When is taking to the streets to overthrow a government acceptable?

[pellegrino]

Interesting. Care to offer a few examples? Did the Blosheviks have capital? What about Mao? I would be interested in hearign how you reached this conlcusion. The weathermen were simply misguided idealists.

I don't know how it came to me. I've been watching HBO's John Adams as well, and a primary motive for the American revolution and its backers (think France) was the potential for capitalistic gains.

Mao and Lenin both had financial backers (some even allege Rockefeller helped Lenin in the hopes of gaining access to Russian oil fields). They had to get their guns from someone. We should also view Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as successful revolutions and there were plenty of financial backers who supported them and turned a pretty profit as a result.

[Jacob]

Successful revolutions are led and backed by those who have the capital and the greed motive to win.

You are probably right that a successful revolution will ultimately need to be backed by those with the capital to win. This is probably because capital = power in many cases. But I'm don't think that a successful revolution often begins with the support of those greedy, capital hording, power brokers.

Look at the American Revolution (and please correct my history if I'm wrong). The first rabble-rousers were people like Samuel Adams, instigating the Boston Massacre and the like. His cousin, John Adams was not on board in the beginning. Benjamin Franklin was not on board for a long time. Many of the rich and powerful never got on board. People like Franklin and Adams, who were initially loyalists, truly only jumped aboard on principal, because the English were unwilling to bend.

I recently watched a several-part series on the history of Russia through the Czars. There were many revolutions. Always, the Czar had to get the noble people, the landed gentry on his side because they had power to oppose him and overthrow him.

When the Bolsheviks finally took over, I don't think they had the greedy on their side. But they recognized that they needed them to not be opposed by the powerful and capital hoarders. So they killed them. Slaughtered them. They killed the Romanovs so that there could be nobody to reclaim the power.

There are many coups that seem virtually bloodless, like Saddam's taking over Iraq, but that revolution was maintained by the slaughter of political opponents after the coup.

Was Castro's revolution ever backed by those with the capital? I don't think so. Che saw to it that they, and other political opponents were slaughtered.

I've been rambling because I'm just typing as I think. I've probably failed to make my point which is this: A successful revolution must either gain the backing of the rich and powerful, or it must be won by spilling lots of blood, and in the case of authoritarian rule, usually requires the continued suppression and/or killing of the rich and even the not so rich political opponents.

[pellegrino]

You are probably right that a successful revolution will ultimately need to be backed by those with the capital to win. This is probably because capital = power in many cases. But I'm don't think that a successful revolution often begins with the support of those greedy, capital hording, power brokers.

Look at the American Revolution (and please correct my history if I'm wrong). The first rabble-rousers were people like Samuel Adams, instigating the Boston Massacre and the like. His cousin, John Adams was not on board in the beginning. Benjamin Franklin was not on board for a long time. Many of the rich and powerful never got on board. People like Franklin and Adams, who were initially loyalists, truly only jumped aboard on principal, because the English were unwilling to bend.

I recently watched a several-part series on the history of Russia through the Czars. There were many revolutions. Always, the Czar had to get the noble people, the landed gentry on his side because they had power to oppose him and overthrow him.

When the Bolsheviks finally took over, I don't think they had the greedy on their side. But they recognized that they needed them to not be opposed by the powerful and capital hoarders. So they killed them. Slaughtered them. They killed the Romanovs so that there could be nobody to reclaim the power.

There are many coups that seem virtually bloodless, like Saddam's taking over Iraq, but that revolution was maintained by the slaughter of political opponents after the coup.

Was Castro's revolution ever backed by those with the capital? I don't think so. Che saw to it that they, and other political opponents were slaughtered.

I've been rambling because I'm just typing as I think. I've probably failed to make my point which is this: A successful revolution must either gain the backing of the rich and powerful, or it must be won by spilling lots of blood, and in the case of authoritarian rule, usually requires the continued suppression and/or killing of the rich and even the not so rich political opponents.

So they just killed those with capital and gave it away?

Who backed Castro and why? Communist regimes had economic motives for spreading their politics, just like the US. To strip the economics from the Cold War would be to strip it of its ideology. What is the American way, anyways?

[creekster]

So they just killed those with capital and gave it away?

Who backed Castro and why? Communist regimes had economic motives for spreading their politics, just like the US. To strip the economics from the Cold War would be to strip it of its ideology. What is the American way, anyways?

ALmost everything cvan be cast in terms of economic motives. Is that what you are suggesting, that all movements are, at base, economic movements? or do you simply mean that all movements must have sufficient financial inertia to survive?

[NorthwestUteFan]

Some of my favorite quotes on the subject, and related to this thread:

"They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot.
When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet."

~Lenin

Ironically this is also the "10th rule of ethics of rules and means" according to Alinsky.

"You do what you can with what you have, and clothe it in moral arguments..."

And still another from Alinsky:

"I have on occasion remarked that I felt confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday."


And finally, a somewhat funny one for this forum (Alinsky again):

For example, since the Haves publicly pose as the custodians of responsbility, morality, law, and justice (which are frequently strangers to each others), they can be constantly pushed to live up to their own book of morality and regulations. No organizations, including organized religion, can live up to the letter of its own book. You can club them to death with their "book" of rules and regulations. This is what that great revolutionary, Paul of Tarsus, knew when he wrote to the Corinthians: "Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter killeth."

[pellegrino]

ALmost everything cvan be cast in terms of economic motives. Is that what you are suggesting, that all movements are, at base, economic movements? or do you simply mean that all movements must have sufficient financial inertia to survive?

both, except that all successful movements have a greed, or the desire to preserve their capital as an important motive.

[statman]

The thread above got me thinking about this. When there is no other format or process that can lead to regime change, why wouldn't, why shouldn't people take to the streets?

Worked in Eastern Europe.
Didn't work in China.
Worked in Iran, wish it hadn't.
Worked in France, probably not the best example.

The Declaration of Independence says it pretty well:

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."

[NorthShoreCoug]

Look at the American Revolution (and please correct my history if I'm wrong). The first rabble-rousers were people like Samuel Adams, instigating the Boston Massacre and the like. His cousin, John Adams was not on board in the beginning. Benjamin Franklin was not on board for a long time. Many of the rich and powerful never got on board. People like Franklin and Adams, who were initially loyalists, truly only jumped aboard on principal, because the English were unwilling to bend.

My understanding that "King" John Hancock, one of the richest men in New England at the time, was one of the early "rabble-rousers". I believe he provided Adams the means necessary to support his family while he was trying to rouse the masses.

He had the potential to lose his wealth and his life for treason, yet he apparently had at least some aspirations to become a political leader if the gamble succeeded. Unfortunately - and fortunately - for him, George Washington came along to help the cause.

[wuapinmon]

So they just killed those with capital and gave it away?

Who backed Castro and why? Communist regimes had economic motives for spreading their politics, just like the US. To strip the economics from the Cold War would be to strip it of its ideology. What is the American way, anyways?

Castro was not backed by the Communist, at all, early on. He had a movement called the July 26th Movement, named for his failed putsch of the Moncada Barracks in 1953. The backers were liberals, many of whom were fervently ANTI-COMMUNIST (I can't stress this enough, even Che's second wife, Aleida March, didn't like Communism at first). The group recruited from the ranks of the poor, urban and rural, who were persecuted under Batista. Castro actually disliked the Cuban Communist Party, and eventually marginalized it by going around. His takeover prompted Kruschev to remark that the Soviets were only communicating aid, information, and policy through Castro's July 26th Movement, and not the Communist Party (this was after Batista abdicated).

Castro largely survived by finding willing peasants in the Sierra to feed and hide him. He also had people collecting money for him to buy arms. Many, hell, most, of these people would later betray him in their own grabs for power. Castro is a master manipulator, and he was able to come to power on the strength of his military might and his shrewd people skills.

[wuapinmon]

both, except that all successful movements have a greed, or the desire to preserve their capital as an important motive.

Cuba might be an exception. Che Guevara only cared about dispensing capital to the people who actually created it, and he was the political ideology brains behind the Cuban Revolution.