by Bodhistava
Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2003 at 11:15 AM
Revolution as a spiritual exercise:
The Soviet Union failed to bring about the Leftist dream.
As did the People’s Repubic of China, Viet Nam, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua.
In fact, after promising to bring about a world wide workers revolution, each of these revolutions devolved into horrifying blood baths. As did the various leftist regimes throughout Africa. (Zimabwe’s nightmare is just beginning, it seems.)
The New Left of the 1960's failed to deliver on its revolutionary promise.
We can, of course, spin theories about how the CIA and Walmart are responsible for these failures.
But we can’t argue that any of these efforts was a success.
And, in fact, there is good reason to believe that no socialist revolution can succeed. Without authority, equal distribution of wealth can’t take place. Without limitations placed on authority, totalitarianism will raise its head. This paradox leads all socialist systems to either fail due to lack of authority (as in the various utopian experiments, communes, etc.), or become dictatorships (as in the USSR, Cuba, etc.)
The Left, however, is undeterred by this.
Like political dadaists, we engage in revolution for revolution’s sake. The struggle is what counts, not the result. We go through the motions of rebelling because it satisfies an emotional need we have, not because we have realistic hope of changing the world. The continuation of anti-war protests even after the war in Iraq was won is evidence of this.