Post by dodger on Aug 15, 2013 12:40:05 GMT
On Your Marx…Revolution
Posted on August 15, 2013 by imarxman
imarxman.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/on-your-marxrevolution/
Revolution is a process, not an event. The Russian Revolution is often dated to 1917, more specifically to October/November (depending on the preferred calendar), as if revolution is merely a synonym for insurrection.
Marx held a rather different view. Identifying history as a series eras progressing one into another, he saw revolution as new productive forces emerging decisively and overthrowing the old order.
These conflicting forces are embodied within their respective classes, the new rising within the rule of the old. So in feudal times governed by the nobility there appeared the mercantile class that eventually became the bourgeoisie.
In England the conflict between these two classes erupted in the 1640s as the civil war between parliament and king. Parliament represented the merchant class, which was becoming the economic power in the country.
The king’s defeat and execution signalled the end of the old feudal order, even though the monarchy was restored. Parliament could not thereafter be constrained, as the subsequent “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 demonstrated.
The merchant class continued to prosper and initiated the industrial revolution through which it became the capitalist class proper, developing the economic system dominant today.
So which was the actual bourgeois revolution, as Marx styled it, the civil war, the glorious revolution or the industrial revolution? It was, of course, all of them, each being an element of the ongoing process.
It was almost two hundred years after the outbreak of civil war hostilities that the manufacturing centres, such as Manchester, finally achieved the political representation in the state through the reform act of 1832.
This drawn out process of the bourgeois revolution demonstrates the principle of revolution not being a one-off event, there isn’t a moment, a date, when one era switches into the next.
Even today, nearly four hundred years after the execution of Charles l, there are the vestigial remains of feudal institutions, such as the monarchy and the House of Lords. Both are now fully integrated into and serve the interests of the capitalist state.
Just as the mercantile class was an antagonistic product of feudalism, so capitalism, of necessity, gestated its own opposing force, the working class. The interests of the working class are ultimately as inimical to capitalism as were those of the mercantile class to feudalism.
However, the mercantile class developed, and even prospered, for hundreds of years under feudalism. It was when the old order became a barrier to the further development of the merchants’ productive capacities that the decisive conflict occurred.
So, the bourgeois revolution can be traced back centuries before king and parliament took to the battlefield, beginning with the emergence of the mercantile class as an identifiable economic force.
The Russian Revolution, which includes the subsequent socialist developments contingent on the initial seizure of power in 1917, was an initial attempt by the working class to realise its own potential by organising the mode of production to meet its own needs, not capitalist profit.
The restoration of Russian capitalism in the 1990s represents a setback for the working class, but not its defeat. There is no algorithm or timescale for a socialist revolution, or a model for what decisive moments will be like. The Russian Revolution was a product of its time and place, not an exemplar to be copied.
Despite attempts to fragment the working class by identifying various strata within it as being somehow separate – middle class or unemployed (workers and shirkers) – the common denominator is the relationship to the mode of production. If you work for a living, that is you exchange your labour for a wage or salary, by definition you are working class.
This means you are part of the revolutionary class, even if the tendency is to vote Conservative come election time. This reflects a perception of how personal interests may be best served in present circumstances. Same applies in voting for other parties.
The role of parliament is mainly to serve as a bulwark of the capitalist state. It can be pressured by the working class into acting in its interests from time to time, factory acts in the nineteenth century or the introduction of the NHS after World War Two being examples.
However, such parliamentary action also, ultimately, serves the needs of the capitalist state by maintaining order and diffusing discontent. Pressuring parliament to grant a referendum on EU withdrawal would serve working class interests, but also those of capitalists who see the EU as a barrier to their profit making.
There cannot be a vote for revolution, for a majority in parliament to enact it; it’s not what parliament is for. Voting is essentially passive, a momentary act every few years that fundamentally changes nothing, Capitalism continues.
A socialist revolution requires the active participation of the working class, generating political institutions required to carry it through. When will it happen? It is happening now, be it in small, unspectacular ways, often not identified as even being socialist.
No era is permanent; even capitalism, however entrenched it appears, will be transcended. It is a process of hundreds of years; after all, the working class has already been around for three centuries or so.
It is the role of communists in this process to lead, not in the sense of forming a governing party, but in the true meaning of education, to lead out. The working class already possess the potential it requires to establish its own era, the socialist era, while communists play a leading role by supplying the historical and theoretical context.
Communists also draw together the varying strands of working class thinking and practice, formulating them into practical actions for the class as a whole. They must also be aware of past errors, some grievous, and ensure they aren’t repeated.
Revolution is not a romantic notion of red banners and rousing speeches, citadels of capital besieged by the agitated masses. There may be moments when such instances play a part, but the process is much, much more than that.
October, 1917 was a spectacular seizure of power, but the subsequent electrification of Russia brought about a greater revolution in workers’ lives.