almost definitely a repost but eh

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    4 days ago

    This is just wrong from top to bottom. Revolutionary theory has always posited that revolution can only come from the large majority, even if we use methods like vanguard parties if the working class at large isn’t behind it then it will fail. Every successful revolution has had working class education, organization, and agitation as its basis.

    Revolution doesn’t mean genocide. Historically, revolution has been less bloody than the systems that upheld pre-revolutionary society. Mark Twain has an excellent quote on this:

    THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

    Overall, I think you’d do well by actually listening to us. I wrote an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, feel free to give it a look!