Discussions of revolution by marxists speak in abstractions and fail to consider the need for some attractive platform that can lead beyond the image of stalinism that dominates public perceptions. In that context it is useless to speak of ‘revolution’ at all. It is a leftist fantasy that preempts what it aims for. What revolutionary socialism means to the public is a loss of legal rights, state controlled bureaucracies, loss of habeas corpus and the threat of arbitrary covert agency arrest, bad housing, long lines to buy groceries, and useless unreadable news outlet full of lies. Why would anyone in his right mind even listen to the remnant band of bolshevik halfwits regurgitating old cliches?
The era since 1848 was without any real revolutions (but the Civil War was surely a form of revolution, notably not presented as such) in the classic sense until the anomalous russian case which completely wasted its opportunity and made revolution even more discredited. The cuban case again is remarkable but entirely unique: a small band of guerillas living in the mountains took over a dilapidated farce almost without trying. And we still don’t have the real facts of that case.
To even qualify for any public hearing, the left needs to assure the public with some kind of disavowal of its past confusions and present a platform that is sensible and can offer something realistic as real socialism without stalinism. It never does this and instead rehashes ad infinitum the old slogans, ‘wouldn’t socialism be great’ (whatever that is) and maybe state capitalism might help. Does it not register on the left that the public, desperate for some remedy, once responded to the left but no longer does so, as a marxist boilerplate spouting slogan machine. If a revolutionary situation were to recur the same blundering band of idiots would spoil the chance all over again…The danger is that revolution, which has consistently come by surprise, will indeed reoccur but that the opportunity will slide into oblivion and end up in the kind of situation that produced Putin, what to say of the pseudo-communism of China, and the monstrosity of North Korea. The whole effort on the left is blind to this rising probability.
Source: What Revolutionary Socialism Means to Me
