But socialism can NOT be brought in by legal or constittuional means. And that, not military conflict, is what has to be emphasized.
Carrol
^^^^^^^ CB: I don't think this is exactly Engels or Lenin's position on this ( the coiners of "special bodies of armed men, prisons, etc."). Recall that there were soviets of soldiers and sailors in 1917.
The working class united, the overwhelming mass of the population, take state power peacefully, legally and constitutionally even. The ruling class probably, maybe inevitably, perpetrates. a violent, illegal counter-revolution. The rightwing are the criminals, the illegal actors. Marxist socialist revolution must have the support of the great majority of the population as a premise, theoretically. We disagree with Margaret Mead's famous dictum (smile).
Especially now, with the Bolivarian and other peaceful takings of state power by socialist minded parties in South America, "we" ( those of us considering the "communist hypothesis") want to emphasize that Marxists advocate peaceful means of struggle particularly in bourgeois democracies. In the US , this is necessary because of the history of McCarthyism, also.