Posts Tagged ‘revolution’
Burnie posted this awesome blogpost, concerning one of the big questions for us revolutionaries. Revolution vs Parlamentarism? If you haven’t read it yet, mozy on over there. I’ll wait for you.
This got me thinking, and rather than writing this in a comment, I feel like putting it into a blog entry.
The revolutionary socialist parties that exist today are small. Well, obviously that differs, but despite how Karl Marx predicted that the socialist movement would be strongest in the countries where capitalism had evolved furtherst (I think it’s safe to say that Norway falls under this category), in the most advanced countries the marxist parties are so small as to barely count for anything. Obviously, Marx was no magician so he couldn’t predict shitdicks like Stalin and Pol Pot messing with his beautiful words, but that’s for another blog entry.
With that in mind, i return to the question I am trying to answer, which Burnie so neatly presented: why are political movements with the end goal of breaking capitalism and establishing a new, more demoractic system, bothering with parliamentary work on the premises of the very system we want changed?
No one can predict when a revolutionary situation arises. When the october-revolution in Russia 1917 started, Lenin was in Europe. He thought it would happen there, and did not think the revolution would come to his homeland anytime soon. Suddenly he got word that the proletariat was marching in the streets, throwing the Tsar! (really, really simplified version, but this is a blog entry not an article for a history-book)
The point of this nice little story, is that you can never predict when a revolutionary situation arises, it can happen quickly, out of the blue. If the socialist party is so small that no one notices it when the revolution comes, there is a chance that the bourgeoisie might stop the revolution, and cling on to their broken system. Or even worse, the revolution might go the other way, and send fascists and nazis into power (nazism is back in europe, another topic for another blog entry).
We do parliamentary elections in order to gain followers, activists and to make people know who we are. So that when the revolution comes, we are strong enough to pull it through and usher in an eara of peace, freedom and everything for free! (sounds better in Norwegian)
I was going to put something in about elections and remnants of parliamentarism after the revolution, but that is yet another topic for yet another entry. So conclusion: parliamentary work is important, as long as we don’t forget the revolutionary ideology by which we swear by. This happens to most parties, they get eaten by the system and forget about socialism. We fight on in our beautiful party because we believe that we will not.
Thanks for your time! Here is an awesome picture of a unicorn, to lessen the wall of text and because data shows that our readers love politics and unicorns:
Vegard
The endless paradox, how can so called revolutionaries hoist their colors while at the same time playing the political field, a game clearly tilted in favor of the old system? Indeed, isn’t parliamentarism itself one of the things that need to be torn up by the root when the red revolution comes?
We should all be able to agree that the social democratic project hasn’t exactly played out the way we had hoped it would, and yet the socialist parties of today are so mortified of being compared to the dictatorships of the previous millennium that they end up being softer than the old social democrats were! We, yes we, marginalize ourselves by yielding to the pathetic arguments of the opposition, and this while playing their game! We’re like a team of hunters challenging Manchester United to a game of football, severely outnumbered, more dangerous by far, but ignoring the obvious solution of just shooting the fuckers! Ah, figuratively of course. I love football. Actually, that’s a lie, but I tolerate it. I promise I dont’t plan on killing sir Alex. First. Kidding.
I was planning on a blog explaining the question in the title, but I appear to have made up my mind before I even got halfway through. We vehemently protest when we’re confronted with our past, we even claim to be unrelated to it! And then we wonder why people don’t know who we are, and much less what we believe in. We are revolutionaries, damnit! Of course we have something in common with Lenin, sans the senseless slaughter and dictatoring (I’m making it a word!) of course! But that argument just won’t fly in a debate, and we’re lucky if we’re ever offered a single seat in parliament.
So what should we do instead? The revolution won’t come if we keep doing what we’re doing now, and it won’t help any if no one ever sees a revolutionary again either. How do you make your politics visible to the people without participating in the one game we can’t win?
I don’t know.
Busride ends here.
Sayoonara!
Bjørn
Mondays are not at all like fridays… not at all! The weather sucks, I overslept a lot because I was up till 4 watching videos about the holographic universe, and this time I really did leave the headset at home. Oh, and to top it off, my buss is filled with annoying little firstgraders. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate kids, it’s just that when they band together, each individual’s annoyingness goes exponential…
Anyway, that’s the intro. It’s a little long, but I’m ready to move on. The only problem is, I really just got on here to whine about how badly my day started, so I’m not entirely sure how I should follow up.
I guess I’ll talk a bit about Israel, it’s been a long time since it’s been mentioned on this here site, which is a bit out of character for us, so someone has to make us predictable again, and it might as well be the chaotic one.
Israel, “the only democracy in the region,” is of course rabidly supporting “President” Mubarak of Egypt, the dictator who has ruled for three decades. This seeming contradiction of a democracy supporting a dictator is very surprising to absolutely no one at all. Why is that? Maybe it’s because Israel is hardly democratic at all. Any country that systematically opresses part of it’s people with a given ethnicity has no right to call itself a democracy!
But Burie, how can you say such horrible things!? There are surely Palestinians in the Knesset! That is true, there are a few, however record shows that they have never had a decisive vote in a single case, in if such a situation has ever been imminent, the vote is not held, and the matter has been decided in back rooms in discussions where the Palestinians have not been present. If that is hard for you to believe, I shall append links at the end of this blog to prove my accusation as soon as I get on a computer.
Furthermore, in order to continue their blockade of the Gaza strip, Israel is completely dependent on Egypt upholding their blockade, as Gaza has a small border to Egypt in the south. If Egypt were to develop into an honest to God democracy, which it will, mark my words, then they might not be so keen on ruthlessly oppressing an entire people any more. So you see, Israel is terrified of democracy spreading in the region. If it can no longer falsely call itself the only democracy, it can’t expect to be the only friend of the west either (although the US did support Mubarak, but that’s a subject for another blog). In Israel’s eyes, no longer having a monopoly on telling us the truth, we, the west might start to hear certain truths that do not agree with the truths that they’ve been feeding us. Most importantly, that Israel isn’t a democracy, and that Palestine is even worse off than even the most liberal media has dared to whisper of to date. For these reasons, the democratic revolutions in the region are extremely exciting.
This is my end station here, see ya!