Red Terror Dr.
21st October 2014, 15:11
Witnessing how the Occupy Wall Street movement got annihilated because of a lack of revolutionary leadership, Hedges rethinks the Leninist plan of revolution. Here's the passage:
I asked them if a professional revolutionary class, revolutionists dedicated solely to overthrowing the corporate state, was a prerequisite. Would we have to model any credible opposition after Vladimir Lenins disciplined and rigidly controlled Bolsheviks or Machiavellis republican conspirators? Wolin and Saul, while deeply critical of Lenins ideology of state capitalism and state terror, agreed that creating a class devoted full time to radical change was essential to fomenting change. There must be people, they said, willing to dedicate their lives to confronting the corporate state outside traditional institutions and parties. Revolt, for a few, must become a vocation. The alliance between mass movements and a professional revolutionary class, they said, offers the best chance for an overthrow of corporate power.
It is extremely important that people are willing to go into the streets, Saul said. Democracy has always been about the willingness of people to go into the streets. When the Occupy movement started I was pessimistic. I felt it could only go a certain distance. But the fact that a critical mass of people was willing to go into the streets and stay there, without being organized by a political party or a union, was a real statement. If you look at that, at what is happening in Canada, at the movements in Europe, the hundreds of thousands of people in Spain in the streets, you are seeing for the first time since the 19th century or early 20th century people coming into the streets in large numbers without a real political structure. These movements arent going to take power. But they are a sign that power and the respect for power is falling apart. What happens next? It could be dribbled away. But I think there is the possibility of a new generation coming in and saying we wont accept this. That is how you get change. A new generation comes along and says no, no, no. They build their lives on the basis of that no.
But none of these mass mobilizations, Saul and Wolin emphasized, will work unless there is a core of professional organizers.
Anarchy is a beautiful idea, but someone has to run the stuff, Saul said. It has to be run over a long period of time. Look at the rise and fall of the Chinese empires. For thousands of years it has been about the rise and fall of the water systems. Somebody has to run the water system. Somebody [in modern times] has to keep the electricity going. Somebody has to make the hospitals work.
You need a professional or elite class devoted to profound change, Saul said. If you want to get power you have to be able to hold it. And you have to be able to hold it long enough to change the direction. The neoconservatives understood this. They have always been Bolsheviks (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/72272/Bolshevik). They are the Bolsheviks of the right. Their methodology is the methodology of the Bolsheviks. They took over political parties by internal coups dtat. They worked out, scientifically, what things they needed to do and in what order to change the structures of power. They have done it stage by stage. And we are living the result of that. The liberals sat around writing incomprehensible laws and boring policy papers. They were unwilling to engage in the real fight that was won by a minute group of extremists.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/20/imperative-revolt
I asked them if a professional revolutionary class, revolutionists dedicated solely to overthrowing the corporate state, was a prerequisite. Would we have to model any credible opposition after Vladimir Lenins disciplined and rigidly controlled Bolsheviks or Machiavellis republican conspirators? Wolin and Saul, while deeply critical of Lenins ideology of state capitalism and state terror, agreed that creating a class devoted full time to radical change was essential to fomenting change. There must be people, they said, willing to dedicate their lives to confronting the corporate state outside traditional institutions and parties. Revolt, for a few, must become a vocation. The alliance between mass movements and a professional revolutionary class, they said, offers the best chance for an overthrow of corporate power.
It is extremely important that people are willing to go into the streets, Saul said. Democracy has always been about the willingness of people to go into the streets. When the Occupy movement started I was pessimistic. I felt it could only go a certain distance. But the fact that a critical mass of people was willing to go into the streets and stay there, without being organized by a political party or a union, was a real statement. If you look at that, at what is happening in Canada, at the movements in Europe, the hundreds of thousands of people in Spain in the streets, you are seeing for the first time since the 19th century or early 20th century people coming into the streets in large numbers without a real political structure. These movements arent going to take power. But they are a sign that power and the respect for power is falling apart. What happens next? It could be dribbled away. But I think there is the possibility of a new generation coming in and saying we wont accept this. That is how you get change. A new generation comes along and says no, no, no. They build their lives on the basis of that no.
But none of these mass mobilizations, Saul and Wolin emphasized, will work unless there is a core of professional organizers.
Anarchy is a beautiful idea, but someone has to run the stuff, Saul said. It has to be run over a long period of time. Look at the rise and fall of the Chinese empires. For thousands of years it has been about the rise and fall of the water systems. Somebody has to run the water system. Somebody [in modern times] has to keep the electricity going. Somebody has to make the hospitals work.
You need a professional or elite class devoted to profound change, Saul said. If you want to get power you have to be able to hold it. And you have to be able to hold it long enough to change the direction. The neoconservatives understood this. They have always been Bolsheviks (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/72272/Bolshevik). They are the Bolsheviks of the right. Their methodology is the methodology of the Bolsheviks. They took over political parties by internal coups dtat. They worked out, scientifically, what things they needed to do and in what order to change the structures of power. They have done it stage by stage. And we are living the result of that. The liberals sat around writing incomprehensible laws and boring policy papers. They were unwilling to engage in the real fight that was won by a minute group of extremists.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/20/imperative-revolt