Social by democratic means - A question

[Democratic-Socialist]

Hello guys, I am new to this forum and I am trying to figure out if this is a right place for me.

So basically, I have two relatively easy questions. The first one is related to our convictions and the second one is rather practical.

1. I don't believe that revolution is justified without explicit majority support (i.e. 50+ votes in elections). Do you believe so? If yes, please explain to me why.

2. If you don't believe in achieving socialist goals by democratic means and I do, then is this a right place for me to post? (I don't mean posting in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum - I already figured out that it's meant for non-revleftist members).

Thanks for your answers in advance.

Kind Regards,

Democratic Socialist

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, do you think socialism can be enacted by an elected government working through the bourgeois state, or do you hold that the revolution means smashing the bourgeois state apparatus? If the latter, I would say your insistence on a democratic majority is impressionistic, but not overtly reformist.

As for why many of us don't care about the number of hands in the air, for us the end-goal is everything, to turn Bernstein's quote around, how we get there is a question of strategy. It's obvious that revolutions led by proletarian minorities can and have succeeded.

[Loony Le Fist]

1. I don't believe that revolution is justified without explicit majority support (i.e. 50+ votes in elections). Do you believe so? If yes, please explain to me why.


It's not that it isn't justified. Without majority support, it's just not really feasible. Revolution is justified if conditions are unjust, but it's not possible unless a large majority is in support of it, and willing to take the actions necessary to make things happen.



2. If you don't believe in achieving socialist goals by democratic means and I do, then is this a right place for me to post? (I don't mean posting in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum - I already figured out that it's meant for non-revleftist members).


The problem with using democratic means is that reforms can always be rolled back. This isn't to say I reject using the democratic process or reforms to further revolution. But it must be coupled with a concentrated effort to empower workers and push forward real revolution. Otherwise everything you win will be rolled back. Look at the US for example, where all reforms have simply been rolled back since they were put into place.

[Althusser]

Your insistence on some 50%+ majority "vote for revolution" implies that oppressed people don't ever hold dominant ruling class positions that are against their material interests.

[PhoenixAsh]

Hello guys, I am new to this forum and I am trying to figure out if this is a right place for me.

So basically, I have two relatively easy questions. The first one is related to our convictions and the second one is rather practical.

1. I don't believe that revolution is justified without explicit majority support (i.e. 50+ votes in elections). Do you believe so? If yes, please explain to me why.

2. If you don't believe in achieving socialist goals by democratic means and I do, then is this a right place for me to post? (I don't mean posting in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum - I already figured out that it's meant for non-revleftist members).

Thanks for your answers in advance.

Kind Regards,

Democratic Socialist

ad 1). We are not going to have a vote on whether or not we are going to be allowed to destroy the very institution that is doing the voting. No.

ad 2). Socialism is democracy. Everything before socialism isn't democracy. Everything you think you know about current "democracy" is wrong.

[Dagoth Ur]

The SPUSA is right up your alley. Also you cannot vote to completely dismantle and reorganize societies. You have to actually do it. This appeal to parliamentarianism seems more like liberal laziness than anything. "Let us vote in socialism and then other people can do the actual work".

Also the above statement is somewhat correct, however would be better expressed as: you cannot have democracy when only ten percent control everything.

[Democratic-Socialist]

Well, do you think socialism can be enacted by an elected government working through the bourgeois state, or do you hold that the revolution means smashing the bourgeois state apparatus? If the latter, I would say your insistence on a democratic majority is impressionistic, but not overtly reformist.

As for why many of us don't care about the number of hands in the air, for us the end-goal is everything, to turn Bernstein's quote around, how we get there is a question of strategy. It's obvious that revolutions led by proletarian minorities can and have succeeded.

My question is about the moral justification of revolution, not about its practical feasibility. Enacting revolution without knowing whether or not majority of people actually support it seems to me an authoritarian idea.
Imagine that workers' preference is capitalism, rather than socialism. How do we know that this isn't so?

[Democratic-Socialist]

ad 1). We are not going to have a vote on whether or not we are going to be allowed to destroy the very institution that is doing the voting. No.


Why?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Hello guys, I am new to this forum and I am trying to figure out if this is a right place for me.

Hi and welcome. Well I hope you do stick around to discuss things with us. We are a revolutionary-oriented forum though and so while we might have a lot of the same ideals as Democratic-socialists, might want the same kind of world, the reason we are revolutionaries is that we do not believe that such a world is possible within the current set-up (a set-up which is mostly designed to prevent real popular pressure on the ruling class and the ruling economic order).

While maybe some people crave insurrection, the conculsion that a revolution is necissary is not an easy one or one that I think Marxism or Anarchism have taken lightly. I think there is pleanty of historical evidence that capitalists states will resort to coups and even supporting fascist movements if it means preventing actual democracy. When reformist socialists have taken power through the system what has tened to happen:

- popular-front in France: attempts by french fascists to overthrow the reformist worker government.
- the Socialists in Germany: smashed by NAZIs
- the popular-front in Spain: Francoist coup, temporarily haulted only by an actual revolution by workers and revolutionaries in responce.
- Allende: overthown by a coup
- Chavez: attempted overthow by a coup.

So these are the practical and historical reasons why even when we attempt a transformation of society through peaceful means and play by the rules set up by capitalists... the capitalists will then throw out those rules and give us the iron fist instread. This is because governments are just a way of managing the ruling class order... it's not the laws that have substance, it's the class power and relationships behind the legal apperance which actually matter in a fundamental way. Unfortunately, might does make right and so unles we smash what gives them that might, they will attack no matter how "right" we are.

On a theoretical basis, I disagree with an attempt to transform society through winning an office because I see this as an attempt at "socialism from above". Handing down reforms through a popular mandate is not really how to achieve an actual revolution where power passes from one class to another. To do this, workers themselves, have to take the initiative, have to organize their own power to counter that of the capitalists and the state. Voting for someone who you think has good ideas doesn't really create the basis for being able to rule society yourself: it's handing that job off to someone else. But if workers take over their workplaces, organize their own distribution, their own neighborhoods, work together and vote out ideas or choose their own representatives in that new worker's "government" etc, this is the process of the working class actually becoming the main actors or "ruling class" of society.

[Democratic-Socialist]

Thank you for your answer. As far as I understood, democratic socialist forum will be more appropriate place for me. If you know any such internet forum, I'd be glad to learn about it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thank you for your answer. As far as I understood, democratic socialist forum will be more appropriate place for me. If you know any such internet forum, I'd be glad to learn about it.

I'm sure there are forums like that, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. I'd encourage you to stick around even if you are restricted from the revolutionary part of the board. O.I. isn't, at least I don't think it should be, "punishment" - we are just trying to maintain a "Revolutionary Left" section for discussion amongst people with a basic agreement on some fundamental questions and so this is why we have a "restricted" and "revolutionary" section of the board. The main negative of being restricted is that there might be some Libertarians or Conservatives also in the OI section that you have to deal with :lol:.

If you mainly want to discuss specific strategy around winning socialim through elections and reforms, then maybe you won't find much of an audience here. But if you are mostly interested in talking about understanding capitalism, refuting arguments by conservatives and liberals, what socialism might be or look like... then I think even in O.I. you'll find lots to discuss and debate with folks here.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Hello guys, I am new to this forum and I am trying to figure out if this is a right place for me.

So basically, I have two relatively easy questions. The first one is related to our convictions and the second one is rather practical.

First off, welcome to Revleft. Although it's a place of quite robust arguments, i'm sure you'll find plenty of welcoming people here :)


1. I don't believe that revolution is justified without explicit majority support (i.e. 50+ votes in elections). Do you believe so? If yes, please explain to me why.

Communism is a class-based philosophy. In other words, we analyse society through the paradigm of understanding that society is largely split between the ruling class and the working class. Any analysis of society would show that the working class make up the overwhelming majority of the population in any developed country, and that in any country, the exploited class makes up a huge majority compared to the ruling class of that country.

So it's not really as formulaic as 'vulgar democracy', which is mere support for any decision arrived at by democratic means (i.e. the belief that if 50%+1 of the population support a policy then we should too out of support for democracy).

Instead, we believe that the working class as a whole will make revolution of themselves and for themselves. It is this process of the working class becoming class conscious (aware of their own position as an exploited class in capitalist society) and politically conscious (aware of their own ability to change this situation) that we support; it's more than a numbers game.

You will find a split on the left between those who believe that a tiny minority of 'professionalised' communists working in a tight knit party should take state power on behalf of the working class, and those of us who believe that it is the job of the working class as a whole, including working class communists, to overthrow the ruling class under capitalism.


2. If you don't believe in achieving socialist goals by democratic means and I do, then is this a right place for me to post? (I don't mean posting in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum - I already figured out that it's meant for non-revleftist members).

Think deeply about what you mean by democracy. As i've said above, 'vulgar democracy' that puts support for 50%+1-type democracy on a pedastal is practically useless for promoting social change, and pretty dangerous for many reasons (rights of minorities etc.). Democracy should mean the genuine, free will and rule of the people (i.e. the working class). Socialist democracy sees the working class itself use its great power of numbers and cohesiveness and creativity to impose its political, social, and economic power over the current ruling class. That's how I see it. I'm sure others will give you different advice, but I urge you to think about what your view of democracy is, and to what extend democracy is a means or an ends.