Dude, Where's my Revolution?

[The New Manifesto]

My understanding is that Marx said revolution had occur in industrialized, imperialist nations. And with that criterion, we only really have the west...And I doubt that the west has a Communist Revolution around the corner.
So where will the revolution occur? The unindustrialized third world? The brainwashed-far right first world? Dude, where's my revolution?

[BobKKKindle$]

Empirical and theoretical developments show that revolution is not likely to break out in the imperialist core, but will originate in the periphery and then spread to the core. The reason for this is that the imperialist exploitation of the periphery allows the bourgeoisie to "buy off" a section of the working class and offer material concessions to the working class as a whole in the form of state welfare and access to cheap consumer goods, and so in the short-term the proletariat of the core is unlikely to recognize that they have the same class interests as workers in the periphery and there will be a lack of incentive for these workers to overthrow the capitalist system.

[Decolonize The Left]

My understanding is that Marx said revolution had occur in industrialized, imperialist nations. And with that criterion, we only really have the west...And I doubt that the west has a Communist Revolution around the corner.
So where will the revolution occur? The unindustrialized third world? The brainwashed-far right first world? Dude, where's my revolution?

The revolution will occur when the proletariat has achieved a level of class consciousness expressed through solidarity and widespread organization. The achievement of this class consciousness is all that matters - debates as to 'where, how, when' are pointless and distracting.

- August

[ernie]

The revolution will occur when the proletariat has achieved a level of class consciousness expressed through solidarity and widespread organization. The achievement of this class consciousness is all that matters - debates as to 'where, how, when' are pointless and distracting.

- August
No, they aren't pointless. It's important to understand well what kind of material conditions are necessary for a communist revolution. Marx did say that communism would happen in the advanced capitalist countries first, and he had a reason for saying that. Or do you think he was trying to distract us?


And with that criterion, we only really have the west...And I doubt that the west has a Communist Revolution around the corner.
You're right; it's not around the corner. That doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.


So where will the revolution occur? The unindustrialized third world? The brainwashed-far right first world?
Revolutions might happen first in the third world...they just won't be communist revolutions. They'll be bourgeois revolutions or "socialist" revolutions.

And I don't think the proletariat in the first world is brainwashed. I feel that, in periods of relative class peace, revolutionary consciousness is really difficult to measure. The point is that just because the proletarian are reactionary now, it doesn't mean they will always be.

[Black Sheep]

Yeah but Lenin said that in advanced (capitalistically) countries the revolution will be difficult but the building of socialism will be easy, and vice versa in the poorly advanced capitalist countries.

[Dimentio]

My understanding is that Marx said revolution had occur in industrialized, imperialist nations. And with that criterion, we only really have the west...And I doubt that the west has a Communist Revolution around the corner.
So where will the revolution occur? The unindustrialized third world? The brainwashed-far right first world? Dude, where's my revolution?

You forgot Japan.

[Kukulofori]

Japan, Greece, Italy, and Iceland all look like they might have a revolution damn soon.

First world socialism has never been attempted. Once it happens and shows everyone how awesome it is, it's a safe bet that other countries will start wanting some of that.

[Black Sheep]

Japan, Greece, Italy, and Iceland all look like they might have a revolution damn soon.
The italian communist party is Fing corrupt.
In goverment under the 'coalition of the left' or something, a people's vote (poll? how is it called) voted for the increase of minimum age of pension, with like 80% FOR!

In greece, the CP got a 8.1% at the 2007 election.

Japan, i dunno :)

[Kukulofori]

Everything in Italy is corrupt. You can't even make poluitical blogs there without a degree in journalism.

Greece's communist party has a history; it's weak because a few years ago it had a lot of scandals. Also, Greece has a two party system and one of the two parties is openly socialist (though traitorous). Also it was outlawed for several decades and last time it did anything the US and UK arrested all the members and slaughtered entire villages to crush the popular uprising.

Japan, I dunno.

Either way, a revolution will not, can not, happen from the top down. The probability of a revolution, imo, is defined by the amount of riots and protests combined with how pissed off the people are.

[Bilan]

Countries that had a general strike in the last 2 months: Spain, Italy, Greece, Colombia, Chile, Belgium.
Guess.

[Mindtoaster]

And then theres the revolution in Nepal

and the possiblity of revolution in Venezuela, Bolivia, The Philippines...

Unrest in Mexico....

At this point it could emerge from anywhere, civil unrest is spreading in both the third and first worlds.

Bobkindles theory seems pretty reasonable in my opinion. I imagine the third world will go first, resulting in a sharp downward spiral for the workers in the first world. It'll be out of the office and back to the assembly line for the American proletariat if the third world revolts first.

[Hit The North]

And I doubt that the west has a Communist Revolution around the corner.


Apparently in 1916, Lenin felt the same way about Russia when he was, historically speaking, sitting around the corner from the February revolution. Things can change very quickly in the midst of a crisis.

But if there are revolutions in the West it's pretty clear they'll have little to do with any existing communist parties in those countries.



Originally posted by Mindtoaster
Bobkindles theory seems pretty reasonable in my opinion. I imagine the third world will go first, resulting in a sharp downward spiral for the workers in the first world.

On the face of it Bobkindles theory (or, to be precise, his adoption of a Maoist theory) does seem reasonable. After all, as he points out, it's apparently confirmed by the empirical evidence: i.e. no 20th century revolutions in the developed West; numerous examples in the under-developed East. However, what kind of revolutions were they? As Marx points out, just as we should not judge a person only by their own opinion of themselves, we should not assess the nature of an epoch (let alone a revolution) merely by what it says of itself. Just because the leading, conscious element of the third world revolutions utilised more or less faithful interpretations of revolutionary socialist ideology, does not make those revolutions socialist. In fact, as Bob should know, not one anti-imperialist revolution succeeded in establishing a socialist society. Why is this? Because the revolts were not led by the working class and the material conditions necessary for socialism did not exist.

In fact, looking at these revolutions from a distance, and ignoring the political rhetoric of their leaders, it is clear that the most successful of these revolutions only succeeded in clearing a path for modernisation, giving birth to astonishing industrial revolutions and providing a particular historical trajectory for those nations to enter the global capitalist economy of the 21st century.

Moreover, taking into account the global nature of capitalism and the emergence of India and China as economic superpowers, it's hard to see where the periphery Bob talks about actually lies. Afghanistan? Somalia? Rural Pakinstan? Is this where the hope for future socialist revolution really lies?



It'll be out of the office and back to the assembly line for the American proletariat if the third world revolts first.
Can we move away from these simple calculations which see every advance for global capitalism as some kind of advance for Western workers? There are probably millions of American workers who would love American capital to relocate its productive capacity back in the USA. Do you think the thousands of auto workers who were laid off when Ford and General Motors shifted production overseas got themselves well paid jobs in plush offices? Hardly! Are we supposed to believe that being given the choice of either doing meaningless Mcjobs in shitty call centres for minimum wage or living off welfare and being made to feel really bad about yourself, is some kind of victory for the Western proletariat?

[RedSabine]

Give it 35 years.

[Bilan]

The future is unwritten, so there's no reason to give it 35 years. Give it a day, give it a year, a decade or a century. it doesn't matter. when it comes, it comes. :)

[Decolonize The Left]

No, they aren't pointless. It's important to understand well what kind of material conditions are necessary for a communist revolution. Marx did say that communism would happen in the advanced capitalist countries first, and he had a reason for saying that. Or do you think he was trying to distract us?

I think you miss the point.

Whatever conditions are necessary for a communist revolution, they will either a) exist, and the revolution will happen, or b) they won't, and the revolution won't happen.

Understanding conditions is all well and fine, but most of them are speculation - for we forget that conditions are changing constantly, and theories which demand specific conditions must account for the effect of their own theories on these conditions. But the most important condition is a vast amount of class consciousness among the working class - this is the crux of the issue. To say otherwise is to discount the ability of the working class, and to belittle the very effort you intend to further.

So Marx said that the revolution would happen in advanced, capitalist, countries? Will you wait? How long? What if he was wrong? The point is that the revolution will only occur if the working class functions as a whole as a class. This is the goal.

When, where, and how, are all secondary to who and why.

- August

[BobKKKindle$]

Bob The Builder, let me begin by saying that the post I made at the beginning of this thread is not based on a "Maoist" theory, as it was actually Lenin who first explained how the labour aristocracy is created during the epoch of imperialism, and the effect that the existence of this stratum has on the potential for revolution on the imperialist core, and so it is possible to accept this theory and not be classified as any kind of Maoist. This, however, is not what you were trying to get at in your own post, as instead you argued against my theory by suggesting that when uprisings have occurred in the developing world they have generally taken the form of nationalist uprisings which have not led to the successful attainment of socialism and have often resulted in widespread bloodshed with no tangible gains for the working class in the countries where these uprisings have taken place. Now, this is partially true in that you can point to many examples to support your rebuttal. However, this does not refute my argument, as there have also been many uprisings which have draw their strength from the working class and have been socialist or at least socialistic not only in their rhetoric but also in their aims and class dynamics, and these uprisings have been far more frequent in the periphery than in the core, which suggests that there is something about the core countries and their location in the capitalist world-system that makes militant class struggle less likely to occur and allows struggles to be contained and dealt with when they do occur. Examples of worker-led struggles in the periphery include the occupied factories movement in Argentina, the ongoing Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, the growing wave of strikes and protests in China (which is still part of the periphery despite that some people would like you to believe - there has been a lot of discussion on this issue in the politics section of the forum recently and I have made my views on this issue known there) and the recent democratic revolution in Nepal. That these struggles have not resulted in socialism is not evidence that the struggles themselves are not socialist, rather this failure affirms what Trotsky argued all along - that the material preconditions for socialism only exist in a global scale and so socialism can only be attained if a revolution rapidly spreads once capitalism has been overthrown in one country. This is why, despite the influence of the labour aristocracy, spreading revolution to the core is a necessity should revolution break out in the periphery, as recognized by Lenin, who pinned his hopes on a successful proletarian uprising in Germany, which was and still is one of the most advanced capitalist states in the world in terms of productive capacity.

[turquino]

Bobkindles,

you say there's a labour aristocracy at the imperialist centre. But how big is it, and what are its class interests? Is it 5% or 95% of the workers? Furthermore, what position does the labour aristocrat occupy? Are they workers who are simply paid a bit more and thus feel that revolution isn't really worth the effort, or are they actively opposed to revolution because they will lose out from it?

The answers to these questions are important. After all, most communists think there exists some kind of labour aristocracy, but often times they'll point to where Lenin said it was a small segment of the working class. If it's the case that workers are being fooled into supporting capitalist-imperialism by their relative privilege, then we have the task of educating them against their chauvinism. On the other hand, if their privilege is so great that the destruction of imperialism means them losing a great deal, then we should oppose their class struggle because it is reactionary.

[ernie]

I think you miss the point.
Well, since you explicitly said that understanding material conditions was pointless, how could I have gotten the point?


Whatever conditions are necessary for a communist revolution, they will either a) exist, and the revolution will happen, or b) they won't, and the revolution won't happen.

Understanding conditions is all well and fine, but most of them are speculation - for we forget that conditions are changing constantly, and theories which demand specific conditions must account for the effect of their own theories on these conditions. But the most important condition is a vast amount of class consciousness among the working class - this is the crux of the issue. To say otherwise is to discount the ability of the working class, and to belittle the very effort you intend to further.

So Marx said that the revolution would happen in advanced, capitalist, countries? Will you wait? How long? What if he was wrong? The point is that the revolution will only occur if the working class functions as a whole as a class. This is the goal.

When, where, and how, are all secondary to who and why.
OK. That's a good way to put it.

[Tower of Bebel]

Bobkindles,

you say there's a labour aristocracy at the imperialist centre. But how big is it, and what are its class interests? Is it 5% or 95% of the workers? Furthermore, what position does the labour aristocrat occupy? Are they workers who are simply paid a bit more and thus feel that revolution isn't really worth the effort, or are they actively opposed to revolution because they will lose out from it?

The answers to these questions are important. After all, most communists think there exists some kind of labour aristocracy, but often times they'll point to where Lenin said it was a small segment of the working class. If it's the case that workers are being fooled into supporting capitalist-imperialism by their relative privilege, then we have the task of educating them against their chauvinism. On the other hand, if their privilege is so great that the destruction of imperialism means them losing a great deal, then we should oppose their class struggle because it is reactionary.
The labour aristocracy is big, but that's not all. Imperialism affects the working class as a whole. That means that we cannot simply educate a (imaginary) mass that is only fooled by the labour aristocracy. We need to organize the working class as a whole against both imperialism and the capitalist state (which the labour aristocracy is part of).

[Hit The North]

The labour aristocracy is big,How big? Let's have some numbers or, at least, identify who these aristocrats of labour are.


We need to organize the working class as a whole against both imperialism and the capitalist state (which the labour aristocracy is part of). Who are these masses of workers (presuming the labour aristrocracy is, as you say, 'big') who are part of the capitalist state?