Democratic Revolution

[Redhead]

Is there an alternative for socialist party's to run for government to start a revolution?

My thoughts:
For the revolution to succeed you have to have the majority of the people with you. And if you have the majority of the people with you, you have enough power to win an election. To take controll of the state people often say you have to take upon arms against the state, but what if you won the power democratically? Then you also would have the military on your side, and perhaps international support as you gained power "legally".

Is running for elections an alternative for socialist party's?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Even if you were to gain power democratically, you would still have to face off against the power of state and capital in order to actually carry out a revolution. In the US for instance, politicians, soldiers and cops all take oaths to uphold the constitution. If I were to be elected president and then decided that I wanted to abolish the state, this would be illegal according to the constitution, even if I had 80 or 90% of the population behind me. The remaining 10 or 20% would challenge me, militarily, to maintain their social status and the state that protects it.

A revolution could very well begin within the existing 'democratic' framework, but would still ultimately be decided via civil war anyhow. The question is kind of backwards to begin with though. If 90% of the population overthrows the state, why should that be deemed less democratic than 90% of the population voting for a candidate in an election?

[Subversive]

You conveniently gloss over the most important details.
How do you plan to win support of the majority?
How do you plan to become democratically elected in rigged elections?
How do you plan to get enough power to overturn the current system through elections?
How do you plan to get all the money necessary to run a campaign?

Look at the US system for example.
Their election system is rigged so that third-parties have almost no chance to even get on the ballot, let alone get votes. This includes even local elections, let alone the 'big ones'.
And if you got elected, what do you do then? Each individual in the government is merely expected to fulfill the usual bourgeois role, and when you don't you're just ignored entirely. Even the President has relatively little power to himself if he legitimately wanted to create real change. It requires a majority of both the Senate AND the House to create changes, and that is specifically why little change is ever made in the US, one of the reasons why it is so 'conservative'.
And how do you gain majority-support anyway? Socialists and Communists are seen as idiots and terrorists to the American people.
And then there is the entire Capitalist-polluted ideology surrounding the US Constitution you'd have to get around somehow.
And where do you plan to get the millions upon millions of dollars required to run in a real election?

So no, this is not an alternative for revolution. It's a reformist pipe dream.

[Tim Cornelis]

It's not necessary to have a majority of the population behind you to foment a successful revolution. A lot of fence sitters will be forced to take sides once the revolution is under way. For instance, a majority of Eastern Ukrainians would not have voted in favour of separatism before the insurrection, but the insurrection has forced more extremist public opinion. Such extreme positions are taken under the prevailing circumstances. Thus, in a pre-revolutionary situation a lot people would not opt in favour of a revolution but when it is the existing circumstance, this may change.

But I've also long thought of how revolutionary social-democracy may arise under unique circumstances where elected socialists immobilise the state apparatus to allow the revolution. But I don't think it's very likely.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I was just using the best possible scenario as an example, it seems unlikely that a government would survive 50-60% of it's population being actively in favor of overthrowing it long enough to get to the 80-90% that I used in the example. I think a state apparatus can probably function just fine without it's elected leaders, it's designed to survive nuclear war. It seems unlikely that internal revolutionists would be able to sabotage it for very long before the security services take over.

[Q]

Is there an alternative for socialist party's to run for government to start a revolution?

My thoughts:
For the revolution to succeed you have to have the majority of the people with you. And if you have the majority of the people with you, you have enough power to win an election. To take controll of the state people often say you have to take upon arms against the state, but what if you won the power democratically? Then you also would have the military on your side, and perhaps international support as you gained power "legally".

Is running for elections an alternative for socialist party's?
Several things here:

1. Yes, we absolutely need majority support, active or passive, to carry out the revolution. This is why orthodox Marxists aim for mass party-movements that organise the working class politically as a collective. This will not attain outright majority support overnight, but builds the structures to provide a positive alternative once the question comes of toppling the old structures.

2. Elections are not democratic. Elections are an aristocratic mechanism for getting officials, it benefits oligarchic power structures. Look at the elections all around you: What does it take to get elected? Wealth, power, influence and knowing the right people. Elections therefore are a tactic for socialist parties, but should be dealt with critically and without illusions of them being 'democratic'.

3. But say you won state power 'legally'. Would that mean the ruling order is just going to sit and watch you tear down their old power structures? History has taught us many bloody lessons regarding this. No, the army will not be on our side simply because we won an election. No, international support shouldn't be counted on simply because we played by the rulebook. We should expect opposition from all layers of the ruling system: the state bureaucracy, the armed forces, the mass corporate media, international financial institutions, other governments...

[Pancakes Rühle]

Several things here:

1. Yes, we absolutely need majority support, active or passive, to carry out the revolution. This is why orthodox Marxists aim for mass party-movements that organise the working class politically as a collective. This will not attain outright majority support overnight, but builds the structures to provide a positive alternative once the question comes of toppling the old structures.I think this impossibilist view is wrong. What actually builds and gains majority support aren't the foul bourgeois political parties which place itself outside of the class, as it's leader... it is the class itself which will raise it's own consciousness. It's the class itself which will gain majority support through class conscious direct action, through revolution itself. No "mass-party", which I don't need to mention has always turned out for the worse, can do what the CLASS ITSELF needs to do.


2. Elections are not democratic. Elections are an aristocratic mechanism for getting officials, it benefits oligarchic power structures. Look at the elections all around you: What does it take to get elected? Wealth, power, influence and knowing the right people. Elections therefore are a tactic for socialist parties, but should be dealt with critically and without illusions of them being 'democratic'.They are only a tactic in which the delusional legitimize the system. It is a tactic not for the working class, but for those careerists who think that this will actually do something...it won't.


3. But say you won state power 'legally'. Would that mean the ruling order is just going to sit and watch you tear down their old power structures? History has taught us many bloody lessons regarding this. No, the army will not be on our side simply because we won an election. No, international support shouldn't be counted on simply because we played by the rulebook. We should expect opposition from all layers of the ruling system: the state bureaucracy, the armed forces, the mass corporate media, international financial institutions, other governments...Agreed.

[tuwix]

Is there an alternative for socialist party's to run for government to start a revolution?

My thoughts:
For the revolution to succeed you have to have the majority of the people with you. And if you have the majority of the people with you, you have enough power to win an election. To take controll of the state people often say you have to take upon arms against the state, but what if you won the power democratically? Then you also would have the military on your side, and perhaps international support as you gained power "legally".

Is running for elections an alternative for socialist party's?

If you win elections, the members of your party will be bought by bourgeoisie... And this is exactly why socialism shouldn't be introduced by so-called "parliamentary democracy".