--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/18/07, Wojtek Sokolowski
> <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > The question is, though, where is a
> revolutionary
> > > potential?
> >
> > [WS:] You seem to take it an article of faith that
> > there is a 'revolutionary potential.' I question
> that
> > assumption - I think that revolution is pretty
> much a
> > romantic myth to put window dressing on
> nationalist
> > economic development projects. That was certainly
> > true of the x-USSR and China, and is also true of
> > today's Iran. The color of that window dressing
> > changed from red to green - but the nationalistic
> > nature of these projects has not.
>
> Compare China and India, two shining stars of
> capitalist development
> in the South today: one went through social
> revolution, the other
> didn't, and the difference shows in human
> development, imho:
>
<http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_CHN.html>
>
<http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_IND.html>.
[WS:] Two points. First, you cannot attribute the difference exclusively to the presence or absence of what you call a revolution, and ignore the effects of five thousands years of history. These countries have very diffrent social and political structures, differet value systems, etc.
Second, I did not argure about the *effects* of revolution, but its *causes*, or rathr chances of happening. The Chinese revolution was pretty much a fluke of history that is alsmost impossible to replicate - it was a coincidence of certain element scoming together: the tradition of centralized yet weak national governance, the uprooting of peasantry by the Japanese occupation, the Soviet influence, and th eleadership capable of taking advantage of this situation. The Soviet revolution was also a fluke of history difficult to replicate - again, centralized government seriously weakened by war, th epush toard industrialization held back by feudal structures, the weak middle class. In both cases, the revolutinary leadership was able to harness th euprooted peasantry as a tool of its revolutionary project and destroy the eeudal vestiges and at the same time push for industrialization.
But those conditions are almost impossible to replicate elsewhere, and as a result no other country had a successful revolution (Cuba is a different case, it would not have a revolution without Soviet support). Gramsci already made that observation before WW2 and try to steer away Marxism from the infatuation with revolutionary struggle and lumpenproletarial as it stool, toward more gradual change mediated by civil society. Today, it is even more evident than ever - there have been natinalist uprisings, which are a dime a dozen in history, but not a single revolution, except a few Soviet and Chinese exports. Now with the Soviet Union and China as the only exporters of revolutions gone, and social conditons that gave birth to these two revolutions noexistent as well - the chances of another revolution taking place in the foreseable future are close to nil. We may see natinalist uprisings dressing themselvs in revolutionary slogans, but not revolutions.
And I do not think nationalism of any kind, be it first or third world, is worth fighting for for anyone left of the center, except perhaps right wingers masquereding themselves as lefties. I am honestly nonplussed by your infatuation with the Iranian nationalism - in my book, it is the same kind of shit as the US or Israeli nationalism, which I believe you despise, or any other nationalism.
Wojtek
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