Revolution in less develuped countries and the feasibility of revolution today

[Red Nightmare]

One of the most peculiar trends of history tends to be how revolution tends to happen/start in less developed countries as opposed to more developed countries. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx predicted that once capitalist production reached its highest stage, the contradictions within capitalism would become so glaringly obvious that the proletariat worldwide would unite together to overthrow the bourgeoisie and capitalist relations and to establish a classless society. In other words he thought the world revolution would begin in industrial countries like Great Britain, Germany, or the United States.

However, things since then have turned out quite differently. Not only has there not been a truly worldwide communist revolution, the countries that have experienced socialist (even if in name only) revolution have been the least developed countries, such as Russia in 1917 and China in 1949, not the most developed as Marx predicted. In the most developed capitalist countries where revolution was supposed to begin, the proletariat either never adopted revolutionary ideas, that is to say they weren't class conscious or they were and were suppressed by that country's bourgeoisie, such as with the Spartacus Uprising. Is this because workers in less developed countries are more poor and desperate compared to first world workers who are (comparatively) more well off than third world workers due to imperialist super profits, that class consciousness only develops on a large enough scale in poorer countries. Could it also be (shudders) possible that the modern bourgeoisie and the modern bourgeoisie state yields so much power that a modern day proletarian revolution is unfeasible?

[Red Nightmare]

I meant "Developed" not "Develuped". I am so sorry I did not notice that spelling mistake until it was already too late, please don't judge me for it.

[Slippers]

Note: what follows could be nonsense, but this is how I presently see things.

More developed countries are often consumer economies that use (and exploit to no end) oversees labour to get their products and capital. This isn't to say that workers and the poor don't suffer endlessly in the developed world (they do); but it's just that much worse in poor countries.

To someone living in a rich, Western nation that derives much of its wealth from the exploitation of the developing world, the exploitation of the poor, class conflict etc. can be hard to see, especially if people have been indoctrinated to view the status-quo as "good", and to ignore or pretend poverty doesn't exist or is the fault of the poor, as they have been.

Basically; the horrors of Capitalism are more blatant and visible in poorer countries and so the workers are more likely to actually revolt there. Sadly, the conditions in said poorer countries tend to be less conducive to a successful revolution.

[Jimmie Higgins]

One of the most peculiar trends of history tends to be how revolution tends to happen/start in less developed countries as opposed to more developed countries. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx predicted that once capitalist production reached its highest stage, the contradictions within capitalism would become so glaringly obvious that the proletariat worldwide would unite together to overthrow the bourgeoisie and capitalist relations and to establish a classless society. In other words he thought the world revolution would begin in industrial countries like Great Britain, Germany, or the United States.When he was writing only a handful of countries had fully established capitalism and significant working classes. It can't be denied that these countries were among the first to see risings of workers, working class consciousness develop, and working class movements form. This isn't because there's anything necessarily smarter or better about those workers - they just were the people in those sorts of conditions before other groups.

Germany had the largest socialist party, more socialist workers than anywhere else, and sizable revolutionary currents within that more general worker's movement that wanted socialism (at the base anyway) but hadn't settled on how.

Places like Russia or Spain had powerful working classes that also had traditions of revolution based on fighting the aristocracy, and were entering into rapid capitalist development already knowing of workers movements elsewhere and ways to fight capitalism. So it was people in a unsettled situation where a working class was being created (and this process was being resisted) and where capitalist ideas were not considered "common sense" yet; and where people knew of the successes and problems of the workers movement elsewhere; and where the capitalist class was realitivly weak and lacked hegemony.

I think it's conditions like these that lead to Revolutions going further in Russia and Spain and definitely not the level of suffering.


However, things since then have turned out quite differently. Not only has there not been a truly worldwide communist revolution, the countries that have experienced socialist (even if in name only) revolution have been the least developed countries, such as Russia in 1917 and China in 1949, not the most developed as Marx predicted.I would dispute the claim that Marx said that revolution would happen in the most developed individual capitalist countries. At least I am not aware of this argument. My understanding is that he only argued that as capitalism develops it's contradictions become more apparent: workers become more conscious and more important in production, the more they struggle the more experience they have in fighting for themselves, etc.

The Marxist movement after Marx may have interpreted this basic idea that capitalist conditions have to be present for socialism to be a possibility as the idea that the more developed the economy of capitalism is, this determines where the worker's movement is bound to break-through. Marx didn't really seem to predict things like the rise of reformism or the expansion of credit, but I also think his writings were very un-deterministic and he often wrote about how the ruling class learns how to deal with struggle too and how adaptable capitalism is.


In the most developed capitalist countries where revolution was supposed to begin, the proletariat either never adopted revolutionary ideas, that is to say they weren't class conscious or they were and were suppressed by that country's bourgeoisie, such as with the Spartacus Uprising. Is this because workers in less developed countries are more poor and desperate compared to first world workers who are (comparatively) more well off than third world workers due to imperialist super profits, that class consciousness only develops on a large enough scale in poorer countries. Could it also be (shudders) possible that the modern bourgeoisie and the modern bourgeoisie state yields so much power that a modern day proletarian revolution is unfeasible?This is wrong about Marxist concepts on a number of levels.

First it's contradictory to claim that proof that revolution can't happen in "advanced" economies is that revolutions were put down in some of those advanced economies. The history of Germany and that the ruling class ultimately needed to turn to fascism to put down the largest worker's movement in the largest capitalist economy should be proof enough. Since revolutions have also been put down in so-called 3rd world countries, then the only thing that can be said about this evidence is that a revolution hasn't succeeded in an advanced capitalist country, not that it can't.

Second, it also doesn't work to say that workers are more conscious in China or Cuba than in other places because both of those revolutions did not directly involve conscious workers: in China, the communists had been driven out of the cities and then re-organized to focus on peasants; in Cuba, although urban workers supported the revolution out of dislike of the old regime, again, it was a small force that focused on the peasantry in order to win national liberation. All these revolutions IMO should be seen as part of a larger wave of successful national liberation movements. So it really doesn't provide much evidence for or against revolution in advanced capitalist countries since non-"socialist" liberation movements similar to Cuba or China also succeeded and since these movements didn't involve a whole lot of working class consciousness and self-organization necessarily.

Is the capitalist state now too powerful? Why yes, anytime there isn't a revolution winning, then the capitalist state is too powerful. But is it always inherently too powerful? Well that's kind of vague - can we break that down into how the Big Powers might be too powerful now?

1) Militarily - well if that was true, then it would mean that anti-imperial/national liberation struggles are also out of the question.

2) Hegemonic: well this is more tricky because with neoliberalism many people have accepted that it's impossible to fight back and people have been demoralized and any reforms left-over have been weakend, but is this inherent? Especially in times of disequilibrium due to the economic cycle, wars, social conflict? I would say that this aspect of power probably is one of the harder things to overcome because it is diffuse and all around us, but it does seem to be the kind of power that can disappear more "spontaneously" and rapidly.

3) Economic: this power is what allows the capitalists to have military power, hegemonic power, and political power. But it is also their contradictory weak-point. The more economic power they have, means the more power that workers are creating and being exploited from. Even if methods of production have changed with globalization, workers on various levels of production are connected into a larger process and larger circuits of capitalism.

This is why workers have inherent power - they have this throughout the world now, so IMO, it's of little use to talk of possibilities in advanced or developing capitalist economies. Workers are a world-majority, and educated and potentially connected like never before. In this world-context, I personally feel that various local circumstances of politics and development in a region play a much more important role than when capitalist began to take hold. Greece might have general strike while Ireland is plagued with demoralization and emigration even though both groups of workers "suffer". Workers in Brazil might fall behind reformism and become passive whereas workers in Japan might become more confident and organized.

[Os Cangaceiros]

All the military and state power is useless against a population that has had enough. Honestly if even 10 percent of the US population (or even much less than that in strategically important occupations) were to refuse to participate in work or the regular workings of day-to-day life, the economy would screech to a burning halt in a day. Defining major historical events (like social revolutions, for example) in terms of military maneuvering is very problematic anyway; none of the revolutions of 1848 were successful, but they had major long-term impacts that would eventually bear fruit. The same with the impact of other worldwide periods of upheaval, like 1917-1920 or 1968.

But of course it's more complicated than this, because power exercises a lot of it's influence in it's ability to shape opinion and the narratives surrounding why events happen, problems and solutions etc. It's hard to take that first step, too, even though that there's tremendous potential in a united movement, and I think that's where a lot of newer, repressive technology is very effective, in nipping threats off before they can grow into something that's much larger than said technology is effective against. From what I've read, most serious insurgencies are defeated through some combination of political and military power...maybe the classic example being the defeat of the post-WW2 Filipino insurgency? I don't know. What are we talking about again?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Honestly if even 10 percent of the US population (or even much less than that in strategically important occupations) were to refuse to participate in work or the regular workings of day-to-day life, the economy would screech to a burning halt in a day.

Don't you think that's politically problematic with respect to the overall working class?

[Os Cangaceiros]

It's problematic in the sense that the people responsible would have to find ways to provide basic services etc, lest they be seen as holding everyone hostage.

[Red Nightmare]

It's problematic in the sense that the people responsible would have to find ways to provide basic services etc, lest they be seen as holding everyone hostage.

Yeah, I think that ties into the bigger problem of how revolutionaries will mobilize the proletariat at large, that is convince them that revolution is worth fighting for a long period of time, if necessary.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's problematic in the sense that the people responsible would have to find ways to provide basic services etc, lest they be seen as holding everyone hostage.

For a moment, I thought you were slipping into the usual left-com adages on strike action.

To answer the OP: Proletarian revolution in countries with proletarian demographic minorities is possible, but not without undemocratic civil war with the urban and rural petit-bourgeois demographic majority ("rural" including the peasantry). Radical democratic revolution in these countries requires class leadership from their respective nationalist petit-bourgeoisie:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/peoples-histories-blocs-t142332/index.html

[Akshay!]

I think people in less developed countries are more frustrated from the day-to-day living conditions and therefore, want change more badly, whereas in the developed countries, a lot of the people are privileged. Even the "middle class" "worker" in the US is incomparably richer than, say, a villager in India. That's why the Indian guy is more likely to get involved in a guerrilla war, for example (like a lot of them are). In other words, there's a sort of subconscious cost-benefit analysis going on in our minds. I mean if a person is living in US - the richest country in the world, with a lot of privileges and good living conditions, is he as likely as a poor guy in Africa to become a revolutionary? Not really. This is one of the reasons why I think that a revolution in US won't take place unless we have something like the USSR already in place - and until a lot of the world has already become socialist. (Something like the 1968 situation but more extreme.)