Depends on who you ask, really, although I personally beleive in the first interpretation: seizing of power by the working class.
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Proletarian Revolution
What defines a revolution being proletarian? The seizure of power by the proletariat or being popularly supported and aided in success by the proletariat? Specifically I was wondering if the russian revolution (the second one) would be considered a proletarian revolution or not because although it was popularly supported and fought for by much of the working class, the working class did not emerge from the revolution with control of the state and workplaces.
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X
Depends on who you ask, really, although I personally beleive in the first interpretation: seizing of power by the working class.
"oh noes they be takin mah surplus value" -Tim Finnegan
"'The' names reached a peak with The The and hence after were obsolete. " -Angry Young Man
"anyone seen blazin saddles? best fucking movie ever." - Red Spartan
A revolution is not one of the proletariat unless it aims to consolidate power for the working class. The former criteria which you refer to could very well be applied to the February Revolution of 1917, wherein the the bourgeoisie took power by utilizing the mass support of the proletariat. As the February Revolution was obviously not a revolution of the proletariat, I think that it said that the presence of this factor of popular support does not necessarily make a proletarian revolution.
That's true, but specifically I was asking for people's opinions on whether or not the October revolution was a proletarian one.
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X
Of course it was, a vanguard party of the workers proceeded to smash the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie and established a proletariat state, thus creating a society firmly under the control of the masses. The Bolshevik Party proclaimed that all power was to go to the Soviets of the workers, peasants, sailors, and soldiers, and so it did.
The working class did not control the state after the october revolution.
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X
The proletariat state as it stood after the October Revolution derived its legitimacy from the Soviets and the direct demands of the workers which were vested in those organizations. I can hardly imagine an argument which calls into question the revolutionary content of the Bolshevik government, given its strict adherence to the objective of creating the preparatory stages of Socialism in the RSFSR and later in the USSR. The dictatorship of the proletariat which was instituted by the Bolshevik Party in this period acted in a manner which was perfectly in line with the interests of progress in the name of the worker, making this a very tentative claim to mount.
since the working class has never consolidated its power over the society as a whole, there would never have been any proeletarian revolutions by that standard. the working class holding power requires that power be in the hands of mass organizations. the hierarchical Bolshevik party-state was not power of the working class itself. the claim that it was is based on a rather Orwelling use of "workers power", i.e. the state power of a party that claims to be a "workers party."
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.
The actual authority invested in the regional soviets was very little. Not to mention that efforts of workers to control workplaces were sometimes thwarted by the red guard. I believe that was mostly in the period after the revolution through, after "war communism" was instituted.
But specifically I was looking for what defines proletarian revolution.
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X
In the early stages of preliminary socialism you are obviously going to need to defend the revolution from any sentiments of counter revolution or regression which may emerge in the new institutions which it seeks to develop. The proletarian is not some monolithic entity which will always act upon its interests, naturally some situations are going to emerge, especially in a nation as backwards as Russia, wherein direct access to the revolutionary state may need to be regulated. In the given context of civil war and counter revolution, I hardly consider these measures which were designed to bring about a greater degree of efficiency to the new workers state regrettable or deserving of this degree of critique.
I outlined the parameters of proletarian revolution in my initial post and you proceeded to explain the primary intent of this topic as being centered around discussion of the October Revolution.
What madmafioso means to say is he supports the armed overthrow of the "wrongly elected" soviet parties and deputies, loyal to soviet power though they may be. It was for the party to decide when workers were and were not being revolutionary, with recourse to only their own authority.
