Abstract
Any attempt to theorize socialist revolution must start at the point where conditions of exploitation are converted into the practice of class struggle. Socialist revolutions in the twentieth century have unfolded as complex processes decisively dependent on the emergence and growth of a revolutionary political organization. The central political organization (party or movement) passes through several crucial interrelated phases, each of which provides a unique contribution to the ultimate success of the whole enterprise. The sequence leading to the revolutionary transformation begins with the formative period, involving the organization and ideology of the party. This is followed by class and political struggles, in which forces are accumulated, roots are put down among the masses, a mass membership is won, and, finally, power is seized. Subsequently, the socialist revolutionary process includes the establishment of a government, reorganization of the state, and efforts to transform social relations.
This chapter is a reprint of the author’s earlier essay, which appeared in Berch Berberoglu, The State and Revolution in the Twentieth Century published by Rowman and Littlefield. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
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Notes
- 1.
Mark Selden, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, Mass., 1974); Chalmers Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (Stanford, 1962). See also Benjamin Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), and Edgar Snow, Red Star over China (New York, 1941).
- 2.
In a complementary study, the author investigates the highly disruptive effects of imperialism and war on a global scale. See James Petras, “Toward a Theory of Twentieth Century Socialist Revolutions,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, no. 3, 1978. But see also Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War (New York, 1968); Gabriel and Joyce Kolko, The Limits of Power (New York, 1976); Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform (London, 1976); Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1975), especially chaps 2 and 11; and Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969).
- 3.
See, for example, Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York, 1969); Norman Miller and Roderick Aya, National Liberation Revolution in the Third World (New York, 1971); Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York, 1963).
- 4.
For social forces in the Chinese revolutionary process, see, in particular, Jean Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement 1919–1927 (Stanford, 1968); Harold Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (New York, 1966); Lucien Bianco, The Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915–1949 (Stanford, 1971); Jean Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 1840–1947 (London, 1973); Nym Wales, The Chinese Labor Movement (New York, 1945); and Jack Belden, China Shakes the World (London, 1975). The underlying element of political continuity from the 1920s to the 1940s and beyond is discussed in Isaac Deutscher, “Maoism: Its Origins and Outlook,” in Robin Blackburn (ed.), Revolution and Class Struggle (London, 1977).
- 5.
For social forces in twentieth-century Cuba, see, in particular, Pensamiento Critico, no. 39, April 1970 (Havana), special issue on the struggles of the 1920s and 1930s; Lowry Nelson, Rural Cuba (Minneapolis, 1950); Luis Aguilar, Cuba 1933: Prologue to Revolution (Ithaca, 1972); Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution (New York, 1961); Che Guevara, Episodes of the Revolutionary War (Havana, 1966), Maurice Zeitlin, Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class (Princeton, 1967); James Petras (ed), Fidel Castro Speaks (London, 1973); and Vania Bambirra, La Revoluci6n Cubana (Mexico, 1974).
- 6.
The popular basis of the Russian Revolution, and the exceptional vitality and initiative displayed by the working class during the period of the conquest of power, is well conveyed in Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power (New York, 1976). But see also Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, 3 vols. (London, 1967); E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution (London, 1966), vols. 1 and 2; Isaac Deutscher, Stalin (London, 1949); James Bunyan and H. H. Fisher, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1918 (Stanford, 1974); Marcel Liebman, Leninism under Lenin (London, 1975); and Moshe Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power (London, 1966).
- 7.
While a great deal of attention has been paid recently by Marxists to the relative autonomy of the state, and correlatively to the extent of its institutionalization, there has been less discussion of the relative autonomy of political organizations. But see Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London, 1971); Lucio Magri, “Problems of the Marxist Theory of the Revolutionary Party,” New Left Review 60, March-April 1970; Ernest Mandel, “The Leninist Theory of Organization,” in Blackburn (ed.), Revolution and Class Struggle; Louis Althusser, “What Must Change in the Party,” New Left Review 109, May–June 1978.
- 8.
On postrevolutionary developments in the Soviet Union and China, with special reference to the relationship between bureaucracy and the working class, see E. H. Carr, Socialism in One Country, vols. 1 and 2 (London, 1958 and 1959); Deutscher, Stalin, and The Prophet Unarmed (London, 1959), Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle (London, 1969); Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge (New York, 1973); Lucio Colletti, “The Question of Stalin,” in Blackburn (ed.), Revolution and Class Struggle; and Livio Maitan, Party, Army, Masses in China (London, 1976).
- 9.
For social forces in the Vietnamese revolutionary struggles, see, in particular, Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings (Hanoi, 1977); Phang Thang Son, “Le movement ouvrier vietnamien de 1920 a 1930,” in Chesneaux, Boudarel, and Hemery (eds.), Tradition el Revolution au Vietnam (Paris, 1971); John T. McAlister, Vietnam: The Origins of Revolution (New York, 1965); Joseph Buttinger, A Dragon Defiant (New York, 1972); anon., Brief History of the Vietnam Workers’ Party 1930–1975 (Hanoi, 1976); Pierre Rousset, Le Parti Communiste Vietnamien (Paris, 1975); William Duiker, The Rise of Nationalism 1900–1941 (Ithaca, 1976); Van Tien Dung, Our Great Spring Victory (New York, 1977); Ti-ziano Terzani, Giai Phong: The Fall and Liberation of Saigon (New York, 1976); Daniel Hemery, Revolutionnaires Vietnamiens el Pouvoir Colonial en Indochine (Paris, 1975); I. Milton Sacks, “Communism and Nationalism in Vietnam,” (Ph.D. diss., Yale); Ta Thu Yhau, “Indochina: The Construction of the Revolutionary Party,” Fourth International, November/December 1938; and Hoang Quoc Viet, Short History of the Vietnamese Workers’ and Trade Union Movement (Hanoi, 1960).
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Petras, J.F. (2019). Twentieth-Century Socialist Revolutions and Their Class Components: Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. In: Berberoglu, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Social Movements, Revolution, and Social Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92354-3_5
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