this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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Inventing Reality
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Both Marx and Engels were active participants in electoral politics in Germany. They collaborated with other left wing political parties when strategically advantageous, and opposed those same "allies" when their objectives diverged.
There was never a total commitment towards violent revolution, as the only means of implementing socialism. Time and time again, the emphasis was on using ALL available methods at their disposal to advance their cause. It should be pretty obvious to any civilized individual, that violence should be reserved as a last resort...not as the preferred method of implementing change. It is far more effective to unify the working class willingly, than to force an entire population to accept your will at gunpoint.
And since the ultimate goal of any socialist system is democracy...why wouldn't that also be the preferred method for implementing it?
I encourage you to read what I have linked. Bourgeois politics can be useful for achieving specific concessions for the working class but the bourgeoisie will not willingly let go of their wealth and power because the workers all agree it's for the best. They have shown time and time again that they'd rather beat us into submission than do so. Look at how they treat workers in the periphery. If you think they won't treat you the same when times get tough you are fooling yourself. The most we can win from the systems they set up to manage their affairs is welfare capitalism also known as social democracy. The first time this was achieved was only after the bolshevik revolution once the bourgeois in those border states with the USSR recognized that their workers might attempt to take power. It was a method of appeasement but since the collapse of the USSR this welfare for the workers has been steadily eroded under the need to increase profits and without the threat of proletarian revolution. It is for this reason I will not say bourgeois politics is never useful but I will always say that it can never result in a worker's state. The main issue with your proposition is that achieving socialism through democratic means (which is to say through bourgeois parliamentary politics) requires the owning class to accept the results and give up all their wealth and power without a fight.