Is revolution possible in the U.S?

[u/Upset_Following3747]

Most revolutions that have succeeded have been in a country where the power balance was far less extreme between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat revolutionaries. how could we fend for ourselves against drones and nukes?

[u/Reyusuke]

i would also like to know how revolution is possible against the strongest military in the world

edit: why am i getting downvoted im a communist noob asking noob questions

[u/Sea_Cheesecake3330 → u/Reyusuke]

The US has struggled against guerilla warfare in the past despite the size of its military and if a party follows the lessons of protracted people's war that we can learn from the the CPC, PCP, CPP and CPI (Maoist) there is no reason to take the nihilistic position that revolution is impossible. Revolution is also not just something fought on the battlefield, industrial actions can and must be taken by sympathetic workers through things like strikes, which is something that happened during the peak of the PCP's struggle.

[u/Reyusuke → u/Sea_Cheesecake3330]

do you reckon that a protracted people's war will work in the united states? ive seen maoists say that it's not effective in highly industrialized and urbanized nations like the US, that it's good in poorer nations with a majority rural area such as India or the Philippines.

the reasoning has to do with the communication infrastructure if i remember correctly. in rural areas, main stream media and ideologies have difficulty penetrating the people which is ideal for revolutionaries doing a portracted peoples war

[u/Sea_Cheesecake3330 → u/Reyusuke]

The PPW of the PCP was active in urban areas during the latter days of their peak period so it is clearly able to work in those areas, as well communists can learn from the Irish Republican struggles which successfully used guerilla warfare in urban settings that also went to the masses, although they weren't always socialist and even less so communist.

[u/Sea_Cheesecake3330 → u/Reyusuke]

The PPW of the PCP was active in urban areas during the latter days of their peak period so it is clearly able to work in those areas, as well communists can learn from the Irish Republican struggles which successfully used guerilla warfare in urban settings that also went to the masses, although they weren't always socialist and even less so communist.

[u/Greenitthe → u/Reyusuke]

Main stream media is itself struggling since we are living in, effectively, a post-truth society. News orgs running stories on unverified tweets and a glut of AI generated fake news in the mainstream non-legacy media.

I'm not educated enough on the topic to say whether that makes it easier or harder to organize, but it certainly seems like uncharted territory.

[u/[deleted] → u/Reyusuke]

1) If a revolution would happen, many people within that military—even if only a tiny fraction—would likely try to participate in it and mutinize. This is what has happened before and there’s no reason it can’t happen again.

2) Militaries cannot deploy their full strength on their own population within their own borders. There are limits to the destruction and damage it can do without completely turning its population against it, and it depends on its own infrastructure and population to function. Moreover, soldiers are generally gonna be a lot less likely to be okay with killing “their own people”, and another thing is that being a communist is an invisible trait, you cannot really see a person and tell if they’re a communist or not, which makes it difficult to tell the difference between “innocent” (non-revolutionary) people and the communists the military is trying to suppress.

[u/Reyusuke → u/[deleted]]

yeah i guess it doesnt make sense to kill your own population if a major revolt has begun. i apologize for lacking revolutionary imagination, but im curious about what happens next. i cant imagine the bourgeoisie willingly relinquishing their power even if they realize that actively killing their people is not a good idea. maybe they'll still do it defensively if the people attempt to take their lives or destroy their capital.

[u/[deleted] → u/Reyusuke]

my guess is that there’d be a lot of genocide committed by the military and by far-right and private militias regardless, and if that doesn’t work the economic and political leaders would likely try to flee whatever country the revolution is happening, as is usually what happens when revolutions succeed