The revolution...it terrifies me...

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Last night, whilst I was drifting off to sleep, I had a thought.

This tends to happen to me sometimes, when my mind is in that mode between wakefulness and sleep, my thoughts tend to wander. I guess whatever bubble that surrounds my brain unlocks itself and the thoughts just sort of run around freely.

Last night, the thought of the coming revolution popped up in my head. And I was frightened.




Make no mistake, comrades. I'm neither utopian enough nor idealistic enough to think that the victory of the working class will come into existence with no bloodshed. I would like to think that the human race is sophisticated and intelligent enough to recognize when too much is too much. I think that, post-revolution, we may all marvel at how little blood was actually shed in the grand scheme of things.

But that is only because I tend to think the best of humanity. I'm optimistic by nature, and I loathe cynicism.




But comrades.....one day, it WILL happen. The revolution WILL come. Neither you nor I can stop it, even if we wanted to. And when it comes, it will be like the very fist of an angry God punching clean through the planet. Like a wave it will wash over this rock of ours, and the long simmering resentment and anger of the working class will be unleashed upon the world.

Make no mistake, it is inevitable. The working class has always known that SOMETHING was wrong, that SOMETHING had set the game against them. They may not have been able to quite put their finger on it, but it was there, in the back of their mind: "Something is dreadfully wrong here, and we can fix it".


That resentment has been boiling and fermenting in the minds of workers for DECADES. And when the day finally comes that the top is snatched off of the pot, it will finally run over.


And blood will flow. Lots of it. There's a reason Marx and Engels said that the ruling classes would tremble at the thought of the revolution, because they knew the working class's vengance would be swift and terrible.

There will be war. There will be conflict. Lives will be lost. Mothers will lose their children, children will lose their mothers. Siblings will lose siblings. Lovers will lose their lovers. Many innocent will die, and some guilty will escape retribution. The oppressors will not go quietly, and mistakes will be made.


It is with this thought that I hope and pray that, when the revolution comes, we will do it RIGHT this time. We will be good, comrades. We will be JUST, comrades. We will be merciful when mercy is needed, and only kill when we must. Comrades, we MUST be remembered by history as being in the right. The socialist future for which we will all fight for, we must secure it in such a way that those who come after us will remember our names with affection and love, not something that mothers will frighten their children to sleep with. We do this for THEM, so that they may know the freedom that we may never get to experience in this life.



The revolution FRIGHTENS me, comrades. And I hope that when it comes, we will do it the right way.




But for now, I sleep. And I dream dreams of freedom, and dreams of the children of workers playing in the fields.

[cyu]

For some, it's the difference between possible death in battle versus certain death by poverty.

Anyway, from http://everything2.com/title/bloodless+revolution

When you hear of revolutions from books or other people, it often involves some kind of bloodshed or violence - perhaps even some sort of civil war.

What follows are some types of revolutions that do not involve the shedding of blood.

Constitutional Revolution

These revolutions happen within the existing constitutional framework of the country.

Mass Conversion
This type of revolution usually does not happen quickly, but perhaps slowly over a short number of years. It happens when nearly everyone within the society decides to change their behavior, perhaps because of new scientific discoveries or compelling new ideas in social organization. It may not even involve a change in the actual people in government - instead, the people just start doing things differently.

Voting for Revolution
This type of revolution occurs only at the ballot box. Voters may decide to vote for politicians entirely different from the ones they voted for in the past, or the legislation passed may be entirely different from past legislation.

Constitutional Overhaul
While the revolution imagined in popular culture may involve an armed militia overthrowing the existing constitution, the constitutional process itself can still be used to completely change it. For example, if some nation's constitution requires 70% of the vote for approval of changes, then 70% of the people could vote in so many changes to the country's constitution that it is virtually unrelated to the constitution before the "revolution".

Civil Disobedient Revolution

These revolutions involve peaceful, but flagrant violations of existing legal norms.

Mass Civil Disobedience
This involves changing the government by organizing very large numbers of people to openly defy the law. If even large sections of the police population join in, then the political system would have effectively changed, even without actual legislation.

General Strike
A variation of mass civil disobedience that focuses on not going to work. Strikers hope to force the minority of government and business officials to respect their demands or else they would bring the country to a standstill. If there is enough support for the strike, then the officials themselves may be replaced.

Occupations and Takeovers

These movements often have the potential to result in some violence, even if violence is not the actual intent. In order for an occupation or takeover to work, the occupiers need to be able to make use of whatever it is they are occupying - which means this is usually the employees of a company or organization that are involved.

Non-Violent Occupations
In these occupations, employees assume democratic control over their places of work. If they are unmolested, then they carry on doing the work of the companies or organizations. However, because the companies are now controlled by different people, significant change may sweep the country. If they are attacked, either by police or hired thugs, those engaged in non-violence would either run, allow themselves to be arrested, or allow themselves to be beaten.

Takeovers with Self-Defence
This is similar to the non-violent scenario above, except that the revolutionaries are willing to use self-defence. As long as they are unmolested, they are virtually indistinguishable from the non-violent (except, perhaps, for the presence of weapons on the premises) - they merely carry on changing the behavior of the organizations they now control. However, when attacked, the "revolution" would no longer be bloodless. Thus it falls in the hands of the attackers to determine whether the revolution would be bloodless or not.

[bcbm]

i dont think it is inevitable at all.

but if it does happen, yeah, shit is going to be fucked and lots of people are going to die and be horribly injured.

so it goes

[Le Socialiste]

I think this is too simple a way to be looking at it. The victory of labor over capitalism and the bourgeoisie is not a foregone conclusion, but an indication of what is possible via the agency of the working-class. Our class possesses, by virtue of its position within society and at the point of production, the means by which revolution is possible. But nowhere does it remain an inevitability. Capitalism's ascent was not assured; indeed, it faced sizable resistance and opposition amongst those indelibly tied to feudal superstructures.

Neither should we try to hold ourselves to a set of rules that would, in time, restrict our ability to act decisively or assess next steps in relation to realtime movements of the working-class. Otherwise we risk painting ourselves into a theoretical and tactical corner.

[ed miliband]

my boy dauve:


“Power does not come any more from the barrel of a gun than it comes from a ballot box. No revolution is peaceful, but its “military” dimension is never central. The question is not whether the proles finally decide to break into the armouries, but whether they unleash what they are; commodified beings who no longer want to exist as commodities, and whose revolt explodes capitalist logic. Barricades and machine guns flow from this “weapon”. The greater the change in social life, the less guns will be needed, and the less casualties there will be. A communist revolution will never resemble a slaughter: not from any nonviolent principle, but because revolution subverts more (soldiers included) than it actually destroys.”

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

my boy dauve:

That's all very nice. But I don't know how a change in consciousness is going to blow up tanks. To do that you need Anti-Tank weapons, and to get those you need a source of revenue, and to do that you need a complex military organization with ties to the black market and a willingness to do absolutely disgusting things to get from point A to point B. No level of consciousness will deprive the bourgeois the power to slaughter as many people as it needs to maintain order.

[ВАЛТЕР]

I'm only here for the violence. ;)1

The way I see it is that it will be as violent as it needs to be to get the job done. This means it is up to the ruling class and how they react to it. If we have a situation where they use international military intervention (such as NATO getting involved to stop a revolution in a member country) then we may be looking at outright war with no guarantee of it being over quickly. The scale of the revolution matters as well. Whether we have a revolution in only one country, or a string of revolutions in a region or continent make a big difference. If it is the latter then we have much better chances in succeeding without international military intervention in the name of "democracy", "peace", or whatever other lie they may use to justify it.

[ed miliband]

That's all very nice. But I don't know how a change in consciousness is going to blow up tanks. To do that you need Anti-Tank weapons, and to get those you need a source of revenue, and to do that you need a complex military organization with ties to the black market and a willingness to do absolutely disgusting things to get from point A to point B. No level of consciousness will deprive the bourgeois the power to slaughter as many people as it needs to maintain order.

and i don't know how a revolution built upon a "complex military organization with ties to the black market and a willingness to do absolutely disgusting things" will lead to a society based upon entirely different social relations. "absolutely disgusting things"? like what? i'm not accusing you of this but i've heard people make similar statements about revolutionary violence and go on to defend rape, torture, etc. sure way to fuck people up.

the point isn't that revolution will not be violent, which some people seem ever so keen to point out, but that it will not just be violent; that it must be a process whereby we create new modes of living as well as destroying the old.

[Crixus]

No need to talk about war or violence until hundreds of millions of people are hoisting the flag of communism. Maybe over a billion people. Anything less will be squashed or will simply end up with nation states pointing thousands of nuclear bombs at each other. Or you could go storm the capital building right now. Make a power grab in Washington? lol. Helping facilitate class consciousness is key right now and into the forseeable future.

People will disagree but I see capitalism as a sort of virus spreading across an organic sphere. There's only so many places the virus can spread before it and the sphere die or enter the death stage, total decay. I don't think things will really start happening, unfortunately, until both the virus and sphere are on deaths threshold. A sort of crisis never seen by humanity. It would be great to avoid this scenario but capitalism isn't going to go away, in my opinion, without it's ability to completely dominate everyone and everything diminishing.

[Brutus]

I agree with Comrade Valter. We must be brutal in crushing the reaction, we must have a red terror, and we must execute.
These are horrible crimes, and the only thing that will justify them is the fact that we must do it to survive.


Trotsky:
The end justifies the means as long as there is something to justify the end

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

The revolution will need to be brought about by the proletariat, democratically, once they understand and want socialism. A democratically elected majority would then have control of the machinery of the state i.e. the police force and army. As the police force and army represent a cross section of society, many of their ranks would also be likely to support the revolution. To try and overthrow a modern, well armed state such as the UK or US without having control of the armed forces would be suicidal. I would anticipate a certain level of instability and resistance around the time of transition, but hopefully the revolution can take place with minimal violence. Of course, we can never predict what things will really be like around the time of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Frankly, I find the way that some revolutionaries get excited about bloodshed pretty disgusting; although, I suspect that most of them would poo their pants if the revolution really became violent.

Where the state is less well armed, and where democracy is not well established, I guess violence would be more likely.

[ed miliband]

The revolution will need to be brought about by the proletariat, democratically, once they understand and want socialism. A democratically elected majority would then have control of the machinery of the state i.e. the police force and army. As the police force and army represent a cross section of society, many of their ranks would also be likely to support the revolution. To try and overthrow a modern, well armed state such as the UK or US without having control of the armed forces would be suicidal. I would anticipate a certain level of instability and resistance around the time of transition, but hopefully the revolution can take place with minimal violence. Of course, we can never predict what things will really be like around the time of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Frankly, I find the way that some revolutionaries get excited about bloodshed pretty disgusting; although, I suspect that most of them would poo their pants if the revolution really became violent.

Where the state is less well armed, and where democracy is not well established, I guess violence would be more likely.

do the spgb make you learn this stuff by rote?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Without workers loading missiles onto lauch pads, without workers producing ammunition, without workers transporting artillery rounds and explosives, without workers pushing buttons, pulling triggers and fueling aircraft, there can be no war. Workers hold all the power in this relationship and a communist revolution lead by the proletariat will dismantle the military industrial complex with far more ease than any bombs we can throw at it.

The ruling class doesn't tremble because they fear the bloodshed we could cause; their position of luxury and privilege are predicated on a perpetual bloodshed and that would simply be a continuation of their ideology. Our destruction needs to be one of the social relations that allow this bloodshed and that's what they fear. The creation of a world in which they are irrelevant.

We'll line up against the wall any who stand against this change but this won't and can't be the reason for revolution. Bloodshed for profit is capitalist logic.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

and i don't know how a revolution built upon a "complex military organization with ties to the black market and a willingness to do absolutely disgusting things" will lead to a society based upon entirely different social relations.

I'll note that I am not a proponent of the "leninist" line of insurrection. I follow the line of PPW that necessarily recognizes the social component of the revolutionary process, while mantaining the need for a military structure. There simply needs to be a certain degree of seperation between the social and military element of the revolution in order for both to be most effective.


"absolutely disgusting things"? like what? i'm not accusing you of this but i've heard people make similar statements about revolutionary violence and go on to defend rape, torture, etc. sure way to fuck people up.


I am refering to illicit drug trade, bank robberies, bossnaping, and other illegal activities. I do not condone rape regardless of the context.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I guess my fears simply help me to confirm that I'm still a human being with empathy.

Thanks, comrades. I needed the reassurance. :)

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

I am refering to illicit drug trade, bank robberies, bossnaping, and other illegal activities.

And do you think that the proletariat are going to want socialism if they think that their 'vanguard' condones this behaviour?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Why not? Lenin was quite the bank robber. In general, it would be mistaken to assign your moral views to the proletariat.

Condoning (male on female) rape just doesn't make any sense, though. In addition to being a manifestation of the sort of patriarchal structure socialism aims to smash, it simply can't help the revolution in any sense, no more than magical incantations can.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

Why not? Lenin was quite the bank robber. In general, it would be mistaken to assign your moral views to the proletariat.

Condoning (male on female) rape just doesn't make any sense, though. In addition to being a manifestation of the sort of patriarchal structure socialism aims to smash, it simply can't help the revolution in any sense, no more than magical incantations can.

OK, good point re assigning morals to proletariat. Also, I've had another thought. As class conciousness increases within the proletariat, ideas of right and wrong are also likely to change.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

do the spgb make you learn this stuff by rote?

At the moment, my views on the best way to bring about socialism are in line with the SPGB. Go ahead and convince me of a better approach.

[human strike]

Since ed already posted the Dauvé quote I was originally going to reply with, I'll leave you all with this one leading on from what ed was saying about how revolution "is a process whereby we create new modes of living as well as destroying the old":


What distinguishes reform from revolution is not that revolution is violent, but that it links insurrection and communisation.

http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/9

[La Guaneña]

I'm more concerned on the repression before the revolution, the thought of losing my friends and family scares the shit out of me :(

[Decolonize The Left]

At the moment, my views on the best way to bring about socialism are in line with the SPGB. Go ahead and convince me of a better approach.

How about not adopting a "line" when it comes to an abstract future event whose magnitude and historical significance cannot be understood fully at this moment, or indeed, at any moment until it occurs or even afterwards.

The whole notion of 'planning' a revolution is naive and futile. We are speaking of a global capitalist system which permeates almost every corner of the globe. Billions of people are involved. There will be no 'planning' or 'line' when it comes to the overthrow of this system. There will only be an organic reaction to the system which will take any number of forms in any number of places.

[Sam_b]

the thought of the coming revolution popped up in my head

Oh right, when's it coming?

[Ele'ill]

it's here amongst us

[Leftsolidarity]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding some of this discussion cuz im tired but I'd like to add in that I'm nearing the end of "The History of the Russian Revolution" by Trotsky and he is currently explaining in the book how many of the "old Bolsheviks" didn't believe revolution was possible in any sort of near future even throughout October and the days before they were speaking of it as impossible or in some distant future while it was right under their noses.

I don't think that's now, as I think we are still currently in a period of reaction where the ruling class is always tightening their stranglehold on power and forcing austerity onto the workers but I do think it's good to keep in mind that it might be right in front of our faces without us even recognizing it.

[Sam_b]

it's here amongst us

Then we are fucked.

[Comrade #138672]

It is not so much the revolution itself that scares me. It is the fact that the revolution entails a counter-revolution to oppose it. This is the true danger.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

How about not adopting a "line" when it comes to an abstract future event whose magnitude and historical significance cannot be understood fully at this moment, or indeed, at any moment until it occurs or even afterwards.

The whole notion of 'planning' a revolution is naive and futile. We are speaking of a global capitalist system which permeates almost every corner of the globe. Billions of people are involved. There will be no 'planning' or 'line' when it comes to the overthrow of this system. There will only be an organic reaction to the system which will take any number of forms in any number of places.

Obviously nobody can predict what will happen at the time of revolution, if it ever happens, or plan how the revolution will occur. When I say my views on the best way to bring about socialism are in line with the SPGB, I refer to increasing awareness of socialism in the population. There was no mention of a plan for the revolution.

[Ele'ill]

Then we are fucked.

pretty much

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Oh right, when's it coming?

Um....certain substances may have been involved. >.>

[human strike]

A single weekend of business as usual is infinitely more bloody than a month of insurrection.

[melvin]

do not waste your time being afraid of things.whe n you are afraid of something, learn to not be afraid. it's the only way to live a fulfilling life

[La Guaneña]

Had a bad times with cops today, saw friends getting beat to a pulp, arrested and shot with rubber bullets in the middle of actual gunfire with live ammo.

[cyu]

It's pretty simple really - the more the wealthy demand their slaves continue to produce mink coats for them, the more likely there will be violence when the slaves try to free themselves.

There's no need to break down the barn door if it's already wide open.

[Sea]

For some, it's the difference between possible death in battle versus certain death by poverty.

Anyway, from http://everything2.com/title/bloodless+revolutionUtter garbage! Here, have a quick debunking. Not that any mere mortal is capable of grasping that much bunk.


Mass Conversion
This type of revolution usually does not happen quickly, but perhaps slowly over a short number of years. It happens when nearly everyone within the society decides to change their behavior, perhaps because of new scientific discoveries or compelling new ideas in social organization. It may not even involve a change in the actual people in government - instead, the people just start doing things differently.This type of "revolution" doesn't only not happen quickly, it doesn't happen at all, at least in regards to mode of production! The very notion of "mass conversion" is ahistorical at best. Ideas don't influence material conditions, the writer has that part (and the other parts) completely backwards.


Voting for RevolutionNo.


Constitutional Overhaul
While the revolution imagined in popular culture may involve an armed militia overthrowing the existing constitution, the constitutional process itself can still be used to completely change it. For example, if some nation's constitution requires 70% of the vote for approval of changes, then 70% of the people could vote in so many changes to the country's constitution that it is virtually unrelated to the constitution before the "revolution"Aah, popular culture. Even if this could work, why keep the original constitution in the first place?

All 3 forms of "constitutional revolution" make the assumption that the constitution of a country has some overriding power. Not only this, but it is completely forgotten that the constitution (using the US one as an example) only reflected what the founding fathers perceived to be in their class interest. I know they said it all came from god almighty but they lied. Sorry.


Civil Disobedient Revolution

These revolutions involve peaceful, but flagrant violations of existing legal norms.
Giving the assumption that this could work, it would have to work on a very huge level. It's complete wishful thinking to think that this grand scheme could be carried out without escalloping into violence.


Mass Civil Disobedience
This involves changing the government by organizing very large numbers of people to openly defy the law. If even large sections of the police population join in, then the political system would have effectively changed, even without actual legislation.
General Strike
A variation of mass civil disobedience that focuses on not going to work. Strikers hope to force the minority of government and business officials to respect their demands or else they would bring the country to a standstill. If there is enough support for the strike, then the officials themselves may be replaced.
That's a lot of if's, hope's and more if's.


Occupations and Takeovers

These movements often have the potential to result in some violence, even if violence is not the actual intent. In order for an occupation or takeover to work, the occupiers need to be able to make use of whatever it is they are occupying - which means this is usually the employees of a company or organization that are involved.
Non-Violent Occupations
In these occupations, employees assume democratic control over their places of work. If they are unmolested, then they carry on doing the work of the companies or organizations. However, because the companies are now controlled by different people, significant change may sweep the country. If they are attacked, either by police or hired thugs, those engaged in non-violence would either run, allow themselves to be arrested, or allow themselves to be beaten.
Takeovers with Self-Defence
This is similar to the non-violent scenario above, except that the revolutionaries are willing to use self-defence. As long as they are unmolested, they are virtually indistinguishable from the non-violent (except, perhaps, for the presence of weapons on the premises) - they merely carry on changing the behavior of the organizations they now control. However, when attacked, the "revolution" would no longer be bloodless. Thus it falls in the hands of the attackers to determine whether the revolution would be bloodless or not.
Give me a break! The people being attacked would fight back. Even if they didn't have their armies of brainwashed soldiers. An absolute unrealistic best-case scenario is that this revolutionary wave happens so fast as to leave the ruling class without anyone to do their bidding, the remaining bourgeoisie on their hands and knees would have to be fought.


Sorry if I seem harsh, I don't mean to be harsh to you Cyu but that has got to be the most unashamedly liberal faux-revolutionism that I've read in a long time. It just infuriorates me that some people think like that. Please do a little bookworming before citing more stuff like that? Do if for me so I don't have a heart attack.

[Orange Juche]

The biggest thing worrying me is climate change - that is some serious shit that's not getting any better that's coming right at us - and the outlook is bleaker every day we don't do something meaningful to live in a sustainable way on this planet.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

fuck me this thread kills me.

Try replacing 'Lenin' with 'Jesus' and 'the revolution' with 'the second coming', and you begin to see how batshit insane the left is sometimes/most of the time.

Why do people talk about 'the' revolution as if it's some historical inevitability? Yes, it's an historical inevitability that modes of production change; capitalism can't go on forever. But this idea of 'the' revolution is really pretty cultish and scary IMO. It's not going to be some hollywood film script, where the workers down their tools and storm the winter palace in romantic fashion.

The transition from feudalism to capitalism took hundreds of years; it began with the slow death of feudalism and the rise of some capitalist elements (perhaps we can mirror this in the rise of capitalish crashes and depressions in the past 80-90 years and the rise of welfare, co-operatives, expressions of worker solidarity), but the actual bourgeois revolution didn't occur for hundreds of years later. For me this verifies Luxemburg's idea in the mass strike of economic and political struggles intertwining, one leading to the other, each needing the other to stay alive and progress. I'm fairly sure that 'the' revolution will not be the seminal moment in human history. Capitalism will probably have decayed by then; revolutions tend to be 'only-political' acts that have 'more-than-political' consequences. You don't wake up overnight to an entirely different economy. Revolutions are about political power.

So, you either have a 'confirming' political revolution (a la the English Revolution of 1688), which confirms an already-happening change in the mode of production, or an initiating political revolution (a la Russia), which precedes an attempted change in the mode of production. Either way, this obsession with 'the' revolution is incredibly unhealthy, unattractive and cultish.