They're right when you say you can't just 'transplant paths' because every revolution is different. But what we can do is learn from these successful revolutions and adapt the strategies to work in our time, in our place and with our people.
But those strategies go way beyond :vote:
Jacobin attacks.
Jacobin hurts itself in its confusion.
Jacobin could benefit from some self-reflection I think. Upholding social democracy as the political line was an understandable (though insufficient) position throughout the Sanders campaign, but millions of people watched the results of this unfold in realtime from front-row seats. I understand Jacobin isn't a hive-mind and people with varying opinions get their work published there, but come on. Make up your mind. Are we supposed to burn the constitution? or are we supposed to scribble a bunch of op-eds and :vote: while denouncing any example of successful revolutionary change? After all, if we're going to denounce the Bolsheviks and the Cubans for their revolutions, where does that leave the Jacobins themselves?
Jacobin is like the DSA in that they are neither good or bad. They are in superposition
it's kinda wild how the entire discourse is centered around pretending the US didn't say "no and we'll kill you if you keep trying that shit"
Sure you can think that, but very very very very very very very few jumps in progress have ever been made without a whole hell of a lot of pain, suffering, and ultimately sacrifice.
And no I do not mean sacrificing the time it takes to :vote:
I know but "violence is the vehicle of real change" is unfortunately a major fascist talking point.
I wouldn't say it's the vehicle, but it's definitely one of the passengers. It's just frustrating hearing people talking about change through reform while chuds have literally done nothing but accustom themselves to the idea that they're gonna shoot the liberals and communists.
I don't want to be violent, but I don't want to be a victim either. Preaching reform today is wasted time you could be using to bolster your community and training imho
No one wants violence but they’re not gonna let us reform their money away from them. History has shown that a capitulating reformist movement will eventually be crushed or co-opted and the leaders murdered and imprisoned anyway so people may as well be ready to go all the way if they’re going to challenge capital
What do you make of people like this, who say they've been able to convert hundreds of white supremacists into anti-racists using these methods?
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54526345
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
keeping in mind, killing one White Supremacists is -1 White Supremacist. Converting one is -1 White supremacist AND +1 anti racist.
Obviously this won't work for everyone, but the surprising amount of phenomenal success both of these people have had is at least worthy of discussion. And from a strictly quantitative statistical approach, I don't know of many others alive today who can say they're responsible for the world having 100+ less neonazis.
Being an anti racist is great, but it doesn't mean you're automatically a communist.
The army is full of people who I'm sure consider themselves anti racist. Does that mean their crimes against the global south are anti racist as well? No. I should note that when I mean reform I'm really talking about electoral politics, not trying to explain leftist politics to people, I'll always promote that rout first and foremost.
https://justinward.medium.com/daryl-davis-makes-a-new-friend-7a48bc43ad95
If my definition of "liberalism" as "masochistic incompetence" stands, then this piece is definitely :LIB:
The article is from 2018. I'd bet they wouldn't print that in 2021 for fear of being laughed out of the room.
The Russian revolution was foremost a peasant revolution. you can't have those in the West.
The Bolsheviks won by adopting the platform of the social revolutionarys and actually carrying it out. They gave the peasants the Tsars, nobels, churches land to make their (petit bouge) dreams come true. Then years later Stalin came with the big collectivisation stick and still had to allow private plots. Cruschtschow lost much of his public support by trying to complete collectivisation and take away the private plots.
Honestly, I think unions like the IBEW and Teamsters/Longshoremen are going to end up gaining a lot more bargaining power in the coming years. Maybe not those groups specifically, but something that arises from those worker orgs. Texas really showed how fucking unprepared we are for abnormal weather conditions and as the grid starts failing more often and delivery/shipping infrastructure rots, those groups will have real revolutionary potential being the only ones able to keep the lights on and get people what they need.
That or a mass movement of precariat Amazon/Uber workers. I don't think these movements will be socialist per-se, but they'll pave the way for something.
Yeah, but they still have a huge presence in transportation. There's a reason I added the "or something that comes from these unions". Teamster locals can actually be pretty great. Ours does open organizer training and has helped out with some organizing efforts by the IWW.
Not all teamsters are the same and there's definitely a more radical contingent in the younger members.
Because that's how Lenin created the ussr. He just walked into the winter palace and said "mr. Romanov, you're fired"
But the Lenininst model never worked outside the periphery.
It never developed to FALSC, but ended in either a total implosion of the country, a return to (slightly more regulated) capitalism or permanent stagnation, calling this a "working strategy" is a bit of a stretch.
That more due to opportunism rather than any political method, if we're talking about the USSR. In other countries like Cuba, NK, Vietnam, Angola etc, socialism was the pretext for the bourgeois revolutionaries, due to its popular support among the people as well as the aid given to them frm the USSR.
