Opinion of proletariat revolutions

[IceSpear]

Part of my new poll series. Previous results:

Neoliberal corporatist hegemonies - 48% approval

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I love how our resident revolutionaries (aside from TNF and Mechaman, who are awesome) are all actually the so called oppressors themselves.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

sweet

[TNF]

Excellent revolutions, of course.

[Lief 🗽]

I love how our resident revolutionaries (aside from TNF and Mechaman, who are awesome) are all actually the so called oppressors themselves.

Obviously a revolutionary vanguard is required to lead the proles.

[TNF]

I love how our resident revolutionaries (aside from TNF and Mechaman, who are awesome) are all actually the so called oppressors themselves.

What's your point? Engels was quite obviously bourgeois as well, and that didn't stop him from being a revolutionary. One doesn't have to be born into the proletariat to understand the need for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, one simply has to simply understand the real class and power dynamics in society and pick a side. The proletariat should however liberate itself and manage its affairs all its own, but that doesn't preclude and alliance with or support from progressive elements within the bourgeoisie who realize that it's in their best interest to go along with the masses rather than face down the guillotine or the firing squad.

[Dr. Cynic]

I'm not into violent revolutions. I want to see the poor have a better life and I want to see some fairness, but I don't want to go around killing the rich just because they're rich. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

[Cassius]

I'd sign up for a yeomanry if there was one.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Proletarian is the correct adjective.

[ElectionsGuy]

#Ready4Marx

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Proletarian is the correct adjective.

I was thinking this too.

[memphis]

I'm not into violent revolutions. I want to see the poor have a better life and I want to see some fairness, but I don't want to go around killing the rich just because they're rich. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

I'd like a dog that doesn't poop. Sometimes, you must choose between two imperfect options.

[TNF]

I'm not into violent revolutions. I want to see the poor have a better life and I want to see some fairness, but I don't want to go around killing the rich just because they're rich. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

I'd like a dog that doesn't poop. Sometimes, you must choose between two imperfect options.

This is an excellent post.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shouldn't that be 'proletarian revolutions'? Pedantry aside, do you mean revolutions with a significantly working class character/component (possibly even leadership), or revolutions with a Marxist political agenda? Because I don't believe that the latter will ever happen again: Marxist-Leninism c'est la mort.

[tarheel-leftist85]

Mostly FAIL, unfortunately, because they get wrapped up in finding a Leader and/or subsumed under identity squabbles.

[ingemann]

In general I think they lack proletariat.

[The Mikado]

A myth.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I also like the last two answers, obviously.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm not into violent revolutions. I want to see the poor have a better life and I want to see some fairness, but I don't want to go around killing the rich just because they're rich. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

"The Revolution is not a social dinner, a litterary event, a drawing or an embroidery...The Revolution is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another" - Mao quote from the beginning of the Sergio Leone film "Duck! You Sucker".

In general I think they lack proletariat.

Also from the same movie:
"Don't talk to me about Revolutions I know all about Revolutions...the people who read the books, they go to the people who don't read the books and say it is time to have a change yea, so the poor people make the change. Then the people who read the books sit around their big polished tables and talk and talk and eat and eat, but what has happened to the poor people? THEY'RE DEAD!!! That's your Revolution!

And then what happens? The same fing thing starts all over again"

Leone was rather a "cynic" by that point.

[TNF]

I don't see how any of the historic proletarian revolutions 'lack' proletarians, given that without them the Russian Revolution or the Spanish Revolution wouldn't have, you know, been things. The fact that the Russian Revolution degenerated into despotism does not negate the fact that without the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers organized into Soviets, the revolution would not have happened. More often than not the proletariat was far ahead of the Bolsheviks and ultimately had to drag them along kicking and screaming into battles not always of their choosing.

It is unfortunate that the revolution ultimately degenerated into rule by bureaucracy, but that alone does not negate the role the proletariat played in bringing it about and actually ruling themselves prior to the crushing of independent currents within the Party and outside of it. This argument that the class which led the revolution is somehow not responsible for it because there were intellectuals also involved (who were also proletarians, given that they sold their labor to others to make ends meet) does not make sense.

[ingemann]

I'm not into violent revolutions. I want to see the poor have a better life and I want to see some fairness, but I don't want to go around killing the rich just because they're rich. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

"The Revolution is not a social dinner, a litterary event, a drawing or an embroidery...The Revolution is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another" - Mao quote from the beginning of the Sergio Leone film "Duck! You Sucker".

In general I think they lack proletariat.

Also from the same movie:
"Don't talk to me about Revolutions I know all about Revolutions...the people who read the books, they go to the people who don't read the books and say it is time to have a change yea, so the poor people make the change. Then the people who read the books sit around their big polished tables and talk and talk and eat and eat, but what has happened to the poor people? THEY'RE DEAD!!! That's your Revolution!

And then what happens? The same fing thing starts all over again"

Leone was rather a "cynic" by that point.

Movie?

[The Mikado]

I don't see how any of the historic proletarian revolutions 'lack' proletarians, given that without them the Russian Revolution or the Spanish Revolution wouldn't have, you know, been things. The fact that the Russian Revolution degenerated into despotism does not negate the fact that without the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers organized into Soviets, the revolution would not have happened. More often than not the proletariat was far ahead of the Bolsheviks and ultimately had to drag them along kicking and screaming into battles not always of their choosing.

It is unfortunate that the revolution ultimately degenerated into rule by bureaucracy, but that alone does not negate the role the proletariat played in bringing it about and actually ruling themselves prior to the crushing of independent currents within the Party and outside of it. This argument that the class which led the revolution is somehow not responsible for it because there were intellectuals also involved (who were also proletarians, given that they sold their labor to others to make ends meet) does not make sense.

A bunch of disaffected workers in Petrograd and the sailors in Kronstadt who were sick to death of dying in someone else's war because Kerensky was bound and determined to bleed Russia to death for the Entente rallied behind the loudest anti-Kerensky voice around.  The revolution was a desperate attempt to extricate Russia from the war (which, to Lenin's credit, did happen by March 1918).

[Redalgo]

Freedom revolutions when waged against a regime that violently suppresses political dissent, as there is some glimmer of hope the conflict will install a ruling elite more responsive to the People's interests than the last. Horrible revolutions under most other circumstances - given that their support tends to come from just a minority of the population, the workers in general do not have the same interests as the intellectuals who are trying to lead them, and the end result is usually an oligarchy disguised under an inspiring ideology (people who live under authoritarianism often struggle to break with it).

Bourgeois-democratic revolutions are preferable. They provide the masses a way to bring about socialism from below if/when they want it later instead of having it forced upon them from above. The only real setback is that incremental reforms making capitalism more humane and sustainable tend to convince workers there is no need for the prevailing order's replacement. But if capitalism is what they want, who are we to deprive them of it? Maybe someday they will be ready to move on to something better.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm not into violent revolutions. I want to see the poor have a better life and I want to see some fairness, but I don't want to go around killing the rich just because they're rich. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

"The Revolution is not a social dinner, a litterary event, a drawing or an embroidery...The Revolution is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another" - Mao quote from the beginning of the Sergio Leone film "Duck! You Sucker".

In general I think they lack proletariat.

Also from the same movie:
"Don't talk to me about Revolutions I know all about Revolutions...the people who read the books, they go to the people who don't read the books and say it is time to have a change yea, so the poor people make the change. Then the people who read the books sit around their big polished tables and talk and talk and eat and eat, but what has happened to the poor people? THEY'RE DEAD!!! That's your Revolution!

And then what happens? The same fing thing starts all over again"

Leone was rather a "cynic" by that point.

Movie?

The 1970's western by Sergio Leone set in the Mexican Revolution. He demonstrates his own abandonment of radicalism (as exemplified by his earlier more successfull Westerns like Once Upon a Time in the West) in favor of cynicism by way of a Mexican bandit who gets entangled in the Revolution unwillingly and loses everything because of it. Leone made the character somewhat genre savy by having him state that quote about Revolutions achieving nothing but a vicious peasant killing cycle into the middle of the film.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...and the sailors in Kronstadt

Do you want to talk more about those guys or should I do the honours?