Force is fine. Speedrunning straight to toppling the government entirely is at this point a well-established way of creating an autocracy. If that’s the near-inevitable outcome, why topple the government to get something worse? It’s moronic.
You use force to push for change - with the threat of all the violence and revolution backing that. If you have the sustained force required to topple and effectively replace the government with a democratic machine, coercing the existing government into changes to protect your democracy seem straightforward. If you don’t have the numbers or coordination, how do you think starting a government from scratch is going to work out? Helpful hint: Look at historical case-studies.
I don’t understand why ML’s are so keen to bang on about material conditions when they work so hard to ignore them.
Literally every single example I gave got something better, not worse, out of their revolutions.
The dprk was formed after the Japanese colonial government was run out at the end of ww2. The Russian revolution replaced literal feudalism. Vietnam replaced another brutal colonial regime, the Cuban revolution swept away slavery in all but name and the chinese people chose the cpc over the same people who had ruled them as a colony.
They were all better off than before after recovering from those formative conflicts!
What would you have the people of Korea do? Petition the United Nations over jeju island? Should the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks have asked the Romanoffs to please give them representation? Am I to understand the nva would have achieved better ends by pleading with Diem for an end to repression? Perhaps the Cuban people just needed to vote more! Surely the Chinese would be better off if they had only accepted the Kuomintang and had a million man march on Beijing!
These are absurd statements, but when you suggest that each of the examples given should have used their power to pressure and work within their oppressors’ governments instead of simply seizing the reins of state themselves I have to type them out in the hope you’ll understand how what you’re saying sounds!
Force is fine. Speedrunning straight to toppling the government entirely is at this point a well-established way of creating an autocracy. If that’s the near-inevitable outcome, why topple the government to get something worse? It’s moronic.
You use force to push for change - with the threat of all the violence and revolution backing that. If you have the sustained force required to topple and effectively replace the government with a democratic machine, coercing the existing government into changes to protect your democracy seem straightforward. If you don’t have the numbers or coordination, how do you think starting a government from scratch is going to work out? Helpful hint: Look at historical case-studies.
I don’t understand why ML’s are so keen to bang on about material conditions when they work so hard to ignore them.
Literally every single example I gave got something better, not worse, out of their revolutions.
The dprk was formed after the Japanese colonial government was run out at the end of ww2. The Russian revolution replaced literal feudalism. Vietnam replaced another brutal colonial regime, the Cuban revolution swept away slavery in all but name and the chinese people chose the cpc over the same people who had ruled them as a colony.
They were all better off than before after recovering from those formative conflicts!
What would you have the people of Korea do? Petition the United Nations over jeju island? Should the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks have asked the Romanoffs to please give them representation? Am I to understand the nva would have achieved better ends by pleading with Diem for an end to repression? Perhaps the Cuban people just needed to vote more! Surely the Chinese would be better off if they had only accepted the Kuomintang and had a million man march on Beijing!
These are absurd statements, but when you suggest that each of the examples given should have used their power to pressure and work within their oppressors’ governments instead of simply seizing the reins of state themselves I have to type them out in the hope you’ll understand how what you’re saying sounds!