Coming soon!
Special Issue on the Real—Liberating—Experience of Previous Socialist Revolutions
November 4, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The next issue of Revolution, #323,will be a special issue on the experience of previous socialist revolutions and socialist societies.
The first wave of socialist societies—beginning with the short-lived Paris Commune in 1871, and then in the Soviet Union from 1917 to the mid-1950s, and in China from 1949 to 1976—were forged out of monumental revolutions. They were the rising up of the wretched of the earth, of the oppressed and the exploited. These were revolutions involving hundreds of millions in determined struggle to overthrow the old order and to build a new world.
The socialist states that were the products of these revolutions were the first attempts in modern history to create societies free from exploitation and oppression. These societies were about changing all of society. And they accomplished amazing things. Everyone who engages with this special issue will get a living feel for what that meant—for the liberation of women, for ending the oppression of minorities and historically persecuted and oppressed peoples. And they will be exposed to a picture of a whole new world in birth.
Today, people are told, and believe, that the "best" one can hope to do is bring about change on a very micro and personal level—maybe we can improve the situation here, in this community, in this neighborhood, in this profession. Maybe my group of people, or my identity group of people, can change some things. People talk about elections, but elections are not changing the fundamental character of anything in this society. Witness the continuation of the drones and wars for empire around the world. Look at what's happening to the environment: destruction. Look at the treatment of women—the degradation, the subordination, the horrors visited upon women—worldwide, every day.
These first socialist revolutions involved societal change. They were aiming to dig up all forms of exploitation and oppression. They were total revolutions—not just to change the economy, but to change morality, to change culture, to change values. And these revolutions made leaps in all of these dimensions.
With these socialist societies, a path was being carved out and charted toward a whole different world. The experience of these revolutions really changed everything. The world does not have to be the way it is. These were the most liberating episodes, the most emancipating experience in human history thus far. That is the truth that has been hidden and suppressed from people. These revolutions carved out and charted out a path to a whole different world.
The special issue will feature an extensive interview with Raymond Lotta—a leading expert on the experiences of the Soviet Union and China when they were socialist societies. And he is an advocate for Bob Avakian's new synthesis of communism. Bob Avakian has deeply studied the experience of revolution—the shortcomings as well as the great achievements, and has brought the science and method of revolution to a whole new level.
Through that interview, through photos and other print and online features, the special issue will bring to life the reality of these societies—transformations that marked the beginning of the end of the long dark night of exploitation and oppression.
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