MosesWasALibertarian wrote:You do realize that the Bolsheviks (what an ironic name) weren't even all of the marxists, right? They were a minority in a minority. That, and the November (since it did happen in November) revolution would have happened anyway. Bread strikes, decreasing morale in the war, it would have been eventually. The majority knew they were being screwed over already, all it took was Lenin to rile them up under a marxist banner. All he did was take advantage of desperate people.
Yes, I know that the Bolsheviks (lit. 'Majoritarians') were a minority of the Russian Social Democratic Party who split from it to form their own party. The rump of the SDP (who were thenceforth known as Mensheviks (lit. 'Minoritarians')) drifted towards the right and became Revisionists along the same lines as the German SDP. And the October Revolution happened in October according to the Julian calendar, but November according to the Gregorian calendar (which is the one we use now). Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar in, I think, 1918, yet they continued to call it the 'October' Revolution. I think we should continue calling it that too.
And as for the October Revolution being 'inevitable', I think you mean the February Revolution (which no doubt really happened in April). The Bolsheviks, contrary to popular opinion, did not overthrow Nicholas II. By the time they got their act together, the Tsarist regime was long gone, overthrown by a combination of military and economic collapse and the boiling discontent of workers and peasants. Lenin arrived in April 1917 to try to politically benefit from the collapse of Tsarism. It was the Provisional Government (who were just as anti-Tsarist as Lenin) which the Bolsheviks overthrew.
That doesn't make any sense. The bourgeoise could never become the majority, because then they wouldn't be the bourgeoise. Their money would simply decrease in value if they became that rich because of the plentifulness of it.
And the majority will always be the working class, because of it. The working class, who you are out to defend, is the majority. And if the majority, the working class does not want bolshevik rule, then what's the point? You're not protecting them, then, just your own interests.
I specifically said the petty-bourgeoisie. The haute bourgeois class permits the creation of a lower class of small businessmen and shopkeepers which we call 'lower middle class' or petty-bourgeois. They identify themselves with authority figures and adopt a bourgeois set of values and attitudes, even though the haute bourgeois class itself despises them. They are useful to the ruling class in spreading false consciousness and in actively suppressing working class opposition if necessary. Under certain conditions, for example, the super-profits created by imperialist exploitation, this petty-bourgeois class can grow very large indeed. Modern America or even Britain are examples of this. But the fundamental, underlying system of exploitation and oppression remains in place. Marx wrote about the beginnings of this process as far back as the late 19th century, when he talked about the creation of a 'labour aristocracy' from imperialist superprofits. In Britain, right now, the working class constitutes only about a third of the population, the petty-bourgeois class about half the population, and the rest are either lumpen-proletarian, haute bourgeois or aristocratic. If the other classes band together, they can easily outnumber the proletariat. Does this mean we should simply surrender to the class enemy? No, absolutely not! The petty-bourgois class are the victims of false consciousness. They have banded with the haute bourgeoise to help them keep the working class in line, but thir class 'allies' actually despise them. You only have to look at the British Tory Party, and the relations between its haute bourgeois and its petty-bourgeois members, to see this very clearly.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Marx (Groucho)