That was the most intelligent thing I ve read in a few weeks ,it actually has some weight to it --so why aren't we reacting ?
I advocate taking action such as this:
----------------------------------------
We have just gone through a period of "political renewal" opened under the blare of trumpets. The coming days will reap the fruit of stirred popular hopes and unfulfilled government’s pledges. Political interest has lately taken more definite shape; dissatisfaction has grown deeper and is founded on a more outspoken basis. Popular thinking, yesterday utterly primitive, now takes to the work of political analysis.
The pent up feelings are seeking an outlet. Thought strives to turn into action. The mainstream media, however, while feeding popular unrest, tends to divert its current into a small channel; it spreads superstitious reverence for "public opinion,” helpless, unorganized "public opinion,” which does not discharge itself into action. It upholds the illusion of legality; it centers all the attention and all the hopes of the embittered groups around the current campaign, thus systematically preparing a great debacle for the popular movement. Acute dissatisfaction, finding no outlet, discouraged by the inevitable failure of the campaign which has no traditions of revolutionary struggle in the past and no clear prospects in the future, must necessarily manifest itself in an outbreak of desperate terrorism, leaving radical intellectuals in the role of helpless, passive, though sympathetic onlookers, leaving liberals to choke in a fit of platonic enthusiasm while lending doubtful assistance.
This ought not to take place. We ought to take hold of the current of popular excitement; we ought to turn the attention of numerous dissatisfied social groups to one colossal undertaking headed by the people - a National Revolution.
We ought to do all in our power to draw the attention and gain the sympathy of the poor. A political strike, as a single combat of the middle class with the police and the army, the remaining population being hostile or even indifferent, is doomed to failure. The indifference of the population would tell primarily on the morale of the people itself, and then on the attitude of the soldiers. Under such conditions, the stand of the administration must necessarily be more determined.
A political strike of the people ought to turn into a political demonstration of the population, this is the first prerequisite of success.
During this war the most advanced elements of the masses, the intellectuals, have not stepped openly to the front with that degree of determination which was required by the critical historic moment.
The war has fallen upon our public life with all its colossal weight. The dreadful monster, breathing blood and fire, loomed up on the political horizon, shutting out everything, sinking its steel clutches into the body of the people, inflicting wound upon wound, causing mortal pain, which for a moment makes it even impossible to ask for the causes of the pain. The war, as every great disaster, accompanied by crisis, unemployment, mobilization, hunger and death, stunned the people, caused despair, but not protest. This is, however, only a beginning. Raw masses of the people, silent social strata, which yesterday had no connection with the revolutionary elements, were knocked by sheer mechanical power of facts to face the central event of the present day- the war. They were horrified, they could not catch their breath. The revolutionary elements, who prior to the war had been ignored by the passive masses, were affected by the atmosphere of despair and concentrated horror. The voice of determined protest could hardly be raised in the midst of elemental suffering. The revolutionary leaders were powerless to oppose the "call of the primitive.”
The years of war, however, have passed not without results. Masses, yesterday primitive, today are confronted with the most tremendous events. They must seek to understand them. The very duration of the war has produced a desire for reasoning, for questioning as to the meaning of it all. Thus the war, while hampering for a period of time the revolutionary initiative of thousands, has awakened to life the political thought of millions.
The atmosphere that our streets are breathing now is no longer an atmosphere of blank despair, it is an atmosphere of concentrated indignation which seeks for means and ways for revolutionary action. Each expedient action of the vanguard of our working masses would now carry away with it not only all our revolutionary reserves, but also thousands and hundreds of thousands of revolutionary recruits. This mobilization, unlike the mobilization of the government, would be carried out in the presence of general sympathy and active assistance of an overwhelming majority of the population.
In the presence of strong sympathies of the masses, in the presence of active assistance on the part of the democratic elements of the people; facing a government commonly hated, unsuccessful both in big and in small undertakings, a government vainly struggling, currying favor, provoking and retreating, lying and suffering exposure, insolent and frightened, such will be the conditions under which the revolutionary public will walk out into the streets. It seems to us that no better conditions could have been created by history. History has done everything it was allowed by elemental wisdom. The people of the country have to do the rest.
A tremendous amount of revolutionary energy has been accumulated. It should not vanish with no avail, it should not be dissipated in scattered engagements and clashes, with no coherence and no definite plan. All efforts ought to be made to concentrate the bitterness, the protest, the anger of the masses, to give those emotions a common language, a common goal, to unite, to solidify all the particles of the masses, to make them feel and understand that they are not isolated, that simultaneously, with the same slogan on the banner, with the same goal in mind, innumerable particles are rising everywhere. If this understanding is achieved, half of the revolution is done.
We have got to summon all revolutionary forces to simultaneous action. How can we do it?
First of all we ought to remember that the main scene of revolutionary events is bound to be the city. Nobody is likely to deny this. It is evident, further, that street demonstrations can turn into a popular revolution only when they are a manifestation of masses, i.e., when they embrace, in the first place, the people themselves. To make the workers quit at their machines and stands; to make them walk out of the factories and into the street; to lead them to the neighboring plants; to proclaim there a cessation of work; to make new masses walk out into the street; to go thus from factory to factory, from plant to plant, incessantly growing in numbers, sweeping police barriers, absorbing new masses that happened to come across, crowding the streets, taking possession of buildings suitable for popular meetings, fortifying those buildings, holding continuous revolutionary meetings with audiences coming and going, bringing order into the movements of the masses, arousing their spirit, explaining to them the aim and the meaning of what is going on; to turn, finally, the entire city into one revolutionary camp, this is, broadly speaking, the plan of action.
The starting point ought to be the factories and offices of the common people. That means that street manifestations of a serious character, fraught with decisive events, ought to begin with political strikes of the masses.
It is easier to fix a date for a strike, than for a demonstration of the people, just as it is easier to move masses ready for action than to organize new masses.
A political strike, however, not a local, but a general political strike all over the country, ought to have a general political slogan. This slogan is: To stop the war, and to call a National Constituent Assembly.
This demand ought to become nation-wide, and herein lies the task for our campaign preceding the general strike. We ought to use all possible occasions to make the idea of a National Constituent Assembly popular among the people. Without losing one moment, we ought to put into operation all the technical means and all the powers of communication at our disposal. Proclamations and speeches, educational circles and mass-meetings ought to carry broadcast, to propound and to explain the demands of a Constituent Assembly. There ought to be not one man in a city who should not know that his demand is: a new National Constituency.
The people ought to be called to assemble on the day of the political strike and to pass resolutions demanding the call of a new Constituent Assembly. People living in suburbs ought to be called into the cities to participate in the street movements of the masses gathered under the banner of the new Assembly. All societies and organizations, professional and learned bodies, organs of self-government and organs of the opposition press ought to be notified in advance that we are preparing for a nation-wide political strike, fixed for a certain date, to bring about the calling of a new Constituent Assembly. Workers ought to demand from all societies and corporations that, on the day appointed for the mass-manifestation, they should join in these demands. The organizers ought to demand from the press that it should popularize their slogan and that on the eve of the demonstration it should print an appeal to the population to join the manifestation under the banner of a new Constituency.
L. Trotsky 1904
