Revolutionary conditions

You do not — you cannot — have a revolution just because you think it's a good idea. You do not and cannot have a revolution just because you have moral qualms — however deep and well-justified by humanist principles — about the existing system. A revolution can occur only when the existing system actually fails... and fails of its own accord.

So long as the capitalist-imperialist system is managing to do a "good" job, so long as the empire is run relatively efficiently (albeit immorally), the system has little to fear from revolution. Millions of people have to be desperately unhappy with the system itself before a revolution is even possible.

I'm a revolutionary not just because I want a revolution (which I do), and not just because I'm morally outraged by the crimes of the existing capitalist-imperialist system (which I am), but because I believe the existing system will collapse, and it will collapse because of its own internal contradictions*.

*This is not "inevitablism": I don't think it's inevitable that a good socialist system will inevitably emerge from the collapse of capitalism.

It's very important to understand the distinction between sabotage and refusing to do whatever it takes to shore up a collapsing system. Sabotage is bad*; if the system is to fall, it should fall of its own accord. If revolutionaries try to sabotage the system, if they try use violence to create revolutionary conditions, then the people will justly blame the revolutionaries — not the system itself — for whatever failures ensue. And, of course, those running the existing capitalist system can and will successfully defend themselves, winning on both practical and moral grounds.

*The Western capitalist-imperialist countries spent trillions of dollars over decades to actively sabotage socialism and communism. The "elite" characters of Atlas Shrugged do not merely go on strike and refuse to support a system they disagreed with: they actively sabotage the economy, even going so far as to bomb factories.

But refusing to sabotage the system does not mean doing whatever it takes to shore up the system. There are active steps a revolutionary can take bring about revolutionary conditions without being seen (by too many people*) as active saboteurs.

*There are always those who will see anything less than slavish adherence to the status quo as treason and sabotage. The only difference between the Americian bourgeois right and bourgeois "left" is that the right is better at the narrative of submission vs. treason.

There are two main avenues to create revolutionary conditions.

First, revolutionaries must constantly expose the crimes and failures of the existing system and tie those crimes and failures to the underlying principles of the system. Racism, sexism, theocracy, wars of aggression, the oppression of immigrants, economic depression: all of these crimes and failures either have their roots directly in capitalism, or capitalism by its nature will exploit these conditions to the benefit of the bourgeoisie.

Second, revolutionaries must constantly demand full social justice: full employment, adequate food, housing and other necessities for everyone, universal medical care, universal education, etc.

It's important that revolutionaries never compromise. I don't oppose S-CHIP to cover some medical care for some children, but I will not shut up about universal medical care for everyone just to get S-CHIP. I'm pleased that a black man will soon be President, but I'm not going to shut up about the racism that's still prevalent. I don't want women and minorities arbitrarily excluded from the bourgeoisie, but merely granting equal access to the bourgeoisie is not sufficient to end sexism and racism, and definitely not sufficient to end the relations of exploitation inherent in capitalism.

As a corollary, revolutionaries must always support issues, not individual politicians. A politician must compromise, that's their job. Too many progressives, I think, get sucked into supporting individual politicians (cough Obama); they then feel compelled to justify and support those politicians' compromises, instead of continuing to demand more.

Anyone who has been paying attention for the last forty years realizes that the expedient tactic of remaining silent on larger issues to win gains on smaller issues has utterly failed. Time and again it's been one step forward, twenty steps back.

Someone has to demand the whole cake. So long as compromise is viable, revolutionaries who refuse to compromise will be marginalized. But so what? My aim is not to find a position of power within the current system. My aim is to demand perfection, so that conditions will continuously improve, one way or another.

If I'm right, if the system really is doomed to fail of its own accord, then I'm right not to compromise, I'm right to prepare for a revolution to bring about something better from the failures of the system. And if I'm wrong, if the system really can keep working, I'm still right not to compromise: I'm demanding nothing but justice: if capitalism actually can deliver justice, it will do so only because someone demands it.