How do you define "revolution"?

[Ironfront]

This is a site for the "Revolutionary left." Well, I would like to know: what is "revolution"?

I recently had a conversation with a liberal and I said I believe in the socialization of key sectors of business which should be controlled, at least in part, by worker's collectives. I also said America's absurd electoral policies need to be changed, with Congress done away with and replaced with a parliament. She called me a "revolutionary"...huh?

I do not want to socialize everything (I don't see the capitalist taco truck up the road oppressing anyone...) and would leave most private enterprise in private hands while leveraged by the worker's and their republic and slowly work towards the end of the state and classes, except the working class. Well...technically, I could be called a "anarcho-communist" in that it is my ultimate goal, which I don't see myself living to see because we as a society are not ready for it. But I am not a "revolutionary"...

So, what do you define as "revolution"? Does it have to be people hitting the streets with berets and AK-47, or could it be electoral revolution combined with widespread, non-violent direct action? Or does it depend on the outcome? Or, more likely, does it depend on the person?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A revolution is the destruction of the existing social order, replacing the existing mode of production with a more progressive one. "Workers' republics" in which capitalism has been preserved do not qualify, then. As for "peaceful" revolutions, these are impossible. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie can't be broken by parliamentary means.

[Jimmie Higgins]

A revolutionary struggle IMO is a social crisis/conflict which involves all classes fighting for their interests (though it can also be very mixed, so it's not like all shop-keepers line up on one side and all garbagemen on another). There is no guarentee that one will come out on top clearly, it could take a while for things to settle and for either an old order to re-establish itself or a new ruling order to be founded.

The American Revolution, French Revolution, English Revolutions and Russian Revolution involved all sorts of people fighting for what they see as the best way for things to be organized in society. In the French Revolution, the lawyers and so on who led the radical middle-class forces were able to appeal to "the masses" and argue that a Republic would be better for the small owners, apprentices, and workers and so on. In the American colonies, similar middle class people along with merchants and some big growers (though they were also split depending on how much their trade depended on England), could rally class resentment of the
rabble" and of the small farmers against the Crown. For a sucsessful worker's revolution, it would be workers rallying themselves along with convincing sections of other groups to support them.

Revolution in the big sense (rather than just a change at the top) doesn't mean people with guns taking over or whatnot, it means the transition from one class's hegemony over society with another. In the abstract this could potentially mean that democratic electoral victories allow a working class movement to gain political power and then re-organize the state and the economy in totally different and much more democratic ways, but in historical practice this situation is more than a long-shot.

The capitalists know that a movement that gains ground anywhere near to that kind of situation could quickly mean the demise of their way of life and so they would attempt to stop it with any means necissary long before that became a possibility. Even popular reformist movements like the Popular Front election in Spain or France led to fascist uprisings (and support for fascist forces by those at the top) and the ruling class pulling their capital out of the country. And a revolutionary socialist's favorite historical warning about electoral routes to Socialism: Allende leading to Pinnochette's reaction rather than a "moderate road to socialism". When Lincoln was elected, he promised to not touch slavery, but the Slave-owners saw the writing on the wall anyway and made a pre-emtive attack to try and defend their source of economic power. That was just a regional and rather numerically small ruling class and they were willing to go to war and risk everything to prevent a moderate from a non-radical anti-slavery party from having any power over them. What do you think the modern capitalist class would do if people began massivly supporting the idea that society and the economy should be run from the grassroots and the shop-floor?

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

Revolution is the overthrow of state. It does not necessarily have to be violent, and can be achieved democratically.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

However, the raising awareness of class conciousness amongst the proletariat is likely to be reflected in societal interactions, and could lead to spontaneous violence.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

I do not want to socialize everything (I don't see the capitalist taco truck up the road oppressing anyone...) and would leave most private enterprise in private hands while leveraged by the worker's and their republic and slowly work towards the end of the state and classes, except the working class.

The oppression comes from the conflict between workers and the capitalist owners. Workers want better pay and conditions, capitalists want to achieve profit, so try to reduce wages and scrimp on conditions. Thus, the worker is oppressed. There is a lot more to it, and I would suggest reading Marx's Capital Vol. 1 to really have your eyes opened to the oppression of capitalism. It is a tough read, and I would recommend watching the lectures by David Harvey http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/ and reading the book that accompanies the lectures. I'm about half way through, and it is definitely worth the effort for a deeper understanding of how capitalism works.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The oppression comes from the conflict between workers and the capitalist owners. Workers want better pay and conditions, capitalists want to achieve profit, so try to reduce wages and scrimp on conditions. Thus, the worker is oppressed. There is a lot more to it, and I would suggest reading Marx's Capital Vol. 1 to really have your eyes opened to the oppression of capitalism. It is a tough read, and I would recommend watching the lectures by David Harvey http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/ and reading the book that accompanies the lectures. I'm about half way through, and it is definitely worth the effort for a deeper understanding of how capitalism works.

Not to mention if the basis for "taco trucks" is privite capitalist competion, then the pressures will favor sucessful taco trucks increasing, driving others out of business, and becoming a big taco firm with a fleet of trucks and privite control of all that power etc. You can't have little capitalism without also having big capitalism ultimately.

Now if one taco truck operator right after the revolution wants to keep control over their truck, workers may decide that that isn't really a threat if they control the major aspects of the economy and some small shops have to subordinate themselves to that. But that would eventually fade organically anyway at least by a generation or so after the establishment of a worker's type society.

Capitalism isn't just a playing field for a bunch of autonomous induviduals, although this is the way it's presented in the mainstream and this is often how it is experienced on an induvidual level (and certaintly what the petty-bourgoise "feels" in their experience). But this is probably mostly due to the competative nature of capitalism and so on. In the big picture, it's a system of relations, and so capitalism can't really work in a vaccume or in pockets, it requires all of society to be shaped around it.

[DDR]

A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

[Brutus]

Forcible overthrow of one class by another

[Comrade Alex]

Revolution
Castro put it right when he said
"A battle. Between life and death a struggle between present and past"
Napoleon also stated
"A revolution is an idea that has found its bayonets"
Personally I think a revolution is a struggle for justice, or freedom, or peace any cause that is worthy of your life and talents that is a revolution

[Let's Get Free]

For me, the word "revolution," like so many other words such as "love" and "democracy," have been so overused and evacuated of meaning as to have lost its force.

The way I see it, a revolution is something that should make us tremble in the very hidden depths and remotest recceses of our soul, something that brings in a measureless and sweeping flood of change, obliterating all landmarks and leaving us lost and bewildered.

[BIXX]

I believe it is a rapid deconstruction of the current state-class relationship for a new system of class relationships to the state to be built.

Meaning, our current state nearly 100% of the time works in favor of the upper class, so a revolution would dismantle both the state and the class system, then build something new. I personally would like it to simply dismantle them and build no state and no classes, but rather a system of mutual cooperation. However, a revolution could go another way- it could go to a system where there may only be a "statist class" and a working class, where the statist class has all the power. It would still be a revolution, but a very undesirable result.

I am really tired so I may have expressed that wrong. If I remember tomorrow I'll edit it to make more sense.

[Orange Juche]

Basically the verb for the direct series of events revolving around a broad overhaul/social and economic change. A lot of people like to think of it as synonymous with violence, I don't. I tend to think the means and ends are tied into each other heavily and the more violent a revolution, the more you're risking a disastrous outcome (with bloodshed and suffering in the process).

I believe an overhaul through simple non-cooperation with the mechanisms of the current system is definitely possible, and that 99% of violence would be a matter of reactive, self defense rather than an offensive.

[human strike]

Revolution is the insurrectionary movement of communisation. (See sig.)

[Deity]

Revolutions are radical changes. It does not have to be political, although in the context you will be seeing it used on this site it will be referring to a political revolution.