this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you entirely, buuuut somehow nearly every major communist revolution has involved immeasurable suffering to the masses via oppressive dictatorship. To bastardize a quote, the flesh is willing but the spirit is weak. The system is always corrupted by those at the top. The closest to functional communism to my recollection were Yugoslavia, but that collapsed pretty hard once the threats did, and cuba…ish. I’m really not a student of politics, but detecting patterns in history isn’t quite as difficult.
Now with all of that said, if a non-hierarchical communist revolution takes place, send me a message and I’ll still happily fire up the industrial sausage maker for a bit of rich cuisine. Just be sure to watch out for any missed jewelry, wouldn’t want to chip a tooth.
As I see it, one of the main problems is that of suitability: the people suited to win a revolution, which is basically a war, with all the strict hierarchy that entails, are rarely as suited to administrate an egalitarian society in peacetime. It's sorta like putting Michael Phelps in charge of the gymnastics team 🤷
A good (and entertaining) primer on revolutions is the now completed Revolutions podcast. I think you'll find revolutions more complex than that simplistic characterization. Most violence in a revolution happens during the counter revolution.
Raising the spectre of possible revolutionary violence ignores the violence of the current system. Can you imagine the world overcoming climate disaster, with all the carnage it will bring, while under the rule of capitalism? Any revolutionary violence should be compared against the ongoing and future violence of capitalism, and its interconnected systems of white supremacy and patriarchy.
Edit to add url for podcast: http://www.sal.wisc.edu/~jwp/revolutions-episode-index.html
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772
The solution that I personally like is the EU model as a stepping stone. The gradually increased power of a tested system provides resistance against collapse under singular entities. Political metamorphosis can involve bloodshed but doesn’t necessarily have to, which skips over some potential pitfalls while creating some less dire ones. Though it’s slow and bureaucratic. Still, nothing preventing someone from opening a ritzy little butcher shop on Fleet Street in the meanwhile to expedite the process.