And we know from previous patients that early stage always gives way to late stages eventually, sometimes in a matter of months or years like in the case of the Russian revolution, sometimes decades and even centuries as is the case with the American one.
No way, the Provisional Government wasn’t overthrown because it stuck to negative-rights-based policies and didn’t offer anything more—it was overthrown because it was too high-handed/spineless in Petrograd politics, carried on with a massively loathed war which stirred up the unrest in the first place, flirted with both the socialists and the right while not aligning itself with either… And the Russian Empire already had a bit of local self-government + public welfare and wealth and land redistribution going. Those welfare programs—preceded by things like Zubatov’s trade union experiment, - were launched precisely because the government wanted to quell revolutionary sentiment in the wake of 1905!
Up voted. I will take your word and consider myself corrected for now, since the Russian Revolution is on my list of things to study in the future.
The quick and dirty assessment I used was “a regime that is formally a liberal parliamentary democracy becomes communism” when picking the example. I didn’t however mean to imply it was just a guardian of negative rights, just that social democratic and socialist ideologies are strong attractors in democracies because they work like power pumps. This is why I called democracy early stage socialism. I’m farm from being alone in this view, many socialists basically think true democracy is socialism. The whole social democratic ideology was founded on this idea of step by step reforms towards socialism via democracy and that democracy will inevitably lead to it, so no need for violent revolution.
No way, the Provisional Government wasn’t overthrown because it stuck to negative-rights-based policies and didn’t offer anything more—it was overthrown because it was too high-handed/spineless in Petrograd politics, carried on with a massively loathed war which stirred up the unrest in the first place, flirted with both the socialists and the right while not aligning itself with either… And the Russian Empire already had a bit of local self-government + public welfare and wealth and land redistribution going. Those welfare programs—preceded by things like Zubatov’s trade union experiment, - were launched precisely because the government wanted to quell revolutionary sentiment in the wake of 1905!
Up voted. I will take your word and consider myself corrected for now, since the Russian Revolution is on my list of things to study in the future.
The quick and dirty assessment I used was “a regime that is formally a liberal parliamentary democracy becomes communism” when picking the example. I didn’t however mean to imply it was just a guardian of negative rights, just that social democratic and socialist ideologies are strong attractors in democracies because they work like power pumps. This is why I called democracy early stage socialism. I’m farm from being alone in this view, many socialists basically think true democracy is socialism. The whole social democratic ideology was founded on this idea of step by step reforms towards socialism via democracy and that democracy will inevitably lead to it, so no need for violent revolution.