- Capitalism and Alternatives -

On Leninism and revolution

Posted by: Simon Kongshoj ( CIA's most wanted #8 - and dropping!, Denmark ) on December 12, 1997 at 18:17:25:

In Reply to: Blue Print for change (non-anarchist) posted by Gerard on December 12, 1997 at 00:05:05:

Yes, it is as you stress important for a successful revolution that concrete results can be seen. However, there is still the one problem with Leninism that it expresses the revolution of the _working masses_, but today (in the Western world), the masses are no longer working. For one thing, the majority of society today are middle and not working class, most of them into service or information sectors, not agriculture and industry. The concrete problems of today are not as much bad wages and oppression as it is unemployment and social polarization. This polarization is no longer economic either (again, in the Western world), but more often in terms of human values. A recent poll here in Denmark showed that the vast majority of votes for our two fascist parties were _unemployed, badly educated and suffered from a technology scare_, even though they did not have extreme economic trouble. But again, these people who might well represent the bottom of society are not the masses.

So for some sort of revolution to be successful, no matter if it is political, armed or pacifist, socialism must defend the interests of the masses of today, rather than the workers of Lenin's time.




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