Edgy Opinions wrote:The thing is left-wing class coups will never be a thing while people are mildly comfortable by consumerism.
That's not true. Rather, left-wing class coups will never be a thing while people believe in the legitimacy of the current government.
It's not comfort that prevents people from supporting left-wing coups or revolutions, it's the belief that the current system of government is legitimate - in other words, the belief that even if the party in power may suck, the rules themselves are good and just and fair, so you shouldn't break those rules to get what you want.
Of course, there is a connection between comfort and legitimacy. People are more likely to believe the rules of the system are fair and should not be broken (i.e. they are more likely to believe in the legitimacy of the current government) when they live comfortable lives. So it is possible for a regime to BUY a certain degree of legitimacy for itself by giving people better lives. That is precisely what the Chinese government is doing right now, for example.
However, the relationship between comfort and legitimacy isn't perfect. It's possible to have a situation where people live comfortable lives but - for one reason or another - come to believe that the government is not legitimate, that the rules of the system are not fair or just, and that we have no obligation to "play by the rules".
Take for example the Russian Revolution. How did the Tsar lose his legitimacy? Was it because the common people of Russia were impoverished? Not really. I mean, yes, that poverty was a contributing factor, but the main thing that turned people against the Tsar was the World War.
Mao recruited people to his cause because the Kuomintang government was seen as collaborating with foreign imperialist powers. Fidel Castro recruited people because he was fighting against the dictatorship of Batista. Tito built a resistance movement against Nazi occupation. And so on and so forth. Successful revolutions are never just about people getting pissed off because they are poor. That's part of it, of course, but there is always more to it.
To have a successful revolution, you must persuade people that they are currently ruled by a tyranny that has no legitimate right to rule.
Edgy Opinions wrote:Much on the contrary. If we attempt anything unorthodox, what we will get will be a pre-made right-wing class coup right after us.
Of course. Every attempted left-wing revolution will have to face an attempted right-wing coup at some stage. That's what we call the counter-revolution. There's no point trying to avoid it. The trick is to defeat the counter-revolution when it comes. The Russian Revolution defeated the Kornilov coup, the Cuban revolution defeated the Bay of Pigs invasion, Hugo Chávez defeated the 2002 coup, and so on.
If we play our cards right, the (defeated) counter-revolution can even be the thing that radicalizes the people in support of more revolutionary left-wing measures. For example, the defeat of the Kornilov coup in August 1917 was the thing that gave the Bolsheviks the support they needed to carry out the October Revolution.
Camelza wrote:They're communists that were forced to go keynesian and let's call it a day.
Yes, I agree with that conclusion, although I would put it slightly differently:
They're communists that were pressured to go Keynesian and gave in to that pressure.
They didn't HAVE to give in to the pressure. They could have went ahead with more radical measures, and tried to build popular support for those measures after the fact. Right-wingers do this all the time. They get elected on a moderate platform, then they say "lol just kidding" and push for brutal austerity despite massive popular opposition, under the excuse that they had no other choice. Why can't we get elected on a moderate platform and push for radical socialist measures once we're in office? Then if we face protests, we can deal with them in precisely the same way that the right-wing government dealt with our protests.
Communists these days need to grow a damn spine and stop trying to be so damn nice to the class enemy. The capitalists use tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against us, and when we take power, we say that we're never going to use those things? How pathetic! We should use the exact same methods against the right-wingers that they use against us.
Revolution is not about feeling morally superior to the other side because you're better than them and don't use the same methods. Revolution is about winning a victory for the working class.
