At 11:21 PM -0400 3/10/09, Marv Gandall wrote:
>I'm old fashioned. I still subscribe to the outdated notion that
>revolutions are fundamental shifts in class power - broadly
>speaking, from landlords to capitalist bankers and manufacturers to
>wage and salary earners, each identified with a specific mode of
>production: feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and all necessarily
>violent because the existence of the old ruling class is at stake.
>Political revolutions which change control of the state apparatus
>are many and can be violent or non-violent, but they are not the
>same as thoroughgoing social revolutions which also change the
>system of production and the composition of the ruling class. Failed
>insurrections are not social revolutions.
But a socialist revolution would differ in one important respect. Whereas all previous social revolutions entail one social class which was minority of the population taking power at the expense of another social class which was also a minority, a socialist revolution would be a revolution of and by the overwhelming majority.
Against such a force, violent resistance would be futile. Strategic non-violence is ideal for the working class in such a conflict, because the deciding issue is the will of the majority working class and every blow struck by the ruling class simply strengthens the arm of the working class by undermining the legitimacy of the ruling class.
Remember too that the working class revolution does not need to concern itself with controlling a subject class after the revolution. As have all previous social revolutions. The working class revolution is the abolition of class relations.
So it makes no sense to plan a strategy based on the notion that this is like previous revolutions. It isn't. Its an old error to prepare to fight the next war based on the strategy of the last war. The next class war has to be fought according to the new conditions, not according to the conditions prevailing in the class war between feudal lords and capitalists.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas