Ya gotta love Chomsky-- he answers the questions the guy should have asked, given the ones he actually asked were mostly nonsense. What's unfortunate is that he has to keep explaining to people in essence, that labels are just that, and the very fact that someone saw fit to try to apply a label, can be a sign someone with an axe to grind is intentionally attempting to mislabel it.
I think I understand what Chomsky is getting at. He isn't saying a revolution has to be 100% nonviolent, but the violent aspect is a very very small aspect of a revolutionary movement and isn't even worth discussing this early in the game. History has proven that revolutions that rely too heavily on violence end up becoming dictatorships.
@carsen1 GTFO It was revolutionary to the extent that it overthrew the British and instituted a democratically elected government. In the 18th century that was regarded as particularly radical.
The premise is wrong. One cannot take the so-called Terror out of the historical context and try to justify or criticise it. The violence of the people is justified by the violence of the state at the time. In that sense, if a revolution will be violent if and when the state response to it is violent. Any other fake debate is irrelevant and just good for bourgeois thinkers who are safe in their lives and can afford to criticise the state mildly. You cannot expect a well-to-do person with a safe and stable situation (economic, social, political, etc…) to understand the plights of the poor living under repression (economic, social, political, etc…). Similarly, you cannot expect that same person to understand and accept the poor’s response to repression.
Very well said but bourgeois liberals like Chomsky will insist on maintaining the status quo by insisting on “non violent resistance” which gets repressed easily and leads no where. I mean how many non violent revolutions have we seen in history? Non violent movements work only due to the implicit threat of violence.
Correct, it's why my comment thread on this video is going into the 20s and the person talking refuses to acknowledge just the basic facts that you uttered here.
This interview sounds like that between a professor who is practical and realistic and a grad student who just started reading theory and is dying to see validation of that theory.
I always appreciate Noam's reflexive turning of the question back on the asker. Gives him time to choose an attack and absorb what the asker is really looking for.
Unfortunately, Chomsky gave only one of the two conditions he asserted necessary to achieve a revolution that would "carry us forward." ( ≈ 16:00) That was: "dedicated support by a large majority of the population." He did note: " ... we are so remote from that point" and presumably considered condition #2 irrelevant.
If your question or statement begins with, "people are saying," or "many people think," or "there's a lot of interest in," stop, rethink, and don't ask/say it. If it's true, go find a source, start your question with genuine information. This interviewer is obviously coming from a genuinely interested position, but looking for concrete answers to nebulous ideas is doomed from the start.
Also, his saying there is a lot of new interest from the Left (where?) in understanding and excusing Robespierre's actions during the Terror had me thinking, "Um, what?" Have neither seen nor read nor heard anything of that nature. Even searching for it now, I'm coming up with a total blank. Half baked question.
1.) Build small Cooperatives. 2.) Build community defense militias, 3.) Build neighborhood councils, 4.) Take over the local city council and municipal boards, 5.) Collectivize basic utilities, 6.) build medium sized cooperatives, 7.) pressure/force coopertivization on larger local firms. 8.) link up cooperatives into mutual support networks, 9.) form federations of cooperatives on a larger scale with other cities going down the same path, 10.) establish a federal revolutionary council 11.) brace for impact
But this seems to assume that the nature of power is top-down, a view which has been challenged by thinkers like Foucault. I'm not sure if power is top-down or not, but if it is diffuse in society and the institutional forms of it coalesce from the ground level social relations (or the two co-produce each other), then presumably the resistance to cooperativization won't just come from institutional forces but from ordinary people as well. I dunno maybe that wouldn't really change the approach---it might still be about gradually building a new influence to challenge hegemonic influences---but just throwing some thoughts out there.
Young Eagle I admire your sentiment cut can’t agree with your assertion. Mao famously said, “A Revolution is not a dinner party. It is an act of violence by which one class displaces another,” and events proved him to be correct.
"... has to be backed by a majority of the population, people who realise that they can't attain their goals under the current regime..." .. my question is how do we deal with societies that are partisan or diverse? where the reality of one group/class is vastly different from that of the other ? Is the use of violence (riots, lootings) by agitated people illegitimising the revolution ?
Well, given most federal governments have admitted to genocide of first nations. Are first nations justified in violentely taking land? OUR 'elected government' has a position that it SAYS comes from us, but I don't support government policy. So since our govenrments still seem intent on destroying first nation culture, then it seems that international law does in fact support the position of violent insurrection.
Chomsky wouldn't like this question because he wouldn't support this hypothetical revolution. revolutions are only legitimate when everyone comes together, across class lines, to demand change. what a nice dream world
the whole point against violent revolution is this: people have the power, they just dont know it. when people realize what they want, and that they have the power to take it(which as chomsky says you can clearly see we are very far from), violence would only serve a purpose as self defense literally. as chomsky notes, to make a proper revolution you must have a large majority of the population on your side. so a really huge peaceful movement can achieve much more than a violent one. you could have potentially 10s or ever 100+ millions of peoples on the street, you could literally walk to the presidents residence under certain circumstances and simply announce that the people no longer wish for him to continue serving them, and do the same for whatever governors or how ever the country is structured. after all they are suposedly there...to serve the people's interests. now they have their bosses, the people, outside the door, firing them effective immediately. the question is what are the armed forces going to do. and theres alot of evidence to suggest a totally non violent movement would make even psychopaths in the army think twice before starting to shoot down a huge mass of unarmed nonviolent people in the streets, as opposed to an angry mass of people looking like a walking zombie weapon ready to unleash at any second, threatening any observing non participant greatly.
what if my neighborhood didn't have a school? what if civil disobedience is something that's in the text books for the fancy people ? what if I was raised in a neighborhood that saw drug dealers, violence and inhumane police brutality? What if i want the things that they show me on tv but I can't ever have them ? How can we expect them to revolt in an organised civil manner ? Will I say that their actions are illegitimate because they're trying to seize power however they can ? Should my sympathy only exist when their means of revolution subscribe to my middle class non violent ideals ? I'm soo conflicted today and I wish there was someone who would answer my questions :'(
@@jupiterjaeden9163 armies have gunned down protesters that are unamed under 2 conditions: one is if the army is made of trained killers, aka merceneries, second is if the army attacks people of other countries, especially if its like a white army attacknig blacks or hispanics situation.
@@soumyajitchatterjee2 my point was mostly to say that, non violent revolutions are more likely to succeed and therefore the intelligent strategy. its not easy for a random poor person to do, but if behind the revolution theres some charismatic intelligent/educated person as a leader, he could teach people the better way to do things. if you have no leadership thats intelligent and charismatic etc, in theory you might do it, in practice you will fail, the universe seems to make things using leaders, such as our brain, which evolved the prefrontal cortex as a leader, didnt have to, but seems natural selection has taught us that untill we are technologically unrecognizable, the masses will rely on a leader of some kind to do things.
@@jupiterjaeden9163 USA would gladly genocide 100 million of its people if they dared attempt this. Without a moments hesitation and history is inclined to agree for 1000s of years. One would have to be utterly naïve to the point of being delusional to suggest otherwise indeed. This includes the USA's track record for 2 centuries and counting.
I think his point was more that it is a stupid idea that will get you killed. He said the burden of proof can be met in some circumstances and I'm sure - we all know Chomsky - he would acknowledge that systemic violence.
The conversation that would be much more interesting and productive would be Chomsky's views on Eduard Bernstein's theory of revisionist Marxism as opposed to the constant and repetitive questions leftist American students ask him about Leninism.
Chomsky still held that, for instance (in the Foucault debate) that derailing ammunition trains during the Vietnam War would be, while illegal, morally righteous. He's not a pacifist. He is mostly saying that violence is not so much a choice for liberation, but sometimes a necessity - and in other cases, reprisals were just a very ordinary abuse of state power wielded with the intent of destroying one's enemies.
I agree that the only violence in revolution should be the strictly necessary one. I also agree that, when there's majority consensus, a lot of violence is unnecessary since you have the power to basically stop the machine from working. I also agree we are far from that point. Where I disagree: that if majority supports the idea of overthrowing the elites, then very little violence will be necessary. Armies will not always support mass movements (even when the majority of the population is with them), because of propaganda. Also, sometimes there's asymmetry in power, weapons' access and other things which make violence kinda unavoidable. Finally, there's an ethical argument for violent revolution might sometimes be necessary: suppose a dictatorship is in place, yet you still don't have an 80% support for Revolution. What should you do? No matter how violent, any revolution will not make as many deaths as the total deaths the dictatorship will produce.
Why is almost every recording of Chomsky very bad quality? The man already has a hard-to-hear low voice, but this is barely listenable (full volume on my speakers and still not hearing him).
I'm politically unaligned but have a lot of respect for some of the things Chomsky says. He has a strong moral sense and sees through the leading questions and bullshit being fed here. Political violence rarely solves anything This interviewer seemed to be working himself up into a bloodthirsty fervor over the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks and their love of violence. Lenin was no fan of human freedom only violence and repression.
Lenin is an interesting case. I'd argue he was in it mostly for the cause to start with, but ended up drinking his own Kool-Aid in advocating and implementing vanguardism, which pretty much inevitably led to "Soviet" "communism" instead of soviet communism, if you catch my drift. Lenin seems to have justified each step in that direction with the "greater good", to himself and to everyone else. It goes without saying that this was facilitated by a healthy dose of narcissism. Stalin, on the other hand, was a cold, opportunistic criminal from the start.
@@bladdnun3016if Lenin had tried to match the russian revolution to the moral standards of people like Chomsky, it would've been crushed by the white army and western powers. it's easier to critique the excesses and failures of successful revolutions than ones which died in their infancy
The granting of the right to vote did not change the structure of a US economic paradigm, it only moved the pieces around the chess board. Ditto MLK's attempt to upturn racism and disdain for the impoverished in the US nor did Gandhi's apparent attempt to induce social and economical equality among all people of India. Chomsky is seriously trying to control the scope of his commentary. He is being asked a lot more than be expected to answer.
I think the problem is that we define violence too narrowly, by referring to only to physical trauma. But violence can be economic, or social, or legal as well.
Yes agree, economic, social and redefining/reframing illegal to legal, are all acts of violence. A quiet war on the people, their earth , the environment and all that sustains. Lacking Stewardship is abuse of power therefore a form of violence as it creates mass suffering , in all forms among all nations.
*If no gets injured it ain't violent.* But that's the point, people are injured only we do not define it as violence because we've not allowed it to be seen as wrong. Engels referred to the conditions of British workers in mines that caused their lungs to be destroyed and their lives ended early and the quality of their lives while living dragged down to be a form of Social Murder because the conditions were generated by the capitalist class and the remedies to this condition were harshly repressed, changes that in some part came from labour organization and a growing political power behind an intolerance to the continuation of this condition that demanded better working conditions and later social welfare practices that addressed a lack of access to medical care required by anyone dealing with day to day lives that induce this level of injury on them. The question isn't if there is injury. The question is if the injury is being properly seen as violence. Furthermore you have to ask what exactly constitutes harm? Psychological damage is frequently obscured form being recognized as violence or seen on the same level as physical harm. The entire absurd legal justification for the CIA torture program under Bush in the 00s indicates as much where persistent torture for months attempted and succeeded with destroying the minds of people subjected to it to the extent that they were no longer able to cope once the torture stopped even if they carried no permanent physical ailment. This indicates that even today we are content to recognize psychological trauma as lesser than physical trauma. The mental health of people living in any condition or situation is especially disregarded by the legacy of the American obsession with Protestant work ethic thinking that sees suffering as something to be tolerated and overcome and if you can't hack it too bad for you. Then we have to consider what is injury? Is hunger injury? One can recover from that, but is being in that condition not a form of injury? Is not being without necessary medical care for an ailment an injury if society can readily provide it? What about the economic and legal hardships created by prejudices against classes and groups that sees their general quality of life harshly limited and leads to associated physical and mental issues? The war on drugs has visited upon people untold violence and suffering and social isolation and prejudice. I'd contend the violence of drug gangs and cartels is tied to western policies that generate these conditions as there is no market for these people to operate without a prohibition, not to the extent and influence they do. There was also the matter of african americans in many American cities in the 40s denied property rights to prevent their mixing with whites, policies that encouraged vigilante violence against blacks in roaming white gangs that sought to terrorize blacks should they consider ever crossing the tracks. Even once the violence somewhat subsided as blacks desegregated the condition of segregation established conditions that persist. None of this has anything to do with that absurd plea to Nazi genocide and Stalinist brutality. What a joke and typical right wing garbage to appeal to an emotion rather than reason. You can only say his words cause violence when you are blind to the violence all around you but you blame on other things or do not even see as violence. Its especially ironic you bring ISIS into this when they are largely a product of western aggression into Iraq that created the instability and narrative necessary to allow this neo fascist group to gain power and take land and attack people. This of course is violence born of other violence but even then people love to dismiss these 'collateral' culpabilties.
I'm a conservative, I used to be a leftist. I lost respect for most of the intellectuals of the left. I must say, Chomksky is not among them. I may not agree with everything he says, but the guy's intellect in utterly penetrating.
@@elliottreagle1119 I don't expect any respect from the left, as I paid little when I was younger and left-leaning. I rather leave myself open to be pleasantly surprised when I discover it.
West called iit Socilest because it suited them....the soviets called it Socilest because of pride...maybe because it was Socilest Norm unless you are saying if you were in charge it would have been different under your rule? You knew it when you were 12 after all
There are many perspective to understand reality and there are many ways to change te situation of the world and if someone gets stuck in theory given by books and doesn't understand reality by practice then we can say he or she is intellectual lame.....
Look at the Cuban Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution, all of which utilized violence to one extent or another, and then look at those that did not, such as Chile under Allende, Guatemala under Arbenz and the modern day Bolivarian Revolution. The latter were overthrown by reactionary forces backed by the ruling classes and imperial powers such as the US. Indonesia 1965 is also a good example, a party of unarmed civilians were massacred wholesale by the same forces of reaction. Whether or not something similar happens in Venezuela is yet to be determined. I believe someone stated recently that the Bolivarian Revolution might have been more successful if they had killed or expelled the oligarchs which have been working to undermine it since the late 1990s. Bottom line: kill or be killed.
I would introduce that when it comes to violence to this end, John Trudell addressed it best: “We cannot out fight them. There may be times to fight, but we cannot out fight them because they invented that kind of death. Throughout history since they invented that kind of death every provocation has been to get us at some point to try to out fight them. In reality, we’ve got to out think them. We’re surrounded in a reality where you have to have permission to think. They don’t have permission to think. This starts to equal out the numbers. So if you really think about it, the guerilla warrior of the future is going to be the one that thinks.”
NOW, NOW WE SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!!! DID YOU SEE HOW HE WAS OPPRESSING ME? -The Constitutional Peasant, Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail Noam had a good run and I think he did great things; he's exponentially saner and more humanitarian than the generation(s) of people he inspired. He can say "they didn't get it, I never wanted them to become authoritarians," but Foucault before him and Nietzsche before him could say the same thing. Present some anti-establishment philosophical ideas? Prepare for those ideas to be hijacked by those who would prefer to create cults and gain the benefits of high status within such cults, rather than to fix any real problems in the world. I think it is obvious that Chomsky's legacy has long been hijacked (not that he was ever right about everything). I can understand how heart-breaking it is for a legitimate, morally motivated academic activist to have his legacy used to prop up selfish corporate authoritarians, but at least he can know that he resisted corporatism in every meaningful way while postmodernists sold out in every meaningful way.
You're absolutely right, but you can't avoid that, can you? Oh... wait. You can always shut the fuck up and say nothing about anything. It's that an option? I guess it is.
Bro, if you want to ask something to the Chomsky, you can not improvise nor try to sound intelligent with your words, or he'll destroy you, Long live Sir Chomsky!!!
With that shit that went down in Seattle Chaz or whatever i would say this predicted the outcome. Which is to say brutish violence done by average American idiots ends in senseless death.
chomski, i love what you are saying, but i have a hard time hearing you speak without having to increase my volume by a lot. could you speak/record louder next time? every time the interviewer speaks and then back to you it's loud vs silent.
Blame it on Chomsky? Obviously, someone needed to put the mic closer to him and/or adjust the audio levels. He sounds fine in other interviews on UA-cam.
There's an inherent difference between the American Revolution and the French and Russian ones, though. The American Revolution was a war of self-defense. The French and Russian ones were coups in which opportunists hijacked genuine populist movements for their own purposes.
I respect Prof Chomsky a LOT... But we're running out of options. The rich have us between a rock and a hard place. And they and their minions will not hesitate to use violence on us. Right Occupy Wall Street?
Chomsky's point is that violent overthrow of the government is NOT an option... as in... how on earth do you think you would win? You think you could command greater violence than the US government?!? Out number and out gun them? Come on, get serious... if you can't organise an army of people who'll simply vote out the two corrupt parties controlling the country, how are you going to control an army of people who can beat the army that the government control?
@@hansfrankfurter2903 no, lets NOT give up, my friend. The only (and most important problem to bear) thing we would need is a cohesive and organized populace (who is clearly fed up with this BS of a governement) to stand by our side and organize a general strike. And that would mean THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. And yes it could feasibly happen.
so let's see your going to use violent measures and when the other guys start shooting back are u really prepared to die for what .when your children are starving yes for other things I'm not so sure.
Incremental progress is usually best. Historically, revolutions have led to terrible bloodshed and tragedy. All extreme ideologies have been a failure. As a child, it is normal to believe that you could make the whole world a much better place in a single day, if you only had the means to. As an adult you realize, that the only means to change the world in a single day is violence - imposing one idea against all other ideas with force. Then you see that it does not work as intended, the huge injustice and impoverishment in this violent revolution concept - and that the original goal quickly turns into the opposite. The key to progress lies in free exchange and free-flowing shift of ideas. With the advent of the internet, comes an increasingly globalized competition of ideas, memes, concepts. Survival of the fittest memes. Different societies, countries, groups, cultures will still develop their own approaches and solutions, best fit for them in particular... but a common ground of human values is slowly crystalizing in an unprecedented way. Even more clearly apparent than in past centuries, the very first battleground is the mind!
This kid is just trying to “sound” intellectually “pretty.” Chomsky asserts multiple times,”there is no relation there whatsoever” on multiple cues by the “interviewer.”
The more violent A revolution is the less efficient it is and the less it accomplishes it is almost mathematically proportional if you have 10 things you want to accomplish in a revolution and you resort to 5 points of violence escalation you will not achieve all 10 of those goals.
If you can openly and publicly talk about wether you are going to be violent when you overthrow the “oppressive government” then you aren’t living under an oppressive government.
Chomskyism - The Nazis would have won the war. The forced collectivization, coupled with education programs, and hyper industrialization, even at the point of a gun, pushed the Soviet Union into a meaningful position of power during the second world war, as compared to where it was in the first world war; Russia was definitely a backward underdeveloped country before the revolution; that's undisputable; the majority of the population couldn't even read. Chomsky would, rightly, have been, at that time, called a counterrevolutionary idealist; the USSR didn't come into being in a vacuum and it didn't have the time to diddle about with "How we wish it could have been" you don't even need to like the Soviet Union to come to the conclusion that what Chomsky is talking about is just a form of moralistic special pleading.
Violent revolution created that mess, though. The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were doing just fine participating in the Provisional Government and actually advancing themselves with the genuine will of the people. The Bolsheviks launched a coup in November and kicked off the Russian Civil War, destroying everything the February Revolution had brought about. Had there been no Red October, Julius Martov's model would've been the primary export of communism, giving that system a FAR better reputation while also likely drumming up much greater support for Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany. Germany could've genuinely become Spartakist, meaning no Freikorps and no Nazis.
@@KingdomHeartsBrawler That's an unfalsifiable alternative history, it's like arguing that if Robespierre didn't exist then the French Revolution wouldn't have resulted in the rise of Napoleon and Bourgeoise Revolutions would have sprung up faster, neither I nor you know that. And, even granting your premise that perhaps certain things would have been better in Russia after the February Revolution, if it continued, there is no reason why that would have prevented the Freikorps or the Nazis; the Social Democrats empowered the Freikorps, and the Capitalist Industrialists empowered the Nazis, unless you are making the argument that the provisional government would somehow invade Germany to prevent something like that, which I don't presume you are. You seem to be making a reputational argument, that Socialism wouldn't be looked on so badly if the USSR didn't exist, which I think is just wrong; most Revolutions are outright villainized and slandered if they are in the minority power group worldwide, with multiple attempts at undoing them often done by the majority power elite, Great Britain attempting to quash the American Revolution, then attacking again in the War of 1812, and even considering fighting alongside the Confederacy during the Civil War, or the multiple countries that attacked France during the French Revolution, or the attempts at putting down or undoing the Haitian Revolution, all of which were Liberal Revolutions that were slandered by the dominant monarchies of the feudal world order, it wasn't until the victory of Liberal Democracy over Divine Monarchy that such slander was rectified. The Socialist Revolutions have yet to undergo such a process.
@@noheroespublishing1907 Good reputation brought forth by a genuinely democratic Russia would've definitely helped boost the Spartakists and likely allow them a successful electoral bid, Freikorps or no. Also, it's very true that Robespierre led to the rise of Napoleon. The French Revolution began very similarly to the American one and consisted mostly of moderates. The Jacobins hijacked it and enacted the Terror once they took power, which destabilized France and led to Napoleon coming in as a strongman. The same happened in Russia as a result of the Bolsheviks seizing power, in which the Bolsheviks disrupted an established democracy and kicked off the Russian Civil War. The USSR ruined Leftism for nearly a century and set back good socialist causes considerably. The worst part is that the USSR wasn't even socialist, but state capitalist, which is more akin to the economic models established by Mussolini and Hitler later down the line. The Bolsheviks represented a Right-wing deviation from actual Marxist thought, and many mainstream Marxists rightly criticized it as such. Under Bolshevism, the soviets were stripped of their individual authority and became subservient to the singular State. The workers no longer had control over the places of work and instead had to answer to Party bosses and other centralized bureaucrats, which is anathema to democracy. Kronstadt was the final straw, in which sailors and workers protesting for better pay and conditions were ruthlessly massacred by the State.
@@KingdomHeartsBrawler The Bolsheviks intentionally modled their Revolution on the French Revolution and Lenin was an admirer of the Jacobins for the exact reason that it was most likely that if a successful Revolution was to take place they would likely face a similar international opposition, which they did, both the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution were under different material conditions, being an ocean away from their nearest peer, and not even anywhere near as developed, but distance was their advantage, because distance was an expense to their opponents; it is in no way a surprise that both the French Revolution and the English Revolution/Civil War were overturned, their enemies were their neighbors and spies and saboteurs, not to mention full blown armies, or funding for internal counterrevolutionaries was much simpler. The USSR never reached a fully developed Socialism, and the external pressures it faced only increased the problems of paranoia and overcorrecting. When a Revolution happens in relative isolation it can develop more smoothly, but if it happens surrounded by opposition it tends to deform in ideals, this doesn't make change impossible, and I have little doubt that if the Soviet Union had continued it would have evolved socially and politically as well; the big example of this is Cuba, the Cuba of today is not identical to the Cuba of the early Revolutionary period, Cuba was also lucky, because it wasn't invaded by a full military force, because the USSR had it's back. That's the thing, the Soviet Union wasn't perfect, nothing is, but it's existence helped empower a multitude of national liberation struggles around the world, breaking colonialism in plenty of countries and weakening it in others, even the developed countries vicariously benefitted from the existence of the Soviet Union because their governments felt pressured to provide Social Democratic reforms to compete with the Soviets government policies of rights to housing, work, ect ect; even these weren't perfect, but they sure as shit scared the Capitalist countries into creating semi-similar programs, and now that the USSR is gone, little by little, each and every one of these Social Democratic reforms is being weakened and stripped away, to the point where Republican politicians in the US are openly musing about finally ending Social Security once and for all, just like they did abortion, which the Soviet Union legalized in their country before the United States. Michael Parenti is right when he said that the main criticism of any revolution is that it wasn't perfect, and that's not a good criticism.
@@noheroespublishing1907 I'm not criticizing the October Revolution because it wasn't perfect. I'm criticizing it because it was an opportunistic coup that overthrew an already established democracy. I'm criticizing Bolshevism because it was an authoritarian system that actively trampled on people and curtailed the power of the workers in favor of a tyrannical bureaucracy that was run like a Mafia. The revolution already happened and the Tsar was deposed. There was an election and the Bolsheviks lost. They threw a hissy fit and overturned the will of the people in favor of their own ego and ambition. Then they outlawed and crushed anyone they deemed to be a threat. In no way is that democratic or egalitarian. In fact, it's the exact opposite. As someone who believes in democracy on principle, I find that turn of events indefensible and morally repugnant. I do genuinely think that the Bolsheviks initially had good intent but they went mad over time. Launching a coup and derailing a peaceful democracy was the first major warning sign. Kronstadt was the point of no return.
You can tell that he is such a genius linguist because he can speak without moving his lips.
or anything else
But can he drink a glass of water while speaking?
U mean ventriloquist?
😂😂😂😂😂
Its a photo
Noam has some sass in him
Ya gotta love Chomsky-- he answers the questions the guy should have asked, given the ones he actually asked were mostly nonsense. What's unfortunate is that he has to keep explaining to people in essence, that labels are just that, and the very fact that someone saw fit to try to apply a label, can be a sign someone with an axe to grind is intentionally attempting to mislabel it.
I think I understand what Chomsky is getting at. He isn't saying a revolution has to be 100% nonviolent, but the violent aspect is a very very small aspect of a revolutionary movement and isn't even worth discussing this early in the game. History has proven that revolutions that rely too heavily on violence end up becoming dictatorships.
Like the United States?
@carsen1 GTFO So I guess they just decided to call it revolutionary for no reason?
@carsen1 GTFO It was revolutionary to the extent that it overthrew the British and instituted a democratically elected government. In the 18th century that was regarded as particularly radical.
@carsen1 GTFO, monarchies were the norm in Europe at that time, but I agree that it didn't achieve as much as it should have.
bingo
“If you want to get killed in 5 minutes that’s a good suggestion.” Haha
The premise is wrong. One cannot take the so-called Terror out of the historical context and try to justify or criticise it.
The violence of the people is justified by the violence of the state at the time. In that sense, if a revolution will be violent if and when the state response to it is violent. Any other fake debate is irrelevant and just good for bourgeois thinkers who are safe in their lives and can afford to criticise the state mildly.
You cannot expect a well-to-do person with a safe and stable situation (economic, social, political, etc…) to understand the plights of the poor living under repression (economic, social, political, etc…). Similarly, you cannot expect that same person to understand and accept the poor’s response to repression.
Malcolm X couldn't have said it better himself, but MLK still advocated for peace.
Blood must be shed
Very well said but bourgeois liberals like Chomsky will insist on maintaining the status quo by insisting on “non violent resistance” which gets repressed easily and leads no where. I mean how many non violent revolutions have we seen in history?
Non violent movements work only due to the implicit threat of violence.
Correct, it's why my comment thread on this video is going into the 20s and the person talking refuses to acknowledge just the basic facts that you uttered here.
@@HespersQuestwhich is exactly why MLK became co-opted and Malcolm X became shunned
He's doing that hilarious ventriloquist act again.
These comments always make my day
This interview sounds like that between a professor who is practical and realistic and a grad student who just started reading theory and is dying to see validation of that theory.
The interviewer tries to be intellectual, but some of his questions are silly.
Tony S
Which questions are silly ?
Nihilism is not bad Chomsky explains why. They are so abstract.
Tony S
I have not watch the video yet, but looking at some random part I understand what you mean.0
so what? Chomsky's replies are what matter
VOLUME IS TOO LOW
If you are going to ask Chomsky a question, you bring your A game.
I always appreciate Noam's reflexive turning of the question back on the asker. Gives him time to choose an attack and absorb what the asker is really looking for.
Unfortunately, Chomsky gave only one of the two conditions he asserted necessary to achieve a revolution that would "carry us forward." ( ≈ 16:00)
That was: "dedicated support by a large majority of the population."
He did note: " ... we are so remote from that point" and presumably considered
condition #2 irrelevant.
If your question or statement begins with, "people are saying," or "many people think," or "there's a lot of interest in," stop, rethink, and don't ask/say it. If it's true, go find a source, start your question with genuine information. This interviewer is obviously coming from a genuinely interested position, but looking for concrete answers to nebulous ideas is doomed from the start.
Also, his saying there is a lot of new interest from the Left (where?) in understanding and excusing Robespierre's actions during the Terror had me thinking, "Um, what?" Have neither seen nor read nor heard anything of that nature. Even searching for it now, I'm coming up with a total blank. Half baked question.
Intermediate swing dance
Chomskys disdain for the interviewer here is palpable and hilarious
No More War
1.) Build small Cooperatives. 2.) Build community defense militias, 3.) Build neighborhood councils, 4.) Take over the local city council and municipal boards, 5.) Collectivize basic utilities, 6.) build medium sized cooperatives, 7.) pressure/force coopertivization on larger local firms. 8.) link up cooperatives into mutual support networks, 9.) form federations of cooperatives on a larger scale with other cities going down the same path, 10.) establish a federal revolutionary council 11.) brace for impact
Daniel Norman Then tell the people everyone is equal...just some are more "equal" than others...
problem is....here I the south if you tried to collectivize local farms and businesses the people would shoot you really quickly......
But this seems to assume that the nature of power is top-down, a view which has been challenged by thinkers like Foucault. I'm not sure if power is top-down or not, but if it is diffuse in society and the institutional forms of it coalesce from the ground level social relations (or the two co-produce each other), then presumably the resistance to cooperativization won't just come from institutional forces but from ordinary people as well. I dunno maybe that wouldn't really change the approach---it might still be about gradually building a new influence to challenge hegemonic influences---but just throwing some thoughts out there.
Violence is not a tactic or a moral issue but a social condition.
Young Eagle I admire your sentiment cut can’t agree with your assertion. Mao famously said, “A Revolution is not a dinner party. It is an act of violence by which one class displaces another,” and events proved him to be correct.
"... has to be backed by a majority of the population, people who realise that they can't attain their goals under the current regime..." .. my question is how do we deal with societies that are partisan or diverse? where the reality of one group/class is vastly different from that of the other ? Is the use of violence (riots, lootings) by agitated people illegitimising the revolution ?
Well, given most federal governments have admitted to genocide of first nations. Are first nations justified in violentely taking land? OUR 'elected government' has a position that it SAYS comes from us, but I don't support government policy. So since our govenrments still seem intent on destroying first nation culture, then it seems that international law does in fact support the position of violent insurrection.
Chomsky wouldn't like this question because he wouldn't support this hypothetical revolution. revolutions are only legitimate when everyone comes together, across class lines, to demand change. what a nice dream world
the whole point against violent revolution is this:
people have the power, they just dont know it.
when people realize what they want, and that they have the power to take it(which as chomsky says you can clearly see we are very far from), violence would only serve a purpose as self defense literally. as chomsky notes, to make a proper revolution you must have a large majority of the population on your side. so a really huge peaceful movement can achieve much more than a violent one. you could have potentially 10s or ever 100+ millions of peoples on the street, you could literally walk to the presidents residence under certain circumstances and simply announce that the people no longer wish for him to continue serving them, and do the same for whatever governors or how ever the country is structured. after all they are suposedly there...to serve the people's interests. now they have their bosses, the people, outside the door, firing them effective immediately. the question is what are the armed forces going to do. and theres alot of evidence to suggest a totally non violent movement would make even psychopaths in the army think twice before starting to shoot down a huge mass of unarmed nonviolent people in the streets, as opposed to an angry mass of people looking like a walking zombie weapon ready to unleash at any second, threatening any observing non participant greatly.
Armies throughout history have repeatedly gunned down unarmed protesters. There is no reason to think the next time will be any different.
what if my neighborhood didn't have a school? what if civil disobedience is something that's in the text books for the fancy people ? what if I was raised in a neighborhood that saw drug dealers, violence and inhumane police brutality? What if i want the things that they show me on tv but I can't ever have them ?
How can we expect them to revolt in an organised civil manner ? Will I say that their actions are illegitimate because they're trying to seize power however they can ? Should my sympathy only exist when their means of revolution subscribe to my middle class non violent ideals ?
I'm soo conflicted today and I wish there was someone who would answer my questions :'(
@@jupiterjaeden9163 armies have gunned down protesters that are unamed under 2 conditions: one is if the army is made of trained killers, aka merceneries, second is if the army attacks people of other countries, especially if its like a white army attacknig blacks or hispanics situation.
@@soumyajitchatterjee2 my point was mostly to say that, non violent revolutions are more likely to succeed and therefore the intelligent strategy. its not easy for a random poor person to do, but if behind the revolution theres some charismatic intelligent/educated person as a leader, he could teach people the better way to do things. if you have no leadership thats intelligent and charismatic etc, in theory you might do it, in practice you will fail, the universe seems to make things using leaders, such as our brain, which evolved the prefrontal cortex as a leader, didnt have to, but seems natural selection has taught us that untill we are technologically unrecognizable, the masses will rely on a leader of some kind to do things.
@@jupiterjaeden9163 USA would gladly genocide 100 million of its people if they dared attempt this. Without a moments hesitation and history is inclined to agree for 1000s of years. One would have to be utterly naïve to the point of being delusional to suggest otherwise indeed. This includes the USA's track record for 2 centuries and counting.
Never mistake the defense of the opressed with the violence of an opressor.
“Some theorists.” Wouldn’t get past Wikipedia editors. Need to be specific!
but what about the systemic violence innate within the capitalist system?
Against Unjust Authority Fuck Tankies yes what about it?
I think his point was more that it is a stupid idea that will get you killed. He said the burden of proof can be met in some circumstances and I'm sure - we all know Chomsky - he would acknowledge that systemic violence.
Yeah what about it? This has nothing to do with the video whatsoever
The conversation that would be much more interesting and productive would be Chomsky's views on Eduard Bernstein's theory of revisionist Marxism as opposed to the constant and repetitive questions leftist American students ask him about Leninism.
Go Chomsky. His support of non-violent political movements will ultimately be more productive and moral for progressive causes.
Chomsky still held that, for instance (in the Foucault debate) that derailing ammunition trains during the Vietnam War would be, while illegal, morally righteous. He's not a pacifist. He is mostly saying that violence is not so much a choice for liberation, but sometimes a necessity - and in other cases, reprisals were just a very ordinary abuse of state power wielded with the intent of destroying one's enemies.
Who the fuck cares about your precious morality when the species is on the line?
@@macklinbutcher3145 i nearly cut myself on your edge, chill
What is "a lot of people"?
A recolutuon through a general strike!
I’m curious what Chomsky thinks about the 2020 riots. Has he ever commented on that?
I agree that the only violence in revolution should be the strictly necessary one.
I also agree that, when there's majority consensus, a lot of violence is unnecessary since you have the power to basically stop the machine from working.
I also agree we are far from that point.
Where I disagree: that if majority supports the idea of overthrowing the elites, then very little violence will be necessary.
Armies will not always support mass movements (even when the majority of the population is with them), because of propaganda. Also, sometimes there's asymmetry in power, weapons' access and other things which make violence kinda unavoidable.
Finally, there's an ethical argument for violent revolution might sometimes be necessary: suppose a dictatorship is in place, yet you still don't have an 80% support for Revolution. What should you do? No matter how violent, any revolution will not make as many deaths as the total deaths the dictatorship will produce.
German peasants revolt 1500s...
Inspired Marx.
Why is almost every recording of Chomsky very bad quality? The man already has a hard-to-hear low voice, but this is barely listenable (full volume on my speakers and still not hearing him).
I wonder what he would say today about the proximity. propbably nothing has changed.
Wish the volume could have been boosted...
I'm politically unaligned but have a lot of respect for some of the things Chomsky says. He has a strong moral sense and sees through the leading questions and bullshit being fed here. Political violence rarely solves anything This interviewer seemed to be working himself up into a bloodthirsty fervor over the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks and their love of violence. Lenin was no fan of human freedom only violence and repression.
Lenin is an interesting case. I'd argue he was in it mostly for the cause to start with, but ended up drinking his own Kool-Aid in advocating and implementing vanguardism, which pretty much inevitably led to "Soviet" "communism" instead of soviet communism, if you catch my drift. Lenin seems to have justified each step in that direction with the "greater good", to himself and to everyone else. It goes without saying that this was facilitated by a healthy dose of narcissism. Stalin, on the other hand, was a cold, opportunistic criminal from the start.
@@bladdnun3016if Lenin had tried to match the russian revolution to the moral standards of people like Chomsky, it would've been crushed by the white army and western powers. it's easier to critique the excesses and failures of successful revolutions than ones which died in their infancy
In all of history are there any examples of successful social revolution without the support of armed and trained Military forces?
Women's rights (getting the vote in the US). Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights movement in the US. M Gandhi in India resisting British rule.
You have to ignore the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and there were actual militant revolutionaries in India.
The granting of the right to vote did not change the structure of a US economic paradigm, it only moved the pieces around the chess board. Ditto MLK's attempt to upturn racism and disdain for the impoverished in the US nor did Gandhi's apparent attempt to induce social and economical equality among all people of India. Chomsky is seriously trying to control the scope of his commentary. He is being asked a lot more than be expected to answer.
There are plenty. Gandhi's independence movement and the people's democratic revolution of Salvador Allende, to name a couple.
weak
1:42
I think the problem is that we define violence too narrowly, by referring to only to physical trauma. But violence can be economic, or social, or legal as well.
Could you explain what you mean by economic, social, or legal violence? I'm not sure I follow.
hi slavoj
Yes agree, economic, social and redefining/reframing illegal to legal, are all acts of violence. A quiet war on the people, their earth , the environment and all that sustains. Lacking Stewardship is abuse of power therefore a form of violence as it creates mass suffering , in all forms among all nations.
*If no gets injured it ain't violent.*
But that's the point, people are injured only we do not define it as violence because we've not allowed it to be seen as wrong. Engels referred to the conditions of British workers in mines that caused their lungs to be destroyed and their lives ended early and the quality of their lives while living dragged down to be a form of Social Murder because the conditions were generated by the capitalist class and the remedies to this condition were harshly repressed, changes that in some part came from labour organization and a growing political power behind an intolerance to the continuation of this condition that demanded better working conditions and later social welfare practices that addressed a lack of access to medical care required by anyone dealing with day to day lives that induce this level of injury on them.
The question isn't if there is injury. The question is if the injury is being properly seen as violence. Furthermore you have to ask what exactly constitutes harm? Psychological damage is frequently obscured form being recognized as violence or seen on the same level as physical harm. The entire absurd legal justification for the CIA torture program under Bush in the 00s indicates as much where persistent torture for months attempted and succeeded with destroying the minds of people subjected to it to the extent that they were no longer able to cope once the torture stopped even if they carried no permanent physical ailment. This indicates that even today we are content to recognize psychological trauma as lesser than physical trauma. The mental health of people living in any condition or situation is especially disregarded by the legacy of the American obsession with Protestant work ethic thinking that sees suffering as something to be tolerated and overcome and if you can't hack it too bad for you.
Then we have to consider what is injury? Is hunger injury? One can recover from that, but is being in that condition not a form of injury? Is not being without necessary medical care for an ailment an injury if society can readily provide it? What about the economic and legal hardships created by prejudices against classes and groups that sees their general quality of life harshly limited and leads to associated physical and mental issues? The war on drugs has visited upon people untold violence and suffering and social isolation and prejudice. I'd contend the violence of drug gangs and cartels is tied to western policies that generate these conditions as there is no market for these people to operate without a prohibition, not to the extent and influence they do. There was also the matter of african americans in many American cities in the 40s denied property rights to prevent their mixing with whites, policies that encouraged vigilante violence against blacks in roaming white gangs that sought to terrorize blacks should they consider ever crossing the tracks. Even once the violence somewhat subsided as blacks desegregated the condition of segregation established conditions that persist.
None of this has anything to do with that absurd plea to Nazi genocide and Stalinist brutality. What a joke and typical right wing garbage to appeal to an emotion rather than reason. You can only say his words cause violence when you are blind to the violence all around you but you blame on other things or do not even see as violence. Its especially ironic you bring ISIS into this when they are largely a product of western aggression into Iraq that created the instability and narrative necessary to allow this neo fascist group to gain power and take land and attack people. This of course is violence born of other violence but even then people love to dismiss these 'collateral' culpabilties.
I think you are referring to different forms of injustice, but not necessarily violence.
When washington is being blackmailed,physical removing them is all that will work
Be the time you get to the point in time where the V word is needed, it’s far too late.
I'm a conservative, I used to be a leftist. I lost respect for most of the intellectuals of the left. I must say, Chomksky is not among them. I may not agree with everything he says, but the guy's intellect in utterly penetrating.
With no due respect I am sorry to hear you are a so called conservative
@@elliottreagle1119 I don't expect any respect from the left, as I paid little when I was younger and left-leaning. I rather leave myself open to be pleasantly surprised when I discover it.
@@whoaitstiger if you arent left left you cant be right much
@@elliottreagle1119 Generally we become more conservative as we age because we become less naive and idealistic.
@@whoaitstiger then you just become the problem with a horrible society
West called iit Socilest because it suited them....the soviets called it Socilest because of pride...maybe because it was Socilest Norm unless you are saying if you were in charge it would have been different under your rule? You knew it when you were 12 after all
There are many perspective to understand reality and there are many ways to change te situation of the world and if someone gets stuck in theory given by books and doesn't understand reality by practice then we can say he or she is intellectual lame.....
Chomsky talking with head of ANTIFA… 🤣
Look at the Cuban Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution, all of which utilized violence to one extent or another, and then look at those that did not, such as Chile under Allende, Guatemala under Arbenz and the modern day Bolivarian Revolution. The latter were overthrown by reactionary forces backed by the ruling classes and imperial powers such as the US. Indonesia 1965 is also a good example, a party of unarmed civilians were massacred wholesale by the same forces of reaction. Whether or not something similar happens in Venezuela is yet to be determined. I believe someone stated recently that the Bolivarian Revolution might have been more successful if they had killed or expelled the oligarchs which have been working to undermine it since the late 1990s. Bottom line: kill or be killed.
Unfortunate but its the way of the world!
I would introduce that when it comes to violence to this end, John Trudell addressed it best:
“We cannot out fight them. There may be times to fight, but we cannot out fight them because they invented that kind of death. Throughout history since they invented that kind of death every provocation has been to get us at some point to try to out fight them. In reality, we’ve got to out think them. We’re surrounded in a reality where you have to have permission to think. They don’t have permission to think. This starts to equal out the numbers. So if you really think about it, the guerilla warrior of the future is going to be the one that thinks.”
CANT HEAR WORDS
WORDS MEAN THINGS
NOW, NOW WE SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!!! DID YOU SEE HOW HE WAS OPPRESSING ME?
-The Constitutional Peasant, Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail
Noam had a good run and I think he did great things; he's exponentially saner and more humanitarian than the generation(s) of people he inspired. He can say "they didn't get it, I never wanted them to become authoritarians," but Foucault before him and Nietzsche before him could say the same thing. Present some anti-establishment philosophical ideas? Prepare for those ideas to be hijacked by those who would prefer to create cults and gain the benefits of high status within such cults, rather than to fix any real problems in the world. I think it is obvious that Chomsky's legacy has long been hijacked (not that he was ever right about everything). I can understand how heart-breaking it is for a legitimate, morally motivated academic activist to have his legacy used to prop up selfish corporate authoritarians, but at least he can know that he resisted corporatism in every meaningful way while postmodernists sold out in every meaningful way.
You're absolutely right, but you can't avoid that, can you? Oh... wait. You can always shut the fuck up and say nothing about anything. It's that an option? I guess it is.
Bro, if you want to ask something to the Chomsky, you can not improvise nor try to sound intelligent with your words, or he'll destroy you, Long live Sir Chomsky!!!
This didn't age that well.
With that shit that went down in Seattle Chaz or whatever i would say this predicted the outcome. Which is to say brutish violence done by average American idiots ends in senseless death.
So much knowledge lost because of low sound.
chomski, i love what you are saying, but i have a hard time hearing you speak without having to increase my volume by a lot. could you speak/record louder next time? every time the interviewer speaks and then back to you it's loud vs silent.
they should download Audacity for free and compress the audio
You do know the guy is 89 years old?
Blame it on Chomsky? Obviously, someone needed to put the mic closer to him and/or adjust the audio levels. He sounds fine in other interviews on UA-cam.
If it hadn't been for violent revolution, Chomsky would be speaking with a British accent.
I know what point you are trying to get at, but thats not how accents work mate hahaha
There's an inherent difference between the American Revolution and the French and Russian ones, though. The American Revolution was a war of self-defense. The French and Russian ones were coups in which opportunists hijacked genuine populist movements for their own purposes.
I respect Prof Chomsky a LOT... But we're running out of options. The rich have us between a rock and a hard place. And they and their minions will not hesitate to use violence on us. Right Occupy Wall Street?
Chomsky's point is that violent overthrow of the government is NOT an option... as in... how on earth do you think you would win? You think you could command greater violence than the US government?!? Out number and out gun them? Come on, get serious... if you can't organise an army of people who'll simply vote out the two corrupt parties controlling the country, how are you going to control an army of people who can beat the army that the government control?
annoloki brilliant
@@annoloki so lets give up then, since occupy wall-street failed and all these dumb protests led to nothing.
@@hansfrankfurter2903 no, lets NOT give up, my friend. The only (and most important problem to bear) thing we would need is a cohesive and organized populace (who is clearly fed up with this BS of a governement) to stand by our side and organize a general strike. And that would mean THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. And yes it could feasibly happen.
The Terror ultimately destabilized France and paved the way for the emergence of a dictator to provide stability: Napoleon Bonaparte.
Same happened in Russia after Red October.
so let's see your going to use violent measures and when the other guys start shooting back are u really prepared to die for what .when your children are starving yes for other things I'm not so sure.
Inteeivwer is lost as is chomsky
We aren't as far from that point as he thinks.
Incremental progress is usually best. Historically, revolutions have led to terrible bloodshed and tragedy. All extreme ideologies have been a failure.
As a child, it is normal to believe that you could make the whole world a much better place in a single day, if you only had the means to. As an adult you realize, that the only means to change the world in a single day is violence - imposing one idea against all other ideas with force. Then you see that it does not work as intended, the huge injustice and impoverishment in this violent revolution concept - and that the original goal quickly turns into the opposite.
The key to progress lies in free exchange and free-flowing shift of ideas. With the advent of the internet, comes an increasingly globalized competition of ideas, memes, concepts. Survival of the fittest memes. Different societies, countries, groups, cultures will still develop their own approaches and solutions, best fit for them in particular... but a common ground of human values is slowly crystalizing in an unprecedented way.
Even more clearly apparent than in past centuries, the very first battleground is the mind!
But I wonder... would it be *immoral* to take up arms against Chase Manhattan?
The jacobin is fucking statist tankies.... trueeeee
This kid is just trying to “sound” intellectually “pretty.” Chomsky asserts multiple times,”there is no relation there whatsoever” on multiple cues by the “interviewer.”
Noam is a modern Socrates, look how he interpellates the interviewer
The more violent A revolution is the less efficient it is and the less it accomplishes it is almost mathematically proportional if you have 10 things you want to accomplish in a revolution and you resort to 5 points of violence escalation you will not achieve all 10 of those goals.
Lol shut up pussy
did chomsky just argue abductio ad hitlerum? 😶
nice leftist audio
Chomsky wouldn't answer a simple question, so this went no where. 😂
If you can openly and publicly talk about wether you are going to be violent when you overthrow the “oppressive government” then you aren’t living under an oppressive government.
Look into Panopticon
Chomskyism - The Nazis would have won the war.
The forced collectivization, coupled with education programs, and hyper industrialization, even at the point of a gun, pushed the Soviet Union into a meaningful position of power during the second world war, as compared to where it was in the first world war; Russia was definitely a backward underdeveloped country before the revolution; that's undisputable; the majority of the population couldn't even read. Chomsky would, rightly, have been, at that time, called a counterrevolutionary idealist; the USSR didn't come into being in a vacuum and it didn't have the time to diddle about with "How we wish it could have been" you don't even need to like the Soviet Union to come to the conclusion that what Chomsky is talking about is just a form of moralistic special pleading.
Violent revolution created that mess, though. The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were doing just fine participating in the Provisional Government and actually advancing themselves with the genuine will of the people. The Bolsheviks launched a coup in November and kicked off the Russian Civil War, destroying everything the February Revolution had brought about. Had there been no Red October, Julius Martov's model would've been the primary export of communism, giving that system a FAR better reputation while also likely drumming up much greater support for Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany. Germany could've genuinely become Spartakist, meaning no Freikorps and no Nazis.
@@KingdomHeartsBrawler That's an unfalsifiable alternative history, it's like arguing that if Robespierre didn't exist then the French Revolution wouldn't have resulted in the rise of Napoleon and Bourgeoise Revolutions would have sprung up faster, neither I nor you know that. And, even granting your premise that perhaps certain things would have been better in Russia after the February Revolution, if it continued, there is no reason why that would have prevented the Freikorps or the Nazis; the Social Democrats empowered the Freikorps, and the Capitalist Industrialists empowered the Nazis, unless you are making the argument that the provisional government would somehow invade Germany to prevent something like that, which I don't presume you are. You seem to be making a reputational argument, that Socialism wouldn't be looked on so badly if the USSR didn't exist, which I think is just wrong; most Revolutions are outright villainized and slandered if they are in the minority power group worldwide, with multiple attempts at undoing them often done by the majority power elite, Great Britain attempting to quash the American Revolution, then attacking again in the War of 1812, and even considering fighting alongside the Confederacy during the Civil War, or the multiple countries that attacked France during the French Revolution, or the attempts at putting down or undoing the Haitian Revolution, all of which were Liberal Revolutions that were slandered by the dominant monarchies of the feudal world order, it wasn't until the victory of Liberal Democracy over Divine Monarchy that such slander was rectified. The Socialist Revolutions have yet to undergo such a process.
@@noheroespublishing1907 Good reputation brought forth by a genuinely democratic Russia would've definitely helped boost the Spartakists and likely allow them a successful electoral bid, Freikorps or no. Also, it's very true that Robespierre led to the rise of Napoleon. The French Revolution began very similarly to the American one and consisted mostly of moderates. The Jacobins hijacked it and enacted the Terror once they took power, which destabilized France and led to Napoleon coming in as a strongman. The same happened in Russia as a result of the Bolsheviks seizing power, in which the Bolsheviks disrupted an established democracy and kicked off the Russian Civil War. The USSR ruined Leftism for nearly a century and set back good socialist causes considerably. The worst part is that the USSR wasn't even socialist, but state capitalist, which is more akin to the economic models established by Mussolini and Hitler later down the line. The Bolsheviks represented a Right-wing deviation from actual Marxist thought, and many mainstream Marxists rightly criticized it as such. Under Bolshevism, the soviets were stripped of their individual authority and became subservient to the singular State. The workers no longer had control over the places of work and instead had to answer to Party bosses and other centralized bureaucrats, which is anathema to democracy. Kronstadt was the final straw, in which sailors and workers protesting for better pay and conditions were ruthlessly massacred by the State.
@@KingdomHeartsBrawler The Bolsheviks intentionally modled their Revolution on the French Revolution and Lenin was an admirer of the Jacobins for the exact reason that it was most likely that if a successful Revolution was to take place they would likely face a similar international opposition, which they did, both the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution were under different material conditions, being an ocean away from their nearest peer, and not even anywhere near as developed, but distance was their advantage, because distance was an expense to their opponents; it is in no way a surprise that both the French Revolution and the English Revolution/Civil War were overturned, their enemies were their neighbors and spies and saboteurs, not to mention full blown armies, or funding for internal counterrevolutionaries was much simpler. The USSR never reached a fully developed Socialism, and the external pressures it faced only increased the problems of paranoia and overcorrecting. When a Revolution happens in relative isolation it can develop more smoothly, but if it happens surrounded by opposition it tends to deform in ideals, this doesn't make change impossible, and I have little doubt that if the Soviet Union had continued it would have evolved socially and politically as well; the big example of this is Cuba, the Cuba of today is not identical to the Cuba of the early Revolutionary period, Cuba was also lucky, because it wasn't invaded by a full military force, because the USSR had it's back. That's the thing, the Soviet Union wasn't perfect, nothing is, but it's existence helped empower a multitude of national liberation struggles around the world, breaking colonialism in plenty of countries and weakening it in others, even the developed countries vicariously benefitted from the existence of the Soviet Union because their governments felt pressured to provide Social Democratic reforms to compete with the Soviets government policies of rights to housing, work, ect ect; even these weren't perfect, but they sure as shit scared the Capitalist countries into creating semi-similar programs, and now that the USSR is gone, little by little, each and every one of these Social Democratic reforms is being weakened and stripped away, to the point where Republican politicians in the US are openly musing about finally ending Social Security once and for all, just like they did abortion, which the Soviet Union legalized in their country before the United States. Michael Parenti is right when he said that the main criticism of any revolution is that it wasn't perfect, and that's not a good criticism.
@@noheroespublishing1907 I'm not criticizing the October Revolution because it wasn't perfect. I'm criticizing it because it was an opportunistic coup that overthrew an already established democracy. I'm criticizing Bolshevism because it was an authoritarian system that actively trampled on people and curtailed the power of the workers in favor of a tyrannical bureaucracy that was run like a Mafia. The revolution already happened and the Tsar was deposed. There was an election and the Bolsheviks lost. They threw a hissy fit and overturned the will of the people in favor of their own ego and ambition. Then they outlawed and crushed anyone they deemed to be a threat. In no way is that democratic or egalitarian. In fact, it's the exact opposite. As someone who believes in democracy on principle, I find that turn of events indefensible and morally repugnant. I do genuinely think that the Bolsheviks initially had good intent but they went mad over time. Launching a coup and derailing a peaceful democracy was the first major warning sign. Kronstadt was the point of no return.