I generally agree with Peter Burns' comments on this topic,
except that he overgeneralized a bit too much from the relatively
painless and violence-free "velvet revolution" of the former
Czechoslovakia. (Albania or Rumania, for example, were quite
different.)
Concerning socialism from below, Fikret says:>>As we know it, no
such [successful] revolution has ever occurred [against
capitalism]. No regime wants to transfer power to its opposite
peacefully and democratically. They (existing regimes) put
precautionary measures in place to prevent it from happening.
Advance[d] capitalist countries have de-jure and de-facto
institutions in place, so it is unlikely to organize the
oppressed to unseat the oppressors. <<
I generally agree with the above (as amended, in brackets). But the
issue of the need for military force -- or violence in general --
to the overthrow existing capitalist mode of production is a
_different issue_ from that of socialism from below vs. socialism
from above.
(1) a military effort to overthrow capitalism is more effective to
the extent that this effort is enthusiastically supported by the
"grassroots," i.e., the oppressed. Less violence is needed.
In fact, with serious popular support for revolution (as in the
1917 Russian rev.), the government's armed forces can fall apart,
in that they rely on soldiers with social ties to the population. A
less complete process of the collapse of the military machine
occurred in the US during the Viet Nam war.
A military effort without such grassroots support leans heavily in
the Unabomber or Weather Underground direction. That is, it is at
best silly. Most people on the left know this: that's why we
(including I) do not advocate military putsches, do not advocate
the forcible overthrow of the US government. Any strategy that
begins with military means is bound to lose, especially in the
sense of liberating people.
(2) A military effort that enlists the population and empowers
them to help in the fight will be more effective. This is simply
because there will be more people involved.
(3) A military effort that does not do so also threatens to create
the military as a new elite. In Algeria, for example, the more
popularly-based domestic guerrilla war lost out (due to French
efforts) but the external army under Boumoudienne won. So who do
you think ended up running the country?
A long process of the development of grass-roots democratic
organizations among the oppressed means that when and if the
capitalist governement falls, there will be some sort of
organization to take its place and run society rather than the
military or the vanguard party's bureaucracy. These grass-roots
organizations of what the bolsheviks termed "dual power" can also
arise "spontaneously" as the old order crumbles. But they really
don't arise spontaneously, as much as culminate what E.P. Thompson
termed the "development of the working class."
We have to remmber that that the military is organized in a
hierarchical and dictatorial way. Hierarchy and dictatorship are
not socialist, at least in the sense of socialism that I endorse.
>>In the Third World, the obstacles are even more. So, naturally
arm[ed] revolution, not ballot-box revolution becomes the only
viable alternative for the oppressed majority, who begin to use
every opportunity and means to topple the oppressive regime.<<
I wasn't talking about a ballot-box revolution.
>>Usually, a minority of the oppressed initiates the revolution
(arm-revolution) and others voluntarily or involuntarily joins
the movement. Since we do not expect spontaneous uprisings, like
prairie fires, what do we call for this revolution? The
revolution to be from below or above does not depend on who
initiates or who starts it, rather how the decisions are being
made at every step and once it becomes a successful revolution
how it continues. That is, how democratic it is. If the
transitional state empowers the masses toward self-government
and moves toward more egalitarian society by eliminating the
oppression (i.e., wage-labor), then we can say that the
socialist revolution is "from below." Any other has to be a
revolution from above, by them and for them.<<
Sure (though I don't understand the last sentence), but we have
to be careful: often a small group _says_ that it represents the
workers and other oppressed groups. But it may subsitute itself
as a bunch of new bosses to replace the old ones. Getting rid of
wage labor isn't enough: it might be replaced by slave labor, as
with Pol Pot.
for socialism from below,
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Los Angeles, CA (the city of your future: the city of
smog, earthquakes, fires, floods, civil disturbances, OJ,
the Menendi, and Heidi (daughter of our nephew's pediatrician)
Fleiss).
