Starting a revolution

[phasmid]

I was just wondering what if any revolutions have been started by people who weren't educated at all. Is it possible? Fidel, Che, Lenin, Mao, they weren't peasants. Can an uneducated group take control and make effective change?

[RNK]

Actually, Mao was.

Carry on.. ;)

[Raúl Duke]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 08:44 pm
Is it possible? Fidel, Che, Lenin, Mao, they weren't peasants.
I think if you change peasant to proletarian you will have a very valid question.

The thing is, the masses usually spontaneously start a revolution. Such was the case with the Paris Commune, the first part of the Russia Revolution, etc.

In other cases, groups (like Mao's group or Fidel's movement) began a "people's war" that overtime reached victory. I suppose this was the case in China (although I could be wrong; haven't read much into it).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

If it is a genuien Marxist revolution, that can only be started and finished by workers.

If it is a miltary coup or uprising, carried out by a minority, which then controls the working class, it can be carried out by all kinds of substitutionists, like Mao or Castro.

But then, that would not be a genuine Marxist revolution: the emancipation of the working class is an act of the working class.

[blackstone]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 02:06 am
Actually, Mao was.

Carry on.. ;)
He said an uneducated group, Mao's father was wealthy as a peasant and thus able to afford to send him to various schools.


Carry on :star:

[Forward Union]

Depends what you mean by educated. Do you mean that these people went through some form of formal schooling system? Because I haven't been to university or got a degree or anything, but by most standards I am educated (self-educated)

Assuming you mean formally educated (in some form of recognised school) then the answer is yes.

Makhno (http://libcom.org/history/makhno-nestor-1889-1934) and Durruti (http://libcom.org/history/durruti-buenaventura-1896-1936) being the most obvious examples of Libertarian-Communist leaders were both uneducated. And started work from a young age (makhno at the age of 7, Durruti at 14). But The Anarchist uprisings in England during the civil war, Ukraine and Russia during the Russian revolution, and Spain 1936 had no "well educated" vanguard, they were self-organised workers and pesants revolutions.

The Anarchist Revolution in Korea was however led by an ex-prince so... Thats an exception.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I was just wondering what if any revolutions have been started by people who weren't educated at all. Is it possible? Fidel, Che, Lenin, Mao, they weren't peasants.

That depends on what kind of revolution one is talking about, doesn't it?


Also, Fidel was/is the leader of a nationalist movement.

[bolshevik butcher]

I'd actually question whether this was really a relevant question in the modern world. Today, even in the third world a large proportion of workers are at least semi-literate and I would imagine that most revolutionary movements would contain people from the rank and file working class who were educated to the nescessary level to carry out any tasks needed in building the movement.

[spartan]

you dont need education to realise that you are being exploited and not being treated fairly! just because some humans are uneducated that does not make them dumb or somehow inferior compared to educated humans who are most probably given every chance to succeed in life.

[bolshevik butcher]

Spartan it is certainly true that we don't need to be educated to take part in a revolution, or be class conscious. However revolutions entail more than this. Infastructure and administration are nescessary, propaganda needs to be made, orders places etc, this kind of thing needs a layer of educated people to carry them out.

[spartan]

of course bb i agree with you on that! i am just saying that uneducated people cannot be discarded as somehow inferior or unable. though the way things are going hopefully every one in the world will have some form of rudimentary education and literacy by the time the revolution comes about.

[Janus]

Is it possible?
Yes, history is filled with many such examples. However, since the vast majority of these leaders took power purely through military means, their period of rule were usually despotic and repressive in nature though certain reforms were usually carried out.