[WS:] But that implies that people must believe that a radical change is a realistic possibility, no? And such a belief implies a perception that there is a realistic alternative to the status quo exists. If there is no alternative in sight, any rebellion - if it ever materializes - will be nothing more than a riot. That is why there were many peasant rebellions in pre-capitalist times, but none of them led to any systemic change - even if
the rebellion was not suppressed by force. Only under capitalism -which revolutionized the old economic order - the idea of radical systemic change "trickled down" to the masses.
And one more thing - I am not aware of any instance of an institutional order being abolished and replaced with a radically new order by a rebellion. What seems like successful revolutions (e.g. Russia, China or Cuba) was really instances of systems that were so rotten internally that they have no capacity to counter a revolutionary challenge. In other words, revolutionaries succeeded only because the ruling classes were no longer capable of effectively defending their rule. If the elite, even if weakened, still retained that capacity, the challenges to its rule were suppressed (cf. Iraq under Saddam.)
Wojtek
On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>wrote:
>
> On 2010-09-03, at 2:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Marv Gandall wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Right. "History suggests the masses won't consider overthrowing the
> existing system and experimenting with a new one unless and until a) their
> personal circumstances deteriorate to the point that they consider them life
> threatening and b) it has become abundantly clear that neither of the
> established parties has proved able to arrest the slide and c) their
> desperation for change has finally overcome their fear of repression."
> >
> > This is terribly, even tragically, wrong. What Marvin describes here is
> > the very opposite of the truth: he describesd a world that is perfectly
> > caught up in a few words from Old Man River: "Tired of living, and
> > feared of dying." No one will revolt in the world Marvin describes, for
> > it is a world without hope.
> ===============================
> Nonsense. No ruling class was ever overthrown without the masses
> considering their conditions of life were worsening and there was no longer
> any hope of peaceful redress of their grievances within the existing system.
> But this did not mean they were tired of living and devoid of all hope.
>
> On the contrary, those who rose in revolt were typically inspired by the
> belief that they were bringing into birth a new world from the ashes of the
> old, frequently demonstrating an extraordinary capacity for personal
> sacrifice in pursuit of the common goal. "O workers' Revolution,” Mike Gold
> once wrote, “you brought hope to me, a lonely, suicidal boy" - an ecstatic
> paean to the struggle for revolutionary change which has been expressed in
> different ways and different languages by those who were individually and
> collectively liberated by them at every stage of human history.
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