The Coming Worldwide Socialist Revolution

The “fabulous” wealth of the super rich didn’t miraculously fall from the sky, nor is it attributable to the imagined entrepreneurial genius or other supposedly superior qualities of Mister Money Bags.

In most cases, there’s a direct link connecting palatial estates in plush, gated communities to deteriorating working-class neighborhoods, either here or abroad, where people who toil too hard in their bosses’ enterprises, for too little pay and scant benefits, experience lives ranging from merely hard-pressed to desperately poor.

It’s a one-way pipeline through which the value created by ordinary folks’ blood, sweat, and tears at the daily job site is routinely appropriated in its greatest part, leaving little left over for the actual producers.

The owning class sucks “its” wealth from those who make the things, or deliver the services that business owners profitably sell without an instant’s thought to the reality that veritable wage slaves on the shop floor are responsible for the lavish “rewards” that they so ostentatiously enjoy.

For every tycoon being chauffeured about in a Rolls Royce, there are hundreds of haggard souls driving rusting clunkers, or using creaking donkey carts, who put in often egregiously under-compensated time in factories, mines, mills, and retail counters to make the magnate’s enormous prosperity possible.

Which is why global working-class revolution, never mind half-hearted measures to try to hike taxes on the upper crust, will be entirely justified, if strict emphasis on economic justice is the deciding factor.

As should properly be the case.

I’m definitely pacifistic by nature and count Gandhi, King, and Mandela as the only true giants who’ve walked the earth during my lifetime.  Violence is abhorrent to me.

But I’m also convinced that any bloodshed that rectifying rebellion entails, after everyday families have exhausted all peaceful possibilities for necessary change, will be mild in comparison to the ongoing violence that capitalist exploitation inflicts on international multitudes day in and day out.

That violence takes the form of widespread, withering poverty, grimly manifested in pervasive hunger, a lack of elemental health care, spreading homelessness, inferior or nonexistent education, and the cumulative impact of profits-before-people priorities that give millions of children around the globe cruelly compelling reason to cry.

Far too often, weeping is their last act, as death arrives to steal their futures and simultaneously condemn the wicked, rapacious system that made their lives so mercilessly impossible.

A planetary revolution is assuredly, unavoidably coming.

It’ll be a united uprising by both what Frantz Fanon termed the Third World’s “wretched of the earth” and industrialized nations’ outraged proletarians, unwilling to sacrifice their living standards on the altar of “austerity,” just so a few fat cats can continue luxuriating to an unconscionable degree.

This impending cleansing of our capitalism-putrefied cosmic home will be openly socialist in those countries where leftist thought and theory have long had fertile ground in which to grow.  Europe will go unequivocally red, for instance.

In places like the United States, however, a kind of instinctive, spontaneous Marxism will initially arise, as it’s occasionally done during our historical past, in a localized way

The primary example of this is how white, Christian, and ordinarily quite conservative coal miners in Kentucky and West Virginia were forced by their chronically exploitative circumstances to take on plundering coal companies with tactics and ideological underpinnings of economic fairness that could have been advocated — and, in fact, were — by communists.

Anyone who views the award-winning documentary film “Harlan County, USA” will quickly understand that blue-collar souls who adhere to cynical diversions (such as those posited by today’s Tea Party) will break with their wrong beliefs to become impassioned battlers for real worker advancement as mass consciousness and resulting action grow.

Struggle itself is the decisive teacher and key radicalizing agent.

All of this is more true now than ever.

What’s been derisively termed “The Cat Food Commission” recently issued its list of extensive cuts to already intolerable American living standards that we’ll be asked to accept so that criminally corrupt Wall Street banksters and corpulent corporate honchos can keep their second or third luxurious residences, and yachts.

We, the creators of the wealth that they stole, are expected to make an ungodly trade-off, compliantly absorbing what amounts to a total abandonment of everything that constitutes either an existing or anticipated “good life.”

This impoverish-my-kids-so-that-capitalists-can-flourish “solution” just isn’t going to fly.

And yet, due to the thoroughly depraved nature and ruthlessness of capitalism in its moribund imperialist stage, America’s reactionary elite will repeatedly attempt to send that dead albatross into the air.

At some point, much sooner than many think, the masses will just revolt in angry disgust.

That’s when the New York Stock Exchange will be set ablaze.

In a dramatic foretaste of things to come, English protesters enraged by exorbitant college tuition hikes recently attacked the limousine carrying Prince Charles and Lady Camilla, with accompanying shouts of “Off with their heads!”

Sentiments equally as bitter have risen in several countries.  Super-exploited multitudes have reached their breaking point.

The entire capitalist world is but a hair’s breadth away from wholesale rebellion.

Dennis Rahkonen, from Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the '60s. Read other articles by Dennis.

17 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Don Hawkins said on December 17th, 2010 at 8:44am #

    We, the creators of the wealth that they stole, are expected to make an ungodly trade-off, compliantly absorbing what amounts to a total abandonment of everything that constitutes either an existing or anticipated “good life.”

    This impoverish-my-kids-so-that-capitalists-can-flourish “solution” just isn’t going to fly. Dennis

    Dennis the good life now is going to be try and save as much life as we can we waited to long and that will be a good life to try as opposed to what we are doing now. This will not be easy but boring it will not be and Hawking said if we can make it the next two hundred years we will have a chance and the next twenty will tell us that story.

  2. bozh said on December 17th, 2010 at 10:02am #

    servant class may indeed one day say: we do serve out country– the rich people do not. the rich are and were robbing and runnings us dwn for at least 10 millennia. and it us, our sons and daughters who make music, plant, make clothes; give birth to geniuses so that all cld benefit equally from their knowledge, inventions, improvements, etc.

    that’s why thieves demonize socialists; wage wars against korea, vietnam, nicaragua, croatia [’90], chile, cuba.

    yes, folks, u didn’t know croatia had been ruled from ’45 to ’90 by communists. i wonder how many ‘leftist’ in canada and elsewhere cheered serb tanks rolling into croatia in early ’91? tnx

  3. MichaelKenny said on December 17th, 2010 at 10:08am #

    Yes and no. The existing system, which the world has known since the American and French Revolutions, is obviously in the process of evolving into something new but Mr Rahkonen waxes much too lyrical! “Off with their heads”, a quote from Lewis Carroll, is commonly used as a joke here in Europe, and nobody takes it literally! Thus, there was nothing “bitter” in it and it was a “foretaste of things to come” only in the sense that Europeans will no doubt continue to tell jokes! Also, Europeans are non-ideological and pay scant heed to political thought and theory, of whatever kind. They are result-oriented and instinctively socialist in the feudal sense: the subject is loyal to the ruler and, in return, the ruler must look after the subjects. A ruler who delivers the goods will survive, whatever his ideology. A ruler who fails to deliver will be kicked out. That’s what destroyed the communists and is now destroying the (relatively few) remaining advocates of American-style cowboy capitalism. Thus, Europe will indeed be “red” in the sense that it’s future will be, I think, a combination of the existing socialist parties, the green parties and the new far left parties which have emerged in some countries. That will not require a revolution, because it is already there and will happen almost by accident once the US stranglehold on the world economy is broken. That’s why people having been asking for more EU, not less. Together, we can govern ourselves. Alone, as Wall St has been demonstrating, we can be picked off one by one. Thus, I foresee a strengthened, “red” EU, enlarged to include all the European democracies, including Russia. Now, there’s a revolution for you!

  4. ajohnstone said on December 17th, 2010 at 1:21pm #

    A socialist revolution first must take place in the heads of the workers, then will follow the conquest of political power, the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of socialism. Certain characteristics distinguish the socialist revolution from all previous revolutions. For the first time has a social revolution become possible and necessary in the interests of the great bulk of the population, the working class. The lack of socialists is all that stands in the way of socialism. The revolution cannot be rammed down the throats of the workers against their understanding or desire. In the name of building up a socialist movement among the masses, some have emasculated and compromised socialist principles. The only factor in all the material conditions of today that I can see standing in the way of socialism is the political ignorance of the workers. Socialism is possible, necessary and practical today the moment the great majority become conscious of their interests. The notion that the workers are dumb is plain hogwash but often confused, especially by the “friends” of socialism, speaking in the name of socialism.

    The lure and fascinations of protest demonstrations and making demands is very attractive. It indicates how deep-rooted discontent with capitalism really is, and it demonstrates the latent strength of socialism once the masses wake up to the need for changing the system instead of adjusting to it . The bond that makes us as one and inspires us is the recognition that capitalism can no longer be reformed or administered in the interest of the working class or of society, and the understanding that conditions are now ripe for socialism, which is the solution for society’s problems. All that is lacking is a socialist majority. This says it all! This is the essence of our principles. The socialist movement is not only heart, but is a combination of heart and head.

    Socialism is not the result of blind faith, followers, or, by the same token, vanguards and leaders. Nothing is more repugnant to socialism than clever strategy and conspiratorial tactics. Socialism is not possible without socialists. What makes socialist work stirring and inspiring is not that there are short cuts , but that there is nothing else worth a tinker’s damn. The seeming failures, the disappointments and discouragements, the slow growth, only indicate
    that socialist work is not an easy task. There is no short cut to socialism, short of socialist determination. Our latent strength lies in the fact that science, truth, and above all, necessity, is on the side of the scientific, revolutionary socialist movement.

    But the alternative facing us is either socialism or chaos.

  5. Tonyandoc said on December 17th, 2010 at 2:09pm #

    I am reminded of what a character said in a book by G. K. Chesterton, “The Man Who Was Thursday”, a satire about anarchists.
    “The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the Baron’s wars.”
    I agree that the stables need to be cleaned from time to time and, in doing so, one can’t be too fussy about what ends up in the manure pit. The objective should be to start over as in the French Revolution – not try to repair.

  6. bozh said on December 17th, 2010 at 3:13pm #

    egzactly! one cannot ever have socialism in any country if 99% of the pop is so strongly cosa mias.

    thus, there is not all that much of an effort in maintaining an inegalitarianism anywhere on planet.

    that is the sole reason why socialism bit the dust in all european socialist lands. in yugoslavia, stealing legally and illegally and looking out for numero uno first was a rampant as in fascist lands.

    however, the legal theft in u.s had always been larger than in any socialist land!

    so our first task is to raise some socialists. obviously, this won’t happen on dissident sites. there are just too many posters and contributors on these sites that appear smwhat to much, supremacistic.

    or dwell on a specific issue or issues, while ingnoring all of it! tnx

  7. kanomi said on December 17th, 2010 at 4:49pm #

    I agree almost entirely with the author’s thesis except with this critical caveat: the exponential advances in military, intelligence, and surveillance technology, all of which are concentrated entirely in the hands of the power elite, will slaughter any attempt at popular rebellion before it even begins.

    Any imagined American rebellion has to fight not just against battle-hardened armor divisions, but also against stealth bombers, predator drones, biological weapons, anthrax, space-warplanes, killer satellites, the CIA, and hydrogen bombs, and God knows what other secret weapons. That is an impossible task. That cannot be done.

    The Afghan resistance is not a counter-example. The Western military is not in there fighting a war for their own survival. They are conducting a prolonged, live fire exercise for the enrichment of certain corporations and the benefit of geostrategic goals. If they had to, they could incinerate the whole country, end to end, and leave not a single living thing.

    Same with any mass “Third World” rising. With the right biological agents unleashed, they could turn the African continent into an uninhabited nature preserve. This is reality; the demon in the freezer.

    These overseas adventures are wars for profit and conquest. An armed rebellion at home would be dealt with differently, brutally, instantly. It would be a war for the very survival of the corporate-military axis. And they’d crush it so fast and so hard, you’d think the Waffen SS were amateurs by comparison. Which frankly, they are, compared to this behemoth.

    I know that’s a gloomy prognosis, but I see no other realistic outcome. Sorry.

  8. natemck223 said on December 17th, 2010 at 7:26pm #

    Allow me a moment of pessimism…

    With the results of the recent elections we on the left have seen that the institutions which espoused even the most mildly progressive of values were rendered virtually impotent in curbing the tide of conservative values. The few critiques offered up by these institutions caricatured these right-wing movements as angry and violent white folk to down right uneducated simpletons. The responses to these criticisms was that they did not attack or debate the views, they insulted the people. Any major attack from any “progressive” mainstream media would question the very values they are founded upon; and this is not a move that any sort of executive is willing to make.

    Where are the revolutionary journalists, poets, professors, and writers? Why are they not attempting to invade and strongarm these institutions into an honest and scathing debate? Any legitimate change will not be made at the populous level. Historically we have found that such movements are doomed to failure from the start. There needs to be a radical changing of the guard within the public media and university settings and that will not happen without a proud leftist invasion. We cannot rely on Zizek and Eagleton abroad nor Chomsky at home. Popular writers can no longer be passively liberal, poets need to stop pointing their collective finger at Republicans, and alternative media needs to make a harder push into the public square.

    Simply put, get off of your ass, get off of your computer, and for the love of God stop wasting your time discoursing with other leftists about cutesy communist theory. There will be no socialist revolution so long as the already existing left secludes itself to the internet.

    We might believe that the current riots are harking the downfall of the current nation state, but our youthful passion has been seen to be shortlived (take, for instance, the Minneapolis riots during the Republican National Convention). Until we can organize and emerge from the shadows into the public square the modern capitalist police state will only tighten it’s choking grip on the poor and working classes.

  9. hayate said on December 17th, 2010 at 8:34pm #

    kanomi said on December 17th, 2010 at 4:49pm

    No doubt.

  10. Deadbeat said on December 17th, 2010 at 11:04pm #

    natemck223 writes …

    Simply put, get off of your ass, get off of your computer, and for the love of God stop wasting your time discoursing with other leftists about cutesy communist theory. There will be no socialist revolution so long as the already existing left secludes itself to the internet. … Untila we can organize and emerge from the shadows into the public square the modern capitalist police state will only tighten it’s choking grip on the poor and working classes.

    I don’t see how an internet Internet discussion can be so “depressing” to “leftists” unless there is a good deal of self-examination being done here to such an extent that the truth hurts. And if we want to take about “organizing” how are you planning to deal with the real betrayers of left-wing values in your midst when you cannot even properly identify them. …

    We cannot rely on Zizek and Eagleton abroad nor Chomsky at home.

    The Left is truly lost.

    The key to understanding where we are is by proper analysis of the current situation. Kanomi at least identifies a real challenge that has to be considered and confronted. Dealing with the realities of the situation, I think is the first step.

  11. GLebowski said on December 17th, 2010 at 11:23pm #

    yes! the revolution is coming
    I’ve been waiting…. for a long long time….
    it is coming
    itiscoming
    just as soon as I get my shoes on

    — A Believer

  12. GLebowski said on December 17th, 2010 at 11:25pm #

    @”The key to understanding where we are is by proper analysis of the current situation. Kanomi at least identifies a real challenge that has to be considered and confronted. Dealing with the realities of the situation, I think is the first step.”

    Analyze this!
    The current situation is a siege.

  13. Don Hawkins said on December 18th, 2010 at 4:56am #

    Anybody ever watch National Geographic when they show gangs in the greatest nation Earth? These kid’s in the gang say respect is what they want and use fear to get that respect. Capitalism the fast buck and where do we also see that a little place called Wall Street. Well yesterday on the Capitalist New’s broadcasting Company some of the talk was does Obama now get it has he learned to respect. Then the signing of the tax bill man that was scary stuff. Those two words Hi Mitch from the President oh crap now there going to work together to help with the fast buck. Mitch McConnell seems incapable of authentic deep emotions and yes there’s more many more and some are better at whipping up an emotional response just for show. The push will be on very soon and it’s going to get ugly if the truth be known. Where I live a small town do they have gangs sort of and about 4 years ago I had four guy’s come in my bait shop to help me with that respect part. One guy asked me if he could take a piss out my back door another grabbed is crouch and then looked at me another came around behind me. Well I let them go for a few minutes and then in no uncertain terms told them to get the f&^k out of my shop at first they were a tad bit surprised but got the idea and as they were leaving I told them one week boy’s come back and try it again punk’s. Very soon the push will be on from some other punk’s well dressed punk’s remember Wall Street and the so called policy makers who unlike the gang’s I deal with play a little different game of respect. They dress well and are very good at head games when in truth nothing more than illusion. We are all going down the drain in not such slow motion while listening to punk’s and anybody see any plans in place for what we can’t slow oh yes send the red cross that’s not a very good plan. CNN and MSNBC seem to be better at the emotional response just for show part where Fox New’s goes with more the punkness in your face while telling us we the people we are the punk’s. To make a long story short why is this because in reality nobody is telling the truth such an evil web we weave. Get ready the punk’s will be talking shit on a grand scale very soon looking for that respect.

    Let us choose path 2! If individuals simply sat down and refused to lift a hand to further one single aim of the psychopathic agenda, if people refused to pay taxes, if soldiers refused to fight, if government workers and corporate drones and prison guards refused to go to work, if doctors refused to treat psychopathic elites and their families, the whole system would grind to a screeching halt. Clinton Callahan

    Then the new category illusionopath’s where ignorance is strength and get ready for lot’s more of that and those kid’s the little gang that came in my shop were they psychopath’s probably not but a great place to see some real one’s is on your TV set. Control, control, control. Yes indeed central control. Shocking yes you can sure say that. So we the people are the punk’s are we?

  14. AaronG said on December 18th, 2010 at 5:01am #

    natemck223 makes some good points. This article is noble with romantic ideals. I love a romantic movie, but then I walk out of the theatre and confront reality. And the reality is that the bad guys are organised. VERY organised. For example, the papers written by Project for a New American Century (PNAC) are openly published, scary and pretty close to fullfilled. The good guys are very aware of what the bad guys are doing and have some very good papers written about it. Full stop. No action plan.

    Below is an example of an action plan:

    STEP 1: steal an election and place a stooge in power
    STEP 2: bomb the shit out of anyone who we dislike or who has gold in the ground……………

    ….as opposed to….

    STEP 1: Get angry
    STEP 2: go back on the couch……………..

  15. Don Hawkins said on December 18th, 2010 at 7:03am #

    A busload of people did nothing to stop a pack of teen girls from beating a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend despite pleas from the victims that she was carrying a baby.

    The behavior was caught on the bus’ surveillance camera and later helped police in Seattle locate the five attackers.
    “I’m shocked,” said Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff’s Department. “The video is shocking to look at.
    “The ferocity, the intensity, the unprovoked nature” is shocking, he said. “But what shocks me most is that these girls thought they could do this on a crowded bus with adults and do it with impunity.” ABC

    Where might this thinking trickle down from and just maybe these kid’s have embraced the system.

  16. Don Hawkins said on December 18th, 2010 at 7:20am #

    And do it with impunity. The so called leaders hay how about those bonuses on Wall Street the big bank’s and when it comes to the truth on the media two way’s either lie like a dog or stay silent.

    What a feeling and a heart made of stone. Let’s fight back and think of this as kind of a war.

  17. Don Hawkins said on December 18th, 2010 at 7:56am #

    Born that night in Bethlehem is it. Am I my brothers keeper Senator and yes watching the Senate on c-span this very second and James Inhofe just finished talking like a robot my first thought was classic sign’s.