obs]

It appears English is not (DSL)Mai68 is not his/her first language, relax.
I am relaxed, I was just curious, since it seemed like an oddly specific thing to do.

[syndicat]

A revolution is a protracted process of change in the exploited and oppressed. This is manifested by a breakdown of the division between people who are professionals and bosses who make decisions and those who are folowers or obeyers. There is a process of developing participation in struggles against the employers, government, other controlling agencies by those subject to them, and the development of forms of collective self-activity (that is, for the realization of people's own aspirations, interests). Due to this there would be a tendency for a change in mindset among many of the working class & oppressed, coming to have more belief in the possibility of change, in their own capacity to run things, in development of active participation and knowledge about the system, and so on.

You can't have liberation without this change and without liberation there is no revolution worth talking about. To put it another way, an authentic revolution is the process by which the oppressed and exploited liberate themselves. This can't happen without their participation, can't be a question of leaders or whatever doing things for them.

This process will then be manifested in the increasing development of mass movements and struggles being controlled by the rank and file.

The actual revolution takes place when there is a change in the political-economic structure so that the mass of the exploited and oppressed come to gain control over the places where they work, their neighborhoods and over social governance in general.

Of course there have been various attempts in this direction over the past century, but no social revolution in the sense I've defined above has successfully consolidated itself....not so far. But what's important is to think of the social revolution of a process of change in the exploited and oppressed themselves, and then from this comes the change in the social structure.

[Zanthorus]

I'm not against vanguards, and I did indeed word that post wrong, but the important part is what the nature of such a vanguard party is. Is it created out of the workers movement as an outlet of the most radical members of said movement? Then I support it. Is it a group of intellectuals and professional militants seeking to persuade the working class to march to it's banner? Then, in this situation, no I do not.

Well then you'd be agreeing with Lenin ;)


Has not Krichevsky heard of the fact, long ago noted, that it is precisely the extensive participation of an “academic” stratum in the socialist movement in recent years that has promoted such a rapid spread of Bernsteinism?


It has been said here that the exponents of Social-Democratic ideas have been mainly intellectuals. That is not so. During the period of Economism the exponents of revolutionary ideas were workers, not intellectuals. This is confirmed by "A Worker", the author of the pamphlet published with a foreword by Comrade Axelrod.

[...]

It has also been pointed out that splits have usually been the work of intellectuals. This is an important point, but it does not settle the question. In my writings for the press I have long urged that as many workers as possible should be placed on the committees...

It will be the task of the future centre to reorganise a considerable number of our committees; the inertness of the committee-men has to be overcome.

I can hear Comrade Sergeyev booing while the non-committee-men applaud. I think we should look at the matter more broadly. To place workers on the committees is a political, not only a pedagogical, task. Workers have the class instinct, and, given some political experience, they pretty soon become staunch Social-Democrats.


I was for cashiering the committees, but in the Patty Council, at the time when our factional strife was raging, I spoke against it, since there would have been a certain impropriety in the exercise of that right. If this clause constitutes a threat to the committees consisting of intellectuals, then I am all for it. A tight hold must always be kept on the intelligentsia. It is always the instigator of all sorts of squabbles...

One cannot rely on a small periphery of intellectuals, but one can and should rely on hundreds of organised workers.


The working class is instinctively, spontaneously Social-Democratic, and more than ten years of work put in by Social-Democracy has done a great deal to transform this spontaneity into consciousness...

Our Party has stagnated while working underground. As a delegate to the Third Congress rightly said, it has been suffocating underground during the last few years. The “underground” is breaking up. Forward, then, more boldly; take up the new weapon, distribute it among new people, extend your bases, rally all the worker Social-Democrats round yourselves, incorporate them in the ranks of the Party organisations by hundreds and thousands. Let their delegates put new life into the ranks of our central bodies, let the fresh spirit of young revolutionary Russia pour in through them. So far the revolution has justified all the basic theoretical propositions of Marxism, all the essential slogans of Social-Democracy. And the revolution has also justified the work done by us Social-Democrats, it has justified our hope and faith in the truly revolutionary spirit of the proletariat. Let us, then, abandon all pettiness in this imperative Party reform; let us strike out on the new path at once. This will not deprive us of our old secret apparatus (there is no doubt that the Social-Democratic workers have recognised and sanctioned it; practical experience and the course of the revolution have proved this a hundred times more convincingly than it could have been proved by decisions and resolutions). It will give us fresh young forces rising from the very depths of the only genuinely and thoroughly revolutionary class, the class which has won half freedom for Russia and will win full freedom for her,. the class which will lead her through freedom to socialism!