Why is Revolution Necessary?

[Apoi_Viitor]

...I've already read Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution, but I thought it failed to satisfy the issue. Why is it completely necessary to start a revolution to overthrow capitalism? Why not a series of reforms to the constitution or structure of the government?

[Pirate Utopian]

Even if the capitalists didn't manange to sabotage you every single step towards real change you'd still be stuck within the limits of this system.
You cant get rid of a system by using the rules of the system, because they are setup to keep the system alive.

[Struggle]

All those who struggle for the liberation of a people should advocate violence: not out of necessity; but out of strategic initiative, and because violence is the most effective means for challenging the status quo.

For me, violence is not about necessity. It's about advancing the cause of Socialism most effectively.

[graymouser]

The government is a class instrument and will not allow itself to flip a switch and be a nice shiny happy workers' government. Social democrats spent a lot of the 20th century pursuing such a route in Europe - and significant social reforms, in many cases driven by a collaboration of the reformist left with the capitalists themselves, were won on a temporary basis. But this wasn't allowed to challenge the underlying property relations of society, the social democrats had to leave those in tact.

When an elected government tried to reform its way toward socialism, in Chile in the early 1970s, it quickly found itself facing an economic firestorm as capitalist countries decided to "make the economy scream," followed by a fascist military coup, the murder of thousands of leftists, and the institution of "shock treatment" to gut any social reforms that existed.

In an advanced capitalist country, do you really think the bourgeoisie would just stand aside and let the government reform them out of existence? Hell, if a socialist were elected president he or she would probably either have the election stolen by outright fraud, or be murdered before taking office. There is no end to the venality of the ruling class, and if they faced a serious threat they would essentially force the hand of the socialist movement toward revolution regardless of whether that movement wanted one or not.

[ZeroNowhere]

Essentially because a change from one mode of production to another is by definition a revolution.



Take, for instance, a poodle. You can reform him in a lot of ways. You can shave his whole body and leave a tassel at the tip of his tail; you may bore a hole through each ear, and tie a blue bow on one and a red bow on the other; you may put a brass collar around his neck with your initials on, and a trim little blanket on his back; yet, throughout, a poodle he was and a poodle he remains. Each of these changes probably wrought a corresponding change in the poodle’s life. When shorn of all his hair except a tassel at the tail’s tip he was owned by a wag who probably cared only for the fun he could get out of his pet; when he appears gaily decked in bows, probably his young mistress’ attachment is of tenderer sort; when later we see him in the fancier’s outfit, the treatment he receives and the uses he is put to may be yet again and probably are, different. Each of these transformations or stages may mark a veritable epoch in the poodle’s existence. And yet, essentially, a poodle he was, a poodle he is and a poodle he will remain.

That is reform.

But when we look back myriads of years, or project ourselves into far -- future physical cataclysms, and trace the development of animal life from the invertebrate to the vertebrate, from the lizard to the bird, from the quadruped and mammal till we come to the prototype of the poodle, and finally reach the poodle himself, and so forward”then do we find radical changes at each step, changes from within that alter the very essence of his being, and that put, or will put, upon him each time a stamp that alters the very system of his existence.
That is revolution.

So with society. Whenever a change leaves the internal mechanism untouched, we have reform; whenever the internal mechanism is changed, we have revolution.
Of course, no internal change is possible without external manifestations. The internal changes denoted by the revolution or evolution of the lizard into the eagle go accompanied with external marks. So with society. And therein lies one of the pitfalls into which dilettantism or “reforms” invariably tumble. They have noticed that externals change with internals; and they rest satisfied with mere external changes, without looking behind the curtain. But of this more presently.

We Socialists are not reformers; we are revolutionists. We Socialists do not propose to change forms. We care nothing for forms. We want a change of the inside of the mechanism of society, let the form take care of itself. We see in England a crowned monarch; we see in Germany a sceptered emperor; we see in this country an uncrowned president, and we fail to see the essential difference between Germany, England or America. That being the case, we are skeptics as to forms. We are like grown children, in the sense that we like to look at the inside of things and find out what is there.

[Jalapeno Enema]

In an advanced capitalist country, do you really think the bourgeoisie would just stand aside and let the government reform them out of existence?This.

Since the bourgeoisie class has the resources, it would be very difficult to make little headway, and very easy to reverse such.

They've got money, resources, police, military, et al on their side. They're the ones who wrote the laws and constitutions.

When there are concessions to benefit the working class, it's as little as can be gotten away with to appease the everyday people long enough that they don't become a violent mob.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Essentially because a change from one mode of production to another is by definition a revolution.

What about England? Didn't they gradually change from a feudal society to a capitalist one?

[Lyev]

What about England? Didn't they gradually change from a feudal society to a capitalist one?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Revolution#Marxist_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_England
It was not "gradual", it was a big shitstorm. I think it is perhaps contrary to a class-based analysis to posit that one mode of production can seamlessly pass through to the next with little or no conflict. Capitalist society supersceding feudalism necessitates, by it's very nature, that the class interests of, say, landlords or monarchs will come into conflict with those of an emerging bourgeoisie. It is not the case that suddenly Louis XVI says to the sans-cullote and the liberals, "hey guys, I had a good thought today, I am going to give you power and we'll be buddies", or something like that. As Marx famously says, all history hitherto is the history of class struggle. Antagonisms between opposing sections of society in any epoch make up the motorforce that drives history.