The problem with Revolutionary Socialism

I get it. Our system sucks and needs to die, needs to be replaced by a system that provides for the needs of everyone regardless of bank account, religion, skin color, sexual/gender orientation. It is SO tempting to just think "We'll just tear it all down! Let the people rise up and end Capitalist tyranny! Fuck voting for the stooges who get shifted around the board of politics, making speeches, offering lip service to change, while leaving everything exactly as it is!" But how close are we really to bringing about a great awakening of the working class in this country? A huge chunk of them will vote for Trump this year. Which side of the political aisle do you think is better armed? It ain't ours, and frankly, just arming everybody to the teeth when we can all get dangerously paranoid or depressed, and the absent minded squeezing of a finger can end someone's life, is just a bad idea.

And if you did decide that tomorrow, or next month, or next year was going to be the time for the glorious uprising, do you really think most of the left would follow you?

Well, maybe you don't need a full majority of people, maybe you just need a nucleus of diehards around you and get everyone else to be more or less adjacent, and given time, they'll fall into line after you provoke the response of the military, tear the veil of civilization off the government, create a few thousand martyrs and... you can see where this is going, right?

Start a civil war, and the fabric of the new state, or anarchist movement you create will trend toward warfare. The policies of your organization will probably cater to the needs of the war, producing weaponry, organizing troops, supplying them with ammunition, and when you come out the other end, you will have a war economy where the military leaders will be the ones holding the political power. And once they have it, go ask them if they're inclined to give it back. I'll bet they will use their military muscle to ensure that nobody can challenge them, and what they have, they keep.

Not to mention that you will have created the perfect breeding ground for demagoguery. Did Lenin want a real "dictatorship of the Proletariat?" Fuck no he didn't. He wanted power. To quote Maxim Gorky: "Lenin is not an omnipotent magician, but a cold-blooded trickster who spares neither the honor, nor the life of the proletariat. He does not know the popular masses, he has not lived with them."

Oh but sure, you want a state-less society, where everybody won't build big power structures ever again! Point to one time in history where that has worked out, and didn't result in said society being swallowed by a bigger more aggressive neighbor. Maybe if such a society could be maintained, it would be ideal, but I just don't think it can. For better or for worse, I think we as humans have tribalism and pecking orders baked into our DNA. I think if you create a power vacuum, somebody will come along and fill it.

Democracy for all its flaws might be the best we're capable of.

Reform is an agonizingly slow and deeply frustrating process. Progress inevitably arrives too late for so many. I get it. But really think about the alternatives.

I'm not saying that ballot box action on its own will achieve needed change, but abandoning it won't do us any favors either. Direct action is great, but it helps to have parallel effort in electoral politics too. Attack on all fronts (without guns). Offer help to all your friends you're worried about. We need to stick together right now.