Key terms
Key concepts
Readings
Activities
Discussion questions/points
Key terms
Objective
Subjective
Revolution
Economic revolution
Political revolution
Social revolution
Line of march
Top of page
Key concepts
The application of a qualitatively new method of production brings about a revolution in the economy.
Revolution in the economy disrupts society and brings about social revolution.
Today’s economic revolution is creating a new class, which is changing the character of the social struggle.
Qualitative change begins with the introduction of a new quality into the old process and develops through quantitative stages to the leap to the new quality. In this sense, "quantity" is not numbers or amount but a stage of the process of qualitative change.
Polarization and destruction are stages of the leap. Today’s economic revolution is expressed in the polarization of society, which is setting the objective basis for the destruction of that which held society together in past periods.
Top of page
Readings
Marx, Karl, Excerpt from Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, January 1859
Peery, Nelson, "Dialectics of the Leap and the Destruction of Capitalism." (in Entering an Epoch of Social Revolution)
Marx, "The British Rule in India"
Excerpt from LRNA Political Resolution of 1998 National Convention, (section on "Polarization and the destruction of the middle")
"Revolution – the line of march" (Institute resource paper # 6)
Top of page
Activities
Discuss the key terms.
Make the revolutionary process graphic by assigning current short readings that illustrate the philosophical and political points in the discussion questions. (If you want suggestions for articles that do this, ask the Institute staff in Chicago for ideas.)
Top of page
Discussion questions/points
1. What is the difference between and relation between the objective and subjective aspects of the revolutionary process?
2. What is meant by the "line of march of the revolution"? Why is it important for revolutionaries to proceed from the line of march?
3. What are the two aspects that make up the economic conditions of society? How does a change in motive forces of production begin the destruction of the old society? How was it that "British steam and science"…. "produced the greatest and… the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia" at the time Marx wrote in 1853?
4. How is today’s economic revolution affecting the social struggle and destroying that which holds society together?
5. How does the new class formed by electronics begin to change the character of the social struggle today? How is this an expression of the quantitative introduction of the new quality into the old process?
Ask the Institute staff a question about this unit
Top of page
