Comment by grey-area
13 years ago
I'd recommend reading Fatal Purity if you want to understand just how evil the French Revolution really was - even the architects became its victims in huge numbers. The terror is not something I would wish on any country, and it is no way comparable to the American revolution in scope or brutality, that and the Russian revolution are fascinating periods but great examples of why revolution often ends in disaster for the countries involved, and frequently ends in dictatorship.
The Russian revolution started relatively peacefully, moved on to a brutal civil war, and then to draconian dictatorship (under Lenin) in just a few short years, then in 21 the resulting wars and disastrous economic policy caused a famine that killed 6 million people before NEP was introduced. And that was well before Stalin began to terrorise the country. Again, I think you're romanticising events which were nasty, brutish, and mostly harmful in their effects.
I'd argue European socialism (the social Europe we currently enjoy) evolved more from the evolution of liberal democracy and liberal capitalism in a peaceful society than from Marxism - many of the things Marx & Engels criticised have been peacefully removed (child labour, alienation of workers from means of production, lack of unions etc). Granted the UK and other European nations have other problems, but let's not forget how far we came peacefully, and how much of a set back to civilisation war and revolution really are.
European socialism owes more to the threat of Stalinism than we like to admit; western governments were forced into improving conditions for their working classes mostly by the threat of civil unrest, while leftist parties and unions benefited enormously from their soviet connections - both in motivational and economic terms. As soon as the USSR disappeared, now-unchecked European elites promptly started renegotiating workers rights, pushing salaries down in real terms pretty much across the whole of Europe; public services were dismantled and sold off, and welfare benefits were slashed. Leftist parties have lost most of their economic independence and are now captive to established interests, so their policies are all over the place. Of course there are other elements influencing this state of things, but the post-89 trend is quite clear and has a lot to do with the disappearance of an armed contingent of "reds" on the horizon, like it happened with the Space Race.
I know my history well enough, I'm not denying that revolts often (but not always) result in weak political structures which are prone to collapse in the short term; you only need to look at the current wave of Middle-Eastern "springs" for confirmation - from Tunisia to Egypt, in practical terms they're now worse-off than under their dictators. Still, they play a often necessary role in putting the fear of consequences in the heart of established elites who would otherwise refuse to change; places like Saudi Arabia are now grudgingly considering improving conditions of their women, for example.
European socialism owes more to the threat of Stalinism than we like to admit; western governments were forced into improving conditions for their working classes mostly by the threat of civil unrest
With respect I completely disagree with this - the reforms to working conditions and the state of our societies in Europe which have happened since Engels wrote 'The conditions of the working classes in England' or Marx 'Capital' have improved because of gradual progress in western democracies introduced because of peaceful protest and people working within the democratic process, on things like mandatory schooling, no child labour, minimum wages, right to assembly, health services, benefits etc. That's a far longer time-frame and was not influenced by the USSR, either in funding western political groups or acting as a sort of bogieman for western governments.
I disagree that revolutions and the attendant violence and destruction are necessary or useful in deposing tyranny, quite often they produce the opposite effect, as the two examples you initially brought up show.
When Marx and Engels wrote their books many "western democracies" didn't even exist, so they weren't responsible for any progress made until the end of WWII. Democracies themselves didn't come to be "peacefully": most European kings had to be forcefully deposed one way or another, after they refused substantial reforms for almost 150 years since the French Revolution (in fact, they spent most of the XIX century actually restricting individual freedoms and ramping up censorship powers). Until WWI, there had been almost no progress in many continental countries on universal suffrage, which of course resulted in no progress on all the other subjects you mention. The period between wars was politically very lively but certainly not peaceful nor "within the democratic process": every country had its fair share of events where police or army would indiscriminately shoot at protestors, strikes would get violent, and so on. The political frameworks born from WWII were then characterised, in most Western European countries, by schemes that basically reproduced the Cold War disposition, with a varying degree of direct dependence of local leftist parties from Moscow. The presence of a well-equipped "hard left" made it possible for softer alternatives to thrive: the Overton window was anchored by the Soviet State on one side.
The only country where you can try and talk of a continuous peaceful development is post-Cromwell Britain, which is why this country is still, in many ways, the less socialist of the lot (and getting less so by the day, I could add). Still, the influence of Soviet ideals was so strong even in this land, that there was stuff like the Cambridge Five, something that today is completely unconceivable.
Violent revolutions are not always necessary, but they can (and did) provide inspiration for wider movements.
Thanks for the info.
You might want to also check out The Anatomy of Revolution - it details the broad life cycles revolutions succeed through. It concludes that revolutions are overall detrimental to lasting change in a society. The American Revolution is discussed in order to explain why it turned out atypically.
Thanks for the recommendation, looks interesting. My other favourite book in this area is To the Finland Station, of course the NSA knows that already as I bought it on Amazon :)