The view that there will not be a revolution in our lifetimes is the most harmful commonly held belief among the western left. If we divide the revolutionary conditions into the subjective and the objective, it is not the objective ones that are lacking. We have a climate crisis with no solution under capitalism, increasing political illegitimacy, and the decay of the global monopoly of power. What we are missing is the subjective part, the party that offers an alternative. If we believe there will not be a revolution, this party will never have the vitality to direct the masses, and will instead waste all the revolutionary potential, betraying the masses.

With climate change the way it is there is a 100% certainty of revolutionary conditions. Some countries will go fascist, some will be won by the left.

You need to look at the weather happening in the phillipines right now to understand this. 45 celsius.

Parts of the world are to become uninhabitable. This is a fact. Hundreds of millions of people are to be displaced.

The fascism that will descend to try to prevent this will not succeed. The scale of it is too much. They will not be able to control it. They will try but they will fail.

Revolutions under those conditions are inevitable. Shit is going to get really really crazy. What we are going to see is entirely without precedent.

Revolution will occur not because of popular support for socialism but out of societal collapse amid turmoil and unrest.

Before the massive BLM protests, riots, and rebellions, I thought it was impossible. That occurred during the worst period of the pandemic and I think people are in a pretty different mental context now and basically forgot about it. Not a lot came from it but it shows people do have a capacity to get mad and fight for things.

Common opinion has been shown from history to change quite rapidly once shit goes down for real. We are already looking at one imperialist war on European grounds that every western state is ghoulishly continuing, and a full blown genocide in the Middle East. WW3 is looming just around the corner, and nothing is more radicalising than being sent to the meat grinder for some capitalist’s pockets. Not only that, but it also unites the people more that ever and gives them arms that they can turn against the capitalists if it comes to it.

Things aren’t looking hopeful, but they sure weren’t looking hopeful either before the October Revolution succeeded in a place that was not even fully past feudalism yet. Imperialism is even worse now and more necessary to end than in the previous century, and we now have way more theory and historical experience from existing socialism that future attempts will likely be much more successful.

It will probably be a hard and bloody period of wars and fascism until then, but I believe that we will see huge revolutions in our lifetime if we survive until then.

I think more people have to be hungry, literally, underfed, fearful of where they are going to get food and of where they are going to live. It’s so easy to ignore endless atrocities if your family is okay, you have food and you can easily turn away from the violence. Many people in the US have never experienced anything like what has driven most revolutionaries historically.

I think with the right vanguard things could happen though, most people know things are fucked regardless of politics. I have seen a lot of comments on reddit and elsewhere like ‘I would fight in a revolution, I’m not gonna start it though’.

100% of chuds, 98% of liberals the entire media apparatuses and every single member of government would unite to stop anything even remotely resembling that

The only way anything gets better in this country is if we hit rock bottom of total societal collapse and build something from the ashes.

I don’t have a lot of hope for the West, but I can at least focus my efforts on weakening its violent grip on the rest of the world so that other revolutions can succeed.

I swing from a soft “no” to “no fucking way.” There’s a reason we’re so propagandized: it works. Most “revolutionaries” think we need more liberal flavored capitalism, not less. We’re atomized and designed to hate each other. The idea of people coming together just fucking baffles me. I don’t see how. Look how easy BLM was dismissed, condemned then co-opted and turned around. Same with defunding the police. Same with anything.

Yeah. Not gonna happen. Not to be grim. I just don’t see how.

I once wrote a very silly thing that I called something like “global revolution in one year”, where, as the title would suggest, in the span of a mere 365 days the entire capitalist system collapsed across the entire world. Trying to imagine how something could go from its present state to a completely opposite state in the span of a year or a decade can be a great way to develop a feeling of optimism and control, as well as spontaneous creativity, that makes someone a good revolutionary.

Obviously I don’t actually believe that we will witness the complete collapse of capitalism across the entire globe and the establishment of die sozialistische Weltrepublik in the span of only 365 days. It’s probably going to happen piece by piece over the course of, as you say, 20 years.

Incidentally, the last bourgeois republic to fall was Australia, more specifically the Whadjuk territory in and around Perth.

There are some particular things that I want to highlight:

• Revolution happens when people are materially poor enough to desire change but materially rich enough to be able to effect it. For countries in the imperial periphery, they need the wealth and stability for successful revolutions; for countries in the imperial core, all that is needed is a little desperation, frankly probably less desperation than most people think. In the Western revolutionaries of today we see the contradictions that will create the Western revolutionaries of the future — the number will only increase.
• Revolution outside the West and the generally growing geopolitical influence of Latin America, Africa, and the countries of Asia, creates the conditions for revolution within the West: when the West cannot rely on cheap raw materials from the “poor countries”, it must rely on its own resources; when the West cannot rely on these countries’ cheap manufacturing, either, it must rely on its own manufacturing. This will heighten class conflict while also building a stronger and more socially connected proletariat. Note that even just revolution in a few countries can be enough to critically disrupt imperialism’s supply chains — this is why the story focuses so much on revolutionary movements in countries near maritime chokepoints.
• There are growing divisions within the ruling class. It always happens that when the ruling class has its attention divided by infighting, that it is easier to fight against it, as well as that the common people are more motivated to fight against it, as it is the common people who must bear the brunt of capitalists’ infighting. If people would already risk their lives in a pointless war for their masters, one can imagine that to risk one’s life in a meaningful war for themselves would suddenly feel much more appealing. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang took up arms because the alternative was execution, after all.
• Capitalism cannot survive pandemics and climate change. In the course of the past year Eastern Norway was rammed both by the extreme weather “Hans” as well as by the infamous snow chaos of January 17th and the ensuing power outages. It is in these types of natural disasters that people get a glimpse of life outside of capitalism, where the institutions of state fail to provide for them and people have to rely on the kindness of family, friends, and even strangers. Where people develop new skills and gain new knowledge as they overcome unexpected obstacles, and where people simply don’t get to work and supply chains break down.
• Keep your eyes on Scotland and other independence movements within Western Europe and the Anglosphere. For that matter keep your eyes on all ethnic minorities in Western countries, and to the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries right next to the imperial core — we can certainly imagine Western Europe growing more economically reliant on Russia as American influence dwindles.
• Those we might label as “white” do not play a passive role. Even when the “treat machine” is still functional, some number will participate in strikes and protests as well as in sabotage and funding et cetera which aid the revolutionary cause. The natural response among white Americans is to emigrate when the going gets tough and the opportunity arises; in the story, those whites who had to (or chose to) stay on Turtle Island established “dissileagues”, which would eventually negotiate effective mergers with various Indigenous governments to create “leagues of commons” as one component of dual power.

I also recently wrote a different silly thing where in the span of a year or two, the region where I live (I’m talking an area with ca. 20,000 people, 200 km²) would experience a socialist insurgency, the building of dual power, and would eventually declare independence outright. Once again, I obviously don’t believe that this will actually happen, but the premise of that story is basically that one fairly minor grievance can quickly escalate into many very major grievances, if neither side wishes to give in, and it ultimately took only a handful of people making a few easy and rational decisions to cause that to happen.

And it definitely felt different to imagine “Western revolution” not as this grand abstract thing, but imagining how it might play out in these hyper-specific locations that I’m very intimately familiar with, places that I’ve seen hundreds or thousands of times, and tracing how average people’s grievances and interests and how far they’ll go to address them shift bit by bit through experience.

Edit: Why do I always confuse the words “insurrection” and “insurgency”? I need to get better sleep.

It’s possible. Nobody thought the home of the revolution would be built in the Russian empire after all.

In the west, collapse conditions are far more likely than revolution, but who knows

In the rest of the world however I see nothing but revolutions coming

Honestly the general trajectory of the west seems to be flowing along the path of least resistance, and that path apparently leads to a de facto military takeover of most western countries, in 15 years I wouldn’t be surprised if soldiers with rifles are manning checkpoints on every major road, the future of the west seems to be the former green zone in occupied Baghdad, which thinking about it has a kind of historical symmetry to it

Honestly, my biggest concern is the right wing brainwashed masses waking up like sleeper agents in the event of any form of unrest, let alone uprising.

Not talking about Kyle Rittenhouse types exclusively either. I’m talking about the American landlord who saw on Fox that Palestinians aren’t people so a switch flipped in his head and he went on to murder the a kid who he used to play with. A kid who was running up to him for a hug.

Until the lead poisoned largely pass from this earth, their brain worms are going to be an obstacle.

I guess we could just start a protracted people’s war until they all die from complications of taking horse de-wormer to cure COVID. Sounds like a cool hang.

If the West totally collapses on itself, then there’s a chance.

But it’s then more likely for the Right to successfully consolidate power. There might be space for someone like China to influence the post-West to the Left, though, but it’d be a difficult and extremely slow process given all the racism—not to mention fascist elements and history.