{"id":1102,"date":"2019-03-11T22:51:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T22:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1102"},"modified":"2019-10-21T15:17:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T14:17:17","slug":"past-revolutions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/past-revolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Past revolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">June 2002, U.K.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>In considering the question of how realistic it is to expect a socialist\nrevolution, it is important to consider the hidden history of events that most people are unaware of. \nIt was in the Paris Commune of 1871 that French workers actually created \norganisations of mass control which challenged the old system for a brief space \nof time. In the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, workers and peasants \ndeveloped similar structures of direct workers&#8217; control such as the workers \ncouncils and factory committees. The Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 \neventually destroyed this, and ushered in a system of state capitalism. \nSimilarly, in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the workers set up workers&#8217; \ncouncils when they took on their so-called \u201ccommunist\u201d oppressors. During the \nMay of 1968 in France, workplaces and universities were taken over and in many \ncases run in a way that is of immense inspiration to socialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happened on these occasions? Not socialist revolutions, as some claim. \nBut they were significant in the history of the struggles of our class. They are \nsignificant because the sort of people who dismiss the possibility of \nrevolutionary upheavals were dismissing it seconds before these events blew up \nin their faces. No one is in any position to dismiss the prospect of revolution \nwho has not carefully examined these movements. In none of these cases was a \nsocialist revolution achieved, but in each case there was a fundamental \ninterruption of the ruling order and the appearance of new forms and conceptions \nof everyday life. To ignore them because of their failure is to miss the point. \nIndividual revolts are bound to fail until they are accompanied by a widespread \nand growing \u2013 and ultimately worldwide \u2013 socialist consciousness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we hope these brief examples show is that real change can be brought  about by workers. Socialism is not a utopian dream. It is an ever-present  undercurrent in working class practice. The task is to make it the main one.  That these revolts did not go farther is hardly surprising. What is inspiring is  that they went as far as they did.  To read our reactions to some of these  events, see <a href=\"wsm\/how-close-was-france-to-a-socialist-revolution\/\">How close was France to a socialist revolution?<\/a>, <a href=\"wsm\/russian-socialism\/\">Russia was never socialist &#8211; and why&#8230;.. what we said over the years<\/a>, <a href=\"wsm\/russian-socialism\/\">Russian Socialism?????.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>June 2002, U.K. In considering the question of how realistic it is to expect a socialist revolution, it is important to consider the hidden history of events that most people are unaware of. It was in the Paris Commune of 1871 that French workers actually created organisations of mass control which challenged the old system&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1102","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}