Once the revolution is "secured" - How to maliate the mind o

[anti machine]

When having a discussion with a would-be convert to communism, I have them agreeing with me up through the revolutionary aspect and reasons of justification for such a revolution. When I get to the part about "re-education", brainwashing-in-reverse in essence, which I hold to be a nessecity in "reprogramming" and erasing the capitalist mindset, they ask a simple question: How?

I have been rather torn up about this. How do we eradicate a virus that has plagued man since the invention of private property? What tools can we possibly use in such an enormous undertaking? Obviously, such a process cannot take place until the globe has been "liberated", and it relies on every man, every member of society, inheriting the communistic mindset. As Trotsky said, seeing the state as God, as a force as natural as, well, nature.

How could such a struggle begin to be accomplished?

[Corvus Corax]

I don't believe we can force a mindset on anybody, their mind is theirs, and it shouldn't be played with. Once everybody's ready it will happen. We can't do the same thing the Capitalists are doing now jsut for a different cause, it would make us no better than them.

[anti machine]

Once everybody's ready it will happen....

That just doesn't cut it for me. What I fear is a successful revolution with no plans for construction.

[redstar2000]

Well, in order to "make" a revolution in the first place, there must obviously be a huge number of people who actively want that to happen...somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the population.

In the decades leading up to that event, we have been busy propagandizing not only on the failures of the old order but what features the new order might have...what our "vision" of communism is.

"After" the revolution, it seems to me that we "carry on" in the same fashion, with whatever fresh resources accrue to us as a consequence of the revolution.

There would be a shift in emphasis, of course. We would talk much more about what should be done now and much less about the old order...but we will still be, as we always have been really, people with ideas who talk about them to anyone who will listen.

We've already seen the unhappy results of attempting to "make people communist" at gunpoint...even if we could stomach the methods, we know they don't work.

Guns are very useful when dealing with the class enemy and any attempts at counter-revolution; but persuasion is the only thing that works within the revolution itself.

Our enemies will accuse us of "counter-brainwashing", of course. What else would you expect them to say? Frankly, I think we should ignore our critics and go ahead with whatever strategies we can come up with to educate people how to be human again...instead of parts in the old capitalist machine.

Whatever those strategies might be, they would all share a common theme: a committment to rational thought and the consequent power of collective human reason to fashion a free and just social order.

One way to look at communist revolution...and, I think, a good one: for the first time in human history, we cease to be the slaves of social and economic processes that we did not understand...and become the master of those processes, which we will use as we consciously decide.

Rather like the difference between groveling before the "Thunder & Lightning God"...and building a generator that works.

:cool:

[anti machine]

Thank you redstar. I always appreciate your feedback.

Perhaps the schools, the institution of education as a medium for change, as proposed by Russel, would accomplish the ends. It just seems like such a lenghty and unstable process, which is why frustrated leaders like Mao and Stalin have resorted to gunpoint and ideological genocide.

[Pete]

I doubt you want any reactionaries to be able to take root in your present society, which is why they should be uprooted, the ideals that is, and destroyed like the parasites they are.

Education is an excellant way to do this but not in the present system. We need to start from scratch. Instead of going through this indoctrinating process children should be taught to read and write when they want to. And as part of the education basic math, science, communist theory, and arts should be taught. Of course the most important lesson should be how to ask and find answers to questions independantly.

[anti machine]

start from scratch absolutely. But what to do about the current "adults" who have their minds made up?

And while we're on the subject, here we are speaking of a revolution to come. I know, I'm one of the worst offenders. Which masses that we keep referring to are going to lead this revolution? THe third world? THe proletartiat of the world? The working class of America sure as hell isn't strong enough or, rather, are too content, to lead some grass-roots campaign for Marxism. Are we to suppose that a working-class-of-the-world front will unite in opposition to the bourgeoisie?

In short, where will the revolution begin?

[Pete]

For a revolution to occur you need mass support, as Redstar said (or atleast I think he said it in this thread). You will not have to worry about most of the adults.

The revolution will begin in the 3rd world.

[anti machine]

"The revolution will begin in the 3rd world."

That's a nice, blunt answer. I like that.

[Sandanista]

The revolution will be carried out by the workers, only they can seize power as they are the wheels that turn the cogs.