Lessons of the Russian Revolution
Sep 11 2007
I am writing an article on the October revolution for our magazine.
What do people think are the most important lessons of the Russia revolution?
Devrim
Sep 11 2007
#2
Quote:
What do people think are the most important lessons of the Russia revolution?
1.
The bureaucracy is the enemy.
2.
The function of the organisation is accumulation.
3.
To generate action, messages should appeal to the distinct segments within the revolutionary subject (Marketing 101). Eg. Peace for the soldiers, Bread for the peasants, Freedom for the industrial proletariat. (Reich thought Lenin was a master of mass psychology and drew from him in his promotion of adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives and abortion, and the importance for women of economic independence)
Sep 11 2007
#3
What Demo said, but he forgot the most important - the revolution must extend or die.
Sep 11 2007
#4
Quote:
the revolution must extend or die.
The function of the organisation is accumulation.
Sep 11 2007
#5
Hmmm....never trust a bolshevik?
Sep 11 2007
#6
Wait until the ice melts before anouncing a third revolution......
Sep 11 2007
#7
G. P. Maximoff wrote:
Those conventions fully demonstrated the failure of the tactics advocated by Golos Trouda, which carried weight with the Anarcho-Syndicalists of Russia. (The author was on the staff of Golos Trouda, but this does not deter him from acknowledging the errors made by the paper.) The lack of purely revolutionary unions hastened the destruction of the Anarchist and Syndicalist movements. Scattered throughout the Bolshevik unions, the Anarcho-Syndicalist forces could not show any resistance and were flattened by the iron policy of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat".
Sep 11 2007
#8
Quote:
Red Terror is in contradiction with both the means and ends of the revolution
Quote:
the revolution must extend or die.
Quote:
never trust a bolshevik
Sep 11 2007
#9
as far as from an Anarchist-specific perspective:
relying on the spontaneous rebellious powers of the masses might be enough to spark off a revolt, but a genuine socialist (libertarian-communist, Anarchist, you get the idea) structure and consciousness must act as a backbone to *not only* impel it into revolution, but protect from counter-revolution - from both the Liberal stance and the Bolshevist stance.
lacking any structure, a revolution-potential revolt will dissipate into passivity (followed by the typical retaliation of the authorities). lacking years of education, struggle, and the forming of a libertarian-socialist organization with solid structure and the ability to endure, a revolution will simply fall into the hands of more authoritarian socialist tendencies, or may militarily fall to the Whites.
Sep 11 2007
#10
Quote:
consciousness
Here we go, what is a “genuine socialist consciousness” and where can you get one? The classic apology has always been that people develop one through struggle, but they don’t really. I mean, if enough people wanted socialism they could vote it in tomorrow. Democracy has consigned “revolution”, as conventionally understood, to the dustbin of history. That’s as much a lesson of the Russian Revolution as anything.
Quote:
a revolution will simply fall into the hands of more authoritarian socialist tendencies
Because authoritarian socialism is the only kind of socialism that can generate a movement of muscles. The ability to endure doesn’t come from structure but from working within the Logic of Collective Action.
Sep 12 2007
#11
Lazy Riser wrote:
Here we go, what is a “genuine socialist consciousness” and where can you get one?
genuine socialist consciousness is what you have, lazy. the proletariat can get it from hanging around you. 
Sep 12 2007
#12
1. That counter-revolution from within is as dangerous as from without
2. That along with many of the other revolutionary upsurges up until WWII it was the recently proletarianised who made the revolution in large part - before they'd been "disciplined and united".
3. That to confuse coups with revolutions is very, very stupid indeed.
Sep 14 2007
#13
1. That the poor, when given power, tend to act the same way as the privileged do.
2. That there should be erected in Red Square a massive memorial in memory of the tens of thousands of Anarchists who were arrested, tortured, shot and exiled by Lenin's Cheka.
3. That we can't high-jack the past and use it as a template for the present. Imagination, cunning and the flexibility to respond to changing events matter most.
Regards
Peter Good(TCA)
Sep 14 2007
#14
Avoid imperialist intervention
Only have a revolution with a happy, well fed working class
Don't let stalin join the party
[/trot]
Sep 14 2007
#15
Peter Good wrote:
1. That the poor, when given power, tend to act the same way as the privileged do.2. That there should be erected in Red Square a massive memorial in memory of the tens of thousands of Anarchists who were arrested, tortured, shot and exiled by Lenin's Cheka.
3. That we can't high-jack the past and use it as a template for the present. Imagination, cunning and the flexibility to respond to changing events matter most.
Regards
Peter Good(TCA)
Sep 15 2007
#16
Quote:
That there should be erected in Red Square a massive memorial in memory of the tens of thousands of Anarchists who were arrested, tortured, shot and exiled by Lenin's Cheka.
Yes, the problem was lack of religious statues. Why did God take sides against the anarchists and who is worthy to make such a statue? Next time, we will pray for a rain to wash away the Cheka.
Sep 18 2007
#17
Quote:
What do people think are the most important lessons of the Russia revolution?
The dangers of trying to progress societal production relationships via a proletarian dictatorship directly towards anything other than a communist economy of surplus.
Sep 26 2007
#18
Devrim wrote:
What do people think are the most important lessons of the Russia revolution?
Devrim
There are no lessons that weren't known before the Russian Revolution.
Oct 2 2007
#19
Any chance you could explain what this means?
Oct 2 2007
#20
What was "learned" was that if a new class- call it a party, call it a bureaucracy, call it a stratum, call it Santa Claus and his elves- gains power, it will be a lot like the old ruling class, just newer. It was a very old lesson.
Off the top of my head ...
- The strength of the proletariat lies in both its mass organisations (the councils) and political organisations
- These two forms of regroupment have different roles, e.g. the party should not take power
- Although the appearance of the state is inevitable and necessary, it always embodies latent reactionary trends which the proletariat must be constantly vigilant against
- Red Terror is in contradiction with both the means and ends of the revolution
- Concessions to any form of nationalism, whatever the intent, gives succour to bourgeois ideology
- Revolutionary war is a contradiction in terms
- The danger posed by the left of the bourgeoisie is as dangerous as that of the right.
The problem is that there are so many lessons!