They certainly weren't instances of *socialism* from below, but weren't the social/political movements which resulted in the overthrow of Communist regimes in much of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union nonetheless *revolutions* from below (at least in some cases)? If so, couldn't these provide a model of how an otherwise powerful capitalist system could be overthrown? The overthrown regimes had a near monopoly of media control, armed force, and the means of production. Moreover, until shortly before being toppled they must have seemed to many of their citizens to be impossibly difficult to remove. And yet toppled they were, and for the most part with very little bloodshed. At present, a potentially similar (if more bloody) process is under way in Serbia. Of course, in these anti-Communist cases one had the powerful presence if not active support of the major Western capitalist states backing up the mass protest movements, whereas the same powers would be virulently opposed to similar movements directed against capitalism. But if, for example, the kind of mass protests seen recently in France and to a lesser extent in other European countries (and currently in South Korea) could be harnessed in support of major socialist goals, wouldn't they at least have a chance of being successful in attaining political dominance, especially if they were to happen (as in Eastern Europe) more or less simultaneously or in a rapid 'domino' dynamic across different countries? I think the answer is 'yes' in principle, at least if we're talking about revolutions from below in major First World countries. A major revolutionary mass protest movement across much of Europe, for example, followed by a rapid series of thumping electoral victories for socialist coalitions would be much harder for the USA to defeat than similar movements in Third World countries. The hard part, of course, is mobilizing in the first place large enough numbers of people in support of radical transformation in a socialist direction--including measures to head off the counterattacks of the international markets and financial institutions as well as wholesale disinvestment by domestic capitalists--and then keeping the resulting socialist political leaderships honest and faithful to the socialist cause once they had grasped the reins of state power. But a mass, extra-parliamentary, transnational movement against the domination of global financial markets and major corporations is surely possible, is it not? Or else are we all just wasting our time? Peter [EMAIL PROTECTED]
