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Has There Ever Been a Socialist Revolution in a Liberal Country? (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm watching the DNC, and it's made me even more aware of the power of liberal bourgeois democracies to let out a little revolutionary energy whenever it gets close to the edge, through concessional policies, like New Deal policies or whatever Kamala might do if she wins, or even the act of voting and campaigning itself. Do they have to go through a fascism phase first, or has there been a liberal bourgeois democracy that has successfully had a socialist revolution? Will it take new theory to figure it out?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)

Technically Russia was under a short lived liberal provisional government when the Bolshevik revolution happened and not the Tsar's regime. The Spanish Civil war is a strange case where both a fascist insurgency and a socialist revolution broke out from a liberal government at the same time, unfortunately the fascists ended up coming out on top there. China too is kinda similar where both the CPC and Chiang's nationalists splintered out from the liberal Beiyang government.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

I also didn't realize Spain had a liberal government before the Civil War. I guess I always figured it was a monarchy like everywhere else, but a quick read on Wikipedia shows it was a democratic liberal government and the monarchy was deposed 5 or so years earlier. Thanks for that interesting fact and unique case.

Between this and the Russia example, I wonder if the beginning of a liberal bourgeois democracy is it at its weakest. Socialism feels so hopeless now in the US, with how strong and entrenched it's liberal bourgeois institutions are now. But then the Roman Republic fell after hundreds of years, and we haven't really had capitalism that long yet, so maybe it's possible with the right conditions.

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