Revolution
A Revolution is the sudden transformation of one societal form to another. Revolution is one of the motive forces in class struggle and human development. A social revolution is qualitative change which contitutes the replacement of a mode of production and ruling class with another one. Revolutions take on different forms based upon the historical circumstances, such as a bourgeois (capitalist) or proletarian revolution (socialist).[1]
Types
Proletarian revolution
A socialist or proletarian revolution arises as a result of the contradictions and oppression of the capitalist system developing to their final limits, placing the question of the overthrow of the capitalist system and working class political power to the forefront of the increasingly class conscious proletariat. Organized under a vanguard party adhering to scientific socialism, the working class challenges the bourgeois state until it is able to overthrow it entirely and establish a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat to facilitate and defend the socialist revolution.
The socialist revolution is distinct from all prior revolutions as it is the first one which is led by and fought for the interests of the exploited majority (working class) against the exploiting minority (capitalists). As a result of this, the socialist revolution does not augment and expand the existing bureaucratic and military state apparatus as previous revolution have done, but destroys it entirely and replaces it with the proletarian dictatorship. The revolutionary process and class struggle persists after the overthrow of the bourgeois state, as the workers' state and vanguard party must work to train the proletariat to hold political power and further develop its consciousness.[2]
Bourgeois revolution
Examples
Socialist revolutions
See also
References
- ↑ “Revolutions are the locomotives of history, said Marx. [In his work The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850] Revolutions are the festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the masses of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of a new social order as at a time of revolution. At such times the people are capable of performing miracles, if judged by the narrow, philistine scale of gradual progress. But the leaders of the revolutionary parties must also make their aims more comprehensive and bold at such a time, so that their slogans shall always be in advance of the revolutionary initiative of the masses, serve as a beacon, reveal to them our democratic and socialist ideal in all its magnitude and splendor and show them the shortest and most direct route to complete, absolute and decisive victory.... We shall be traitors to and betrayers of the revolution if we do not use this festive energy of the masses and their revolutionary ardor to wage a ruthless and self-sacrificing struggle for the direct and decisive path.”
Vladimir Lenin (1905). Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive. - ↑ Vladimir Lenin (1917). The State and Revolution, Ch. II: The Experience of 1848-51. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.