3d ago

Nina going off today

Cross-posted from "Nina going off today" by @seahorse@midwest.social in !antifascism@midwest.social

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You guys first. Show us how it's done.
- Leftists have done many revolutions all around the world. Can’t say the same for liberals.
  
  I see what you're trying to say, but the French and American revolutions were both explicitly liberal.
  
  So, events that didnt actually give us anything good, except the guillotine?
  
  I'm just saying they were successful liberal revolutions.
  
  Successful in what sense?
  
  Displacing the previous government with a different one. What other sense is there?
  
  So, coups are a category of revolution?
  
  If the coup is supported by the masses and actually replaces the government itself, then yes. If it's not supported by the masses, or merely replaces the leadership of the existing government, then no.
  
  Oh. So it needs to be supported by 'the masses'; whatvpercentage?
  
  I'd say 50%+, but I'm sure various political historians would draw the line in various places.
  
  Ibrahim Traoré? Although there may be issues there, too.
  
  You've picked perhaps the worst outcome of the French revolution -- save Napoleon. Burn the guillotine, like the Commune did.
  
  Oh damn, i guess libs didnt give us anything worth having, then.
  
  First of all, I'd like to recommend you this article: https://crimethinc.com/2019/04/08/against-the-logic-of-the-guillotine-why-the-paris-commune-burned-the-guillotine-and-we-should-too
  Second of all: it's hard to imagine the intellectual development that led to socialism and anarchism, without the French revolution. Of course, it's a counterfactual scenario to imagine history without the French revolution -- but still, things happened the way they did.
  Edit: French revolutionaries liberated women and banned slavery -- until the counter revolution.
  
  Anarchism has always existed. It's kind of the default for hunter gatherers. We would probably have different popular flavors.
  That's a very very simplified view of how they resolved slavery and gender issues in the french revolution. They wobbled, slipped forward, slipped back. And with the long communication times to colonies it got weird.
  Im aware of the problems with the guillotine and the entire hot mess the first french revolution, where people with barely any concept of what freedom even is suddenly had the reins of power and fucked up basically everything, because how could they not, even if they did trust each other (they didn't) but the thing they were pushing out was such a shit show the fuckups barely counted and they racked up an impressive string of wins.
  Things did in fact happen the way they did.
  
  Remember who slaughtered many thousands of civilians at the Paris Commune.
  
  I didn't know, so I had to look. That's a bit of a rabbit hole, but it looks like the answer is Patrice de MacMahon, or maybe Adolphe Theirs.
  If you're talking more in abstractly in the sense of political ideology, it's kinda tough to say. The government was less than a year old, fresh out of the imperial monarchy of Napoleon III, recovering from their losses to Prussia.
  MacMahon was Napoleon III's Marshal, it's not a stretch to imagine he may have harbored imperialist sentiments.
  Thiers was certainly more liberal, which only goes to reinforce my point that liberals aren't inherently bad at revolutions. He was in the middle of his own revolution (again) and dissolved the Commune's revolution in a month's time.
  You'd be right to take issue with the Bloody Week for other reasons, but you can't say it supports the idea that liberals can't do revolutions.

253 comments